The Youngest Hero (17 page)

I found a hammer, pliers, a huge monkey wrench, and a couple of screwdrivers. I removed the chain and the bungi cord, then
loosened every bolt connected to something that should stick out rather than fold in. Soon I had the machine looking more
like those I had seen at the batting cages. The difference was that the ball was delivered not by a mechanical arm on a spring
that picked up one ball at a time and whipped it toward the plate, but rather by two horizontally spinning wheels. The balls
apparently rolled between the wheels and were spit out by spinning friction on each side.

I couldn’t wait to get the machine plugged in and on to see which direction those wheels turned. It seemed they had to be
able to be adjusted to put all different kinds of speeds and spins on the ball so you could order up fastballs, sinkers, curves,
sliders, whatever.

What looked like it might take days was finally finished. The machine stood there, awkward and clumsy-looking, awaiting my
decision. I felt around in the metal housing and found a long, coiled cord. As I pulled it out I noticed the plug was hanging
from the rest of the three-pronged cord by a thread. Could I fix it, or would I wind up electrocuting myself?

I
fed the cord from the machine across the floor until I was sitting directly under the lightbulb in the center of the huge
room. I felt under the machine to where the cord began, snaking its way from some sort of special box. That seemed intact,
and the connection from the box to the cord was firm. I ran my fingers along the cord and found that the only frayed spot
in more than twenty feet was right at the plug.

I used a screwdriver to separate plug from cord. I was careful to remember which color wire attached to each copper connection.
There was no sign of burning or wear, just loosening.

Like a woman from the electric company showed us at career day at school, I used pliers to cut away loose bits of wire and
the rubber coating until I had shortened the cord by about a half inch and was left with clean, connectable wires. I wound
them around their various posts and tightened the screws. Then I replaced the plastic covering with the three prongs sticking
through and tightened that down.

I was pretty proud of what I’d done. Momma thought I was something because I could cook a simple meal. Wait till she saw this!

Before I plugged it in, I found the on-off switch on the pitching machine and checked the other moving parts. The container
looked like it could hold six or seven dozen balls. It turned in a circle like the mixer on a cement truck and delivered
the balls to a short trough that fed the two spinning rubber wheels.

The shape of the container made the balls stack and come out one at a time to the trough, which balanced on a fulcrum and
dipped to receive each ball and roll it slowly on its way. The spinning wheels thrust the ball toward the hitter. Adjustable
screws and knobs determined the speed, distance, and direction.

I wanted to be sure of everything before I turned it on. My friends would have to see this to believe it. I couldn’t believe
my luck. This was worth the months of hearing nothing from my father. I couldn’t imagine a better gift.

I stood at the hitting end of the room. The machine leaned to the right. I tried adjusting the wheels by banging on them with
the big monkey wrench and the hammer. The machine looked straighter. It still looked old, but I figured it should work.

I stood on a chair in the middle of the room and carefully inserted the plug in the light socket, half expecting to be blown
across the room. As soon as I let go the plug fell out and bounced on the floor. I widened the copper protrusions to make
them tighter and decided electrical tape would keep it in for sure. It was trickier than I thought to hold the plug in and
wrap the whole thing with tape. My shoulders were sore.

Rooting around in the junk I found an old bicycle basket, perfect protection for the lightbulb. I jury-rigged the basket upside
down on the ceiling with screws and bent nails and tape.

I found sheets of drywall with crumbled corners and used the insides for chalk to outline a strike zone on the far wall and
sketch in a plate and batters’ boxes. I went upstairs to borrow Momma’s tape measure.

“I was just about to come get you,” she said as I burst in the door. “Get cleaned up for dinner.”

“Oh, Momma, can I have about twenty minutes?”

“I guess. You wanna run a plate of food to the Bravuras on your way back down?”

“How soon?” I said, rummaging in the junk drawer. When I pulled out the tape, I dragged a bunch of other odds and ends with
it and they scattered on the floor.

“Why didn’t you just let me get that for you?” she said, helping me gather up the stuff.

“Momma, I’m eleven years old. I don’t need you doing stuff for me all the time.”

“Apparently you do.”

She took a fork and a carving knife to the oven where she removed the tin foil from the little bird and sliced some turkey
for Ricardo and his wife. She added stuffing, a couple of rolls, a scoop of corn, and a slice of canned cranberry mold. She
added gravy and wrapped the plate in foil.

“Oh, man, is this making me hungry!” I said. I stuffed the tape measure in my pocket so I could carry the plate. I had to
spread my fingers under the plate to keep from burning myself.

Mr. Bravura was ushering a drunk out of an easy chair in the lobby.

“This isn’t a mission! Now get out of here! Find a place that’s giving out meals today!”

The old man shuffled out, swearing and trying to make an obscene gesture, which he had not quite accomplished by the time
the door slammed in his face.

Mr. Bravura hurried back to his desk where a tiny black-and-white TV played one of his soap operas.

“Oh, young Mr. Woodell! How good to see you! And what is this? What a treat! Tell your sweet mother how grateful my wife and
I are, would you?”

Before I could turn away I saw him remove the foil, find the silverware, and shovel a huge mouthful of dressing and gravy
in as if he hadn’t eaten for days. I hurried toward the basement.

“Enjoy your feast!” he called after me.

“You too!”

The batters’ boxes and plate turned out even better than I’d hoped. I got rid of the scraps and leftover materials, then came
back to survey my work. It looked great.

The moment had arrived. I knew enough to be wearing rubber
soles and not touch anything metal when I flipped the switch on the machine. There was a low hum, then a rattle, then a slow
acceleration until the whole thing vibrated. The motor wasn’t loud, but the machine creaked and squeaked, and gradually the
ball container began to rotate. I moved around to the front and watched, my eyes darting over the entire surface of the thing.

When the container was in a position where the first ball would have dropped out, the trough automatically dipped toward it.
It stayed that way, the container turning and the trough leaning toward it, as if waiting to accept a ball. I wondered what
made the trough tilt the other way and the pitching wheels spin. It could be only the weight of the ball.

I reached for the trough and tipped it toward the wheels. When it reached a certain spot of tension, the wheels kicked in
and spun. When I let go, the trough tilted the other way and the wheels stopped. I could tell from the noise that the moving
parts needed oil. I turned off the machine and found some in one of the cabinets in the other room. I applied it to anything
that looked like it could use it.

The machine hummed and whirred as if new, until I heard the rumble and clatter. Had a gear slipped? Had something fallen off?
It sounded like a tennis shoe tumbling in a clothes dryer. I moved to the front where I could peer into the container with
a sliver of light at my back.

The noise changed. It was no longer a bump and tumble but a roll, as if a ball was in the machine. I leaned over as far as
I could and saw a dark, almost black, baseball-size sphere rolling neatly around the container, edging up toward the trough.
Could it be? Had an old ball been stuck in there and been dislodged by all my tinkering? How could it have stayed in there
during the shipping? It must have been pinned in a crevice somewhere.

When it reached the trough I could tell it was a regulation baseball, but badly weathered and probably waterlogged. It rolled
slowly until it reached the midway point, then its weight
made the trough tilt forward with a clang and the pitching wheels began to spin, faster and quieter now because of the oil.

I suddenly realized I was standing in front of a pitching machine that was about to fire an old, heavy, rock-hard baseball
right at me. My knees buckled and my eyes were just sinking out of range when the rubber pitching wheels gobbled up the ball
and hurled it toward the far wall.

The ball rocketed from the machine with a rubbery
thwack!
and from the floor I watched it slam off the wall near the ceiling almost forty feet away. It made a crunching sound, rebounded
and hit the side wall, and rolled unevenly on a split side almost all the way back to me. Shaking, I picked it up and examined
it. The seams had split and the stuffing stuck out.

As I stood there I thought I heard another rumbling in the container and dropped again, my heart racing. It had been only
in my mind, but to be safe I crawled to the back of the machine and turned it off. I felt around in the container to make
sure there weren’t any other surprises. Finally I headed up to the lobby and the elevator.

I knew I should take the stairs, but my legs were still like jelly. That ball would have killed me for sure. I tried to calculate
how to adjust the machine to bring it down into my strike zone. Here was a machine designed to throw fastballs from sixty
feet six inches, the major-league distance from rubber to plate. What in the world would it do with a bald tennis ball?

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Momma said.

I told her the story over dinner. By the time I had eaten too much and thought about how thankful I was to God for a mother
who cared about me so much and a father who would send me such a gift, I had regained my courage. It would be a long afternoon,
having to feed the tennis ball back into the machine by hand, but it was better than nothing.

M
y friends and I had agreed to play fastpitch at five-thirty, though there wouldn’t be much daylight left. Now it was the last
thing I wanted to do. I asked Momma to tell the guys, if they came by, that I wasn’t going to play today. I also asked if
I could have five of the twenty-one dollars she was holding for me.

“What’re you lookin to buy with five bucks?” she said.

“A baseball or two.”

“Can you get two for five dollars?”

“Maybe at the secondhand store. You never know.”

“I’d be surprised if you could get two new ones for five,” she said. “I was lookin for one for Christmas last year and I didn’t
see any that cheap except those rubber-coated ones.”

I stared at her. “
You
bought those rubber-coated baseballs?”

She hesitated. “Well, your dad told me what to—”

“He did not. You bought those, didn’t you? And you told me they were from him. I knew he wouldn’t buy me those.”

“I’m sorry, Elgin. It’s never right to lie. I was tryin to protect your image of your daddy, and I just thought—”

“It’s all right, Momma. I should have known anyway. I guess I knew, but I did believe you.”

“Will you forgive me, El? It was wrong, just wrong.”

“Yes’m. How about the other gifts?”

“I’m sorry.”

I plopped down on the couch and shook my head.

“What is it, honey?”

“Now you’re gonna tell me that pitching machine isn’t from Daddy either.”

“That was his, El. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

I sighed. “So you’re telling me it was his idea to up and send it to me.”

“He had somebody at the prison tell the guy to send it.”

“Who?”

“The chaplain, Mr. Wallace.”

“And Daddy had him tell the coach to send it to me?”

“Right.”

“To me?”

“Of course it’s for you. What’m I gonna do with it?”

She smiled at me.

“The name on the tag was yours, Momma, not mine. How come it was sent to you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they thought I might have to pay for delivery.”

“All I want to know is, was this your idea or Daddy’s?”

She looked away. “What’s the difference? He had it sent and now you have it.”

“How’d you get him to send it?”

“What makes you think I—”

“Momma! You already lied to me about the other gifts, and you said you were sorry. You know as well as I do that Daddy didn’t
up and decide to send me a pitching machine after not writing me or calling me for so long. How did you get this out of him?”

“I won it as part of the divorce settlement, if you must know.”

I wished I hadn’t asked. I got my glove and broomstick bat and bald tennis ball. If I got tired of using the same ball over
and over, I would go play fastpitch. I trudged down to the basement, still excited when I saw the machine, but not as thrilled
as when I thought Daddy was still interested in my baseball career.

I stashed my other equipment and dropped the tennis ball
into the container. The thing whirred to life, but the tennis ball never rolled to the top toward the trough; too light,
it just bounced around inside the cylinder. I fished it out and set it in the trough. It was even too light to tip the trough
and start the pitching wheels moving, so I held it in and tipped the trough myself. The wheels spun, but the ball was too
thin for the space between the wheels and it dribbled through, skipping to the floor.

I studied the machine until I discovered what to loosen to push the wheels closer together, then tightened it again. I still
had to feed the ball into the trough and tip it toward the wheels, but this time the wheels were too close together and they
caught and mashed the ball almost flat before spitting it out about ten feet to the right. It bounced off the wall and rolled
into my newly chalked batters’ boxes.