by Carl Deuker
I signed.
Next, it was details. I was to report to the Augusta GreenJackets, an A-Ball team in Georgia. “We’ll fly you out of Seattle on July first, give you a couple of days to get settled. You won’t officially join the team until July fourth.” He smiled. “That means there will be a fireworks show for your professional debut. Not bad.”
“Where’s he going to live?” Mom asked.
Mr. Leach waved his hands around. “Not to worry. We’ll handle that. The GreenJackets have an arrangement with a place that is close to the ballpark. Your roommates will be other ballplayers, so you’ll get to know them right off. It’s in a mobile home park, but the players all say it’s nicer than what they expected.” He paused. “So what do you say? A trailer okay to start with?”
I caught Mom’s eye and then nodded. “A t-trailer is fine.”
He gathered up his papers, stood, and shook my hand. “We’ll be in touch in the next week to go over the final details. In the meantime, take care of that leg.”
Mom and Curtis walked Mr. Leach to his car. Everybody had been grinning from ear to ear, but once they were all outside, Antonio’s smile turned into a frown.
“Laz, I should have said this—”
“You don’t have t-to say anything, Antonio.”
“But I was such a—”
“D-Don’t,” I said. “It’s all over.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
“Still brothers?”
“Always.”
The door flew open, and Mom and Curtis were back in the apartment.
Mom hugged me again. Curtis took a deep breath, exhaled. “Well, Laz,” he said, “you’ve got a team, a place to stay, and cash in the bank. Not bad. Not bad at all.”
Two
Mom and Curtis had work every day. Antonio had taken incompletes in all his subjects, so when he wasn’t sleeping—he was still really weak—he was hitting the books. With a good senior year, the scholarship to Central Washington was still possible, and he was going after it hard.
Everybody else was busy, but for me it was sit around and wait. The driving range had closed. Suja’s family had moved. Time crawled.
I checked on the GreenJackets every day. Their hitting was decent, but their pitchers were getting battered, which made me want to get to Georgia immediately.
I was flying out early in the morning on July first—my first time on an airplane. The night before, we went to dinner at Olive Garden. Mom had two glasses of wine, and after the second, she got sad. Why had they stuck me on a team so far away? There had to be someplace closer.
“Timmi, San Francisco is close,” Curtis said, and he reached over and gently rubbed her cheek with the side of his hand. “Laz will be pitching for the Giants really soon. He’ll be so rich he’ll fly us down to see him all the time. First-class. Right. Laz?”
“Sure,” I said. “And I’ll g-get you b-box s-seats, too.”
* * *
Mom and Curtis both took the morning off from work so they could drive me to SeaTac airport. Antonio came along, too, even though sitting in the car was probably tough on his insides. As we were heading down 130th toward I-5, we heard a loud, crashing sound.
“What was that?” Mom asked.
We exchanged glances, and then Antonio figured it out.
“It’s July. I bet they’re knocking down Jet City,” he said. “Let’s go see.”
So we did. Curtis pulled up just outside the entrance and switched off the engine. Two monster machines were rampaging through the trailer court, chewing up the abandoned mobile homes. Neither had reached our trailer yet, but one was closing in. We waited, and then we watched as our home was flattened and a dust cloud rose where it had been. Nobody said anything. We just sat for a while longer and watched as other dust clouds rose where other trailers had been.
Finally Curtis restarted the Corolla. As he pulled the car out into traffic, he accelerated, but then had to brake when a slower car pulled in front of him. “Move it, pal,” he said as he slapped the steering wheel. “We’ve got places to go and things to do.”
1
I’M GOING TO BE A FAMOUS REPORTER. My name—Daniel True—will be on the front page of the New York Times. A huge story is waiting for me, and I’ll find it—no doubt about it.
Ah, who am I kidding?
There’s lots of doubt about it. Nothing but doubt.
Still, a guy can dream, can’t he?
When I was little, my dad took me to see All the President’s Men at a theater that shows old movies. I didn’t follow the politics about Nixon and Watergate, but as I watched I knew I was born to be a reporter. Meeting in gritty alleyways with strangers who tell you a little bit of this and a little bit of that, taking those little bits, digging deeper, asking questions, learning more until you’ve got a story that shakes the world—what could be more satisfying than that?
I want to live in New York City, major in journalism at Columbia University, have my finger on the pulse of the world. But instead of being at a great college in an exciting city I’m stuck at mediocre Abraham Lincoln High School in boring Seattle.
For the past three years I’ve written articles for my school newspaper, but my classmates don’t think of me as Daniel True, future prize-winning reporter. To them I’m not even Danny, which is what the kids called me in grade school; or Dan, which is what my mom and dad call me now. At Lincoln, I’m Mitch.
That doesn’t sound like a bad nickname until you hear how I got it. I’m five four and I weigh 180. Okay 190. Okay 200 . . . three months ago. I’ve got wispy blond hair and skin the color of copy paper. Girls don’t chase me down the halls.
Three years ago, when I first walked through the double doors of Lincoln High, Stan Bach, a football player with a Dallas Cowboys star tattooed on his neck and a voice the size of Texas, spotted me in the lunch line. “Hey, look who’s a Lincoln Mustang now,” he said to his friends. “It’s the Michelin Man.” His football buddies roared as if he were funnier than the Three Stooges. Michelin Man! Michelin Man!
For a few weeks kids called me Michelin Man. That was shortened to Mitch Man, which got shortened to Mitch, which stuck. Now, most kids don’t even know that my real name is Daniel. Sometimes even I forget.
Last year Ms. Bergstrom, my English teacher, kept me after class one day. “I heard how you got your nickname,” she said as she roamed the room picking pencils off the floor, “and I know how much it must hurt your feelings. Always remember that Alexander Pope, one of the greatest writers of all time, was a dwarf with pockmarked skin and bad breath.”
She was trying to be nice—but give me a break, lady. I’m not a zitty dwarf with halitosis. Still, after school that day I bought a large tube of Clearasil and a larger bottle of Listerine, both of which I use daily. I don’t want to be “Stinky Mitch” or “Mitch the Zit.”
2
LINCOLN HIGH WASN’T ALWAYS the most boring school in the world. For one incredible week, my corner of Seattle was the center of the media universe. CNN, CBS, ABC, Fox, MSNBC, the New York Times—you name it, and their correspondents were crawling all over Lincoln High.
It happened like this. Chance Taylor, a Lincoln senior with no mother and a drunk for a father, got involved with some Al Qaeda types who were smuggling plastic explosives into the United States from Canada. Homeland security never found out what they were planning to destroy, but a bomb did blow up in Puget Sound, killing two terrorists and Chance’s father.
The editor of the Lincoln Light that year was Melissa Watts, the daughter of a super-rich lawyer. Melissa also happened to be the semi-girlfriend of Chance Taylor. Not exactly a predictable couple: she ended up at some college like Yale, and Chance ended up in a Humvee in Iraq. But then, I’m no expert on why people hook up. Anyway, for months Melissa had suspected that Chance was involved in smuggling.
Imagine it: the editor of a high school newspaper, sitting on one of the biggest stories of the year. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up wh
enever I think about it. So, what does Melissa do? Does she
A) write up what she knows, send it to the New York Times, and transform herself into a famous journalist;
B) turn her boyfriend over to the FBI and become an instant talk-show celebrity, an American patriot with a broken heart, appearing Monday on Oprah; or
C) twiddle her thumbs?
If you guessed C, you win the washer/dryer and one year’s supply of Tide.
So why didn’t I step up when she backed off? A good question, and I’ve got a good answer. I was in middle school when this juicy stuff was going down. If an opportunity like that came my way now, I wouldn’t let it slip away. Unfortunately sleepy Seattle has gone back to being sleepy Seattle.
Still, I need a portfolio to send off to Columbia University as part of my application, so if someone steals Florence O’Day’s 44EEE bra from the girls’ locker room during fourth period, I’ll be there, notepad open and pencil sharpened, asking questions.
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About the Author
CARL DEUKER is a celebrated author of “top-flight sports writing matched to uncommonly perceptive coming-of-age stories” (Kirkus Reviews). He was a teacher for many years in the Seattle area, where he now lives with his wife.
Learn more at carldeuker.ag-sites.net/bio.htm
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