“Oh my God.” The enormity of the mess hit Dan, and he glared at his teammate. “And what if I deny it? What if I say you made the whole thing up? My word against yours?”
Bucky winced. “Then . . . I . . . don’t know,” he managed. “You mean you’d go to Coach and lie on top of this? With your F paper sitting right there in that building this very second? You’d try to bull your way out? Does it just never end?”
Dan was the shorter of the two, but he seemed to swell and somehow tower over the innocent athlete standing there with the yellow piece of paper. “I mean, I do what I need to do to take care of my friends,” he said, his voice hard and tight. “Which is something you might think about, Stone. We’re a team. We got a chance to give Hampton a trophy this afternoon. Okay, yeah, maybe I messed up. Maybe Estrada and Reg screwed up too. It’s not the first time somebody on the Panthers took a shortcut. But if you go and squeal to Brayshaw, I can promise you this: we’ll find a way to come back and rip you up. You’ll be one sorry twerp around here the next three years.”
The stark threat hung in the air. Bucky weighed its implications and felt sick, but knew he had to rise above the fear of this moment. “Look, Litton,” he managed. “I came out here man to man to talk to you. If we’re a team that doesn’t play by the rules, then we’re not a team. Our victory is meaningless if we don’t stay on the same level playing field as Fairfield. And the paper here says there’s no cheating. Then you cheated. It says if one player knows about another player, he’s got to say so. I have to play by the rules. That’s my code. And if you don’t man up, then . . . I have to. It’s as simple as that, and it . . . pisses me off that you and your friends cheat, and then you want to blame me for the whole thing.” The unusual bit of street vernacular burned on his tongue and he flushed.
“I’m not blaming you for the whole thing,” Dan protested. “Well, unless you go shooting off your mouth to Coachie.”
“Yesterday you accused me of telling Harville.” Bucky’s voice rose and he saw a couple of seniors nearby eyeing the two athletes. “Which I didn’t. So what was that?”
“Well . . . yeah. I didn’t know who else could have.” Dan was breathing heavily. “And if you say you didn’t, I guess you didn’t. But now . . .”
A sense of righteous indignation suffused the Christian athlete, and he took a step toward his foe. “At noon today, I’m going.” He jerked his head toward the athletic complex. “I can be the second guy in the door, or the first guy there. That’s your call.” He breathed a prayer before adding one more thing. “Litton, you’re a blast to play with. And an honor. You’re a great athlete. I think we can go all the way, this year and every year. But it’s never going to be ‘Litton and Stone’ in all the varsity headlines if we don’t play by the rules. That’s it, man. Bottom line.”
He strode away without looking behind him.
The lunch period arrived, and Bucky made his way warily over to the athletic complex where he knew Coach Brayshaw would be working. He tapped tentatively on the coach’s door.
“Come on in,” a relaxed voice called.
As Bucky walked in, Coach Brayshaw and Coach Walker raised their hands in greeting. “Hey, there he is!’’ the JV coach beamed, hopping to his feet. “I told you, Walker, these boys of yours would save my bacon!” He reached out and offered the athlete a high-five. “What’s up, Stone?”
The athlete hesitated. “Did Dan Litton stop by here?” His voice held a trace of hope, even though he was almost positive what the answer was going to be.
Mr. Brayshaw shook his head as he eased himself back down onto the edge of his messy desk. “Haven’t seen him around. Game’s not till four, with BP for our side at a quarter past three. Why?”
A sense of despair washed over him, but he took a deep breath and blurted it out. “I found out that he and two of the other guys on JV have been cheating all semester in history class. And I guess, according to the district rules, I had no choice but to tell you.”
“What?” The younger faculty member had a baffled look. “Cheating how?”
Briefly, Bucky described the elaborate plan. “They’ve been pulling it for several weeks now; I know that for sure. Then yesterday when they tried to do it again on the midterm, the whole thing backfired, I guess. I don’t know if Harville got wind of it and switched tests or just what, but he left all those guys high and dry. And they all pretty much flunked.”
Brayshaw took a moment to absorb this. “Well, then, how come Harville didn’t already come over here with this himself?”
Bucky shook his head. “Well, I don’t know for sure that he switched tests as a way of nailing the people cheating. Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten around to grading them yet.”
The graying senior member of the coaching staff eyed the young baseball player quizzically. “So how’d you end up knowing about all this?” he queried.
“‘Cause Dan offered to let me in on it. Right after the first playoff game.”
“But then why are we just now hearing about it? Only four hours before the final playoff?”
The question had a bit of a jagged barb to its tone, and the ballplayer flushed. “Well, ‘cause, to tell the truth, I’d forgotten about the rule.” He pulled the now-wrinkled policy sheet out of his pocket and thrust it forward. “I mean, I told Litton no way and all that. But I didn’t remember that the district rules say we have to let you know.”
Coach Brayshaw hopped off the desk again, frustration plain on his face. “Of all the messes in the world.” He reached out and snatched the sheet of paper out of Bucky’s hand and glanced at it for just a moment as if to confirm what it said. “This is something I sure could have done without hearing, Stone.”
“I know,” he replied abjectly. “Then I went to Litton today and said: ‘Here’s the thing. It’s your job to go and tell Coach yourself.’ But he said no way.”
“Hang on.” Mr. Walker had been playing with a pencil, twirling it around in angry little circles, and he now set it down with some hard body English to the move. “You said several kids were in on this. Litton and who else?”
Bucky held back for a moment. “Look,” he responded at last, a bit of heat in his own voice. “I came in here ‘cause it’s the rules. I mean, do you want to know or do you not want to know? I’m just the person dialing 911 after somebody else robbed the bank. So don’t yell at me. You know? But if you’re ordering me to tell you, then I’ll tell you.”
“Well, the toothpaste is already outta the tube, Stone,” Coach Brayshaw said tersely. “You already spilled it. So now we got to take this blasted thing clear to the Supreme Court.”
Tingling with a renewed sense of horror, Bucky swallowed hard and then said: “For sure Estrada was in. And Reggie. I don’t know who else.”
“Oh my God.” Red-faced and breathing heavily, Coach Brayshaw picked up a nearby basketball and flung it angrily against the concrete wall opposite the trio. It bounced crazily back toward them and almost knocked the telephone off the coach’s desk.
“Take it easy,” Coach Walker snapped. “And don’t take it out on Stone here, Ted. It’s in the rulebook, and the kid is just going by what we told ‘im.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Brayshaw paced back and forth in the cramped office, his fists thrust into his pockets as he muttered to himself. “Talk about a season going up in smoke at the last minute, though.” He snapped out an epithet and the young athlete blanched.
“Is there . . . anything else you need for me to do?” His voice was shaking as he added the last words.
The younger teacher shook his head. “No,” he said shortly. “We’re way up the creek and no good fixes I can think of. Just take off and let me deal with it.”
Chapter Fourteen: The Agony of Defeat
The slow afternoon hours dragged by as Bucky tried to focus on his classwork. Was Coach really going to boot Dan and his two friends off the team? And would the news get out that he, Bucky, had been forced to turn in his own teammates?
> It was with his heart in his throat that he eased into the athletic complex at three and began to change into his baseball jersey. A couple of infielders nearby gave him an odd look and then walked to the far end of the locker room, turning their backs to him. His heart lurched as he gazed over at the spot where Dan usually dressed for games. The spot was bare, and he noticed that Reggie and Estrada were missing as well. A feeling of sinking loneliness began to overwhelm him.
There were already some fans beginning to fill up the stands that ringed the infield area, and Bucky made his way over to the home team dugout, fishing in the big green canvas bag for a batting helmet. Tino, a college intern who was volunteering a few hours with the high school JV squad, was throwing batting practice, and Bucky stepped in to take a few swings. But after just two pitches, Coach Brayshaw picked up his clipboard and looked past Bucky to the next batter. “Next. Move it along, Stone.”
As he shuffled away from the batting cage and looked for someone to warm up with, he happened to glance out toward the outfield fence. Walking along the perimeter of the field, still in their regular school clothes, were Dan, Estrada, and Reggie. Their cadence had a resolute kind of determination to it as they slowly headed away from the field. Just then, Dan paused and stared coolly across the expanse of grass at the young ballplayer. He hesitated, then held up his right hand in the familiar gesture of contempt. He held it in place for a long, tense moment, then dropped his hand and continued walking away from the field.
Other players had already paired up and were pegging hard throws back and forth at each other. Bucky waited for a bit, but no one offered to include him. After several awkward moments, Coach Brayshaw motioned to the squad. “Let’s get organized, men.”
The players gathered around as the older man scanned his ever-present clipboard. “Well,” he began awkwardly, “you probably heard the bad news already. We lost three of our guys this afternoon, so we’re way shorthanded. All the rest of you are going to have to suck it up and give the Panthers a hundred and ten percent. I mean, without Litton, that’s one of our major sticks, guys. So I want the rest of you to scramble hard, get on base, take your best cuts, and we’ll just see what happens.”
He began reading out the lineup. “Shortstop: Ochoa. Dennis, you bat second, right field. DeWayne, third base, of course, and you go third.” He got to the fifth spot, and hesitated for a long moment. Staring right through Bucky, his eyes fell on Gary, a light-hitting utility outfielder who had mostly ridden the bench all season. “Williams, you’re in center tonight, batting in the five hole. And Enrique, you’ve got to cover right since Litton ain’t here. Batting number six.”
There was a palpable sense of shock in the dugout as Coach read the remaining names in the lineup. Bucky had played center all season, batting close to .400, and was a reliable clutch hitter. Now, in an apparent fit of pique, the coach was purposely decimating his own lineup and needlessly putting one of his own star players on the bench.
The PA announcer clicked a laptop button and “The Star-Spangled Banner” boomed its way through the speakers ringing the infield. Bucky stood with his teammates, his face expressionless, but inwardly his thoughts were a raging torrent.
The Panthers grabbed their mitts and scurried to their defensive positions. As he slipped past Bucky, Ochoa, the team’s star shortstop, murmured in a low voice: “Sorry about all this, Stone. It ain’t fair, dude.”
The first three innings unfolded slowly, with Fairfield methodically building up a lead. The Panthers’ pitcher, a wily lefthander nicknamed Steamer, was struggling with his control, and every walk seemed to turn into a run for the opposition. The Hampton squad, on the other hand, was sorely missing its two big bats in the center of the lineup. With men on second and third and only one out, Bucky’s replacement didn’t get good wood on the ball and popped up to the third baseman. Then Enrique, trying gallantly to fill Dan Litton’s shoes, swung too hard at the very first pitch and hit a routine come-backer to the pitcher.
Disappointed, the slumping home team trotted back out to their positions on the field, glancing warily at the scoreboard with its four-run deficit. Bucky, still on the bench with the backup infielders and spare pitchers, was in turmoil. His usual demeanor during a game was to whoop it up, hollering a steady stream of encouragement to his teammates. He and Dan were always cheerfully boosting their cohorts on the field with wisecracks and colorful bits of rah-rah. But now, with Coach deliberately snubbing him, it was difficult to do anything but sit and suffer.
He did hop up when a long double by the team’s cleanup hitter drove in a lone run for the Panthers. But Gary followed it by hitting a little dribbler right to the Fairfield first baseman and the rally died meekly.
By the time the seventh inning arrived, half of the crowd had already slipped away to the high school parking lot, with the visiting team enjoying a commanding six-run advantage. Bucky’s spot in the batting order was due to come up second in the closing frame, but when the hitter in front of him struck out, Coach shrugged and left the lineup as it was. Final score: eight to two.
His face a tight mask, Coach Brayshaw gathered the troops around. “Well, men, it wasn’t meant to be, I guess. But you all played hard this season, and we’ll come back next time around. Have a good summer and thanks for your contributions.” He carefully avoided looking at Bucky, and there was a tired tension among the squad as they wearily gathered up their gear and trudged away.
The frustrated outfielder was about to pull out his cell phone and call home when, to his surprise, he spotted Dad’s car in the lot. His father was leaning against the hood, waiting for him.
“Hey, sport,” he said easily. “It didn’t go so good, huh?”
Bucky shook his head. “Huh uh.”
Dad shrugged. “Oh, well. Next year, son.” He paused. “I only saw the last two innings. How come you weren’t in there?”
“Long story.” Bucky shifted his tote bag to his other shoulder.
“Stone? Are you okay, man?”
It was Ochoa, the shortstop who had offered some consolation.
Bucky shrugged. “Yeah, man. I guess. As good as can be.”
“Tough game,” the olive-skinned ballplayer said dourly. “I mean, I’d like to say we might have done better if you’d played, but . . . jeez. Losing by six, I don’t think it would have changed things much.”
“Yeah.” Bucky’s face softened. “Thanks, though. It was an awesome season.”
The shorter boy cast a wary glance at Bucky’s father. “Can I tell you something? Like, private, though?”
Bucky’s gaze widened. “What is it, man?”
Ochoa gave a little gesture and the boys eased away. Bucky’s dad gave him a casual take-your-time gesture.
The shortstop lowered his voice. “Man, I was going to suit up, and I heard old Brayshaw really griping and almost shouting. In his office with that other guy, that frosh coach.”
“Walker?”
“Yeah, him. Anyway, it was this deal about Litton and those guys cheating in that class, man.”
Despite his frustration, Bucky was curious. “So what was he saying?”
“Oh, just . . . he was mad about losing three players, of course. But also bent out of shape ‘cause you came in and told him.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Bucky snapped. “It’s in the rules.”
“Sure. I know, man. But he was, all, like, ‘Why didn’t Stone just wait till after the weekend or something? Then they could suspend Litton for the first three games of next season or something.’ Or maybe everyone would forget, and the whole thing blow over. Stuff like that. But he was just mad ‘cause the timing stunk. You know?”
“Well . . .” Bucky began to pace. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way. The rulebook doesn’t say, ‘If you find out, wait until there aren’t any games left, and then report it.’ I found out, I went to Litton and said, ‘You deal with this.’ He wouldn’t do it, so then I figured I had no choice.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah.” Ochoa digested this, then gave a little nod. “Well, look, Stone. Man, you did the right thing. You and me, we’re both Christians. You got to do what’s right, man. And you did. So that’s awesome.”
“Yeah.” Bucky gave a short, bitter laugh. “How come it doesn’t feel very awesome right now?”
“Oh, don’t sweat it,” the younger boy asserted. “This’ll blow over.” He reached down and picked up his gear. “But you always got to be obedient to God and all that.” He cocked his head, thinking. “But I don’t know if I coulda done what you did, Stone. That’s too much, bro.”
Bucky accepted the generous words. “Hey, you know what? “
The shortstop waited.
“I mean, just . . . thanks. I really appreciate you saying what you did. I was feeling pretty lonely there in that dugout.”
Ochoa cackled a bit. “Yeah, man. ‘Specially in that third inning, you got second and third, one out. I know you’d have driven in those two runs. The way that guy was pitching, you and Litton would’ve owned him.” He shrugged. “But who knows? Main thing is, you obeyed the Lord, dude.”
• • • • •
In the car, Bucky was about to spill his guts, but Dad, correctly reading the moment, quietly put up his hand. “Just take it easy,” he smiled. “Save it so you can tell your mom and me all at once.”
The boy sighed wearily. “Thanks, Dad.”
Mom, sensing that something was amiss – more than just a lost game – gave Bucky a warm hug and then pointed toward the kitchen. “I’ll have some potato salad and mini-pizzas for you in about three minutes,” she smiled. “Have a Coke while you wait.”
Over the delicious comfort food, he described the entire saga, beginning with the blowup with Dan earlier that morning. Still clad in his sagging baseball stirrups and jersey, he poured out the tale of woe.
Dad digested the story, then gave a little shake of his head. “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s a tough rule – making kid report on their peers. I mean, maybe it’s a necessary discipline. But that’s really hard, Son. I’m proud of you.”
Bucky Stone: The Complete Adventure (Volumes 1-10) Page 20