Mudville

by Kurtis Scaletta

  When my dad isn't looking, he mimes a pitch, then a batter getting hit in the ribs. “Oof,” he mouths, then pantomimes a man falling dead, his tongue poking out of his mouth. It's pretty childish.

  I wake up long before Sturgis on Thursday morning. Sleep has become more and more elusive for me. I get dressed in the dark and go to the kitchen. Yogi pads after me, quietly meowing for breakfast. I give him some, although he's sure to get a second helping when the others wake up.

  We have three days until the game. We can't even practice tomorrow because they're installing bleachers. I don't see how we can possibly be ready. Everything we've done as a team has revolved around Sturgis being a lights-out pitcher.

  I turn on the TV, muted, to catch the sports scores. The blue screen comes on for the DVD player, and instead of flip-ping the switch to TV, I use the universal remote to turn on the DVD. I'm curious what someone's been watching.

  It's the same old DVD of the game from twenty years ago. My dad must have been watching it, reliving his defining moment. There's Bobby Fitz cruising through the first in-ning, and there's the Sinister Bend pitcher warming up, with the familiar sneer and hair in his eyes.

  The familiar sneer.

  In English class, we learned the word “epiphany.” I forget what the story was about, but an epiphany is when a guy is going about his business and bam, he has a realization about something. I think in the story, the guy suddenly realized he didn't believe in God. Or maybe he realized he did believe in God. It doesn't matter.

  What matters is that I have an epiphany, right in the middle of a bowl of cereal, two seconds before I flip over to the sports news channel for the ticker with last night's base-ball scores.

  The epiphany is this: The mean kid on the mound is Carey Nye. That battered baseball cap Sturgis wears is his father's old cap. Sturgis doesn't want to beat Moundville for Sinister Bend. He wants to do it for his old man.

  It must have been Sturgis, not my dad, who stayed up late watching that DVD. I imagine him watching that fatal last pitch over and over, his teeth grinding as he vows revenge. Never mind that my dad has taken him in and even bought him his baseball glove.

  Well, that's his prerogative.

  I venture out, heading for the ballpark, as if extra hours by myself can make any kind of difference.

  That morning at the ballpark, a woman parks a rented car illegally, brushes past the crowd, and makes her way to the bullpen, where Bobby is helping Rita with the fastball. She greets Bobby Fitz with a familiar hug.

  “He's got a pretty cute wife,” says Steve.

  “That's not his wife. I think it's my mom,” I tell him. Steve's mouth drops open.

  “I just haven't seen her in so long,” he tries to explain as I walk slowly to the bullpen, taking off my mask.

  “Hi, Roy,” my mom says.

  “Hey.”

  She gives me a hug and a peck on the cheek. “I can barely get my arms around you with this thing,” she says, tapping the chest protector. “And you're so big now!”

  “That's what happens,” I tell her.

  “So I hear you're the big man out here,” she says.

  “Yeah, I'm captain.” I mean it to be matter-of-fact but come off sounding like a small boy trying to impress his mommy. I'm surprised she doesn't give me a cookie. Or maybe I'm just self-conscious because Rita is looking on.

  “Well,” my mom says, “I thought I would come see your big game.”

  “You know about that, huh?”

  “Word gets around. I would have been here sooner, but I was in Barcelona. I took the whole weekend off and came straight here.”

  So that's how big this game is. Long-lost relatives fly in from Mediterranean ports, arriving just in time to watch us lose.

  “Mom's here,” I tell my father that evening as I try to find an entry point to a cabbage thing that might have been Sturgis's idea. My dad has done some awful things as a cook, but he's never made me eat cabbage before. Now I've got a massive raw cabbage leaf on my plate, folded and tied around a mysterious lump.

  “Is she?” he says, trying to act casual. He's poking at his thing with a fork. Sturgis has already eaten his and taken off somewhere, probably with his new baseball friends.

  “She seemed pretty happy to see Bobby Fitz,” I tell him.

  “Well, we used to all be friends,” he explains.

  “Including you and Carey Nye?” I ask.

  “Sure, a little.” He goes after his cabbage leaf with a knife. A cascade of minced chicken, celery, carrots, and red pepper flakes spills out. I hack at my own cabbage thing until I get at the filling. I take a bite. It's not bad, actually.

  “So you know Sturgis's dad?”

  He takes a long time to chew and swallow. “It sounds like maybe you've done some sleuthing.”

  “Not really. I just figured out stuff.”

  “Well, the fact is…” He takes a deep breath, bracing himself. “Carey used to work for me. He worked with me, I should say. I wasn't the boss or anything back then. We were just a couple of guys doing odd jobs together, you see.”

  “It seems kind of weird, that you'd be friends, after that game and everything.”

  “Well, that was only baseball, for one thing,” my dad says. “Carey was a hard worker, and putting up those rain systems, you really need two sets of hands, and it made sense for us to do it together.”

  “Why him, though? You must have had other buddies. What about Bobby Fitz?”

  “Roy, Carey was practically family. He was engaged to Evie.” Aunt Evelyn is little more than a rumor to me. She's the one who died in a car accident. I was a baby at the time. I don't even remember meeting her. My dad hardly ever talks about her.

  “They met in high school,” he says, “and that was that. My sister was crazy about him. They got serious fast. Maybe it had to do with our dad not being around. I needed help and Carey needed work, so …” He shrugs.

  “Well, I guess it's not a big deal,” I say. “So did they like break up or something? When he went off to be a baseball player?”

  My father takes a long, deep breath. “Roy…” He looks at me, and suddenly I get it.

  “They were married?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Sturgis is…”

  “My nephew. Your cousin. We're his next of kin. That's why he's here. I never signed up for foster parenting.”

  “Why didn't I know him when we were little?”

  “Carey was always a bit of a bully, and when he went into pro ball, he got worse. You give the wrong kind of guy a little money, and it ruins him. He was arrogant, and he wasn't good to my sister, and I just didn't like him much. We drifted apart. That's all. It happens.”

  “Me and Sturgis could have hung out, though.” I imagine a pint-sized Sturgis lobbing Nerf balls at me. “We could have always been buddies.”

  “I'm sorry,” he says. “You probably would have been good for each other.”

  “So why didn't you tell me all that? At least, when Sturgis moved in.”

  “I don't know,” he says. “I meant to. I guess there's just a lot of old scabs I didn't want to pick at. Like losing Evie.” He looks forlornly at his cold supper like he might start blubbering. I decide against making him pick at that scab any more.

  I meet Miggy and Google at the ballpark on Friday. We can't practice, but we have other plans. Carlos, as always, is in tow.

  “Let's go,” I tell them.

  “Vamos” says Miggy, and the four of us start walking through town.

  “Sinister Bend stinks!” someone screams at us as we walk by the town hall. A few other drivers are happy just to honk their horns. I also notice a bedsheet has been carelessly hung from the water tower, spray-painted in red: “Go, Mudville Nine!”

  We walk to the brink of the hill heading down to Sinister Bend. Miggy and Carlos translate for me, explaining the situation to Google. We need him to be our scout, Miggy tells him, because he's the only player Sturgis and P.J. don't know. He
is to go join the Sinister Bend team for the morning. If they don't let him play, he should just watch. He'll come back after a couple of hours and tell Miggy everything, and Miggy will tell me. What are the team's strengths? What are its weaknesses? How many right- and left-handed batters do they have?

  I give him directions to where the Sinister Bend team plays, and he hurries off. In the meantime, the three of us toss a ball around.

  “We don't live far from here,” says Miggy after about an hour. “I could go get lunch and come back. I'll make sandwiches for everyone.”

  That sounds good to me. Miggy trots off, and Carlos waits with me.

  “You guys are pretty close, eh?”

  “Of course,” he says. “We're brothers. Like you and the mean boy.”

  “We're not brothers.”

  A moment later, we hear shouts and footsteps. Google is flying up the road toward us. He's crying, and yelling in Spanish.

  Carlos shouts back in Spanish and runs to meet him. They go back and forth for a while, Google talking excitedly and Carlos trying to calm him down.

  “He says they're chasing him,” Carlos says. He looks down the hill, searching for someone, and shakes his head. He talks to Google. “I just told him there's nobody there,” he says.

  Google talks some more and rubs his head. There is already a knot growing on it.

  “He says they let him play,” says Carlos, “but then …”

  “I think I can guess what happened,” I say.

  The moment Sturgis walks in, I jab him in the chest and back him up to the door.

  “What's with you?” he asks.

  “You plugged Google!” I say.

  “Who?”

  “You hit our player. In the head!”

  “He was a spy,” he says calmly.

  “He wasn't a spy, he was a scout. It's part of the game,” I tell him. “And, by the way, you and PJ. know everything about our team, so why shouldn't we know anything about yours?”

  “We don't need any information about your team,” he says. “Do you think we're breaking down each batter, figuring out how to pitch you and how to play you? That's a laugh. I can strike every one of you out, and that's all I need to do.”

  “If you're so sure, what do you care if we send a scout over?”

  “Because it's dirty business,” he says. “That's all.”

  “It's part of the game,” I tell him. “Anyway, you never throw at a guy's head. Never!”

  “Ah, I just wanted to scare him,” he says casually.

  “You could have seriously hurt him.”

  “It was just a junkball. About a three.”

  “The next time you hit someone, I'll flatten you.”

  “You're the one I'll plunk first,” he mutters. “Brace your-self for a ten, Roy. A twenty, even.”

  “Yeah? Well, I'll throw the ball right back at you,” I tell him. “I'll do a little head-hunting of my own. See how you like it.”

  “Hey, hey,” says my dad, coming out of the office. “What's going on?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Just a little smack talk.”

  “Settle it on the ball field, okay?”

  “Oh, that's what I plan to do,” says Sturgis with a sly grin.

  Much later, when we're supposed to be sleeping, I shake Sturgis awake.

  “Did you know that we're related?” I ask him.

  “Yeah. We're cousins.”

  “Why didn't you tell me?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Sure you did. That's why you call my dad Uncle Bill all the time.”

  “Well, I'm sorry. Are you going to flatten me now?” He's still fuming about how I threatened him.

  “You should've told me. I never lied to you.”

  “You lied to me about Yogi.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You told me he had an accident and that was how he lost his tail. Well, I looked it up on the Internet, and Manx cats just come like that.”

  “I didn't lie exactly,” I sputter. “I just didn't go out of my way to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, same here.”

  “That's different.” I try to think of a good reason why it's different.

  “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “I guess,” I tell him. “I don't care anyway.”

  He's out cold in seconds. The secret-keeping traitor sleeps like a baby. Meanwhile, me and my clean conscience toss and turn.

  There are big cardboard boxes waiting in the dugout on Sun-day morning.

  In the boxes are new uniforms. They're white with silver and gold pinstripes, and the caps have the letter M in bold, fancy script. The logo of the realty company where Steve's mom works is sewn on the sleeves. I guess that takes the mystery out of who paid for them.

  “These are awesome,” I tell Steve.

  “She saw everything your dad did and wanted to do her part.” He grins, and I know he's thinking the same thing as me. She wanted her fair share of the publicity.

  We don't have proper locker rooms yet, but the pool hall across the street lets everyone change in the back room. The girls go first, then us.

  “We look like a real baseball team!” says David after he changes.

  “I sure hope we can play like one,” I reply.

  We proceed not to. Suddenly everyone on the team is tripping over ground balls in the field and striking out at the plate. As morning turns to afternoon, we just get worse. The usual crowd of spectators are quiet, most of them shaking their heads in misery. However, a few Sinister Bend supporters hang around to heckle.

  I knew the Sinister Bend team had some good players, but I was hoping there were a few weaknesses we could exploit. No such luck. Google tells me (with Miggy translating) that the Sinister Bend team is tough all the way through the order. They can hit the ball, and they play good defense. With Sturgis pitching, they'll be hard to beat. All the more reason to wince with every misstep and blunder as we practice.

  When Anthony bounces a ball over the pitcher's mound and into center field, though, I lose my temper.

  “No, no, no!” I shout. “That should have been a double-play ball, not a double! What are you doing, Rita? You're not done with the play after you pitch. You have to field your position!”

  “It was over my head.”

  “You can reach for it,” I tell her. “It wasn't that high. If you can't catch it, at least knock it down. And, Kaz, why aren't you backing her up?”

  “I didn't know I was supposed to.”

  “This is ridiculous! We're playing tomorrow, and we're not even close to ready.”

  “We're trying, Captain,” says Rita.

  “I know, I know,” I say. “But we don't get any outs for trying. We have to execute.”

  “We've only been playing a few weeks,” says Kazuo. “We've come a long way, all things considered.”

  “I know. I just feel like we're moving backward.” I look around at everyone. A couple of guys lower their heads, just like I'm a real coach hollering at them.

  “Look, I don't care if they beat us. I just don't want to beat ourselves.” It's a lie, of course; I do care if they beat us. It would be worse if we made it easy on them, though. “Steve, that means no hotdogging. You're not Ozzie Smith. Kazuo, that means throwing to the right base. Rita, that means not being afraid of the ball when it comes back at you. Google, that means—never mind, you're perfect.”

  “Search me,” he says with a grin.

  “Shannon, that means looking in for signs. I might need to shade you over. Look on every pitch. I mean it. You get bored out there and stop paying attention. Miggy and Tim, do what Shannon tells you. And keep the ball in front of you, Miggy. Don't overrun it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says.

  “Look, Roy,” says Bobby, coming out. “I wonder if I can talk to you a second.”

  He takes me aside and talks in a low voice.

  “Look at your team.”

  I look at them, scuffling
around in the dirt, and feel queasy.

  “We'll never be ready,” I say, shaking my head.

  “I think maybe you kids need some time off. You're not going to become major leaguers this afternoon, so why not call it a day and come in fresh tomorrow?”

  “I guess you're right,” I say. The truth is, I need the break more than anyone. I'm beat.

  “All right,” I announce, heading back to the group. “We're taking the rest of the day off. Take it easy and get a good night's sleep. We have a baseball game to play tomorrow.”

  The team looks sort of confused at first, then relieved.

  “All right, Captain, see you tomorrow,” says Rita with a friendly tap on the back.

  They slowly scatter, while the most die-hard fans offer a smattering of applause, yelling “Let's go get 'em!” and junk like that.

  I have a hard time leaving the field. I just look out at the grass, the new bleachers, and the scoreboard. I think about all the team captains who've stood here the day before the big game—none of them recently, of course—each one nervous and excited for the next day. Some might have felt they had a chance. Others probably felt hopeless, as I do. I remember Peter's stories about how it just felt like the Moundville team was fated to lose.

  “We'll get creamed,” I say to Bobby.

  “Then you'll be part of a long tradition of Moundville baseball,” he says.

  I notice my mother is in the stands after everyone else has wandered off.

  “I've been wondering what you're up to,” I tell her. I haven't seen her since the first time she came to practice.

  “I didn't want to be a distraction,” she says. “I know how it is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, maybe we can catch up now? I'll buy you a soda and a sandwich.”

  “Sure.” I'm not too comfortable with it but can't see any way around it. Besides, I'm hungry.

  We pop into the downtown diner. As soon as I walk in, people are elbowing each other and pointing me out. The booths are all taken, but some people vacate theirs and let us sit down.

  “Good luck tomorrow, Roy,” they tell me.

  The waitress rushes over to clear the table for us.

  “What can I get you, champ?” she asks.