Painting the Black (5 page)

It wasn't too late for me. I could put myself on the line. It wouldn't be everything, but it would be a step.

I didn't say anything to Josh. But the next day, when I settled in behind the plate, I blocked out everything but his arm and the baseball, and I moved fluidly with every pitch. I was better than I'd ever been, and that made Josh better than he'd ever been. It was as if we were one person.

He must have felt it too, because right in the middle of our workout he suddenly stopped. “You want to see my best pitch?”

All along I'd felt that he was keeping something back, that he had more. Finally I was going to see it.

“Sure I do,” I said. “What is it?”

“A hard slider,” he answered. “They're tough to catch.”

“I'm game.”

And I was. I figured I could handle anything. But I was wrong.

The frustrating thing was I knew what the ball was going to do. It did about the same thing every time. It would come fast, just like his heater did. Then, right before it reached the plate, it would break down and away from a right-hander.

You'd think that since I knew when and how it moved, it would be easy to catch, but that slider ate me alive. It looked so much like his fastball that I'd freeze on it. And since it didn't break until it was almost on top of me, I'd end up stabbing at it. Occasionally I'd catch it, most of the time I'd knock it down, but too often the ball would get by me and skitter to the backstop.

That first day I wasn't too discouraged, and I don't think Josh was either. But as the days passed and I didn't get any better, he started getting irritated. “It's going to break,” he would tell me, his voice like a teacher's. “You've got to move to it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I'd say, but soon enough another slider would get by me.

Those passed balls ruined everything. Instead of being in a zone together, we started fighting one another. Pretty soon Josh lost his rhythm. His fastball started sailing high and the curve didn't bite. After a week or so he told me he just wouldn't throw the slider anymore.

“It's no big deal,” he said. “Don't sweat it.”

But I did sweat it. I wanted to play, not just with him in the summer, but on the Crown Hill team in the spring. The fire was burning inside me again, and his slider was like water on the fire. How could I hope to be a catcher if I couldn't handle his best pitch? I had to catch it. I had to.

I still remember the morning. It was a little colder, and the ground was wet from a night rain. “Throw your slider,” I said, pulling the mask down over my face.

He shook me off. “No, I'll stick with the fastball,” he said.

I was having none of it. “Throw it,” I said, my voice firm.

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

Trust. That's what it took. Trust and a little courage. I had to put myself in Josh's hands. I had to move my glove a split second
before
the ball broke or I wouldn't be set in time. If the ball didn't break, or if Josh crossed me up and threw his fastball, then I'd get nailed in the throat. I had to believe in him.

He went into his wind-up and delivered. The ball came faster than I can think, but I did it—I moved my hands and my hips. It was a wicked slider, but it broke right into my waiting mitt.

Josh didn't say anything, not even when I caught the pitch again and again that morning, even when he mixed it in with curves and fastballs and changeups. We were back in that wonderful place again, just the two of us, only now we shared another pitch, and it was the best one yet.

When we finished, Josh put his arm around my shoulder as we walked to the drinking fountain. “I've never had a catcher who could handle my slider like that. Never.”

“Thanks,” I said, bursting with pride.

He stopped. “You're trying out, aren't you?”

There was no point in pretending anymore, either to him or to myself.

I nodded. “Yeah, I'll try out.”

He grabbed my elbow and gave me a good hard shake. “That's what I've been waiting to hear. We'll be a team, me and you, like Steve Carlton and Tim McCarver, only better. Because we'll be like the Stealth bomber—nobody knows we're coming and
bam,
we'll blow them away!”

That was the day Josh met Monica Roby. She came walking down the pathway that separates the baseball field from the gym just as we were heading up it.

I've known Monica since kindergarten. I don't dislike her, but I can't say I like her either. Not too many people do. Maybe it's just jealousy. She was born good at everything, and that kind is always hard to take. She's a straight-A student, acts in the school plays, edits the
Viper,
the school's humor magazine, and probably does fifty other things I don't even know about. I've never seen her wear makeup or any kind of fashionable clothes, but she doesn't need any help to look good. She's tall and slender, with honey-gold hair, crayon brown eyes, and skin that looks incredibly smooth and soft.

I introduced her to Josh. She was wearing shorts and a light blue T-shirt. As he nodded hello to her, his eyes went up and down her, slowly checking her out. Monica's eyes flashed. You just don't do things like that to her.

“You do anything this summer?” I asked quickly.

She turned away from Josh and spoke directly to me. “I camped at Salmon la Sac and hiked the trails. You ever been there?”

I'd hiked those trails with my dad the summer before. We talked a little about them, and then she got going about the incredible number of stars you can see on a clear night in the mountains. “It takes your breath away, doesn't it? It makes you realize how big the universe is, and how small we are.” That was like her, turning a conversation about hiking into poetry.

Finally she looked at her watch. “I've got to go. Be seeing you at school, Ryan.” She turned to Josh. “Nice meeting you,” she said. And then she was off, down the path and off the field.

Josh's eyes followed her until she disappeared.

“Let me tell you,” he said, drawing in his breath. “I'd like to know her a little better.”

I shook my head. “I don't think she's exactly your type.”

He looked surprised. “Why?”

I thought for a second. “She's not into sports at all. You'd have nothing to talk about.”

He grinned. “I'm not really interested in talking to her.”

“Yeah, well you'd have to be able to talk to Monica to get anywhere with her.”

He shrugged. “Okay, so I'll talk to her. I'll tell her she's as pretty as the stars at Salmon in the Sack, or whatever that place is called.”

I laughed. “Are you serious? There's no way she'd fall for a line like that. She'd laugh in your face.”

He wasn't buying. “Girls are all the same. You tell them what they want to hear and they'll let you do what you want to do.”

I've heard lots of guys say stuff like that. It makes them sound tough, as if they'd never let a female really get to them. Mostly it's just showing off. But there was something in Josh's tone that made me think he really believed what he'd said.

I wanted to set him straight about Monica, to explain her somehow, but I couldn't think how to do it. We talked about other things, but as we talked, my mind kept going back to Monica.

It wasn't until late that afternoon, when I was washing my father's car, that I remembered something that happened when I was in the fifth grade, something that explained Monica Roby better than words ever could.

We were out at lunch recess when a storm swept in from the Puget Sound. The rain came in sheets and the wind was so fierce tree limbs were snapping and telephone wires were swaying. The bell rang, cutting recess short, and everyone raced for shelter.

Everyone but Monica. Through the classroom window we could see her standing in the middle of the playground, her back to us and her face to the storm.

Mrs. Pavach sent me out to bring her in.

“Monica,” I called, my head down as I fought the wind and rain, “you've got to come in.”

She turned and looked at me then, and her brown eyes glowed. “Isn't it great!” she shouted.

“What?” I asked, trying to keep the rain from pounding me.

“The storm!” she cried, her arms sweeping out. “The storm!”

“You've got to go in!” I screamed again, and I grabbed her elbow and yanked her toward the building.

By the time I wrestled her back to class, we were so drenched Mrs. Pavach sent us both to the office to call home for dry clothes. “Honestly, Monica, I thought you of all people would be smart enough to come in out of the rain!”

For a couple of weeks everybody teased her. It was the only time we ever felt smarter than she was. But even then she'd been right. That storm was the most amazing thing that happened in fifth grade.

Those were great days. I wasn't just getting through the days anymore; I was attacking them. It was as if I'd had water in my veins for five years, but now—finally—I had rich, red blood.

It was Josh who had brought me back to life—Josh and baseball and the chance that I could play again. I was going to live and breathe baseball every minute until spring.

And then, one Sunday in mid-August, Josh stuffed his glove and a couple of balls into his equipment bag and looked at me. “That's the last I'll be throwing until January,” he said.

I was stunned. “What are you talking about?”

“Football tryouts start tomorrow,” he replied. “I'll have morning and afternoon practices, and a new playbook to learn besides. I won't have time for baseball.”

I don't know why I was surprised. I knew he played football. I'd seen all his clippings. But still I felt as if I'd stepped on a trap door that had given way, and that I was falling, falling, falling.

I packed up my gear and we headed home. “Look,” I said as we neared our houses, “shouldn't you still pitch some? To keep in practice?”

He shook his head. “The motion with your arm is different. It'd throw me off.”

We stood around talking about nothing for a few minutes. Then he asked if I wanted to go to the Fremont Street Fair in the afternoon.

“I can't,” I said, not really knowing why. “I've got stuff to do.”

“Well, wish me luck,” he said as we parted.

He was halfway up his porch steps when I suddenly felt selfish and small. “Josh!” I called to him. He turned around. “Good luck.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Ryan.”

I worked like a dog all day. I mowed the lawn, trimmed the laurel hedge, pruned the lilac, pulled up morning glory. After dinner I helped my father clean the gutters and sweep the hemlock needles off the roof. By the time we finished I was beat. I took a long hot shower and dropped into bed, so tired I fell right to sleep.

When I woke up Monday morning the house was empty. My parents had both left for work. I got up, went downstairs, ate breakfast. Then I looked around at the kitchen, at the dining room. The clock on the wall ticked noisily. It was nine-thirty.

I felt totally lost. I was so used to playing ball with Josh and then hanging out with him afterwards that I couldn't remember what I had done to fill the day before I'd known him.

I picked up the newspaper from my father's chair. I felt better then. I could kill a half hour, maybe an hour, figuring out the box scores.

But as I looked over the paper, I discovered I didn't care about the pennant races or the major leagues or any of that. Reading about baseball didn't do it for me anymore; I wanted to
play
baseball. But I couldn't. Not without Josh.

I felt like going back to bed, but I forced myself to go outside. I had no destination in mind, but after I'd walked for about five minutes I realized I was headed toward Crown Hill High. “Why not?” I thought to myself.

The football field is east of the school. From the sidewalk I could hear the sounds of practice. Whistles blowing, coaches yelling, players calling off numbers. I couldn't see anything, though, because the field sits on a plateau about twenty feet above street level.

I climbed the weedy embankment. When I reached the top I scanned the little clumps of players. They had broken up according to position. The running backs were dodging through cones; the linemen were smashing tackling dummies; the receivers were running patterns.

Then I saw the quarterbacks. There were three of them, and they were taking aim at a tire that was swinging back and forth from the goal posts.

I spotted Josh right away. It wasn't just that he was both bigger and taller and that his long hair stuck out the back of his helmet. I knew him from the way he threw the ball: the tight spiral, the incredible velocity, the amazing accuracy. All the skill I'd seen on the baseball diamond I was seeing again, only this time on a football field.

I watched for about ten minutes. Then I climbed down the embankment. There was no place for me on a football field.

I walked home feeling about as low down as I've ever felt. I moped my way through the rest of the day, the rest of the week. A couple of times I went over to Josh's house in the late afternoon. Both times he was lying on the sofa, his arm wrapped in ice, studying his playbook. “It's different terminology from last year,” he said, worried. “I got a lot to catch up on.”

Both times I stayed only a little while. Both times he told me he'd come by sometime and we'd catch a movie. But he never came by.

My dad noticed I was around more, and that he wasn't seeing anything of Josh. “What's up? You guys have an argument or something?”

I explained about football, and how it was eating all of Josh's time. “Well,” he said, “you've got your own life to live.”

“Right,” I answered.

The problem was that I didn't know how to live it.