Game Seven

by Paul Volponi

  “Look out there!” cried Luis. “What’s that floating?”

  It looked to me like a little island, barely big enough for one person to stand on. For an instant, I thought about jumping in and swimming to it. Only I didn’t need to. Instead, the waves brought it right to us.

  “It’s three coconuts connected to some palm leaves,” said Uncle Ramon, who scooped them out of the water.

  “They had to fall off a tree somewhere,” I said. “Maybe one that’s close by.”

  “It’s possible,” said Gabriel, with the horizon still empty. “Or maybe they’ve been out here longer than we have.”

  “Think we should keep them?” Uncle Ramon asked, after he stripped the palm leaves and held up the coconuts, which were still in their green casings. “If so, somebody’s going to have to do the hard work of splitting them open.”

  “Of course we should keep them,” said Luis, taking them into the backseat. “There’s milk inside. What if we run out of drinking water?”

  “Do whatever you want,” said Gabriel. “Personally, I wouldn’t waste the energy. If we’re out here long enough to run out of water, a few ounces of coconut milk aren’t going to save us.”

  But Luis held on to them anyway, and started cutting away at their casings using a small knife that Gabriel gave him from the glove compartment.

  Later on, we had dried apricots and figs for dinner. I could have eaten each one in a single bite. Only I decided to take my time, making our meal last, like we were a real family sitting around a kitchen table at home. Then I thought about Mama and Lola. How I might never share another meal with them again. And even though I was still hungry, I told Luis, “You can finish my figs, Primo. I know they’re your favorite.”

  A few minutes before sunset, a commercial jet roared through the sky maybe three or four miles to the west. That’s when Gabriel and I exchanged a look, like we both wished we had wings to fly.

  “We’ve only been out here twenty-three and a half hours. Less than a whole day,” said Luis. “How could it be sunset?”

  “That’s a good thing,” replied Gabriel. “It means we’re making progress, moving north. Night falls in Florida before it does in Cuba, because of the curve of the earth.”

  The darker it got, the more the wind and the waves picked up. A ton of clouds moved in. That left us with less than half the light we had from the moon and stars the night before. So Gabriel’s compass became even more important.

  Sooner or later, I knew it was coming. I wouldn’t mention it first for anything. But after a couple of hours, Uncle Ramon said to me, “Take out the transistor. Let’s hear the game. It should be in the fourth or fifth inning by now.”

  I was just happy to miss the pregame stuff, when an announcer was more likely to mention something about Papi’s new son again.

  It’s the bottom of the second inning here at Yankee Stadium. . . .

  “Second inning?” Luis said, checking his watch. “Maybe they were delayed by rain.”

  “No, it’s more than that,” said Uncle Ramon. “Listen to those fans cheering. They’re wired.”

  It’s been an offensive onslaught early on. And it’s been all Yankees. The Bronx Bombers are living up to their nickname. They lead it eleven to nothing already, scoring seven runs here in the second inning, adding to the four runs they scored in the first. Still, runners on second and third for the Yanks with just one out here.

  “Turn it off, Julio. I can’t listen to any more,” said Uncle Ramon. “We’ll turn it back on later. Maybe Miami will make the score closer, salvage some self-respect. But this game’s over.”

  “It’s all about tomorrow night now,” added Luis, still hacking away at the trio of coconuts. “About who’ll win Game Five, and go up three games to two.”

  I was happy to turn off the transistor. I was even happier the Marlins were losing big. That way there’d be practically no chance of Papi getting into the game. So whenever I did turn it back on, the announcers would be talking about the personal lives of other players instead.

  17

  HOURS PASSED AND the waves started to get stronger. The Buick began to really rock. I was bouncing around in the back, worse than in any school bus I’d ever ridden on.

  “I feel like an American cowboy in one of those rodeos,” said Luis, bouncing as much as me. “Only their rides last just ten seconds or less.”

  “Better hold on to your coconuts then,” I told him.

  “That’s right,” said Uncle Ramon. “Ten seconds is nothing to us. We’re Cuban cowboys. We’ve got major-league cojones, made of steel. We’ll take this ride for days if we have to. There’s no quit in us. That’s why the Marlins are going to win the Series. They’ll ride out their rough patch, too. Julio, check the game.”

  “What’s the use?” I asked.

  “I want to see if they’ve closed the gap,” said Uncle Ramon. “What kind of guts they have.”

  “They’re just ballplayers,” I said. “We’ve got the guts. We’re the ones defecting.”

  “You mean, like your papi?” he countered.

  I didn’t want to argue anymore. So I turned on the transistor, waiting to hear if things would get bumpier.

  Seventh-inning stretch and what a night it’s been for the Yankees. They lead the Marlins by an American football score, fourteen to three. They’ve pounded every Miami pitcher to take the mound tonight, and I don’t believe the Marlins will be wasting any of their better bullpen arms in this one. I think they’ve already conceded. . . .

  Uncle Ramon waved his hand in disgust, and I took it as a signal to put the radio away. After that, there was nothing but the sound of the waves crashing. And I was satisfied in keeping my secret for at least another night.

  I was the only one who hadn’t steered the Buick yet. I wasn’t about to ask now, though. Not in heavy seas. But I was sitting right behind Gabriel, watching him grip the wheel and imagining how it would feel to set my own course. Then I squeezed my own hands tighter, as if they were wrapped around a wooden baseball bat.

  – – –

  I closed my eyes and could see myself walking up to home plate. I’m not sure when things blurred for me, but they blended from a daydream to a sleeping dream. As I settled into the batter’s box, wiping out the chalky back line with the heel of my spikes, I could hear the voices of the crowd echoing from the stands. It wasn’t the sound of cheers. But there weren’t any boos either.

  A catcher was in a deep crouch behind me. I could see him out of the corner of my right eye, and hear him pounding his mitt. I wasn’t sure whether there was a home-plate umpire or not. And I wasn’t about to turn around to find out, instead keeping my concentration on the left-handed pitcher on the mound.

  The bases were loaded, and the runners took their leads. The pitcher glared in for the catcher’s sign. As he lifted his head, beneath the brim of his cap, I saw that it was Papi. Either he didn’t recognize me or he didn’t care. He nodded his head to the sign and was practically breathing fire. I didn’t have any choice. I knew what kind of heat was coming. So I steeled myself, with all of my senses ready to react.

  Papi toed the pitching rubber. Then he brought his hands together, set, with the baseball hidden inside his glove. I could even read his name stitched along the thumb in script—El Fuego.

  His right leg kicked out. Then he dropped his weight down, and drove forward with the lower half of his body. His left arm whipped over his head. And suddenly, the white baseball was in my eyes. It was flying at me so fast the red seams looked as sharp as razors. So I started my wrists forward and brought around the bat head.

  First I heard the crack of the ball off the bat. Then I felt the vibrations traveling through my hands. It was like the sting of bees, wrenching my fingers from the inside.

  The baseball rocketed right back at Papi.

  For an instant, we were b
oth frozen in time—me at home plate and him on the mound—with that ball lined directly at his chest.

  When I realized he’d never get his hands up in time, I felt an immense surge of satisfaction. But as the ball struck him, Papi disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  – – –

  I lurched forward in my seat, waking up with a start.

  “Julio, are you all right? You were asleep,” said Uncle Ramon.

  “I’m fine,” I said, with my heart still pounding.

  “Were you dreaming about girls or defecting?” asked Luis.

  “Neither,” I answered, still trying to get my bearings. “It was baseball.”

  “That’s dedication,” said my cousin, who was working on freeing the second coconut from its casing. “If I had your natural talent, I wouldn’t be dreaming about baseball. I’d be dreaming about everything baseball could get me, like a fat contract full of US dollars.”

  “Believe me, son, if you had a connection to the game like Julio,” Uncle Ramon said, “it would take over your life. Part of it would be pleasure. The other part would be fear of not making it. That what you have inside isn’t good enough, especially when you have to live up to a legend like his papi.”

  I looked my uncle square in the eyes and said, “I don’t need to live up to anything Papi’s done. He’s not my hero.”

  “Men aren’t supposed to be heroes. They’re supposed to be men,” said Gabriel, still glued to his compass with the waters getting even rougher. “That means they’re going to have flaws, sometimes serious ones. Even the legends.”

  “It’s been six hard years. Perhaps you feel like you don’t know him now,” said Uncle Ramon, returning my gaze until a jolt from a wave broke our eyes apart.

  “I don’t know him,” I said, with some gas to my voice. “Neither do you.”

  “I know he’s not a stranger. He’s my brother, my blood, just like you are.”

  Then Luis came between us with some stupid comment about his own special talent.

  “Having a girl on every beach in Miami. That’s what I’m going to be known for,” he said.

  Gabriel laughed loudly over that, while Uncle Ramon scoffed at his son’s so-called purpose in life. Luis took it all with an easy smile, rolling with the tide. That’s when I started to wonder if my cousin’s real purpose at the moment wasn’t to get me out of that conflict with Uncle Ramon.

  A few minutes later, Luis said to me, “I never took baseball too seriously. But there is something I really love about it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s no clock. No time limit,” he answered. “A game could go into extra innings and take forever to play out. Other sports, you know when the end is coming. Time runs out. Baseball’s got some magic to it that way. No one can say exactly when it’s going to be over. So things can always change.”

  I nodded my head, surprised that Luis even thought about such things.

  Sometime around midnight, the wind picked up enough that we had to close all the windows. It was the first time I started to feel boxed in inside that Buick. None of us had showered for more than a day, and there was a growing funk in the air.

  I turned on my side, away from the rest of them. Then I tucked my mouth and nose into the crook of my arm, preferring the smell of my own stink to anyone else’s.

  18

  SUNRISE CAME. ONLY it was still dark outside. The sky was a dense gray, while the clouds were black and multiplying.

  “Those are storm clouds—violent ones,” said Gabriel. “I’ve got lots of experience with them on the ocean, and none of it’s good.”

  A moment later, the first jagged bolt of lightning ripped through the sky. A few seconds after that, a booming clap of thunder pounded at my eardrums.

  “Can we get electrocuted out here?” asked Luis nervously. “What if lightning hits the car or the water around us?”

  “That’s the least of our worries,” replied Gabriel, who was suddenly in a struggle with the steering wheel attached to the rudder. “We’re in a big metal box—that’ll protect us.”

  “And that’s enough?” Luis followed up.

  “Electricity will run through the metal and into the water, grounding us. That’s science. Sometimes you just have to trust in it,” Gabriel said, as another thunderclap echoed inside the Buick.

  “When I was young, my mother told me thunder was the angels bowling in heaven,” said Uncle Ramon. “That it was the sound of them knocking down all ten pins, getting a strike.”

  “Mama told me that story, too,” I said.

  “Angels bowling?” mocked Gabriel. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  The next coupling of lightning and thunder was almost simultaneous.

  “I think that means we’re moving closer to the center of the storm,” Uncle Ramon said.

  “Or it’s moving closer to us,” I added.

  “Well, we’ve had thirty-seven good hours. We can deal with some rough weather,” said Luis. “How long could a storm like this last?”

  Gabriel didn’t offer him an answer.

  – – –

  I thought I knew what big waves were before that day. I didn’t. Every time I believed that Buick couldn’t rise any higher on a crest, it did. Then we’d fall off the top and into the watery canyon below. It was like a bad ride at an amusement park that had gone out of control and wouldn’t stop.

  “They must have used broom handles for shock absorbers on this thing,” said Luis as we bounced around the cabin.

  Then Luis started to get sick to his stomach again. Only this time there was no open window for him to hang his head out of, not without us getting flooded by those waves.

  Uncle Ramon had one hand pressed up against the ceiling, trying to steady himself. In his other hand he held the compass, while Gabriel wrestled with the wheel to keep us on course.

  “We’re headed west now! Turn right!” shouted Uncle Ramon, an instant before he passed me the compass.

  There were four hands on the steering wheel now, as Gabriel and Uncle Ramon both did battle with it.

  I watched the needle and called out directions to them: Right! Left! Straight! That must have gone on for fifteen minutes. In the middle of it all, one of those damn coconuts flew across the cabin and clonked me in the head.

  “Luis, you idiot! Get rid of those things!” I screamed.

  But with the windows closed, it was all he could do to shove them down beneath the rear seat.

  The sweat was pouring down Uncle Ramon’s face. He was leaning so far over, he was almost on Gabriel’s back. That’s when his right arm must have caught a cramp.

  “Augh!” Uncle Ramon cried, letting go of the wheel.

  Suddenly, we were spinning in circles. There were no more directions for me to call out, because we were headed in every one. The compass needle was turning as fast as we were. And I couldn’t look at it without getting dizzy.

  I reached for my seat belt, but I couldn’t get it into the buckle.

  Then, for an instant, everything went black as a wall of water swallowed the Buick. I don’t know if I was praying. But oh God were the only words I could find until we came out on the other side of it, still in one piece.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! The Buick began to vibrate, like a steel hammer behind us was striking it from side to side.

  “That must be the rudder coming loose,” said Gabriel, gauging his words. “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt us too bad.”

  In my mind, I kept seeing the Buick splitting in two and the four of us being separated on the ocean. It wouldn’t have even mattered who could swim and who couldn’t, because the waves were going to take you wherever they wanted.

  Every time I heard Gabriel’s voice, I thought back to the story he’d told—about surviving that storm on the raft when he was a kid. I couldn’t imagi
ne what was going through his mind at that moment. And if he wasn’t scared out of his wits, then he was putting on a good show to keep the rest of us from going into a complete panic.

  The water outside was churning with whitecaps. It felt like someone had just tossed the Buick into a giant washing machine. I could feel the tide pulling us down and then the inflatable rubber balloons on each side of the car/boat buoying us back up.

  It went on that way for probably three or four hours. I can’t say for sure, because Luis didn’t give us a time-check once. Maybe he couldn’t read his watch as we spun. Or maybe he didn’t want to torture us with knowing how long we were being tossed around. At some point, though, I felt almost immune to it, like my body had adjusted itself through some kind of internal gyroscope.

  – – –

  The first hint that it was ending came when the wind’s howl died down. Not long after that, spears of sunlight broke through the cloud cover, reaching the water. Then the waves got smaller and came farther and farther apart.

  “Is it over, or do you think we just sailed through it?” asked Uncle Ramon.

  “Either way, it’s put us somewhere,” answered Gabriel, who looked completely wiped out from the battle.

  My uncle, who hadn’t shaved in probably three days, didn’t look any better. And it was the first time I’d noticed gray hairs in his budding, sandpaper beard.

  “You think the storm pushed us forward or back?” I asked, before I rolled open my window and swallowed a big breath of fresh air.

  “There’s really no way of telling,” answered Gabriel, as I handed him back the compass. “All we can do is keep heading north and slightly west.”

  With the sun’s return, the heat started to build again. Luis went back to work on that last coconut. I shot him a glare while I rubbed the lump on my head.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to me. “If we need to split one open, we’ll use my noggin this time.”