High Heat

by Carl Deuker

  His team was batting. I walked over to his bench.

  "You here to play?" he said.

  "Just to watch."

  "Come on. Play."

  "I can't. I didn't bring my glove."

  He waved that off. "No problem. You use someone else's. We're short two players." He paused. "You can pitch if you want."

  "I'll play, Miguel, but I'm not pitching."

  "Okay, Shane. Don't pitch. You play outfield like Coach says. We need a right fielder."

  "Right field it is."

  "I'll introduce you to the guys." He lowered his voice. "They're good guys mostly, but not all of them. You know what I mean."

  He called out six names in about seven seconds. Manny, Jose, Pedro. I nodded to each of them, but I couldn't have matched a single name with a face. Not that it mattered, because none of them took any notice of me. They nodded, then went right back to their conversations.

  I sat next to Miguel and watched the game. The talent was about the same as in a high school game, only a couple of the older guys were better than anybody in high school, and a couple were worse. The pitcher—an older guy—adjusted his game to fit the player. He'd throw some serious fastballs to one batter and then throttle way back when the next hitter came up. Miguel's team—it was hard to think of them as my team—scored a couple of runs. I was on deck when the third out was made.

  I didn't know how I'd get a glove, but Miguel took care of that for me. The guy he asked stared at me suspiciously for a few seconds, then handed it to me. It was a nice glove, a burgundy Rawlings that had been well cared for. I was going to be sure to hand it back to him and not toss it.

  I trotted out to right field, surprised at how nervous I felt. I almost wished I was pitching. I'd have been comfortable on the mound, especially in this type of game, but I felt lost in right field.

  The other team got a couple of hits and a walk, and with two out they had one run in and runners at second and third. The batter was a lefty, the biggest guy out there. The center fielder called out to me. "Hey, you." With his arm, he was motioning me to move back. I took five steps and looked over. "More!" he shouted. Who was I to argue? I took five more.

  On the second pitch, the guy turned on a fastball and crushed it, sending a towering fly ball down the right field line that ended up in the parking lot. That started a huge argument as to whether it was fair or foul. Even though I was taking Spanish in school, I couldn't follow what these guys were saying. A player on our team ended up running down the line pretending to be the ball, curving as he ran. That seemed to do it—the decision was foul. The next pitch was some kind of changeup, which was smart. The batter was angry about losing his home run and ready to crush another ball. He was way out in front, tried to hold up, and ended up sending a bloop toward me in right.

  It was just a pickup game, so I probably should have played it on a hop, even if playing it safe would have cost two runs. But I wanted to show these guys that I could play. I got a good jump and sprinted in. At the last second I dived, and the ball stuck in the web of my glove. I hit the ground hard, but the ball stayed put like a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of a sugar cone.

  As I trotted in, my teammates came over and patted me on the back. "Nice catch! ... Way to go!...Muy bien."

  We played for another hour. I struck out and popped up in my two at bats, but I caught every fly ball hit my way. Our team ended up winning by a half dozen runs or so. When the game broke up, Miguel gave me a playful punch in the shoulder. "See? I told you. It's good. You come tomorrow night?"

  "Yeah. I'll come tomorrow night."

  He reached out and shook my hand. "Good. Good. It's fun."

  I had started toward home when he called after me. "Hey, Shane, you know that guy you hit in the head?"

  All the good feelings drained out of me. "What about him?"

  "He was here yesterday."

  "What?"

  "The guy you hit," Miguel repeated. "He was here. Yesterday. He played."

  "Reese Robertson was here?"

  "I don't know his name, but I remember his face."

  "It couldn't have been him, Miguel. He wouldn't—" I was about to say that he wouldn't play with a bunch of Latinos in a pickup game, but I caught myself.

  "He wouldn't what?" Miguel said, and I could tell he'd mentally finished my sentence for me.

  "He wouldn't have the time to play. His coach runs a summer team. He'd be on it."

  Miguel shrugged. "Well, then it must have been some guy who looked just like him. I struck him out twice. Fastballs inside."

  CHAPTER 3

  I played right field again on Thursday night, picking up my first hit, a seeing-eye grounder up the middle, and scoring my first run. I also ran down three fly balls. On Friday night I struck out twice, but I threw out a runner trying to go from first to third on a single. When the other guys saw the strength of my arm, they called me Ichiro, which made me feel pretty good.

  Saturday night I got to the field early. Before Miguel said anything, he tossed me a ball. I fired it back, and we fell into a comfortable rhythm. We must have thrown for five minutes before he motioned for me to look out toward center field. "That's him, isn't it? The guy you hit." He waited while I looked. "It is, right? I told you it was him."

  My heart was pounding like crazy. Anger surged. Reese just wouldn't go away. "Yeah, that's him."

  "You going to say something to him?"

  "Why should I? I don't know him."

  "You hit him in the head, Shane. You got to say something."

  I fired the baseball back to Miguel. "I don't have to do anything."

  A pickup game has a life of its own. One minute a bunch of guys are throwing the ball around, and the next the sides are chosen and the game is going. Exactly how it all happens is a mystery, but I made sure I wasn't on Reese's team.

  We started in the field, and I quickly hustled out to my position in right field. But I could feel his eyes on me, and I couldn't keep my eyes from drifting toward him.

  Miguel was pitching for us. When Reese came up, he took his practice swings and stepped into the batter's box, looking just like the old Reese Robertson. Fast bat, fast hands. Then Miguel threw him an inside fastball, and Reese's left foot buckled and his left side opened up. He squibbed a little dribbler toward the mound, and he was out before he'd taken ten steps out of the box.

  We played seven innings that night. Reese batted three more times. Miguel struck him out on three pitches and got him on another pathetic ground ball to the right side. When Reese came up to the plate for the last time, Alberto Guerrero was pitching. Guerrero was probably thirty years old. He liked the game to move, so he grooved pitches down the middle for everybody. Reese fouled off Guerrero's first pitch, then drove the next one over our left fielder's head. I watched as he flew around the bases, his long stride eating up the ground, turning a triple into a home run. Guys on his team swatted him on the back, and I could see his smile from three hundred feet away. But when he sat down on the bench, the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. If I knew Guerrero had laid the ball in there, then Reese had to know it too.

  By nine the sun was setting and a chill wind had come up—quitting time. I'd avoided Reese during the whole game, running to and from right field with my head down. I intended to get myself home in the same way. But as I was heading off the field, I heard his voice behind me. "Shane Hunter."

  I turned around. "Yeah?"

  "Remember me? I'm Reese—"

  "I know who you are," I interrupted.

  He stared at me. "I thought you did."

  My throat was so dry I could hardly talk, but I made myself. "What are you doing here, Reese? Shorelake's got a summer team. I went there, remember? You could be traveling up and down the coast, playing top teams and staying in fancy hotels. Why are you playing in a crummy pickup game like this when you could be doing that?"

  He looked at the ground. "You want to know?"

  "Yeah. I want to know."
>
  "All right. I'm here because I haven't been able to hit since that game. And I'm sick and tired of my teammates and coaches treating me with kid gloves. I need to play in games where I can work on getting my stroke back without feeling like I'm in a fishbowl. But if it's not okay with you that I play here, then—"

  "No," I said, embarrassed by his directness. "You can play here. You can play wherever you want. It's a free country. I just didn't understand."

  "And now you do?"

  "Now I do."

  "Okay then."

  "Okay."

  He turned and started toward the parking lot, which was off the first base line. There was only one car there—a brand-new bright red VW Beetle. "Is that yours?" I called out to him.

  "Yeah," he said, turning back. "It's a birthday gift. I've only had it a week."

  "You shouldn't park it so close to the field. A ball landed there just last week."

  "Thanks for the tip."

  ***

  You can tell yourself a million times that something is no big deal, but you can't trick your body. It lets you know when things aren't right. All through the next day, my stomach was turning over. I did a terrible job refereeing, and Miguel noticed. "Something bothering you?"

  "No. Nothing."

  "Then blow the whistle."

  At around six-thirty that evening I headed to the baseball diamond for the game. The first thing I did when I climbed the stairs to the field was check out the parking lot. Reese's Beetle was parked as far from the field as possible.

  I played catch with Miguel and Jose, trying hard to behave normally. But I caught myself laughing too hard at every little joke anybody made. The whole time, I kept sneaking peeks at Reese. He was in the outfield tossing the ball with the older pitcher, Alberto Guerrero. Finally our eyes caught. Reese gave me the smallest of waves, and I gave him the same back. All right, I thought, feeling better. That's done. Now I can play my own game.

  Only I couldn't. Because every time Reese stepped to the plate, I watched each pitch as if it were the last inning of the World Series. When he struck out, popped up, or hit a soft grounder to the infield—which was most of the time—I'd feel empty inside. I kept thinking that he'd improve, that he had to improve. But one week went by, and then another, and another, and nothing changed.

  Not that he struck out every time. He did okay against the older guys, like Guerrero, who had nothing to prove. But against the hard throwers, Reese opened up his left foot and shoulder way too soon, making his swing pitiful. Most guys would have thrown a few bats, or at least let loose now and then with a few choice words. I know I would have. But not Reese. He'd strike out with the bases loaded or hit a little comebacker with runners at second and third, and when he returned to the bench, he'd walk with his head up. Most of the time he even managed a word for the next batter. "Get a hit" or "You can do it."

  After striking out in a big situation, most players will carry the strikeout with them onto the field. They'll be thinking about their swing, so they get a late jump on fly balls or throw to the wrong base—stupid things they wouldn't do if they were hitting well. But Reese never let his strikeouts affect the rest of his game. He was all over that outfield, tracking down fly balls hit to left center and right center, diving for line drives that he could have easily let bounce for base hits.

  During one game in late July, Miguel struck Reese out four times. The next day I saw Guerrero working with Reese, showing him how to keep his shoulder in. Reese listened and nodded. Guerrero meant well, but Reese knew what to do; he just couldn't get himself to do it.

  Reese wasn't getting anywhere, but I was. The weightlifting and running were paying off. The scale showed I'd put on five pounds, but I'd probably lost ten pounds of fat and put on fifteen pounds of muscle. I had more stamina than ever. I was playing okay, especially in the field. I caught everything hit my way, and I threw out any runners who tried to take an extra base on me. At the plate I wasn't much, though I did hit a home run. The ball barely cleared the fence down the right field line, and I hit it off Guerrero, but it was a home run.

  ***

  The day after that home run was August 2, my birthday. Mom took the day off, and I skipped the baseball game. We went to Rosita's for dinner and afterward had an ice-cream cake at home. "What did we do for your birthday last year?" Mom asked as we ate.

  Marian looked at me.

  "I don't think we did anything," I said. "I don't think we did anything for Marian's either, or for yours."

  After that, a silence fell over us.

  Upstairs in my room, I thought about my dad. When they'd lowered him into the ground, I'd sworn to myself that I'd always remember him, every single day of my life. It had been only sixteen months since his suicide, but already weeks would go by when I wouldn't think of him at all. And now, when I did think of him, I felt mad at him for leaving Mom and me and Marian. If he were alive, I could ask him things, like whether I should play right field or try pitching again, and if there was something I could do for Reese.

  CHAPTER 4

  In the second half of August we started getting rain showers, and the sun was setting earlier. Still, I figured the baseball games would keep going at least until the World Series ended in late October. But one Monday night toward the end of August, Guerrero brought a soccerball with him. A half dozen guys formed a circle and kicked the ball around; the conversation was all about the national teams of Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. It was hard to get them to put the soccerball away and start the baseball game. The next evening there were three soccerballs, and the circle of guys kicking the ball grew to a dozen. Those guys were good, too. It seemed as if every one of them could dribble with both feet, turn on a dime, and pass. The ball might as well have been on a string.

  After about fifteen minutes, there was a general discussion, mainly in Spanish, about whether to play baseball or soccer. One of the older guys took charge. "Fútbol?" he said, and a whole bunch of voices responded. "Baseball?" he called next. Only Reese voted my way.

  With that, the whole pack moved to the adjoining soccer field. "Come on, Shane," Miguel said, motioning for me to follow him.

  "No way, Miguel. I'm terrible at soccer."

  "It's just for fun. Nobody cares."

  I laughed. "I care." I turned and started for home.

  That's when I saw Reese. He had his baseball glove in his hand. We both stood there, looking at each other for a minute. "As long as we're here, how about if you and me toss the ball around a little?" he said at last.

  He stood at shortstop, and I stood between home and first. He had a good, loose arm, and he fired the ball with just the right velocity. "Do you remember the first time we did this?" Reese said after the ball had gone back and forth about twenty times.

  "Yeah, I remember."

  "You gave me that old glove and then almost burned a hole in my hand. It was sore for a week." I didn't answer. The ball went back and forth a few more times. "I didn't know about your father then, about how he died. My parents never told me, even after we moved in. I didn't find out until I got to Shorelake. So if I acted like a jerk that day, it's because I didn't know."

  I held the ball for a moment. "You didn't act like a jerk. If anybody acted like a jerk, it was me."

  "I just wanted you to know that I didn't know."

  "Forget about it. It's over."

  I threw the ball to him, he threw it back, and there was no more talk about my dad.

  Reese had brought his bat with him, so after a while we took turns hitting grounders and fly balls to one another. It wasn't a real game or even a real practice, but it was baseball. An hour or so must have passed because the soccer game ended, and Miguel, all sweaty, came over. "You should have played. You kick the ball. You run. You kick the ball. Nothing to it. We could have used you."

  I shook my head. "It's not my game, Miguel."

  Miguel frowned. "You change your mind, you tell me, and I'll get you in the game tomorrow." He looked to Reese. "Bo
th of you." Then he headed off the field.

  Reese looked at his watch. "I should go, too." After he'd taken about ten steps toward his car, he turned to me. "How about you and I throw the ball around again tomorrow?"

  "Okay by me," I said.

  "Here? Regular time?"

  "Yeah."

  "All right. See you tomorrow."

  For the rest of August it was just me and Reese. We'd play catch, hit fly balls and grounders to each other. One night when we'd finished, he asked me if I wanted to get something at Starbucks. "Sure," I said. After that we'd always get in his car and drive to the Starbucks down on Greenwood. He'd have hot chocolate and I'd have a mocha. We'd talk baseball mainly, Mariners and Giants and Yankees and Athletics, playoffs and World Series. Afterward he'd drop me off on Greenwood and 140th, and I'd walk the final few blocks home.

  He always offered to take me to my house, but I never let him. Mom had planted flowers in front, and I kept the lawn mowed and edged and the walkways swept. I didn't care if Grandison or any of the guys from Whitman saw it. Looking at it, no one would ever guess that it was city housing. I just didn't want Reese to see it.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Saturday of Labor Day weekend the sun stayed hidden behind gray clouds, and a chill wind blew from the north. My summer job had ended, so I hung out in my room, listening to music and thinking about school.

  My mother had the lunch shift that day. She came home at four and called Marian and me downstairs. "Let's the three of us go to the movies tonight. There's a Spielberg film at the Majestic Bay. We could get hamburgers or pizza first. What do you say?"

  Marian immediately agreed.

  "I can't," I said. "I'm playing baseball."

  "Shane, you've played every day this summer. You can miss once. Besides, it looks like it could start raining any minute."