Stumptown Kid (5 page)

Johnny came up and clapped me on the back.

“You seen Will?” I asked them.

“He came by a while ago,” Johnny said. “Was goin’ to play ball with some of the Wildcat guys.”

“They’re practicing this morning?” I was surprised. Wildcats always practice after Coach Hennessey gets off work at five.

“Naw,” Johnny said, “he was just goin’ to play some catch with them over at Hayes School.”

“Oh.” I thought about that. Will was my best friend, and he’s not the kind to get stuck-up about playing with the Wildcats, even though they’re the winningest team for miles. But I was surprised that he was playing with them outside of practice, and it made me feel kind of bad. He always said Johnny, Brian, Eileen, and me were the most fun to play ball with because we didn’t take things so serious that we’d argue about whether a runner was safe or not. I hoped when he played with some of the other guys today, he’d see they weren’t as much fun as we were.

“We should get some more kids and play workup,” I said. Workup’s a way to practice so everybody gets to rotate through all the positions.

“Eileen, go call a bunch of your brothers, okay? At least get Alan, Bowie, and Casey.”

The McNally kids had Irish names, and they were named in alphabetical order like hurricanes. I’m not fooling. Eileen says it wasn’t on purpose at first. But after Casey was named, Mr. and Mrs. McNally realized that the first three were in alphabetical order, so they decided to keep it up. Eileen says her mom swears she’s not going to have a whole alphabet full of kids.

“Okay,” Eileen said. “Be right back.” She grabbed her bike and rode off toward her house, which was about three blocks away.

When she came back about fifteen minutes later, five of her brothers were with her. Plus they brought four other kids they saw on the way. One was Walter Pink. He has catcher’s equipment and likes that position, and we’re glad to let him have it. Jim Holladay came, too. He’s a good friend of Brian’s. The other two were girls, Kathleen Grady and Leslie White. Kathleen and Leslie also had families with lots of brothers. They’re good ballplayers. Not as good as Eileen, but pretty good.

“Okay if I play pitcher and not rotate for a while?” I asked. I wanted to practice what Luther had taught me yesterday after Wildcat tryouts.

“Okay,” Johnny said. “Rest of us, ’cept Charlie and Walter, can rotate.”

Everybody ran to stake out where they were playing first.

Finn, another one of the McNally kids, had brought a bat—it was cracked but taped up good—and he stood in the batter’s box, ready for the pitch.

I thought about what Luther told me and laid my index and second fingers across the seams on the ball. I wound up and delivered a fastball, following through the way Luther taught me, bringing my hand all the way down to the ground. There wasn’t grass to pick up, just dirt, so I touched the dirt in my follow-through.

The pitch was good. Finn smashed it to the outfield and Bowie caught it no problem.

In a workup, that means Finn takes Bowie’s position in left field, and Bowie comes in to wait to bat.

“Hey, good pitch!” Johnny called out to me.

I smiled. I’d have to tell him later what Luther taught me. I wanted to tell Will, too. He could use it when he was playing for the Wildcats.

“Uh-oh,” Walter said behind his catcher’s mask. “Lookee who just arrived.”

I turned and saw Brad Lobo and three of his baseball buddies walking right toward us through the park. I blinked and focused my eyes again, but I hadn’t been seeing things.

One of the guys walking behind Lobo was Will.

“Hey, Will!” Brian called out.

Will lifted his chin but didn’t say nothing. He looked real serious.

“Wanna play with us, Will?” Walter called out. His voice was high for a boy, and he was on the heavy side. Lobo smirked at him.

“No, he doesn’t want to play,” Lobo said in a high, girly voice, making fun of Walter.

Will didn’t say anything. I knew he didn’t like how Lobo was talking to Walter. Usually he stood up for guys getting picked on, but this time he stayed quiet.

“Keep playing, Charlie,” Johnny said in a low voice from first base. “Ignore ’em.”

Kathleen was up at bat now. Like I expected, Lobo had something to say about that.

“Whooee! The Stumptown boys play with
girls!”
Lobo hollered.

He and the other guys stopped outside the diamond, between home plate and first base. Will hung back a ways and watched.

My heart drummed in my ears. I didn’t want to play bad the way I did at tryouts.

“Come on, Charlie,” Johnny said. “Let’s play.”

I took a deep breath that was a little shaky, laid my fingers across the seams, and wound up. I threw the pitch but forgot to follow through, and the ball went left.

“Ball one!” Walter called out.

Lobo and the boys standing with him laughed. “Stumptown can’t even strike out a girl!” Lobo yelled.

“Hey,” Alan yelled at Lobo from third base. Alan was sixteen, four years older than him. “Cut the chatter out there!”

“Whassa matter?” Lobo yelled. “Can’t concentrate ‘cause we’re too
loud?
”

Alan took about five steps toward Lobo, but Finn, now shortstop, rushed over and grabbed his arm.

“He’s not worth it,” Finn said.

“Come on, let’s play,” Johnny called out.

Concentrate,
I told myself.
Remember what Luther said.

This time I kept my mind clear and pitched a good one to Kathleen, right over the plate. She connected and hit a grounder up to Johnny on second base. He scooped up the ball and fired it to Brian on first. Kathleen was out.

We’d all done our jobs, so Lobo had nothing to yell about and he kept quiet. I glanced over and Will nodded to me. I figured he was saying,
Good job.

Now Brian moved to the batter’s box, Johnny moved from second to first, and Finn went from shortstop to second. Alan on third became shortstop. Kathleen went to right field, Casey went to center, Devin took Bowie’s place in left field, and Bowie moved in line to bat.

Now it was Leslie’s turn.

“Hey, how come you’re not at home cookin’ and sewin’?” Lobo called out in a high-pitched voice that was supposed to sound like a girl.

I couldn’t hardly take any more. “What a creep,” I muttered.

Lobo must’ve had hearing like Superman, because he yelled, “What? What did you say, Stumptown?”

I looked at him and he was staring right at me. My heart started hammering even harder.

“Nothin’,” I mumbled.

“What? Say it again.”

“I said I didn’t say nothin’,” I repeated.

“I think you called me a name, Stumptown,” Lobo said.

He came out and stood there on the line between home and first base, his hands on his hips.

“He called you a creep, Lobo,” said one of Lobo’s friends. He sneered, probably thinking about what Lobo was going to do to me now. Will was watching from behind. He looked scared.

“Lobo, I wouldn’t start nothin’,” Alan called out. “You got three guys. We got thirteen.” He obviously wasn’t counting Will on Lobo’s side, but he wasn’t counting him on our side, either.

Lobo looked kind of startled, like he hadn’t thought about that. Then he smirked and said, “Three o’ yours don’t count. They’re girls.”

“You ain’t seen nothing till you seen these girls fight,” Walter said behind his catcher’s mask. “They’re like tigers. They could tear you apart.”

“That so, lardbutt?” Lobo hollered. He rushed headlong at Walter.

Walter, who’d been crouched in the catcher’s position, reeled back in surprise and fear and toppled over in the dirt.

That was it for me. I’d been holding in my anger over Lobo at the tryouts. But when he went for Walter, the weakest kid in the neighborhood, I lost control and ran at him, screaming.

Lobo was unprepared. I knocked him to the ground and began whomping on him real good. He yelled real loud, grabbed my hair, and pulled hard.

I could hear all the guys running to us, shouting. Alan and Bowie hauled me off Lobo, who was still on his back on the ground, blood spurting from his nose. His buddies pulled him off the ground, and Lobo held onto his nose. The blood was pumping all over his shirt.

He lunged at me, screaming words you read on bathroom walls, but his buddies held him so he couldn’t come closer.

“You better watch your back,” Lobo cried, pointing at me and jabbing the air with his finger. “’Cause I’m gonna kill you, Stumptown! You hear me? I’m gonna kill you.”

I sat at the kitchen table and watched Vern Jardine stuff his mouth with my mom’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes. His face was long and narrow, and I couldn’t help thinking that he looked a little like a horse. His teeth were even kind of big. The more I thought about it, the more I wished he
was
a horse. I’d much rather my mom had a horse by that name than a boyfriend who sat across the table from me and bumped my knees. I shifted my legs to one side.

Whinny, Vern. Giddy-up.

“You’ve really outdone yourself, Mary,” he said. He’d taken off his suit jacket and stuck his napkin in the neck of his shirt so he wouldn’t mess up his front. He rubbed a corner of it over his mouth and said, “This is a great meal. Wouldn’t you say so, Charlie?”

“Uh-hunh,” I said.

The daisies were still standing in the canning jar on the table. It had been nice having company when Luther sat in the chair where Vern’s butt was parked now. At least, it was nice until Vern showed up.

“After supper I have a surprise for you two,” Vern said.

“What is it, Vern?” Mom smiled.

“I wrote another song,” he said. “This one’s for you, hon, and I’ll sing it for you both.”

Mom’s smile faded a bit, and I had all I could do to keep my face straight. Vern Jardine’s got the worst voice in the whole world, and when he sings, I swear if we had dogs in the neighborhood, they’d be howling under the windows.

It was amazing how a day could start out so good and end up so rotten. After I left Luther at Landen’s it had all gone downhill. Everyone was excited after Lobo left the park. They slapped me on the back and said I was some kind of hero for sticking up for Walter and fighting Lobo, who had a good three inches and maybe ten or fifteen pounds on me.

But if you want to know the truth, it was just dumb luck. I knocked him off his feet is all I did.

But I kept thinking about Will and how he didn’t say a word to Lobo when he was yelling stuff at us. And how he didn’t move to help when Lobo attacked Walter or when I was fighting Lobo. When Lobo threatened me at the end, Will looked real upset, though. I think he was trying to tell me with his eyes that he was sorry. But he left with Lobo and those guys. Maybe he was scared, or maybe he didn’t want them mad at him, but I couldn’t help thinking that he wasn’t as much my friend today as he was a few days ago. I thought about calling him when I got home but decided not to. He should call
me
if he wanted to talk about it.

And now Lobo had it in for me. Johnny had said, “Lobo’s right, Charlie. You’d better watch your back. If he says he’ll get you, he’ll get you.”

“Lobo didn’t say he’d get me,” I told him. “He said he’ll
kill
me.”

“That’s what I meant,” Johnny said. “So watch your back.” Then a little smile crept across his face, and he said, “Man oh man, you shoulda seen his face when you clobbered him!”

We laughed, but to tell you the truth, I was feeling scared. I’d knocked Lobo over once, but I’d never be able to do it again. Not if he saw me coming, anyway.

Luckily I didn’t have a mark on me, and Mom didn’t ask about my dirty clothes. They weren’t any dirtier than usual, I guess.

Now I watched Vern eating. I couldn’t see what Mom liked about him, or why she’d even think of marrying him. My dad was a hero in Korea. He saved the life of another soldier. Dad was smart and could build stuff, and play ball, and do just about anything he set his mind to. You couldn’t hardly talk about him and Vern in the same breath, unless you wanted to show how far down the ladder Vern was from him.

I knew Dad wouldn’t think Vern was good enough for Mom. He wouldn’t want Mom to like somebody who didn’t like colored people. I hoped he didn’t even know about Vern. If he was dead, he couldn’t do anything about it, anyway. And if he wasn’t dead, Dad would come home and boot Vern out of our lives forever. And everything would be great again.

After we finished eating, Vern got up from the table and went out to the car to get his guitar.

“Can’t I go, Mom?” I asked.

“No, you stay here,” Mom said in a low voice. “And be nice. Tell him it’s a good song.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to lie.”

“This is different,” she said. “Vern enjoys his music, and it’s nice to say encouraging things.”

Vern came back in with his guitar and we sat down in the living room.

“First I have to tune,” he said, picking at a string. “Tuning’s real important, Charlie. You listen, now, and someday I’ll teach you how to play the guitar.”

I rolled my eyes, and Mom gave me a stern look.

“Okay, here we go,” Vern announced. “I wrote it for you, darlin’.”

“Thank you, Vern,” Mom said.

He strummed the strings a few times and sang.

“When I look at your face,

I feel so funny inside.

I get jealous sometimes,

And that’s real hard to hide.

When you say you can’t see me,

It cuts just like a knife.

And I’ll tell you right here and now,

You’re the sparkplug of my life.

Sparkplug, sparkplug—

Sparkplug of my life.”

He stopped, and I looked at Mom. She put a smile on her face. “Why, thank you, Vern,” she said. “That was nice. Wasn’t it, Charlie?”

“It was real interesting” was all I could say.

“It was thoughtful of you to write it for me,” Mom told Vern.

“That’s just the first verse,” he said. “I’ll write three or four more before it’s finished.”

She nodded. “I’d like to hear the other verses when you’re finished writing them.”

“You like the ’sparkplug of my life’ part?” he asked. “You think that’s too corny?”

“Well—it’s very imaginative,” Mom said.

“You see, ’sparkplug of my life’ is what’s called a metaphor, Charlie,” Vern said. “All good songs have metaphors in ’em.”

“That a fact?” I said. I didn’t know if that was true, but I didn’t care one way or the other. That was the worst song I ever heard in my life.

“Okay if I go outside now?” I asked.

“Sure, hon,” Mom said. “But be sure to stay within calling distance.”

“Uh, wait just a minute, Charlie,” Vern said. He put his guitar beside him on the davenport. “I want to talk to you man to man.”

My body went kind of stiff. If he gave me advice, I was going to do the exact opposite of whatever he told me.

Mom looked at him funny, and he said, “You stay here, too, Mary. You should hear this.”

He looked real serious, cleared his throat, and shifted on the davenport. “Charlie,” he said, like he was careful about choosing his words, “the last time I was here, there was a colored man sitting at your kitchen table.”

Anger boiled up inside of me and rushed out of my mouth. “His name is Luther Peale.”

“Vern—” Mom began.

“No, Mary, this is something I have to say. Charlie, you ought not to be socializing with those people.”

“What people are you talking about?” I asked Vern, as if I didn’t know.

“Vern,” Mom said, “there’s nothing wrong with Charlie and Luther being friends. He’s been very nice to Charlie.”

“I’m sure he’s nice enough,” Vern said to Mom. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Charlie, I’m talking about people like that who’re beneath you. It isn’t right. You should be looking for ways to better yourself, to come
up
in the community.”

I was never so mad, but I kept myself in control. I gritted my teeth. “Don’t say bad stuff about Luther. He’s my friend,” I said.

“Now, I’m not racially prejudiced, Charlie,” Vern said, ignoring me. “But he’s a
colored
man. I don’t expect you to understand now, but when you’re older you will. They’re not the same as us.”

“They are, too,” I said. My voice was getting louder. “Everybody’s the same. Dad told me so. And Luther’s the nicest person I’ve met in a
long
time.”

I looked at Vern hard so he’d know I was including him in the folks who didn’t measure up to Luther.

Vern looked hurt and kind of mad, too, but I didn’t care. He looked at Mom.

“Mary, I’m just trying to help the boy. You know that.”

“Go along outside,” Mom said to me softly. “I’ll call you in an hour, so stay in the yard.”

I stomped out the front door and let the screen slam shut behind me. Then I sat under the maple tree in front and stewed about Vern.

I didn’t understand people like him. Vern didn’t know anything about Luther, so how could he decide that Luther’s not as good as me?

Besides, I wasn’t about to let Vern tell me who I should be friends with. I really wanted to see Luther. I wanted to talk to him about baseball and Lobo and Vern and everything. I wasn’t going to tell him what Vern said about him, but maybe he could tell me what to say to Mom so she’d stop seeing Vern.

I couldn’t leave the yard now, but a plan was working in my mind.

Mom called me in after a while and I went to bed. She seemed tense, but Vern acted like everything was fine. I lay there in the dark and listened for him to leave.

Finally, about ten-thirty, I heard the front door open. Mom said, “’Bye, Vern. See you soon.”

The door closed, and I turned over and faced the wall. Mom came in, and I could feel her standing over me, but I played possum. She tucked the covers around me, and then she left.

After another half hour, when I knew Mom was in bed and probably asleep, I got up and pulled on my jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers.

It was a warm night, and my window was open. I pushed out the screen, climbed over the sill, and dropped soft onto the ground below.

I stood next to the house and took in a big breath of the night air to calm myself. I’d never snuck out of the house like this before, and my heart was beating wild. I knew if Mom found out I was gone, she’d go berserk, call the neighbors, call the police, call the FBI, maybe. I had to get back without her finding out.

I turned and looked around the yard. The moon was full and gave off a light that made the grass shine silver and the shadows from the overhead leaves stretch out in dark shapes across the lawn. Feeling part scared and part excited, I set off toward the river and Luther’s camp.