“Why, Mrs. Woodell,” he said, beaming. “I’d be more than honored.”
Back upstairs, Elgin was sulking.
“What’s your problem, buddy?” I said, pulling him to me.
“That is the best thing you’ve ever given me, and I can’t wait to start working on it. Where’d you get it anyway?”
“You can see it’s not new.”
He nodded.
“It’s from your daddy.”
Elgin sat in a kitchen chair and shook his head. “Momma, you gotta let me get at it. Let’s skip lunch, and then let’s have the big meal later.”
“Big meal?”
“I saw the turkey, Momma.”
“Not much to speak of, is it?”
He shrugged. “I love turkey. Now can I have the key?”
I shivered when I finally got to the basement, but it wasn’t long before I had to take off my sweatshirt. I kept thinking that in ten minutes or so the machine would be ready, but so far I hadn’t touched it in forty minutes. I made trip after trip from the big room to the smaller one, trying to find places to put half-used cans of paint and heavy containers of who-knew-what. There were suitcases, trunks, oil drums. It was all I could do to push them, slide them, roll them into the other room. I would be tired and sore after this.
By noon I was hungry, but I put off running upstairs for a snack. I knew I couldn’t last till the turkey dinner that afternoon, but I didn’t want to quit working either. I had never been so industrious. Everything I was doing, every step I made, pushed me closer to checking out the rickety pitching machine. Trouble was, even if I could get it to fire up, I had only one bald tennis ball. Would that even work?
It was another hour and a half before I had cleared the big room. I leaned against the wall and surveyed it. There were pipes overhead, a utility box in one corner, and the single bulb hanging in the middle of the room. That left the ends of the room nearly dark. The machine could be set up at either end, and since one was just ten feet from where the thing sat now, that would be the best bet. I heard a knock at the door.
I jogged up the stairs to find Momma with a couple of apples. “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her.
“Need some help?”
“Wait till you see.” I grabbed the apples, thanked her, and chomped a huge bite as I led her down the stairs.
“Elgin! You’re ready to move the machine already!”
“I’ve been working forever.”
“I can’t believe how much you’ve done.”
“I need help dragging the machine. I’m gonna set it up at this end and have it pitch toward the other wall.”
“How hard will this thing throw, Elgin, and what will it throw?”
“No idea how hard. I’ve seen em at batting cages where they throw slow and medium and fast, but I don’t know how you set that. I’ll have to look at it. I don’t even know how to aim it.”
“Aren’t we gonna need Ricardo?”
“I don’t think so, Momma. We’re on flat ground now, and the chain is still attached. We can put the bungi cord back on, and I can try to get the thing up on its wheels.”
We laughed, remembering what happened on the stairs.
“We can try,” she said as I put the uneaten apple in my pocket and tossed the core of the first one into an empty can in the other room.
I hooked the bungi cord to a strategic spot on the machine, and we leaned and braced and pushed and pulled until it stood upright. Two wheels were still bent, but at least it was pushable now.
Every time we got it going a few inches it seemed to turn on its own and head the opposite direction. I couldn’t help but laugh when Momma did. As the machine started through the door, I ran to the side and leaned into it, bumping and pushing so it wouldn’t drag against the doorframe. Momma had got up some speed behind it, and as it cleared the doorway it swung into the open room and spun almost in a circle.
“I’ve got to get back to the turkey,” she said, “unless there’s anything else I can do.”
I shook my head. “You think Ricardo would mind if I used the tools down here?”
“Looks like nobody’s used em for years. Be careful with the electricity now, hear?”
I nodded. “Only socket I can find is in the light fixture.”
She looked up. “Funny place for it. At least you know it works, cause the light’s working.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll come get you at dinnertime, around four. I promised Ricardo and his wife some turkey dinner.”
“Oh, no, Momma! They gonna eat with us?”
“I’m just bringing them a plate; now don’t be so selfish. Having them join us would have been a nice idea. Wish I’d thought of it.”
I found a hammer, pliers, a huge monkey wrench, and a couple of screwdrivers. I removed the chain and the bungi cord, then loosened every bolt connected to something that should stick out rather than fold in. Soon I had the machine looking more like those I had seen at the batting cages. The difference was that the ball was delivered not by a mechanical arm on a spring that picked up one ball at a time and whipped it toward the plate, but rather by two horizontally spinning wheels. The balls apparently rolled between the wheels and were spit out by spinning friction on each side.
I couldn’t wait to get the machine plugged in and on to see which direction those wheels turned. It seemed they had to be able to be adjusted to put all different kinds of speeds and spins on the ball so you could order up fastballs, sinkers, curves, sliders, whatever.
What looked like it might take days was finally finished. The machine stood there, awkward and clumsy-looking, awaiting my decision. I felt around in the metal housing and found a long, coiled cord. As I pulled it out I noticed the plug was hanging from the rest of the three-pronged cord by a thread. Could I fix it, or would I wind up electrocuting myself?
20
I fed the cord from the machine across the floor until I was sitting directly under the lightbulb in the center of the huge room. I felt under the machine to where the cord began, snaking its way from some sort of special box. That seemed intact, and the connection from the box to the cord was firm. I ran my fingers along the cord and found that the only frayed spot in more than twenty feet was right at the plug.
I used a screwdriver to separate plug from cord. I was careful to remember which color wire attached to each copper connection. There was no sign of burning or wear, just loosening.
Like a woman from the electric company showed us at career day at school, I used pliers to cut away loose bits of wire and the rubber coating until I had shortened the cord by about a half inch and was left with clean, connectable wires. I wound them around their various posts and tightened the screws. Then I replaced the plastic covering with the three prongs sticking through and tightened that down.
I was pretty proud of what I’d done. Momma thought I was something because I could cook a simple meal. Wait till she saw this!
Before I plugged it in, I found the on-off switch on the pitching machine and checked the other moving parts. The container looked like it could hold six or seven dozen balls. It turned in a circle like the mixer on a cement truck and delivered the balls to a short trough that fed the two spinning rubber wheels.
The shape of the container made the balls stack and come out one at a time to the trough, which balanced on a fulcrum and dipped to receive each ball and roll it slowly on its way. The spinning wheels thrust the ball toward the hitter. Adjustable screws and knobs determined the speed, distance, and direction.
I wanted to be sure of everything before I turned it on. My friends would have to see this to believe it. I couldn’t believe my luck. This was worth the months of hearing nothing from my father. I couldn’t imagine a better gift.
I stood at the hitting end of the room. The machine leaned to the right. I tried adjusting the wheels by banging on them with the big monkey wrench and the hammer. The machine looked straighter. It still looked old, but I figured it should work.
I stoo
d on a chair in the middle of the room and carefully inserted the plug in the light socket, half expecting to be blown across the room. As soon as I let go the plug fell out and bounced on the floor. I widened the copper protrusions to make them tighter and decided electrical tape would keep it in for sure. It was trickier than I thought to hold the plug in and wrap the whole thing with tape. My shoulders were sore.
Rooting around in the junk I found an old bicycle basket, perfect protection for the lightbulb. I jury-rigged the basket upside down on the ceiling with screws and bent nails and tape.
I found sheets of drywall with crumbled corners and used the insides for chalk to outline a strike zone on the far wall and sketch in a plate and batters’ boxes. I went upstairs to borrow Momma’s tape measure.
“I was just about to come get you,” she said as I burst in the door. “Get cleaned up for dinner.”
“Oh, Momma, can I have about twenty minutes?”
“I guess. You wanna run a plate of food to the Bravuras on your way back down?”
“How soon?” I said, rummaging in the junk drawer. When I pulled out the tape, I dragged a bunch of other odds and ends with it and they scattered on the floor.
“Why didn’t you just let me get that for you?” she said, helping me gather up the stuff.
“Momma, I’m eleven years old. I don’t need you doing stuff for me all the time.”
“Apparently you do.”
She took a fork and a carving knife to the oven where she removed the tin foil from the little bird and sliced some turkey for Ricardo and his wife. She added stuffing, a couple of rolls, a scoop of corn, and a slice of canned cranberry mold. She added gravy and wrapped the plate in foil.
“Oh, man, is this making me hungry!” I said. I stuffed the tape measure in my pocket so I could carry the plate. I had to spread my fingers under the plate to keep from burning myself.
Mr. Bravura was ushering a drunk out of an easy chair in the lobby.
“This isn’t a mission! Now get out of here! Find a place that’s giving out meals today!”
The old man shuffled out, swearing and trying to make an obscene gesture, which he had not quite accomplished by the time the door slammed in his face.
Mr. Bravura hurried back to his desk where a tiny black-and-white TV played one of his soap operas.
“Oh, young Mr. Woodell! How good to see you! And what is this? What a treat! Tell your sweet mother how grateful my wife and I are, would you?”
Before I could turn away I saw him remove the foil, find the silverware, and shovel a huge mouthful of dressing and gravy in as if he hadn’t eaten for days. I hurried toward the basement.
“Enjoy your feast!” he called after me.
“You too!”
The batters’ boxes and plate turned out even better than I’d hoped. I got rid of the scraps and leftover materials, then came back to survey my work. It looked great.
The moment had arrived. I knew enough to be wearing rubber soles and not touch anything metal when I flipped the switch on the machine. There was a low hum, then a rattle, then a slow acceleration until the whole thing vibrated. The motor wasn’t loud, but the machine creaked and squeaked, and gradually the ball container began to rotate. I moved around to the front and watched, my eyes darting over the entire surface of the thing.
When the container was in a position where the first ball would have dropped out, the trough automatically dipped toward it. It stayed that way, the container turning and the trough leaning toward it, as if waiting to accept a ball. I wondered what made the trough tilt the other way and the pitching wheels spin. It could be only the weight of the ball.
I reached for the trough and tipped it toward the wheels. When it reached a certain spot of tension, the wheels kicked in and spun. When I let go, the trough tilted the other way and the wheels stopped. I could tell from the noise that the moving parts needed oil. I turned off the machine and found some in one of the cabinets in the other room. I applied it to anything that looked like it could use it.
The machine hummed and whirred as if new, until I heard the rumble and clatter. Had a gear slipped? Had something fallen off? It sounded like a tennis shoe tumbling in a clothes dryer. I moved to the front where I could peer into the container with a sliver of light at my back.
The noise changed. It was no longer a bump and tumble but a roll, as if a ball was in the machine. I leaned over as far as I could and saw a dark, almost black, baseball-size sphere rolling neatly around the container, edging up toward the trough. Could it be? Had an old ball been stuck in there and been dislodged by all my tinkering? How could it have stayed in there during the shipping? It must have been pinned in a crevice somewhere.
When it reached the trough I could tell it was a regulation baseball, but badly weathered and probably waterlogged. It rolled slowly until it reached the midway point, then its weight made the trough tilt forward with a clang and the pitching wheels began to spin, faster and quieter now because of the oil.
I suddenly realized I was standing in front of a pitching machine that was about to fire an old, heavy, rock-hard baseball right at me. My knees buckled and my eyes were just sinking out of range when the rubber pitching wheels gobbled up the ball and hurled it toward the far wall.
The ball rocketed from the machine with a rubbery thwack! and from the floor I watched it slam off the wall near the ceiling almost forty feet away. It made a crunching sound, rebounded and hit the side wall, and rolled unevenly on a split side almost all the way back to me. Shaking, I picked it up and examined it. The seams had split and the stuffing stuck out.
As I stood there I thought I heard another rumbling in the container and dropped again, my heart racing. It had been only in my mind, but to be safe I crawled to the back of the machine and turned it off. I felt around in the container to make sure there weren’t any other surprises. Finally I headed up to the lobby and the elevator.
I knew I should take the stairs, but my legs were still like jelly. That ball would have killed me for sure. I tried to calculate how to adjust the machine to bring it down into my strike zone. Here was a machine designed to throw fastballs from sixty feet six inches, the major-league distance from rubber to plate. What in the world would it do with a bald tennis ball?
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Momma said.
I told her the story over dinner. By the time I had eaten too much and thought about how thankful I was to God for a mother who cared about me so much and a father who would send me such a gift, I had regained my courage. It would be a long afternoon, having to feed the tennis ball back into the machine by hand, but it was better than nothing.
21
My friends and I had agreed to play fastpitch at five-thirty, though there wouldn’t be much daylight left. Now it was the last thing I wanted to do. I asked Momma to tell the guys, if they came by, that I wasn’t going to play today. I also asked if I could have five of the twenty-one dollars she was holding for me.
“What’re you lookin to buy with five bucks?” she said.
“A baseball or two.”
“Can you get two for five dollars?”
“Maybe at the secondhand store. You never know.”
“I’d be surprised if you could get two new ones for five,” she said. “I was lookin for one for Christmas last year and I didn’t see any that cheap except those rubber-coated ones.”
I stared at her. “You bought those rubber-coated baseballs?”
She hesitated. “Well, your dad told me what to—”
“He did not. You bought those, didn’t you? And you told me they were from him. I knew he wouldn’t buy me those.”
“I’m sorry, Elgin. It’s never right to lie. I was tryin to protect your image of your daddy, and I just thought—”
“It’s all right, Momma. I should have known anyway. I guess I knew, but I did believe you.”
“Will you forgive me, El? It was wrong, just wrong.”
“Yes’m. How about the othe
r gifts?”
“I’m sorry.”
I plopped down on the couch and shook my head.
“What is it, honey?”
“Now you’re gonna tell me that pitching machine isn’t from Daddy either.”
“That was his, El. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
I sighed. “So you’re telling me it was his idea to up and send it to me.”
“He had somebody at the prison tell the guy to send it.”
“Who?”
“The chaplain, Mr. Wallace.”
“And Daddy had him tell the coach to send it to me?”
“Right.”
“To me?”
“Of course it’s for you. What’m I gonna do with it?”
She smiled at me.
“The name on the tag was yours, Momma, not mine. How come it was sent to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they thought I might have to pay for delivery.”
“All I want to know is, was this your idea or Daddy’s?”
She looked away. “What’s the difference? He had it sent and now you have it.”
“How’d you get him to send it?”
“What makes you think I—”
“Momma! You already lied to me about the other gifts, and you said you were sorry. You know as well as I do that Daddy didn’t up and decide to send me a pitching machine after not writing me or calling me for so long. How did you get this out of him?”
“I won it as part of the divorce settlement, if you must know.”
I wished I hadn’t asked. I got my glove and broomstick bat and bald tennis ball. If I got tired of using the same ball over and over, I would go play fastpitch. I trudged down to the basement, still excited when I saw the machine, but not as thrilled as when I thought Daddy was still interested in my baseball career.
I stashed my other equipment and dropped the tennis ball into the container. The thing whirred to life, but the tennis ball never rolled to the top toward the trough; too light, it just bounced around inside the cylinder. I fished it out and set it in the trough. It was even too light to tip the trough and start the pitching wheels moving, so I held it in and tipped the trough myself. The wheels spun, but the ball was too thin for the space between the wheels and it dribbled through, skipping to the floor.
The Youngest Hero Page 12
