Left Field
She joined him under the left field pavilion just as Tommy’s team took the field at the top of the fifth. She was out of breath from running up the hill in her blue polyester waitress uniform, skirt and matching shirt, cooler and purse in tow. He lit a cigarette as she plopped her purse on the picnic table and pulled a beer out of her cooler. “Jesus,” he said, eyeing the family in the next pavilion, “there are people around.”
“Who cares?” she said, popping open the can and slurping. “My baby’s pitching.”
“We’re in the park, Ma, for Christ’s sake.” A black Trans-Am, its T-Tops off, slid by up the road adjacent to the third baseline, “My Sharona” blasting from the open windows, drowning out the thump thump thump of its engine.
“Just watch the game, Stevie. Your brother’s pitching. How’s he doing?” They turned their gazes to the diamond, the Raven’s Falls Tigers in their orange jerseys were just ending their pre-inning toss and were having it around the horn. The third basemen tossed the ball to Tommy, who, pinned for a moment in a shaft of sunlight, caught it, removed his glove, and rubbed the ball as he eyed the batter.
“OK. They roughed him up in the third and got two off of him, but he settled down. We’re up by one.”
“Smitty left him in? He threw five innings on Wednesday. Hope he’s got some left in the tank. Especially today.”
He’s good, Ma. Strong.” Tommy had climbed the mound and, getting the sign from the catcher, drew back and blazed a fastball by the Mear’s Lake batter.
“Whoo,” she yelled, her voice echoing under the pavilion’s metal roof. “That boy is on. Did Smitty say anything about the scout? Is he here?”
“Don’t know,” Steve said, shielding his eyes from the glare and shifting into the shade of the big elm that served as the marker for the left field line. He pulled at his t-shirt and rivulets of sweat ran down his chest. He was still in his boots and jeans. “I came right from work.”
“So, you didn’t grab Smitty before they started?” She frowned.
Tommy threw another fastball for a strike. “I’ll catch him after the game,” he said, taking a drag on his cigarette.
“Too late by then. I swear sometimes you’re just plain retarded.” She stopped short and tracked the ball as the crack of the bat sent it spinning off the glove of the third baseman into left field. “Damn,” she spat, “that kid can’t catch a damn thing.”
The ball was back to Tommy, and he was soon facing the next batter, a lefty. Steve scanned the third baseline for the scout, although he had no idea what the guy would look like. No one but locals lined the fence. Tommy had been so excited the night before when he told them about the scout. “They never come out to Legion games down here, man,” he had said to them at the dinner table, “Coach says he called him personally. Asked about me. Said he might be interested now that I graduated. Coach said I need to bring my best stuff.” But Steve had been late, the derailment at the Heeney industrial park had kept him busy all morning.
Tommy reared back and unleashed a slider that bit too hard and skipped off the plate, kicked off the catcher’s shin guard, and went skittering up the first baseline. The runner at first dug hard around second and, by the time the catcher could chase the ball down, had made it to third. “Shit,” she said, “Come on, Tommy, you got this.”
Tommy reared back and threw a curveball for a strike. Steve tossed his smoke into the grass and sat down on the picnic table. Tommy threw a fastball for a strike, the pop from the catcher’s mitt registering a split second after the puff of dirt flew off of it. “This is the kid who drove in the two against him in the third,” Steve said, his voice quickening, “He’s got him this time, Ma.”
“You know it,” she said, placing her beer on the table. She leaned forward, her hands digging into her thighs so tightly they left little red marks in her skin. On the mound, Tommy shook off the catcher’s signal, nodded, and went into his windup. The fastball was up and in, forcing the Mear’s Lake hitter to drop in a heap in the batter’s box, the fastball missing his helmet by inches. In a heartbeat the kid was up and glaring at Tommy, who received the toss back from the catcher and stared right back. “Whoo,” Sheila screamed, “You show him, Tommy! Don’t take no shit!” Steve shook his head.
Tommy shook the catcher off for the second time, and Steve could almost sense a hesitation in his brother before he threw a second fastball inside, this time forcing the batter back out of the box. The umpire called for time and walked out to the mound. “He’s gonna get some shit, now.”
“Don’t matter. He’s got that kid right where he wants him.” The umpire finished his talk with Tommy and jogged back behind the plate. Tommy toed the rubber and took the sign, this time nodding. “He’s got balls, that son of mine.” She stared up at him as if to say Glad one of my boys does.
Steve spun and glared at his mother. Fuck you, he wanted to say. Fuck you if you think I want to work at the fucking rail yard because we need the money. But he didn’t say it. Instead, he turned to catch the high swing of his brother’s leg, the graceful arch of his back that led to the perfect release, bathed in the sunlight, the ball rocketing towards the batter who was already starting his swing. The crack of the bat seemed to suck all of the ambient noise out of the park, silently framing the tiny white blur against the painfully azure sky as it rocketed out over the center fielder’s head and out over the white green sea of clover that made up deep center field. On its landing, a wall of cheering erupted from the Mear’s Lake bleachers as it bounced well over the center field fence and rolled up the hill, coming to a rest just shy of the farthest pavilion that perched on the outfield hill. “Shit,” Sheila said, slamming her beer on the picnic table as the two runners slowly trotted around the bases, “that’s that.”
They stared in silence as Smitty hefted his prodigious belly off of the bench and ambled slowly out to the mound. He pointed towards the third baseman and walked out to Tommy; his brother’s shoulders were rounded as he plunked the ball into the old man’s outstretched hand. A car’s engine roared to life somewhere from the parking lot, drowning out the polite applause as Tommy slumped towards third. People started to mill around the fences.
“Well, that’s typical,” she said, snatching her purse and cooler from the table and walking out of the pavilion into the sunlight, “We had it right in front of us, and bam, gone. You boys always find a way to fuck it up when it’s looking good for us, don’t you?”
She was shaking her head as she descended the hill, muttering to herself under her breath as her head sunk out of sight.
Steve watched her fade into the distant crowd that was gathering around the snack bar as the new Ravens Falls pitcher warmed up. He followed her for as long as he could from his perch in left field until she disappeared from his sight. He lit a cigarette and sat back on the table. Around him, the pavilions- like the base runners on the diamond below him- had emptied, and he found himself alone on the left field hill. Despite it all, the game would go on, and he would cheer for his brother when he inevitably took his turn at the plate in the next inning. Later, he would drive Tommy back to their trailer and cook TV dinners for them; their mother would be a no-show. Later, they would watch Baywatch and drink a few beers before turning in, and Tommy would, as always, wait for him to be asleep before he snuck out to meet his friends.
In the morning, Steve would rise early and drag his ass out to work his Saturday shift while she slept her bender off. He would make sure that Tommy was up, too; jobs didn’t come knocking at your door, after all, and Steve had pulled some heavy duty strings to set him up with an interview out at the cement plant at eight. On his way out, before grabbing the saran-wrapped hard roll she always left for him on the kitchen table on Saturday mornings, he would stare at her, passed out on her bed, rumpled uniform still on. He would want more than anything else to go in that room and shake her until she woke and scream into her groggy, slurred face that she was the one who fucked it all up, that maybe it was she dragging her two boys down.
He wanted to get up real close to her and say it. Wanted to push her hair back away from her ear and whisper, “But you won’t drag me down anymore. My transfer came through. I’m leaving next month for Carolina.”
But he wouldn’t do it. No, he had a better idea. He smiled, imaging the rage on her face when, one night soon, Tommy would tell her that he wasn’t just late but that he had called from some rest stop to tell them he wasn’t ever coming back. It was probably too much to think that she would respect him for planning it all so well, Tommy’s job, his transfer; she’d be too pissed having to be a mom, again, to her youngest, and not the self-centered drunk that she had become. It’d be good for her.
He smiled to himself as he ground his cigarette into the pavilion’s concrete pad and slid down to the picnic table’s bench. The tabletop pressed hard beneath his shoulder blades through his wet t-shirt. The sun bore down on the vibrant green of left field as the Tigers jogged off the field; Tommy already had his helmet on and was strolling to the on-deck circle. In no time he would be up to bat, another crack at the comeback. Steve shielded his eyes and scanned the baselines and near empty bleachers again. Even though the crowd had thinned, he found he liked it where he was, and decided not to move closer. He grabbed the beer his mother had left and took a sip. It was still cold. From way out in left field, the whole world seemed suddenly right.
