Casey's Home (19 page)

“I can come out and see you and
the kids anytime,” I pointed out. “And you can come and see me.”

“That’s not all that’s here,” she
said, focused on me again.

“Why does it matter to you what I
might do?” I demanded, defensive for reasons I didn’t want to look closely at,
not just then.

“Because...” she began, but it
faded away as she realized that if it was necessary to tell me, then it wasn’t
true.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Of course
it matters. I’m just not used to someone caring.”

She shook her head. “I’m not
thinking about you alone, you know.”

This puzzled me. I raised a
quizzical eyebrow and waited for her to expand.

“It bothered Dad,” she said
vaguely.

“What did?”

“That Ben was pining away,
waiting for you to come back.”

“What? How would Dad have even
known that…” I paused. She looked briefly guilty. “You told him? When?”

“Oh come on,” she said, “when I
drove you to college, it was all you talked about. You didn’t honestly expect
me never to tell Dad that you made out with the man who was his assistant
coach.”

The fact that this was exactly
what I did expect seemed irrelevant now.

“I like Ben,” she said, ignoring
the look I shot her. “I do. He’s a good man. He worked hard for Dad and those
boys. I’m not saying I think he should be head coach, but that doesn’t mean he
shouldn’t be happy. And so should you. You’ve been dating Ben substitutes ever
since.”

“Frankly,” I told her, “I always
thought they were Dad substitutes.”

She snorted. “You’re a fool,
Casey. At least about that.”

“Look…” I spread my hands out on
the counter, its cool surface heating under my palms. “I don’t believe in this
sort of fated, meant-to-be-together thing.”

“Neither do I,” she replied.

“Right, you who reads romance
novels.”

“Just because I enjoy the
fantasy, doesn’t mean I don’t understand the reality.”

“Uh huh.”

She tapped her fingers against
the counter. Her nail polish was chipped and I could see that she was wearing
nail extensions, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I just assumed
Lee’s nails would have lived up to her expectations somehow.

“This isn’t a fantasy, Casey. Ben
is a nice guy and you love him for good reason. You have your whole life.
That’s not fate. That’s just what you’ve both chosen. And you’ve been pining
ever since you left for college because you both refuse to accept that reality
is reality.”

“I have not.” For a moment, she
stared at me and I met her gaze, but it was impossible to keep it up for long.
“Alright, maybe I have pined, just a little. But I’m completely over it now. I
mean, it’s been seventeen years, for god’s sake. We aren’t even the same
people.”

“Ben is.”

For a moment, I saw him standing
in his yard, his body strong in the fading summer light. I had never felt
responsible for him, for who he had become. Of course, I held little
responsibility for my own life. It didn’t negate the want I felt, but I refused
to be guilty because we had each chosen to stumble forward on our own.

“Maybe so, but he doesn’t look
like he’s pining to me. He looks fine.”

Lee smiled and reached up above
the stove again. Opening the vodka, she flipped our glasses over and poured
each of us a generous double.

“So do I,” she said and, throwing
her head back, finished her glass in one long choking drink.

Freefall

1974

He hadn’t known
what to expect. Certainly, he’d played for two years in the minors, before a
smattering of people in the washed-out bleachers of the smaller stadium. Oh,
and he’d thrown that summer, in front of the old people, the Grapefruit
Leaguers, and he’d been fine. It was like high school, but with more fans. So
when Billy had called him personally to tell him he’d been called up, he’d been
excited, but it hadn’t felt as it did in this moment, like he was going to
faint.

Thirty-five
thousand people. There they were, and God, they were excited.

Up on the big screen,
he could see as he jogged out from the bullpen, were the words: “Ben
McDunnough, first time pitching in the Major Leagues,” and his picture, looking
young and goofy, with ears that seemed too big for his head. First time: he
felt like a virgin, nervous and sure he wouldn’t be able to perform to anyone’s
satisfaction, especially his own.

But that didn’t
really sum it up, this building craziness in his belly, the burning in his
ears, the strange brightness of everything. The way the artificial grass sprang
back under his feet when he was used to the give of real grass. The lights
overhead that made him want to squint, to bring his arm up and stare into the
glowing gray sphere of the roof. But then there was the familiar rough clutch
of dirt on his shoes as he passed between third and home. He had never walked
so far in his life as that initial sprint to the mound; he doubted a marathon
would feel as long, as taxing. And then there he was, his feet scratching up a
bit of dust, holding up his glove in front of his face as if this weren’t the
first time he’d thrown in front of an audience this size. As if this day, and
the ones to immediately follow it, didn’t determine the course of his entire
career.

Eddie, the catcher,
nodded his head as if in time to some music Ben couldn’t hear, encouraging him.
Fastball, low and inside, he signed. In with a bang, then. The batter stepped
up to the plate and Ben realized he hadn’t even noticed who was up.

Damien Ritter, not
a great hitter, but no slouch with a fastball.

Ok, Ben thought. Fine. This isn’t
so hard. He just had to quiet his own mind and it would be all right. The crowd
had hushed, waiting impatiently. What would the rookie do?

Jesus, and he was a rookie.

Ben steadied himself, took a deep
breath, and waited for the feeling to come, as it always did. A little voice
whispered: What if it didn’t? He silenced it by leaning forward a bit, as if
preparing to wind up.

And then there it was, flowing
over him like water. A rush of muscle and mind, pulling his arm back and then
whoosh! The ball was gone. It was over that quickly, sending him pitching
forward and then staggering back up, though he knew it would look like a
smooth, traditional release.

The sound of the ball hitting the
bat made him jump, reflexively. He watched in dismay as the ball wailed down
the first base line like a cannonball, bouncing to a stop before their right
fielder could reach it. The fielder lobbed it hard, but Damien Ritter was fast,
and hit first base with a confident stamp.

The first base hit of his career.
Well, now he had a statistic. That wasn’t so bad.

Eddie shrugged beneath the heavy
pads of his uniform. Ben nodded. Get over it and move on. What had he expected,
three straight K’s?

The next batter in the line-up
was a wiry little man nicknamed Beaver. Ben had theorized it was his front
teeth or perhaps some sort of Gerry Mathers fascination. But Billy had told him
it had to do with his way with women. That seemed hard to believe as Beaver
Glenn stared him down, his small hands gripping the bat like it was about to
sprout wings, his bucked teeth protruding slightly as he concentrated, like the
tip of a child’s tongue.

Eddie tapped his thigh and Ben
nodded. A split-finger fastball. Beaver was no power hitter, but he liked his
RBI’s. Leaning back slowly, Ben concentrated until the movement began in his
back, snaking up his spine and spreading to his legs, his fingers. He released.

The ball dropped late, connected
and sailed up over Ben’s head and back into the waiting glove of the second
baseman. An easy 4-3 double play and the runners were gone. Ben tried to look
as if he’d intended it all.

Somewhere in the
stands, he knew, sat his mother. To make his first time just a little more
nerve-wracking, they had offered to fly out his whole family. Ben declined
politely, securing only one ticket. He spent about thirty seconds in the locker
room after picking it up wondering if he should send one to his father. Would
he regret that August morning when he had decided that in the end, he loved nothing
so much as his freedom? Probably not, Ben decided. Even if he had been a bit
sorry, regret wouldn’t change the fact that his contrition came only when his
son had achieved something monumental. Only his mother had been there for the
trivial, and in the end, only she deserved to be there when he first reached
for a bit of the grand, the wonderful.

A groan rose inside
him as he saw the familiar face and massive arms of Zeke Craw. That man could
take a ball and turn it into a ballistic missile.

Zeke’s feet, dainty in comparison to his arms, were
delicately pawing at the ground in front of him, seeking a toe-hold in the
thick red dirt. God help him, what idiot had first come up with the idea of
playing baseball inside? To Ben it felt vaguely sacrilegious, cutting out the
burning sun, the blistering wind, even the rain. Elements were a part of the
strategy itself. Of course, here they could lose sight of the ball if it sailed
close to the bright bank of lights ringing the park, and the Astroturf was
notoriously unsatisfactory for fielding, but in the end, it was all so clean,
so pristine. It pissed him off, and Ben was rarely worked up about anything. He
wondered briefly about the flurry of thoughts now crowding his head. Eddie
nodded, over and over. Let’s go.

Ben drew back and let it go, a change-up, aiming for
the far corner of the plate.

Zeke Craw was glaring at him.
Eddie was bouncing like a Russian dancer, still squatting but delighted and Ben
realized he had thrown his very first Major League strike. Well damn, it hadn’t
felt any different from any of the others, not really. Ben blinked and stared
at the ump for a moment, just processing.

He hadn’t wanted to play ball his
entire life. When he was a child, the night sky had fascinated him, not because
it was large or dark or bright with stars, but because it was deep. Layer upon
layer of it, extending as far as his imagination. The silence of it, the
wonderfully rapid and yet infinitesimal progression of light and sound toward
Earth... he imagined what it would feel like to travel through space. Not in a
rocket, not with some pulsing, jumping thing strapped beneath you, but the
impossible flight, alone with the stars. He knew, somehow, that he would feel
it there too: the wonderful rush of adrenaline, stilling the rest of the
universe for a fraction of a second, letting him be.

It wasn’t until he was thirteen
that he realized his ability to throw a small, leather-covered projectile
faster than the average speeding car. It was impossible to explain to his coaches,
even to Billy, who should have understood the sudden sliding of sinew over
bone, the clicking of all his muscles into the right place, but he could feel
the pitch before he threw it. He could see it, like looking at an instant
replay in slo-mo, arcing from his body and hurtling through space. It was as
close to his dreams of universal flight as he would ever come, that moment of
release. He grew to crave it, to need it as some essential part of his
molecular structure, like water.

Zeke stretched the broad muscles
of his back, showing off their width, their inherent power. Ben was only
slightly impressed. He wasn’t a fan of those who could only slap a ball away
from their bodies like horses swatting a fly. There was no finesse to it,
really. Swing hard, aim a little, and hope for the best. He reserved his
admiration for batters with less power and more skill, those who could
anticipate a pitch and react, changing the position of their bat at the last
possible second. There was nothing less glamorous than swinging blind.

Eddie was squatting again, one
leg cast out slightly, bobbing up and down on his calves. Two fingers and a
brief touch to his thigh. Ben had spent two hours the night before going over
the signs in his head. Sinker. Shit, his worst pitch. Well, there was no harm
in it, he told himself. He had, on occasion, thrown a very good sinker, letting
it fly with blistering speed and then suddenly, it would drop like a rock and
the batter would be left swinging at a phantom that had never arrived.

He rearranged his muscles,
mentally. He’d tried to explain that one to Billy, too, but couldn’t quite wrap
his tongue around what it felt like, to tell his own body what to do.

Zeke huffed at the base. Wouldn’t
do for a man like that to go down to a rookie. Ben scratched his chin, leaned
back, and wham, let it go. This time he was calm enough to pay attention as the
ball slid forward, hesitated, and fell right into Eddie’s waiting glove. Zeke
spun hard, flailing until his bat smacked his own back.

“Strike,” the ump yelled and he
saw Eddie jump with pleasure.

Two down, one left. He was under
no illusions about how long they would leave him out here his first time. The
terror, if he let it go too long, would threaten to drown him.

Ben had no clear picture of his
own career. It wasn’t as if someone had laid it out for him, but he liked to
think, like all rookies, that someday the card they issued this year would be
worth something. Ok, maybe not this year, as it wasn’t really his rookie year
until he’d played from the beginning of the season, but next year. Wouldn’t it
be great, he thought, to be asked for an autograph? Just once. He pictured
himself, like the great players of the Twenties and Thirties, surrounded by
beaming children. Sometimes, he saw himself as an old man, looking back on his
career with pride and a certain awe. Sometimes, he thought he might wash out
and end up working at a 7-11. How good his arm felt determined the amount of
hope he let slide through his filters.

Zeke Craw was ready, standing
wide-footed and sturdy just to the right of home. Behind him, Eddie signaled
another fastball, low and inside again. Why meddle with success? Ben shook his
head to clear it of dreams of fame and concentrated on his final pitch. Back
and back, his arm went and then pop, it was gone and he watched in dismay and
resignation as Zeke caught the edge and sent the ball hurtling forward toward
the shortstop. It whizzed past Ben, out of reach of his waiting glove and he
spun just in time to see Dave Panitch dive forward and snag it from mid-air.

And then he was turning toward
the dugout to watch the pitching coach brushing off his uniform and standing
up. Ok, he thought, end of the inning. You did it. Something inside him jangled
and sang, which wasn’t a reaction he was familiar with. He thought he might be
sick. Eddie jogged forward, mask pushed up and grinning.

“Goddamnit, McDunnough, that was
really great. Good job,” the ebullient catcher said, thumping him on the back.

“Thanks,” Ben said. Exhaustion
seemed to sweep over him now that he knew his first major league inning was
over, and he sagged into himself. As he left the field, following Eddie, he
could hear the gentle clapping of the crowd beneath the loud jangle of the
sound system.

“Fine job, Ben.” As he reached
the dugout, the coach clapped him on the shoulder and spat, his fat face red
from the heat. He was a spongy man, from years of sitting on the bench eating
sunflower seeds and hating people. “We’ll let that call it a day.”

“Right,” Ben answered, relieved.

It hadn’t been so bad, really.
He’d made it through, not perfectly, but well enough. Someone patted his back,
and the pitching coach handed him his jacket. The crowd stirred restlessly as
their hitters left the field and the other team jogged out to take their
places. Sinking onto the cool padding of the bench, Ben shoved his hands into
his pockets and prepared to enjoy watching his team hit. The jangling was
fading, covered in his usual still, blue water. He missed it already; craved
the ripples it sent through his nervous system, through his groin, his skull,
his blood.

“Good job, McDunnough,” Billy
said, from the seat beside him, his voice gruff and paternal. “You looked like
one cool cucumber out there today.”

“Of course.” Ben pushed his hat
back from his damp forehead and grinned. “It was a piece of cake.”

“Liar,” Billy laughed, knocking
him gently with his elbow. “They’re gonna have to scrape the shit out of your
shorts tonight.”

The other team’s star pitcher was
already in place, prowling the mound like a cheetah, looking for prey. Ben
watched him with a critical eye. Would he ever be that great? Probably,
statistically not. Well, if nothing else, the sky would always be there,
waiting. He could make a career of discovering comets, white-hot and trailing
dust like a good fastball in an amateur league, where the balls weren’t brand
new with each throw.