Biggie (16 page)

Chapter 29

1,000 Friends

As I log into Twitter, I still debate whether to rat Killer out. When I pull up Annabelle's page, there she is squeezing Killer's torso in her profile picture. I scan throughout her recent pictures, and I see one after another of her and Killer hanging out, hugging, smiling, and laughing. There must dozens of them.

I grab my lamp and try and throw it at my wall, but the cord stays plugged into the outlet, and the lamp only falls off the desk and hangs there, swinging by its cord. If I had a bat, I would smash the shit out of it, but I just stare at it swinging. Without a bat, I just calmly reposition it on my desk.

When I lean back in my chair, my butt almost slides off. My eyes, half closed from a night on the road, barely focus through the closing slits. I scroll through her photos until I see one after another captioned
Prom Night
.

In every picture, and there must be a hundred of them, Annabelle smiles or grins or laughs or makes some type of funny face. How can she be happy? Why isn't she pissed off at him? He cheated on her, dumped her.

I used to think she was so tough. If a guy pissed her off, she dumped him. When we had dinner, she called me out for being a recluse. In that parking lot, she ripped me a new one for peeking at her poetry. But she's not tough. A tough girl would have kicked Killer in the balls and gone with someone who would treat her right.

I can't count the nights I have sat up and talked online to some girl in some state who was mistreated by her boyfriend or husband or “live-in lover,” a term I learned from Patty in Michigan.

Those girls are my friends, but I never fully respected them. I would tell them how wonderful they were and how they deserved better, but they never left the jerk. They, instead, talked to me.

As I flip through the prom photos, I think off all the conversation I had with Felicia about her husband. I remember how Karissa's boyfriend would leave for an entire weekend and not call to let her know he was safe or even where he was. Carolyn, an eighteen-year-old from next-door Illinois, became a home wrecker when she fell for a married twenty-seven-year-old, who in the span of seven months dumped her, took her back, and then went back to his wife, who actually took him back. Some guys can do whatever they want. It doesn't matter. Not guys like me. I'm a guy who can't get a girl, not a guy who no matter how hard he tries, can't get rid of one.

Even Lucy took back her meth head of a boyfriend and then the asshole had her stop talking to me because good girlfriends don't do that. Well, good boyfriends don't get high all the time, I wanted to text back, but I didn't. I still imagine my phone ringing in the middle of the night.

When did Annabelle become like all of these girls? Why can't she tell Killer she deserves better or at least quit smiling in every goddamn prom photo?

I create a direct message prompt and type:

It sucks that I will never stop loving you, and you'll never start loving me. Enjoy getting cheated on!

I want to push Send. I want to throw my monitor. Punch it. Spit on it. My fingers seize the black plastic framing the screen. They don't move as I huff and puff. Then, I let go. Sliding the mouse, I select the message and hit Delete.

Before logging off, I look through my notifications that include a few retweets and one follow request from Courtney. Her profile picture is of her and someone I don't know at the beach making silly faces—tongues out, heads tilted, and eyes bugging. That sort of thing.

I make my own funny face when I click on her page. She has 999 followers. When I follow her I'll be number one thousand. Awesome! It's sad to admit, but it might be the coolest thing that has ever happened to me.

Plus, how did she get to one thousand? I thought I was super popular with 457. One thousand friends. I start a direct message and type, “Hey, it's Mr. 1,000.”

Well, that's dumb. I quickly erase and replace with, “Thanks for the follow. I love that I'm 1,000.”

What if being one thousand isn't that cool? She will probably think I'm weird for noticing it. Finch is small. She goes to Waverly-Shell Rock, a lot bigger school. It's possible that kids at a school that big have two thousand Twitter followers.

I erase the message and stop to stare at the screen. Maybe I should just text her. I excel at text messaging. Excel. I should try being straightforward. I pick up my phone and start typing.

“We need to get …”

What was the name of the place? She said it had good burritos. I go to Google and search “Good burritos in Iowa,” and get Bandit Burrito, Mr. Burrito, the Fighting Burrito, and there it is—Chipotle.

I finish my message with, “some Chipotle sometime.”

I hit Send and a gush of air rockets up my throat.

“This could be bad,” I tell myself.

Chapter 30

Slip and Slide

My lucky blue Nike T-shirt now hangs off me like a rain poncho. Losing seventy pounds has left me with few clothes, lucky ones, anyway. To most, it's a plain shirt, just blue and not even a unique blue like navy blue or midnight blue or baby blue. It's just blue with a small Nike swoosh on it. Mom bought the shirt for me last year for, like, four dollars, but it's my lucky shirt. I wear it on test days under a sweatshirt in the winter and all alone in the spring, and it's never let me down.

Sitting on a bench in the Finch locker room, I pull my shoes from my bag. When I got them in October, the shoes were a size too small. They were extremely tight. I felt like I was walking around in a vice, but I figured at the time that weight loss would also mean smaller shoe sizes. It doesn't. The shoes are even tighter now, but I live with that because the overly tight shoes help me plant better on the pitching mound.

I slip on the other shoe, gritting my teeth. I can almost hear a snapping sound when my ankle touches the sole. As I walk onto the field, there must be thirty kids running around. Players toss, flip, and fire baseballs at one another. Are they all trying out?

“Biggie, let's go,” Coach Phillips screams.

It's not nervousness, but a love of math that makes me count the steps to the mound. In my head, I count five steps, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-three steps for me to get to the mound.

“Biggie,” Coach Phillips says. “Let me just say I'm proud of you. Jim tells me you've lost almost seventy pounds. If this quest you've been on the past few months has helped you get in shape, well, you should be very proud of yourself.”

I climb up on the mound. “Thank you, Coach.”

“Now, Biggie, I just want you to throw warm-up speed,” Laser says. It's his first official day as Finch assistant baseball coach. “Concentrate on mechanics, and keep it slow.”

I reach into a white bucket next to the mound and pull out a baseball. Twirling the white ball with red stitches, I inspect it. It's a baseball, all right. I set my feet parallel to my shoulders, bend my elbows to ninety degrees, and set my glove directly in front of my nose. I place the ball in the web and look down at Kyle, who is crouched over and pounding his fist into his glove.

I step back, creating a triangle with my feet and my crotch. I lift my right leg and twirl my left foot. The ball leaves the webbing and stays in my two forefingers while my left hand moves slowly behind my back. Just when the ball disappears from Kyle's sight, I drop my right foot, plant it in the dirt, shift all 250 pounds of weight to my left leg and push off from the mound.

I curl my back and allow the weight to climb up my leg, my spine, my shoulder, my left arm, and finally two forefingers. Right as the ball passes my ear, I release it. Normally, these steps should take place faster, move violently, but this is a warm-up pitch, so it's about perfection, not power. The ball flies through the air and lands right in the glove. He barely moves.

Nothing is said, which angers me. I do it again and again and again. Five minutes pass, and I have thrown fifteen pitches, all just fast enough to reach Kyle's mitt, which hovers two feet off the ground, ninety feet away.

I throw another one, perfect; then another one, perfect; and another one, perfect.

“Hell of a job, Jim,” Coach says. “I must admit I thought this was going to be a sideshow when you called. I never imagined this.”

“Are you ready for the exclamation point?” Laser asks.

“There's more?”

Laser walks up to the bucket and pulls out a baseball. “Biggie, go get it.” He rolls the ball on the ground, and I chase after it. The ball rolls toward left field. Like a boy chasing a chicken, I race after the ball. I have never run so fast in my life. My legs and arms chug like pistons on a race car. Just as the ball gets ready to leave the infield, I reach down with my bare hand and grab it. I plant my leg and fire the ball to Laser, who is standing at first base. I try to throw the ball hard, not accurately, but the ball still finds its way to Laser's glove. He snags it out of the air.

“Take your places!” Coach Phillips screams.

The players scatter all over. Killer and Jet head for the dugout.

“Biggie, we're going to scrimmage,” Phillips says. “You have our eighth-grade team behind you, and Kyle behind the plate. Let's see how you do against real-life hitters, okay?”

As players scatter behind me, I see Maddux in the stands holding up three fingers.

Number 3 is one of several names for the pitch that is going to help me reach baseball perfection. Over the past year, the pitch has had several names: the magic pitch; the slurve, because it's a slider and curve; the knuckler, because it acts like a knuckle ball; and even the slip and slide. While it's been called a lot of things over the past seven months, its main name is the Wiffle ball.

It's called that because when I throw the baseball properly, the collection of red yarn, dark cork, and white cowhide will magically turn into a globe of plastic populated with connect-the-dots holes. If my arm travels at the right speed, if I release the ball as it passes my left ear, and if my fingers apply just the right amount of pressure, the baseball will not only zig, zag, hop, dive, and flutter, it will do what all unhittable breaking pitches do—hover in midair.

Technically, the Wiffle ball travels at a speed of sixty miles per hour. From the time the baseball leaves my hand to the time it crosses home plate, half a second will have elapsed, so most people will laugh when I tell them that during its journey, the ball will, again if thrown perfectly, hover and spin in midair. How long does the ball hang there? A split of a split second. Just long enough for a batter to squeeze the bat handle, to flinch, to blink or lose concentration.

The ball's lull sets the batter off balance and out of whack. Now, he only has a snap of my fingers to regroup and reload. There is not enough time to find the ball and place his bat on it. And even if he could somehow reach out and slap the ball, the ground ball or pop-up would be easily corralled by one of the eight fielders chosen to help me. Today, right now, Jet, Killer, all of the varsity players are going to see the Wiffle ball in action.

First up is tenth-grader Shawn Christensen. Despite being fifteen, he is tall at six-foot-four and very fast. He is part of Finch's small-school state champion 400-meter relay team. Rumor has it that his dad held him off the varsity last year so he could attend camps all over the South, building a name for himself.

Deep breath and I throw a pitch right into Kyle's glove. No one is umpiring, but it's a strike. I wind up and throw another fastball. Christensen smashes the pitch right back at me. I duck out of the way, and it flies into center field.

“You've got to catch those,” Coach Phillips tells me.

Next up is Jet. With a runner on base, I have to pitch from the stretch, which is going to slow down my fastball. I decide it's time to throw the Wiffle ball.

I place my fingers in the proper spots and squeeze the right amount of pressure. Kyle pounds his glove twice, and I wind up and release the pitch. The ball starts high and darts straight downward. That's a good one.

Jet drops his bat and slaps the ball up the right-field line.

Christensen easily scores from first as some eighth-grader lobs the ball back into the infield. Jet dances on second. I'm failing. I have no idea what to do next.

I sit in Coach Phillips's office and wait for the ruling. During my first scrimmage, I faced fifteen hitters and allowed five runs and eight hits. I did strike out three guys, but all in all, it was a disaster. An entire school year of work flushed right down the drain. How did this happen? I need to stop asking myself that. And I really need to quit staring at my worthless skinny fingers.

Phillips and Laser walk in. I hear the door softly close. Ah, the closed door, a sure sign of bad news. Or is it? Bad news, I mean. It's pretty apparent to anyone who watched today's tryout that I suck. I don't think I fooled anyone with my off-speed pitches, and my magic pitch might as well have started on top of a kid's tee. I'm just relieved that it happened in secret, in practice, in front of just the baseball players. No one else knows, not Annabelle, not Courtney, and not Aaron.

“How are you?” Coach Phillips asks.

“Fine,” I lie.

Normally when I sit in Phillips's office, he fiddles with papers before finally getting around to the point. Today, he jumps right in. “I like your fastball. You're off-speed stuff doesn't really work, but it will. For right now, I think you should be our closer. You come in and throw the final couple of innings, save some wear and tear on Killer and Aargo. I can see it now. You come in all six-foot-four, 250 of you and scare the hell out of the batter. The poor kid won't stand a chance.”

My stomach churns and my eyes itch. It's over. The dream is dead. Phillips just benched me after the first practice. I may not know tons about baseball, but I know closers in the majors pitch the ninth inning and high school ball ends after seven frames. When Phillips says he wants me to close, I translate his words to mean, I don't want you to pitch at all. With Laser as my step-dad, I'll be on the roster. Heck, I may even pitch in a blowout or two, but those two assumptions don't change the fact that everything I worked for, including the perfect game, is dead. I plant my palms on the chair and prepare to push myself up.  

“So, do you think you can help us?” Coach Phillips asks.

“Today was the first time I pitched,” I say. My mind's clear and the words come pouring out with little thought. “I really thought I would love it out there, but I didn't. I didn't like it at all. I know it sounds stupid, but I started pitching to throw a perfect game, and maybe to help me get a girl. Since neither will happen, no, I don't want to do it. It's not fun.”

In one motion, I climb out of the chair and reach for the door. Three steps later, I'm clear. The outside is only another three steps away. I shuffle my feet like I'm on a bed of hot coals until I'm free, outside, in the fresh air. I stand there and wait for the locker room door to slam behind me. It never does.

“Biggie,” Laser says. “What's going on?”

I spin around and look at him eye to eye. Slouched and broken, I stand in front of him like a bum asking for loose change.

“I wanted to throw a perfect game,” I say. “I'm not even a starter. I'm no better than some pinch-runner or something.”

“It's a start,” he says.

“A start?” I ask. “Last year was the start. This is the finish line, where the rubber meets the road. I'm supposed to be our best pitcher. I'm supposed to be able to pitch a perfect game.”

I shake my head, which allows me to scan the field. Although I'm on the sidewalk next to it, the diamond feels miles away. I feel like an idiot for believing I could be a baseball star.

“Everything you told me was lies,” I continue. “You told me that I had talent, that I could be a great pitcher. You made me think I could be a star baseball player like you, but it was all lies, all lies. And I know why. I know why you kept feeding me bullshit. No matter how bad I looked, you wanted—no, you needed me on this team. And why? Because you have no idea how to be a father unless your son's a baseball player.”

The allegations roll off my tongue with ease, which can only mean that I believe every word of it. There is an ever-expanding part of me that knew from the start that it was a joke.
Biggie on a baseball team? It just sounds ridiculous
, I think to myself as I wait for Laser's reaction.

“Are you about finished?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Biggie, it's just a game,” he starts in a calm, relaxed almost whisper. “That's all. It's just a game. You can play it without carrying the weight of this town on your shoulders. It's fun. It's you and a group of your friends playing some other guy and his friends. You play hard. You run. You catch the ball. You hit. You sweat, and at the end of the game, win or lose, you're happy you got up that morning. It's just a game. Fine, maybe I said a few things that I shouldn't have to get you out of your room and onto the street, but look at you. Look at what you've accomplished. And listen to me right now because this is gospel. The kids on this team are really, really good, and it's a great team, but with you, this team behind us can be historic. That's truth.”

“It sounds like more lies to me,” I contend.

His mouth tightens and his eyes pulse. He's holding something in, but I don't know what. Does he want to yell at me? I have no idea. I'm sure most people would bow their heads and walk back into the locker room, do what their parents say. Right now, I feel genuine relief. A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Deep down, I hate sports and I always have. And even deeper down, I know and have known for months that a perfect game is impossible, and the last few weeks have only reinforced the fact. From Annabelle picking a cheating asshole over me to the Wiffle ball home run to the barrage of base hits during today's tryout, I've been following through on a fool's paradise.

My arm, which is still sore from firing fastballs, trembles under a heavy duffel bag dangling between Laser and me. I lift the bag as high as possible, but Laser ignores me.

“Keep the bag,” he says. “Go home. Be mad. Be pissed that you're not starting the opener. You let that anger fuel you. Take a long run, clear your head of all the garbage inside, and then come back. I'm not going to force you, and I'll wait, but you come back. No matter what, just make sure you return to this team because we both know you're a ballplayer. Whether you're a good one or not remains to be seen, but we both know that you were born to play this game.”