Plunking Reggie Jackson

by James Bennett

  “Even at night?”

  “No, you have to sleep at night. You have ACE bandages at home?”

  Coley nodded.

  “Wrap the ankle in one of those when you go to bed. Compress it. Try to sleep with the ankle elevated by using pillows to get it above your hips.”

  Coley shifted his weight in order to get on his side. “What about walking?”

  The doctor was shaking her head. “You can’t put any weight on it before it’s reexamined. You’ll be on crutches for a while, my friend.”

  “No offense,” said Coley’s father, “but are you a specialist, Dr. Sloan? Are you an expert in orthopedics or sports medicine?”

  “Nope, I’m just your basic ER sawbones.” Saying this, Dr. Sloan returned her stethoscope to her ears and began listening to Coley’s heart. Coley had to wonder if this was really necessary, or if it was the doctor’s way of screening Dad out.

  “Because,” Coley’s father persisted, “we’re going to need a second opinion on this. There’s no way for you to know it, but this happens to be a crucial time in this boy’s life.”

  Dr. Sloan took the stethoscope from her ears before she said, “I think that’s an excellent idea.” The doctor’s demeanor showed that she was annoyed but in control. “Mr. Burke, what I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t even have a first opinion yet. The procedure I’ve outlined is simply to get you to that point. In two or three days, when the swelling is reduced, I suggest you take him to the sports medicine clinic in Champaign.”

  “No offense, okay?”

  “No offense at all.”

  The Darvocet pills Coley took smothered the pain, but they also put him in the fitful sleep that activated dreams. Some of the dreams were about Bree and some were about his brother, Patrick. They seemed to be rooted in actual events but embroidered with preposterous details.

  His mother came down the first morning to ask him how the ankle was.

  “It hurts like hell. I’m going to take some more of those pain pills.”

  “Don’t overdo that,” she cautioned him. “Just take them if you have to.”

  “They put me to sleep and they give me dreams. You don’t have to worry about the ankle, though. I’ll be okay.”

  His mother smiled without parting her lips. “I’m not about to worry about another sports injury, with all we’ve had in this house.”

  That had to be the truth. Coley remembered the time Patrick played a whole football game with his broken hand in a soft cast.

  “I’ve made up twelve of these,” his mother told him, holding up a Ziploc baggie full of ice cubes. “They’re in the freezer.”

  “Are you going to bring my breakfast down too?” Fat chance.

  “I think you know me better than that,” was the answer. “You need help, but you don’t need a servant.”

  Coley peeled back the Velcro strips that secured the plastic ankle splint so he could apply the ice cubes. “Thanks anyway, Ma. For the ice, I mean.”

  “Don’t call me Ma. Are you going to school today?”

  “Not today.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow, either.”

  “Is that your decision, or your father’s?”

  “He doesn’t want me to take any chances. On the stairs, or whatever. I haven’t practiced much on the crutches yet. If it was up to me, I’d rather go to school.” Saying so, Coley thought of Bree. Maybe she could come over after school and help with the business of nursing him back to health.

  “If it were up to you,” said his mother, repeating his own words but lacing them with innuendo. She took a seat on the edge of his bed and stared out the only window, which was just above ground level.

  “Yeah. If it were up to me. I don’t want to get caught in the middle of this, Mother.”

  “Better me than you, Coley? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean either.”

  “That’s the story of our family, isn’t it? Caught in the middle?”

  He knew what she was getting at. If she wasn’t caught in the middle, then he himself was. “Except for Dad,” he said.

  His mother looked at him. “He may be caught in the middle more than either one of us,” she said.

  “Him? How?”

  “Between sons,” was her quick reply.

  “That’s too much to think about. My head hurts.”

  His mother was wearing the white ruffled blouse and the beige pleated skirt. She had on her high-heeled shoes. Before she left the house, she would put on the gold blazer with her name tag, then go sell houses. She would make lots of money doing it, but Coley had to believe that if she stopped getting paid, she wouldn’t take much notice of the fact. She would probably go right on making appointments and showing houses.

  Maybe I should talk to her, he thought. Maybe I should talk to her more. “I’ve been having dreams,” he told her. “One of them was about Patrick.”

  “Maybe it’s the medication.”

  “Yeah, I think maybe it is.”

  “So tell me about the Patrick dream.”

  “It was a dream about the time I went to visit him in Florida at the spring training complex. In the dream he was fixing me up with these beautiful chicks.” Hoping to get me laid, Coley thought without saying so out loud.

  His mother turned to look at him. “Is that what happened when you went to Florida?”

  “No, that’s not what happened.”

  “He didn’t fix you up with chicks?” She spoke the word like an expletive.

  “Of course not. I’m talkin’ about a dream. The facts were, he let me throw some in the complex, I even got to take a little batting practice. You should’ve seen all the kids hangin’ around and the way they envied me. At night he usually had dates or parties and stuff, but he gave me the key to his hotel room so I could watch HBO. One night he bought me tickets for this amusement park that was only a couple miles away.”

  “That would be better than fixing you up with chicks, wouldn’t it?”

  Her sarcasm was annoying. “I’m just trying to make conversation,” he said. “I had a good time in Florida.”

  “And why not? You got to watch HBO every night.”

  “Look, why are you dissin’ Patrick like this, anyway? I said I dreamed he was fixin’ me up; it didn’t really happen.”

  “It just sounds like something he would do,” replied his mother matter-of-factly.

  “Oh, get real.”

  His mother returned her gaze toward the window before she said, “Patrick used to throw the neighbor’s cat back into their yard by the tail. They called the cops on us.”

  “Big deal. Maybe they needed to keep their cat where it belonged.”

  “When he went to summer camp, they sent him home because he insisted on dunking people in the swimming pool.”

  “Yeah, well, I got sent home from summer camp too,” Coley said without thinking.

  “That was completely different. You got sent home from camp because you were homesick, not because you were tormenting other people.”

  “What are you tryin’ to say?” Coley hated the fact that his own slip of the tongue had resurrected the humiliating memory of getting homesick at summer camp.

  “What I’m trying to say is that Patrick had a nasty streak. At times it was more than a streak. Nobody ever talks about it much because he was such a sports star.”

  “No, you’ve got it wrong. Patrick was just mentally tough. That’s the thing that set him apart.”

  “That’s certainly what the sports pages always said.”

  “I don’t know what you’re tryin’ to say here, but I can do without it.”

  “So can I,” agreed his mother. She was getting to her feet. “I came down to find out about your ankle, not to get into an argument about Patrick. I’ll be home for lunch. You can let me know if you need any books or homework from school.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Chapter Ei
ght

  The assessment of Coley’s injury at the sports medicine clinic was no more encouraging than the one from the emergency room. It was a Dr. Nugent this time, who explained that the ankle would have to be in a hard cast for two to three weeks.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Coley.

  “Not good news, I know.” Coley’s X rays were up on the wall in front of a bright screen. “This is somewhere between a grade two and a grade three sprain, which means it’s moderate to severe. You’ve torn the fibers in the ligaments that cover the outside of your ankle.” Dr. Nugent was seated on a tall stool while he spoke, aiming a pointer in the direction of the X rays.

  But Coley had more interest in the bottom line than in the pictures on the wall. “I need to pitch,” he said.

  “You need to get well first,” countered the doctor.

  “But I need to pitch,” Coley insisted.

  Dr. Nugent smiled. It was obvious he’d had this conversation with injured athletes before. “You don’t just need to pitch, you need to pitch well. That won’t happen unless this injury is completely healed and then you take it through proper rehab. You with me?”

  Coley closed his eyes and rubbed them. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A sprained ankle? He’d had them before but been back in action in just a few days. “Jesus Christ,” he said again. “How much time are we talkin’ here?”

  “Worst-case scenario, two months. A month in the cast followed by a month of systematic rehab.”

  “In two months our season will be over,” said Coley glumly.

  “There’s a wonderful thing about being eighteen,” said Dr. Nugent with another smile. “There are so many seasons left.”

  Cute, Coley thought. From the corner of his eye he could see his father working his jaw. He wanted to give the old man credit for keeping his mouth shut, but his excruciating pattern of toe wagging and rubber band snapping had the effect of breaking the silence.

  Coley sighed before he asked Dr. Nugent, “Okay, what’s the best-case scenario?”

  “That would be two weeks in the cast and two weeks in rehab.”

  “And then I could pitch again?”

  “Only a couple of innings to start with. You have to remember, you won’t be in shape; you aren’t going to be doing any running for at least a month.”

  Coley was trying, by the numbers, to put the best face on this. “If I could pitch in a month, that’s still before the play-offs. Maybe I could be in shape for the play-offs.”

  “Maybe. But you have to remember, that would be best case scenario. When we talk in these best- and worst-case terms, we’re talking about the extremes that might develop. Reality usually falls somewhere in between.”

  “We have a good chance to make state,” Coley informed him. “We could even win it.”

  “I know,” said Dr. Nugent.

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I read the sports pages.”

  For the first time Coley’s father spoke up. He wanted to know when they should come back.

  “Let’s be optimists,” replied Dr. Nugent. “Let’s take the cast off in two weeks and reexamine the ankle at that time. No promises, though.”

  “Will there be any permanent damage?” Ben Burke asked him.

  “There shouldn’t be, not if he goes strictly by the book in his rehab.”

  On the drive home Coley tried to make his right leg and ankle comfortable by tilting his seat back. It didn’t work; all he was doing was causing pain by stretching his groin muscles awkwardly.

  The quarrel began when his father looked for the silver lining. He said, “At least you can still lift.”

  Bored by this observation, Coley replied, “I can still lift.”

  “With the extra time you can lift even more than you have been.”

  “Now, there’s somethin’ to look forward to.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass. Just because you can’t run doesn’t mean you have to stop strengthening your upper body.”

  Coley thought of Bree. I didn’t realize you were so big; it’s hard to reach my arms around you. It was the first pleasant thought he’d had all day. He said, “I’m two hundred fifteen pounds, Pa, and it’s all muscle. I’m not exactly skin and bones in my upper body.”

  “You know what I’m saying, and don’t call me Pa. The second thing is, you’ll have more time for homework.”

  “That’s even better than liftin’ weights. Why should I be bummed at all?”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass,” his father said again.

  “I’m okay with my grades.”

  “You are? Not according to Mrs. Alvarez. She sent us a note that you got a progress report in English.”

  “Why the hell did she do that? I explained it all to her.”

  “You’re on the bubble in English.”

  “I’m not on the bubble. Grissom turned in the report before she read my book summaries. I explained all that to Alvarez. Why the hell did she send you a note?”

  “Because she doesn’t have any choice, that’s why. If she gets a progress report from a teacher, she’s required to notify the parents.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “You’re swearing too much these days. It wouldn’t hurt you to clean up your act. Anyway, how many times do I have to lay it out for you? With your ACT scores, you can’t get less than a C in any of your classes.”

  “I know, I know. If I want to keep the baseball scholarship I can’t get less than a 2.3. How many times do we have to go through this?”

  “Until you act like you know, I guess. And you have to get at least one B. Where’s the B going to come from?”

  Human dynamics, Coley thought. But his frustration had escalated too far to talk about it. “Can you get off my case? Isn’t it bad enough I have this ankle?”

  “The ankle’s the whole point. Bobby Esau saw you pitch the game you got injured. He thinks you’re ready. He thinks you’ll go high in the major-league draft.”

  “I know. And he’s not the only one. Who the hell needs college anyway?”

  “That may be your only good option, because of the ankle. If the pros think you’re damaged goods, if they don’t see something more out of you again this spring, they’ll probably back off.”

  “I’ll pitch good again before the season’s over.”

  “Maybe. Maybe you will, but you can’t predict that. The point is, nobody can take a scholarship away unless you don’t qualify academically.”

  Coley’s back hurt. He flipped the lever to maneuver his seat into the upright position. He moved his ankle to the side before he said, “This is just great. The ankle knocks me out of the major-league draft, or Grissom’s English class knocks me out of the scholarship.”

  “Stop whining, for God’s sake. There’s nothing on your plate that you can’t handle.”

  This rebuke made Coley feel like a child. “Are we done now?” he asked.

  “Done with what?” questioned his father.

  “With this conversation. It sucks.”

  “I guess we can be done.”

  “Good.” Coley thought of Bree and wondered if he would see her tonight.

  It was two days later, and Bree didn’t bother knocking. She simply let herself in the front door and then bounced her way down the steps. Coley, who was lifting weights, hadn’t heard her enter the house. Oprah was on.

  Bree had a box of cookies, which she’d baked herself. She gave him one, then another, and then a third. Chocolate chip. He devoured them rapidly. “You bake these?”

  “Yes, I know how to bake cookies. Don’t they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

  “That’s not the way I heard it, Bree. I heard it was through something else.”

  She laughed and then teased him, “Ooooh, Coley. You’re not going to be bad, are you? I’m here on an errand of mercy; are you going to be bad?”

  “Not me,” he replied.

  “Oh, I love Oprah. Isn’t it awful boring lifting weights?”

/>   “Boring as hell.”

  “Are you glad to see me?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Are your parents home?”

  “Nobody’s home. It’s just you and me, babe.”

  Bree giggled. “Maybe we can find something more interesting for you to do.”

  “Let’s hope.” Coley was flat on his back on the vinyl weight bench, wearing an ancient tank top that said SARASOTA and a pair of fleece gym shorts. “How’d you get here?” he asked her.

  “Rico brought me. He said he can even drive me home if I need him to.” She took off her sweater. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a miniskirt. The skirt flared even higher when she spun to lay the box of cookies on the entertainment center.

  “We don’t need Rico,” Coley said. “I can drive you home.” He had the weight bench adjusted so his feet could reach the floor on both sides. He didn’t use his feet for weight bearing, but their contact with the floor gave him the proper leverage for bench pressing without straining other muscle groups.

  “I brought you some homework, too,” she informed him.

  “Wonderful.”

  “There’s a printed form for your human dynamics survey.”

  “Even more wonderful.”

  In order to kiss him, she got on her knees next to the bench. The first kisses were the little darters, rapid on his face and neck, like a bird feeding its young. Then she fastened onto his mouth to work her active tongue inside. As soon as she pulled away, she asked him, “Do you love me, Coley?”

  “What?”

  “I want you to tell me you love me.”

  It was a surprising request, but then Bree was nothing if she wasn’t a source of the unexpected. “Yeah, I guess I do. Why?”

  “I have to be sure, that’s why.” Her hand was inside his tank top, where she was exploring his pectorals and abdominals. “God, I love your muscles.”

  She swelled his ego like a pump. He was thoroughly aroused by this time. When he tried to sit up though, she pressed against his chest to keep him still. He could feel his voice going husky with breath: “You love a lot of stuff today, Bree. You love Oprah and you love my muscles.”

  “I love you, too. It wouldn’t hurt you to say it.”