by Jack Gantos
He wasn’t laughing. But I didn’t want to tell her that the sight of blood made him hysterical.
I picked up the oxygen clip and gave it to her. She gripped it between her teeth and breathed until she began to settle down. I gathered the rest of the balls and put them and the club back into the cart, then I got her up the stepladder and comfy on her little cushion. I grunted and groaned and pushed and pulled the cart out of the grass and back onto the asphalt and we headed for home.
When we got there I led Grandma into the bathroom. “Sit on the toilet seat,” I said. “I’ll clean you up.” I opened the medicine chest and found a plastic bottle of peroxide. I poured it on some tissue and wiped it around her nose and upper lip as she flinched left and right. It was just a little cut. But she said it hurt a lot.
“I need a rest,” she said, sounding tired. “I can’t do as much as I used to. It’s a good thing I don’t have you to chase around all day anymore.” Then she stood and shuffled over to the couch to take a nap.
I know that when I’m around crazy people it can bring out the craziness in me. But I was telling myself that my medication helps keep me calm, and that no matter who I was around, it was up to me to take a deep breath and still make good decisions for myself. That’s what I was thinking as I sneaked into Dad’s room. I wanted to see what it looked like and if he had put the Storybook photo of me on his dresser. As I looked around I noticed everything was in its perfect place. The pennies, nickels, and dimes were neatly stacked in columns. Little boxes of matches were lined up in a row like dominoes. There was a small jar of toothpicks and a matching one for Q-Tips. But there was no picture of me, just one of a tall red-haired woman in a baseball uniform. She was waving a bat over her head as if she was going to swat the photographer. Next to that was a baseball sitting on something like a golf tee, so I picked it up. I didn’t think Dad would mind if I practiced my throwing.
I walked out back and threw it from one side of the yard to the other. I picked targets to hit like old cans, broken flowerpots, an empty bird house, and sprinklers. I liked doing it because I was good at it, and hitting something over and over again kept me from thinking about what Grandma had said about Dad trying to get the family together.
When Dad came home he found me in the yard. He was holding two baseball gloves and tossed one to me. “Try it on,” he said, smiling and rocking his head back and forth. I worked my fingers up into the holes and it felt like a good fit.
“Now hold it over your face and smell it,” he said.
I did.
“Have you ever smelled anything better?”
“Nothing,” I said, and smelled it again.
“Now go over to the other side of the yard and throw me one as hard as you can.”
I did. I reared back and let it fly and it smacked when it hit his glove. “Wow,” he said, “that was some heat.” But when he pulled the ball out of his glove his eyes got big. “Where’d you get this ball?” he asked.
“Your room,” I said quietly because I didn’t know if I was allowed in his room.
“Well, this is my signed Roberto Clemente ball,”
“So?” I said.
“Does your mother keep you hidden under a rock?” he asked. “You don’t know who Clemente is?”
“I just don’t play much with other kids,” I said.
“They tease me.”
He stared intensely at me for a moment, like he was trying to make up his mind to be mad or not. Then that big canoe smile floated out over his mouth.
“Well, I’m sure Roberto won’t mind training the next Cy Young winner,” he said, tossing the ball at me and punching his fist into his glove. “Right in the pocket,” he said. “Bring Roberto home to Papa.”
I leaned way back then fired another one across the yard, right at the spot he punched. Smack!
“Wow,” he said again. “Don’t you worry about kids teasing you. From now on they’re gonna be hounding you for an autograph. You have an arm like a cannon, dude.”
“Told you I was good at throwing stuff,” I said.
“Can you hit?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” I said. “I never tried that part of it.”
“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll take you to a game.”
“I called Mom today and told her I was on your team.”
“How is she?” he asked, tossing me the ball.
“Great,” I said as it slapped into my glove. “She’s dyeing her hair red.”
Dad arched his eyebrows and his canoe smile rocked back and forth across his face. “She was always a sharp-looking redhead,” he said, “and I sure do have a thing for redheads.” Then he sort of looked a little lost like he was missing her. I was going to throw the ball again, but I was afraid it would bounce off his head, so I let him think for a while.
5
CAVEMAN
“I want a cigarette so bad,” Dad said, “I can taste it.” He pulled up his T-shirt sleeve, ripped the nicotine patch off his shoulder, and stuck it on the dashboard. “I don’t know why we wear these darn patches,” he said. “They don’t do a thing for me.”
As he reached above his sun visor and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, I spotted the death-skull tattoo on his arm where the patch had been.
“I want one of those,” I said, and pointed at it.
He glanced at his shoulder and frowned. “That’s one patch that’s never coming off,” he said, and shook a cigarette toward his lips.
“Maybe I can get a tattoo of a patch and then I’ll never have to change my meds again,” I said, joking around.
“Well, I’ve about had it with this patch business,” he said. “This is what works for me.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled. “Sometimes the disease is better than the medicine. You know what I mean? When I was working down in Panama, a doctor gave me some kind of anti-malaria pills and said, ‘Now don’t use them unless you have to, ’cause they’ll probably kill you before they cure you.’”
I wanted to talk about tattoos but he was already talking his talk. I knew I should listen because that’s how you get to know someone when you haven’t spent a lot of time together, but other things were on my mind. I was thinking that being away from Mom made me feel different. Like there was one Joey for Mom and a different Joey for Dad and that I was becoming two Joeys. Mom’s Joey didn’t want a tattoo but Dad’s Joey did.
“Dad, have you ever felt like two people at once?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he exhaled and said, “You know, I never had much interest in kids. But after my last arrest I had to do community service, and the coaching opportunity was way better than picking trash on the side of the road with a bunch of jittery winos, so now I’m the coach of a team of Police Athletic League kids. You know, local kids who if they didn’t play ball might get into a little summer trouble. So you shouldn’t be afraid of them.”
I wasn’t afraid of them. I was sort of afraid of him. He was already a criminal. “Why were you arrested?” I asked.
He turned and smiled at me, then turned away and flicked his cigarette butt out the window. “The usual charge,” he said. “Stupidness. Just plain old stupidness.”
“Really?” I said, unsure. “I thought you had to do something stupid to be arrested. Not just be stupid.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said. “I did something stupid.”
“What?”
“I bit a man.”
“You mean like a dog?”
“Yeah, pretty much just like a dog.”
“Where’d you bite him?”
“The nose,” he said, and held the tip of his reddish nose, then rubbed it between his thumb and finger like he was polishing it.
“Wow!” I said, squirming in my seat. “Wow! Do you know why I was kicked out of school and sent to special-ed school?”
“No,” he said. “What Pigza stupidness did you do?”
“I accidentally cut off a girl’s nose tip with a pair of scis
sors. I was running with them and tripped over her and just snipped a tiny bit of her nose off. Can you believe that? Did you trip too?”
“Nope,” he said, and lit another cigarette. “I didn’t trip. I flipped. I was in a bar and a guy snatched my beer and drank it all down and I got so mad I just grabbed him by the ears and bit his nose before he could pull away.”
“You mean yours wasn’t an accident?” I said, and I kept looking at his sharp yellow teeth as if he were the Big Bad Wolf.
“No,” he replied. “Nope. You know, Joey, I know you want to have long father-to-son talks with me, and it’s not that I don’t want to have long talks with you but you have to realize I really only want to talk about the future with you. Not the past. My past is not good, Joey, so I don’t have the good ol’ days to feel all warm and fuzzy about. My past, like the nose thing, gets sort of scary and ugly, and to tell you the truth I’d just rather have, you know, the new times to talk about. The now times. I’d rather just show you Storybook Land and play baseball and work on making new memories.”
“Don’t you even want to talk about what happened with Mom?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “Definitely not. Because the worst thing I ever did was mess your mom up and it just makes me feel sick to think about it.”
“But I was awful to her too,” I said. “Like, a million times. And she forgave me each and every time.”
“Well, we may have that nose problem in common, but not the Mom forgiveness deal. She won’t have a thing to do with me,” he said.
“Grandma told me it was your secret dream to have a family again,” I ventured.
“Grandma can’t keep a secret,” he said. “She’s yappier than Pablo. Sure, I might have said that. But then after I have a few beers I’m liable to say anything—I’m one of those drinkers that for every bottle of beer I empty, I fill it back up with tears.”
We pulled into the Police Athletic League ball-field parking lot, which was right behind the backstop.
“Dad,” I said, smiling. “I think we just had our first back-and-forth conversation.”
“I’m sure we’ll have more,” he said, looking out onto the field, and I could tell he was already distracted. He pulled his patch off the dashboard and slapped it back onto his shoulder, then swung his door open. “But for now, we have a game to play, and I have to knock these kids into shape. Why don’t you take a seat in the dugout and just watch while I get some drills going.” He went around to the trunk, opened it, and pulled out a big bag of bats and balls.
“About tonight,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll be playing, but don’t feel bad. You’ll be the new kid on the team and I have to use the regulars, but if I get a chance I’ll put you in so keep an eye on the game.” Then he reached out and tousled my hair with his hand and I loved it. Loved it more than anything he had said.
Suddenly he yelled out over his shoulder at the team. “Okay, you slackers, pick up the pace! You don’t want to be losers for your entire lives, do you?” Then he began hitting sharp ground balls in their direction which scattered them like pigeons.
After a few minutes of feeling out of place over nothing in particular I began to entertain myself as best I could. I got a pen out of the car and drew a skull tattoo on my shoulder. I took out my shoelaces and relaced them in the fancy way Dad had his laced. Some kid had left behind a bag of peanuts and I took a few and opened them up while I whistled “Peanuts” from the Tijuana Brass tape. I shoved a peanut up one nostril and covered the other with a finger. I snorted as hard as I could and the peanut blasted from its hole like a rocket from a bazooka. I fired a few at Dad as he trotted by and one of them hit him in the back of the neck and he slapped at it like it was a bug.
I had just shoved a peanut up my nose when a tall red-haired woman in a baseball uniform walked into the dugout with a big equipment bag slung over her shoulder. For a moment I thought Mom had snuck up on me. “So,” she said, and dropped the bag on the bench which kicked up a cloud of dust, “are you the new ringer Carter told me about?”
“I’m not sure,” I said with my voice buzzing like a kazoo because of the peanut vibrating in my nose. “I haven’t played yet, so I don’t know.”
“Well, you can’t take the field until you have the right equipment,” she said. She unzipped the bag and reached into it, and while she did that I fake-sneezed the peanut into my hand.
“Bless you,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Want a peanut?” I held it out toward her on my palm. It looked a little slimy
“Did that come out of your nose?” she asked, and squinted at me with her hands on her hips. “Your dad does the same thing. He puts them up his nose and shoots them out at people. But usually he has a few drinks first. Have you been drinking?”
“No,” I said. “Never. But Dad and I do have a lot in common.” I tossed the peanut over the fence. “Never mind about the snack,” I said, and rubbed my hands together. “I was just trying to be polite.”
She shrugged, then pulled a jersey out of her bag. “I believe this is for some kid named Pigza.” She handed it to me.
I unfolded it. On the tar-black front was printed STEEL CITY SPORTS in thick yellow ink, like what they use on highway lines. I turned it over. J. PIGZA was printed across the back above a big number 17. “How did you know this was my lucky number?” I asked.
“I have some inside information,” she said, and nodded toward Dad, who was scolding some kid for loving his mother too much.
“And you’ll need a cap too,” the lady said. She reached into the bag and handed one to me. S.C.S. was sewn onto the front in shiny gold thread. “And cleats. Are these the right size?”
They were. “Yes,” I said.
Then she pulled out the best thing I had ever seen. It was a black sweatband with a yellow number 17 on it. “That’s not for your wrist,” she said to me. “I understand you have a little buddy—you can slide this around his belly.”
“This is so cool,” I said, and just stared at it. “Pablo will love it.”
“Now put your jersey on,” she said. “You can’t get into the game without an official PAL jersey.”
I yanked my shirt up over my head like it was covered with red ants. I put on my jersey and smoothed it against my flat belly and breathed in the rubbery smell of the lettering.
“You need baseball pants,” she said. “Carter forgot to tell me.”
I looked down at my jeans.
“You can wear what you have on, but to look really sharp you have to get the matching pants. What waist do you wear?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She leaned forward and put her thumb on my belly button, then kept reaching around me until she got some measurement. “Skinny,” she said. “You need to fatten up a bit.”
“Like Hansel?”
“In a way,” she said. “It’s just if you play the game you need a couple extra pounds. I think your Dad is going to have to put you on a large-pizza-a-day diet.”
I grinned. I loved pizza. “Extra cheese and extra vegetables!” I sang like I was ordering one over the phone.
“Your wish is my command,” she sang back, and pulled a phone out of her pocket and dialed. “Hello. I’d like to order a pizza for delivery Yeah. Extra cheese and extra vegetables. Yeah. What?”
Dad was yelling at some kid to pay attention or else he’d bury him up to his neck and use his head for second base. She held her hand over the phone and hollered, “Hey, Carter. Shut your trap! I’m ordering a pizza.”
Dad turned around with his mouth open.
“That’s right,” she said. “Put a sock in it.” Then she returned to the phone. “The PAL field over by Clemente Memorial. Yeah. Steel City Sports. Cash. Okay.” Then she hung up.
“By the way,” she said, and stuck out her hand, “I’m Leezy Fiddle, the sports store sponsor for your team and the gal that keeps your dad from going around the bend every game day.”
“Nice to meet
you,” I said.
“I’ll be seeing more of you,” she replied. “Right now, I better go chill down the coach before his head pops.”
Dad was threatening to wrap masking tape around some kid’s eyes and make him “play by instinct! Like a freakin’ Luke Skywalker!”
Leezy walked over and stood behind him. She was taller than he was and slapped the brim of his cap down over his eyes. He whipped around like he was going to fight, but by then she was trotting into the outfield to catch fly balls.
When the game began Dad started out all calm and helpful, but I knew it wouldn’t last because watching him was like watching a big version of my old wired self. He gathered all the players around him. “Okay,” he said, “we can whip these guys. We can show ’em who the losers are. We can win this easy and get back into second place. Now, let’s play ball!”
Then he twisted the game ball into the pitcher’s glove. “Virgilio, just throw heat. That’s all it takes. High, hard heat. The last time they slaughtered your change-up. This time only heat. Got that? Nothing fancy. Remember, a cannon doesn’t need a curve or a slider or a fork ball—it just does one thing well—it fires heat. Now go out there and show them you got a cannon for an arm.”
Virgilio silently nodded along until Dad slapped him on the back, and then he ran toward the mound as if he had been shot out of a cannon.
“Batter up,” the umpire shouted the moment he finished sweeping off home plate.
Immediately Dad started pacing back and forth and shouting at the other team’s players. “No batter!” he yelled. “Batter’s got a limp stick!”
Virgilio leaned forward and sort of threw an overhand lob.
“Ballll,” mooed the ump.
“Ball on what planet?” Dad hollered.
The catcher threw the ball back to Virgilio harder than Virgilio had thrown it at the plate. I hadn’t played before but I knew the pitcher should be throwing harder than the catcher.
“Now show him the cannon!” Dad roared at Virgilio. “Put some smoke on it!”
Virgilio threw the same slow pitch.
“Ballll two,” the umpire called.