Walking Wounded
Page 12
Then I get jolted.
“Did I really just hear you request two beanings?”
Startled, I do a sort of hop–midair twist in the direction of the voice. The lovely honey voice, which tells you right away it’s not any of the mugs on this team.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” I say, kinda goofy but so what. “Hannah, I’m very glad you could make it.”
“So am I. Only thirty seconds in the dugout and already I know about the violent shenanigans that go on behind the scenes at these clubs.”
“Oh, that?” I say, pointing over my shoulder in the direction of today’s starting pitcher who is on his way to brush up on his brushback pitch at my request. “That’s not violence, that’s … strategy.”
“Hmmm,” she says. “Violent strategy.”
“No, really. It’s just about the unwritten rules, the integrity of the game. It’s The Code. And The Code says that guys who spike and hide and don’t face the music —”
“The Code also says no dames in the dugout,” barks Nardini from the far end of the bench. Nardini is a fine left fielder, a little too pugnacious for his own good, a guy you’re usually glad is on your side.
“Hey,” I bark back, “this is no dame. This is a ballplayer.”
I turn and give my girl a big, protective smile, even though we have not quite established that she is my girl.
“Thanks,” she says. “I guess.”
Hannah is a ballplayer, and a fine one. That’s how I found her and how I fell for her, if you want to know the truth. She played right here on this field earlier this year, for the Centreville Ladies in an exhibition match. She played center field better than the guy we have, and went four-for-four, including an inside-the-park home run where she had to bowl over the catcher to score. That was the moment. I knew I was gonna marry her, or try real hard to, anyway, even before I went over like a dumb ol’ fan to meet her after the game.
“Looks very much like a dame to me,” says Nardini, who is suddenly not at the other end of the dugout. He is right here giving Hannah a close inspection.
I step in between them. “Well, you look like a dame to me, Nardini, and nobody’s saying you can’t stay.”
The guys all burst out in exaggerated laughter, hooting and whistling at Nardini. He’s not the hardest guy in the world to get a rise out of, and he gives me a shove. I stumble back, banging into Hannah, then rush to shove Nardini in return. Before it can get too crazy, all the guys are right there with us, separating us, cooling things, making light of it all.
“C’mon, boys,” Pop calls loudly, clapping. “Time to take the field. Let’s go, let’s go.”
We scramble for gloves, hats, whatever, bumping into each other, stepping over each other, and then Nardini is back. He’s carrying his glove in one hand. He steps right up to Hannah and I tense up until he whips off his hat and does almost a bow.
“Of course you’re welcome in our dugout, miss. It’s an honor to have you.”
She smiles, bows back, and I am just about reappreciating Nardini until he slips me a sneer that says he’d clobber me right now if she wasn’t watching.
I have one eye on Nardini, watching him do that distinctive horse-parade high-step run out to his position in left, and I trot to mine at first base. I’m a little disappointed in myself for even letting him distract me this much because at this point, less than a minute after the dustup, I should have forgotten about it already. A little disappointed with myself, and a little impressed with Nardini for his moxie. Nobody else on the team would give me that kind of guff. I’m The Captain.
I don’t mean the captain of the team. Well, yes, I do, because I am. I’m captain of this team, as I was captain of last year’s team and my high school baseball and football teams. It’s just how it always is, and everybody has pretty much always called me The Captain. Since, I think, even before high school, though I can’t for the life of me remember how that started.
I can say with certainty I was not the best player on any one of those teams. But just as certainly, I was, rightly, The Captain.
I could lie and say that I’m not concerned with the whole Captain business, or that I’m humbled by it. But a true Captain doesn’t lie.
I am immensely proud that The Captain is me.
Which is probably why I’m still hanging on a little too much to the Nardini incident, which is unusually undisciplined of me.
Or, maybe …
Maybe this is why dames don’t belong in dugouts.
Copyright © 2014 by Chris Lynch
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
First edition, November 2014
Cover art © 2014 by Tim Bradstreet
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
e-ISBN 978-0-545-64017-6
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