by Jj Rossum
Marco had been in the league for a while, and I was pretty sure he started in Detroit. He had been one of the league’s best relief men for quite a few seasons, a left-handed specialist who was brought in to get guys out before the team’s closer would come in to shut it down. But, he was a hothead. Notoriously so. Now, he wasn’t the pitcher he had once been, and when the Rays had traded for him, sports writers in the area had been pissed. All the sports talk radio shows had been bitching about it for days, wondering why we needed someone like him on our team. He had a fiery temper, which had served him well when he was younger and throwing hard. But now that his velocity had diminished and he was getting hit a lot more, his temper turned into tirades on the mound. People often referred to him as The Headhunter, a pitcher who purposely threw at the batters’ heads. Everyone who followed baseball had players they automatically liked and disliked, and I had always severely disliked Marco Batista. God, I was feeling nauseous.
“Well, that’s really neat,” Kenneth said. “We are really glad you are here with us, and maybe we can meet your husband sometime.”
She said thank you and smiled, before returning to her lunch.
Now, It made sense to me why she had lunch by the stadium yesterday, and why she said her husband was going to be leaving town. The last game of the Rays’ nine-game homestand had been the night before, and after the game they had flown to Boston, where they would be for a couple of nights. I didn’t usually make a habit of watching Rays’ games while they were on the road (my team has always been, and will always be, the Atlanta Braves), but I had a feeling I’d find myself watching tonight.
The rest of the conversation turned to other topics as the teachers finished their meals. Occasionally one of us would yell across the lunchroom for a certain table to settle down, but for the most part we ate in peace. When lunch was over, April and I walked together out of the lunchroom as the students stormed out, seeming eager to get back to class, which I knew wasn’t the case.
“Hey, let’s take the elevator,” I said, almost dragging her in the opposite direction of the stairs, which were going to be crowded and chaotic with kids returning to class from lunch, and the other group of classes heading down for their lunch.
“I didn’t even know there was an elevator,” she mused.
We beat the kids upstairs and the hallway was thankfully less loud.
“Listen, Luke,” she said as we walked. “I could tell by the things on your desk and by your keychain that you seem to be a pretty serious baseball fan.”
I nodded.
“So, I am guessing you know who my husband is?”
I nodded again.
She stopped walking and turned toward me, forcing me to stop too. She had a pained look on her face.
“Look, I am sure those teachers are probably all going to go home and Google my husband, or try to tell other people that the new sub is married to a professional athlete. Do you think there is any way you could mention to them that I might prefer it be kept under wraps?”
“Of course. Sure. I mean, I don’t think they have a clue who he is, and I’m not sure who they would even tell.”
“People treat you differently when they find out. It always happens. Plus, if they read anything about him, they’ll...”
Her voice trailed off and she didn’t have to finish what she was going to say for me to know what she was thinking.
“I understand. Really. I have all their phone numbers in my phone. I will text them when I get back to the classroom.”
“God, thank you.”
She looked relieved, and for a second I thought she might actually hug me. But maybe I imagined it, because we resumed walking back to our classes. I wondered why she hadn’t bothered lying, telling everyone that her husband was a pilot or something else that would give him an excuse for being gone as often as he must be. But, I imagine it would have come out eventually, like all lies do.
We wished each other a pleasant afternoon and went to our respective rooms. I texted the teachers, advising them to keep everything on the down low for her sake, and got responses back surprisingly quickly from everyone saying that of course they understood and would respect her privacy.
When that was out of the way, I turned on my computer screen, and went about reading up on Marco Batista. He was thirty-eight years old, which made him one of the older pitchers in the league. He had been playing in the big leagues since he was twenty-two, and although I knew he had been playing for a while, I didn’t realize he had been playing since I was twelve. Being a hard-throwing left hander was not particularly common, which was a big reason why his career had lasted as long as it had. There was always going to be at least one team willing to pay a lefty who could throw hard.
I could hit him, I thought to myself. He couldn’t throw one past me.
That might actually have been true now, but it wouldn’t have been true in his heyday. He had been to six All Star games in his career, was on two World Series champions, and had played in another two but had been on the losing end.
I felt a twinge of jealousy. I always wondered what would have happened if I had been able to keep playing after college. I knew I had been good enough to go pro, but life happened and kept me from it. I was good at not sitting around dwelling on it much anymore, but occasions like this brought the feelings back. I loved baseball too much to not be able to sit and watch it, but there had been a time when I couldn’t even do that. Now, I found myself wishing I had gone pro, just so I could have hit a home run off of April’s hard-throwing, hot-tempered husband.
I went home after work and found Holly lounging on my couch in her underwear, my computer on her lap.
“Doesn’t it burn your legs when you sit like that?” I asked.
“No, I barely even notice it,” she replied, and then turned back to her computer.
She was twenty-six and had spent her post-high school years working odd jobs to support her siblings. Both of her parents were alcoholics and she ended up raising them on her own. I think that’s why she normally gravitated toward needy men in relationships—she liked to help people and fix things. Once her youngest brother had finished high school, she decided to go back to college, and now did online classes while working as a bartender on weekends. The irony of her being a bartender wasn’t lost on her, but she liked the money.
“Did you get out of the house today?” I asked, sitting down next to her. She leaned over and kissed me.
“I walked down to the beach this morning. I was going to jog but my tennis shoes and sports bra weren’t here. Remind me to bring some over next time.”
“Are you going to stay here tonight?”
“Yeah, I think so. If that’s cool.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “I think I am just going to hang out here and watch the Rays game.”
I was hoping to see Marco get rocked by the Red Sox.
“I saw some chicken in the freezer. I can make some later if you want.”
This was normal for us. She would come over, spend a few days with me, re-energize, and then go back to her life. We were like a couple for 48-72 hours, which was about as long as we could manage.
“Okay. I’ll drive you by your place later to pick up your car so you’ll have it tomorrow. Unless you want me to take you now.”
She closed the laptop and set it down on the floor. She stood up and stretched her arms over her head. Her breasts bounced underneath her pink bra as she lowered her arms back down.
“Actually,” she said, lowering herself down on my lap, straddling me. “I do want you to take me. Right now.”
After sex, I took her to get her car and we came back. She was making dinner while I watched the game.
The Rays were actually winning 4-1 in the bottom of the third inning, thanks to a three-run home run in the second inning. I was hoping the Rays would be able to maintain the lead, which would mean Marco would probably get to come in to face a batter or two in the seventh or eighth inning.
&nb
sp; I was wondering if April watched many of the games. I imagined with two kids, the best she could do was have it playing in the background while running after her children. Being the wife of a professional athlete couldn’t be easy. Plus, their husbands were on the road half of the year, doing God only knew what, or whom, in their spare time. Her husband was Latino, obviously, and those guys could never seem to keep it in their pants. Maybe he was fucking around.
In the fifth inning, the Rays were winning 4-2, and the camera panned down to the side of the field where the Rays’ relief pitchers were sitting, where Marco was. The announcers were talking about their closer, Joe Mills, who was the pitcher the team would bring in for the last inning if they were winning, to hopefully guarantee a victory. In the shot, I could see Marco, joking around with his teammates. I don’t know why, but I had the urge to punch him in the teeth.
The game moved along slowly, as all American League baseball games seem to do, but eventually they reached the bottom of the eighth inning, with the Rays holding a 5-4 lead. There was a left-handed hitter scheduled to come up third, so there was a good chance we’d be seeing Marco. I don’t think I had ever been so interested in a relief performance in my life.
“Are you going to turn that off ever?” Holly asked, standing in the doorway to my bedroom. She was just wearing panties now.
“It’s almost over. Just one more inning.”
“Yes, but it’s already after 11.”
I ignored her and went back to watching the game. She sighed and went into the bedroom and I could hear her lie down. One of the rules during these two or three days every few months was that we had sex as often as possible. Since she was basically the only one I had been sleeping with for a few years, I generally had no problem with these stipulations.
The first two batters reached for the Red Sox, which meant the tying and the lead run were on base. The manager came out to yank the pitcher and signaled for Marco to be brought in.
I sat on the edge of my seat, praying that he would fuck the game up, give up a big home run, something. I wasn’t sure where all this aggressive anger was coming from, but it was there.
Somewhere from my bedroom, I could hear her whistling the Jeopardy music.
Marco came in to pitch, and the first two pitches weren’t even close to being strikes. He was already looking frustrated with the umpire, as if he were responsible for Marco’s awful pitches. The next one was a strike, and the batter just watched it go by. Then Marco hit him square in the right arm. The batter hunched over in pain. The camera went to Marco and he just stood there, glaring. I couldn’t tell if he was staring down the umpire or the batter, but the announcers seemed to think it might have been both. The crowd booed loudly, and the batter eventually regained his composure and walked to first base. Now the bases were loaded, with still no one out. Marco would need a miracle not to allow the tying run. And that’s what he got. The next batter struck out on three pitches, flailing wildly and missing severely on all three. Then the last batter of the inning swung at the first pitch. He hit it hard, but directly to the second baseman, who flipped it over to the shortstop covering the base. The shortstop then fired it to the first baseman for a double play. I threw the pillow I was holding in my lap onto the floor. Goddammit.
The camera showed Marco walking off the field, in a shouting match with the umpire. “Fuck you!” He was yelling. “No, fuck you!” Classy guy, that Marco.
I turned the TV off and went to the bedroom, where Holly was naked and waiting patiently.
In the middle of the night, my phone rang. It was on the nightstand over on Holly’s side of the bed, and she immediately bolted out of her sleep.
“Who is it?” she asked, not fully awake.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “It’s right next to you. Hand it to me.”
She pulled it off the charger, looked at the screen, and said, “Who’s Walt?”
Six Years Earlier
We were told the cancer was inoperable, and the doctors had tried rounds of chemotherapy, but they hadn’t been effective. Six months had been the estimated best-case scenario.
They had given us that diagnosis at the end of March. I was in my second year of teaching, and had debated quitting altogether, but she forced me to finish the year, through May. She didn’t think the kids deserved to have a teacher they loved leave them abruptly, and under such dreadful circumstances.
I fought her about it, but she won. Sort of. She always won.
I missed quite a few days, though, during the final two months of the school year, but everyone at Lakefront had been incredibly gracious and understanding. There were days that had been particularly bad for her, and I would stay by her side. We had plenty of hospital days too, and I was going to make sure I was with her every step of the way.
Robin was amazing through those few months. She had insisted I let her plan out everything for my classes for the remaining two months. When I tried to argue with her, her insistence only grew stronger.
“You’ve got other things to focus on,” she had said. “I only wish I could do more.”
I hadn’t been at Lakefront all that long. When I started there, I wasn’t sure how the older faculty would respond to such a young colleague. I wanted to fit in, especially among the other English teachers, but I was worried they might write me off as some wet idealist. Most of them had left me alone to do my thing, but Robin hadn’t been that way.
From the start, she had taken me under her wing. I know that’s probably the most cliché phrase there is, but that’s exactly how she made me feel—welcomed, safe, loved. Even protected.
There had been one day my first year where I handed the wrong test out to the wrong class. Hands immediately shot up around the room, asking if I meant to give them that particular test. I had heard plenty about classes trying to trick teachers, make them look like idiots. I had seen the movies and TV shows. So, I thought they were trying to pull a fast one on me. I refused to listen to them. I told them to be quiet and finish the test. I threatened them with detention or a trip to the principal’s office if they spoke another word. To their credit, they obeyed and finished a test that wasn’t intended for them over material they had never covered. As they left the classroom that day, they all gave me strange looks. I am sure I had looked proud, because I knew I had been on to them and figured out their little ruse.
Well, needless to say the students had been bothered by it all, and started telling other teachers and students in other classes throughout the rest of the day. Word somehow managed to get to Principal West by the end of the day, and he had come into my classroom after school to talk to me about it. I had set the test papers aside after the class had taken the test and hadn’t bothered looking at them until he asked me to.
I was confident they took the right test and told him so. But, when I pulled out the tests, my heart dropped as I thumbed through them. He was particularly disappointed in me. I hadn’t double-checked; I had refused to listen to the students’ concerns. I had failed. He made sure that I would apologize to the class the next morning, and made me promise him something like that would never happen again.
I left the school that day feeling mortified. My wife tried to comfort me and make me laugh at myself. But that was impossible, knowing that I was already the laughing stock of the teachers and students. I even contemplated calling in sick the next morning. But, my wife wouldn’t let me.
As I walked into class that morning, a large bag of Dum-Dum lollipops were waiting for me on my desk, along with a note.
When I first started teaching, I yelled at a student who was being ignorant and disrespectful. I told him, among other things, that whoever it was that raised him should be thrown back into the zoo with the rest of the animals. I had a temper, you see. The only problem was that the young man was the stepson of the principal, my boss. Suffice it to say, that was not my finest day. If this was your Dum-Dum moment in teaching, I think you’ll be just fine. Laugh at yourself, and you’ll
become an even better teacher than you already are. Have a splendid day.
Robin
Needless to say, an enormous weight lifted from my shoulders, and from that moment on, she and I had been close. She was like the older, wiser sister I always wanted, and we got along great. Carrie loved her the moment the two met, and when I finally got the chance to meet Walt, he was as perfect for her as I had imagined he would be.
So, when Carrie was sick, Robin was my rock. And when we told her and Walt the six-month timetable, they were devastated.
“God can do anything He pleases, and no cancer is too big for Him to heal,” she had immediately said, and definitely believed it, and they both had prayed for us right there.
Robin made due on her promise to schedule out all my classes and to work closely with my substitute to make sure everything went smoothly on the days I wasn’t able to be there.
One particular day in mid-May, Carrie had been feeling much better, and because her mother had come down to visit, she insisted I go in to work since it had been a few weeks. I complied and actually felt a rush in the classroom that day. The kids were excited to have me back. My coworkers were all friendly and full of well-wishes and encouragement.
At the end of the day, as the last students filed out, Robin came in and sat on the quicksand couch. She smiled and looked exhausted.
“How did it feel being back?” she asked.
“It was kind of a relief, you know?” I said, leaning back in my desk chair. “It was nice to be able to take my mind off things for a little bit. Never know how long it’ll last.”
I felt like I had to say that, addressing the obvious, cancerous elephant in the room. But it was true. Every day I lived in fear, wondering if this would be the day she died. Her body had been severely weakened, and she had become susceptible to other things too. She had come down with pneumonia and I thought it was nearing the end, but she fought. God, Carrie was a fighter. And she pushed through it.
Needless to say, I hadn’t thought I would be at work much, if any, the rest of the year, and to have a day where I could come back and feel relief was special. I needed it.