The Pitcher 2

by William Hazelgrove

  The moon is low, and it must be like three AM. The banging goes through the whole house, and then the doorbell is going off. Ding Dong. Ding Dong. Ding Dong. I am up and walking through the house, but the Pitcher cuts me off in his shorts and T-shirt, In his right hand is a Louisville Slugger.

  “Go back to bed,” he says.

  But I follow him anyway. He pulls back the door just as Mom comes in putting on her robe. I look past him and see Fernando in the moonlight. He is weaving back and forth with his eyes red and glassy, and he smiles. Mom jumps in front of the Pitcher.

  “Get out of here, Fernando, before I call the cops!”

  He shrugs and holds his arms wide. He smiles real slowly.

  “Hey, baby…you know I need a little spot, man, and figured you here with your big happy family man. Hey, bro, what is going on?” he says to me.

  It’s like he never hit me, and I never hit him. But I don’t even want to look at him. One of the black eyes I have is from him, and I can feel my heart pounding away.

  “I hear you got hit, man. You got to get better, you know, so I can get my payout, man,” he says, nodding slowly.

  “Get out of here,” the Pitcher says stepping forward and raising the bat.

  Fernando takes a step back. His eyes have narrowed and become small like a snake.

  “Yeah, man. You messed me up real bad. It’s why I got a cane now, man. You messed up my knee and my shoulder, but you ain’t going to do that again, hombre.”

  The Pitcher raises up the bat higher.

  “I’ll do it again you don’t get out of here.”

  Fernando reaches around behind him like a gunslinger and brings up the black pistol and points it at the Pitcher’s nose. And nobody moves. Nobody breathes. You can hear time ticking in that moment. It’s like we all became statues or something. My heart is pounding in my ears.

  “Oh, really? So you the big man while you steal my woman and my kid. I ought to bust a cap on you right now for just doing that, man. “

  He has the barrel almost touching the Pitcher’s nose. The gun looks bigger now. Like it is a bazooka or something, and I’m staring at Fernando’s finger curled around the trigger, and I am hearing that gun and seeing the Pitcher sprayed all over the door.

  Mom’s face is white in the moonlight, and I’m not breathing because Fernando is high and he might just shoot. The Pitcher nods real slowly, and his eyes never move, and he says in a voice cool as winter.

  “You better shoot, rock-head, if you’re going to pull it out.”

  Fernando nods.

  “Don’t worry about that, man…I’ll shoot. I’ll blow your head off!”

  “Fernando, what do you want?” Mom says in this calm voice.

  She knows he is crazy enough to shoot.

  “Like I said, man, I just need a little spot. “

  “Don’t give it to him, Maria,” the Pitcher says

  “Give it to him, Mom,” I shout.

  And she goes back into the kitchen while we stand there like statues. Fernando still has the gun straight out, and I’m thinking, Where are the cops when you need them?

  “Yeah, man. You there like superman. You going to take the cash when Ricky signs, right? I’m going to get my due, man. No way you going to screw me out of that.”

  “You ain’t getting nothing, ya bum,” the Pitcher says. “And you better put that peashooter away before you hurt someone. I seen guys like you all my life. You think the world owes you something, but it don’t. All it owes you is a kick in the ass. You’re just a bum.”

  Fernando steps up close with the gun an inch away from the Pitcher’s head.

  “Call me a bum one more time, and I’ll blow your brains out, man.”

  Mom comes up then and holds out two hundred dollars,

  “Here, now get out of here!”

  “Good thing you came when you did, Maria, or I was going to take this old bitch out.”

  “Yeah. Sure you were, rock-head,” the Pitcher says.

  Fernando takes the money and lowers the gun. He’s trying to act like the badass, but it’s like he’s a boy playing around a man.

  “Yeah, man. You just got a couple hondos laying around. Life is good, huh, Maria?”

  “Get out before I call the cops, Fernando!”

  Fernando smiles.

  “Nah, you won’t call them, baby. Because that man at Immigration knows all about your sorry ass and how you really stayed here.”

  “Get out!”

  “Yeah, get out, ya bum,” the Pitcher says.

  Fernando then looks at the Pitcher and snaps the barrel of the gun against his forehead. The Pitcher falls back with blood breaking a river down the side of his face. Fernando steps back and puts the gun back into his belt.

  “I told you about calling me a bum again. You just be glad I didn’t bust a cap on your ass.”

  Then he looks at me.

  “You be careful with your arm, bro. “

  And then he just walks down the sidewalk to his ghetto ride and slinks away like some kind of creature. The Pitcher is on the hallway floor, bleeding everywhere while Mom holds a dishtowel against his head. I watch the taillights car go down the street and vow to get Fernando one way or another.

  26

  ROBERT MOSES “LEFTY” GROVE was a savage competitor. He sometimes threw at his own teammates during practice, but he was one of the best pitchers the Philadelphia As ever had. He would smash his locker and rip his clothes when he lost a game. His tantrums became legend. Now I feel like smashing my locker and ripping my clothes because Christine has not shown up.

  I wait and wait and call her cellphone and text her, and no Christine. Finally I drive Mom’s old minivan to school, and I pull in and see Bailey’s big black pickup with blond hair trailing out the passenger side like a flag. The flag says, I won and took your girl, too. I mean, who sells that kind of flag anyway to guys with flaming helmets from Texas? And they look like the All American couple, and I stand in the parking lot and feel really stupid, but I say it anyway.

  “Hey, you were supposed to pick me up.”

  Christine stares at me.

  “Didn‘t you get my text?”

  “No!”

  “Oh, well…I got another ride.”

  Christine just kind of laughs, and Bailey cracks a grin.

  “She got a better ride, Mex, than in some ghetto van.”

  And then I’m running, and he drops his books or whatever he had, and we collide right there in the parking lot. And it is like flurry of fists, man. I mean I punching away, and he is punching away, and I feel my nose crack, and there is blood everywhere, and I’m not sure if it is from him or me, but I’m not stopping, and he’s on the ground but putting up a good fight, and then somebody is dragging me back. He jumps up and lands the last punch.

  My other eye.

  And then there are people around us both and yelling and screaming, and we end up down in the principal’s office and my nose is bleeding even with the towel I’m holding from the nurse. Mr. Drakotz, the principal, is staring at the two of us, and the Bailey guy’s jaw is kind of blue, and he has a cut over his right eye.

  Mr. Drakotz is like a vet from Iran with a Marine cut, and he looks mad.

  “So what happened,” he says.

  I have my head back to stop the blood, and my T-shirt is done. It is a bloody mess.

  “He attacked me for no reason,” Bailey says.

  “Bullshit,” I say through the rag. “He called me a Mex.”

  Mr. Drakowitz, who has the smoothest head in the world, looks at Bailey.

  “Did you call him a Mex?”

  “Of course not. I have lots of Latino friends, sir. I would never do such a thing.”

  “Bull.”

  The principal turns to me.

  “Is that why you attacked him then, Ricky?”

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  Bailey scoffs.

  “That’s a lie.”

  Just then Coach Hoskins walks i
n and stands against the wall. He has on his South High shirt and looks tired.

  “There are other reasons?” The principal wants to know.

  Bailey stretches out his cowboy boots.

  “Yeah. I beat him in pitching, and I took his girl. That’s why he really hit me.”

  Mr. Drakowitz looks at me. I have come forward because the bleeding is slowing.

  “Is that true, Ricky?”

  I shake my head.

  “No. He called me a Mex.”

  The principal nods slowly.

  “Did he take your girl?’

  I shrug and don’t say anything. The principal looks up.

  “Coach, do you want to add something?”

  He comes off the wall.

  “Yeah. I want both of you boys down in my office when Mr. Drakowitz is finished.”

  The principal shrugs. “You can take it from here. Any more fighting, and you are both going to be suspended.”

  So we follow coach down the through the school with me holding the towel to my nose. I have to listen to Bailey’s boots click on the tile floor the whole way while Coach walks with his hands out. People stare at us as we go into the locker room and then into his glassed-in office. I sit in the chair, and Bailey slumps against the wall. I bring the towel down that is just all red. Coach throws me another one.

  “Who is going to tell me what happened?”

  Bailey tilts his head back and looks through slitted eyes.

  “I told you, he attacked me for no reason.”

  Coach Hoskins, who is big and bald with hair rimming his ears and watery blue eyes, looks at me.

  “Is that true?”

  I shake my head.

  “He called me a Mex.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bailey says.

  “You’re a liar.”

  “That’s enough!” Coach shouts.

  Coach leans back and looks at the two of us.

  “Why do I think this is over who gets to pitch?”

  I don’t say anything, and Bailey shifts his feet.

  “I can’t have you attacking people, Ricky, because they might be taking your spot.”

  I look up and feel the shock go down through me. Coach Hoskins takes this deep breath and looks at me.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I’m going to start Bailey the next game and see how he does. You can close it up for us.”

  And I know how this goes. Soon I will be in the outfield, and it just stings, man. It really stings. And I can feel Bailey’s grin. He is wearing it like a sword he just plunged into my heart. I had been the starter for the last two years, and now in one week I have lost it all.

  Coach looks at me.

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Fine with me,” Bailey sings out.

  I look down for a long minute, and then it’s like I am watching somebody else. This somebody else stands up and looks down at his baseball coach and says, “I quit.”

  Coach Hoskins eyes grow large.

  “What!”

  The coach’s mouth opens and then shuts. He sputters.

  “Think about what you are doing, Ricky.”

  I stare at him, and then somebody else replies again.

  “I just did,” he says standing and walking out.

  That somebody else takes no shit from anybody. He is a scary dude.

  27

  SATCHEL PAIGE MAY HAVE been the greatest pitcher of all time. He called his fastball the midnight rider. His change-up was the three-day creeper. He liked to guarantee he would strike out the first nine men up, then call in the outfield and make good on his promise. Satchel did to black baseball what Ruth did to white baseball. He reinvented the game. Something I am doing right now, except it is not baseball.

  Think of a courtroom, only it’s not a courtroom, but a room with a long table, and around it are all your teachers. One guy sits at the head of the table, and you are sitting at the other end with your Mom, and everyone is staring at you like you just committed a crime, and your Mom is busy crying because these teachers are not your friends. They are ratting you out in a big way, and all you can do is sit there and listen, and the worst part of it is that they talk like you aren’t there.

  “Ricky will not apply himself. He sleeps during class and frequently looks out the window, and if I ask him if he has his homework done, he just shrugs.”

  That’s my English teacher, Mrs. Warren. And this meeting is really about whether I’m going to graduate or not. I have had lots of these meetings over the years. They are my team. But with a team like this, who needs rivals, right? I mean, they are part of my Individual Education Program, and it is supposed to help me, but all I see is a bunch of people who just want to say what a bad student I am and how I could do better if I wanted to. And Mom just listens and glares at me.

  “Ms. Hernandez, the reason we called this emergency meeting is because we are seriously concerned about Ricky’s chance to graduate with the rest of the kids.”

  Pow! Mom just got one to the solar plexus. A real gut shot, because this has been her fear for four years. That I would not walk down the aisle with the other kids, and now Mr. Zimmer who is the school psychologist and team leader just laid it out there.

  “And so we are going to go around the room and get status reports and name the areas that need emergency intervention. Mr. Thomas, would you like to go?”

  Mom sits there in a dark blue dress and white blouse. She looks like a business lady. Mr. Thomas is my Sociology teacher and does not like me. He frowns at me.

  “Ricky has not applied himself and has not turned in the last project. If he does not complete the project by the semester’s end, then I will have no choice but to fail him.”

  And it’s like he’s the quarterback or something and all the rest are the ends, because they all catch his pass and start running like crazy.

  “He does not work.”

  “He has the potential, but won’t use it.”

  ‘I don’t see how he can graduate.”

  “I wish he would not talk in class.”

  “He uses his phone in class.”

  “He is disruptive.”

  “I think he would rather be playing baseball.”

  “He doesn’t seem to want to do better.”

  I mean, every teacher just lobs in a sinker. And it is like one-two-three. You try sitting in a room where everyone is criticizing you, and see how you like it. Every single one of these meetings goes like this, except this one is really bad because there is two weeks to the end of the year, and everyone is just throwing in the towel.

  Except Mom.

  When the room is quiet, she faces all of them at once and speaks in this low steady voice.

  “Are you all finished?”

  The teachers look around, and they kind of shrug.

  Mom then stands up, and she goes real ethnic with the chin bob.

  “How easy for all of you to say you don’t see how Ricky can graduate,” she cries out. “How about I hear a little about what we can do to get to graduate? You are supposed to be teachers. I don’t see any teachers here, just a bunch of people whining about a student who won’t act the way they want him to!”

  “Mrs. Hernandez I don’t think—“

  Mom cuts off the case worker and points her finger at each teacher.

  “You will email exactly what has to be completed for him to pass. Each of you. I will make sure the work is done. My son will graduate. My son will walk down that aisle with the rest of his class, and shame on each of you for not helping him to accomplish that!”

  And just like that, Mom walks toward the door and I follow. And it has been like this for like four years. You would think Mom would give up on me by now. But she doesn’t give up on anything. She would make a hell of a pitcher.

  28

  ERIC QUIT BASEBALL AFTER I beat him out for the pitcher. You remember Eric. His mom is still trying to get my mom deported. He went steroid afte
r that and became a football player and started hanging around with the beefeaters. These are the muscle heads who pretty much hang in the weight room and listen to Metal and play football. Eric really chunked up and got tats and still keeps his hair in a razor crew. His blue eyes are even weirder now, and I think he looks like one of those dudes that would pull a Columbine.

  We pretty much stayed clear of each other, so I thought it was really weird when he landed at the lunch table where I was eating by myself. A lot of times I hang with the baseball players, but today I just felt like being alone with my two black eyes. I had just come back to school, and everyone just stared at me, and I had to explain a hundred times I got hit with a fastball. I didn’t bother explaining Fernando gave me the other black eye.

  So when he hit the table and just stared at me, I felt a little weird. I had just opened my lunch and pulled out a cupcake. Remember what he did before? He stole my cupcake and held it in his mouth like he was going to eat it, and that’s when I pulled the plastic knife, and that got me suspended. So these memories are lining up while Eric stares at me with this big grin and his eyes dancing.

  ‘So I hear you quit the team,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say shrugging.

  Eric frowns.

  “Well, with that Bailey dude, I don’t blame you. He smokes everybody. I heard he got a letter of intent from the Cubs,” he says like he’s just making conversation.

  And just like that, he lands one. I mean, I am staring at him and he laughs.

  “Oh, you didn’t hear that, huh? I guess he is the real thing, not like that BS you were spreading around on Facebook.”

  And then I say something to him Mom will not let me print, you know.

  Eric sits back and looks at me, and I know now why he sat down. Revenge is a dish best served cold, someone said, and Eric was serving it up ice cold.

  “Man, you still got a mouth…Beano.”

  My heart is going bam bam bam, and I am back to fight or flight mode. Looks like I won’t be in school that long after all.

  “Get out of here,” I tell him, giving him fair warning.

  I mean, I didn’t want to stare at his dancing eye and his big white teeth anymore. He looks down and sees my cupcake, and it’s like instant replay. He picks up the cupcake and before I can say a word takes a big bite. I don’t think I said anything, but the first punch knocked the cupcake out of his mouth. And then we both stood up, throwing punches like that super old game Rock’em Sock’em Robots. We both landed a couple before Mr. Truss, same dude as before, got between us, and then, like before, we went down to the principal where I explained that Eric took a bite of my cupcake and that’s why I punched him in the mouth.