“I have not.” For a moment, she stared at me and I met her gaze, but it was impossible to keep it up for long. “Alright, maybe I have pined, just a little. But I’m completely over it now. I mean, it’s been seventeen years, for god’s sake. We aren’t even the same people.”
“Ben is.”
For a moment, I saw him standing in his yard, his body strong in the fading summer light. I had never felt responsible for him, for who he had become. Of course, I held little responsibility for my own life. It didn’t negate the want I felt, but I refused to be guilty because we had each chosen to stumble forward on our own.
“Maybe so, but he doesn’t look like he’s pining to me. He looks fine.”
Lee smiled and reached up above the stove again. Opening the vodka, she flipped our glasses over and poured each of us a generous double.
“So do I,” she said and, throwing her head back, finished her glass in one long choking drink.
Freefall
1974
He hadn’t known what to expect. Certainly, he’d played for two years in the minors, before a smattering of people in the washed-out bleachers of the smaller stadium. Oh, and he’d thrown that summer, in front of the old people, the Grapefruit Leaguers, and he’d been fine. It was like high school, but with more fans. So when Billy had called him personally to tell him he’d been called up, he’d been excited, but it hadn’t felt as it did in this moment, like he was going to faint.
Thirty-five thousand people. There they were, and God, they were excited.
Up on the big screen, he could see as he jogged out from the bullpen, were the words: “Ben McDunnough, first time pitching in the Major Leagues,” and his picture, looking young and goofy, with ears that seemed too big for his head. First time: he felt like a virgin, nervous and sure he wouldn’t be able to perform to anyone’s satisfaction, especially his own.
But that didn’t really sum it up, this building craziness in his belly, the burning in his ears, the strange brightness of everything. The way the artificial grass sprang back under his feet when he was used to the give of real grass. The lights overhead that made him want to squint, to bring his arm up and stare into the glowing gray sphere of the roof. But then there was the familiar rough clutch of dirt on his shoes as he passed between third and home. He had never walked so far in his life as that initial sprint to the mound; he doubted a marathon would feel as long, as taxing. And then there he was, his feet scratching up a bit of dust, holding up his glove in front of his face as if this weren’t the first time he’d thrown in front of an audience this size. As if this day, and the ones to immediately follow it, didn’t determine the course of his entire career.
Eddie, the catcher, nodded his head as if in time to some music Ben couldn’t hear, encouraging him. Fastball, low and inside, he signed. In with a bang, then. The batter stepped up to the plate and Ben realized he hadn’t even noticed who was up.
Damien Ritter, not a great hitter, but no slouch with a fastball.
Ok, Ben thought. Fine. This isn’t so hard. He just had to quiet his own mind and it would be all right. The crowd had hushed, waiting impatiently. What would the rookie do?
Jesus, and he was a rookie.
Ben steadied himself, took a deep breath, and waited for the feeling to come, as it always did. A little voice whispered: What if it didn’t? He silenced it by leaning forward a bit, as if preparing to wind up.
And then there it was, flowing over him like water. A rush of muscle and mind, pulling his arm back and then whoosh! The ball was gone. It was over that quickly, sending him pitching forward and then staggering back up, though he knew it would look like a smooth, traditional release.
The sound of the ball hitting the bat made him jump, reflexively. He watched in dismay as the ball wailed down the first base line like a cannonball, bouncing to a stop before their right fielder could reach it. The fielder lobbed it hard, but Damien Ritter was fast, and hit first base with a confident stamp.
The first base hit of his career. Well, now he had a statistic. That wasn’t so bad.
Eddie shrugged beneath the heavy pads of his uniform. Ben nodded. Get over it and move on. What had he expected, three straight K’s?
The next batter in the line-up was a wiry little man nicknamed Beaver. Ben had theorized it was his front teeth or perhaps some sort of Gerry Mathers fascination. But Billy had told him it had to do with his way with women. That seemed hard to believe as Beaver Glenn stared him down, his small hands gripping the bat like it was about to sprout wings, his bucked teeth protruding slightly as he concentrated, like the tip of a child’s tongue.
Eddie tapped his thigh and Ben nodded. A split-finger fastball. Beaver was no power hitter, but he liked his RBI’s. Leaning back slowly, Ben concentrated until the movement began in his back, snaking up his spine and spreading to his legs, his fingers. He released.
The ball dropped late, connected and sailed up over Ben’s head and back into the waiting glove of the second baseman. An easy 4-3 double play and the runners were gone. Ben tried to look as if he’d intended it all.
Somewhere in the stands, he knew, sat his mother. To make his first time just a little more nerve-wracking, they had offered to fly out his whole family. Ben declined politely, securing only one ticket. He spent about thirty seconds in the locker room after picking it up wondering if he should send one to his father. Would he regret that August morning when he had decided that in the end, he loved nothing so much as his freedom? Probably not, Ben decided. Even if he had been a bit sorry, regret wouldn’t change the fact that his contrition came only when his son had achieved something monumental. Only his mother had been there for the trivial, and in the end, only she deserved to be there when he first reached for a bit of the grand, the wonderful.
A groan rose inside him as he saw the familiar face and massive arms of Zeke Craw. That man could take a ball and turn it into a ballistic missile.
Zeke’s feet, dainty in comparison to his arms, were delicately pawing at the ground in front of him, seeking a toe-hold in the thick red dirt. God help him, what idiot had first come up with the idea of playing baseball inside? To Ben it felt vaguely sacrilegious, cutting out the burning sun, the blistering wind, even the rain. Elements were a part of the strategy itself. Of course, here they could lose sight of the ball if it sailed close to the bright bank of lights ringing the park, and the Astroturf was notoriously unsatisfactory for fielding, but in the end, it was all so clean, so pristine. It pissed him off, and Ben was rarely worked up about anything. He wondered briefly about the flurry of thoughts now crowding his head. Eddie nodded, over and over. Let’s go.
Ben drew back and let it go, a change-up, aiming for the far corner of the plate.
Zeke Craw was glaring at him. Eddie was bouncing like a Russian dancer, still squatting but delighted and Ben realized he had thrown his very first Major League strike. Well damn, it hadn’t felt any different from any of the others, not really. Ben blinked and stared at the ump for a moment, just processing.
He hadn’t wanted to play ball his entire life. When he was a child, the night sky had fascinated him, not because it was large or dark or bright with stars, but because it was deep. Layer upon layer of it, extending as far as his imagination. The silence of it, the wonderfully rapid and yet infinitesimal progression of light and sound toward Earth... he imagined what it would feel like to travel through space. Not in a rocket, not with some pulsing, jumping thing strapped beneath you, but the impossible flight, alone with the stars. He knew, somehow, that he would feel it there too: the wonderful rush of adrenaline, stilling the rest of the universe for a fraction of a second, letting him be.
It wasn’t until he was thirteen that he realized his ability to throw a small, leather-covered projectile faster than the average speeding car. It was impossible to explain to his coaches, even to Billy, who should have understood the sudden sliding of sinew over bone, the clicking of all his muscles into the right place, but he could feel the pitch
before he threw it. He could see it, like looking at an instant replay in slo-mo, arcing from his body and hurtling through space. It was as close to his dreams of universal flight as he would ever come, that moment of release. He grew to crave it, to need it as some essential part of his molecular structure, like water.
Zeke stretched the broad muscles of his back, showing off their width, their inherent power. Ben was only slightly impressed. He wasn’t a fan of those who could only slap a ball away from their bodies like horses swatting a fly. There was no finesse to it, really. Swing hard, aim a little, and hope for the best. He reserved his admiration for batters with less power and more skill, those who could anticipate a pitch and react, changing the position of their bat at the last possible second. There was nothing less glamorous than swinging blind.
Eddie was squatting again, one leg cast out slightly, bobbing up and down on his calves. Two fingers and a brief touch to his thigh. Ben had spent two hours the night before going over the signs in his head. Sinker. Shit, his worst pitch. Well, there was no harm in it, he told himself. He had, on occasion, thrown a very good sinker, letting it fly with blistering speed and then suddenly, it would drop like a rock and the batter would be left swinging at a phantom that had never arrived.
He rearranged his muscles, mentally. He’d tried to explain that one to Billy, too, but couldn’t quite wrap his tongue around what it felt like, to tell his own body what to do.
Zeke huffed at the base. Wouldn’t do for a man like that to go down to a rookie. Ben scratched his chin, leaned back, and wham, let it go. This time he was calm enough to pay attention as the ball slid forward, hesitated, and fell right into Eddie’s waiting glove. Zeke spun hard, flailing until his bat smacked his own back.
“Strike,” the ump yelled and he saw Eddie jump with pleasure.
Two down, one left. He was under no illusions about how long they would leave him out here his first time. The terror, if he let it go too long, would threaten to drown him.
Ben had no clear picture of his own career. It wasn’t as if someone had laid it out for him, but he liked to think, like all rookies, that someday the card they issued this year would be worth something. Ok, maybe not this year, as it wasn’t really his rookie year until he’d played from the beginning of the season, but next year. Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, to be asked for an autograph? Just once. He pictured himself, like the great players of the Twenties and Thirties, surrounded by beaming children. Sometimes, he saw himself as an old man, looking back on his career with pride and a certain awe. Sometimes, he thought he might wash out and end up working at a 7-11. How good his arm felt determined the amount of hope he let slide through his filters.
Zeke Craw was ready, standing wide-footed and sturdy just to the right of home. Behind him, Eddie signaled another fastball, low and inside again. Why meddle with success? Ben shook his head to clear it of dreams of fame and concentrated on his final pitch. Back and back, his arm went and then pop, it was gone and he watched in dismay and resignation as Zeke caught the edge and sent the ball hurtling forward toward the shortstop. It whizzed past Ben, out of reach of his waiting glove and he spun just in time to see Dave Panitch dive forward and snag it from mid-air.
And then he was turning toward the dugout to watch the pitching coach brushing off his uniform and standing up. Ok, he thought, end of the inning. You did it. Something inside him jangled and sang, which wasn’t a reaction he was familiar with. He thought he might be sick. Eddie jogged forward, mask pushed up and grinning.
“Goddamnit, McDunnough, that was really great. Good job,” the ebullient catcher said, thumping him on the back.
“Thanks,” Ben said. Exhaustion seemed to sweep over him now that he knew his first major league inning was over, and he sagged into himself. As he left the field, following Eddie, he could hear the gentle clapping of the crowd beneath the loud jangle of the sound system.
“Fine job, Ben.” As he reached the dugout, the coach clapped him on the shoulder and spat, his fat face red from the heat. He was a spongy man, from years of sitting on the bench eating sunflower seeds and hating people. “We’ll let that call it a day.”
“Right,” Ben answered, relieved.
It hadn’t been so bad, really. He’d made it through, not perfectly, but well enough. Someone patted his back, and the pitching coach handed him his jacket. The crowd stirred restlessly as their hitters left the field and the other team jogged out to take their places. Sinking onto the cool padding of the bench, Ben shoved his hands into his pockets and prepared to enjoy watching his team hit. The jangling was fading, covered in his usual still, blue water. He missed it already; craved the ripples it sent through his nervous system, through his groin, his skull, his blood.
“Good job, McDunnough,” Billy said, from the seat beside him, his voice gruff and paternal. “You looked like one cool cucumber out there today.”
“Of course.” Ben pushed his hat back from his damp forehead and grinned. “It was a piece of cake.”
“Liar,” Billy laughed, knocking him gently with his elbow. “They’re gonna have to scrape the shit out of your shorts tonight.”
The other team’s star pitcher was already in place, prowling the mound like a cheetah, looking for prey. Ben watched him with a critical eye. Would he ever be that great? Probably, statistically not. Well, if nothing else, the sky would always be there, waiting. He could make a career of discovering comets, white-hot and trailing dust like a good fastball in an amateur league, where the balls weren’t brand new with each throw.
“I felt...” he began, trying to explain it to his friend. Billy waited patiently. “I felt nervous and ready at the same time, you know? And… good. I felt good.”
Billy smiled and nodded thoughtfully. “You were,” he said quietly. “All those things. And I should tell you...” He leaned over a bit and Ben slid closer to hear his advice. “... It’ll never feel quite that way again.”
Mourning in Florida
1998
Ben arrived with a muted rush of voices and the clinking of glass on glass, heard through the open balcony door. The wake continued to progress, apparently, even after I’d retreated outside to collect the frazzled ends of myself. He shut the door carefully, gently, as if he didn’t want to disturb anyone.
“Hey.” Ben slid up beside me and pressed a cold bottle against the back of my arm.
“Hey,” I responded, unable to look at him. I was peripherally aware that his suit was a rich, dark blue with a muted red pin stripe, and his shirt was so white it made my head ache. This was probably the only suit he owned, and I found myself hoping he had purchased it long ago for a wedding, or a press conference. No one should own clothes whose only purpose was being the color we associate with death. I thought of the Chinese, who reserved white for funerals and red for weddings. Death as the blank landscape of winter, marriage in the color of blood. Maybe it was an intensity thing; a presence of something rather than an absence.
We stood together behind the concrete railing and drank two fancy “old fashioned” lemonades. They were fizzy and sour, more a seltzer than the sugary liquid I was used to. Below the balcony, a thick green lawn sloped quickly to the edge of a small lake. Not quite big enough for anything with an engine: only a few families had bothered to build small wooden docks, accessorizing them with shining silver canoes like sleek river dolphins. Reeds ringed the edges of the lake and a great blue heron picked its slow path through the dense green growth, one impossibly long leg at a time. The heron paused and then its head darted down, so fast I could barely follow the movement – in complete contrast to the exaggerated stillness of the moment before. The bird rose with a bright mouthful of fish. Everything glowed with the rays of a strong and vital sun.
“Casey...” Ben started at last, turning and resting one elbow on the railing. I knew what he was asking, what he’d like to be able to say. Our vocabulary was ill equipped for funerals. I shrugged and he reached out to run one hand, cold from the drink,
along my neck.
“I’d like to leave, but I don’t have a car,” I said. The two beers I had gulped down when I first arrived at the wake, while not overpowering, were letting themselves be known in the slow pull through my stomach to my aching brain. I was hoping the lemonade would overpower them, muscle them back into the recesses of my body.
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I want to be somewhere quiet.” I thought maybe I meant his house. His expression told me nothing.
“Come on,” he said, taking me by the hand. “Let me take you home.”
From the sudden depth of his voice, I thought maybe he meant his house too.
Lee and Jake were talking to my uncle Fredrick when I left. Fredrick had moved to Arkansas fifteen years before, abandoning his wife and four children, and started raising poultry for some giant chicken conglomerate. Over the years he resembled my mother less and less, until he no longer seemed a viable member of our family. Maybe that was what he wanted: to no longer belong to anyone. I saw Lee’s head tip up a bit, the sharp point of her chin acknowledging my departure. I realized then that she never really expected me to stay. How nice to have her expectations confirmed.
Ben escorted me over to his tiny Honda and fumbled for a moment with the keys. I watched his hands as he moved to slip key into lock and missed. His fingernails were slightly ragged, as if he sat alone in his kitchen and chewed them, late at night after we’d all gone home. I found this picture somewhat incongruous and therefore believable. Taking a deep breath, he turned and looked at me, his face not embarrassed so much as hopeful I was feeling the same way. Not yet, I thought, alcohol numbing my senses. He smiled sheepishly and unlocked the car.
Why was it that tall men owned such small damn cars? The Honda was old, battered, familiar like my Corolla. It could have been any crappy used Japanese car, with cracking vinyl trim and a cheap stereo that was added later and didn’t exactly sit right, rattling slightly as he navigated the speed bumps in the parking lot.
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