by Carl Deuker
“You can just drop me off at Jet City,” Antonio said. “I’ve got—”
“You’ve got nothing,” Mom said. “Your brother just won the biggest game of his life, and you’re going to be part of the celebration.”
Antonio slumped back in his seat, his arm folded across his chest.
I’d been flying, but that brought me down. Thinking about Garrett and Jet City and drugs was not what I wanted to do. As Curtis drove, he went through the game inning by inning. After a few minutes, Antonio added a few comments, and that brought back the good feelings.
When we reached the apartment, I showered fast, changed fast, and was back in the main room within fifteen minutes.
“How’s McDonald’s sound?” Curtis asked. “I bet you haven’t a Big Mac since you moved to Laurelhurst.”
The great thing about fast food is that it’s fast. Fifteen minutes after we’d gotten back into the Corolla, we were sitting in the sunshine eating juicy burgers at a red plastic table. Little kids, screaming as they ran around the playscape, provided free entertainment. And Curtis was right—I hadn’t had a Big Mac since I’d moved to Laurelhurst, and I’d forgotten how great they taste. I took one huge bite after another.
“So explain how this tournament works,” Curtis said. “What happens now?”
My mouth was so full I couldn’t answer. I took a big glug of the chocolate milk shake, but that only made me cough.
“Don’t choke to death,” Mom said as I tried to swallow.
Antonio poked me. “No, let him. Think of the headline. Star pitcher dies as family watches.” He pulled out his cell and aimed at me. “I’ll film the whole thing and put it on YouTube. It’ll go viral for sure.”
“Use my phone, Antonio,” Curtis said as my coughing got worse. “I don’t think yours even makes videos.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Mom said, grinning.
I finally managed to swallow. “Tonight, we p-play the winner of Kentwood–T-Tahoma. If we win, next week we’ll play whatever t-team makes it out of Eastern Washington, probably Gonzaga Prep.”
“But you won’t pitch tonight, right?” Curtis asked.
I shook my head. “No. There are rules about n-number of p-pitches and all that. K-Kevin Griffith pitches tonight.”
“They used Laz first,” Antonio said, “because Jesuit was the tougher team to beat.”
Mom’s eyes met Curtis’s, and then she turned to me. “Laz, we have tickets for a show at the Emerald Queen Casino. Queen Latifah. We bought them before we knew about your playoffs. You won’t mind us missing the second game? Since you’re not pitching?”
* * *
When we’d finished eating, it wasn’t even four o’clock. I had two hours before I needed to be back at Husky Ballpark. I didn’t want to sit around the Woodacres apartment watching TV, but I had nothing else to do—until Antonio saved me.
“I bet Mr. Leskov would want to hear about Laz winning,” he said as we drove back to the apartment. “So would the all North Central guys at the community center. If you lend me the Toyota or the pickup, I’ll take him there. He can chill out, be the big star, and you and Curtis can head to the concert whenever you want.”
Mom twisted in her seat to look at me. “That be okay with you, Laz?”
“S-Sure.”
When we pulled up in front of the apartment, Curtis handed the keys of the pickup to Antonio. There were handshakes and hugs, and then Antonio and I were headed east on 130th toward the community center.
“It’s going to happen for you,” Antonio said as we crossed I-5.
“What?”
“Come on. Don’t play dumb. You outpitched that Fergus guy, and he’s going to be a first- or second-round pick. They’re going to call your name early, Bro. You’re going to get some serious bonus money.”
I stared out the window at the big trees hanging over the street, their leaves lit up by the bright sunlight. Forty rounds in the draft . . . thirty-two teams . . . more than one thousand names called.
After Antonio pulled into the community center parking lot, we both got out and walked toward the main entrance. We’d finally have a couple of hours together. I had things to say to Antonio. I just hoped I could think clearly and talk without getting stuck on every other word.
Before we reached the stairs leading to the front doors of the community center, Dawit and a couple of his friends spotted us. They’d been shooting hoops on the outside courts, but they stopped playing and came over.
“Hey, Antonio,” Dawit said, smiling. “Never see you here.”
“My brother just pitched a great game,” Antonio said, motioning toward me. “I’m bringing him so he can brag to Mr. Leskov.”
For the next couple of minutes Antonio told Dawit and his friend about my game. They nodded, but they didn’t really care. Why should they? Then the conversation turned to North Central. During an assembly on Friday, somebody had rolled a shot put down the steps from the top of the auditorium to the floor. “Was that you?” Dawit asked, laughing as he poked at Antonio.
“Nah,” Antonio said, but his eyes said something different.
“Yeah, it was,” Dawit said. “Thump, thump, thump. Faster and louder. I thought Mrs. Park was going to have a heart attack.”
The banter went back and forth. It didn’t matter whether Antonio had pulled the stunt or not. He made it his own with his easy way and his easy smile.
Finally Dawit and his friends returned to their basketball game. I started up the steps to the community center, but Antonio stayed behind. “Aren’t you g-going in?” I asked. “I thought we c-could shoot some p-pool and j-just hang out”
He screwed up his face. “Truth? I can’t. Leskov has banned me.”
“B-Banned you? Why?”
His face got more twisted. “He says I’m a bad influence. He doesn’t want me hanging around young kids.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Seriously.”
My chance to talk to him was slipping away. “We c-can go someplace else.”
Antonio shook his head. “Things to do. Next week, for sure.” He motioned toward the street. “You got money for the bus down to U-Dub?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m good. But, we r-really need t-to—”
“Laz,” he said, his voice suddenly sharp. “I got no time now. I just don’t. And remember, you’re the one who moved out, not me. So we’ll get together when we get together. Okay?”
My heart was pounding fast. “O-Okay. I’m s-sorry.”
The anger left his face. He gave me a half smile. “All right, then. Shine bright, Brother.”
Then he returned to the truck and drove out of the parking lot. I stood for a few minutes, feeling lost, before I went inside.
When Mr. Leskov saw me, he took me by the shoulders and shook me, telling me he’d read about me in the newspaper. “You strike three those boys in the playoffs,” he shouted.
I tried to explain that I’d already strike three’d them, but he didn’t understand.
For the next thirty minutes I played foosball and Ping-Pong with some North Central kids I sort of knew. After that, I found a soft chair in the TV room and watched a few innings of a Yankees–Blue Jays game. I tried to recapture at least some of the joy I’d had at the end of the Jesuit game, but it wouldn’t come. At five, I changed back into my sweaty uniform and caught the bus down to Husky Ballpark.
Three
I could feel the energy around me during warm-ups. We’d beaten the best team in the state. Now we just had to take care of business against Tahoma. Do that, and we’d be playing at T-Mobile Park on Friday for the state title. I tried to breathe in some of the excitement, but when you know you’re not going to play, it’s not the same. And the whole thing with Antonio was like a black cloud over my head, pushing my spirits even lower.
Then, just before the game started, Coach Vereen came over. “I had Mr. Thurman go through the scorebook. You threw ninety-three pitches against Jesuit. See what I’m sayin
g?”
I shook my head. “Not r-really.”
“The rules say you can throw a hundred and five pitches in a day. That means you’ve got twelve left. Twelve pitches could be a couple of batters, maybe one full inning.” He paused. “If I need someone to close the game, could you do it?”
I felt like I was a character in a video game that had suddenly been booted up. All the gloom disappeared. “My arm is fine, Coach. I can p-pitch.”
“You sure? I don’t want you hurting yourself.”
“No. I’m f-fine. Really. I w-want to p-pitch.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “All right, then. Hopefully we won’t need you, but if we do . . .”
* * *
Tahoma was the home team. I sat on the bench next to Kevin as we batted in the top of the first. His right leg was tap-tap-tapping the ground, and his fingertips were drumming on his thighs. He kept stuffing his mouth with sunflower seeds and machine-gunning the shells out through his teeth.
Tahoma’s pitcher was guiding his pitches; our guys were loose and confident. Andrew . . . Jared . . . Ian—all three of them smoked the ball, and all three made outs—two line drives and a hard ground ball. That’s how baseball goes sometimes.
“You got ’em,” I said to Kevin as he spit out the final batch of sunflower shells and started toward the mound. His eyes were almost glazed over; beads of sweat lined his forehead. Coaches talk about players who rise to the occasion. There had to be guys who fall apart. Kevin had failed twice before. Was he going down a third time?
It sure looked like it. His pitches were everywhere: high, low, wide, tight. He walked the first batter, gave up a hit, and then plunked the number-three hitter in the butt. Hadley went out to calm him; the infielders shouted encouragement. Coach Vereen clapped his hands and called out, “Easy, Kevin. Easy.” You can lose a baseball game in the first inning, and we were on the verge.
With the bases loaded, Kevin grooved a fastball over the heart of the plate. Tahoma’s cleanup hitter crushed it, sending a rocket toward Jay at third. If he hadn’t stuck his glove up, the ball might have taken off his head. But he did stick his glove up and the ball smacked into the webbing. He stepped on third for the second out and whipped a throw to second base before the base runner could get back.
Triple play!
Everything stopped as spectators and players took in what had happened. Then our fans roared, and our guys hollered and slapped gloves as they ran into the dugout, huge grins on their faces. Tahoma’s players dragged themselves out to their positions, their faces like deflated balloons.
We scored twice in the top of the second, both runs coming home on a fly ball to right center that fell between the outfielders. With a two-run lead, Kevin was a little better. He threw strikes, but he still didn’t have any zip on his fastball. Tahoma managed runs in the third and the fourth, but we kept scoring. Our lead was 5–2 after three innings, then 6–3 after four.
By the bottom of the fifth, Kevin was taking deep breaths and tugging on his shoulder. The leadoff hitter popped up to short, and the next batter grounded out to first. It looked like he’d get through the inning, but the next two batters reached base, the first on a walk and the second on a line single to left. Coach Vereen had the twins warming up. He walked to the mound to talk to Kevin, his eyes going back and forth between the twins and Kevin, trying to decide who had the best chance of getting the third out. After looking to the bullpen half a dozen times, he left Kevin in.
The Tahoma batter stepped to the plate. The umpire pointed at Kevin. Hadley crouched, gave the signal. Everybody knew it was going to be a fastball, and it was. The Tahoma batter turned on it, sending a high drive to center. Ian raced back, his eyes tracking the ball. On the warning track, he stopped. I thought the ball was gone, a three-run homer. But then Ian retreated one more step and, with his back against the fence, leaped. The ball settled harmlessly into the webbing of his glove. Three more inches, and the game would have been tied, but Ian’s fielding gem had turned a home run into a long out.
Kevin hadn’t gone more than five innings in any game all season. When he reached the bench, Vereen slapped him on the back. “Way to step up.”
Marc Robosky pitched a gut-wrenching sixth. A couple of hits, a couple of walks, a sac fly. When the seventh batter struck out swinging on what would have been ball four, we cheered like crazy, but our lead had been cut to 6–5.
When it came to pitching, Tahoma was in the same spot we were in. They’d used their best starter in the afternoon game, and their second-line pitchers all looked overwhelmed by the moment. Jay smacked a one-out, run-scoring double in the top of the seventh, pushing our lead back to 7–5.
Coach Vereen clapped his hands together and then wandered over to me. “Get loose, Laz.”
Mentally, I was ready to go, but physically? The first few throws in the bullpen told me—my arm was tired and my shoulder was stiff. I fought the impulse to rush the warm-up by throwing harder; instead, I threw softer, loosening slowly.
Andrew Robosky took the mound for the bottom of the seventh, and for two batters he looked like a major-league closer, getting the first on a strikeout and the second on a soft roller to second. One more out, and Andrew would have done it. I was in the bullpen area, with a lousy view of the field, but I could see the guys on the bench hanging on to one another, ready to rush the mound.
The last out is never easy. Nerves hit Andrew. He walked the batter on four pitches. He threw two more balls to the hitter after that, and then threw a changeup that the guy ripped into right center for an RBI double.
Laurelhurst 7–Tahoma 6.
Coach Vereen had seen enough. He strode to the mound, took the ball from Andrew, and motioned to me.
I trotted out, acting as if everything was normal, but feeling the strangeness of it all. Pitching in two games in one day. Starting the first and now closing the second.
I don’t know if my arm still felt stiff, because I really didn’t feel anything. In the far distance I heard the crowd screaming, but that noise was muffled by an even louder roar from inside my head. We were one out from the title game, and it was up to me to get that out.
Hadley gave the target.
I went into my wind-up, delivered.
“Strike one!”
The ball came back. I got set. The target.
“Strike two!”
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and then everything slowed down even more. My movements, the batter’s, Hadley’s. As I went into my motion, I stayed slow, so slow, and let the ball just ease out of my hand like it was water. The bat moved into the hitting zone just as the pitch dived down and to the left.
“Strike three!”
And then the guys were on me for the second time, and the world was spinning and spinning and I felt as if I were on the greatest ride and the greatest amusement park in the whole world.
Four
My mom and Antonio and Suja and Curtis either called or texted over the weekend, congratulating me, telling me how happy they were that we’d won the second game and how sad they were that they hadn’t been there. At Laurelhurst on Monday everybody was my new best friend, even kids who didn’t know a double from a double play. I got high-fives and low-fives and knuckle bumps in the hallways, in the classrooms, at lunch.
Coach Vereen called us into the wrestling room and gave us a talk on focus. “Eat right, sleep right, do your schoolwork. Keep things normal.” Then his eyes went to me, or at least it seemed they did. “Some of you will get phone calls from news reporters or TV guys or Internet sites. Just remember. There is no I in team.” Hadley, sitting next to me, dug his elbow into my ribs.
Vereen sat us down on the mats and had us watch World Series highlights, which turned out to be boring. When you know that every play is going to be great, none of them are.
As we left the gym, he handed each of us an envelope. “You get four passes for the games at T-Mobile. Don’t even think of selling them, not even for a Sn
ickers bar.”
I did a quick count in my head: Mom, Antonio, Curtis, and Suja. It was sunny and warm, and I didn’t feel like sitting in my basement room. I had to get the tickets up to North Central sometime. Why not now?
I texted my mom. She said she’d be at the apartment, but she called while I was on the bus: she was stuck at work. “Antonio should be around, though. You could hang out with him until I get there.”
Antonio wasn’t at the apartment. I stuck three passes into the mailbox and texted Suja. I was expecting another Sorry, won’t be there, but her response was immediate. At home. C U in 10.
Jet City had more empty spots, more deserted trailers, more trash along the fence. Suja opened the door before I’d taken two steps up her walkway. She hugged me and told me how everybody at North Central High was rooting for me.
A table with green plastic chairs was set up in front of her house. We sat in the unexpected sunshine and talked. The Senior Ball. Graduation. Whitman College. Baseball. Then came a pause. “Laz, I’m sorry, but I’ve got a physics final coming up.”
I jumped to my feet. “I need to g-go anyway.” I took her ticket out of my back pocket. “This pass will get you into the championship game. If you want t-to see it.”
She stood and took a step toward me. “I’ll be there.” Then she wrapped her arms around me and gave me another hug.
“Later,” I said, and started down the walkway. Her voice called me back.
“I think your brother is at Garrett’s. They drove in right before you got here.” She paused. “I mean, if you want to talk to him.”
She smiled, waved again, and then went into her trailer. Her door closed, leaving me standing on the gravel path.
Did I want to talk to Antonio? He confused everything, making it hard for me to focus. And I needed to focus now more than ever. Waiting until the season ended was the smart thing to do. I took a couple of steps toward Aurora Avenue but then stopped.