Plunked

by Michael Northrop

  Lying to my parents, on the other hand, I mean, that’s different. It’s not even really lying. It’s like part of the game, right? Like stealing a base? OK, so maybe that’s not exactly true, but don’t even pretend you’ve never faked a fever or blamed the cat for breaking something or anything like that. Don’t even pretend to pretend.

  Still, I have to lay it on pretty thick, and I definitely don’t feel good about it. I walk around all night with my carefully bandaged wristband.

  “Let me take a look at it,” says Mom.

  “No!” I say, and then, “The school nurse taped it up underneath. Supposed to keep it taped until tomorrow.”

  I’m in so deep now, what does one more lie even matter?

  “It’s a wrap, hon,” she says. “I can just unwrap it and wrap it right back up after. It’s not like we’re sawing off a cast here.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but, I mean, all you’d see is tape, right?”

  She gives me a long look and I walk away, hoping she won’t call me back. She doesn’t. The whole night is like that. I go up to my room early and kill about 10,000 video game soldiers in Grunt Front. I fire the grenade launcher until I’m out, then I overheat the machine gun and finally go down swinging with the knife.

  The game is still on when I wake up in the morning. The screen saver is bouncing around from corner to corner.

  I get up and turn it off, then go back and lie on top of the covers. The ACE is lying like a deflated snake on my desk, but I still have the wristband on, so I don’t forget. It’s easy to forget an injury when it’s not real. Not much chance of that today.

  If I do this, there’s no going back. If I take this lie all the way and skip this game, that’s it.

  I roll around on the bed just to wake myself up so I can think. It’s like, if I shake my brain hard enough, it will come up with the right decision. Like it’s a Magic 8 Ball. I stop rolling around, but all my brain comes up with is: outlook unclear. I might even be a little dizzy.

  I stand up again and walk over to my desk. I pinch the end of the ACE against my palm with my thumb and start wrapping. There are a few hours before the game. I can still take it off and tell my parents it feels good enough to play. I can even tell them that’s why I’m not starting. It’s a pretty good plan, except then I’d have to bat. Everyone bats at least once in Little League. And Coach might give me more. He’d think he was doing me a favor.

  I can picture that at-bat. I can feel it in my stomach.

  I keep wrapping until I’m done.

  I walk all of twenty feet, close the door to the bathroom, and unwrap it all again for my shower.

  “How’s the wrist, sport?” Dad asks as soon as I walk into the kitchen.

  I just look at him. How do I tell him I haven’t decided yet?

  I make a show of trying to flex it.

  “Ehh,” I say.

  “Ehh?” he says, not satisfied.

  “Little stiff,” I say.

  “Well, give it a bit.”

  “Yuh,” I say, and pour myself some cereal.

  Mom comes in, either to get something or because she heard me.

  “Little stiff,” Dad reports.

  I look up and nod.

  That’s the thing about these big decisions: You can make them one little step at a time. An hour later, I’m ready to take a big one. “Not sure I’ll be able to play today,” I say. “Just don’t think I can swing the bat.”

  And at least the second half of that is true.

  “Well,” says Dad, looking at his watch, “you got … maybe … fifty minutes before we leave.”

  And that’s when I realize it: They plan to go to the game either way. I can’t go to the game with this wrap on! The whole team knows I’m not hurt. I feel a big wave of panic roll in.

  “Y’okay,” I say, and push through the door out onto the lawn. It’s only at the last second that I remember not to use my left hand.

  Oh man oh man oh man. If I go to the game, I have to take the wrap off. But if I take the wrap off, I have to play. And I can’t play. They’ll be pitching me hard inside, hard inside. If I get hit again right now, I don’t even know what will happen. And even if I don’t, I’ll just get embarrassed again up there. I’ll get embarrassed, and I’ll let the team down. What if there are runners on? What if we’re behind? You can’t just give up at-bats and expect to win.

  I start to list it off:

  I could get hit.

  I could be humiliated.

  I could cost my team the game.

  My parents could talk to someone and find out I’ve been lying.

  I kick the big tree out front and run through all the swears I know. It’s a pretty good list.

  And it’s stupid, too, because, I mean, of course they’d want to go. I’ve never missed a game before. I’ve dragged myself to the field even if it was just to sit on the bench all game. I’ve shown up with colds, the flu, limps, bruises, and everything else short of a knife sticking out of my chest.

  It’s completely clear now. They plan to take me to the field, and they’re probably like 90 percent sure I’ll play anyway.

  I look over my shoulder. Mom is watching me through the front window. I suck in air and look down quick at the ACE. It’s fine, and I breathe out. I don’t know why I thought it had come undone. I guess it’s because everything else has.

  The panic passes after a few more kicks to the tree. Mom is probably still watching, but it doesn’t matter. This is what I’d be doing anyway. This tree takes a beating sometimes.

  The solution falls right in front of me like I shook loose an acorn. I’ll just have to tell them. No need to over-think this: I’ll just tell them I don’t want to go.

  And that’s what I do. I take a few fake practice swings in the yard and then storm into the house. “Can’t do it,” I announce to the empty living room. “Wrist is really … can’t swing … hurts.”

  It’s just as well they weren’t there for that one. I take a deep breath and try again in the kitchen. This time, I have an audience. I tell them I can’t play and wait for it.

  “Well, I guess we don’t have to get there so early,” says Dad.

  “Sure you don’t want to see the doctor?” says Mom.

  “No, I don’t want to go,” I say.

  “All right,” says Mom. “But I want to take a look at it once the tape is off.”

  It’s like every problem turns into two problems with this. I take a breath. I just have to deal with one at a time.

  “To the game, I mean,” I say. “I don’t want to go to the game.”

  “You always go to the game, sport,” says Dad.

  “I think, you know, hon, I think we want to go to the game,” says Mom. “And I think you should come, too.”

  I’m sort of caught in the cross fire, but I dig in my heels. I’m like Nax trying to avoid going to the vet’s, if Nax could talk. It’s basically just: I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go. I don’t want to go and sit in the bleachers.

  All of that is true, which makes it easier.

  I do everything short of chaining myself to a water pipe. Dad is smart, though. I mean, Mom and Dad are both smart, but Dad is suspicious.

  “This doesn’t, uh…” Dad starts. “This doesn’t have anything to do with last week?”

  It stings, especially because it’s true.

  “No,” I say. “Nuh-uh. Course not.”

  So one more lie creeps in there. Then I start all over again, like a recording: I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go. I don’t want to go and sit in the bleachers.

  Finally, I must say something that clicks with Dad. He turns to Mom and says, “He doesn’t want to sit and watch. He’s a competitor.”

  That stings, too, and not because it’s true. All I can tell myself is: I used to be.

  “He’s just upset,” Mom says finally. She says it to Dad, but she’s looking at me. Or maybe she’s talking to me and she means that Dad’s up
set, which he is.

  “Me, too,” I say, and I head upstairs.

  I want to scream or break something or at least, you know, kill a bunch of soldiers in Grunt Front. But I have one more thing to do first. I get out the team contact list and call Coach’s cell phone.

  It goes to voice mail, like I knew it would this close to a game. Just hearing his voice for three seconds on the message makes me feel like I’m in trouble. But it also reminds me of those at-bats, of him saying “pinch-runner,” and I guess that gives me what I need to get it done.

  I keep it vague: “Family emergency … Pretty bad … Sorry…” If he needs more, he can ask. And he won’t really care about my excuse after this because, I mean, that’s it, right? I have to quit now. How do you go back after something like this? I guess this is what I wanted. I guess, because it’s what I just did.

  I put the list back in the drawer without looking at it. I don’t want to see the names. Then I just lie down on the bed, completely motionless. I look up at the ceiling, and my face feels hot enough to melt the paint above me.

  After a while, I look over at my alarm clock. They’re warming up now. A little while later, I look again: must be the first inning, maybe the second. I can picture the infield, all the way around: Jackson at first, Tim at second, Katie at short, and Andy at third. Behind them, looking in, it’s Geoff.

  I just lie there until I’m pretty sure the game is over. I don’t get to do anything while they’re playing. Once enough time has passed, I get up and kill some soldiers.

  By the time I clear the next level, I already have three e-mails. I check my cell, which is on silent: two texts and a voice mail. I can’t answer them yet. But I’ll have to do it soon. Otherwise, they’ll start calling the house.

  I start the next level, and I’m running from tanks and looking for an RPG in the rubble. I have got to stop using up all my grenades so quickly, but I’ll have plenty of time to work on that.

  In the afternoon, I send seven short texts: “Sorry! Fam. emergency!!!” times six, and “Call U tomorrow!!!” to Andy.

  That night I go to bed earlier than I have in years. Nax climbs aboard and curls up at the foot of my bed. He’s not supposed to, but I let him. He knows something is wrong.

  I lie there and tell him the whole thing. It’s too early to sleep, anyway. I talk low, but dogs have superhearing, right?

  I’m talking for a long time. Whenever I stop, Nax looks back at me and lets out a little woof. He thinks it’s a game, a talking game. And so I end up telling him everything, about baseballs and bad dreams and ACE bandages. Hope he’s not wearing a wire.

  Finally, I tell him how I have to quit now, because I let everyone down and I’m useless and told different stories to different people, anyway. I don’t say how I painted myself into this corner because I’m still so afraid of the ball that I just want out.

  “It’s really the only thing I have left,” I tell my dog. “Stick a fork in me.”

  It’s quiet when I finish, then Nax lets out one more soft bark. He thinks we’re still playing the game. Ruff, he says.

  I scratch his head.

  “You got that right,” I say.

  It’s Sunday night and I’m thinking, How do you do it? What are the mechanics of quitting your team? It’s so easy on TV. There’s an announcement, a press conference. The athlete speaks for a few minutes and cries a little at the end. That’s the part that goes on ESPN: some guy with gray in his hair tearing up in front of two dozen microphones.

  But no one’s going to hold a press conference for me. I’m going to have to tell people one at a time. The ACE is off, but I’ve wrapped my wrist up in two layers of white athletic tape, the stuff that was supposed to be under there the whole time anyway.

  I walk past Mom and Dad in the living room. They’re sitting on the couch. The TV is on, there are snacks set out, and Dad has a beer. I hear the announcer’s voice: “Sunday Night Game of the Week.” I can still do that. I can still watch. The players can’t look through the TV, shake their heads in disgust, and turn their backs on me. I mean, we’ve got HD, but it’s not that good.

  I look at Mom and Dad. There’s a spot for me on the couch, like always. But this time, it’s right in between them. It’s a bad sign. I sit down in between my parents.

  “Who’s playing?” I say.

  They don’t answer right away. I just look and see for myself. There’s a saying, something Dad used to say to me when I asked questions like that. I just go ahead and say it for him. “If you’d look with your eyes and not with your mouth, maybe you’d find out.”

  “Yep,” says Dad.

  “Yep,” says Mom.

  “Yep,” I say.

  It’s the Yankees versus the Indians. It makes me think of Major League and all those funny lines, like “Couldn’t cut it in the Mexican League.” I’m going to have a T-shirt made up that says that.

  We don’t divide up into teams this time. There’s no Brew Crew versus Los Dodgeros. We all root against the Yankees.

  I need to tell them, but there’s just no way I can do it right now, sitting in between them on the couch, watching this game. What am I supposed to say: “Didn’t really look like he ran out that fly ball. Speaking of quitting on your team…”?

  Anyway, the Yankees jump on the Tribe early. It’s a total blowout by the sixth, and I decide to go upstairs.

  “Homework,” I say.

  I wait for them to object, but they don’t. They know I lied to them. They figured it out or maybe they talked to someone. I think about the three or four times the phone rang today. I get off the couch and Dad does, too.

  “I’m getting another beer,” he says.

  “Don’t, Stephen,” says Mom, but he does.

  Upstairs, I close the door to my room. I try to do my homework. I make stacks out of my books and decide what to do first.

  None of it looks very good. Normally, I’d start with English, but our new assignment for English is poetry. I don’t want to read any poems right now.

  I don’t think I can concentrate enough for math. I pick up my history book and flip through it. That’s about as much as I get done. I’ll do as much as I can tomorrow, I tell myself. It seems like a good morning to be bent over a book, anyway. A good morning to be reading and doing problems and not, you know, talking.

  That reminds me: I still haven’t called Andy. I pick up my phone. I just look at that, too.

  And then I catch a break.

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen one, I barely recognize it. I’m on the bus Monday morning, sort of on autopilot. The torn-off tape wrap is stuffed in my backpack, even though Saturday morning seems like a million years ago already.

  Zeb is already sitting with someone, and I don’t want to sit with him anyway. I still don’t know who won the game, and if it was the Rockies, I don’t want to find out from him. I don’t want to find that out from anyone.

  So I’m sitting with a spastic fourth grader, who is, honest to God, burping loudly. I expect him to vomit on me before we make it to school, and it’s like, yep, this is my life.

  And then a kid named Morgan one seat up turns around and looks at me.

  “Where were you?” he says.

  Morgan is a year below me but a year ahead of Sir Burps-a-lot here, so it’s a step up. He doesn’t play much — he’s like a physical extension of the bench — but he never misses a practice.

  “Family emergency,” I say. He doesn’t look satisfied with that, which he shouldn’t, because it’s lame. But he can’t call me on it because he’s younger. He’s about to turn around. I take a deep breath and do what my dad would call “biting the bullet.” You know: getting it over with.

  “How’d it go?” I say.

  “What?” he says.

  “The game? We win?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Barely.”

  He turns around to see where Zeb and those guys are. Then he turns back. He isn’t whispering, because the rumble of the bus is t
oo loud for that, but he’s, you know, bus-whispering.

  “I don’t think the Rox are that good this year,” he continues, making a goofy face to show how non-good he thinks they are. “I mean, even I got a hit, right?”

  I’m about to congratulate him, but he’s still talking.

  “But it was” — he looks around again — “Meacham. Kurt, not Coach.”

  He means Malfoy, but younger kids can’t call him that.

  “What about him?”

  Morgan looks around again, so I can tell whatever it is must be really good.

  I look over at the fourth grader. He’s picking his nose.

  “Hey, booger,” I say, and nod toward Morgan. “Swap seats.”

  Booger looks at me for a second, a small boulder of snot still impaled on his index finger. I look him in the eye.

  “OK,” he says.

  He’s scared of me. I’m going to miss being a jock.

  He wipes the snot on his jeans and scoots by. I try not to let any part of him touch me. Then I shove over toward the window, and Morgan lands on the end of the seat.

  “Siddown back there!” calls the bus driver, but we’re already, you know, sidding.

  “OK, so…” I say.

  Morgan leans in: “OK, OK. He got slammed!”

  “Malfoy?” I say.

  “Yeah,” he hesitates, “Malfoy.” Then he repeats it, “Malfoy.”

  “Like how, ‘slammed’?” I say.

  “Didn’t make it out of the third!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously! Gave up, like” — he starts ticking off with his fingers — “five runs!”

  And the way he says that, I can just tell: “You don’t like him either.”

  “Nah,” he says. You can tell there’s more to that story, but I’m still stuck on the last part. I was right! I mean, I was kind of joking when I said it, when Malfoy overheard me, but I was still right!

  “Who’d Coach bring in?” I say, getting greedy.

  “Dustin,” he says.

  OK, so I wasn’t right about that part.

  “But that’s not it. That’s not, like, even the main thing!”