The Flex of the Thumb

by James Bennett

  Ricky Henderson asked Neal, “Why’d you take the screen away?”

  Neal was adjusting his face mask to double check its security. He said, “Lucas don’t want it. I guess he figures ain’t nobody gonna make contact.”

  This answer made Henderson furious. He locked his spikes in deep and tightened his grip on the bat handle. “I’m gonna wire this pale motherfucker up,” he announced.

  From his crouch Neal said, “Get ready for some high heat.”

  This second insult was more astonishing than the first to Henderson. “You tellin’ me what’s comin’?! Are you crazy??”

  Neal just laughed while Henderson turned his notorious glare on Vano Lucas. Vano didn’t see the glare, though. What he saw was the pitch complete, before he even threw it. He saw its beginning, its middle, and its end. He saw its velocity as well as its track.

  Vano went slowly into his wind-up. The pitch exploded up and in to Henderson so fast it seemed like warp speed. The Oakland all-star was paralyzed. Quinn, the umpire, exclaimed “HoooHaaa!” which everyone understood to mean strike one.

  The shaken Henderson stepped out of the box to try and regroup. He took a few seconds with the pine tar and longed for focus. It proved to be an exercise in futility, however, for when he stepped back inside the batter’s box it was the same result. The second pitch froze him like the first. On the third delivery, he managed a feeble, late swing, then went straight to the dugout without a word.

  The next batter, Terry Steinbach, went down on three straight pitches without removing the bat from his shoulder.

  In his comfortable seat, Vernon Lucas was cackling. He asked Rakestraw if he’d seen enough.

  “That’s only two batters.”

  “I can count,” was Vernon’s reply. “Let me know when you’ve seen enough.”

  Rakestraw didn’t answer, but made a be-quiet gesture with the palm of his hand. The Oakland hitters went down one by one, like sheep in the chute. Most of them were called out, while others managed a late swing or two, of the impotent variety. Dave Henderson took a swing at every pitch, but made no contact.

  On his second at-bat, Mark McGuire hit one foul tip. Then he was called out on a 115-mile an hour blazer low and away. Vano had pitched through the entire line-up twice without allowing even one fair ball to be hit. He signaled to Neal, who came to the mound. “I need a break,” Vano complained. “This is like pitchin’ six innings straight.”

  Neal informed Rakestraw who said, “Let’s not only give him a break, let’s give him a check. We know what we’re lookin’ at here, the kid is unhittable.”

  That would have been the end of it, except LaRussa informed that Jose Canseco was insisting on one more chance. He was demanding a third at-bat.

  Rakestraw turned to Vernon Lucas to ask him what he thought.

  “If he’s not too tired to throw to another hitter, it’s okay.” said Vernon. “You’ll have to ask him. Go ahead and get your checkbook out, though.”

  “Ask him,” Rakestraw said tersely to Jerome Neal.

  When Neal asked Vano if he felt up to throwing to one more hitter, Vano was annoyed. But he said okay. “Who is it?” he wanted to know.

  “Canseco wants one more chance.”

  Vano popped his gum. “Okay. One fast ball, one slider, and then a change.”

  “You throw a change?”

  “I’ve got a circle change. I like to throw it once in a while, just for fun. Let’s not just strike him out, let’s make him look bad.”

  Jerome Neal was grinning. “You seen a batter yet didn’t look bad?”

  “Hey, give me a break here; I just wanna throw it.”

  Neal was still grinning. A lifetime .181 hitter during his checkered big-league career, he was getting no small satisfaction watching the overpaid, overindulged superstars overmatched. “Sounds good, Kid. Just make sure you remember the order.”

  The first pitch was a laser, up and in. Canseco took a very late, albeit ferocious swing. He missed. He pounded his bat on the plate in frustration. The slider he hadn’t seen; it froze him for strike two.

  There were no vibes, yet Vano still took a lingering look at the clouds before he threw the change, which he was careful to keep down and away. At a mere 85 miles per hour, it approached Canseco like slow motion. So far out in front was the Oakland slugger that he nearly disclocated his spine. He took a hopeless swing while striving in vain to keep his hands back.

  The bat flew out of his hands.

  Vano didn’t see it coming, at least not right away. It helicoptered its way in a twirling arc in his direction. When he did see it, it was too late to react. The big end of the Louisville Slugger nailed him right between the eyes, precipitating a festival of lights in his brain. Vano went down hard like a dropsack on a loose tether.

  The impact of the pitching rubber did some modest damage to the lumbar region of his back, but he was unaware of it. He was out cold.

  Vano’s coma lasted 30 days. After three weeks, during which time he showed no sign of improvement, the doctor explained to Vernon that they might have to move him to a rehabilitational facility in Modesto.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a facility which specializes in long-term care. This hospital is no longer appropriate.”

  “You think you’re going to warehouse him, in other words. Do I have any say in this?”

  “No.” Then the doctor said, “It might be time to start thinking about some difficult decisions.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If he continues to show no sign of recovery, you may want to ask yourself how long we should continue with this intravenous feeding.”

  Vernon Lucas was appalled. “Are you out of your fucking mind?? Do you have any idea who this is?”

  “He’s your son, I believe.”

  “This is Vano Lucas! He’s got the greatest arm in the game! Maybe in the history of the game!”

  “It’s never an easy situation to confront,” murmured the doctor.

  For her part, Sister Cecilia burst into tears and left the room. She made her way to the hospital chapel where she lit candles and worried her way feverishly through the rosary.

  In his coma, Vano was a tabula rasa. He might have been dead. Until the 28th day, that is, when he fluttered some modest brain activity which triggered occasional moments of subconscious and semi-conscious perception. A mental picture of a terraced pyramid with urban flavor somehow, but so indistinct in its definition as if it sat behind a scrim. It was an image which repeated itself from time to time in his elliptical brain like a dream, only lacking even the de facto sequencing of a dream.

  On his way back to consciousness, Vano surfaced by way of an intense telepathic journey through time and space. He was zooming through the universe. It may have lasted only a few moments, but since time was suspended, it seemed like a lengthy event. He was passing at incredible speed through a zone of laser beams and particles of light.

  At first there seemed to be no pattern to the twinkling. There was nothing beneath his feet that he could see, yet he felt himself supported somehow. He found himself in a chamber of sorts where light patterns suggested walls, then quickly vanished. Coalitions of light points defined the presence of evanescent human-like shapes.

  Vano heard a voice: “Welcome.” The voice seemed to have as its source one of the shapes, but the shapes twinkled in and out, and not always in the same spot.

  The voice spoke again: “You will know us as particle people. That is not a name we use, but earth humanoids, dwelling in the ego mode, are usually comforted by a system of labeling.” The diction was so clean and firm. Vano thought the voice sounded like the radio announcer on the midnight to six A.M. shift. Each of the particle people had an occasional head region, but nothing resembling a mouth. He couldn’t tell which of the particle people was speaking at any given moment.

  The particle voice continued by saying, “Our way of life is the way of complete harmony with the ebb and flow of t
he universe. We are able to reduce ourselves to the billions of atomic particles of which we, like all matter, are constituted. In this diffuse state, we float through the universe as particle dust, each atomic particle a microcosm of the total organism. We live in concord with the entire span of the electromagnetic spectrum. When there may be cause, we are able to reconvene our atomic particles, so to speak, in a sort of committee of the whole. It is then that we assume these humanoid forms. Now you understand the fundamental principle of particle mode existence.”

  Vano Lucas wasn’t sure he understood anything. He could see countless stars in all directions. He could see nothing when he looked down, yet he still felt something firm underfoot. The walls, though transparent, were visible from time to time, just like the particle humanoids themselves. He wondered how he got here, and what he was doing here.

  “You are here because the vibrations you have known from time to time have led you to the threshold of hooommm, if only on a superficial plane. You have the capacity, or so we believe, to go beyond.”

  Hooommm? Vano wondered. Since they were able to know his thoughts, it occurred to him that the particle people might be God.

  The particle voice seemed to reside in his brain as well as without: “We are not God. We can know your thoughts because we are blended with the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Dwellers on Earth are fond of imagining a huge creature like themselves, who lives in the sky. They call this imaginary creature God. It is a predictable and, in some respects, necessary compensation because the way of life for humanoids on Earth is the ego mode. It includes only a very tiny fraction of the spectrum. There is no self but the ego, and very little freedom from the demands made by this self. The energy needed to maintain the ego mode is its own support system. Now you understand the fundamental principle of ego mode existence.”

  But Vano’s head was swimming. It was plain to him that he was hearing only parts of what the particle people were telling him, and his understanding of what he did hear was so limited.

  “Do not worry,” the particle voice instructed him. “Everything we are telling you will lodge in your memory bank. Which parts become available to your conscious mind will, of course, depend on your development. The point of emphasis is that hooommm is a zone in response to the ego mode, but it is also part of a larger process which, at this point, remains beyond your ken. This is a partial understanding of the actual meaning of existence. Someday, your understanding may be complete.”

  And then in an instant, the particle people were gone. Vano felt himself whisked away at unimaginable speed, surrounded once again by the darkness and the flashing laser beams.

  Awake and alert in the aftermath of this cosmic downhill, he rolled onto his side in the hospital bed. There were strong vibrations to rattle the cage of this tenuous consciousness. His hospital room seemed pellucid with an orange haze. Even so, he could make out clearly the two women seated near the window, wearing salmon hospital smocks.

  He was looking at them, but immersed in crossword puzzles, they failed to notice his brand-new body language. Vano’s hooommm was still a dull roar, and the two women seemed so far away. “I think I’ve been someplace,” he announced in a loud voice.

  The startled women turned to look. “Did you say something? Are you awake?”

  Vano repeated it, after a pause: “I think I’ve been someplace.”

  Driving his brand new Lincoln Town Car, Vernon Lucas took Vano home from the hospital. Other than the lack of stamina associated with his weakened condition, Vano seemed to be feeling just fine. The new automobile had burgundy velour seats and a busy instrument panel which looked extremely high tech. His father asked him how he liked the car.

  After a pause Vano said, “It’s real nice, Dad.”

  Vernon had never heard his son call him Dad before. He went ahead nevertheless, “I got it up at Thornton’s in Victorville. Railsback took 2500 dollars off the sticker price, or I wouldn’t have been interested. I really don’t need a new car, since the Buick was only a year old, but when someone makes you an offer like that, it’s hard to pass up.”

  Vano was in a comfort zone of low but firm resonance. It was hooommm. When he finally spoke, it was only to repeat himself: “It’s real nice, Dad.”

  “You see this?” asked Lucas Senior. He pointed to a small blue button on the steering column.

  “I see it,” said Vano.

  “Why are your answers taking so long? Are you paying attention? This button activates a read-out panel; it’s computer operated. Give you about any data you can think of.” Saying this, he pushed the button, which produced an illuminated green rectangular screen above the radio console. Yellow digital letters and numbers indicated the vehicle’s speed, current fuel efficiency in miles per gallon, the time, the date, revolutions per minute of the engine, exact running temperature, and several other pieces of information Vano couldn’t be sure about.

  Looking at this glut of data, Vano felt an uncomfortable flicker, but then it went away.

  “Railsback told me the computer panel was the cat’s meow, and anybody who has one doesn’t want to do without it. It was slick, the way he was trying to gouge me for the few extra bucks, but I told him if I was going to pay for it, the deal was off. He was more or less over a barrel then, because he knew I didn’t really need the car anyway; the bottom line is, he threw it in for no extra cost.”

  Then Vernon stopped talking about the car. Vano wondered what to think about the computer read-out panel. Eventually he said, “It’s real nice, Dad.”

  Lucas Senior decided that ought to be enough small talk. It was time to broach the most salient topic: “How soon do you think you’ll be ready to pitch again?”

  Another lengthy pause transpired before Vano said, “I remember pitching baseball.”

  “You remember pitching baseball? Did I hear you right?”

  “Yes. I do. I believe my memory is intact.”

  “What did that blow to the head do to you?” Vernon Lucas felt his blood pressure escalating to a higher level. “You remember pitching baseball?? That’s like saying Michael Jordan remembers making a basket!”

  Approximately five seconds passed before Vano said, “I can’t remember who Michael Jordan is.”

  Vernon’s agitation intensified beyond his best intentions. “I don’t know what zone you’ve been in for the last month, but I’ve been in the combat zone. I’ve been fending off questions from the Oakland management, legal inquiries from soft drink companies, nagging from the media, and prayer requests from Sister Cecilia. We’re going to have to talk a little turkey here. With all due respect for your condition, of course.”

  “How is Sister Cecilia doing?” Vano heard himself asking. But then he felt himself retreating down the corridor of hooommm to a place of deeper reverberations. He said again, “I can remember pitching.”

  “Do you remember pitching to the Oakland A’s? Do you remember blowing them away in the Coliseum?”

  Eventually, when the answer arrived, it was “Yes.” But Vano discovered that even when his memories were clear, there were no emotional attachments associated with them. They were utterly neutral, like recollecting the turns you might take along a route to reach a particular destination.

  Vernon continued aggressively, “Then maybe you remember what’s at stake? The gold mine is still out there waiting. When do you suppose you’ll be ready to do some throwing?”

  Vano pondered the question, but without urgency, in a condition of total serenity. “When it sounds like it might be fun?” he asked, by way of answering.

  “Fun?!” sputtered Vernon. “Did you say fun??” His crescendoing level of frustration warned him to slow down. As luck would have it, they were on the outskirts of Bakersfield, where he had a favorite restaurant. He swung the car into the parking lot of The Cut Above.

  The Cut Above had subdued lighting and a decor to suggest the turn of the century. Vano’s father stopped at the bar long enough to order two dry martinis. He down
ed one in a hurry, then carried the other to their table. On the table was a kerosene lamp, but it wasn’t burning; it was only for looks.

  The waitress came. Vano’s father ordered garden salad and braised sirloin tips on toast, cooked in wine sauce. He told the waitress, “And one more of these martinis. Dry. Make that right away, please.”

  When it was his turn, Vano said, “I’d like a cheeseburger, please.”

  “Oh come on,” complained his father. “Is that what you’re going to order?”

  Vano felt another of the uncomfortable flickers before the answer came to him. “They didn’t have cheeseburgers in the hospital, I think I’d enjoy one.”

  “How do you know what they fed you in the hospital? You were eating through a tube.”

  Briefly, “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t cheeseburgers.”

  “That’s not something you order in a place like this. You can get a cheeseburger at Burger King, for god’s sake. This menu has a large selection. Maybe you’d better look it over again.”

  The waitress stood with her pad and pencil poised while Vano tried to peruse the menu again. He wanted to think of a reply, but these things seemed to come or they didn’t. He found himself flickering again, just before going numb. Finally his father instructed the waitress, “I guess you might as well bring him a cheeseburger.”

  There was no conversation during the meal. Vano thought the cheeseburger tasted very good. When they were finished eating, Vernon ordered coffee.

  The waitress brought the coffee.

  “Oh come on,” complained Vernon Lucas to the waitress. “When I order coffee, I want a real cup. This cup is only half full.”

  Vano took a disinterested look at the cup, in which the brown liquid rose to a level one half inch below the brim. The waitress said quietly, “With all due respect, Sir, I’d say it’s more than half full.”

  “I don’t want half a cup, I want a full cup when I order coffee.”

  “I’d be happy to bring you some more, Sir.”

  “Well of course.”

  She went to get the pot. During her absence, Vernon said to his son, “Let’s see if we can negotiate some kind of a timetable.”