The Youngest Hero (23 page)

But outside, playing catch with someone to whom I had been used to throwing a bald tennis ball, I really got the perspective.
Chico seemed tight, almost awkward. I threw like I meant business.

“Hey, man,” Chico whined, “back up if you’re gonna throw like that.”

I smiled. “You loose, Chico?”

“Yeah, but put an arch on it or somethin. Just don’t make me stand there and catch fastballs.”

I had not been aware that I had been throwing that hard. I felt I had some snap on my delivery, but Chico had always been
able to catch me. Of course, we had always played with a rubber ball. This one, despite its coating, was hard, especially
in this weather.

As we backed up from each other, I still felt strong. I whipped throws right to Chico’s glove, hardly making him move more
than an inch. Chico shook his head with every throw.

“Man, you’re hot!”

Hot was exactly what I felt. I loved this, but I was also sweating. I took off my coat and put it next to the building. The
frigid air felt good on my face and neck, and it breezed through the thin material of my long-sleeved shirt.

I threw long and straight, popping Chico’s glove. Chico smiled, shook his head, and lofted the ball back. Every time I caught
it I imagined a different game situation. A runner was tagging or leading off too far or in a rundown or represented the second
half of a double play. Catch and fire, catch and fire. How I loved the game, the sheer joy of it, the great fun of throwing
a baseball!

But I lived to regret my foolishness. I had not known I was being careless, of course. I felt a dull ache in my arm, near
the shoulder, at bedtime. I had just been telling my mother how great it had been, how strong I had felt. I said nothing to
her about the pain.

In the middle of the night I awoke with a burning sensation in my shoulder and biceps. My elbow hurt too. What had I done?
It wasn’t worth waking my mother, but I ran the sink full of cold water, got on one knee, and dunked my arm to the shoulder.
By morning, I could hardly bend it. The muscle was
swollen and tender. Dressing and eating were a chore. I felt like an old man with, what was it my mother called it? Bursitis?

Throwing in cold weather was not something I’d had to worry about in Mississippi. And the winter before had been mild enough
that the guys got used to the weather because we played in it the whole time. It had been nearly two months since I had played
fastpitch, and we all had worn warm jackets.

What had I been thinking? I should have known better.

My teacher grew tired of my excuses for having to write with my left hand. I may have been able to switch-hit, but writing
lefty was not one of my strengths. I felt like an idiot and knew I had brought all this on myself. I hated the idea of not
being able to practice my fielding. There would certainly be no stopping my hitting practice, if you could call it that. It
hurt to hold the bat in my usual manner, so I had to swing with one hand. I swept through with my top-hand power stroke from
the left and pulled through with a smooth, level cut from the right.

Who knew? Maybe I would start hitting these crazy pitches when I could come at them with just one hand.

The first night I tried working out with my bad arm dangling. I couldn’t even stand the pain that came with swinging with
the other hand. Eventually my mother rigged me a sling. I felt more comfortable with the arm bent and close to my body, but
I felt more like a cripple too.

It took longer to set myself and practice-swing with one hand, and I was able to swing at only every other pitch. When I first
began fouling off one of every ten or so, I knew I was making progress. I had only done that well with both hands.

It took me longer to retrieve the balls and to get them into the machine, but then it had taken me even longer to get out
the apartment door and down to the basement too. I found as I walked through the motions of my batting workout that I merely
looked forward to the day when my arm would be back in shape and I could see if I had made real progress at the plate.

I missed my throwing and fielding workouts, and I vowed to
never again risk injury because of enthusiasm. Nothing was more frustrating to a perfectionist than not being able to train.

I guessed my arm was a month away from being back to normal, and then I would have to build up the muscle again. That seemed
like an eternity away.

I
had never had reason to doubt Elgin before, but neither had I ever experienced a cold-weather arm injury. Elgin had gone
through the typical childhood stage of duplicity, but it had been two full years since I had caught him in an outright lie.
Still, I had to ask.

“El, are you sure all you were doin to hurt that arm was throwin without your coat on? I mean, you weren’t wrestling or roughhousing
or something, were you?”

He insisted he was not. He told me how he had felt so good and how his throws were crisp and right on the money.

“I got warmed up, the cold air felt great, and I guess I just got carried away.”

I had insurance at work, but the deductible alone would have threatened my various weekly savings programs. I was willing,
of course, to take Elgin to a doctor, but he told me he was sure the arm was just strained.

“I don’t think anything’s broke or pulled,” he said. “I just got to wait it out.”

Waiting it out was as tough a thing as I had ever done. It was two weeks before I could use my right arm to help pick up
the golf balls at the end of each hitting session, and two more before I could start throwing easily. The muscles had atrophied
and I couldn’t fully straighten the arm for a few more days. It wasn’t long, however, before I could bat with both hands.

That was what I had been waiting for. The Christmas vacation had been lost to what I considered profitable workouts, though
even standing in against the pitching machine with one hand and fouling off a few did more for my eye and my timing than I
imagined.

For a few days after resuming my normal right and left batting stances, I had as much trouble catching up with the pitches
as I always had. But then the day came when I was batting righty and was also relaxed. After weeks of being rigid and tense
in the box, I had learned the rhythm and cadence of the machine and knew what the pitches would and would not do. It didn’t
bother me—as it once had—to just wait on a few pitches, not swinging or even looking at them, but rather getting myself set
for a future pitch, say the fourth or fifth one coming up.

The pitches still hummed in, moving from left to right, coming on the inside corner to a righty. I took a few practice swings,
ignored a few pitches without moving, then set myself and drew the bat back. I was ready for the next pitch, having memorized
the timing from when I first heard the
phfft!
from the spinning wheels until the ball whizzed past me.

I stayed in my crouch with knees bent, eyes on the ball, stepping slowly about six inches as the sound was emitted. I turned
on the ball, driving my bat through the strike zone and keeping my chin down, eyes level. I smacked the ball on a direct line
past the machine and into the hanging canvas. I dropped to one knee just to think about it and appreciate it. It had not been
luck. I had nearly gotten to the place where I thought it might be possible. Pitch after pitch came banging off the wall as
I knelt there, smiling. Man, that felt good! It wasn’t a foul tip; it wasn’t even a pop-up or a grounder. That had been a
solid line drive,
maybe a homer. So, it was possible to time these pitches, follow them in, and get the bat around!

I couldn’t wait to do it again, and I didn’t mind that the machine emptied itself of golf balls while I sat reveling in my
success. This was something to be savored, to ponder, to enjoy. It had been almost worth the wait. Almost, but not quite.
If I could now get a shot like that during each set of fifty-seven pitches, then I might think the lengthy ordeal had been
worth it.

Batting lefty a few minutes later, I found that I could reach the outside corner by forcing myself to step into the pitch.
I would rarely try to hit a pitch like this into left field because I simply couldn’t get enough on it, but until I was ready
to adjust the machine to either start spinning the ball the opposite way, redirecting it so the ball cut across the inside
or the heart of the plate, I would try this.

I hit four foul tips and what would have been a weak pop-up, probably to the third baseman. In a way I felt better about that
performance than even the solid shot I had gotten from the right side. I had come a long way, getting my bat on five pitches.
It was less than ten percent, but it was so much more than I had ever done before. My goal was to be able to somehow drive
the ball from both sides the way I had—one time—from the left.

I refilled the machine and used my rubber-coated baseball for a little infield practice. My arm was still delicate and I felt
feeble, not being able to snap the ball on the throw. Still, I knew it was good for the arm to just loosely arch the ball
to the wall and then play the easy hops. I would take it slow, not try to hurry my comeback. I wanted to be ready by spring
to become the best player on my team and maybe in the league.

I was glad Elgin had found some success in the basement. I loved to hear him tell of his progress. Occasionally I would stand
in the doorway and watch him, ready to duck behind the wall if necessary. The difference between the first time I had done
that—just after Christmas when he was able to foul off
maybe ten pitches out of a whole set and hit grounders on one or two more—and the second week in March was amazing. By then
he was at least tipping every other pitch, and he hit a half dozen solid every time. Only once in every two rounds of pitches
would he hit a hard liner, but I was still astonished by his progress.

As the weather cleared and Elgin’s fastpitch buddies began making noises about starting up the games again, I cautioned him
about throwing too hard too soon outside.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he told me. “I don’t ever want to go through that again. If I play, I won’t pitch, at least till next month.”

The only problem I had with Elgin’s obsession was that it made me lonelier. He was doing homework or reading when I got home,
for which I was thankful. We talked during dinner, and he helped me with the dishes. Then he finished his homework and headed
for the basement, usually not returning until bedtime. We talked a little more when I was getting him settled in, but still
I felt I had less and less time with him and for him. He didn’t seem any the worse for it, but I felt deprived.

He was becoming a charming, quick-witted kid. He was sensitive, though a loner. I worried that all that time alone would affect
how he got along with other people, but his teachers said he was an outspoken leader in class and everyone seemed to like
him. He had a reputation as a local baseball star, but he assured me he had said nothing to anyone about his private training
room and regimen.

I used the time in the evenings to read and sew, and I watched more television than I felt I should. I worried when I began
to pretend there was a man there, one I could talk to about important things, trivial things, anything at all. More than once
I caught myself thinking aloud, imagining that someone who loved me cared about what I had to say. I spoke of Elgin, waited
for a reasoned response, then talked some more. I knew it was silly, wondered if I was crazy, and eventually went to sleep
trying to picture the man who would come into my life.

My bed was lonely and cold until I curled into a ball and embraced
the extra pillow, often waking in the morning in the same position, feeling as if I had hung on all night for my very life.
But when I saw my son, my precious son, the one who was worth any sacrifice, I decided every morning to postpone my own needs
for his. He didn’t know this, I recognized. He seemed to take life as it came, believed that baseball was all there was and,
I hoped, realized that I loved him. That was all I wanted for now, for him to know that he was loved—to know something I had
never really known or felt.