The Pitcher 2

by William Hazelgrove

  “This guy can’t pitch,” he grumbles.

  I watch the Yankee pitcher throw a curve, then a fastball and get the batter out.

  “Seems like he did alright to me.”

  “Nah, he told the guy what he was going to pitch. The batter was just too stupid to see it.”

  I pause, then look at him.

  “Like somebody too stupid not to go see the doctor.”

  His eyes roll over to me.

  “I saw him, and he saw me.”

  “And?”

  He shrugs and ashes his cigarette.

  “And that’s it. He saw something, and I figure it won’t make a difference now anyway. I played the game my way, and I’ll finish it my way.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “I told you in the beginning the whole world is a full count against you. It is what it is.”

  “Bull!”

  “My game,” he says, looking at me.

  I rub my forehead. I forgot how stubborn pitchers can be.

  “So you won’t go see him?”

  “No.”

  “That’s really stupid,” I say again.” What if my mom had taken your attitude?”

  “That’s different.”

  I shake my head.

  “Don’t be a rock-head. You owe it to Mom.”

  The Pitcher looks down his nose at me.

  “Now you’re pitching at my head, and it ain’t going to do you any good.”

  “You’d say the same thing to her. You did say the same thing,” I point out.

  “That was different,” he says quietly.

  I stare at him.

  “How was that different?”

  “She needed help.”

  “So do you!”

  Then it hit me. The Pitcher had probably never asked for help in his life. As a rule, pitchers don’t like to ask anything from anybody. Even when they need it. They are used to pitching through pain, death, war, poverty, and they just don’t talk about it. The pitcher code is you play close to your vest and never let anyone see what you really want.

  “You should get the biopsy.”

  He shakes his head and stares at the television.

  “Ain’t going to happen.”

  And I knew then it wouldn’t happen. It doesn’t matter if he was dying. This was his play. The Pitcher would never do the cancer thing anyway. You know, waste away from the drugs. He would go out the way he wanted. The same way he always pitched the way he wanted. It was what made him great, and who could argue with that, you know? I mean, you don’t win a World Series by doing what is expected.

  17

  BABE RUTH WAS TRADED to the Red Sox, where he pitched in a World Series. He held the record for scoreless innings at twenty-nine, and that record stood for forty years. He shouted in the club house: “I told you I could beat those National League bums!” Then he began to hit. He modeled his swing after the best power hitter in the game, Shoeless Joe Jackson. He could eat more than anyone else and married a sixteen-year-old waitress.

  So now I’m living high like Babe Ruth. I’m getting picked up for school by Christine, who is driving her white BMW. I mean, it is a little weird that I don’t pick her up, but she has this killer ride, and I have gotten used to her driving. She rolls to a stop in front of my house with some Rhianna playing. Oh no no…what you want…oh no no what you want what you want… And her hair is like platinum, man, and the sunroof is open and she is smiling with her Ray Bans, and she is like a picture of what a rich white chick looks like. And she is my girlfriend, which is something I still can’t get used to.

  I get in and she gives me a big kiss on the lips, and that gets me ticking, man. And then I lay back in those leather seats, and it is one of the nicest rides I have ever been in. Her phone rings and I kick back and watch the world roll by, thinking of what Fernando said and what I heard in the garage. It’s like all the bad shit doesn’t exist in this car. Like rich people never have anything bad happen, and I guess that is why everyone wants to be rich.

  “Oh, yeah, he is cute. He just moved in from Texas is what I heard,” she says in the phone.

  I look at Christine.

  “I know….I know…well, he’s pretty good…got that whole cowboy thing going on….hmmm…hmmm…Bailey, I think….did you see that bitching truck?”

  Like every light on my dashboard is going off, and I hold up my hand.

  ‘Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,” I say.

  Christine glances at me like she forgot I was in the car.

  “Gotta go.”

  She puts down her phone and smiles. I stare at her.

  “Are you talking about that Bailey dude from last night?”

  She shrugs and looks in the mirror.

  “Yeah, he’s cute.”

  I am like wagging with my mouth open.

  “What the hell. Why don’t you just go out with him then?” I say.

  Christine frowns

  “You aren’t jealous, are you?”

  I shake my head because I want to get back to playing like I don’t care.

  “No, but damn. You ‘re talking about him and all.”

  “Well, he certainly is a good baseball player,” she murmurs.

  I stare at her, feeling my face getting warm.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” she says turning into the school parking lot.

  She turns the car off and looks at me.

  “I wonder if he’ll get drafted like you.”

  I can’t even breathe. It’s like Bailey is in the car with us, and then like on cue this black pick up wheels in next to us, and this dude with this black hat is staring down at me from the truck. He grins and opens his door and nods.

  “Hey, Mex,” Bailey says jumping out like the last cowboy.

  18

  THERE WAS A GUY NAMED Jim Devlin. He was the first pitcher to ever take money to throw a game and got banned from baseball. For years afterward, he would hang around hoping the owners would take pity on him and let him play again. They never did. He died from consumption two years after he became a cop. I think about that with the Pitcher, and I wonder if some part of him died when he left the mound. Because once you know what it is like to pitch with a crowd behind you, it is hard to forget.

  But I’m not thinking about that now. I’m thinking about Bailey Hutchinson and wondering what the hell he is doing at my school, and, more than that, what is he doing in my bullpen. And it is a beautiful day in May. The ball is a white dot against the blue, and the infield is the pure green of some picture that shows you how perfect a lawn can be. And everyone has settled in to watch a game between two teams that are about in the middle. We had won some and lost some, and so had they.

  And I am trying to put away the shock of three days before when Bailey popped up in the parking lot and then in the ball field with his fiery helmet. That blue sparkly helmet was something from hell with orange flames trailing behind. And when he ran, it looked like those flames were fanned by the speed of his passage. And when he batted, those flames roared up like a bonfire as he knocked one over the back fence. And when he pitched, those flames came right at you. And I saw no way to extinguish those flames.

  Coach said his family moved across town when their house was finished. He only played for East three days before because they were living in an apartment. So he could go to either school. So why pick mine? Why not go back to some school in Texas?

  That’s what I wanted to ask him with his big cowboy shit-eating grin and those blue eyes that were just like Eric’s. They had become instant pals. Eric was always looking for anyone to put against me. He played mostly in the outfield and wasn’t even very good at that. So I think he saw Bailey as an answer to a prayer.

  And now in the middle of the third inning I knew those fire bolts had done their job. Because I was off. Way off. My fastball was outside and my curve wasn’t breaking, and my sinker wasn’t sinking and forget about my changeup. The fine-tuning over the years had broken do
wn like someone came in and crossed all the wires. And even as I watched the players rotate around the bags, I knew the person who had crossed those wires was sitting by the coach and waiting.

  And after a two-run homer, it wasn’t long before those fireballs started smoldering. Time! The coach called out, and then he was walking out with Bailey, and I thought, well, there it all goes. There goes everything in the world, and a man with a sparkly helmet and a Texas drawl and a jacked up pickup truck was taking my dream with him. I walked back and sat down on the bench and realized it had been a while since this happened. It had been about three years, but like riding a bicycle, you never forget the feeling. And then I started hearing those cannonballs.

  Bailey warmed up like a tank, and the catcher mitt smoked. The batter stood there helpless while fireballs rained down one after another. Strike One. Strike Two. Strike Three. Batter out! Then another batter approached tepidly and lifted his bat, and Bailey scorched the wood. He burned the catcher mitt until it was smoking. Strike one. Strike two. Strike Three…BATTER OUT! And he trotted off in disgrace while Bailey chewed gum and grinned and tipped his hat to Christine in the stands and then lit up the next batter with flaming curves, fastballs, breaking balls, knuckle balls. And before anyone knew it, that smoldering bat was back in the dugout, and the batter joined the rest of the disgraced players, and Bailey sauntered off as the new sheriff in town.

  19

  BEFORE BABE RUTH, PITCHERS didn’t have to bear down until the later innings of the ball game. When Babe Ruth started playing, pitchers had to bear down right away. There was now the danger of someone getting a homerun with the first pitch of the game. Pitching and baseball were changed forever. I think of this because I have to bear down now or lose everything.

  And now Fernando is sitting in the parking lot in his ghetto cruiser. I’m walking toward Mom’s old minivan, and he gets out real slowly and walks across the pavement. I had hung around talking to Coach Hoskins, who explained Bailey would be in the rotation. I tried to have a game face and all that, but I felt like getting down on the ground and crying. And this Bailey guy is all Texas polite. Yes, sir. No, sir. That sounds mighty fine, sir. The team comes first, sir. Whatever is best for the team, sir. Then he shakes my hand like he’s the ambassador of Texas or something.

  “I don’t want any rivalry between you two. We are a team,” Coach Hoskins says.

  “Oh, yes, sir. No problem, sir. Only want what is best for the team.”

  I don’t say anything because once Coach Hoskins left, Bailey turns to me with that thin little Texas grin and mutters, “Tough luck, Mex.”

  And I throw down right there and face him.

  “You call me that once more, and I’m going to kick your ass, cowboy!”

  He just grins because one of the other coaches has just walked into the locker room. He nods to Bailey and me and heads for the lockers.

  “Well see you tomorrow,” he broadcasts then drops his voice far down. “Don’t look like you going anywhere but down from here…Mex.”

  And then he just saunters off, and I wait until I think he has taken his black jacked up, chrome wheeled stacked F-150 and left, and that’s why it is really just Fernando and I. He walks up while I put my bat bag into the van.

  “Hey, man, how come you don’t return my texts?”

  I shrug.

  “Didn’t get them,” I mutter.

  “Bullshit, man. What, you too good now to return my text? You the big man now.”

  I can smell the weed and booze. Fernando breathes it out like a dragon man. His nostrils are flaring, and I know his eyes are blood red behind his shades. I close the door to the van.

  “I just didn’t get them,” I say again, walking toward the driver’s side door. Fernando steps right in my path, and his breath man is hot and bothered.

  “Hey, I need some payola, man. I’m sleeping in my car while you and Maria are sponging off that old man.”

  I shrug and really just want to get into the car because I am tired and I know where this is going.

  “I’m busted, man. I don’t have any money,” I tell him.

  “Yeah you know that is bullshit.”

  I hold my arms wide, thinking how long it will take me to get into the car.

  “I am!”

  Fernando then reaches into my jean pocket and tries to dig out my wallet. I knock his hand away, and I don’t see the right that comes up from his waist. It meets my eye socket and I see stars. Fernando is breathing like a bull, and I can see now he is really juiced. I go down, and he is over me.

  “Give me some money, you little shit!”

  And it’s like old times, right. He is beating up on his kid and looking for money. And my eye is killing me, and I know it will be black and blue, and I realize then I’m bigger than he is. He’s standing with his arms wide, and I still got my hand to my eye and I stand up slowly. He doesn’t see my left, and I knock his glasses off and he falls to the pavement. I cold cocked him, and I know he’s out of it, but I also know when he comes around, there will be hell to pay.

  So I get in the van and leave him in the parking lot like that. Like on all fours, shaking his head, like a bull that has been hit, but will be even worse when you get in the ring with him again. And yeah, my eye is blue already. He really caught me by surprise, but I caught him, too. The problem with a guy like Fernando is he’ll never leave until he is sure there is no money he can get. And he really believes I owe him for being my dad. Like anything good I get should be his.

  I’m thinking about Fernando so hard that I almost hit the blue car with the stubby antennas parked in our drive. The license plate has a star and I know right away this is not good. Mr. Jones is back.

  20

  YANKEE STADIUM. BABE RUTH comes up to bat. He had a bad season before, and this is the first game in the new stadium. A slow one comes in, and Ruth knocks it out of the park. Soon after that, they called Yankee Stadium the house that Ruth built. And now we are sitting in the house that Mom built, and this dude is talking to her and trying to take it all away.

  “You are familiar with a Mr. Fernando Hernandez?” Mr. Jones is asking mom when I walk in.

  Mom jumps up with her hair going wild.

  “Ricky! What happened to your eye?’

  “Ah, I caught a ball in my eye on a throw down.”

  The Pitcher his eyes narrow, and I know he isn’t buying it.

  “That is quite a shiner,” Mr. Jones says with his coat off in a white shirt with a narrow tie. ”Ha, ha.”

  ‘Yeah,” I say. “Ha, ha.”

  But I’m really on fire, because didn’t he just ask about Fernando? Mr. Jones has his briefcase open, and he is holding some file. He is sweating because Mom and the Pitcher don’t like to run the air, and it’s hot. I sit in another chair, and I wonder if they are deporting Mom. It doesn’t matter; I will go with her. I made that decision a long time ago.

  “Well. As I was saying, you do know a Mr. Fernando Hernandez?”

  Mom glares at Mr. Jones like she will melt him with her eyes.

  “Yeah, I know the asshole. He is my ex-husband.”

  “Ha, ha,” Mr. Jones says, then nods

  “I see. Well, Mr. Hernandez contacted our office and offered to testify against you. He basically says that you married Mr. Langford so you could continue living in the United States and—”

  “That’s bull,” the Pitcher says.

  “Oh, that asshole!!”

  Mr. Jones is like turning red. Weird. Like he never heard anyone lose it. What white-people suburb is he from, anyway? He clears his throat several times and moves his hand through his hair. He probably sees Mexicans go crazy a lot. I mean, if somebody told me I had to leave after being here for thirty years, I would go crazy, too.

  Mom is up now and pacing back and forth in her shorts with a shirt that says IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW. I mean, she holds these weekly meetings at our house where people make speeches and signs and get all riled up for demonstrations. Mr. Jon
es looks like he wants to run out the door.

  Mom wheels around, her eyes sparking.

  “I am going to kick his sorry ass.”

  Mr. Jones looks down at his file like Fernando is there somewhere. He purses his mouth and clears his throat several times and adjusts his skinny tie.

  “Well, the problem is that we see a pattern here. It is one that you established with Mr. Hernandez of marrying people to provide you with citizenship and delaying deportation.”

  “Bullshit,” Mom says standing in front of Mr. Jones. ”The man is an asshole, but I never married him to stay here!”

  Mr. Jones blinks looking like he’s afraid to speak. But he does.

  “Then why did you marry him?”

  “Because I was pregnant, why else?” Mom shouts.

  Mr. Jones nods slowly.

  “Well, I wanted to get your side of it and make you aware of this development.” He frowns. “Why would he come forth and say this after all these years.”

  “Take a look at the boy,” the Pitcher says in a low voice.

  Mr. Jones turns to me with this half smile on his face.

  “’I’m sorry—”

  “I said look at the boy.”

  I’m looking down now, feeling my face burning, man. I know where the Pitcher is going with this, and I don’t want to go along with the ride. I look up at Mr. Jones, and he smiles stupidly

  “That black-eye is Mr. Hernandez. He just smacked this kid, probably because he didn’t give him any money,” the Pitcher says slowly.

  Amazing the way pitchers always nail it. I think good pitchers can read people’s minds. I feel Mom’s eyes boring in.

  “Ricky! Is that true?’

  “Of course it is,” The Pitcher says, sitting back on the couch. He looks at Mr. Jones.

  “This kid has a one-in-a-million arm, and he may play ball in the Majors, and this piece of trash has come back to extort money from him and his mother.”’