Biggie (22 page)
Authors: Derek E. Sullivan
Chapter 39
Maddux and Math
I love summer. I don't have to worry about schoolwork. I can read comic books and contemporary fiction. Deep into
Fight Club
by Chuck Palahniuk, I stare at Maddux, who sits next to me in the backseat of Laser's SUV. The family, me included, are headed south to Springfield, Missouri, to watch Laser throw out the first pitch for the Springfield Cardinals, a minor league team he played for a couple of seasons. I have never seen a minor league baseball game, so I'm excited to see how much harder pro pitchers throw than me.
After making some friends playing Little League, Maddux told Mom that he wanted to go to school. He actually said he wanted to get straight
A
s like his older brother. I was there in the kitchen when he said it. It was really cool. To help him with his goal, I've been tutoring the little guy since summer vacation started four weeks ago. I'm giving him a crash course in subjects like math, science, history, and language. I enjoy tutoring him and think that being a teacher might be a good profession for me, maybe even a coach. I want to work with the sorry players, not cut them. Have those players, not just the talented ones, lead us to state titles.
“Is this right?” Maddux asks.
Through the eraser crumbles is a fraction problem. “Is this supposed to be four?” I ask.
“Yeah, why wouldn't it be?” he says. “You just add two plus twoâthe easiest math problem in the world.”
“It's not four,” I inform him and return to
Fight Club
.
He takes back his work. “I thought it was too easy.” He blushes a little.
“What is the only rule when it comes to math problems?” I ask.
“Do the steps,” he says with little pep. He's tired of me reminding him not to take shortcuts. “I keep getting four.”
I drop the book, keeping my thumb planted on page 187. “Look at this. What do you subtract here?”
“Um,” he ponders and guesses. “Thirty-five minus seven?”
“No, you skipped a step. Look back.”
“Oh, I didn't multiply the two. So it's thirty-five minus fourteen, and then it's twenty-one divided by seven equals three.”
“Don't skip steps,” I tell him.
“Wow, that's was easy,” he says, although it took him ten minutes and four wrong answers.
“Oh, trust me, it gets harder,” I honestly say.
“I like math,” he says. “I think it's my favorite subject.”
I stretch back on the comfortable leather seat and spread out my legs. It's a lot easier to get comfortable in a car now that I don't weight three hundred pounds. I reopen
Fight Club
and find my spot.
“Hey, Biggie.” Maddux interrupts my reading. “You should learn how to hit. I could teach you.”
“There are DHs.” I keep my eyes in the book.
“Yeah, but you're a big guy,” he says. “You could hit the ball five hundred feet.”
“This is coming from the same kid who told me I could throw a perfect game. In case you haven't noticed, I'm still looking for a perfect inning.”
“I looked at the record books,” he continues the sales pitch. “No one has ever hit three home runs in a game. With my help, you could be the first, and then I would hit four and break your record.”
“You think?” I ask with a strong dose of sarcasm.
“Yeah! I admit a perfect game in pitching was a pipe dream. Too many outside factors: the umpire, your teammates, the weather, lots of stuff. Dad, what do you always tell me about hitting?”
“It's just you and the ball,” Laser says from the driver's seat.
“It's just you and the ball,” Maddux repeats. “Look, I've hit a lot of home runs. Home-run hitting is different. You can make mistakes. It's okay. Hell, you could hit home runs in three at-bats and strike out in the other three. Home-run hitters strike out all the time. I'm telling you. Mom, what do you think would happen if Biggie connected with a baseball?”
“It may never land,” she jokes from the passenger seat.
“Never land. Did you hear that?” Maddux asks, knowing very well I did. “What do you say? Want to hit some home runs?”
I peek over the top of the paperback and ponder his suggestion.
“Biggie, you don't have to be perfect,” he says.
“All right,” I agree. “Let's buy a bat.”
And Maddux smiles.
Acknowledgments
Biggie is my debut novel. But it wasn't supposed to be. While in graduate school at Hamline University, I spent three years working on another book. For whatever reason, I couldn't get any of my instructors to tell me the book was finished. After a rough critique, I asked Mary Logue, one of my instructors, what I needed to do next. She told me to give that manuscript a break, put it away and write something else, anything else. I took her advice and wrote a short story about an overweight teen who somehow throws a perfect game of gym-class Wiffle ball. I originally intended to just write that short story, but Mary told me to keep going. Mary, without your wonderful pep talks,
Biggie would not exist.
I have to thank my Owatonna family. It was at the People's Press newspaper that I fell in love with writing. I especially want to thank Jeffrey Jackson for giving me my first writing job. I also want to thank all of my instructors and classmates at Hamline. I have been so lucky to be surrounded by so many talented writers.
To Sara Megibow and everyone at Nelson Literary Agency, thank you for all of your hard work. Sara, I'm so grateful that you found my story in a stack of queries. I would not want anyone else championing my novels. To Kelly Barrales-Saylor, my editor at Albert Whitman, thank you for believing in a book about a shy, overweight teen from a small town in Iowa. Working with you and your teammates has been amazing. And to Pamela Carter Joern, thank you for your insight when I was first starting my novel.Â
Thank you to my family for all your encouragement and support through the years. And to Beth, my motivator. You have always believed in me and pushed me to be my best, with the perfect mix of compassionate support and brutal honesty.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Derek E. Sullivan
Cover design by Jordan Kost
978-1-5040-0078-9
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