No Sad Songs

by Frank Morelli

  I spun around in line and craned my neck as high as it would reach. And then I saw it. Probably the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my young life. Just across the stream of people on the concourse was a mass of black netting that hung from the ceiling in a distinct square—like a cage. Planted inside was a giant, yellow cushion with a cartoony-looking catcher printed on the front. The words ‘Speed Pitch’ were scripted out above him, and there was a tiny instrument with flashing, red numbers planted beside the whole set up. A radar gun. I watched as a kid in his late teens reared back and pounded the mitt. The gun flashed a few digits and the kid shook his head in disgust. He handed the attendant a ten-dollar bill and grabbed three more balls from the bucket below him.

  I looked down at the crinkled bill in my hand. Then I stepped a bit to one side and noted how the candy line was still longer than one of those dragons you see during Chinese New Year. The decision was made. I popped out of line and froggered my way across the mass of pedestrians on the concourse. I walked right up to the Speed Pitch attendant and held out my money. He looked at me for a minute. Then he smiled.

  “You big enough to reach, son?” he asked.

  “Of course I can reach,” I said. “Just give me the ball.” He handed me a ball and I took my spot on the portable rubber. The full windup, just like Dad had shown me. I reared back and fired the biscuit with all the juice I could muster. The laces flipped and spun through the air and the ball collided with the backstop. A little outside, but plenty of distance. My eyes shot to the radar gun. The digits blinked and rolled a few times, and then a bold, red number registered on its face: 36.

  Thirty-six? That’s not even fast enough to get a speeding ticket in my neighborhood. Thirty-six. Ugh. The attendant looked at me from atop his snooty nose. “Want to take another stab?” he asked, holding back a laugh.

  “No, thanks,” I said rubbing a fake sore spot on my shoulder. “Think I need to stretch it out.”

  “I see,” he said. He handed me this cheesy certificate that documented my results, and then he was on to the next concourse-level pitcher. I was once again cast aside into the sea of pedestrians. Only this time I wasn’t thinking about getting flattened by fat guys with funnel cakes, or about holding a pink wad of cotton candy between my cheeks. This time I was thinking about one thing—the number thirty-six. Mark of the wuss. Printed in big, black numerals on this crappy, cardboard certificate I’d already folded in half before anyone could see it.

  Of course, with all the focus on my lack of pitching prowess I kind of forgot about the actual game and about Dad and Grandpa and the big-time promise I’d made them. I had forgotten how simple my original task had been and about how much more complicated I had suddenly made it. By the time it all dawned on me and I spun myself around for a venture back to Section 326, it was too late. Nothing looked familiar. Or maybe everything looked familiar because the whole place was a repeating line of the same stands over and over again like some kind of grease-riddled equation.

  I was lost. No matter how many times I turned around or ventured up a new tunnel, there was nothing that made me feel like I was getting any closer to Section 326. Suddenly, the concourse felt like the pits of Hell, like the temperature had risen to at least 75,000 degrees and the sweat rolled down from under my cap in tiny, repeating marbles. I started to panic and could feel my eyes start to well up. Should I tell someone? Would it be okay to trust a stranger in this case? Should I talk to one of the ancient mariners they employed as ushers? I was too scared and too embarrassed to do any of those things. So I continued to wander the stadium, up long hallways and through the spherical arteries of the old fortress.

  Finally, when it felt like all my breaths were somehow stalled inside my lungs, I decided to walk back out through one of the tunnels and see the light of day. When I did, I was in for a big surprise. Section 326 was completely on the other side of the stadium, across an entire baseball field, behind a reinforced mesh screen, and at least one hundred feet closer to sea level. I was in the freaking cheap seats. The upper deck. All the way up near the Jumbotron—which also greeted me with a surprise message. My face, on a picture I recognized from inside Dad’s wallet. It was plastered up there on the screen under the words “Have you seen this child?” in a place normally reserved for the stats and bio of the current batter—in this case, Mike Schmidt.

  I looked down to the plate. Even Schmidty was staring up at my ugly mug on the Jumbotron and shaking his head. Great. It wasn’t bad enough that I was lost in a stadium that was so infamous they had to build holding cells under it, or that the Phils were losing, or that I never got my cotton candy, or that my fastest pitch couldn’t break a pane of glass. I also had to see my freaking hero laugh right in my face—a face that was standing behind me at least three stories tall for all of Philadelphia to see. I guess that’s what happens when you break a promise. I guess that’s what happens when you fail to keep things simple.

  I sat down in an abandoned seat, in an abandoned row, in the most abandoned section of the ballpark and lowered the brim of my cap over my eyes. I could feel the warmth of my tears between my fingers, and then I felt a touch. A hand on my shoulder. The smell of Aqua Velva.

  I don’t know how he found me or what he thought I was doing way up in the rafters where they hang the division pennants and where no one has officially bought a ticket since the early 70s. I never bothered to ask and he never questioned me. When he saw me sitting alone among an empty row of seats, Gramps just laughed a little under his breath and shook his head. “Come on, Champ,” he said. And that was it. Sweet relief.

  Maybe too much relief, because the last thing I remember from that dreadful trip to the ballpark was something I’d forgotten to do earlier on my concourse-level expedition. Take a leak. And, well, it’s a darn good thing I’d never promised Dad I’d keep his car seat dry on the ride home.

  16

  GABE PLEA(SE)

  I had a whole week to let the betrayal sink in. To hear Sofia say “confess” and John whisper “ben dan” over and over again like echoes through time. In the shower; at my desk as Mastro droned on about Elizabeth Browning or Mary Shelley or one of the Bronte sisters; even in that half-second between awake and sleep—where my eyes flip open and search the room for someone, anyone. But they’re only whispers. Not real. Just reminders of a drastic split in the path. I’m on one side—the one with hanging limbs and bramble and thick brush. John and Sofia are on the other—the one with a yellow brick road. But they don’t know those bricks are forged in pyrite—fool’s gold. I do. And I’ve already made up my mind. Long ago. Like Robert Frost, I’m taking the road less traveled. I hope, at least for Grandpa, it will make all the difference.

  I haven’t seen or heard from Sofia since our meeting at Liberty Park. When I stormed off, I wasn’t trying to be dramatic. I wasn’t looking for her to chase me down the street like in one of those romantic comedies where, somehow, in mid-chase, the love interest is able to hire out the services of a traveling harpist who’d plant herself at just the right spot—the crescendo of the chase—and strum a melodious tune that I will meditate on and then realize, in a flash, “They’re right!”

  I wasn’t looking for the grand gesture, because nobody in real life is really looking for that kind of crap. No. I simply wanted to get away—from the people I knew could never understand the decision I’ve made.

  So I avoided Sofia and the hospital completely. I still had to ride to school and back each day with John. Somehow, the car—Lily’s car—appeared mysteriously on my driveway the morning after the argument, even after I left it behind and walked home from Liberty Park.

  We drove together both ways in total silence, me flicking through stations and pretending to know the lyrics to songs, and John with his eyes burning holes through the pages of his chemistry textbook. At school, we were strangers. We split in the parking lot in the mornings, avoided each other’s paths all day, and then reconnected for the same, silent ride home. About the only
time I’d see John during the school day was at lunch. He’d sit in a remote corner of the cafeteria, never raising his eyes from the same chemistry book.

  But it wasn’t my concern. I was at Marlie’s table. I had better things to do. Like captivate my fans, starting with Marlie and Mandy So-and-So. I was more than happy to reply “Yes, I did really start a prison riot,” when Marlie asked about the many assorted perils of my single night in a holding cell; and I may have jumped a little at the opportunity to say, “Oh, of course Officer Patterson’s scared of me. Do you see him anywhere?” when Mandy asked me about my run-ins with the good detective. In fact, not having John around is kind of great. I’ve been carrying the kid around like a bottle of girl repellent for years.

  I had Mr. Perdomo jack-up my hours so I could keep busy and focus on tasks that only comprised my present and not my imminent future. The rest of my time was spent preparing with the lawyer—which was great because I live with the guy. Uncle Nick’s really been surprising me. He might actually know what he’s doing when it comes to this legal stuff.

  In fact, he saved my butt a few times this week already. Like yesterday. The phone was ringing off the hook. I knew it was a reporter from one of the local papers because they’d been relentless ever since news came out that a date had been set for my preliminary hearing. I only found out about the hearing when this creepy guy in a hoodie with slicked-back hair knocked on the front door a few days ago. I answered it and he handed me a yellow envelope and made me sign my name on a clipboard. The top line of the return address read, “Bucks County Courthouse”, so I felt a little dizzy as I tore into it.

  But before I could rip the letter out, a voice on the television report caught my attention and ruined my surprise. The reporter said, “All eyes in this suburban community will be on Gabe LoScuda next week as he takes the stand to enter his plea in the hit and run accident that injured little Timmy Mullins …” That’s when Uncle Nick burst out of the kitchen with a roast beef sandwich in hand. He flicked off the television mid-report. Then he swiped the letter out of my hand before I could read a single line.

  “Let your lawyer handle this garbage,” he told me. “Anyone asks you a question from now on, the only acceptable answer is ‘no comment’. You got it?” I nodded. So, when I answered the phone yesterday and a reporter from the Bucks Dispatch asked, “What plea do you plan to enter in the—” I cut him right off with Nick’s response of choice: “No comment!” Then I hung up, just like I’d done for the ten or twenty identical calls I answered in the past few days alone. Only, each time I slammed the phone down on the hook it made me worry a little more about what I’d say when I was up in front of the judge and jury.

  “So, what’s this hearing thing about,” I finally ask Nick as if I’m not petrified by the thought of it.

  “The whole thing is procedural,” he tells me. “If we do it right, it shouldn’t take long. All you have to do is say ‘guilty’ when the judge asks for your plea.”

  “Then what?”

  “He’ll hand down his sentence. No need for a trial if you already admitted to the crime.”

  “It’s a good thing we prepped for this, Nick.”

  “Yeah, well, I was getting my legs under me.” I feel my eyeballs start to roll back in the sockets a bit, but I steady them because I know he’s just trying to help.

  “What do you expect out of the sentence?”

  He’s silent for a moment, which scares me.

  “Hard to say, Gabe. A crime like this could get you five years in Pennsylvania.”

  “Five years?!”

  “But there’s nothing on your record and you’re admitting to the wrong doing. Judges love that crap, Gabey. I think I can talk you out of the jail time and bargain for a stack of lesser penalties.”

  Nick jots a few notes on his legal pad and pushes the pen back behind his ear. I have to say, the dude really looks the part. I never thought I’d say this, but I actually have confidence in the guy.

  “What kinds of lesser charges?” I ask.

  “Loss of license, probation, fines, community service. Stuff like that.” The options don’t sound great, but picking up trash and sucking down gas fumes on the side of some highway beats having a cellmate any day. Maybe this decision to shield Grandpa and live up to Dad’s promise will be the easiest one I ever make in my life. Maybe Uncle Nick will come to the rescue after all and this whole thing will blow over without detonating every aspect of my life. “Of course,” Nick continues after jotting a few more notes, “you never can tell with cases like this one. Lots of people following it. You might get a hard-ass judge.” Maybe I better prepare myself for the worst. Maybe the bailiffs are cooking my last meal as we speak, and the warden is already inking up the rubber on the stamp that’ll punch my way straight to the electric chair.

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” I say.

  “Yep. That’s all we can do.”

  On the morning of the hearing I’m up before the sun. Only slept a few hours, but I’m energized—charged up with a surging, nervous electricity that fires me from task to morning task without letting me feel a thing. I don’t know what it is. Most likely fear.

  I take my shower and get Gramps dressed and medicated for his trip to the courtroom with us today. We need him on his best behavior. But something odd happens as I tie the laces on his brown hush puppies. He looks at me. Right in the eyes. And I can tell he recognizes me. Like he can’t quite wake himself from the trance, but that he’s somehow aware of my good deeds. I guess that might not seem odd to most people. Most sane people, anyway. But most people like me—the ones who get to see their loved ones transform from adults into infants in a matter of a few years—are we really sane? I’m just glad to see that Gramps is still in there. Somewhere.

  I make Gramps a few pieces of toast with some butter and jelly, and stuff a handful of Cocoa Puffs in my mouth as the old man eats. His jaws compress on the bread at roughly the speed of a trash compactor. I start to think I might be here a while. Then Nick walks in and pours himself a juice. He’s in a clean undershirt and he’s wearing a pair of grey dress pants I never knew he owned. His hair is slicked back and there’s a few tissue remnants stuck to his face in places he cut while shaving. I swear, I barely recognize the guy these days.

  “You ready?” he asks over the top of his legal pad.

  “Just a few minutes,” I say. “Can you keep an eye?”

  Nick nods and jots a few more notes as I head outside to put Mom’s garden hose into hibernation before the frigid temperatures turn it into a dry-rotted corpse. She’d be proud. Her only son is possibly headed to the clink, but he still makes sure there will be a way to keep her Dahlias from sagging once summer rolls in. What a thoughtful freaking kid I am—like I’m starring in an after school special or something.

  I twist the nozzle off the faucet and start to unravel Mom’s ancient, perpetually kinked garden hose. But that’s as far as I get because I happen to glance down to the bottom of the driveway and notice the little, red arm on the mailbox is up like a hitchhiker’s. I don’t remember mailing any letters in the last twenty-four hours and, up until a few days ago, I wasn’t sure Nick could use a writing utensil to form letters let alone maneuver the insurmountable obstacle of affixing a stamp to an envelope. And it couldn’t have been Gramps. I doubt he even sees the mailbox as a mailbox anymore—probably thinks it’s a weapons cache or a field marker or something.

  I drop the hose and take a cautious stroll down to the mailbox—one of those walks where it feels like people are watching you, like Ed McMahon is about to jump out of the bushes with a check the size of a mattress and crown me the king of Publisher’s Clearinghouse.

  But there’s nobody watching. No giant checks. No white-haired talk show hosts. The street is empty. So, I open the mailbox and peer inside. There’s no letter. No bills. Not even a wrinkled-up, old supermarket circular. Just a cassette player connected to a bunch of tangled wires. Sofia’s bright yellow Wal
kman and headphones. I’d recognize them anywhere.

  I pull the contraption out of the mailbox. There’s one of those comically tiny Post-it notes stuck to one side. It says “Play Me.” I pop open the deck and pull out the cassette. There’s a bunch of sloppy writing on it in blue magic marker that reads: “Pixies – Where is My Mind?”

  Freaking Sofia. And John. I can tell they were in on this together because I’d never given Sofia my address, and the only thing John knows about Pixies is that he can rip open the top of a paper straw and guzzle down about four hundred grams of sugar in one gulp.

  I’m pissed they won’t just shut the hell up, respect my decision, maybe even support me a little. But I pop on the headphones anyway and press “Play” because that’s what you do when you wake up one morning and there’s a mysterious device in your mailbox. That’s what you do when you realize someone’s entrusted you with her most-prized possession.

  It’s a catchy little song with an actual melody—a major departure from the adrenaline-inducing, hard-driving stuff that usually spills from Sofia’s headphones. I’ve never heard the song before. Never heard of the band either, but it doesn’t take long to uncover the message my ex-friends were trying to tell me. It comes in a flash when I hear the opening lines—which amount to nothing more than a sneaky soapbox lecture straight off the lips of John and Sofia. Some garbage about planting your head on the ground instead of your feet. I guess that’s supposed to be some kind of statement on my decisions of late. You’ll have to listen to the song yourself because I got so pissed I tapped the “Stop” button about ten seconds in. And it’s much better than what I wanted to do, which was smash the Walkman against a tree and watch the shards of plastic rain down on Mom’s dormant rose bushes.