LGBTQIA SHORT-STORY
Sebastian Walks: Invisible On My Pitcher’s Mound, #003
Jaq, a gender-fluid girl, spends an afternoon pretending to be their favorite baseball star.
Sebastian Walks is a series of mini-stories that follow JaQ, a gender-fluid girl, and witness relatable childhood experiences and mishaps. Each story starts with a question and sometimes ends with an answer.
In this series, JaQ, a gender-fluid girl, takes on their favorite sport — baseball. JaQ is a typical, highly active child with an overactive imagination.
003 — Invisible On My Pitcher’s Mound
If I were a biological boy, would I be more visible?
It is a recognizable fact that fathers look forward to playing catch with their boys. It’s a special rite of passage. Well, I often bucked against those traditions, defiantly dangling my kid-sized 10.5 cleats over those boundaries that separated my dad and me.
It is 1990. I am 12 and a die-hard fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
After another one of my mom’s guilt trips with my father, I benefit yet again. And my dad tries to make it up by spending money on me. He takes me to Pep Boys, an automotive and retail store, and purchases my first leather baseball glove, a bat, and new cleats.
As the cashier rings up the bill, my dad whips out his silver credit card and then flashes me a look after handing me the bag. “Are you good with that?” I eagerly nod.
This is our ritual. My dad ignores me, he and my mom argue about his lacking presence, dad feels guilty, and I get a new toy. Over the years, this ritual built a kid’s haven of collector’s electric train sets, remote-controlled cars, a special-edition BMX bike, summer camp trips, and more. Strangely, I learned to enjoy the bearing of gifts out of my father’s guilt.
After school the next day, I wanted to break in my new leather glove. I somehow convince my mother to play catch. Imagine playing catch with an awkward, girly-girl type of woman too afraid of catching a ball. She dodges every lobbed ball and barely musters the strength to aim the ball a mere 15 feet, often leaving the ball short of my position. She tries.
Dad comes home. He makes his way straight to the kitchen and sits in his favorite chair. My mom and I continue to play ‘catch.’ However, I can see her getting visibly upset when she turns and glances at my dad through the kitchen window. My dad never looks up.
The Dodgers were playing amazingly in the playoffs series. After watching the final inning, I run downstairs and take off through the glass sliding door in the living room, into our backyard.
I dart towards my makeshift pitcher’s mound, a sun-burned red brick I dug into the ground. As I take my pitching stance, I quickly watch my dad enter the kitchen and sit next to the window. He flips the long folds of the Los Angeles Times newspaper and immerses in the previous day’s happenings.
I wind up, kick my leg out, and with my eyes, lock and focus on my target. I let the ball fly. High right. On the other end is a white stucco wall where I drew a box target. I retrieve the ball for another pitch. My shadow grows with each attempted pitch.
The sun is setting.
My mom then peers out the sliding door and summons me to clean up for dinner. I plead with her for more time. She relents and closes the door.
I have 10 minutes.
So, I run over to pick up my new bat and ball from the grass. Excited, I toss the bright white and red-threaded ball just high enough to position quickly underneath and swing, then retrieve the ball. On my last toss, I pitch the ball high into the pink and purple striped, setting, blue sky. I wait as the ball descends into my target box.
I connect.
As the vibration shoots down the bat, I hear a crash. My eyes dart over to my dad’s standing silhouette peering through the kitchen window. He storms towards the broken sliding door, visibly upset.
All I can think is, “Wow, that was a great swing!”
Thanks for reading!
Read previous stories here.
Shay lives in Virginia Beach. She currently serves in the U.S. Army by day and devotes the evenings and weekends to writing, videography, and podcasting. Shay is an up-and-coming podcast creator of the storytelling podcast Crack This ShXt Open!, launching in Fall 2020.
