White Plains

by David Hicks

  “Rand,” he said.

  “Flynn.”

  “I guess the place is yours,” Rand said, nodding at his dog. “Noah’s never wrong.”

  After they signed the rental agreement, the realtor drove off, and Rand ducked inside, returning with two bottles of Rolling Rock. They walked over to the garden, where Rand pointed out what he had planted. “It’s a good place to be sad,” he said. He had been married down by the creek, and he and his wife had been happy for a while, but then he had boozed it up pretty bad until she finally had enough. Now, he was going out to Idaho to live with a woman he had met over the internet. “I’ll be there a year,” he said. “Whether it works out or not.” He was a respiratory specialist with a one-year contract at a hospital in Boise. As Flynn nodded, still looking around, Rand took a cigarette and lit it. “I’m leaving everything here,” he said, shaking out the match. “Even Noah, if it’s all right with you.” His eyes welled up as he took a drag. “He’s too old to make the trip.” When Flynn nodded, reaching down to pet Noah’s head, Rand frowned, pointing to the Colorado license plate on Flynn’s car. “Now why would anyone want to move from there to here?” he asked.

  Flynn looked around, imagining the kids running through the woods, the old dog trying to keep up with them. He imagined all of them going for a walk and spotting some deer, maybe a black bear. He imagined Janey looking under rocks and discovering all manner of bugs and worms. He imagined Nathan dashing through the trees with a stick, pretending to slay dragons. He imagined all of them swimming together in the creek.

  *

  On the first of June, Flynn packed up his Sidekick and went upstairs to say goodbye to Helen. He found the kitchen door wide open, and Helen sound asleep in her armchair, with a Matlock rerun playing at high volume. He wrote her a note, put a check on the table for an extra week’s rent, patted her fat, wrinkled hand, and shut the door. As he skipped down the steps, he heard her shout out, “My boy!” and hesitated. Was this how his mother was feeling, after not hearing from her son in over a year?

  He got into his car, started it up, and pointed it north.

  When he pulled up to Hemlock Ridge, he put away the groceries he had bought but left the rest of his car packed and went for a walk with Noah. It was about a half-mile to the end of the road, the old Lab wheezing and resting every hundred feet or so. Azalea bushes and wildflowers grew in the high grass, and mosquitoes swarmed above a fetid puddle near the creek. The road ended at an old farmhouse, with wildflowers growing in the field.

  For dinner, Flynn grilled two cheeseburgers, found a six-pack of Rolling Rock the owner had left behind, and went out to the second-floor terrace in back. There was a porch swing out there, built for two. He opened a beer, set the smaller cheeseburger on the ground for Noah, and bit into his. He watched the ducks drifting on the creek, listened to the woodpeckers, breathed in the moist air. As the sun went down, the color of the water changed.

  At twilight, some squirrels scrambled from the eaves behind him and leaped over Flynn’s head, sailing into the trees by the shore.

  When a blue heron swooped upstream, low to the water, its great wings creating strange whumps that ghosted past the house, Noah lifted his head.

  Flynn thought about calling Sydney, but decided instead to stay in the swing, to sit quietly, with the empty space beside him.

  *

  There was no moon, so when darkness came it was sudden and solid, the air heavy with the imminence of rain. Flynn went through the house and stepped outside, intending to walk down the road and look for stars, but not ten feet from the doorway it was pitch dark, so dark he couldn’t see anything in front of him. He took small steps, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and Noah hesitated alongside him, but the darkness was thick and unyielding, so finally Flynn just stood still and listened: the hoots of owls, the cracking of branches, a breeze that presaged storm. In the distance, thunder rolled in, majestic and rich. He stood quietly, thinking. He would start a new life here. He would change his way of thinking, his way of behaving. But not by fighting in court or having meaningless sex or talking to his friends or working late at a job he already hated. He would change from the inside out. He would learn how to be at peace with himself.

  He closed his eyes when he heard the splatter of drops on dirt. It was going to take a while. But he would start here.

  Then it was upon him: a rain that peppered his head, shoulders, and back, steadily swelling into a downpour, a barrage. Noah whimpered, wanting to go back inside, but Flynn remained in the middle of the road, his eyes closed and head lifted, until he was drenched and shivering. The sky split open and the rain teemed onto him, battering his face and body, sliding down the ancient trees all around him, spattering all the hunched and hiding beasts in the woods, nurturing the garden, turning the road to mud.

  Above the din, he could hardly hear himself cry out the name of both his father and his son.

  GHOST IN THE OUTFIELD

  Well, it certainly was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had as a coach, and I’ve been at it for almost thirty years. This was back when I was running the varsity at White Plains High, must have been ’89 because we were all, the whole team, talking about the Mets having a legit shot at winning the whole thing again. And then of course they didn’t.

  I didn’t know much about Hawk’s old man, except that he wasn’t old at the time, just a year older than me, around forty-five maybe. As for Hawk, he was a good kid. Really good kid. Could not hit the curveball, but fortunately for us, not too many high-school pitchers had mastered that pitch (except for that kid up in Saugerties, Freer was his name, he was something else). Then again Hawk couldn’t hit the fastball too good either. What he could do was catch a baseball. That’s how he got the nickname, in case you were wondering—it’s not just short for Hawkins. He’d get a big jump at the crack of the bat and then swoop in on the ball like a great big bird of prey. Before games I’d chat up the other coaches and they’d say, “I got this kid, he’s batting .380,” and I’d say, “Well I hope he can hit it over the fence, because if it stays in the ballpark, Hawk’s gonna get it.” He’d pluck line drives out of the air, he’d get to fly balls over his head—if it was hit anywhere in his range, he’d get to it. Ever see the famous catch Willie Mays made in the World Series? I’ve seen Hawk make that catch. Twice.

  Looking back, I should have paid more attention to the kid. I never took the time to show him how to hit the curve, how to know when to expect it, how to sit on it. I’d remind him to keep his shoulder back and follow the ball into the plate and all, but his knees would buckle and he’d swing too soon. But at the time, I didn’t care, I had a hell of a lineup: Montoya leading off, then Hickson, who wound up playing for the Cubs’ farm system before blowing out his knee, then Labrusciano batting third, he got a free ride to Maine, hell of a program they used to have up there, then this kid Danny Kozloski at cleanup, big kid with an uppercut like Joe Frazier, could hit the ball out of any park, led the state in home runs that year, recruited by all the best schools but he joined the Marines instead and got shipped out to the first Gulf War and that was that, poor kid.

  Hawkins, he wasn’t going anywhere, not in D-I anyway. But he didn’t need it. He had brains, that kid. Fifth or sixth in his graduating class. I heard he walked on with some SUNY team upstate, but I can’t remember which. Anyway I just penciled him in at centerfield and batted him ninth, every game. Then, whenever a player connected on a line drive or a long fly ball, I’d look out towards centerfield and say “You got it, Hawk, go get it, boy,” and he always did.

  When he was a kid, I used to see him and his dad at Silver Lake Park when I took my sons there. His big sister, Annie, she babysat for my boys when they were little, she’d be there too—she was a hell of a shortstop for the girls’ team. She played infield and Flynn would be in the outfield. He’d run up and get the balls that scooted under her glove, and she’d catch the balls he thre
w in from the outfield. His father would hit one, yell out, “Third! Runner’s going to third!” and Annie would cover the bag and wait for the throw. Hawk never had the strongest arm, but even then, even when he was a scrawny kid, he could put the ball right on the bag. Might take a few hops, but right on the bag.

  Which is why that play that day was so weird. He never threw to the wrong bag. Smartest player I’ve ever coached. I didn’t have to tell him anything, it was like having an assistant coach on the field. Once in a while he’d say something to his teammates, like Montoya would be on the on-deck circle and Hawk would say, “Rico, check out third base,” and Montoya would get to the batter’s box, see how far back the third baseman was playing, lay down a bunt in that direction and practically jog to first for a single. Or when he was out in the field, a player would come up to bat, and Hawk would signal the left fielder to go back a few steps and over toward the line, and the right fielder to come in, and then I’d remember that the batter was a kid who always tried to pull the ball.

  That day, the day we’re talking about, afterwards one of the guys, I think it was the Valentino kid, he was our catcher, he told me that every time he checked the outfielders he saw Hawk looking toward the stands. It was the Brandon girl, she was from Jamaica or Haiti or one of those places. Black as night. Remember this was in the eighties, we didn’t have too much interracial stuff going on, but apparently the Hawk was smitten. According to Valentino, she was sitting in the stands with a guy on the basketball team, kid named Harrison, and I guess Hawk was a little, you know, befuddled by all that. So that might explain the bad throw, Valentino said. It’s amazing what you remember about some little things whereas, my god, years can fly by without remembering much of anything.

  Hawk Senior, we knew him as Nate, he was an acquaintance of mine from high school. Kind of mild-mannered. A mild-mannered guy. I got into all kinds of trouble as a kid, but Nate, he was one of those quiet guys who never ruffled feathers. Run silent, run deep. A little uptight, I’d say. Member of the Knights of Columbus, if I recall correctly. Always a nice hello whenever I saw him at church. I didn’t see him much besides that. He sold furniture parts, correct? On the road. On the road a great deal. I can’t remember the company. But he was gone a lot, to shopping malls mostly. I’m guessing here. If he were alive today he wouldn’t have to drive so much because that kind of thing is all done online now, or by phone or email. Anyway, one of those guys who seemed a little afraid of his wife, you know? One of those guys who more or less escaped the household once in a while. I mean, it was his job, he was a salesman, but still. You know what I’m saying.

  Anyway, we wouldn’t see him very often at the games, but when we did, young Hawk would look a little more lively in the batter’s box, know what I mean? Not that this would help him much—he’d still be really cautious for the first few pitches and then whiff on the inevitable two-strike curveball or high fastball. But it did seem to bring his fielding up another notch, his dad being there. He had a funny whistle, the old man did. Whenever his station wagon pulled up, he’d give that little whistle as he took his seat in the stands, and if Hawk was out in centerfield he’d look up, then focus back on the batter, but you could tell he was more alert. The next season, the year after his dad died, I would hear Hawk whistling that same whistle, his father’s whistle, to the other guys, or just to himself out there. Chirp chirp. Like a ghost in the outfield.

  Okay so on that day, let me get to this now, on that day, his father wasn’t there, he was out on the road, and here’s what happened. We were playing Mount Vernon, a big game for us. Mount Vernon was always good, not just in baseball but in all sports, because they had more black athletes than we did. I’m not being racist, I’m just being honest. In any case we were playing a big game and there were plenty of people in the stands, so I thought, I thought after that game, maybe that’s what rattled Hawk, or maybe like my catcher said it was the Jamaican girl, or maybe it was just, you know, a typical lapse in judgment—we’re talking high-schoolers, after all—but here’s what happened, I remember it like it was yesterday. The kid on Mount Vernon, he was a speedster, even faster than my guy Montoya, I can’t remember his name but he broke the stolen-base record that year. Anyway he was on first. It’s the fifth or sixth inning, and the game was either tied or we were down by a run, I’m not sure, and I’ve got Numbnuts McMillan on the mound—great arm, no brains. So the next batter drills a single up the middle, but right before that happens Hawk’s sister Annie screeches into the parking lot in her mother’s Dodge and comes over to the dugout like she has a load in her pants. She’s bawling, her face is all red. At the same time, Hawk fields the ball cleanly, comes up ready to throw, but instead of firing to third and nailing the big-balled speedster going from first to third (because Numbnuts didn’t believe in trying to pick off runners, he believed in showing off his arm strength, so the speedster—god, I wish I could remember his name—he got a big jump), my boy Hawk, he bluffs a throw to third and then tosses it to second, conceding the extra base. I was like, what the hell, kid? Would have nailed him at third with two feet to spare. Now instead of a runner on first with one out we got first and third, no outs. I might have let out a curse, I’m not sure. Big moment, big game, one of the “turning points,” and it’s the little things, you know? That’s what I’ve learned as a coach, it’s the little things that affect the outcome of a game, positively or negatively, and the success or failure of the whole season rides on those little turning points, more or less. Life too, come to think of it. Life too. Anyway next thing I know there’s Annie Hawkins in my face saying something but crying too much for me to understand so I signaled the ump for time and ran out onto the field. Numbnuts thought I was taking him out, which I probably should have, but I was trying to tell Hawk to come in, something had happened, you know, and I had a feeling what it was, but I thought it was probably their grandmother or dog or something like that. The poor kid was crestfallen, I mean he was almost in tears on his way in, he knew he’d blown the play and he thought I was mad at him, but all I did was point to his sister and he broke into a sprint.

  We lost that game—not that it mattered. Well, actually it did matter, because we dropped down in the league standings and . . . well, it doesn’t much matter now. The next man up put down a perfect squeeze and the big-balled speedster—Hale, that’s it, Devon Hale was his name—he scored, and we lost, but Hawk, he lost his dad that day, heart attack. Lost his dad. Too young for that to happen. I remember the obituary. Nathan Hawkins, husband of Marian, father of Anne and Flynn, et cetera et cetera. Dropped dead in his car, I don’t know the details. Only forty-three, forty-four? Too young.

  Oh, one more thing: at the wake. I’ve never mentioned this to anyone, but something a little wacky was going on with the mom. The wife. Marian. She wasn’t sad or crying. She was pissed. Royally pissed. Not exactly the weeping widow. Wouldn’t go up to the casket, and didn’t want her children to go up there either, but Flynn, he went right up there and put his hand on his father’s face, ran his fingers through his hair, put his hand on his father’s hands and then he started freaking out a little and it looked like he was about to climb into the casket or something so some of us ran up there and pulled him away. My ex-wife, my wife at the time, Lynnie, she burst out crying at that. Then Flynn tried to hug his mother, it was like a group hug with the family, and she gave it a shot, cigarette in her fingers, but to me—and this is just speculation now—to me, she looked like a woman scorned. Hell hath no fury. That kind of thing. My first thought was, what do you know, was Hawk Senior getting a little road action? Did he have a heart attack in a motel bed, something like that? Because to me—and I should probably keep my mouth shut here—to me it felt like something of that nature. It felt like she knew something nobody else knew.

  I could be wrong, of course. My wife always tells me I jump to conclusions. I’m a conclusion-jumper, that’s what I am. But let’s just say it was a feeling and I’ll leave i
t at that. Again I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it.

  The following season, Hawk’s senior year, he was in a slump for most of it. Worse than usual at the plate. But he could still catch anything in the outfield, so I kept him in the lineup. And we won the league, mainly because Kozloski averaged almost a home run per game, he probably still has the league record, but we lost in the state playoffs. I had an outfielder right behind Hawk, Tyler Tennyson, we called him TT, he was a superstar-in-waiting, that kid, and he went on to be the best high-school outfielder I’ve ever coached, but I’ve always had a seniors-first policy, at least in high school. Also, I mean, come on, I’m going to bench the kid whose dad died? I’m kind of a stickler, but I’m not heartless. I more or less took him under my wing that year. Once I asked him, because I was still thinking of his mom at the wake, “Hey, did your parents get along well? You know, before . . . ?” And he goes like this, kind of a shrug. He said they got along fine, he guessed, but he didn’t have much to compare them to. “If you’re asking if they loved each other,” he says, “I’d probably say yes. But I really have no idea.”

  Then he paused for a minute. This was practice, we were at practice, on the sidelines I mean, and he was watching TT shag flies in the outfield. “Skip,” he says, “TT’s better than I am. He should be starting in center. That’s what the guys are saying.”

  I shook my head and patted his shoulder. “You’re going to bust out of this slump,” I said. “Just you wait.”

  He puts his head down then, and for a while he doesn’t say anything. I remember thinking I should probably put my arm around the kid, but we were at practice, you know?

  “Skip,” he says, “I’m really sorry about that game last year.”

  “Oh no, come on Hawk,” I said. I nudged him out toward the field. “Water under the bridge. Mental error. Part of the growth process.” I mean, we were at least halfway through the season by then, and nobody was even thinking about last year anymore. “Go on, get out there,” I said. “Go shag some flies.”