The Tracker

by Chad Zunker

  My mom, of course.

  And Natalie Foster.

  SAM CALLAHAN

  Age Twenty-Three

  Washington, DC

  She was attractive, that was for sure. Not attractive in that drop dead gorgeous, too-skinny model kind of way. She had something else going on that was like a magnet. I think it was her sexy confidence. I wanted to talk to her, but it seemed every guy who went up to her was shot down almost immediately, like she was playing a game of whack-a-mole.

  I’d been watching her from across the bar. We were at a professional mixer in downtown DC. A bunch of soon-to-be-rich lawyers yukking it up with DC’s professional elite. I wasn’t really sure why I was there. I despised this kind of event. But one of my classmates at Georgetown had somehow dragged me along. Marty Watson. I didn’t really like him. He was an arrogant Harvard grad with a wise mouth and ridiculously wealthy parents, but I put up with him since he was on my mock trial team. Marty was currently flirting with the confident brunette.

  I asked one of the brunette’s tipsy girlfriends about her, a girl who was dating another one of my classmates. She gladly gave me the inside scoop. Natalie Foster, a reporter for a popular political news blog called PowerPlay. A Midwest girl out of the University of Missouri, one of the best journalism programs in the country. Her dad apparently used to play pro baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals back in the day. She had a bunch of brothers. No current boyfriend.

  I couldn’t tell if Marty was making any progress. Then I saw his hand move down the back of Natalie’s black cocktail dress and rest below the waist where it didn’t belong. Natalie’s big eyes flashed. Marty was smiling wide. So brash and arrogant. Natalie reached down with both hands, grabbed my law school classmate by the right wrist suddenly, twisted violently in self-defense fashion, and then flipped him over onto the dirty hardwood floor. Marty landed with a thud and let out a gasp. He never saw it coming. Everyone turned to stare. Some were already laughing at the scene — a petite young woman in a cocktail dress and heels putting a martial arts move on a big obnoxious guy. Marty lay sprawled for a moment on the floor in his dark suit looking dizzy and disheveled. He’d clearly had too much to drink.

  “What the hell…?” Marty muttered.

  “Might want to watch those hands, Harvard,” Natalie replied.

  There was more laughing. It was impressive. I smiled. Now I definitely had to meet her. Natalie walked ten feet away and joined a pack of girlfriends at the other end of the bar. Marty got himself up and limped off in defeat. I pulled at my gray suit jacket to straighten it out, worked out a plan in my mind. I was never good in bars. I let the dust from Marty’s situation settle, and then I took a deep breath, exhaled, and walked over to Natalie standing with her girlfriends.

  The three girls stopped, stared at me. My eyes were only on Natalie.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Maybe. I have a proposition for you.”

  She gave me a suspicious head tilt. Waited for my best obnoxious bar line. “What kind of proposition is that?”

  “A contest, really. If I win, you have dinner with me.”

  The other girls giggled. Natalie’s eyes narrowed.

  “And if I win?”

  “If you win, I make a significant donation to your favorite charity.”

  She was understandably skeptical. “Okay, so what’s the contest? By the looks of you, let me guess. Beer drinking? Belching?”

  The girls laughed again. I grinned. “Not exactly. Although those ideas are tempting, I had something else in mind. The batting cages. I was thinking something simple. Like ten pitches each at high speed. Winner takes all.”

  This caught her by surprise. “Batting cages?”

  “Yeah, you know, as in baseball batting cages. Are you familiar with the game?”

  She did not like that question. “You can’t be serious?”

  I shrugged. “What do you say, Ms. Foster? Are you up to the challenge?”

  She was intrigued, I could tell. Her eyes softened, and she exchanged a quick smile with her two girlfriends. “Okay, slugger, let’s go!”

  I had not anticipated an immediate response. But there we were, standing outside a batting cage five miles away only twenty minutes later. It seemed the whole bar was interested in watching, as word had spread fast. A bunch of half-drunk yuppies were at the batting cages, still in their suits and party dresses, creating a late-night spectacle. Natalie didn’t even want to change her clothes. She said it was unnecessary — she could beat me in a dress. I took off my suit jacket, loosened my tie, and rolled up the sleeves to my dress shirt. I was really nervous. I had not expected her acceptance; I only thought it would lead to more conversation. And now we had a big crowd watching. Natalie insisted that I go first. My muscles felt tight. It had been five years since I’d last swung a baseball bat. But I was athletic enough. It felt natural in my hands.

  Someone hit a button and the crowd grew silent. The first baseball flew out of the machine and barreled down at me at 75 mph. I took a quick swing, knocked it right back up the middle. The guys cheered behind me. It had turned into a guys versus girls challenge. Another pitch. Another knock into the far off net. Cheers from my boys, who started chanting, “Sam! Sam! Sam!” More pitches, more solid contact. The eighth pitch got me. I fouled it off at my feet. There were dramatic oohs and ahhs behind me. I knocked pitches nine and ten back up the middle and then turned and raised the bat in celebration. Nine out of ten was pretty good. There were at least no humiliating swings and misses. I felt certain of victory.

  Surprisingly, Natalie did not seem concerned. Or she had a great poker face. Either way, she kicked her heels off, put on a helmet, and grabbed the bat. She took a few practices swings and for the first time I wondered if I was in trouble. The bat came off her shoulder with such ease and precision. Like watching Derek Jeter swing. Natalie was a natural athlete. And she clearly knew what she was doing. I stood outside the cage and just marveled. Someone hit the button, the pitches started racing toward her, and she cracked them right back up the middle. One. Two. Three. Four. The cheers from the girls grew louder with each swing. More people had gathered in behind us. I felt sweat on my brow. Seven. Eight. Nine. Crack! Crack! Crack! Chants now of, “Natalie! Natalie! Natalie!”

  Before pitch number ten, Natalie actually turned to me and gave me a quick wink. I couldn’t believe it. Then she got back in her stance and nailed swing number ten. The ball sailed into the net. Ten out of ten. I’d been defeated. And the entire crowd was going absolutely nuts. Natalie stepped out of the cage and handed me the bat.

  “I’ve had a soft spot for children living with HIV in Uganda ever since I took a mission trip there in high school. You can give through Cherish Uganda.”

  She grinned at me. All I could do was smile back. I was smitten.

  Ten minutes later, as everyone was stumbling through the parking lot, Natalie sought me out in private. “How about a drink, slugger?”

  We stole away to a popular rooftop bar at the W Hotel.

  I learned that Natalie had turned down offers with the New York Times and the Washington Post straight out of college because as someone raised in the generation of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, she wanted to work in the fastest-paced environment possible. The news race was no longer measured in days or even hours but in mere minutes and seconds. She loved that. It was intense and exhilarating. She was very competitive, as I’d just discovered at the batting cages. PowerPlay had a small but dynamic young team of political journalists and editors. She had thrived there the past two years.

  “What about you, Sam?” she asked. “What’s your story?”

  “Finishing up my first year at Georgetown Law.”

  “I see. Your dad a rich lawyer?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  She shrugged. “Almost every guy I meet in this town has the same story. Swimming in their father’s wake. Out to make their first million.”

  “I actually don’t kn
ow my dad. Or my mom.”

  This caught her by surprise. I decided to just put it out there. I don’t know why. There was just something so real and genuine about Natalie that I wanted to spill my story. So I did. Told her about the orphan boy who grew up in foster care, lived on the streets for many years, went to juvie for three months before being rescued by Pastor Isaiah. I felt so vulnerable, but not insecure. She hung on every word. I did not feel judged with Natalie. I felt safe.

  “You should be proud of yourself, Sam.”

  “I don’t really stop to think about it too much. I’ve just been surviving.”

  “You’re doing more than surviving. Georgetown is prestigious. You’ll probably have your pick of top corporate firms, the opportunity to finally make a lot of money.”

  “I’m not going corporate.”

  She was again surprised. “What are you going to do?”

  “Practice street law. Work at one of the clinics. Help the homeless, foster kids and parents, low income families. People like me. Feels like a better fit.”

  She couldn’t tell if I was serious. “Are you kidding?”

  I shook my head. “I guess I’ve seen and experienced too much. The little man always gets screwed, Natalie. It’s just wrong. I can’t turn my back on it. Plus, to be honest, the thought of putting in a hundred hours a week at some fancy firm to help one huge corporation win a lawsuit over another huge corporation is not appealing.”

  “So you really don’t care about the money?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never owned more than two pairs of shoes at one time in my whole life. This is my only suit. I’ve lived for months at a time in a crumbling office building, in alleys, and even in abandoned cars. I don’t need much money. A fifty thousand dollar salary at a street clinic already seems like a gold rush to a guy like me. How many designer suits and gold watches does a man need? I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

  She smiled wide. “It makes sense. In this town, it’s refreshing.”

  “Well, I’m not trying to make a statement. Or impress you. It’s just how I see it.”

  “I can tell. So three months in prison, huh?”

  I laughed. “Come on, not exactly prison. But yes, I was locked up in a juvenile correctional facility for three months. Not the best of times.”

  “For stealing cars?”

  I nodded. “I won’t bore you with details.”

  “Are you kidding, Sam? I want to hear every detail.”

  Her eyes danced. She was into me. I could tell. Which was good. I was into her.

  We talked for four hours straight.

  SAM CALLAHAN

  Age Twenty-Four

  Washington, DC

  We spent the day riding roller coasters at Kings Dominion Amusement Park in Virginia, an hour south of Washington, DC. I hated roller coasters, but Natalie couldn’t get enough. So I grinned and bore it, and spent the day having my stomach tossed about on rides like the Intimidator 305, with its 300-foot drop; the Hurler, which sent me twisting and turning at over 50 mph; and finally Drop Tower, which sent us plunging from twenty-seven stories up at over 72 mph. I nearly vomited my cheeseburger across her lap afterward. Nothing seemed to phase Natalie.

  We were sitting at a table having ice cream when it happened.

  A teenager snagged Natalie’s purse from the table and ran.

  I reacted on instinct. Took off after him. But he was a fast kid. Much faster than me, which was why he was probably good at stealing purses. He split a crowd, and I could barely still see his shaggy head up ahead of me headed toward the carousel. But then my mind started doing its thing, pulling up a mental map of the park, one I’d only looked at once but had somehow memorized. Still running, I peeled off to my right, opposite of where the kid was seemingly headed. I heard Natalie yell behind me, “Where are you going, Sam?” But I just kept on running. I cut through more rides and crowds and found a long sidewalk ahead of me leading toward the Eiffel Tower ride in the middle of the park.

  Within seconds, I spotted the kid headed my way. I slid in behind the Eiffel Tower crowd and then sprang out at the last minute to intercept him on the sidewalk. I tackled him with a shoulder, and the kid easily went down. He was half my size, and he seemed stunned that I’d somehow snagged him. I wrestled the purse away from him. He seemed afraid. He was only thirteen or fourteen. Reminded me of myself.

  Holding him for just a second, I said, “This ain’t worth juvie, kid. I promise you. Get better friends and make a better life for yourself.”

  Then I let him go. He peeled himself off the sidewalk and bolted through a crowd.

  Natalie was beside me a few seconds later.

  “He got away?” she asked, panting.

  I nodded. “But not before I got this.” I held up the purse.

  “My hero. But how the hell did you do that, Sam?”

  After speaking with park security, we were back sitting at a table under some shade. Natalie wouldn’t let it go. She was fascinated by the turn of events.

  “I don’t get it,” Natalie said. “It’s like you knew exactly where he was going.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Try,” she said.

  “It may freak you out.”

  “I already think you’re weird.”

  I laughed. “Okay, have you ever had visions? Seen things before they happened?”

  “Nope. You do?”

  “Well, sort of. Ever since I was little, I’ve had this ability to see images like maps in my head. They just formulate in my mind, like mental jigsaw puzzles, from quick sights, sounds, smells from my surroundings. Not only do I see these, but I can also envision clear escape paths, either for myself or for others. I really don’t know what happens, to be honest. But under duress, things usually slow way down for me. I often get this flush of focus and clarity that allows me to see things really clearly and to get myself out of some tense situations. It used to really help me on the streets. Not so much in my law classes.”

  “You are a freak.”

  “I tried to tell you.”

  “So you’re telling me when that kid took off today, you just saw a map in your mind and anticipated where he would go?”

  I nodded. “I got lucky.”

  “It wasn’t luck. I watched the whole thing. You’re good. Are you sure you weren’t created in a secret government lab somewhere? Because you’re like no one I’ve ever dated before. You have this weird photographic memory, you get perfect test scores at Georgetown while barely studying, you’re super athletic, and now this: I find out that your mind just creates maps out of nowhere in your head.”

  “You forgot to add that I’m incredibly handsome.”

  “Moderately handsome,” she clarified.

  “I’ll take that.”

  She laughed. “You keep surprising me, Sam Callahan.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  SAM CALLAHAN

  Age Twenty-four

  Glendale, Missouri

  It was her father’s sixtieth birthday celebration.

  The whole family would be back in Glendale, Missouri.

  Although we’d only been dating two months, Natalie extended the invite to go home with her. I knew it was a big deal. She’d admitted that she’d not taken anyone back to Glendale to meet the family since she’d moved to DC several years ago. All four older brothers, along with their wives and kids, would be there for the weekend festivities.

  It was a big moment for us — if I was going to survive in this relationship. I knew how much her family meant to her. I didn’t want to blow it. I’d already fallen for her.

  We made the ten hour drive. When we arrived, there were four large SUVs already parked in the long driveway and about a dozen kids running around the expansive front yard, a mix of boys and girls throwing around footballs, baseballs and Frisbees. The Foster men and their wives had been a fruitful bunch. Natalie had grown up o
n fifty wooded acres called Foster Farms just outside of Glendale, where her father, Thomas Foster, had raised some crops and pigs and goats and other assorted farm animals when he wasn’t playing pro baseball. The house was a large white plantation number with a porch that wrapped all the way around to the back. Natalie said her father had built the place by himself with the help of his older brother during two successive off seasons early in his playing career. Natalie and her brothers had never lived anywhere else. One home for life.

  I couldn’t even fathom it. I’d counted at least thirty homes that I’d lived in at one time or another, not to mention the abandoned buildings, churches, alleys, and under bridges. I’d actually never had a real home, unless you counted my year with Pastor Isaiah and Alisha. And I only had one family member that I knew about, whom I’d never met. Natalie mentioned that twenty-one family members would be at Foster Farms for the weekend. We could not have had more polar opposite childhoods.

  Glendale was a picturesque small town just east of St. Louis, where Natalie’s father had been a utility player for the Cardinals for a dozen years and then a hitting coach for another decade. When her brothers started high school, he retired from his big league coaching gig to volunteer as a coach at their small high school. Two of the brothers had made it all the way up to Triple-A baseball. Both were baseball coaches now — one at a nearby high school and the other at a college in South Carolina. A third brother sidestepped the family sport and excelled in football instead, where he’d played three years as a reserve tight end for the Atlanta Falcons before banging up his shoulder and going into banking. The youngest brother, who was only a year older than Natalie, had become a sports physical therapist. He was the runt of the bunch at only 6’2 and 200 pounds. They were all large men like their father, who was 6’4 with a thick mustache and looked like Tom Selleck. Even at sixty, I thought her father might still be able to play third base for the Cardinals. The farm life had kept him in good shape.