by Rich Hayden
Are we there yet? he thought to himself without the slightest hint of humor.
Stepping out of the station in Sarasota was akin to being greeted by a punch in the face. This was a heat that would have made hell embarrassed to call itself hot. Fortunately, Ron quickly met up with Amil, and the pair headed for the sanctuary of a small café. A place to rest his ass other than a cramped bus seat was welcome and lunch was a nice bonus, but the mammoth glass of cold sweet tea placed before him promised to be the highlight of the day.
Over their meal, the men discussed the days to come. The next day, Ron would show him around the facility, and hopefully he could meet a few of his new teammates. They talked about how he would be used in the rotation and the current status of the Sarasota Suns in the standings. Ron went to great lengths to detail how he convinced the brass to take on a no name twenty-year-old without any formal baseball training.
Amil remained rather unamused with the tale. Sure, he was glad that Ron believed in his abilities, but if Ron was sniffing around for a pat on the back, Amil wasn’t the type to oblige. After all, the fact remained he had never asked this leather-encased sausage of a man for a thing. He was given an opportunity, and planned on making the most of it. That’s really all the situation amounted to, in Amil’s estimation. As he picked at his fries, he silently extended appreciation to Ron’s grandmother for having the decency to die during baseball season.
Let’s get on with this, thought Amil as he sipped his tea.
Part 3. The rise of Amil Young
Amil finished out the season in a Sarasota Suns uniform. He posted a record of 10-2 with a few no-decisions thrown in for good measure. His ERA was a spectacular 0.82. His walks per start averaged just over one, while his strikeouts per start flirted with a healthy eight. It was certainly a fantastic season, but with a pedigree of sludge, there remained skepticism over Amil’s ability to shut down hitters at the higher levels.
At the start of the next year, he was transplanted to North Carolina to play for the Double-A affiliate, the Carolina Bullheads. Here, with the help of a pitching coach to refine his delivery, the dominance of Amil Young continued without so much as a wild pitch to taint his stellar statistics. Playing a full year for Carolina, he polished his fastball and pushed its velocity into the realm of the high 90s. He also refined his sinker and added a fierce curveball to his repertoire.
By the season’s end, Amil boasted an impressive record of 17-1. His ERA climbed a bit, but was still a paltry 1.61. He was finally earning a modest wage, which provided a lifestyle he would have thought impossible not long ago. When the season wilted under the command of winter, Amil spent most of his time within the walls of a small apartment he had rented.
He kept to himself and refrained from making any true friendships, as he was destined to move again the next year to the Triple-A club in Kentucky. Amil kept busy by reading through a stack of overdue library books and entertaining local women who like to be seen with ballplayers of any variety. He rarely left the immediate radius around his neighborhood, although he did manage to find a few quiet bars, even as his taste for alcohol had ebbed away. There was a strip club that demanded his patronage. It sat in the middle of an otherwise abandoned alley. The narrow road stunk of piss, while the air inside possessed odors equally opposed to the concept of fragrance. He frequented a rerun movie theater and bathed his nerves in caffeine at a local coffee shop, but for the most part, Amil preferred to spend his time alone.
At twenty-three, Amil Young had his name on the roster sheet of a Triple-A club, the Louisville Fireworks. It was a strange twist of fortune, being back in Kentucky. The last time he had spent a brief moment of significance there, a stable future was a far-flung and elusive beast. And yet there he was, a few tremendous months removed from a possible career in Major League Baseball.
The night before the first game of the season, Amil drove eastbound on Interstate 64, hopped on 77, and rode it to the Virginia border. On the graveled shoulder, he parked his truck, a shiny upgrade from the old ‘79 he had left to rot in Ashland, and stepped out into the empty night. He stared into the land he left behind, and, as his feet brushed the invisible line that divided the states, thoughts of Fog Lake crawled through his mind.
From the enveloping Southern blackness, a dog wailed in the distance, and its cry told of a wound recently suffered. A tractor-trailer thundered past, and the vibration of the rig caused the concrete below the pickup to shiver. Dust was cast into the muggy air, but for all these uncomfortable stimuli, Amil made not a motion as he continued to gaze into a complete lack of color. He was still, and dared not to step over that unseen barrier that crossed before his boots, lest it suck him back in. Although a part of him felt an odd pull coming from Virginia. Sometimes home is better off relegated to memory, but for all its indigents and strife, Fog Lake would always be the home of Amil Young. Ill-pleased by such an irrefutable truth, he turned away and climbed back into his truck.
Like a man dually possessed by madness and charmed by the grace of the divine, Amil’s meteoric rise continued. He stormed through the first two months of the season and made a mockery of the hitters who opposed him. By mid-June, his ERA ticked over two for the first time, but after another couple of starts, it sunk into almost impossible figures once again.
Amil achieved a rock-star status in Louisville, but he kept a rigid focus on baseball. His concentration could not be cracked, and the obsessive-compulsive fervor that he lent to his craft branded him with a prickly reputation. He rarely gave interviews, and the ones he did mostly consisted of one-word answers accompanied by impatient grumbles. To sight him anywhere besides the diamond was akin to spotting a ghost beset with a crippling shyness. The opportunity of a lifetime lay agonizingly close. He was not about to let its fleeting affections slip away on the scales of distraction.
The day that Amil had dreamed about, but figured would never actually arrive, came during the first week of August. Like a fantasy made flesh, he was called up to pitch in the Major Leagues. The expansion Cincinnati Meteors were squirming uneasily in 5th place in the division. Being well out of the playoff race, they decided to test their pitching phenom on the big stage of the Major Leagues. It would be a trial run. Amil would be given seven or eight starts before the winter to prime him for the season to come and all the demands that tether themselves to a career in professional sports.
The August issue of Sports Illustrated was dominated by Amil’s face, half obscured behind the curve of a dirty baseball. The headline asked, Who Is Amil Young, And Why Is He The Future Of Pitching? It was bold and eye catching, but as he paced the floor of the Meteors’ clubhouse before his Major League debut against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers, his gaze avoided the magazine as though it wielded the curse of Medusa.
The time for the future had come, and, as Amil took to the mound for the top of the 1st inning, he received a standing ovation from a mass of people, most of whom had never seen him throw a pitch. He looked into the stadium as it sprawled out. It was barbequed under the might of an August sun and half empty, as many fans of the beloved Reds were hesitant to latch onto the bumbling Meteors. Amil looked to the ball in his hand and checked his signals with the catcher. Amil stared at the batter who stood to the left of home plate. As he had done so many times before, he tossed the baseball from his grip as if he hated its very existence.
A single was lined up the right field line and, moments later, the next challenge crawled to the plate. This hitter wore disinterest on his face, and had slumped himself into a .220 average. All the same, Amil tightened his focus, but walked the batter with nary a pitch touching the strike-zone. There were no outs, two Brewers on base, and Amil stood perilously close to a disastrous first start. A deep breath caused his chest to shiver, and he began to sweat profusely. As he felt the mild prick of a headache developing behind his eyes, his gaze floated to the ball in his hands. It was slicked by sweat and boasted a sparse arrangement of lightly colored soil. He closed his pained e
yes and thought of that rancid field in Fog Lake. Just like back home, Amil resolved that he could not be beaten, and, with that arrogant and grandiose notion, he unleashed his deceptive sinker.
Fortunately for the budding star, the next batter grounded into a double play, and Amil was soon relieved of the inning altogether by way of a strikeout. Every man that came before him after that was retired in order. The Meteors offered their pitcher little help, eking out only two runs, but with thirteen strikeouts to his credit and supreme command of his arsenal, little assistance was needed. All told, once the game faded into a fresh history, the record-setting line read: Win - CG, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 13 K.
The week which followed saw Amil swept up in a whirlwind of activity and attention that would have eclipsed the sum of all the adulation he garnered previously. There were interviews and profiles on ESPN, appearances at a few Cincinnati sports memorabilia shops, and throngs of people eager to score an autograph before his stature rose to the level of untouchable superstar.
On the road to begin a series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Amil rejoiced, as a portion of the attention that was cast his way would remain behind in Ohio. He was actually grateful that his second start would take place away from Cincinnati. Truth be told, the pressure to succeed was palpable as it bore down over him. As the home fans cheered him on, and as the local sportscasters dissected every one of his pitches, the weight of his occupation mounted. This glut of interest that had begun to follow behind was a strange animal, and he was having a difficult time acclimating himself to its mercurial behavior. After all, stardom in Fog Lake amounted to nothing more than three or more people taking notice of the actions of another resident. At least on the road, most of the Pirates’ fans didn’t recognize him. Some of the more casual fans had never even heard his name.
Due to scheduling oversights, the second game of the series, which commenced just after noon, was bookended by two 7:30 evening starts. That second game, the Meteors thumped the Pirates to the tune of a 12-2 final count. As a reward, the team was given the rest of the day off.
As he walked out of PNC Park, Amil had nothing to do, but he did feel an itch to wander. Crossing the street and into a parking lot, he noticed a pair of teenage boys. They looked to be transplants from the mid-90s grunge-rock era as they stepped out of an abused 1999 Chevy Malibu. He flagged them down, and, as luck would have it, the kid with an unkempt beard and a faded Mudhoney T-shirt recognized him immediately. Unexpectedly, this actually came as a stroke of good fortune. After a bit of banter, an autograph, and a payment of one hundred bucks, Amil had procured himself a vehicle for the day.
As he promised to return this turd to its dumping ground later that day, Amil bid the boys adieu, and surveyed the inside of his new ride. A dusting of ashes washed over everything, while a few extinguished cigarette butts offered a bit of color to the otherwise barren floor. The driver’s seat was torn and the backseat played host to all manner of trash, fast-food wrappers, and a mammoth CD booklet. He rifled through the volume until he came upon a disc which appeared painfully misplaced. Rolling down both windows to relieve himself of the stagnant air, and forcing the tired Malibu into gear, Amil allowed Bone Machine to play as he sped off to parts unknown.
Unbeknownst to Amil, he avoided most of the labyrinthine sections of Pittsburgh by drifting onto Route 28 North rather quickly. He drove the neglected 4-lane highway for a few miles before taking a random exit. He chose it for no other reason than because the exit ramp was on the left. It seemed interesting, the path less traveled. The aging, working-class neighborhood he found possessed a subtle charm, but boredom set in rather quickly. As his mind wandered, the hick from Fog Lake did a wonderful job of getting lost. Not that it mattered. He had all night to find his way back.
In a creative pattern that surely would have resembled a crop circle if traced, Amil found himself on Main Street as it cut its way through Sharpsburg. He plodded along uninspired, but, as the disc neared its end, Amil crossed into Pittsburgh’s Aspinwall neighborhood. No turns were necessary, but as Main Street morphed into Freeport Road, so too did the scenery around him undergo its own evolution. This charming little place looked fresh and sophisticated. Aspinwall certainly didn’t resemble a withered limb of a former industrial giant. The neighborhood vibrated with progress, and all its subtleties fascinated the boy from Fog Lake.
To his right flowed the mighty Allegheny River, which ran parallel to a set of train tracks. But to Amil’s left there sprung a quiet village that looked to be ripped from a postcard. It was almost as though the road itself married the old to the new, the raw to the refined. There was a produce stand, a fur shop, delis, and rows of beautiful homes that rested comfortably over cobblestone roads. Standing guard upon a manicured lawn was a large sculpture of a dinosaur that had been accented by stained glass. The sight gave Amil a chuckle. An extinct and fearsome beast made whimsical by the mind of man.
The avenues that broke off from Freeport were lined with trees that offered shade, and they also hosted wide sidewalks, which usually saw a steady stream of foot traffic. Turning down the aptly named Brilliant Avenue, Amil parked his borrowed car and set out to explore this land that promised to be the antithesis of Fog Lake.
He walked around the busy square and among a heavy concentration of dog-walkers, business types, and those utterly unconcerned with the flow of time. It was an elegant space. The streetlights were ornately detailed and the shop signs were made of wood and metal, not the usual cheap collaboration of neon and plastic. The buildings were old but perfectly preserved. The sidewalks were clean and even.
Amil turned and ventured down the narrow confines of Commercial Avenue in a search for nothing at all. The skinny street was walled in by old buildings that had been squeezed tightly up against one another, an arrangement which left the street in perpetual shade. The alley made him think of England. His knowledge of Europe was paltry, but this look of yesteryear was how he pictured the busy streets of London. Narrow and ancient, with structures of heavy stone, the roads of wavy brick making up the paths that supported the rear entrances of pubs and other tiny businesses. This, at least, was how the movies Amil had seen always portrayed the capital of the United Kingdom to be.
He enjoyed his stroll, and, with no thought of destination, Amil sauntered deeper into the embrace of the neighborhood. Under the chromatic umbrella of turning leaves, the direction chosen took him back toward Brilliant and the busy square. There were all sorts of intriguing shops to be found. Tucked among the might of brick and thick mortar, Amil passed pizza shops, salons, a few doctor’s offices, bric-a-brac, and hobby stores. He also found some art galleries, and the smell of coffee was ever-present in the air as it wafted out of the many cafés.
Near the conclusion of this gem of a street, Amil stepped off the cobblestone and turned into a diner that looked to have opened its doors for the first time mere moments before. He sat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee from a waitress who looked eerily familiar. As he sipped his cream-swirled brew and attempted to conquer the omelet he ordered, his curious mind struggled to unravel the mystery as to who the girl truly was.
Tall, at five-foot-ten inches, she had a mound of brown hair tangled up behind her head. A pair of square-framed glasses sat upon her nose and looked to be a pair of tiny televisions, the only programming, a constant exposé that told of the most enchanting blue eyes. Her nails were painted green, and their hue matched her eye shadow perfectly. Her lips were plump and they regularly delighted in the engulfing of the end of a blessed cigarette. Other than a little chub around the waist, this girl was on the slender side, which made her best assets all the more noticeable. Amil couldn’t help but assume that the ample set of breasts she sported were purchased, rather than bestowed from genetics.
As Amil studied her unnatural rack, he noticed the name on her tag, Ali. It was then that this clue was put together with her most noticeable and unfortunate of features. A deep scar drove down all the way from the center of he
r forehead. It skipped over her left eye and continued through the edge of her lower lip before it disappeared along her jaw line. It was a silent, dried out canal. The former path dug out from a river of violence. Like a ghost that can’t shed the mad echoes of the past, it immediately gave away her identity. This was Ali Jett.
Amil felt some sympathy for the quiet waitress, as he recalled the story of a Pittsburgh-born fashion model nearly beaten to death by an ex-boyfriend. She must have been forced home from the glamour of the fashion world by the tortured skin that decorated her young face. It was a thought that made Amil shudder, for he was certain that after Ali landed her first contract, she could have never imagined that her future would be serving coffee in Aspinwall.
As he drained his cup, Amil thought of how unpredictable and coldly unfair life can be. Here he sat, on the verge of his dreams, while Ali had nothing but a mangled reminder of hers.
“I know you,” he offered to Ali in a friendly tone.
“No, you don’t.”
“Well not in real life, I mean, I know who you are.”
“And?” replied Ali, with no intention of being pleasant.
“Nothing, I guess. Just wanted to talk.”
“Well I don’t.”
“That’s fine. I’m generally kinda quiet too. You just don’t have to be a bitch about it.”
Soured by the rude comment, she didn’t reply. She glared into Amil and he stared back. Her piercing eyes and lack of words did little to make him uncomfortable. After all, Ali had already said she didn’t feel like talking.
“You want more coffee?” she asked with a bitter tongue.
Part 4. The sordid young life of Ali Jett
Growing up in the predominately white and prestigious Pittsburgh neighborhood of Fox Chapel, young Ali was afforded a wealth of opportunities. Her parents had a stable marriage and both managed to bring home incomes in the six figures. Well liked and intelligent, she could rake in a GPA above 3.00 with minimal effort, and regularly made the honor-roll. Her parents envisioned sending Ali off to a college whose name would look quite impressive on a résumé, but she had different ideas.