The Youngest Hero (9 page)

“Last time I got shooed away.”

“I don’t care anymore. You can come.”

“Maybe when it starts getting lighter. By the time I get off work now, it’s already pitch black.”

The day I decided to make good on my promise to Elgin was also the day Charlie from marketing decided to make his latest move
on me.

“At least let me walk you to the bus.”

I thought I had somehow kept from my coworkers the fact that I rode a bus to and from the office.

“I’m watching my son play ball on the Near West Side.”

“Bad neighborhood,” Charlie said. “Pretty little redhead like you ought not to—”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, not looking at him. “Thanks anyway.”

“Any time,” he said, as if he meant it.

The white mark on his ring finger told of his fresh second divorce. The reasons for that failure sat at desks and phones within
a floor of mine.

I knew the neighborhood was bad where Elgin played fast-pitch. We lived close enough. When I got off the bus I thought about
dropping my stuff off at the hotel, but the sun was setting fast and I didn’t have the time or the energy to endure Mr. Bravura’s
fawning. He would offer to look after my things or even deliver them to my apartment, but that would cost precious minutes
of polite small talk.

So despite that the total walk from the bus to the fastpitch game was a half block more than a mile, and that I would have
another quarter-mile walk back home after that, I kept trudging. The walk home with Elgin would be no ordeal. He was my existence.

Spring was around the corner, but no one had told Chicago. I was dressed almost as I had been for the dead of winter, though
I wore walking shoes rather than boots, and my scarf hung inside my coat, not wrapped around my neck and face. I wondered
how pretty I looked now, in bulky outerwear and a floppy knit hat pulled over my hair.

I sat on a stoop across the street from where the kids batted. There were three kids to a team today, and Elgin was waiting
his turn to hit. He gave a small, shy wave, as if not wanting to draw attention to me. I smiled at him and remained in the
shadows, though it was even colder there.

A black kid of about fourteen was pitching. He was wild, but he threw the bald tennis ball so hard I wondered how anyone could
see it, let alone get a stick on it. The bat was exactly what Elgin had said it was: a broomstick with electrical tape wrapped
around one end for a handle. No wonder his palms were black every day.

The hitter stood in front of a wall, and if the pitch got past
him and slammed into the chalk-drawn strike zone (which was the same for everyone, regardless of height), the pitcher called
it a strike. That led to countless arguments, of course, but everyone wanted to keep playing so they were kept short.

“Oh-and-two,” the pitcher hollered as he began his windup. I thought I recognized that windup. Who was it? A Cub? Sure! The
tall black pitcher for the Cubs, Joe Davis, would be this kid’s idol. He lifted his hands together, just missing the brim
of his cap, kept his body straight, drew his leg back and swept forward, his arm beginning slowly and finishing in a whip
action that sent the ball whooshing toward the hitter.

I squinted, trying to pick up the flight of the ball. The hitter, a big white kid with long, dark curls, spun to get out of
the way, but the ball hit him in the temple. It skied high above the pitcher and drifted back toward the buildings on my side
of the street.

“He hit that?” one of the two fielders said as he settled under it.

“No!” the pitcher squealed, doubling over. “It hit him!”

Everyone was laughing, even the hitter. It had to have stung, but I guess unless you get hit in the eye or some other sensitive
spot, a tennis ball can’t seriously hurt you. And apparently there was no hit-by-pitch in fastpitch because the hitter stayed
in and the pitcher hollered out, “One-and-two,” as he wound to fire again. This time he threw a lazy change-up that started
toward the hitter and broke way to the outside. Curls started to bail out, then realized the pitch was slow and tried to stay
in and swing. The ball curved away from him so far that he missed it with a weak swing and looked silly. The boys all laughed
again, including the hitter.

“I burned you, man!” the pitcher said. “You shoulda seen yourself, man! Two down! Okay, El-El, get in there. Big stick, heat
against heat. Let’s see what you got.”

That was the first time I had ever heard anyone call my son El-El. Were they teasing him, as if he were a baby?

“You already know what he’s got, man,” Elgin’s Puerto Rican
teammate sang out. “He seven for nine against you already and three homers.”

The Joe Davis imitator threw a pitch so hard that it bounced off the wall and back to him on one hop.

“Strike one!” he said.

Elgin had stepped into the pitch and opened his hips, but he had held his swing at the last instant. I wondered how anyone
could react that quickly, and I figured his teammate must have been kidding about his already getting several hits off this
kid today.

The pitch had been at about Elgin’s eye level, but the strike zone had been chalked for the older kids. Elgin’s shoulders
slumped, and he cocked his head and pursed his lips at the pitcher.

“It was in the zone,” Davis explained in a high, squeaky voice.

“It was in the zone,” Elgin mimicked, and I was stunned. To make fun of a black person, especially the way he talked, constituted
the fixings for a fight where we came from. I watched in amazement as everyone laughed, including the pitcher. “Come on, Darnell,”
Elgin said, “I’m not a seven-footer here!”

“That pitch was in the zone, wasn’t it, boys?” Darnell said, turning to look at his fielders. They both nodded.

“Oh-and-one,” Elgin sighed. “Now I dare you to bring that pitch down six inches.”

Darnell went into his exaggerated windup again, and the fastball hurtled toward the wall. This pitch was slightly lower, but
just when I expected it to bounce off the wall and back to the pitcher, I saw my son, as if in slow motion. Could I lay the
credit for his incredible swing at the feet of Neal Lofert Wood-ell? Someone deserved the praise.

Elgin had stood there, bat cocked. He followed the pitch with his eyes, keeping his chin down and his head steady as he stepped
and pivoted and swung as the ball came in at about chest level, and blasted it straight back at Darnell. The pitcher flinched
and tried to move, but I was sure he hadn’t moved a muscle until the ball was well past him, though it had come within inches
of his ear. One of his fielders across the street instinctively
shot out his glove and the ball slammed into it and ricocheted out and back to Darnell, where it hit him just below the knee
and bounced away.

I had not entirely caught on to the game yet, but plainly this was an out. The team in the field whooped and high-fived each
other and ran in to hit. Elgin and his teammates shook their heads and grabbed their gloves. The ball had not reached the
building across the street, so it wasn’t a hit; it was as simple as that. Though Elgin had hit it as hard as I had seen a
tennis ball hit, he was out. Those were the rules, and they were having fun, so who was I to consider it unjust? In spite
of it, he was the youngest, the smallest, and the best hitter. And from what I could tell, this was wonderful training for
the real thing. If he could hit that little, speeding ball, thrown from so close by kids so big, and with that sorry excuse
for a bat, real baseball was going to seem easy.

Elgin hit three more times before dark. Once he lofted a high pop-up that was uncatchable but fell as an out in the street.
The other two times he rifled doubles off the wall across the street. As we walked home he explained his new nickname.

“I don’t really like it, so don’t start calling me that. But they took the first syllable of my first name and the last syllable
of my last name.”

“Clever.”

“But I don’t like it.”

“I heard you, El. I can still call you El, can’t I? Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m still sweating,” he said, his parka slung over his shoulder.

“That’s a good time to stay bundled up,” I said. “That wind will chill you.”

“C’mon, Momma. I’m no baby anymore.”

I looked at him, and to my horror realized he was right. He was smaller than the kids he played with, but for his age he was
tall, lankier than ever.

“So, how’d I do?” he asked at home as we ate.

“How’d you do? You did fantastic! I don’t understand how you can hit that ball.”

“I don’t either. I remember when I couldn’t hit that thing to save my life. It would come in there and bang off the wall before
I had time to think.”

“So how do you do it?”

“I don’t think.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I really don’t think about it. Daddy used to tell me to use my instincts rather than my mind. I didn’t know what he
meant until I had to try to hit a small ball, pitched from close in, by kids this big. I mean, Daddy pitched as hard as he
could to me, but from—”

“Did he really?”

“I think so. He said he did, and I know I couldn’t hit him.”

“You hit him a lot, El.”

“But not when he was pitching his fastest. Nobody could. At the end of each practice he would throw me a dozen or so of his
hardest pitches. I don’t think I fouled off more than one or two ever.”

“Did he throw faster than this Darnell?”

Elgin nodded. “Yeah, but I’d have to say this is a little tougher, because a tennis ball is lighter and can move a lot more,
and it does come in from so much closer.”

“How do you do it?”

“I started to hit fastpitch when I finally realized that I didn’t have time to think. I could guess, that’s all.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does. Big leaguers guess. They try to guess what pitch a guy will throw and about where he will throw it. It gives
them a little edge.”

“Only if they’re right.”

“Exactly. But there’s not enough time to think about where the pitcher’s arm is and the spin of the ball. Daddy says that
all goes into the hitter’s computer.”

“His brain.”

“Right. But you just see that and react and hope for the best.”

I shook my head. “Do you realize that baseball tryouts are next Saturday?” I said.

“Momma,” Elgin said, “I know how many days and hours there are to go.”

I
found myself one of hundreds of parents who showed up with their kids for the baseball tryouts the following Saturday. Elgin
had not slept well. I had heard him up in the night several times.

We sat in bleachers, huddled in our coats, as kids continued to sign up and pay.

“This league goes from age eight to twelve, El. Lots of competition. It’s okay to be nervous, to wonder how you’ll do.”

“I don’t wonder that at all.”

“You don’t?”

“No. Now what’s the deal with the ages?”

“The man told me that they have a minor league and a major league. He said it’s just as likely to see a twelve-year-old in
the minors as it is to see an eight- or nine-year-old in the majors. It’s all based on ability. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll
be one of the younger ones in the majors.”

Elgin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked into my eyes. “You don’t get it, do you, Momma? What I’m excited about.”

“What’s there to get, El?”

“I’m not nervous, that’s what. I’m not worried. I’m excited because I can hardly wait to get out there and play. You know
there’s nothing I’d rather do.”

“But don’t pretend that you’re not just a little worried—”

“I’m not.”

“A little nervous?”

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you sittin here fidgeting?”

“You’re gonna think I’m bragging.”

“Well, I probably will. You’ve been getting a little showy here lately.”

“Then I’d better not tell you why I’m so excited.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t want you thinking I’m too big for my britches, like you always say.”

“Go ahead and tell me.”

“Momma, what I’m starting to really like about baseball is that I’m so good at it. I love for people to see me play. Nothing
makes me feel better than for you to tell me I did good. And I love it when everybody stops and watches.”

“That would make me so nervous I would just fall apart,” I said.

“Not me,” Elgin said. “I pretend not to notice, but I do. It was great when people in tryouts or at practices talked about
me. But when we got into games and I did something that made people clap and cheer, well—”

I looked at him. He seemed unable to find the words.

“A little humility would do you some good, Elgin.”

“Now, see, Momma, I told you you would think that. But I’m not bragging. I’m just trying to be honest. I don’t know how I
got so good, except Daddy was good and he taught me everything. I’m fast and I’m tall and I’ve got a good arm. But I don’t
think that’s that important.”

“What is?”

“I just love the game so much. You know I love the game.”

“Do I ever! You love it more than anybody ought to. I mean, you see things in this game your daddy never saw, and that’s the
truth.”

“It’s a beautiful game, Momma.”

“I know. I didn’t always know. But you’re teaching me, and more than your dad did.”

“Really?”

“Honest. I can’t get into all those statistics you love and everything, but the little things you notice, the strategy you
come up with, well—maybe you oughta be a coach someday.”

“You mean after I’ve played twenty years in the big leagues?”

I smacked him on the shoulder. “Mr. Humble,” I said. And I hugged him. He stiffened and pulled away and I realized he was
getting past the age where he would let me do that in public.

The eight- and nine-year-olds were cavorting on the field, baseballs flying everywhere. When the ten- through twelve-year-olds
were called to a nearby football field, Elgin jumped up and began to run. He skidded to a stop, raced back, shed his coat,
and took off again, this time forgetting his glove. He whirled to get it and I tossed it to him. I surprised him and he missed
it.