Plunking Reggie Jackson

by James Bennett

  Coley stood up suddenly to leave. But he tripped on his cast and lost his balance. He fell heavily back into his chair. “I told you I don’t need this shit.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I promised to help you and I will.”

  She lit one of her cigarettes, during which time he managed to calm down. “I don’t even know what to do the survey on,” he admitted.

  “Did Mrs. Alvarez give you any suggestions?”

  “What’s she got to do with it?”

  “Well, I can’t say for sure, but you just told me you were talking to her. What did the two of you talk about?”

  “The usual, mostly. I’m an academic underachiever. I don’t work up to my potential, yada, yada, yada.” Then he thought for a moment before he said, “She brought up one weird thing, though.”

  “Which was?”

  “She had a lot of information on my older brother.”

  “Patrick?”

  “Yeah, Patrick. She said I might have some hidden guilt about his death. She said the guilt might have something to do with me coming up short on things I do.”

  “Even baseball?”

  Coley was startled. “How did you know that?”

  “I didn’t, Coley,” said Ruthie. “It was just a guess.”

  “Yeah, well. Anyway, it all seemed real weird and confusing. She even said some things about my mother.”

  “What things?”

  “I told her how my mother is always dissin’ Patrick. She puts him down.”

  “How does she put him down?”

  “She always has to remind me how immature he was. And reckless. Thoughtless. Stuff like that.”

  Ruthie tried to blow a smoke ring. It didn’t work; there was a ceiling fan moving too much air. She tried again before she said, “Maybe that’s how your mother deals with guilt.”

  “Say what?” Coley was feeling more and more confused.

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said,” he interrupted, “but how does it make any sense? Patrick dies in a tragic accident, so she puts him down, and that’s how she shows her guilt. Think about it.”

  “I am thinking about it.” Ruthie was looking him straight in the eye. Even though the light wasn’t bright, Coley noticed for the first time that she had green eyes. “Ruthie, your eyes are green.”

  She blew smoke in his face. “No, they’re not. I have tiny red eyes.”

  “What the hell does that mean? No, don’t tell me—somethin’ else from the play.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Never mind. Get back to the subject.”

  “Okay, what about this? Patrick was a hell-raiser. He got in trouble a lot. He was reckless—your word. Maybe when your mother puts him down, she’s really trying to confess that she was a bad parent.”

  “A bad parent?”

  “Yeah. What if she’s afraid she didn’t teach him enough discipline? What if she’s afraid she wasn’t strong enough to teach him values? He was a big superstar—who would care if he was an asshole from time to time?”

  “That’s where my dad would be at with it.”

  “Exactly. So what if your mother feels guilty because she let it get that way?”

  Coley took a few minutes to reflect before he said, “What you’re sayin’ is, she’s puttin’ herself down when she disses him.”

  “More or less, yes.”

  “Ruthie, this is too much. This is not how I think.”

  “You can think this way if you give yourself a chance.”

  “Besides,” he objected, “what does this have to do with a values survey?”

  Ruthie was finishing her mocha by rasping off the bottom drops with the tip of her straw. “It could have everything to do with it. When there’s a tragic death, how do people deal with their guilt?”

  “Okay, but that’s just a theory. This is supposed to be a survey.”

  “So, you’ve got a small start. Your own guilt. Your mother’s.”

  “Which I don’t even understand. Besides, that’s only two.”

  “What about Mrs. Alvarez? What else did she say?”

  His recollection came slowly but surely. Coley leaned all the way back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “She talked about it too,” he finally said, quietly.

  “Talked about what?”

  “She talked about guilt. She talked about her husband. He died on a military training mission. She says she feels guilty about it even though she wasn’t even there.”

  “Now we’re up to three.” She looked at her watch. “And we’ve only been discussing it for half an hour.”

  Coley was indeed seeing the light, but it was a light that seemed too bright and too vast. “Okay, what about you?” he asked Ruthie.

  “What about me?” She stood up. “I think we should go now. I’ve got two chapters of trig waiting for me at home.”

  “Okay,” said Coley, rising from his chair, “but what about your guilt? Your old man left you and your mother, right?”

  “My ‘old man,’ as you put it, isn’t dead. He’s just an asshole.”

  “Okay, he’s not dead. But he’s still gone. Do you think you had somethin’ to do with him takin’ off?”

  “I sure hope so.” They were walking out the door.

  While Coley pondered her response, Ruthie stopped long enough to thrust her hip again. “What a dump,” she declared.

  Chapter Ten

  Bree went with him when he made his second visit to the sports medicine clinic.

  Dr. Nugent was encouraging after he examined the new set of X rays. “This is about as good as we could have hoped for.”

  “Great. When can I pitch?”

  The doctor smiled. “Not so fast. Let’s talk about some rehabilitation first.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.” As eager as Coley was, Dr. Nugent was all the way down the line by the book. Having removed the cast, he used his fingertips to probe the damaged ankle, which was white and stubbled like an old man who needed a shave. “Is there a whirlpool in the locker room at your high school?”

  Coley grunted: “Yeah.” Occasionally there were twinges of pain when the doctor pressed hard, but nothing acute. On the front of the ankle was a small greenish bruise about the size of a quarter. Bree was holding his arm when she wasn’t gripping his hand. Coley wondered if Dr. Nugent thought it was weird, her being with him. We must look like some lame and out-of-luck couple sucking up to a doctor for fertility drugs.

  Dr. Nugent gave him a plastic walking cast that was held in place by Velcro strips. “I want you to wear this when you’re at school or walking in public places. Wear it anytime you’re walking on an uneven surface, like your yard or a playing field.”

  “Can I throw?”

  “Not yet. Until the time comes when you can really trust this ankle and drive on it, you’ll probably overcompensate and strain other muscle groups.”

  “Come on.”

  “Like your arm, maybe. A pitcher with a sore ankle is one thing, but a pitcher with a bad arm is in trouble. You’re listening to me, right?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  The doctor continued. “This is a manual of ankle exercises you can do at home. Follow the directions closely, don’t improvise. Anytime you feel pain, it’s time to stop and rest. You want to be aggressive enough so you push yourself right up to the threshold of pain, but don’t go beyond that.”

  “Okay.” Coley took the printed manual and folded it over so it could fit in his pocket. Bree took it from him, though, to put it in her purse.

  “I’m going to send you out to the university so you can get an inflatable lace-up cast. You can run wearing it. Don’t run on any uneven surface, though; run in the gym or on the track. Just remember, the rule of thumb is always the same: Push yourself to the point of pain and then back off.”

  “What about the stationary bike and stuff in the water?” Coley asked.

  “Perfect. The more the better. You need to be in shape when you�
�re ready to pitch.”

  On the drive home Coley enjoyed the freedom of the lighter, sleeker plastic cast. He was determined to follow all the rehab guidelines; thinking ahead, he realized he might be pitching again in two to three weeks, which would still be the month of May, which would still be before the start of the play-offs.

  Bree squirmed close. “What did the doctor mean when he said you can’t drive yet?”

  “He wasn’t talking about the car. He was talking about pitching. See, when you’re pitching and using the right mechanics, you don’t just step at the plate, you come down hard on your ankle and drive off it.”

  She sighed. “I guess I did ask, didn’t I?”

  Coley knew her patience would wear thin if he went into detail about pitching mechanics. He said, “You have no idea what it’s like, Bree, to just blow a hitter away.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You can’t imagine what a rush it is. You just bring the heat and the batter is frozen in the box. He might as well have a piece of string in his hands instead of a bat, for all the good it’s goin’ to do him. He might as well be a statue; he might as well be the statue.”

  “I never heard you talk like this,” she told him. “Can we change the subject?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s, like, too exciting.” Her hand was on his thigh, squeezing.

  At first he thought she was teasing, but then he knew she wasn’t. How talking about pitching would arouse her would have to be another Bree riddle. But it clearly did. He had to remind himself to watch the road.

  “Let’s pull over,” she said. “You’re getting me excited.”

  “I can’t pull off here.”

  “At the rest stop, then,” she urged.

  “Didn’t we already pass it?”

  “Not yet.”

  It was only a mile to the rest stop, but to Coley it felt like an hour. When they exited and he swiftly skirted the parked semis, Bree pointed to a remote parking space beneath the shade of a mature elm tree.

  Despite the presence of the clumsy cast and the awkwardness of the bucket seats, their lovemaking was swift and sure. The traffic that came and went intermittently was as inconsequential as the clouds.

  The aftermath of this spontaneous afternoon delight, Coley decided, ought to be as good a time as any. “I’ve got a question,” he told her.

  “So what’s the question?” She was dragging her fingernails along the side of his face.

  “I want to know if you’re a virgin.”

  “You want to know what?”

  “You don’t have to, like, be offended; it’s just something I’m curious about.”

  “Why would you be curious about that? Anyway, isn’t that an awful personal question?”

  “Bree, we’re at the point where we can be personal. We have an intimate relationship, which means we can discuss private things with each other.”

  “How can I be a virgin when we make love all the time?”

  “That’s not what I mean. Did you ever have sex with any other guy before we met?” He was thinking of Kershaw but not saying so.

  “I just don’t know why you’d ask me a question like that. It’s pretty insulting, you know.”

  “A question like what?” he asked.

  “You know what I mean. A question like, Are you a virgin?” She was sitting upright in her own seat. Fully dressed.

  “I’m sorry if I insulted you. I didn’t mean to. I’m only asking because I’m curious, like I said.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re curious about a thing like that. I don’t know why you’d even ask me that.”

  “Now you’re pissed.” Confused, Coley started the car.

  “Why shouldn’t I be? We’re making love together, which is the most intimate thing two people can do, and out of the blue you ask me if I’m a virgin.” As if to emphasize the distance she was bent on establishing, she wrapped her seatbelt into place and locked it down.

  It didn’t take him long to get the car up to 75 mph. “How can you call it out of the blue? I mean it’s, like, right when we’re fucking, right after we’re done, and I ask you a question about your sex life. That’s not out of the blue. It would be out of the blue if I asked you, ‘How did your math test come out?’”

  “Please don’t call it fucking,” she said. “And wouldn’t you be pissed?”

  “Wouldn’t I be pissed what?”

  “If I asked you a question like that, wouldn’t you be pissed?”

  “No,” Coley declared. “Ask me anything you want and I’ll tell you. You can even ask me any question you want about Gloria.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her. Why would I want to talk about her?”

  “She’s just an example. I was trying to make a point.” He was annoyed this was going so badly. In a way he wished he’d never asked, but in another way he was convinced there was an important point to be made about intimacy in a relationship. Not that he could do a good job of making it, or even that she would want to get it.

  “Of course I’m a virgin,” she said quietly, staring straight through the windshield.

  “We don’t have to talk about it.”

  “I was a virgin until I met you. I’ll never be one again, though, will I?”

  “Okay, okay, we don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry I even brought it up.” He wanted to believe her, but she wasn’t convincing. By this point the whole question seemed utterly inconsequential. They finished the rest of the drive in silence.

  It turned out that his rehab started with housework. He ran the vacuum cleaner, in his bare feet. Upstairs and down, shifting his weight firmly but carefully from one foot to the other, while leaning on the handle for security. Coley felt like it had to be a resourceful and clever strategy on his part, but it wasn’t encouraging.

  As long as he simply shifted his weight, he was fine, but if he attempted to lift his heel ever so slightly and get up on the ball of his foot, there was pain. He could put all his weight on his right side, but the moment he tried to twist his body or his leg even a trace, there was discomfort. Sometimes it was so acute it shocked him. There was just no place for torque. He was glum; this was a sprained ankle, for Christ’s sake. Each time he was aware of the pain, he could feel an escalating level of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. It seemed like there was too much at stake and not enough time to deal with it.

  His mother thought he had lost his mind. “I’m trying to remember the last time I saw you with one of those in your hand,” she said. She was talking about the vacuum.

  “Have your laughs.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m not losin’ my mind, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I think I meant your ankle,” replied his mother.

  He fudged the truth a bit by saying, “The ankle’s doin’ okay.”

  “If you’re planning on taking care of the housework around here, maybe I should let Mrs. Trinh go?”

  “Like I said, have your laughs.”

  Coley did his running in the gym while wearing the inflatable cast. The apparatus was clumsy, but it gave him confidence because it held the ankle completely rigid; it couldn’t turn or roll. He got fatigued easily. He couldn’t believe two or three weeks of inactivity could leave him out of shape, so he assumed he must be running with an unnatural gait by compensating for the cast. It didn’t weigh much though.

  It was stuffy in the gym. He took long drinks from the water fountain while he rested. Through the window next to the fountain he could see the guys practicing on the field. He chafed with impatience. The team’s record was 6-3 (not counting the games in Florida). He longed to join them. Coach Mason told him he was welcome to be on the field and do what he could, but they both knew there wasn’t any team activity that would improve his stamina or speed his recovery.

  Some days, after he finished this private workout, he did join the squad on the field; he didn’t participate in the team drills, but he sat on the bench. He passe
d the time, even during games, doing ankle lifts by means of a rope tied to a ten-pound weight that he looped over his toe.

  At times he helped Jamie Quintero. Coley watched him throw and gave him pointers. At least it was a small contribution he could make.

  Once, during a practice break, Rico asked him how the rehab was coming.

  “It’s coming good. I feel like I could do about anything I wanted.”

  “You have to be sure, though, man. Don’t take any chances.”

  “Not you, too, Rico. That’s what everybody tells me.”

  “Yeah, but it’s true. I think I’ve got this thing figured out.”

  “What thing?”

  “The scenario. Here’s how it goes: We get you back at the end of the month for those two games in Peoria and Decatur. Assumin’ we’re still alive for the play-offs, that is, which I think we will be. If we’re not, then we will be just as soon as you nail down those two.”

  “You’re sayin’ I should wait till the end of May before I pitch again.”

  “Here’s what I’m sayin’: It doesn’t really matter how many games we win, as long as we get in the play-offs. That’s startin’ over, everybody is equal. That means we’ve got you on the mound, one hundred percent, and we’re still in the play-offs. What could be better?”

  “Is this Coach Mason’s idea or yours?” Coley asked him.

  “This is me, man. This is me talkin’. Mason might like the idea or he might not, I don’t know.”

  “There’s gonna be scouts, Rico. There’s gonna be major-league scouts that wanna see me pitch, and the player draft is in June.”

  “You think I don’t know that? You’ve already got a scholarship, though.”

  Coley made a face. “I know, but you’re talkin’ college. If I could get a decent contract, I’d rather sign.”

  “That’s cool,” Rico said. “I don’t blame you. But just remember, the most scouts will show up for the play-offs.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Coley had to admit. Even when the advice sounded sensible, there was just too much of it.

  Coach Mason joined them, and the conversation turned in the uncomfortable direction of academics. “How’s the ankle?”

  “Pretty good, I guess.” What else could he say? “It’ll be okay.”