by Joan Bauer
I rub the orange round and round in my hands to loosen the skin. Walt taught me this. Then I peel it and it comes right off.
Benny claps.
I break the orange into sections and hand them to him. He holds them like I just gave him money.
“Wow,” he says.
Franny pushes a paper plate toward him. “Put them here, Benny.”
Benny makes a flower pattern with them on the plate.
“That’s pretty,” Franny says.
“Pretty,” Benny says. “I’m forty-two.”
I laugh. “You don’t look that old, Benny.”
He doesn’t connect with that.
“Benny is eight.” Franny hands him an orange section.
So, what’s your story, Benny?
I hear, “You gonna pitch, Sky, or are you gonna stand there?”
I turn to look at the field. The tall, skinny guy, Sky, says, “I’m gonna pitch. Don’t blink, you’ll miss it.”
He does a windmill warm-up. The batter bounces a little, waiting for the throw. Logo, the kid I met on the bus, is catcher. He makes a signal. Sky nods a little and lets one loose, missing the plate by, I’d say, a mile.
“Settle down,” Logo tells him.
The batter waits. Sky brings his right arm up and snaps the ball in the dirt.
Benny arranges his sandwich around the orange pieces and puts his carrots in a line on his napkin. He opens his little box of raisins and puts five raisins inside the orange.
“Come on, Sky!” the catcher shouts.
Sky lifts his right arm, pushes off on his foot, and gets the ball closer to the plate, but not close enough.
I look at Franny, who is handing Benny a box of juice with a straw. “This is the baseball team?”
“This is the baseball team,” she says.
“Great catch!” Benny shouts.
“Way to go, Benny Man!” Sky shouts back.
“They need nine guys to play,” I mention.
She bends Benny’s straw. “They need nine people, Jeremiah. They don’t all have to be guys.”
True. I walk on the field. We need to get this moving. “You’re good,” I tell them.
They like that.
“I think, Sky, you’ve got power; you need to keep your eyes focused on the catcher’s glove and change your release point. Release the ball a little earlier. You’re hanging on to it too long.”
Sky doesn’t like that. “Who are you?”
“Jeremiah Lopper. Try it, Sky.”
He stands there, looks around.
“Come on.” Logo crouches down, holds his glove. “Right in here, guy.”
“Let the ball go earlier,” I remind him.
Sky does a warm-up, lets the ball go, and wham.
I nod. “That’s a strike.”
The guys look impressed.
“You play?” the black kid asks me.
“I used to. I coach now.”
They laugh.
They can laugh.
“We’re looking for a coach who’s a little taller.” Logo breaks up at that.
“Shut up, Logo,” Terrell warns. “What do you mean, you coach?”
“I mean, if people are interested, I can really help you play better.”
Even though I just improved their game, I can see they need time to process this.
I look toward the little hill and the big, shiny baseball bat statue. I grab my book bag. “Gotta go.”
Chapter
10
“YOU LOOK TIRED,” Walt mentions. “Did you overdo yesterday?”
“I’m napping.”
Walt pulls the car onto the freeway. “Your eyes are open and you’re talking.”
“Eagles never shut their eyes.”
“They don’t speak, either.”
It’s eleven a.m. I had to leave school early for an appointment. We are headed to see my new cardiologist, Dr. Dugan, who won’t be my cardiologist for very long, but I’m hoping she’ll give it everything she’s got.
“I can’t sleep.” I tell him about the baseball mystery at school. “I don’t know what’s going on, Walt.”
He merges into the middle lane. “I do.”
“You do?”
“One of the guys I work with told me. His son was on the team.”
“What did he say?”
Walt turns off the radio. “He said they’d had a serious ball club. It was a feeder team for the Hornets. The kids worked hard, and the coach, a guy named Bordin, pushed them hard. Travel baseball. Camp. Year-round stuff to keep in shape. Total focus. Some kids handled it, but then the coach pushed beyond it—kids were burning out, getting injured, playing hurt. Parents were not happy. The winning got to be too much. A lot of kids dropped out. Bordin got fired and didn’t leave quietly.”
“What did he do, Walt?”
“I don’t know. A few of the kids still meet after school to play, but they don’t have enough for a team. There’s a group of parents who got turned off to baseball.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I agree.”
“Do you think the school wants to do something?”
Walt parks the car. “I have a feeling some of the parents would fight that.”
“It’s not baseball’s fault, Walt!”
I take out my phone and look up “Coach Bordin Hillcrest.” There’s an angry picture of him, and below that, there’s this: I was doing the job I was hired to do!
Walt pulls into the hospital lot and parks the car. “Ready?”
We get out of the car, walk to the entrance. We head to the elevator, and it’s like I’m back at the hospital in St. Louis. Memories come rushing at me.
We waited almost a year for me to get a new heart—a donor heart, they call it. Every day my bag was packed, every day we checked the phone again and again. You give up; you believe; you try not to think about it—sometimes it’s all you can think about. And when they called and said, “We have a heart for you,” we had to go right away. I felt so lucky. Not everyone who needs a new heart gets one. There aren’t enough to go around.
“You’re going to make it through, Jer.” That’s what Walt told me right before the surgery. “Be brave now. I’ll see you soon.”
The nurse came in. “Jeremiah, they’re ready for you in OR.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready for them, but I’d studied being brave. The people who are good at it, like Walt, seemed to focus on a good outcome, not on the stuff that can go wrong.
I pictured myself with my new heart, running to catch a pop fly; hitting a liner into the gap; sliding into second base; and squeezing out a double. But when I got into the operating room, all that courage went splat. I started to cry. I said, “I need my dad.”
Some brave kid.
Dr. Feinberg said, “Jeremiah. Look at me.” I tried to do that and not look at what was happening around him. “We know exactly what to do.”
That calmed me down. They put me to sleep. That’s all I remember, and when I woke up, all I could think was, I made it.
I had a ventilator to help me breathe and tubes in my chest. But that didn’t matter.
I made it!
◆ ◆ ◆
“The doctor will see you now.”
Dr. Sarah Dugan has the same plastic heart on her desk that Dr. Feinberg has on his desk. Walt drops his phone when we come in.
I smile at the heart—it feels like home. “Is there a catalog for these things?” I ask her.
“Yes.” She pushes back her blonde hair. “Cardiologist shirts, cards, ties, socks, posters.” She holds up a coffee mug: JUST LIKE THE OTHER DOCTORS, ONLY SMARTER.
Okay, I like you.
Walt laughs and drops his phone again.
Did I mention she’s also pretty
?
She’s looking through my file. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“Since we’ve just met, Jeremiah, you need to define ‘okay.’”
“I didn’t sleep all that well last night. I’m a little tired, but I’m dealing with it.”
“Any chest pain?”
“No.”
She walks over to where I’m sitting on the examining table. She puts her hand over my heart, presses.
“Any pain?”
“No.”
She keeps her hand there, puts her other hand on my back. “Cough, please.”
I do.
“Any pain?”
“No.”
She listens to my heart with her stethoscope, then goes through my chart. “Tell me about the transplant.”
Even though it’s right in front of their faces on the report, doctors want you to repeat everything. I mention the virus. The cardiomyopathy. “I almost died. And then the new heart had problems.”
“There was some rejection initially,” Walt tells her, “and we were told that weakened the transplant.”
“When was that?”
“A week after my tenth birthday.”
She looks up from the chart. “When’s your birthday?”
I look at Walt. Do we need to go into all that?
Walt gives her the fast version.
I add, “It’s why we don’t look alike, right down to our noses.”
She puts my report down and smiles. “A nose doesn’t make you part of a family, Jeremiah. It’s the heart.”
I like that.
“Thank you,” Walt says to her.
She asks me, “What are your goals, Jeremiah?”
Great question!
I mention running and having energy and not being limited by anything in the universe.
“And I want to coach, you know? I want to coach baseball, because it’s one of the big things I focused on when I was sick. I loved it before—Walt and I have that in common. But even when I couldn’t play, I’d run the game in my head. Every day I’d think about holding the bat and all the things it takes to be a winner.”
I know she’s studying me without saying it.
“I wasn’t going to give up—I wasn’t going to let myself even think about doing that.”
She nods. “Do you get down at all, Jeremiah?”
I move a little. Walt looks at me. Dr. Dugan checks my reflexes.
“How about that feeling down question?” she asks.
“Maybe a little.”
“What happens when you run?”
“I just get dizzy and I have to stop. My heart beats too fast.”
“Do you feel down when you run?”
“I haven’t tried running for a while. I don’t know.”
“When you first had the transplant, after the initial healing phase, could you run?”
“Not really. I didn’t believe it, though. I wanted it so bad.”
“What happened?” Her hair is short and she has freckles on her nose. I’ve never had a doctor with freckles—Dr. Feinberg has a mole on his nose. “Did you try to run?”
“Yes.” They look at me; I feel I have to defend myself. “I was playing baseball. These kids asked if I could play in the outfield. They said no one in the league was good enough to hit out there, so I was standing—I swear! Just trying to keep my head in the game, and this big kid cracks one and it’s coming to me, but actually it’s over my head, and I start running to catch it. I missed it. It rolled all the way back to this tree and I ran to get it, then I threw it to third base. And my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. I got sick.”
I’m beginning to feel that way now.
“I shouldn’t have played, I know! I just wanted to be out there. I wanted to run!”
Dr. Dugan is studying my face. “We’re going to get some blood tests. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And I want you to wear a heart monitor for a few weeks.”
“I’ve done that before.”
“So you know it makes you smarter.”
“Absolutely!” I also know I take it off when I shower.
“Then we’ll have a good map to follow.” She writes something on the report. “I appreciate how much you love baseball and how you wanted to run.”
“I still want to run.”
“I hear that. How are you feeling now?” she asks.
I stand up. “Good.”
“Touch your toes.”
I do that.
“Jump up and down three times.”
I do that.
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
Dr. Dugan looks at my chart. “Twirl around and speak German.”
I laugh.
Walt laughs really long.
“You’re doing quite well.” She shakes my hand. “I’ll review this with the transplant team. They’ll be here at your next visit. A pleasure to meet you, Jeremiah Lopper.” She shakes Walt’s hand. “More to come.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“I like her, Walt. She’s smart and funny. You noticed?”
Walt nods.
“You dropped your phone a lot.”
“Once, Jer.”
Twice, actually.
“Walt. Listen. I’m sorry how complicated all this—”
“Let me tell you something. I couldn’t be a good father to some run-of-the-mill, ordinary kid. I would drive them crazy. I work on complex systems, Jer.”
I’m a complex system, all right! I’ve got electrodes on my chest. They come with the heart monitor. I’m naming it Boxter.
“Should I call the insurance company, Walt?”
We take turns at this. Walt has coached me on what to say. I dial the 800 number, wait forever, then get a woman’s voice. I lower my voice to sound super mature and explain I’ll have a new cardiologist for two months and want them to know. She says we owe them money from the last doctor’s bill. We paid it. We always do and somehow something always goes wrong.
“Ma’am, we’ve had this insurance for ten years now, we never miss a monthly payment, my diagnosis has been documented, and your company keeps refusing to pay for treatment that is covered in our plan. The last letter we received from you asked if I got this condition as the result of an accident at work. I’m twelve. I don’t go to work.” I take a deep breath. “And the letter was in Spanish.”
I cover the receiver. “She’s getting her manager, Walt.”
Chapter
11
WALT AND I are driving past the Hornets’ Nest. They have a big game tomorrow. A life-size poster of Coach Perkins is above the entrance.
They’re sure into hero worship here.
Coach Perkins has blue eyes and a half-bald head. His jaw seems like it’s cut out of rock.
I wonder what he says to his team to get them motivated before a big game.
I wonder why the middle school team had so many problems.
Walt looks at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
I put my head against the car window like I’m resting. Resting is a difficult concept for me, because my mind is always going fifteen places at once.
I wonder what Yaff is doing . . .
I wonder if Franny and I can ever be good friends . . .
I wonder what my test results are going to show . . .
I wonder where my real mother is . . .
That’s a big jump from test results, I know, but I wonder if she thinks about me.
She’s got to. If she’s still alive, that is . . .
She said I was her best boy. I’m working hard to prove that.
◆ ◆ ◆
It’s a little cold tonight, but not too cold to eat dinner on the
porch, although I do wear an extra fleece just in case. Walt and I sit here finishing our veggie pizza. There’s a wind chime shaped like a bird that’s dinging away. Adler is eating dog chow from a bowl we put out for him. In a little while he’ll go inside his house to be with Mr. Simon’s widow. Franny said Mrs. Simon can’t get out much anymore. Adler finishes eating and looks at the street, waiting for Mr. Simon to come home.
I tell him, “Adler, you’re beyond loyal, but you’re waiting for something that’s gone forever.” Adler looks at me. I rub his head. “You must have loved your friend a lot, boy.”
Adler sighs and lies down. I’m watching Bo, across the street, throw his baseball up in the air and catch it. There’s some junk from the garage in a pile on the street—a broken basketball hoop, an old trampoline, a large cardboard chicken that needs explanation. El Grande is reading his paper on the porch. A few minutes ago, Benny and his mother brought us a plate of homemade chocolate cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood. It’s seven o’clock. Franny comes out of her house as an old car drives slowly by, honking.
The driver keeps honking like something’s wrong.
Walt and I stand up.
Adler stops eating.
The car stops in the middle of the road. Old Mrs. Prim gets out, waving her hands. “Oh, Lord help us!” she cries, and heads to Franny’s house screaming, “Ellis!”
El Grande is standing now, too.
“Ellis! My God . . .”
Benny’s mother runs out of her house. “Penny, are you all right?”
Walt and I head across the street to help.
El Grande walks down the steps toward her. “What happened?”
“Ellis! You heard . . . ?”
“Heard what?” He leads her to his porch to sit down, but she doesn’t want to do that. “Penny. Talk to me.”
She looks at Benny’s mother. “Claire . . .”
“What happened, dear?”
Mrs. Prim’s face is caved in; her eyes are wet. She’s trying to catch her breath. “It’s Hargie.” Tears run down her old face.
Bo runs over. “What happened?”
Mrs. Prim heads for the porch step now, shaking her head like she can’t believe it. “He rode his motorcycle home from practice. He parked it in the garage like always. And he keeled over . . . right there.”