by John Ritter
Just seeing his father’s finger stab, that small confident gesture, sent a wave of calm through Stats.
“Look,” said Billee. “I was on my way down to Merry Mount when an idea hit me, and I wanted to talk to Stats about it.”
“Me?” Stats wandered out of the alcove to meet Billee at the table. “Sure.”
Billee gave Stats a wink, then pulled out a chair. They both sat.
“Okay, here’s what I think’s going on.”
“Going on?” asked Mark, taking a chair across the table to join them.
“Yeah,” said Stats. “With the Sox. Listen to this.” He sent a head jab toward Billee, as if coolly coordinating a top-secret disclosure.
Billee placed his muscular forearms on the table and leaned forward.
“Marko, I believe there is a brand-new curse upon us. But it’s tricky. It’s subtle. It’s not one everybody’s gonna believe in right off.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Mark. “You guys are only three games out. And the season’s only six weeks old.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Billee. “A curse doesn’t waste its time on a cellar dweller. Like Shakespeare said, ‘When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ But when you lose the Wild Card spot on the last day of a roller-coaster season or lose the clincher game of a World Series, that’s when you know you’ve been served. And I think, just like last year, we’re being set up to take a tumble.”
“Well, I’ve seen it happen way too many times,” said Pops, returning with a tall glass of tea with a slice of lime floating in it, as well as one of his “experimental” rolls. He set them in front of Billee.
“Thank you, sir.” Billee took the glass, then turned to Stats and Mark. “And there’s always a pitcher coming off a great year in the thick of it. Look up Mike Torrez or Calvin Schiraldi or Bob Stanley. Right, Pops?”
At hearing the names, Pops closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross.
Stats didn’t have to look anything up. He knew all about the pop fly home run Bucky Dent hit for the Yankees in 1978 off Torrez, after a wrenching up-and-down season, to clinch the American League pennant. And the wild pitch Stanley threw in the ’86 World Series, to set the stage for the Mets’ victory. Who didn’t? But he had never considered that curses revolved around pitchers. He then realized, when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth in 1919, starting The Curse, the Babe had been, up to that point, a great pitcher.
“That’s what I like about you, Billee,” said Pops, tapping his temple. “Always thinking. Baseball’s a thinking man’s game. Talent only gets you so far. I try to tell that to my Markangelo.” He raised a palm toward the ceiling.
“What?” said Mark in protest. “I think. I’m always thinking. It’s just that sometimes I think I should stop thinking. Right, Billee?” He knuckled the pitcher’s arm.
“You ain’t wrong,” Billee answered, with a wide grin. “Thinking can go both ways.”
Mark grinned, too, looking satisfied.
“Billee,” said Pops, with a quick gesture to indicate the handcrafted hollowed-out bread roll in front of him. “Try my latest. See what you think.”
Another one of Pops’s pet projects was to settle upon a recipe and design for the perfect customized hot dog bun—mainly for Chili Billees, which always seemed to leak.
Billee took a bite. He chewed and smiled broadly.
“Mmm, Pops, I think you might have it right here. Tastes great.”
“And more filling!” said Pops. “See how wide the opening is? I can get loads of chili into this one.” He gleamed in satisfaction and took a seat.
“Sure can,” Billee agreed, still nodding. He then went on with his mission. “Okay now, Stats, tell me this. Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect?”
“I think so.”
Mark jumped in. “I have, for sure.”
That brought quick looks from Stats and Pops.
“But,” said Mark, drumming his fingertips, “I forget what it is. Something about butterflies …”
Stats slid his eXfyle close and began typing the words into the search window.
“Don’t bother,” said Billee. “I’ll tell you. The theory is, a butterfly can flap its wings and set off a long chain of events that will affect weather systems to such an extent that a single wing flap can eventually cause a hurricane clear across the globe.”
After scanning the entry on his screen, Stats said, “Oh, yeah, the interconnectedness of everything.” He looked up. “Ray Bradbury’s idea. Yeah, okay …” Still reading, he added, “And string theory branches off of it. Yeah, I know a little bit about that.”
Mark turned quickly. “You do?”
“Well, it comes from science fiction, mostly time travel stories, where a guy goes back into the past and even if he only changes one tiny thing, that act causes the whole future to morph—since, you know, everything’s connected.”
Mark sat wide-eyed, stunned.
“Pops,” said Billee, “the kid’s got a brain in there, I’ll tell you.”
“And I’ll tell you,” said Pops, “he didn’t get it from me.” They both laughed.
Stats got back on point. “So, Billee, what are you saying about the butterfly effect?”
“Basically that a curse is a chain reaction that might be caused by the tiniest thing. So instead of looking around at all the latest construction or all the years of rat problems, maybe we only need to go back and undo one little butterfly flap.”
“You lost me, big-time,” said Mark.
Stats thought he might have followed Billee’s statement well enough, but pressed for clarification. “You mean we need to find the source of the imbalance, right? Like whatever butterfly flap of the wings sort of thing started the first bit of bad luck?”
“Exactamundo,” said Billee. “But here’s what hit me as I was driving home.” He leaned in close. “Maybe it’s not a butterfly we’re looking for. Maybe it’s a hawk.”
CHAPTER 10
A normal boy would have, at this point, simply smiled, nodded in agreement, and dismissed everything he had just heard as the mind-bouncings of a spaceman.
Was that all Billee had? Find the tiny cause of this monumental imbalance? Some sort of a hawk wing flap? And then, undo it?
But Stats, of course, was not a normal boy. In fact, he had never aspired to be one. Sure, he wished he could play baseball at least once in his life, the way normal boys of normal height and weight so often do. But he would never trade his love of numbers, his world of complex calculations, his joy of puzzling out solutions to multifarious mysteries for anything. That is, not for anything normal.
And so, even though he figured the chances of fulfilling Billee’s request were somewhere between slim and none—and slim had long ago left the ballpark—Stats merely filed away the challenge, then turned to Mark and Pops and let them in on what Billee was talking about.
“A hawk flew around and screeched at us today. We think it might have been giving us a message connected to this new curse.”
Mark did his best at stifling an automatic laugh, and was at least able to keep it to a muffled squeak.
The concept, however, did not faze Pops at all.
“A hawk, eh?” he said. “Now, that’s possible. My father, may he rest in providence, always told me the same story whenever we saw a hawk. One that goes back to the old country.”
“He means Italy,” said Mark.
Billee thrust his chin in Mark’s direction.
“Papa claimed that whatever thought you’re thinking when a hawk appears in your life is one you better pay attention to. A hawk brings resolution.” He shaped his fingers into a claw. “‘Grab it now,’ he’s saying.”
Then Pops straightened and shrugged, lifting both palms high. “I don’t know. That’s what he always told me, anyway, and I never forgot it.”
“Did it ever work for you?” asked Mark. “Did you ever do something you were thinking of when a hawk flew by?”
“Only one time
that I can say for sure. Right after your mother and I got married, we were driving home from out in Sudbury, where she used to live, and she just happened to wonder out loud whether or not she should start her little grocery store.”
Pops smiled. But he did not speak, not for quite a while. Soon all eyes left him and his pinched mouth and focused on the table.
In a moment, Pops regrouped. “So right then and there,” he continued, his words full of breath, “a hawk flies straight across the roadway in front of us.”
A big laugh now and the smile. “What could I say to her?” he could barely say through a hoarse laugh. Again, his hands flew up shoulder high, now signaling surrender.
“You followed your heart,” said Billee, to the rescue. “You both did. You followed through and opened her store, which is exactly what I would’ve done.”
“Me too,” said Mark.
Stats hummed softly in agreement, keeping his eyes below the brim of his cap.
Pops reached out, gathering Billee’s empty glass and plate into his hands, and rose. “Anything else?”
“No, no, all set. Thanks.”
Pops trundled off into the kitchen.
Billee tapped the table with his fingernails, digesting the moment. As though by brotherly instinct, he then lifted Stats’s cap and reset it on his head.
“You need to grow your hair out, Stat Man. So your hat’ll fit right.”
Stats knew how he looked. He’d ordered the smallest size cap available, but it was still too big. And since it was professional style, it was not adjustable. Thus, when he snugged it down the way he liked it, to where he could feel his lucky Ted Williams all-star card against his skull, it did tend to make his ears fold over, much like a puppy dog’s.
Truthfully, he didn’t care. He preferred his hair short. One day, he figured, his head would fit the hat—or else, he could just stack a few more baseball cards inside. Besides, as the photo on the card of his current co-occupant showed, the Splendid Splinter’s uniform had hung a little loose on him, too, at first.
“When I was a kid,” Billee went on, “my curly hair was so wild, my dad wanted me to get it buzzed completely off. But my mom loved it. So there was always a big scene every time I got a haircut. It was like Samson and Goliath.”
Everyone laughed, though the reference didn’t quite make sense to Stats.
Billee wagged his head. Then, spotting Pops returning to the room, he added, “But like Shakespeare said, ‘Hair today, gone tomorrow.’ Right, Pops?”
“Hey, watch it, there!” Pops, whose once-dark curly locks were now mostly reduced to a global fringe, sent Billee a stern glare from the table side. But he could not hold it, as a burst of laughter again rocked the room.
Stats enjoyed the feeling and silently sent up a prayer that Billee would always be a member of this clan. Then he returned to the matter at hand.
“What were we thinking, Billee, when we saw the hawk? Do you remember?”
Billee perused the plaster ceiling overhead. “Weren’t we thinking about a connection between mice and rats and a bad-luck streak?”
“Oh, yeah. Do you think that confirms a connection?”
“Now more than ever.”
“Hmm,” said Mark, as if he were preparing to add something. But that was, in fact, all he said.
Billee gave him a nod, then sat back.
“Marko,” he asked, “how’s your season going?”
“Okay.” He brightened. Baseball was in Mark’s blood. It was all he dreamed about, though he seldom said so out loud.
“Better’n okay,” said Stats. “Ever since we put up a batting cage on the roof, he’s been hammering the ball.”
“A batting cage? You’re kidding. Who pitches?”
“I do,” said Stats. “Well, actually I stand behind an old mattress we propped up and toss the ball like a hand grenade. Then I duck.”
“That’s exactly how I learned to pitch,” Billee said, giving Stats a soft poke on the arm. “Can I see it?”
Both Stats and Mark jumped up and headed for the door to the back veranda, where the roof ladder was attached.
Billee followed them outside. His trip up the vertical metal ladder, though, seemed to be a strain. Not physically, but mentally. He kept his jaw clenched and his silvery eyes focused in front of him the whole way, slowly ascending one rung at a time. Once he climbed over the short parapet wall and his foot touched the flat asphalt roof, he relaxed.
He smiled.
Neither boy said a word. Stats figured Billee’s caution had something to do with his balance—which had, as he well knew, been off lately. He spun around and opened the door to the chicken-wired wood-framed batting cage, which was wrapped in a second layer of black netting.
Billee walked forward and surveyed the homemade cage, which Stats now realized looked precisely the way one would expect such an enclosure, built out of scavenged neighborhood scraps, baling wire, and duct tape, to look.
“Beautiful,” the pitcher said. “Amazing.”
Billee appreciated creativity. Stats knew that from last season, after he designed a customized baseball card just for Billee.
Most cards list career stats as well as personal info, such as whether a player bats or throws left handed or right. On the card he handed to Billee during one of the first few times he’d stopped by Papa Pagano’s, Stats listed the following:
Billee “Spacecase” Orbitt
HEIGHT: of fashion
WEIGHT: for a better pitch
BORN: to be wild
THROWS: Lefty
BATS: Belfry
It cracked Billee up so much, he caused a minor laugh riot at the stand, reading it off to everyone in line. From then on, it was as if Stats had inherited a best friend. Even Mark had said so, without a speck of jealousy.
Billee studied the batting cage a bit longer, then pushed back from the frame and stepped over to a dried-out, once-blue kitchen chair parked nearby. He took a seat.
“You guys ever come up here at night and just look at the stars?”
“All the time,” said Stats. “Well, I do.”
“Me,” said Mark, “not so much. I have a life.”
In his own defense Stats added, “He comes up when we spend the night. I bring my telescope, and he looks, too.”
“Good on you both. Like Einstein always said, ‘Never lose touch with nature. It ain’t natural.’”
“When did he say that?” asked Stats.
“Well, words to that effect. Basically, stay connected to the balance of nature. Honor it. No matter if you’re a hitter or a pitcher or a whole ball club. Balance is vital. That’s what Einstein meant.”
So now Billee’s interpreting Einstein, thought Stats, amused at the concept, though he could not quibble with the conclusion. Billee was, in his own way, a genius as well.
The pitcher folded his arms and tipped the chair back on its hind legs. “It’s all balance. The whole world revolves around balance. Without it, the earth would wobble, right, Stat Man?”
“Well, it actually does anyway.”
“See? Lack of balance. It affects everything. Imagine I’m a tightrope walker, and I have you guys balanced on my shoulders, and we’re crossing the street from here, say, to Sam Alone’s bar over there. If any one of us lost his balance, we’d all be asphalt.”
He pointed to both boys. “Why? Because we’re all connected.”
“Yeah,” said Mark. “I saw that happen once on ESPN with a bunch of cheerleaders in a pyramid. Someone in the middle lost it and, dude, legs and other assorted body parts were flying everywhere.” Mark shook his head. “Cheerleaders are nuts.”
He walked over and picked up one of his bats lying next to the cage. He stepped in. “Billee, throw me a few?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Billee, “just a few. Getting dark.”
Eyeing Stats, he said, “What do you like to look at up here?”
“Everything. Planets, stars. Constellations. Especially Orion and Pleiades,
the Seven Sisters. But my favorite is Pegasus, the Flying Horse. It’s right in the middle this month.”
“Pegasus is my favorite, too!” said Billee. He held out his hand. “Gimme skin, buddy.” They slapped palms.
Billee looked into the dusk. “I remember as a kid looking up at night, waiting for the Flying Horse to rise. My whole life, I’ve always felt like I was some guy who just got dropped off on this planet one day by mistake, that I didn’t really belong. And I always pretended Pegasus was my rescue ship.” He smiled into the sky, then lowered his gaze. “Someday, huh, bud?”
Stats grinned and nodded. His heart fluttered. To ride off someday on a flying horse? What an idea.
As Billee stepped into the batting cage, he added, “Once I get back from out of town, I’ll help you sort things out. Okay, Stat Man? It’s a long trip. Ten days, then we’re home for six. So dig up anything you can. About hawks, about rats, wing flaps, energy vibes, and maybe dig up a few quahogs, if you got the time.” He winked.
Stats beamed. Being a clam chowder fanatic, the mere image of going out quahog digging along Ipswich Bay with his four-pronged clam rake at least gave him a starting point.
Plus, it provided another point to ponder. Would a clam closing up its shell count as a wing flap?
CHAPTER 11
Stats spent the rest of the evening looking into the natural history aspects of ancient New England. Fenway Park, he found out, was built on ancient swampland. “Fen,” in fact, stemmed from a Celtic word for “bog,” or swamp. And millions of years before that, ancient underground pressures caused huge veins of quartz and amethyst crystals to form all throughout the region. Interestingly enough, quartz crystals actually radiate energy. Healing energy, according to some websites. He typed it all down for Billee’s sake. After all, his task was to “dig up anything.” However, how any of that information could help him identify the wing flap of a new curse was pure bogglement at the moment.
That night, Stats fell into a fitful sleep. It might have been the excitement of this new assignment from Billee. Maybe it was this new aura of sadness triggered by the unexplainable downward spiral of the Red Sox and the negativity surrounding it. It might even have been worry over the huge debt Pops faced. At any rate, when he awoke later on, the night air seemed so hot and thick, he had trouble catching his breath. At one point he threw off his bedcovers, but even then he felt as if he were lying in a puddle of sweat.
