“Hey, what do you say we lighten up a bit, Coach?”
The guy was average in every way. Average build, average face, average haircut, surely living an average life. He waved Cory off, like someone who didn’t want to be bothered at this crucial juncture. A freaking Little League game that his team might tie. Or, heaven forbid, lose.
“That’s my boy out there, Brand. You coach your team, I’ll coach mine.” The guy didn’t even glance at Cory when he spoke.
Cory looked at the mortified kid on the mound, standing there with his head hanging down. Then he let out a disbelieving chuckle at Pajersky’s comment and clapped to try to cheer the cop’s poor son on.
“Let’s just play ball,” Cory said, walking back to the Bulldogs’ dugout.
Tyler was stepping up to the plate. He stood several inches away from the plate, just like he always did—just like Cory had tried to get him to stop doing.
“Okay, Tyler-my-man, move in tight. Let’s shore up our stance.”
Tyler moved in a painful inch.
Cory smiled. He understood why Tyler was scared. “It’s all right,” he said in an assuring voice. “Little more, now.”
“You’re okay,” a voice from first base said. “Stand where you want, Ty.”
He’s never going to learn, Emma, if he doesn’t try.
“A couple more inches and you’re there.”
Tyler moved another inch.
“You stand wherever it feels right, Tyler.”
Tyler looked at his mother and then back at Cory. The pitcher, Caleb, was watching with impatience from the mound.
“Batter ready?” the umpire asked.
Tyler nodded, then immediately scooted back into his original position. Cory gritted his teeth. Caleb pitched, and Tyler’s swing wasn’t even close. He was out by the third pitch.
Pajersky was laughing and shaking his head. Cory wanted to ram that smug look down the guy’s throat. He didn’t care if he was a cop or a father or the humanitarian of the year. People who gave Cory that kind of attitude usually ended up regretting it.
Kendricks was having a great game for herself on the mound. Now she was facing Pajersky’s kid with the count two balls and two strikes.
Even before she threw it, Cory knew. He could tell Caleb was hesitating. The ball whizzed by, and the umpire called a strike. The Bulldogs all cheered as Caleb threw his bat into the dirt.
“You can’t watch it, Caleb,” hollered Pajersky. “Two strikes, you gotta be swinging.”
As Caleb reached the bench, he gave the Gatorade cooler a karate kick that sent it flying away and spilling out on the ground.
Cory felt a weird sense of déjà vu.
Coach Pajersky yelled at his son and then yanked him by his jersey, thrusting him back down on the bench as the rest of his teammates went back out on the field. For a moment, Pajersky held him with an uncomfortable force. “You’re benched, young man,” he snapped.
Cory couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He crossed over to their dugout. “I’m warning you, Coach.”
Pajersky turned to him. “You’re warning me? Where do you think he learned that behavior? Watching idiots like you!”
“Dad.”
“Shut up,” Pajersky shouted back at his son.
Everybody around was quiet. Cory had seen and heard enough. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and this wasn’t his father, but that didn’t matter. All he could think about was a poor helpless kid who had never hurt anybody being belittled and beaten down day after day after day.
This stops now.
Pajersky stepped away from Caleb and out of the dugout to confront Cory. Others had started to walk their way. Emma from first base. Clay, with his arm in a sling and a bit of a limp.
Cory didn’t care. It didn’t matter that the whole town, including the two teams, was watching them now.
“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Cory,” Pajersky said. “You’re a showboat and a drunk, just like your old man.”
Cory’s fist slammed against Pajersky’s jaw, and the cop dropped like a ten-year-old boy. But as he lay sprawled on the grass, alarmed cries coming from the people around them, players rushing to the coaches’ sides, Pajersky smiled.
He smiled in a way that said Gotcha.
He tries not to think of home. It’s easy not to.
The grind and the game allow him to focus. Then other things allow him to forget.
The nights are endless, and the days are a blur. Sometimes time races, and sometimes it seems to stand still.
He thinks of the old farmhouse and the crippled barn and the aging parents and the lonely brother, and he wonders how this could be his fate, to find his dreams on an empty platter.
When Cory stops, he can still see it like a lone cloud in the sky as the sun begins to drift away. But he closes his eyes quickly and sees the black hole in the place of the sun.
Nobody knows these empty feelings inside. Nobody.
This is what he tells himself as he makes others laugh. As he faces others who might easily relate to what he’s feeling, but wouldn’t share even if they did.
They’re all grown-ups playing a kids’ game. They’re just kids having fun and doing whatever they want to do.
It’s easy to forget that tiny Oklahoma town with the hard-to-forget name.
He forgets. Sometimes.
But sometimes he remembers, then tries even harder to forget.
Chapter Twenty-one
Cellar
The humid night air felt thick. Clay steered his truck with his one good arm. He had the window down to feel the breeze against his skin, but it felt like the hot breath of a disappointing sigh. Karen hadn’t wanted him to go to the police station, of course. Neither had Emma. Karen was tired of Clay trying to bail his brother out. Emma, on the other hand, was simply scared of Cory and what his stay in Okmulgee might mean to her and to Tyler.
Every time Clay thought there was something good coming out of this, something went terribly wrong. He’d been persistent about taking the team to the Grizzlies’ home game on Father’s Day. He had hoped that Cory could meet Carlos and make a connection. That Karen could see the good in his brother. That Cory might want to see more of them. It could have been the start of something special.
Yet all Clay kept doing was bailing Cory out. This time, the bail was literal.
God, help me figure out something to say or do.
The list of possible words and actions was growing thinner by the day. Clay had tried everything. Backing off from Cory’s life, intruding in it, bringing up the past, letting the past go. He’d tried to be his brother’s drinking buddy, had also tried to be his counselor. Nothing had worked.
He parked in front of the police station and turned off the vehicle, and for a moment he sat in the silence.
He wondered why people God gave so much to always turned out to be the biggest idiots in the world. Cory was tied in that spot with their father.
No, Cory owned the numero uno position. He’d had a chance to be different. He saw what a failure looked like, day after day.
Clay loved his brother, but this was pathetic. He was embarrassed to have to go inside this station and see guys he knew and then accept responsibility for Cory.
He wiped his forehead and took a deep breath as he climbed out of the truck. His ribs ached even though he was still taking pain meds. As he shut the door, he still wasn’t sure what he was going to say. It seemed every single thing had already been uttered.
Clay had hoped, after signing the papers and seeing them release Cory, that he might get an apology. Maybe “I screwed up again” or “I’m a moron” or “Man, I need help.” But instead, Clay knew his brother was just angry with the whole world.
Staring at a dejected and angry-looking Cory only made
Clay more infuriated.
“Nice going, Cory,” was all he could think to say.
“I wasn’t drinking.” Cory looked at him in defiance.
You are such an absolute fool.
Clay stood right in Cory’s face. “You weren’t arrested for drinking,” he shouted.
“Hey, I stood up for that kid the way no one ever stood up for me with Dad.”
Now Cory was trying to act cool and calm and collected. But this was how he did everything. Exploding first, then later either laughing it off or playing the victim.
“Well, you’re looking more like Dad every day.”
Cory lit up again like a fuse for a dozen fireworks. “Maybe that’s because I took all your hits.”
“All my hits? What do you think happened when you weren’t around, Cory? You have no excuses.”
Poor Cory Brand. What a victim. What a tragedy. Blame it on Dad. Blame it on Clay. Blame it on everybody else but never, ever try to blame it on Cory.
Clay didn’t look away. He used to be unable to confront Cory, the big brother he idolized and would follow to the ends of the earth. But that big brother wasn’t so big anymore. He was just another man with a list of broken, failed promises.
“You turned a nice day into something ugly,” Clay said. “Again.”
Cory just looked at him in disgust and disbelief. He chuckled and then paused for a moment, staring at Clay. “Sorry I don’t have it all figured out like you, little brother.”
Cory turned and walked away from the parking lot and down the road.
Clay didn’t know if his brother even knew where he was going, but that was fine. He’d find his own way home just like he always did. He’d get by without anybody else’s help.
Weeks blur by.
He hears the crack of the bat in his nightmares and sees the spin of sliders in his daydreams. Some days he opens his eyes to find himself on foreign land in a visiting field. He keeps his smile close at hand like a pistol at a sheriff’s side, using it whenever forced to, whenever confronted and confused.
Sometimes the night sky waves good night and he looks out the plane windows in awe.
Sometimes he sees the face of a beautiful woman smiling at him, waiting for him.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, he thinks. Oklahoma either.
A day leaps over into a week, into a month. Then it’s all about the repetition, about making it through, about making it count, about making it to October.
He’s wide awake in October. He sees the sights and the sounds in October.
But the rest of the season blurs by. Letters never arrive. Phone calls never reach him. Invitations never get answered. Promises never get fulfilled.
It’s all about the Grizzlies. It’s all about Cory. It’s all about this little round thing called a baseball.
The blur. The bite. The roller-coaster ride. The blindness.
Only to wake up empty in the off-season, wondering what happened.
Chapter Twenty-two
Intentional Walk
Cory was still walking in this inkblot of a town when Helene’s name showed up on his phone.
“Helene,” he said in a way that politely said, I don’t need any more guilt trips from anybody else, thank you very much.
“Assault? This is your idea of lying low? You are killing me.”
“It wasn’t assault,” he replied.
“Killing me. An uploaded photo went from Facebook to a Grizzlies blog to ESPN.”
Cory stopped near the curb and looked at the sleeping center of Okmulgee. Now the world at large had another image of Cory Brand: slugging a fellow coach and, oh yeah, a police officer besides.
Everything was crumbling down around him, and all he could do was watch. Everybody wanted his entire world to get smeared and wiped away, and they just wanted to stand by and laugh. Nobody understood. Nobody got it. Nobody ever would.
He wanted to reach out and hit something, blast it far away deep into the night where the shadows watched from hidden bleachers.
Helene continued to moan and critique and chastise, and he just wanted her rambling mouth to shut up.
“Just fix it,” he eventually interrupted. “That’s what you get paid for. It might take a little effort, but I think you soak enough out of me to put in the time.”
He clicked off the phone and kept walking, kicking a metal trash can and sending it hurling into the road.
The night seemed as though it would never end. Cory wasn’t sure how much time had passed or where exactly he was going. When a car slowed down and then stopped by him on the edge of the road, Cory figured it might be someone with a gun who was going to take the little cash he had and then sink a couple of rounds in his skull. That would show the world, as they grieved his passing and wished they had treated him a little better.
“Need a ride?” a familiar voice asked.
It was J. T.
Wonderful. Another face to feel guilty in front of.
“Well, my truck’s at the field.”
“Hop in.”
He didn’t ask why Cory was out here in the middle of the night walking. Cory knew J. T. had heard about the game. Everybody that had anything to do with his life knew about it. But he appreciated not being asked. He climbed in and sat in silence for a few moments as the car moved down the road.
“I used to be a road warrior,” J. T. said out of the blue as the car coasted along. “King of the road. Spent a lot of my time driving. That was when gas was a lot cheaper. And when people didn’t connect by computers.”
Cory didn’t want to hear it. Another sad story from another sad soul. It didn’t matter.
“I was in sales. I might seem a bit laid-back for a salesman, but I wasn’t back then. I was relentless. I’d force people to go my way just so they could get me off their backs. Relentless.”
For a moment, Cory glanced at J. T. It was hard to believe the mild-mannered guy could be anything resembling relentless.
“I gave everything I had to the job, and I drank because of the pressure. Meanwhile my marriage was falling apart, along with every other part of my life. It was on the road late one night when I finally called out to God. I needed help. I needed—well, I was tired. Tired of trying to control things and not being able to manage any part of my life.”
The sleeping town of Okmulgee passed them by. Cory looked out his window while J. T. continued talking.
“You know, when I was about three or four weeks clean, I thought I had this thing licked. But then life would happen, and before you know it I was at it again.”
J. T.’s deep voice sounded like an authority on pain. Cory could only say “okay,” but he didn’t really want to talk about recovery.
“It wasn’t until I finally understood why I drank that I could see my way out of it.”
Cory didn’t say anything. He knew why he drank. Because he liked how it tasted and how it made him feel. Pure and simple. Sure, there was his irritating knee, and also his irritating agent—those were two more reasons to drink.
You could fill a phone book with reasons why you drink.
They pulled up to the lone truck in the parking lot next to the baseball field. Cory wanted to jump out of the car and sprint away from this man with his deep thoughts and deeper history, but he couldn’t.
J. T. parked the car but left it running as he looked at Cory. “It wasn’t about my drinking. It was about my pain.”
Cory nodded and tried to give him an earnest, heartfelt, I-feel-your-pain look. “Okay, well, thanks for the ride.”
As J. T. drove away, Cory looked at his truck sitting in the middle of nowhere. Nobody around here could possibly understand what he was going through. It didn’t matter what kind of curveball life had thrown at them. They couldn’t possibly begin
to understand the stresses and temptations and struggles of being Cory Brand.
Unless they walk in my shoes, they won’t ever get it.
Just one more day, and you’ll change.
Just one more day, and they’ll see.
Just one more season, and the season will pass.
Just one more year, and the needs will go away.
Just one more failure before you make things right.
Just one more apology before you make amends.
Just one more outburst before you finally relax.
Just one more drink before you actually can.
Then another. But just one more. Just a few more and just a few more after that, and then tomorrow you can go ahead and change.
Just one more day, and peace will finally come.
Chapter Twenty-three
Backdoor Slider
The back roads were like wrinkles forever etched in Cory’s skin from all the times he had walked and ridden over them. They seemed to lead to nowhere, just more Oklahoma countryside with flowing fields and endless sky. But this five-acre plot of land was the place where he’d grown up, where his father had made his childhood miserable. Cory hadn’t been back in a long time.
As the sun started to wake up, Cory drove down those roads and turned onto the dirt driveway. The land had stayed in the family, with Clay and Karen now living there with Carlos. As Cory drove toward the house, he noticed that it had a new look about it. Fresh paint, a new roof, flower boxes on the windowsills, even a wreath on the door. After Mom had died, the remaining color on this farm had faded to black and white. It had turned into a reflection of its owner, Michael Brand.
Not far from the pretty house that Karen had surely helped make her own sat the old dilapidated red wooden barn. Time had only made it look more classic and ageless, at least in Cory’s eyes. This had been his old hiding place, his refuge and sanctuary. The shadows had kept his secrets safe—at least most of them.
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