The Way Home Looks Now

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

  Then Ba goes on to read about the importance of a good stance and a good swing. At this point, some of the guys start putting their bats on the ground because they’re tired of waiting, but Ba doesn’t notice. He keeps reading. We might as well be in school. I keep hearing words that make sense—weight change, balance, timing—but I can’t force myself to listen to the sentences; they are so boring. Coop rolls on the ground and lets out a small moan.

  Ba is about to read the section on swing when Martin interrupts.

  “Are you going to read to us all day? Or are we actually going to get to take a swing during batting practice?”

  I look at Ba, who is still holding up the book. I’m kind of expecting the world to explode because no one speaks to Ba like that. Instead, though, Ba nods and closes his book.

  “Of course,” he says. “By all means. Take a swing.”

  Martin takes the first swing, and the other guys quickly follow suit. My father watches silently for a few swings.

  “Martin and Aaron have good, level swings,” he finally announces. “Sean, you need to time your swing with your step. Bobby, keep your elbow in on your swing—you will get more power that way. Jimmy, you are moving your head.”

  I can’t believe Ba actually noticed that much. But when everyone takes the next swing, I can see that Ba is right. Sean needs to take a longer stride. And even though he is swinging at imaginary balls, Jimmy is jerking his head back right before he swings.

  I can’t figure out how my father has learned so much about baseball so quickly.

  “Let me guess,” says Martin. “Thirty-eight more swings.”

  “Close,” says Ba. “Eighteen more.”

  Martin shakes his head, but he keeps swinging. “Any chance we’ll get to swing at, you know, an actual ball?”

  “Soon,” says Ba. “Soon.”

  When the first group finishes, it is time for the second group to go. I get into my stance, suddenly feeling very conscious of the fact that Ba might see things that are wrong with my swing that I didn’t know about. The bat I wound up with feels heavy, and the handle is oddly thick. I think of Nelson’s bat over in the grass.

  “Swing!” barks Ba. We all take a swing. I make mine as perfect as I can, but it’s not perfect enough.

  “Peter,” says Ba. “You’re not focusing on the ball.”

  This is true, I suppose. I was thinking of Nelson’s bat. But still, I defend myself. “There is no ball,” I point out. “How can you tell I’m not focused when the ball isn’t there?”

  “I’m watching your eyes,” says Ba. “You’re not imagining the ball.”

  I want to say, “How can you tell what I’m imagining?” Instead I say, “I’ve never had a problem making contact.” This is better than arguing directly with Ba.

  Ba makes a little noise in his throat but doesn’t talk to anyone else in the group, which is not fair. I’m not even close to being the worst member of our group. I can’t figure out why Ba is picking on me. My group has Doug Levinger, who looks like he is afraid of the imaginary ball and chokes up on the bat so far he has about six inches left. I take another batting stance and wipe my face on my sleeve.

  Even though there is a light spring breeze, I might as well be swinging through thick, hot soup. I can barely see, and with each swing, Ba seems to find something new to pick on. “Turn your hips. Drop your back elbow.” And every time I fix one thing, two new problems spring up.

  I just need to get through practice, and get Nelson’s bat. That’s my real job today. When practice is over, I’ll get the bat and slide it into the long dark space under the row of front seats in the car. Then, when we get home, I’ll put it in a safe place where no one will ever find it.

  When practice is finally over, I wait until Ba is talking to one of the other parents, and then I slip over to the fence. I even have an alibi if someone asks me what I’m doing over there. I’ll say that I’m looking for foul balls.

  I walk to the exact spot where I left it. I had been sure to check for landmarks. Three fence posts from the right, next to a large clump of wild daisies.

  A perfect hiding place.

  It’s gone.

  IT’S GONE.

  I’m going to throw up. I swallow hard and force myself to look more carefully. Think. I walk up and down the fence line in short steps, dragging my feet through the long grass, even in places I know it can’t possibly be. I get down on my knees and thrust my hands into the grass, scraping my fingers against the chain-link fence.

  It’s gone.

  I blink my eyes and force myself to focus. Someone must have taken it when I wasn’t looking, when I was in the middle of the world’s most stupid batting practice. People do walk along the road. Someone could have walked in closer to the field, maybe to watch practice or use the latrine. They could have seen the bat and taken it.

  Idiot, idiot, idiot.

  “Peter! What are you doing over there? Help carry the equipment,” Ba calls to me.

  I hesitate a moment, wondering if I should tell Ba what has happened. I try to think of a version of the truth that will create the fewest questions. I think one of the bats ended up over here, and I’m looking for it. I try to calculate how helpful Ba would be, in the event he actually decided to help me look.

  In the end, though, I say nothing. He won’t help me. And no matter what I say, I doubt he’ll understand what’s really missing.

  On the way home, I try not to think about the bat because every time I do, I feel like I’m being punched in the chest. It’s hard not to think about batting, though, because Ba won’t stop talking about it.

  “You need to work on your feet. Watch the placement of your feet, relative to home plate.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And your hands. You tend to choke up on the bat.”

  Bat.

  “Your left elbow is coming up too high.”

  I sigh noisily. “How do you know so much about baseball, anyway?” I say. “You learned all of that from The Young Man’s Guide to Baseball?”

  Ba looks at me, surprised. “I played when I was a boy.”

  “What? In Taiwan?” It’s my turn to be surprised. For a moment, the pain over the lost bat lessens.

  “Yes, in Taiwan.” He wrinkles his brow. “Where do you think those boys in Williamsport learned to play?”

  “I know about them, it’s just that …” It’s hard to explain. The Taiwan my father talks about and the Taiwan those boys live in seem like two very different places in my mind.

  “You know, when the Japanese occupied Taiwan, they used baseball to encourage the students to learn the ways of the Japanese.”

  “The Japanese? Baseball?” Ba must have gotten confused somewhere.

  “Baseball is a national sport of Japan,” says Ba, as if I should have known. “They encouraged the formation of teams in Taiwan.” His voice softens. “The Taiwanese kids, some of them, did not want us there, the kids from the mainland. They would follow us around, throw rocks at us, call us names, and fight. I decided I had to play their game, better than they did.” He hesitates, and then adds, “I would practice instead of doing homework.”

  Until now, I had thought Ba must have been the perfect, hardworking student—that is, when I remembered that he had once been a kid at all.

  “The game we played was a little different from baseball, but mostly the same. Instead of pitching, we would put a ball, a little rubber ball, on the end of a board and snap it up with the foot, like a lever. Then, pah!” Ba pretends to swing a bat.

  “I practiced my swing every morning and every night,” says Ba. “I analyzed every swing, trying to improve. When I decided I was ready, I joined their game, and I got a home run on my first at bat.” For a moment, Ba is not seeing the road. “Bases loaded, two outs.” Ba slowly rubs his hand over his mouth. I think he is erasing a smile. “They left me alone after that.”

  “If you could do all that, why did you read from a book?” Part of me still can’t believe
Ba played baseball. Before he became the coach, he had never played catch with me or Nelson. Never tossed balls for us to hit. Never stopped to listen to a Pirates game or picked up a sports page.

  “The book is written by an expert. The book should be the best,” Ba says simply.

  Then I ask the question I really want to ask. “All this time, why didn’t you play with us?”

  Ba adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. “I became a man, Peter. A man, a husband, a father, in a different country. A man in this situation does not play the games of a child.”

  “You’re playing now,” I point out.

  “I am coaching,” Ba corrects me. “I am coaching my son.”

  “I’VE BEEN TALKING TO SOME KIDS ON OTHER TEAMS,” Martin says to me in the dugout after practice one day. We are all in there, waiting, because Ba says we need to have a team meeting, but first he needs to get something from the car. “Your dad’s practices are longer and more boring than anyone else’s. That’s a fact. No one else spends so much time working on swinging at imaginary balls. We’re going to get clobbered next week.”

  I think about Ba, and his story about perfecting his swing, but there’s no way I’m telling that story to Martin. And no one else says anything, which in a way is even worse than accusations. It’s like practice is so awful that it’s not worth pretending.

  “He’s doing his best,” says Aaron. “That’s all you can ask of anyone.” I silently thank Aaron for defending Ba, so I don’t have to.

  “‘He’s doing his best,’” says Martin, mimicking Aaron. “That’s what losers say about other losers to make them feel better about being losers.” He stares out into the field.

  I don’t have it in me to argue with Martin today. I keep thinking of Nelson’s bat, and hating myself for losing it. I don’t know what’s worse—never having it, or having it for only a moment.

  We’re not the only grumpy team in baseball. I heard on the radio this morning that the Pirates, while down at spring training, voted to strike. Something about retirement, I think. This has never happened before, so there’s no telling how long this will take. Which means no baseball, at least for anyone who isn’t watching Little League.

  “We’ll be lucky to win one game,” predicts Martin.

  “You don’t know that,” says Aaron. “We haven’t even played our first game.”

  I’ve been thinking that if Mom came to a couple of games, she would really and truly start to feel better. She would smell the freshly cut grass and feel the sun on her face. She’d remember how your heart lifts when you hear the crack of a hit that’s a home run.

  But, of course, the most important thing is having a winning team to root for.

  “Don’t need to play a game to know how bad we are,” says Martin, half to Aaron, half to himself. “Like you.” He points at Sean. “You are a terrible catcher. You might as well play for the other team.”

  Sean shifts. “I’m still getting used to the position. My dad told me that playing catcher is good for someone my size.” Sean is the only one who has volunteered to catch, and it’s true, he’s struggling. A lot of balls are getting by him during practice; balls that will turn into runs during games.

  “You’re a big target, all right,” mutters Martin. “That’s why you’re catcher.”

  Some of the players laugh, but it’s an uncomfortable laugh. Everyone likes Sean, but no one wants to cross Martin, including me.

  “Lay off,” says Aaron. “It’s not like you know everything about baseball.” The two eye each other.

  Martin turns his head to the right and spits. “What’s there to know? Three strikes and you’re out. Three outs and the inning’s over.” He gives some of the other guys a what-an-idiot look.

  “Three strikes and you’re out?” asks Aaron.

  “Of course.” A couple of guys laugh with Martin.

  “Actually.” I am surprised to hear my own voice, but I know where Aaron is going. “If the catcher loses control of the ball on the third strike …”

  Aaron takes over. “… the batter can take off for first. Might still get thrown out, but he can run.”

  Together, Aaron and I have shut up Martin for a moment. It feels good. “How ’bout this one?” asks Aaron. “How do you get a one-man triple play?”

  “That’s easy,” says Rickey. “Ball pops up, player catches the ball, say, over by second. First out. Meanwhile, runner on second doesn’t see the catch, and gets tagged out when he steps off the base. Likewise, runner on first gets tagged trying to come into second. One-two-three.”

  “You can have any kind of play if the other players are dumb enough,” says Martin.

  For once, though, no one is interested in what Martin has to say. “Do another one,” says Sean.

  “Okay,” I say. “How about a no-man triple play?”

  The dugout goes silent. Then Aaron says, “Can’t do it. That’s impossible.”

  Nelson had told me this one. I savor the words, trying to sound like Nelson when I say them. “It’s not impossible. First off, you have to know the infield fly rule. Runners on first and second, and the batter pops up, short. Umpire calls it out on the infield fly rule.”

  I continue, “Meanwhile, the runner on first tries to run, but on the way, he passes the runner on second. He’s out.”

  “Yeah, okay,” says Aaron, nodding.

  “The ball comes down from its pop fly and beans the runner who’s leaving second. Now he’s out. Triple play.”

  “Stoo-pid,” pronounces Martin.

  “No, that’s cool,” says Aaron, and I know he gets it. This isn’t about whether any of these plays will ever actually happen. It’s a question of whether it’s even possible.

  “Yeah, that’s really neat,” adds Doug. Doug usually doesn’t say anything; he’s the quiet type, a little nervous.

  “Sheesh, Levinger, you sound like a girl,” snorts Martin. “That’s really NEAT!”

  Some of the guys laugh, but I won’t do anything that makes Martin look good. I notice that Aaron doesn’t join in, either. Martin and the Lattimores laugh and flip their hands in the air, saying, “Really NEAT!” Doug looks away.

  “And worse,” says Martin, playing to the larger group, “Dougie here throws like a girl, too.”

  There’s some more laughing, but then suddenly, it stops.

  “What is going on here?” Ba is standing in the doorway.

  No one answers.

  “I expect you all to conduct yourselves as gentlemen at all times,” says Ba. He hefts a large bag onto the floor of the dugout. “Especially when you are in uniform.”

  “Uniforms!” shouts Aaron. “Yes!” We’ve all been waiting for uniforms.

  Everyone crowds around the bag.

  “I hope we got red, or green. They’re the best colors,” says Jimmy.

  “Yeah, if you’re a Christmas tree,” says Bobby.

  “Black and gold, black and gold,” chants Coop.

  “Everyone wants those colors,” says Martin. “We won’t get them.”

  Yonder reaches into the bag and yanks out a shirt. “They’re … brown?”

  “Brown?!” says Sean. He holds up a shirt and a loud groan goes up from the whole team. The uniform is the plainest medium brown.

  “Please do not grab,” says Ba. He pulls everything out of the bag, and arranges them in neat piles on the dugout bench. The shirt, the pants, and the hats are all brown. The socks are yellow, and the writing on the shirts matches the socks.

  “It’s the color of …” starts Jimmy.

  “Mud,” finishes Bobby. “A scab. Mom’s coffee.”

  “Are you kidding me?” says Martin. “I think I stepped in this color this morning.” He glares at me, as if this is my fault.

  “Brown is a very practical color,” says Ba. “Any stains should blend right in. It will make laundry less difficult.”

  Aaron picks up a shirt and looks at it. “It’s not so bad. At least we have uniforms.”

  �
��You also need to, uh, get your supporters,” says Ba. He holds up a smaller box and rattles it around. “Please wear them to the game.”

  “Are they all the same?” asks Doug, reaching into the box.

  “Sorry, no extra small,” cracks Martin.

  “They’re all the same size. Just take one,” says Aaron, grabbing one.

  Ba waits until everyone stops making wisecracks. Then he says, “Our first game is Saturday at ten. Please arrive an hour early to warm up.”

  BA IS WORKING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, ASSIGNING positions and drawing up the batting order. Like everything else he does, it’s all orderly and carefully done. He has made a grid, with the positions written in columns across the top, and the innings in rows down the left-hand side. He puts a clean, blank piece of paper under his hand so he does not smudge his chart.

  I take a quick peek over his shoulder.

  “You’re putting Doug at first?” I say, pointing at the first column. “For three innings? Doug is one of the worst fielders we have.”

  “Yes, I know,” says Ba, not moving to change the assignment.

  “What do you mean, you know? If you know, then you don’t put him at first.”

  “Doug needs the practice,” says Ba.

  “Practice is for practice. Games are for winning.”

  Ba pinches his mouth into a tight line. “I was told at the coaches’ meeting that our primary goal is player development. Winning should be the natural result of that improvement.”

  I think about Dan Bennett at tryouts. I don’t think he was looking for players to improve.

  “Maybe you could put Doug in for one inning, when we’ve got a decent lead. But Bobby or maybe Aaron should go there. Bobby’s a lefty, and Aaron’s got a real sure glove.” I see Ba hesitate. “Doug’s gonna get creamed until he feels more comfortable at first.”

  That’s enough to persuade Ba. He takes his white gum eraser, and carefully erases DOUG from first base. Then he uses his mechanical pencil to print BOBBY in the boxes for the first three innings, and AARON for the fourth and fifth, and DOUG for the last inning.