Plunked

by Michael Northrop

  “What? What’s the main thing?”

  “Kurt — Malfoy — he lost it!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously!”

  “Lost it how?”

  “He hit two batters! Both late! You know what I mean? I mean…” But I know what he means.

  “In the third?”

  “Yeah! We’re already down five to zippo, right? So the last thing we need is more base runners, but he drills two guys, one after the other. And the first guy, OK, maybe it’s an accident — even though he hit a triple off him in the first. But the second? Coach had to go get him before it got out of hand. But it almost did anyway.”

  “Whoa!” I say, because there are so many things shooting through my mind right now. There’s fear because, you know, I’ve been there. Boy, have I. But there’s also satisfaction because I was right, and a half-dozen other things.

  I guess I get lost in space for a while because, next thing I know, Morgan is going, “Jack? Jack?”

  “Yeah,” I say, snapping out of it.

  Neither of us says anything for a few seconds.

  “Should I go back to my seat?” he says.

  “What? No,” I say. “So, we’re down five-nothing, runners on, and Coach brings in Dustin?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” says Morgan. “You know, he’s got a pretty good fastball, so…”

  And he goes from there, telling me how Dustin got out of the jam and the team climbed out of a 5–0 hole.

  As he’s talking, I realize that I’ve just been let off the hook. Or at least I’ve been bumped up to the tip where I might be able to wriggle off. Kids are going to be talking about baseball all day, but they won’t be talking about me. Let’s just be honest here: A family emergency, even a real one, isn’t half as interesting as a full-fledged pitching meltdown.

  Malfoy … Huh … looks like my former friend did me one last favor after all.

  This is the week I was going to have to either quit the team or get back into the batter’s box. And this is the day I was going to have to quit or lie to the face of everyone I know. Now I’m thinking, I don’t have to quit today.

  And then it occurs to me as I’m filing down the aisle of the bus, heading for the door. Morgan is still chattering behind me, and Zeb is avoiding my eyes, and it just pops in there: Do I even have to quit at all?

  I take a few half steps toward Andy in the hallway, and he just launches himself and delivers this flying UFC Superman punch to my left arm.

  “Ehahohaaaaa,” I say. It’s not a word as much as just air escaping from my lungs, because I’m trying not to say ow, but it really hurts.

  “Where were you, dingus?” he blurts.

  I had something prepared to say to him, but he hit my arm so hard he knocked it out of my head.

  “Well, I had a, like there was this family sort of emergency except that, OK, the emergency was really basically me, and it’s not like I was going to start anyway, and then also because —” He raises his hand to punch me again and I shut up and hold up my right arm. I put my palm out in a stop sign, like: no más.

  “OK, whatever, dingus,” he says, and I just know I’m going to be dingus all day now. “We’ll talk about that later, and we will, because you are in serious trouble, seriously.”

  And then here it comes.

  “But did you hear? Can you believe it? Malfoy! King Turd really outdid himself this time!” And then he launches into his own version of how it all went down.

  It’s like that all morning. It’s all over the school. At least with the people I know. My “family emergency” comes up a few times, but when it does, “How ’bout Malfoy?” is my Get Out of Jail Free card.

  I mix it up a little, just so its magic powers won’t wear off. “So the first guy hit a triple off him? What about the second guy?” Or “Man, Dustin came up big, huh?” Or just “What was the final score again?” because, of course, that leads to the same place. And I get more info that way, anyway.

  And then I get to math and Ms. Part hands me back my test. She hands it back front side up, so I know it’s either really good and she thinks I should be proud or it’s really bad and she thinks I should study harder. I see some flashes of red ink here and there, so I’m thinking, you know, uh-oh.

  It was a hard test, too, because there were a lot of fractions and negative numbers and all that tricky stuff. I look at the top, the only red ink that counts, and it’s a 92. I got an A! Or, OK, an A-, but still.

  I tip it so Andy can see, and he makes a whistling shape with his lips and nods his head, like: Pretty good, Einstein.

  So I’m feeling pretty good about that. And I catch sight of Malfoy a few times, slinking between classes, and I feel pretty good about that, too. And before you know it, it’s time for lunch. I thought this was going to be the worst day ever, but when I get to the table, Andy is saving me a seat.

  I look over at Jared and those guys. They’re looking over, but it’s not like they’re surprised when I sit down next to Andy. I think we’re going to talk some more about Malfoy, but I’m wrong.

  “Where were you, jerk-weed?” says Jackson.

  “Yeah, ‘family emergency,’ my bulbous behind,” says Tim.

  I look over at the other table. There’s a spot open by Jared, but I’d never make it. I’d get cut down in the cross fire before I even finished standing up.

  “Uh,” I say.

  “Uhhhhhh,” Jackson says, his eyes going panicky, imitating mine.

  “Shut up,” I say. “This is serious.”

  Though I don’t know what it is, or exactly why it’s serious. I haven’t really worked out my cover story. This is the part where I was going to let them know I was quitting. This is the part where I was going to be sitting at the other table. This is the part where everything but this was going to happen.

  But there’s nothing I can do about it now. This is the part where the momentum of one good morning runs me straight into a brick wall.

  “Yeah, what’s so serious?” Dustin says. “You being a wuss?”

  “Shut up,” I say again. It’s the one thing you can always say when you can’t think of what to say, but I can’t say it all lunch. They’re not letting this go.

  “Mommy, I don’t want to go to the game,” says Jackson.

  “Don’t let the big, bad baseball hit me again, Mommy,” says Dustin.

  I stare at him. I glare at him. How could he know? I mean, he was the catcher, he was right there, but still. I look at him looking at me: It was a guess. Now he’s watching my reaction, seeing if it’s true. And I’m giving him everything he needs.

  I look over at Andy. He always bails me out, but he’s not giving me a break this time.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Where were you?”

  I’m thinking that this is the part where I quit after all. Those are the only words I have rehearsed, the only ones I can think of right now. And I don’t want to lie to all of my friends. I’d feel bad about it, and I’d mess it up. I feel cornered. They’ll grill me, and it will fall apart and it will be even worse. I’ll be the kid who lied and then quit anyway. And they’ll be my ex-friends, like Malfoy.

  I think about it again: standing in the box with the ball coming at me. I think about the game, the practice, the nightmares. I need that fear now to make me do it, to make me follow through.

  “Where were you?” Andy says again, and I want to say: I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME! And then I hear the rest of the sentence: “…they have the funeral already?”

  Now everyone is looking at him, me included. What is he talking about?

  “It’s a bummer, man,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I really liked your uncle.”

  Now they’re looking from him to me. I shrug my shoulders, look down, do all the things Andy just did.

  “No,” I say. I pause, and an amazing thing happens: The words just float up and out of me.

  “No,” I say again. I look up into their eyes. “It was too sudden. Family’s still got to,
you know, get things in order. Make all the arrangements.”

  I don’t know much about funerals, but I know those are words people use.

  “Oh, man,” says Jackson. “Sorry about that.”

  “Yeah,” says Dustin. “My bad.”

  I look over at Andy, and I try so, so hard not to smile.

  I’m at home, killing soldiers. I’m not as angry this time, not using up all my ammo first thing. I’m playing slow and smart. Sometimes it helps me to think, and I have a lot to think about.

  There are tanks coming up behind me, but they’re on my side. As they open fire, I make a break across an open field.

  “Tanks a lot,” I say under my breath as I reach a foxhole.

  It reminds me of lunch. Covering fire, that’s what that was. That’s what Andy gave me. He didn’t win the battle for me or make it all go away, but he bought me some time. He put his own neck on the line, and he gave me some cover when I needed it.

  So what do I do with it? That’s the question. My army guy is crouched down behind a brick wall now, and he can go left or right. I’ve got two choices, too. That’s what I’ve got to think about.

  I turn off the game and look around. Man, my room is a mess. It looks like bombs have gone off in here. I guess I’ve been a little out of it. I guess I’ve been a little out of everything.

  I hear a muffled woof! from somewhere. “Nax?” I say, because it seems like he might be buried under one of the piles in here. There’s no response, so I start tossing rumpled clothes into the corner. The socks I throw onto the bed, hoping to match them into pairs. Then I get a whiff of a mismatched gray tube sock and reconsider putting them on my bed.

  From there, everything goes into the hamper. I hold my breath as I lift the lid, but it takes too long to cram all the new stuff inside, and I take a deep gasping breath that makes my eyes water.

  After that, I walk around putting other stuff away: DVDs, books, random junk. Half an hour later, the room is starting to look halfway civilized. I look around to see what else needs to be done, and that’s when I see the new cards Dad got me.

  The pile has tipped over on the edge of my desk, and a few of the cards are even on the floor next to it. I walk over and pick those up first, hoping they aren’t anything good. Let me just put it this way: Nothing that’s been on my floor this week will ever be described as mint condition again. Potentially toxic is more like it.

  Luckily, the floor cards are all doubles or so-so players. I brush them off and then go to my closet for a box to put them in. I don’t have a real light in there, just one of those battery-powered things with sticky tape on the back. I punch the plastic front and it lights up.

  On the shelf above my good shirts, I have all the cards, going all the way back. The years are written on the front of the boxes, but you could almost tell when they’re from just by the handwriting. The first years are just a little kid’s scrawl. The first one is actually in crayon.

  I don’t know why I do it, but I start taking them all down. I walk them over to the bed in two armfuls. I put them down on the side that isn’t contaminated by socks and start to go through them.

  Every year is the same: Most of the cards are lined up in neat rows, alphabetical by team. But the best cards are in little plastic sleeves at the front. I start going through those.

  I really do have some good cards. None of these are my dad’s Cal Ripken card, but, I mean, his Ripken card probably wasn’t such a big deal when he first got it. Maybe one of these cards I’m flipping through right now will be like that one day. And I’m thinking something else, too. I’m thinking about when I got them.

  The box I’m going through now, I got that in second grade. I remember I was all grimy from practice, and Dad made me go wash up before he’d let me open the cards. I didn’t really understand at the time. Second grade, you know?

  This next box is from third grade, and by then I understood. He gave these to me after one of our games got rained out. I was sulking on the couch, and it was just what I needed. Every time I saw a player I recognized, I thought it was a treasure, and by the end I was bouncing off the couch. That’s the year he started giving me the little plastic sleeves to put the best ones in.

  So I’m just flipping through, and of course I’ve got more cards in the sleeves that year than any other. It’s so dumb, but it’s like I put half the cards in them. I sort of smile because, I mean, some of these cards are total junk! Yeah, I’m thinking, better protect this one.

  I’m holding a rookie card for some guy who’s not even in the majors anymore: Chuck Wagner; position: 1B; nickname: The Wagon. A drop of water splashes onto the edge of the plastic. That’s when I realize I might be smiling a little, but I’m crying, too.

  I look up, and the first thing I see is the line of baseball bobbleheads on my bookshelf. They’re looking right at me with their big, stupid heads.

  “What are you looking at?” I say, but I can’t help but let out a little laugh.

  They’re looking at some kid crying onto a three-year-old card that belongs in a trash can instead of a plastic sleeve. They’re looking at a kid who’s been collecting these things since he could walk, who’s been through each of these boxes two dozen times.

  I look above the bobbleheads, at the row of baseballs. They’ve got little notes written on them in magic marker, just some reason why I kept each one and the date. I don’t need to read the notes anymore. I know what they say. There’s “first game” and “first homer” and “first win,” from back when I thought I might be a pitcher. They go all the way up to the second-to-last game last season and a game-winning double I hit.

  I look to the right of the shelf, at the big poster from the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. I broke a tooth on some candy Mom bought me in one of the gift shops. It doesn’t mean I didn’t finish the box. Or that it wasn’t one of the best days of my life.

  I draw my arm across my eyes and suck the snot back down. I stick the card in my back pocket and stand up.

  Nax is trotting down the hallway as I leave my room. He doesn’t know where I’m going, but he decides to follow me. As I start down the stairs, I can hear the TV in the living room, and I march straight toward it. Mom and Dad are sitting on opposite sides of the couch, and they look up when I enter the room.

  “Dad,” I say. “How late do you think the batting cages are open?”

  “You sure your wrist is OK for this?” Dad says as he drops me off for practice on Tuesday. He doesn’t usually drop me off, but he is working from home again. His office calls them flex days, and they’re to save on commuting costs because a lot of people drive a long way to get there. I wish we had flex days at school.

  “What?” I say.

  I remember, and I’m about to start digging myself out of the hole I just fell into, but when I look over, he has a half smile on his face.

  “Yeah,” I say. I can’t help but smile, too. I want to ask him how long he’s known, if he bought my story for even a second. But I don’t. This is one of those things you don’t talk about. He knows, and I know he knows. That’s enough. I still lied to my parents. Boy, did I. Best to let a thing like that drop.

  “Fit as a fiddle,” I say as I open the door. I know he likes that one, so it’s like my way of saying thanks.

  And then I make my way across the field, and all I have to deal with is the team I let down on Saturday. I feel nervous and kind of weirdly shy. I need a baseball, like, now.

  “Toss it here,” I say.

  “Who? What? Me?” says Morgan.

  “No, your mother,” I say, and OK, maybe it’s cheating to warm up with a fifth grader instead of Dustin, who’s right behind him. I’m just not up to the team captain today, and Andy’s not here yet.

  Morgan throws me the ball, and we spread out for some long toss. He doesn’t talk much, which is fine with me. I keep an eye on Coach the whole time. As I do, I see other eyes watching me.

  Finally, Coach finishes taping
up Tim’s ankle. Tim is a big believer in the power of tape, and he must’ve gotten dinged up in the game.

  Coach stands up and heads toward the field. His eyes lock on me right away.

  “Hold it,” I say, tossing the ball to Morgan. I swallow some spit and head toward my death. I’m trying to figure out what to say, or at least how to start: “Listen, Coach” or “OK, so the thing is…” But I don’t even get the chance.

  When he’s still six feet away from me, he says, “You ready, Mogens?”

  “Yeah,” I manage.

  “Good,” he says, and keeps walking.

  That’s it? It doesn’t make any sense. I just got a free pass from my dad and my coach, not ten minutes apart. And then I realize: He knows, too. Not about the tape and the excuses and all that, but he knows I skipped the game, and he knows why.

  I remember the last thing he said to me: “It’s been a pretty rough stretch for you; better catch a breather.” I just thought he was talking about starting the game on the bench. That’s what everyone thought. But now, I mean, it’s almost like he knew.

  I start to turn around. Some breather, I’m thinking. And that’s when Andy punches me in the arm again. “Hey, dingus,” he says.

  “Aaaaaa,” I say. “Same spot.”

  “Got a ball?” he says.

  I point to Morgan, who’s standing there watching us.

  Andy gives me a look, like: Why are you warming up with this kid?

  I give him a shrug, like: Whatever, he’s cool.

  Then Andy holds up his glove. “Throw me the ball, little dingus,” he calls to Morgan.

  A few minutes later, practice starts. Practice starts, and I’m still on the team. I’m not a starter anymore, but I mean, that’s what I’m here for, right? “Three of you thrown out on the bases, two at the plate,” Coach is saying. “I have never been so sick in my entire life. Never before has the game of baseball filled me with such a powerful urge to puke my guts out. To puke my considerable guts out.”

  It’s hard not to smile when Coach says things like that, but he would go ballistic if any of us smiled right now, so we bite our lips and do our best.