As he should be.
She saw him get in the old pickup truck and leave the parking lot. Alone.
Cory realized he was still only halfway through Celebrate Recovery’s eight weeks when he tried to start taking better care of himself. This began with getting back into shape and starting to exercise.
Sometimes he would jog in the middle of the night on a back road going nowhere. The night stars reminded him of all those times when he was young, looking at these same stars and believing he could be something when he left this place behind.
Those same stars were still there, even when the bright lights of the big city and the big stadiums drowned them out.
It was the third time he’d tried calling Cory, and this time his brother answered.
“Do you want to come over for dinner?”
“No, it’s okay, thanks.”
Clay stared at the picture of Karen and him standing next to Carlos. It was the first official family picture they had taken.
“Cory—it’s been almost four weeks since you came to Okmulgee. You’ve come to the barn half a dozen times, but you still haven’t had dinner with us.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Stop being stubborn.”
There was a pause, and then Cory finally said, “Okay.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
His brother sounded different. The attitude and arrogance were somehow slipping away.
“It’ll be no pressure—promise. Just hanging out. Watching some of the game. If you want.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
“Great.”
“Hey, Clay?”
“Yeah?”
“You mind if I bring a puppy over?”
“A puppy? Uh, yeah, sure.”
“Cool. See you soon.”
Clay stared at another picture hanging on the wall. It was a picture of his brother in his first major-league game after his first home run.
The picture still inspired him. He just wanted that guy on the wall—the wide-eyed baseball wonder who could do no wrong—to come back around.
He wanted that guy to grow up the way the rest of them had.
There’s still hope he can change.
Karen had proven to Clay that hope was real and alive in this world and that anybody—anybody—could change.
All this talk of God, yet Cory still wondered if God was paying any attention to them.
He didn’t doubt that there was a God above. His mother’s faith made him realize that there must be something in it. If she could put up with the man she’d married and still try to love and respect him because that’s what God wanted her to do—well, there was something real about that.
Cory watched J. T. and knew the faith this man had was real. He didn’t wear it like a logo on a hat or a shirt. He wore it like a belt buckle, hidden away but necessary ’cause it held him up.
Every day Cory thought about drinking, but a day without it became a week. The two meetings helped. So did seeing Karen and Clay. So did working out. So did coaching the Bulldogs and keeping out of Emma’s hair.
Those empty Celebrate Recovery books started filling up. But he still wondered if this was for him and if he could really change and if he really needed to change.
He’d been doing it alone his whole life. God or not. Emma or not. Clay or not.
The one constant had been Cory stepping up to the plate. Every day.
This plate he was stepping up to, or at least trying to step up to, felt different somehow.
It wasn’t about the crowd out there anymore. It was about him.
And he didn’t know. He just didn’t know.
Emma knew that God said to pray for your enemies, but she wasn’t sure whether Cory was her enemy or her friend. At night, after Tyler went to bed and the stillness of the house greeted her, Emma would think about Cory. He looked lost and confused. She wanted to ask him how he was doing and how the CR meetings were going, but she couldn’t.
You already said enough to him to last a lifetime.
Part of her wanted to apologize for her angry comments, or at least try to reframe them. But she knew she couldn’t.
Maybe those words would make the difference. Ultimately Emma knew that only God could change a person’s heart. She had learned this the hard way years ago. And she continued to learn it on a daily basis.
Cory didn’t realize that every single person living and breathing was broken. Maybe they didn’t carry the weight he did, and they didn’t fracture themselves so much in life, but everybody was lost and in need of saving.
Everybody stumbled and failed.
But oh …
Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.
Emma hoped and prayed that Cory would realize this. It wasn’t just him. He wasn’t the only person down here suffering and stumbling around.
His mistakes and failures had been cleared just like everybody else’s.
Cory just had to make that step and believe that grace could come to someone like him.
All Emma could do was keep praying he would come to understand this. That God would open his eyes.
Time ticked by like a pesky fly buzzing through a room and bouncing off the walls. So slowly. A painful, dreary kind of slow.
The kind that made you dream about drinking.
On his sixth week in Okmulgee, Cory decided to stop at a liquor store. He barely made it back to the pickup before opening the bottle of vodka and chugging it.
He just wanted the emptiness to go away.
Not drinking did nothing except make him think about drinking.
He’d been hearing things that made sense and seeing things that made sense, but he still didn’t share what he was really feeling.
He just closed his eyes and took another drink in the parking lot of the liquor store.
Tomorrow would be another day, and he’d stop drinking again and keep going. Keep doing what he was doing. Keep smiling and listening and keeping his distance from those like Emma who could hurt him. He knew now that anybody in this life close enough to hurt would eventually reach out and strike you down. Even angels like Emma eventually fell.
Everybody did.
The first few drinks didn’t do a thing. But eventually he’d blank out and not feel anything.
That’s what he needed.
Cory listens to the man detail the story about his childhood abuse and abandonment. The suffering he went through after moving from home to home. After losing both parents. After losing everything.
The man details each step taken on the downward spiral and then documents how God rescued him.
How God loves him.
But that’s him, Cory thinks.
All this time, and he still feels different from this man.
Tim and Mary and Carl and Mac and Keith and Marnie might all be in the same boat, but it’s different with him.
Maybe I’m unreachable, Cory thinks.
Maybe it’s going to take a miracle to get to me.
His time served in this place is almost finished. Then he’ll go back out and resume a life that none of these people understand. A dream of a life that just got derailed a bit.
The dream is gonna continue, and Cory’s gonna be fine.
Cory Brand is always fine.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Closer
J. T. walked up to Cory after the Tuesday night step study and handed him a folded sheet of paper. “Well, this is your eighth week.”
In some ways, Cory felt like he’d been back in Okmulgee much longer than that. But he also felt like it had just been yesterday
that he was cruising in the Corvette with Clay until the tractor showed up and ruined their day.
“Is it really? Wow.” Cory opened the document and could see the letter written to verify he had gone through eight weeks of recovery. It was signed by J. T. himself. “Well, it looks official.”
J. T. gave him a weary old grin. “Your mandated time is up, Cory, but I hope you keep coming back.”
“Okay. Right. Thanks.”
As Cory headed outside of the church to the still night breeze, he talked and chatted with some of the guys he’d grown to admire.
For a second he thought of the way it used to be in the fancy Grizzlies clubhouse. Eighty-five thousand luxurious square feet and not a close friend to find anywhere. Yet here in this town, surrounded by men connected by the hurts, hang-ups, and habits of their lives, Cory had found some true teammates.
I’m even beginning to think like they do.
He knew it was more than just rhetoric.
These guys were doing more than simply reciting some lines they’d learned to make themselves feel better. Cory wasn’t there yet, and might never get to where they were, but he still could admire the change in their lives. Each man’s story had been incredible.
So yeah. Maybe there is something to celebrate, even if I’m not where they’re at.
Cory felt good. He felt excited to leave this place in a better condition and get back to playing baseball. He needed to get back to the life he knew.
A part of him felt like celebrating, but he could hold off.
He could depart knowing that he’d allowed himself to chill on the boozing and to relax and let go.
Cory didn’t need a drink tonight. There’d surely be some of that ahead, when he was back out there on the road, a weary warrior doing his job. For now, he could take a break.
An hour later, as he walked to fill up his bucket of ice for the soda he was drinking in his room, his iPhone buzzed. He could see Helene’s name on the screen.
Finally.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “I’ve left six messages. I got my walking papers tonight.”
“Yeah, listen, I only have a minute,” Ms. No-Nonsense-Like-Always said. “I’ve got bad news. You’re a free agent.”
Cory dropped the empty bucket and heard it bounce on the cement floor.
It had been two weeks since he’d talked with Helene. Two weeks.
“What happened?” he asked.
This is what happens when you step away from the world you know and love and once owned.
“Truth is, they haven’t missed you that much the last two months. You’re too much trouble.”
Well, please, Helene, don’t hold back on how you’re feeling.
Cory cursed and looked out to the dark countryside beyond the motel. “I can’t believe this.”
“I’ve made other inquiries—”
“I can’t believe you let this happen, Helene.” Before she could say anything else, Cory hung up.
She was supposed to be doing her part while he was stuck in this town. But like everybody else he knew, she let him down.
The only person who can get things done is me. The only person I can truly trust and truly expect to figure things out and do them is me.
Me.
Cory went to his room and grabbed the keys to his truck. He was finished celebrating recovery. Now it was time to celebrate being a free agent.
The bartender at Hank’s Tavern sees Cory coming and lines up a couple of shot glasses on the bar. This is when Cory knows that the rest of the world knows. That’s the way things are now. You knock a batboy in the nose. You knock over a tractor in the middle of Oklahoma. You knock a know-it-all father in the middle of a game.
Everybody finds out about the knocks as soon as they happen.
Thankfully, nobody knows about a college kid knocking up his high school sweetheart just before he was drafted by the majors.
It’s fine by him to keep a few things secret.
He downs both the shots and tells the bartender to give him another round.
He’s got some catching up to do.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Force-Out
Emma had feared this moment for ten years now.
Ever since she first held on to that precious little crying soul she named Tyler, Emma had dreaded telling him the truth about his biological father. Not because she was ashamed of who he was or what had happened.
But because a part of her always feared that somehow, in some way, telling Tyler might also mean losing Tyler.
That’s crazy. This is crazy. Surely Tyler’s fine.
But she’d checked the house twice and had called the cell phone he was supposed to have on him when he was away, and so far Tyler was nowhere to be found.
Emma had arrived home that evening from doing errands to find a newspaper on the kitchen counter. This was odd, since they didn’t get a paper, and Tyler checked out news online if he was interested.
The headline had said it all: CORY BRAND PUTS FAMILY FIRST.
Underneath was a detailed article on Cory Brand’s journey from all-star to disgraced major-league player in recovery. The way the writer made it sound, this was some sort of pilgrimage Cory had made back to Okmulgee, to the town he left and the love he abandoned.
It talked about Cory wanting to make things right—wanting to focus on his family.
Then it mentioned his son, Tyler.
It mentioned Tyler’s name as if it were public knowledge.
Nobody knows about this. Nobody except Karen and Clay.
There was a reason Emma left this town after Cory bailed. She didn’t want to be stuck around here with people knowing the truth. Everybody would have known, too.
Just like they do now.
She couldn’t believe Cory could betray her. That he could betray them. That he could do something so malicious and hurtful to Tyler.
I thought he was changing. I thought there was a chance …
Emma cursed her own foolishness even as she tried to think of what to do. She called Karen, who had just arrived home from the grocery store.
“Karen—do you know where Tyler is?”
Karen sounded nonchalant as she said, “I don’t know—let me ask.”
When Karen got back on the line, she sounded different. “I’ll call you right back.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Carlos,” Karen said. “He looks like the kid who stole from the cookie jar.”
Emma wasn’t going to wait around for Karen’s explanation. She grabbed her keys and went out to her truck to go looking for Tyler. She checked the garage, and her assumption was right. Tyler’s bike was gone.
He’s gone looking for Cory.
She never thought things would end like this. She assumed that Cory would eventually disappear, go back to his fancy life and leave them behind. Then the worries and weariness she had carried around would subside.
Driving toward downtown Okmulgee with the sun fading away, Emma prayed out loud.
“God, keep Tyler safe. And if—if he ends up finding Cory—help them—let Cory just—”
She couldn’t finish the words she wanted to say. But God knew what she was thinking.
Let Cory just stay away from him.
God knew exactly what she had felt ever since Tyler was born.
Keep Cory far away from Tyler.
It was the thing she feared the most. That Cory would suddenly turn on a light switch and realize what she had known for the last decade. That this wonderful kid was the brightest spot in a dark and dreary world.
And if Cory suddenly realized that too … with all his money and fame and clout …
Keep Cory’s hands off him. Keep him away, Lord. Please
.
He heard the song playing in the jukebox and couldn’t believe it. Then again, this was what they called karma. This was what he found in the back of bars.
The first time Cory remembered hearing this song—really hearing this song—was when he was driving away from Okmulgee and heading to his future. He’d never been a big Elton John fan, but he paid attention when he started talking about staying on the farm and listening to his old man in the classic “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road.”
It felt fitting. Pretty much every part of his life was in the gutter. His family life. Check. His personal relationships—whatever few he really had. Check. His career. Thanks for letting me know, Helene! Double check. His soul. Check.
It was going to take more than a couple of vodka and tonics to set him on his feet again. Forget the tonic and load up on the vodka, sir.
Yep. I’ll be getting that replacement. And yeah, there’s many of me to be found.
Some clueless, carefree kid suddenly sucked into this machinery and thrust into the limelight.
Go to work, Cory. And if you don’t produce, you go back to Okeymoky or wherever you come from.
Face the heat and face the stares and face the horrifying expectations.
And do this even though you’re just a kid out of college who is still sort of dumbstruck and lovestruck and headstruck.
Nobody understood except the guys who filled his shoes. And now somebody was going to fill his jersey and his lockers, too.
He pointed to the bartender and lined up another. Seven shot glasses were lined up in victory, and he’d only been here an hour and a half.
They were going to have to take him out of here on a stretcher.
Just take me out the back so it doesn’t show up on YouTube tomorrow, please.
He nodded at the fine form of the bartender, who was going to get the biggest tip of his life tonight, and then he took another shot.
Smooth as water.
There was a commotion at the door, and Cory heard someone yelling and saying “him.”
Home Run: A Novel Page 20