by Tim Green
The man held out his hand and Ryder swallowed hard.
The man suddenly burst out laughing. “Ha! Got you. Come on, kid. You’re fine.”
The man mussed Ryder’s hair and tugged him by the arm through the gate.
“Just kidding.” The man grinned at him. “You should’ve seen your face.”
Ryder followed the man into the stadium. They passed two guards who glanced at their passes and then continued across a small courtyard and through a glass door with the Braves logo plastered across it. The air-conditioning hit Ryder hard, but his armpits continued to sweat, even harder. They walked past a set of elevators and through another door where desks sat in clusters throughout a big room. In one corner was an office partitioned off by glass. Its windows looked out onto the playing field. Behind the desk sat a thin man of about thirty years old with spiky blond hair and a serious face.
“Hey, Ethan, got someone for you,” the writer said, pushing the office door open and letting Ryder in before he disappeared.
“Ah, you’re early,” Ethan Kupec said, rising from his desk and extending a hand.
Ryder shook the hand and then gave the PR man his paperwork.
He glanced at it and put it on his desk. “No adult supervision for you, huh?”
“I got dropped off,” Ryder said. “By my friend’s dad.”
His face grew a look of concern. “What about your parents?”
Ryder shrugged. “My mom’s in the hospital. It’s just me and her.”
“Well, this is a nice thing to be doing, right? And you must have some super friends to give you the chance to be batboy for a day. Kids would kill for this.” He pointed at the computer on his desk. “We get over a thousand applications every season, and only four positions. They get filled by people on the inside. That’s between us, not that it’s national news. The contest—I thought, anyway—was a nice way to give just anyone a chance, and here you are.”
“Here I am.” Ryder shifted on his feet.
“Well, let’s go get you a uniform.”
“Uniform?”
“Sure, batboys wear uniforms just like the players. That’s half the fun, right? You get to keep it. Did they tell you that?”
“Can I get to meet some of them?” Ryder clutched his baseball, keeping it tight to the side of his leg so Kupec wouldn’t notice. “The players, I mean?”
He tilted his head and looked sideways at Ryder. “Meet them? You’ll be working with them, handing them their bats, shagging Gatorades, whatever they want. You’re part of the team today.”
“And they . . . they don’t mind talking?”
“Well, they’re not gonna give you their life histories, but yeah, you can talk to them. I wouldn’t get too chatty, but you don’t strike me as the type. Are you?”
“What?”
“Chatty?”
Ryder shook his head no, but then wondered what the fallout would be if Kupec knew he was going to spring a huge question on their top relief pitcher. He imagined the PR man wouldn’t be too happy. It made Ryder’s mouth dry and he couldn’t even swallow.
“You okay? Don’t get nervous. These guys are just people like you and me. Come on. The best way to get over this is to just meet them.” Kupec walked past him and swung open the door, looking back. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
He laughed. “To the locker room.”
Ryder followed, numb to the world around him. They went back the way he’d come and went down the elevators. There were security guards everywhere now. Ryder tried to keep his face angled at the floor in case anyone remembered the texted photo from two days ago. When they stepped off the elevator and walked down a long hall, the guard outside the locker room doors put up a hand, stopping Ryder. “Hey, kid.”
Kupec stopped with his hand on the door and turned around. “What’s the matter, Glen?”
Ryder thought he’d die.
“His shoe’s untied.” The guard smiled.
Ryder let out his breath and forced a chuckle as he bent down to tie his sneaker, which was awkward since he was holding the baseball and trying to keep it from sight at the same time he tied up. “Yes. Thanks.”
When he had it tight, he gave Kupec a nod. The PR man smiled and swung open the door to the locker room. It smelled like leather and aftershave and new carpet. Sitting at his locker directly across from the door, lacing up his own shoes, was Thomas Trent. He tied off his left cleat, then looked up at Ryder and grinned.
Ryder went completely numb.
He had planned on waiting for just the right moment. He knew he should, a time when he could quietly slip alongside Thomas Trent and whisper his message. Even as his feet took him across the fresh carpet and he heard Ethan Kupec’s question, asking him what he was doing, he also heard a voice inside his head, hollering for him to wait!
He couldn’t wait, though. Halfway across the floor, he held out the baseball for Thomas Trent to see. Thomas Trent gave a pleasant look to Kupec and smiled awkwardly at Ryder. “Hey, little buddy. Need a signature on that thing?”
In a voice that sounded like it came from a can, Ryder heard Kupec apologetically explain who Ryder was, a batting contest winner, batboy for a day, obviously starstruck by his first real-life Braves player. Ryder was remotely aware of other players sitting around, but he couldn’t say whether they were smiling or frowning and he didn’t care. He was drowning in the pale green eyes of the man he just knew was his father. He wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry.
Thomas Trent took the ball from him and chuckled and looked at Kupec. “You got a Sharpie for me?”
Ethan Kupec did have a Sharpie and before Ryder could produce his own pen the PR man handed it to the pitcher as he apologized again on Ryder’s behalf. He chided Ryder, saying that he really wasn’t supposed to be getting autographs. He was a batboy and there to work.
“That’s not a big deal.” Thomas Trent took the cap off the Sharpie and turned the ball over in his hand. “Where do you want me to sign it, buddy? Someone already got the middle of this one. It’s an oldie, too, huh?”
Thomas Trent turned the side with his old signature away from him without even looking and pointed to another open spot on the bottom of the yellowing ball. “By the MLB logo? That good?”
Ryder just stared. Thomas Trent glanced up at Kupec and raised his eyebrows. “Okay, I’ll just sign it here for you.”
He signed the ball in the open space below the MLB logo and handed it back to Ryder. Ryder didn’t know how he knew, but he knew he wasn’t going to see Thomas Trent again. He suspected that after this uncomfortable incident, Kupec was going to keep him under wraps for the rest of the day. The fog wouldn’t clear from his head and he had no idea what to say or do, only that the situation was getting more uncomfortable by the second.
“Okay, well, thank you so much, Thomas.” Kupec put a firm grip on Ryder’s shoulder and turned him around to go.
It was everything or nothing now. Ryder knew that. He’d come so far, but he was painfully aware that everything in these past few days had gone against him, everything. It was like the Midas touch in reverse. Instead of everything he touched turning to gold, it turned to garbage. Still, he had to do something.
He had to try.
He started to go along with the PR man, but only for two steps, then he ducked and spun and darted at Thomas Trent, brandishing the ball like a weapon.
“You signed it twice!” His shout turned every head in the locker room. “Look! You signed it already! For Ruby! In Auburn! You were with the Doubledays! You called her your gem! I’m her son with you! Mr. Trent, you’ve got to help us, please! She’s dying!”
Time stopped.
Thomas Trent’s mouth had fallen open and Ryder was struck by the stains on his teeth and the silver fillings in the back molars. His eyes swam with confusion and maybe something else, maybe fear. The Atlanta Braves players stood or sat frozen, as if under the spell of an evil witch. Ethan Kupec sucked in a quick breat
h and held it, frozen as well.
Then everything happened at once. Tears sprang into Ryder’s eyes. Hands were on him, pulling him, lifting him off his feet, and the players roared with chatter and some broken laughter about the crazy kid stalking Thomas Trent. Ryder tried to resist without fighting. He let his legs go limp and dragged his feet and watched Thomas Trent, praying for a miracle, thinking positive thoughts the way Doyle told him he should.
Thomas Trent looked down at the ball in his hand. He turned it to the old autograph, the one he’d signed for Ruby over twelve years ago, and his face twisted in disbelief. He looked up at Ryder, but his eyes were full of fear. Everything Mr. Starr said about Thomas Trent wanting to protect his own life flooded Ryder’s mind.
“Please!” Ryder’s shriek cut through the locker room noise and he sobbed. “You’ve got to help her, Mr. Trent. You’ve got to! I’m your son!”
Ryder heard the doors behind him banging open. More hands were on him, strong hands with iron grips, and he was lifted into the air and carried out into the hallway. In the chaos of the locker room, Ryder saw Thomas Trent in the middle of it all. Their eyes locked on each other’s until the door slammed shut and they marched him up the long hallway like a criminal, away from the field, away from the clubhouse, away from Thomas Trent.
On the sidewalk outside the stadium, Ryder felt like a deflated beach raft. He slumped along, with Ethan Kupec tugging him by the arm. The furious PR director delivered Ryder personally back to the hotel room. Ryder couldn’t even talk, and Mr. Starr seemed to know what had happened, because instead of asking questions, he turned the TV on to the Braves game.
The PR director left, and Ryder and Mr. Starr sat in silence, watching the game. In the bottom of the third, tears began streaming down Ryder’s cheeks. “He just stood there, Mr. Starr. He didn’t say anything and they . . . they just took me away.”
Mr. Starr cleared his throat. “I’m putting a curse on that man.”
“A curse?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Starr?”
“Just let’s see if there’s any justice left in the universe. Let’s watch this game and see what happens and let me think.”
The whole thing sounded crazy to Ryder, but he nodded his head and sat back against the headboard of his bed.
The Braves replaced Mike Minor in the top of the eighth with a two-run lead and Thomas Trent jogged out to the mound with the crowd cheering so loud Ryder could hear it outside the hotel window. But Trent couldn’t close it. He gave up four runs before they pulled him for Luis Avilan. The Braves ultimately lost 6–7.
“Yes!” Mr. Starr trembled in his chair, shouting at the TV. “That’s what a curse does to you!”
In a quieter voice, he said to Ryder, “You can turn that off now.”
Ryder flicked the remote and their room, like the stadium across the street, was now totally silent. “What now?”
“Now?” Mr. Starr said. “We wait.”
“Mr. Starr . . .”
“He knows he’s been cursed.”
“Mr. Starr.” Ryder didn’t want to depend on hocus-pocus, he wanted to do something. “Maybe we should try to get into where he lives. Maybe I should. I mean, I know we can’t take a bus and we can’t walk through the front gates, but maybe I can sneak in . . . climb the wall or something?”
Mr. Starr toggled his control to spin the chair around toward Ryder’s bed. “To what end?”
“To . . . to talk to him. Without everyone all around.”
“You planted the seed,” Mr. Starr said. “Now we have to let it grow. It all depends on whether or not Thomas Trent has a conscience. If he does, we’ll hear from him. If not . . . well, let’s be optimistic. He can’t like what happened to him on the mound today. That’s got to get him thinking.”
“About a curse?”
“Yes, a curse,” Mr. Starr said. “Whether he knows it came from me or not, it’s karma. He knows the universe is out of balance because of him. He feels it. Besides, athletes are extremely superstitious.”
Ryder clenched his teeth.
“Come on, let’s splurge and watch that new James Bond movie. I’m buying.” Mr. Starr spun his chair back toward the TV.
It was hard for Ryder to concentrate, but when James Bond flew a helicopter through the streets of New York City, it distracted him enough to let him lose track of time. As the credits rolled, there was a knock at the door.
Ryder’s insides squirmed. He stared at Mr. Starr.
“Open it.” Mr. Starr sounded like he knew something Ryder didn’t.
Ryder crossed the room and heard Mr. Starr’s chair buzz as it spun toward the door.
He fumbled with the handle and pulled it wide.
Thomas Trent stood there, scowling at Ryder as he held out the ball he’d signed thirteen years ago and again today.
Ryder looked at the ball.
Thomas Trent gave it a little shake and let it lie in his open palm. “Here. It’s yours. Take it.”
Mr. Starr remained silent. Ryder took the ball and looked up at the Braves’ pitcher.
“Can I come in?” Trent’s dark hair was flat and still wet from a shower. He wore a brown suede blazer over an open-collar shirt, with matching shoes. On his wrist was a watch so big it reminded Ryder of a gold plumbing fixture from the Pierre Hotel.
“Please do that.” Mr. Starr raised his voice from within. “And don’t let me frighten you. I was once an ordinary man and like to think of myself in those terms. The look of horror on people’s faces makes that difficult at times.”
They went into the hotel room and Ryder admired Thomas Trent’s attempt to control his facial expression when confronted with Mr. Starr’s twisted shape.
“I’m Stephen Starr. You’ve already met your son, Ryder.” Mr. Starr kept going, even though Thomas Trent winced at the word “son.” “I’d shake hands but it’s difficult for me.”
“That’s okay,” Trent said. “I feel bad for Ryder. I know the whole thing in the clubhouse today was . . . it was pretty uncomfortable.”
“Why? Because they dragged a twelve-year-old boy out of the stadium like a terrorist? Kids are too soft these days, don’t you think?” Mr. Starr’s dead stare seemed to unsettle Thomas Trent.
Trent shook his head and looked from Mr. Starr to Ryder. “I’m not your father, Ryder. I don’t know who you are or how you got here or anything. If Ruby Cantorelli is your mom, then I certainly knew her, but if I was your father, well, that’s something the Ruby I knew wouldn’t have kept a secret like that. I just can’t believe she’d ever say I was your father.”
Ryder’s eyes filled with tears. The bottom fell out of his world.
Thomas Trent stared at him for a moment, then in a quiet voice said, “She didn’t say I was your father, did she?”
Mr. Starr gurgled, then spoke. “She didn’t have to say it. Look at him. Same eyes. Same hair.”
Thomas Trent turned to Mr. Starr. “Look, no disrespect, but there are millions of people with green eyes and dark hair.”
“Dark curly hair.” Mr. Starr’s head trembled.
Thomas Trent ignored him and spoke quietly to Ryder. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this is all real tough, kid. Maybe I can get together some signed stuff to help out with a fund-raiser for your mom.”
Ryder folded his arms and tried not to sob. Tears fell straight from his face to tap the carpet. He couldn’t even get the number out of his mouth, two hundred thousand. He doubted whether there were enough bats, balls, uniforms, and caps in all of Turner Field that could be signed and sold off for that much.
“So, you do feel for this boy?” Mr. Starr sounded annoyed. “You’re not just some callous self-infatuated egomaniacal sports star?”
Thomas Trent scowled at Mr. Starr. “No. I’m not.”
“Wonderful.” Mr. Starr sounded truly pleased. “Then I know you won’t mind taking a paternity test to make sure you’re really not Ryder’s father.”
“Listen, I’m not going
to get involved in some kind of a scam thing.” Thomas Trent raised his voice at Mr. Starr. “They warned me not to even come over here, but I wanted the kid to have his ball and I wanted to set him straight.”
“It’s not involved and this is not a scam!” Mr. Starr shouted Thomas Trent into silence before taking a breath to calm himself and speaking normally. “You can get one in a drugstore. You can rush the order and it takes a day. Swab your cheek. It’s easy. It’s simple and one hundred percent accurate.”
Trent took a breath and glanced at Ryder. “I can’t just do something like that. I’m not—”
“You afraid of the truth?” Mr. Starr cut him off.
“No.”
“Because most people would be.” Mr. Starr’s voice was calm and rational. “But we don’t want to ruin your life. Ryder doesn’t need a father.”
Ryder flinched and wasn’t sure that was the truth.
If Mr. Starr noticed, he didn’t show it. “He just needs to save his mother’s life, and if you are his father, I’d say you owe him that.”
Thomas Trent inhaled sharply, held his breath, then let it out. “I’ll have to talk to my agent first, and my lawyer. You’ll be here, I assume?”
“Waiting for your call,” Mr. Starr said.
Thomas Trent gave them a curt nod, then let himself out.
The phone call woke them up. Mr. Starr was lodged in his bed. Ryder had fallen asleep on top of the covers with the TV on. Outside, the lights from the city of Atlanta glowed in the blackness.
“Hello?” Ryder said into the phone, muting some show about great white sharks on Animal Planet.
“Is this Ryder?” Thomas Trent sounded exhausted, but the kind texture to his voice made Ryder ache to have this man really turn out to be his father.
“Yes.” On the TV screen, a shark broke the water’s surface, its rows of sharp teeth gushing blood.
“Okay, you and your . . . friend meet me tomorrow at the Pencil Building.” Trent paused and cleared his throat. “Uh, it’s 600 Peachtree. Take the elevator to the top. It’s Troutman & Sanders. Ask for Leslie Spanko. She’s my lawyer. We’ll do the test there. You’ll have to sign some things first.”
