I stood over him and let my hands hover underneath the bar as he began his reps. As he finished ten lifts without my help, Dex walked in.
“Shrimp!” Flab held out a hand, which Dex half-heartedly slapped.
“Whale.” He began stretching.
“Nothing like a good lift to cheer you up,” Flab said, adding more weight on to the bar.
“I guess.” Dex was just as upset about the mall incident as I was.
My best friend pulled his right arm over his chest and used his left to stretch it. Just then, someone walked in who I knew would cheer him up: Huma.
“MVP! What’s the good word?” Flab called out mid-lift. Oops, I had forgotten to spot him. Luckily, he was doing fine. “You know my friends here?
“Hey Flab,” she said at low volume, grabbing a towel from a pile and patting her glistening forehead. “Yup, I do. Hey guys.”
Dex gave a head nod in her direction while staring at the mirror. I knew he was trying to look cool, but his suddenly raised eyebrows gave him away.
While he continued stretching, Huma grabbed a bar, threw on two ten-pound weights and clamps on either side. She put it down in front of her and squatted, grabbing it shoulder length, and in one motion, popped up and lifted the bar so it was almost resting on her chest. A few seconds and a deep breath later, she lifted it high above her head, then tossed it back on the padded floor of the weight room.
I looked over at Dex, who had stopped what he was doing and stared at her with his jaw agape. She went through the exercise again, grunting a little and trying to ignore us staring at her. Dex shook his head a little bit to clear the cobwebs and grabbed a pair of 30-pound weights while looking in the mirror to see if Huma was watching.
Just as he began doing shoulder shrugs with the weights at his sides, I saw their eyes meet in the mirror for a second.
BAM!
We all leaped into the air, except for Flab, who sat up and banged his head on the bar. Dex had dropped one of the hefty weights an inch from his right foot.
I heard a snort over my shoulder and looked over at Huma. She had her hands over her mouth and was trying—and failing—to suppress a laugh. Dex began cracking up in response and I joined in. Flab rubbed his reddened forehead but gave a chuckle.
“You can’t get distracted, Dex. It’s dangerous,” Huma said as she wiped a tear away.
Dex could only respond by blushing furiously.
“You’re pretty distracting,” he said. Wow, Dex, that is some Grade A flirting.
“Will you two just get each other’s numbers already and text tonight or whatever?” Flab, ever the subtle gentleman. “Some of us are in here to lift.”
A minute later, Dex got her digits. We cycled through our workouts twenty minutes later (mostly in silence, with Huma and Dex trying not to look at each other again) and parted ways, except for Flab, who had a few more sets to go.
“You know what’s crazy?” Dex asked as we headed toward the boys’ locker room. “The moment she and I looked at each other, I felt weak.”
“Sounds straight out of a romantic comedy,” I replied. “How adorable.”
He stopped right at the doors.
“No,” he said, not smiling. “I felt my strength disappear, like something shut off in my arms for a second.”
“Maybe you were just distracted.”
“It didn’t feel that way.”
Something behind Dex distracted me. It was a pair of eyes staring down at me. I focused on them and realized it was a painting that had always hung near the doors of the locker room, but I hadn’t noticed it much until now.
It was a portrait of Vance M. Strange, our school’s founder. His face, covered by a dark black beard and a small pair of glasses, was in nearly every building on campus, but something was jumping out at me right now. Despite being a painting from the early 1900s, there was something eerily familiar about him. I filed it away for the moment and attributed it to the constant stress I’d been feeling lately.
Maybe my dad was right. Paranoia was doing something to me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A few nights later, Coach Carson drove me to an old fieldhouse miles away from school. Mom and Dad assigned him to escort me to meet his friend who would turn me into an ace.
“Remember, like I said, he’s—” Coach started to say.
“Unconventional, I got it,” I said, putting my left hand in my old, worn mitt, opening and closing it a few times.
“Trust me, you’re going to learn some amazing things. I’ll be out here ‘til nine. See you soon.”
The humming of the overhead florescent lights was the only sound I heard as I stepped into the fieldhouse. At the other end of the building, I spied a crop of white hair in a warmup jacket standing by a plastic trash can full of baseballs and a makeshift mound. There was an area set up for batting practice near him with a pitching machine and netting to protect whoever fed it.
“Hi. You must be Kieran,” I said as I approached.
He didn’t reply or turn around.
“I’ve heard great things from Coach Carson,” I tried.
He didn’t budge, but I heard him utter a barely audible sound.
“What?”
“Pitching is forgetting,” I heard him say.
Just like Carson said, another crazy coach. Just what I needed for my already-fragile psyche.
“Pitching is forgetting every moment that just passed,” he said, louder, still with his back to me. “You know what they say about rivers? The philosopher Heraclitus said you can’t step twice into the same river. It changes from second to second. The best pitchers are rivers. Once they throw a pitch, no matter the outcome, they leave the past behind and focus on the next one. The water flows, time passes.”
He turned to face me, his gaze through thick-rimmed square glasses focused squarely on my eyes. Kieran was younger than I expected. There weren’t too many wrinkles around his eyes and his jaw was chiseled. Even under the pitching jacket, I could see he was slim. His hair must have gone white prematurely.
“Are you a river, Alexander?”
“Sure.” I had no idea what the heck he was talking about.
A thin smile crossed his face. It was both a relief and unnerving to see a coach smile at me.
“Not yet you aren’t, Alexander Ptuiac,” he said. “You are a mud pit. Every step you take is stuck in your recent success. The boy who turned disaster into a miracle. That may work on the football field, but it won’t on the mound.”
An unseen amplifier began playing soothing music with some kind of Indian instrument, but hardly soothed me. Who is this guy?
“We will start with meditation, Alexander,” he said, leading me to the back of the fieldhouse where two purple yoga mats sat side by side. “I want you to meditate for 10 minutes each day while sitting in your room, facing a corner. No distractions in front of you, eyes closed, listening to this song.”
“You are going to focus on your mantra as best as possible.” Kieran crossed his legs and placed his palms face up on his knees. I imitated him. “Novice meditators have a tendency to allow their minds to wander to other images and subjects. That’s fine for now. But your goal is to return to your mantra when your mind wanders. Close your eyes.”
I did as he said, the glare of fluorescent lights still piercing my vision.
Suddenly, I felt someone’s breath near my ear.
“Power,” Kieran whispered. If he only knew how ironic that mantra was.
I spent the next ten minutes—it might as well have been an eternity—trying to figure out what to think about. But I kept repeating the word in my head silently.
“Open your eyes.”
I did. A calmness wash over me. Maybe this wacky guru knew what he was talking about.
After a set of stretches, some of which were familiar from football—finally, something conventional!—we played a special game of catch in which he started about 10 fe
et away from me and kept moving back until he was some 70 feet from me.
“Are you from around here, Kieran?”
THWACK. My throw hit his glove with a little force.
“No speaking.”
THWACK. Of course, Kieran had a strong arm. My left palm already felt sore.
“Normally I wouldn’t let a neophyte such as yourself throw a pitch for a couple of weeks,” he said as he walked back toward me, “but we’re on an expedited schedule.”
He tossed me a baseball and pointed at a long, heavy green tarp hanging vertically in front of one wall.
“Kieran?” I practically whispered.
“You may speak now.”
“There’s nothing on it.”
“What would be on it?”
“Maybe an outline of a strike zone?”
Another thin smile. Creepy.
“A visual strike zone or a catcher’s glove is a psychological and visual restriction. I want you to pick a spot that is your strike zone.”
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Are you serious?”
“I guarantee you’ll choose the correct spot.”
I stepped up to a mound and toed the rubber. The grey rubber trash can of baseballs sat to my right.
“What about my pitching motion? How about a fastball grip? Are you going to take me through any of that?”
Kieran shook his head and pointed at the green tarp. He sat down on a folding chair and put a computer on his lap.
Uh, okay, Tooey. Pitch. I closed my eyes, inhaled and exhaled, and tried to visualize the pitchers I’d watched growing up. I took a step forward with my left foot, put the ball behind my back and gripped it with my pointer, middle finger and thumb, rolling it around until it felt comfortable. I stared at the tarp and pretended I was looking right at a catcher. Kieran was right: I could see the strike zone in my head.
I stepped back and brought the ball into my glove. Hands above my head while stepping back with my left foot, bend that knee up to my hands, big step forward while pushing with my right foot, aim with my glove at the target and throw.
THWACK!
The ball hit the tarp about eight feet above where I was aiming.
“Most novices don’t even hit the tarp with their first throw. Again.”
THWACK! Closer, but this time it was high and to the right.
“Again.”
I bounced the next pitch two feet in front of a hypothetical home plate.
“Again.”
THWACK! Hey, that might have been the outside corner against a righty had there been something outlining the strike zone.
“Good. Again.”
I tried repeating what I did before but tripped as I stepped forward, hitting my right cheek and banging my wrist on the hard floor. Ow.
I didn’t need to be told what to do next. I aimed for that outside corner, threw a pitch that went past the tarp and, POW, hit the wall behind it. I would have beaned a lefty in the head with that pitch.
A hand grabbed me before I could grab another ball and go into my windup. Kieran leaned in.
“Pitching is forgetting, Alexander,” he said. “Except for this pitch. I want you to pretend this is Game 7 of the World Series, with two strikes on the batter and two outs. You are about to throw the championship-winning pitch, just like the throw you made to win the state title. I want you to channel everything you have into this pitch. Your anger, frustration, confusion and desire to succeed. Remember your mantra: POWER.”
He released me and returned to his seat. I stepped off the rubber and returned. Inhale, exhale. There I was, in front of a crowd of forty-five thousand screaming fans standing in unison. My heart rate increased and a bead of sweat fell down my forehead. I wiped it away with my left forearm as I opened my eyes and began my motion.
Just as I took my step forward, I silently screamed in my head: POWER.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
BOOM!
The sound of the pitch hitting the exact center of my hypothetical target drowned out the ringing in my ears and echoed in the nearly empty fieldhouse. Marshmallows wafted into my nostrils and my vision blurred for a second.
I’d done it again.
“Alexander,” Kieran said as he approached, that thin smile crossing his face again. “Now, we’re ready to begin.”
CHAPTER NINE
“And then he told me to channel everything I had into one pitch. Anger, fear, frustration. So I took a deep breath, fired one and boom, my powers kicked in. You should have heard the sound it made. A perfect strike. I think I figured out how to control them.”
Sophi and I were sitting on her roof after school the next day, despite temperatures that hovered around freezing. When we didn’t feel like heading out to the clearing in the woods, this was Sophi’s other favorite hangout spot.
“He said I’m destined for amazing things,” I continued, seemingly without taking a breath. “That if I can combine this with my quarterback skills, I’m going to be a ‘very hot commodity’ to big-name colleges. This could put me on track to be a pro athlete!”
Sophi patiently listened to me recount my first incredible pitching session with Kieran, her nodding and smile indicating she was trying to share the excitement with me, but I noticed as soon as I reached the part where my powers kicked in, her brow furrowed. When I finished, there was nothing but silence, her green and blue eyes staring through me.
“That’s it?” I asked.
Another pause hung in the air. Then she spoke.
“What are you doing?”
“You mean right now? I’m telling you about my—”
“No, I mean, you’re using your powers to throw fastballs? You’re excited about it, too? What happened to the boy I knew who was totally against using powers on the field?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“We all know what happened with me and Dex the night of the championship game. Plus, what about keeping up appearances?” I shot back.
“Sounds to me like you were doing just fine before you used your abilities,” she answered with an edge in her voice. “This just feels wrong. Who knows who this guy is?”
“He’s a friend of Coach Carson’s!” I slapped my hands against my thighs, realizing my rising anger might lead me to slip off the roof. “He happens to be one of our trusted protectors who told me he’s already gotten calls from those same big-time schools asking about me. This is a huge opportunity for me and I can’t do it without my powers!”
Sophi reached out and grabbed my hand. No shock, though. She meant business.
“What are you saying?” she said calmly. “You’ve said it before: cheating is wrong. You weren’t in control when you threw to Dex. Now, you are.”
I took a second to think and squeezed her hand a little harder. I had a confession to make.
“You and Dex can tap into your powers whenever you feel like it. I’ve never had that ability and, to be honest, it’s made me jealous.”
“I know. I was talking to Kenny about what happened in the championship game the other day and—”
Wait, what?
“You’ve been talking to Kenny? When? How?”
“We text, we chat sometimes.”
“You’re texting with Kenny?”
Zzzzaaaaapp!
A shock nearly sent me flying off the roof. Sophi yanked her hand away. Strike one.
“Alex!” Uh-oh, she used my name. This wasn’t good. “You need to stop. I’m allowed to have guy friends who I talk to, especially someone who gets what we’re dealing with. You and Dex don’t trust him, but I can tell you he’s a good person who didn’t understand what he was going through until he met us. Don’t you remember how confused and alone you felt when you discovered your powers?”
“You don’t think he’s trying to steal you from me? The way he puts his arm around you like he did at the mall?”
Strike two. Her eyebrows scrun
ched over her eyes even further in anger.
“Not every boy I talk to is trying to steal me. Yes, I’m your girlfriend, but I am not your possession.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, averting her stare. “If you played against a guy like that on the football field, you wouldn’t trust him either.”
Strike three. I swear I saw her hands glow for a second before she decided not to blast me off the roof.
“So I don’t get how to trust someone because I don’t play football?” she said, her voice quivering. “You should go.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but I was too ticked off and afraid I might say something I would regret. Yet, I knew she was right. I shimmied past her into her open bedroom window and headed out the front door without saying goodbye to her parents. As I headed for home, I felt anger coursing through me. For the first time since the days before we started hanging out, Sophi didn’t understand me. I wasn’t using my powers for evil! Coach Carson said it was okay and colleges are watching me closely. What’s the worst that could happen? Plus, why was I the only one who saw Kenny’s real intentions with Sophi?
Vvvvvvvvvv.
It was my cell buzzing, but these days, my heart pounded after the attack at the mall whenever I felt my phone go off. I pulled it out and, to my relief, it was my own phone ringing. A text message from Dex.
Dex: Think I did something stupid.
My heart started thumping even quicker.
Alex: ?
A long pause. I was ready to run back home.
Dex: I challenged H to 1 on 1.
I wanted to throw my phone into the sidewalk. Really? That’s it? We’re in the middle of some tense times and you’re telling me the stupid thing you did was challenge Huma (whom he’d been hanging out with a lot lately) to a game of one-on-one in basketball, the game she dominates? But after what I had just gone through, it was a welcomed distraction.
Alex: She’s gonna wipe the floor with u.
Dex: Yeah, but I gotta test out my powers. Come watch Monday after school.
The Impossible Pitcher Page 5