The Way Home Looks Now

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

  I swallow. “I can talk.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Lee. It’s Lee,” I say.

  “And your dad. His name is, like, Chung Lee?”

  I have a brief internal debate on the merits of correcting someone like Martin on his Chinese pronunciation abilities, and decide to let it pass. “Something like that. A lot of people call him John.”

  The way Martin slams his fist into his other hand makes me think he was just using me to warm up. “I knew it! I got this phone call last night and the guy’s all formal and stuff.” Martin pretends to talk on the phone. “Ah, hello Martin. I am calling to introduce myself. I am Chung Lee, your baseball coach for this season.” Of course, Martin sounds nothing like my father, but still, something about his impersonation is not completely off, either.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to ignore the fact that Martin is making fun of Ba. “You’re on the team?”

  “My rotten luck. What’s a Chinaman know about baseball?”

  I feel like saying, “Enough to win the Little League World Series, twice,” but instead, I say, “Yeah, well, he picked you, didn’t he?”

  This stops Martin in his tracks. He squints at me for a minute as he tries to figure out whether or not I am insulting him or complimenting him.

  “Do you know who else is on the team?” I decide to change the subject.

  “Jimmy told me him and his brother Bobby were on the team,” says Martin. “And I think Jimmy said something about Rickey Torres and Doug Levinger.” He scratches his chin. “Not sure what Levinger is doing playing ball, but Torres has a decent bat.”

  Coming from Martin, any compliment about batting is big. That is because last summer, Martin managed to bust several windows of the music room hitting fungoes from the field below. The rumor was he was mad at the music teacher, Mrs. Springer, and he only got to come back to school because his grandfather paid to have all the windows replaced. Also, Martin goes to the library during music time now.

  “Anyone else?” I ask. “You heard about anyone else?”

  Martin punches me again. “What do I look like, the school newspaper? What’s the matter, anyway? Shouldn’t your dad be telling you these things?”

  As much as I don’t like Martin, I have to admit that he could hit a few things right on the head.

  Sean comes over after school and tells me that a kid at his school named Danny Cooper is on the team. According to Sean, everyone calls him Coop and he likes to play shortstop.

  “See?” says Sean. “I told you we’d be on the same team.” Sean is so excited he looks like a puppy, all bright-eyed and eager. “I didn’t know your dad could play ball.”

  “He can’t. He didn’t even grow up here.”

  This information does not dampen Sean’s excitement. “Aw, it’ll still be fun. We have some good players.”

  “Yeah, sure it will.” Somehow, Sean thinks I am making a joke. He laughs and gives me a shove.

  After Sean leaves, I look over the mail. There isn’t much—a water bill and a reminder that Mom’s Family Circle subscription is about to expire, but it gives me an excuse to talk to her about the team. It will be like talking about spring training, which she always loved. Spring training, she said, was hope and promise, laid out on a baseball field.

  “There’s a bunch of kids from my school, including some big hitters. We should be good on offense.” That’s as close as I want to get to talking about Martin Greer, specifically. I wait for her response.

  But there isn’t one. In fact, I’m not sure she even heard me. Her eyes are open, but she seems to be somewhere else.

  “Sean’s on the team,” I tell her. Maybe it will help to mention someone she knows. “He’s slow, but that’s okay. There’s another kid from his school who’s on our team. Sean says he’s awesome at short.”

  Mentioning shortstop should make Mom happy—she loved to hear about Gene Alley and Mazeroski turning double plays.

  But the bait doesn’t work this time, though she does respond with a low hmmm.

  I keep going. I try to think of all the good parts to talk about, which means that I don’t talk about Ba coaching. I tell her I like the name Jaguars, and that the best team color to get was navy blue or green. I ramble through my ideas on batting order and stealing home. I feel like I’m fishing, trying to bait the hook with something that will get Mom’s attention. But she’s not biting. When I run out of things to talk about, I ask Mom if she is going to eat dinner with us.

  “Not tonight,” says Mom.

  “Maybe tomorrow?” I suggest.

  From the way Mom closes her eyes, you would think tomorrow was a very long way away.

  WE HAVE OUR FIRST PRACTICE ON FRIDAY, AFTER SCHOOL. Ba arranged to trade hours at the pharmacy with someone, and he picked up Sean and me to drive to the field.

  It’s not a particularly nice field—it’s just a scrubby practice field, with crabgrass and sloppy dirt paths. Ba tells us to walk around the field and pick up any litter while he brings up some of the equipment.

  Sean and I walk to opposite ends of the outfield—Sean to the right, me to the left. When I reach down to pick up a Hershey bar wrapper, though, I’m suddenly hit by the feeling of how wrong this all is. I’m not supposed to be here with Ba or Sean. I should be here with Nelson. And then I remember all over again that I can’t.

  The field narrows and drops away, and I feel like I’m on a precipice. At any moment, I could fall or fly away to nothingness. Anywhere but here. For what must be the thousandth time, I think, Why aren’t you here? It’s almost like a math problem—if I can come up with the right answer, I can make him come back.

  I can’t do this; I can’t. I can’t make it through a whole season like this.

  But I have to. This is all I have.

  I reach down and pretend to look for more garbage, but what I’m really doing is pulling at the blades of grass, hoping they’re strong enough to hold me to the earth.

  Then there’s a hand on my shoulder, warm and heavy. It’s Sean.

  “You want to throw a couple, before the real practice starts?”

  I stand up straight and try to look normal, like all I’ve been doing is picking up trash, but I’m grateful for the weight of Sean’s hand on my shoulder, keeping me from flying away. I nod. Sean gives me a friendly pat, and then jogs to the dugout to get our gloves. I try to put all my energy into throwing and catching, feeling the snap of the ball in my glove, making each throw as perfect as I can. Slowly, I feel my heartbeat return to normal.

  Sometimes I think about what I would do if I had one more day with Nelson, what we would do. We’d want to eat all of our favorite foods, of course, and I’d want Nelson to tell me more things, the things he always said I’d understand better when I got older. But most of all, I’d want to make sure we’d do this—we’d get to play some ball, and he’d show me that palmball, one more time.

  After most of the kids show up, Ba assigns us to different positions in the field, including me at third. The he begins hitting grounders to first. He is surprisingly good at hitting the ball to where he wants it to go. He has a large bucket of balls with him at home plate, and he hits one after another. All the balls go to Coop, who’s at first.

  “When is he going to hit some out this way?” I hear one of the players ask.

  I try to act like this is perfectly normal, but after another dozen grounders, still to Coop, the other kids start looking at me, as if it is my job to say something.

  I ask Ba how many more grounders he’s going to hit to Coop. I expect him to say something like he’ll get to us in just a minute, or even hit one to another player.

  “Eighteen,” replies Ba, without looking at me.

  “Eighteen!” I don’t know how Ba came up with that number. “Is anyone but the first baseman getting practice today?”

  “You will each field forty grounders,” says Ba.

  “This is boring,” says Yonder. He’s one of the kids who doesn’t go t
o my school or Sean’s school. He wore sandals to practice and had to borrow a glove, which does not bode well.

  “It does not matter if practice is, as you say, boring,” says Ba. “What matters is that you have a way to improve.”

  For a moment, there is silence. And then Aaron, the other kid who is from a different school, shouts out from shortstop, “C’mon, then! If we’re each getting forty grounders, let’s see who’s the best! You, first base. How many have you missed?” Aaron is short and skinny, and has a high, singsongy voice. He is constantly moving around—adjusting his cap, swinging his arms, hitching up his pants.

  “Three, maybe four,” says Coop.

  “Four,” says Doug Levinger. “Definitely four.”

  Coop turns and scowls at Doug.

  “Okay then!” says Aaron. “We’re going to keep track of how many each player misses.” He punches his glove.

  Aaron’s idea seems to make everyone less restless, except for Coop, who doesn’t seem to like that we’re all keeping count of his mistakes. When Coop misses the next grounder, Bobby Lattimore yells, “Five!” from right field, and Coop threatens to bean him.

  Eventually, Ba makes his way around the entire field. First base, second base, shortstop, and third, and then the outfield from right to left. By the time he’s done, we all have a pretty good idea of who are the good fielders, and who aren’t. Doug and Sean have the most mistakes; they each flub fourteen. Coop and Aaron do the best; Coop missed five, and Aaron missed four. I missed ten, though I think Ba hit them a little harder to me.

  No one counts out loud when Ba hits the last grounder to Yonder in left field, but I’m pretty sure we’re all counting in our heads. When Ba hits the fortieth grounder, we all sigh and look at each other, wondering what will happen next. Maybe we’ll get to scrimmage or do something interesting.

  Ba picks up a ball out of the bucket and hits it up high toward the pitcher’s mound.

  “Now,” he says. “Forty fly balls.”

  Halfway through the fly ball drill, a station wagon pulls into the parking lot and someone gets out. The car takes off, kicking up dust behind it.

  It is Martin Greer. I’d kind of hoped that he had decided to quit the team.

  He walks slowly up to the field, like he isn’t nearly an hour late. Ba doesn’t even notice him until he practically hits Martin with the bat.

  “You are late,” says Ba, shouldering the bat.

  “Don’tcha even want to know who I am first?” asks Martin. Ba hasn’t asked any of the kids what their names are. He calls most of them “you.”

  “You are late,” repeats Ba.

  Martin looks at Ba for a moment, and then points at the field. “Where do you want me to play?”

  “You can play in the outfield after you do twenty push-ups and five laps around the field,” says Ba. “That is the penalty for being late.”

  Martin throws his glove onto the ground. “That’s bull. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “It is unfair to your team for you to be late,” says Ba calmly. He raises his voice slightly. “Anyone who is late must do twenty push-ups and five laps around the field.”

  From the players’ faces, I’m sure some of them are thinking, Maybe twenty push-ups and five laps isn’t so bad compared to standing around watching people catch fly balls.

  Martin spends another few moments glaring at Ba. Then he walks off to the side and begins doing push-ups. As soon as he is done with his laps, Ba begins hitting the balls to him.

  The first practice feels like it’s never going to end.

  THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL, I WONDER WHAT MY PENALTY is going to be for Martin getting extra laps and push-ups from Ba. I don’t have to wait long.

  “Lee,” says Martin, backing me up against the slide during recess. “Your dad runs one bad practice. Bad Lee, get it? Badly.”

  I’m not sure what to say. It had been a boring practice. By the time everyone had finished their fielding drills, we only had fifteen minutes to scrimmage and do something like real baseball. The rest of the season just can’t be like this.

  “We need some batting practice. That defensive stuff is boring as all get out.” Maybe practice is extra boring for Martin because it is easy for him; he missed the fewest balls. Between grounders and fly balls, he only missed two grounders and two fly balls.

  Rickey Torres walks up. “You guys talking about practice last night?”

  “What’d you think, Torres?” Martin shifts his weight and spits on the ground.

  Rickey shrugs. “My dad’s always saying I need to work on my fielding, so I guess it was okay. It was just kind of boring, except for the scrimmaging at the end.” He looks at me. “No offense.”

  I put up a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “So, what’re you going to do about this situation, Lee?” asks Martin. “Are we going to get some hitting in next time?”

  “Yeah,” says Rickey. He takes a swing with an imaginary bat. “Now you’re talking!”

  “I’ll let Ba know,” I say. “About the hitting.”

  “Who?” Martin leans one ear toward me, like he has suddenly become hard of hearing.

  “Ba. My father. I call him Ba.”

  “Baaaaaaawwwwwww?” Martin stretches and exaggerates the sound. “What kind of name is that?”

  “It’s Chinese.” I try to sound serious and important, but part of me is wishing I had just said “my father.”

  “Aw.” Rickey looks at me and then looks away. “It’s all right.”

  It is not all right with Martin. “Baaaaaaaaa. How do you know a goat won’t come instead of your dad?”

  I glare at Martin and wish I had a good comeback.

  “Shut up,” I say.

  “How do you say ‘shut up’ in Chinese? Is it ching chang chong?”

  I turn and begin walking away. Just walk away, I tell myself, because the kid who throws the first punch always gets in the most trouble. Nelson told me that.

  “Hey!” Martin yells at me. “Don’t forget to talk to your dad!”

  I wait until the night before the next practice before talking to Ba. We are halfway through dinner before I bring it up. Laney is going on and on about a goldfinch she saw.

  “It was so beautiful!” she said. “It must have been a male, because it was this bright, bright shade of yellow. And the call—”

  If Laney gets started on making a birdcall, she won’t stop, so I interrupt. “Uh, Martin told me that he was hoping that we’d get some batting practice in.” Actually, I could never imagine Martin using a word like hoping. Ba’s forehead immediately wrinkles up.

  “Martin? Who is Martin?” asks Ba.

  “That really big kid with the brown hair,” I tell him. Since Ba is still frowning, I add, “The kid who came late and had to do push-ups.”

  “Oh yes! Martin. Is he one of your friends at school? Do you talk a lot?”

  No to friends. No to talking. “Something like that,” I say.

  Ba evidently thinks “something like that” means yes. “And the other boys, they are your friends, too?” He stops eating and leans forward a bit.

  I’m not sure what the point of this question is. “Sure. Sure they are. We’re all pals.”

  “Good.” Ba completely misses my sarcasm. “You should all be friends, because you’re all on the same team.”

  “Okay.” I say okay so it is half-word, half-sigh. Like most conversations with Ba, I think we’re talking about one thing, and it turns into a lecture about something else.

  “Tell your friends I am planning to have batting practice tomorrow,” Ba says.

  “The goldfinch call sounds like it’s saying po-ta-to chip,” announces Laney.

  The next day when we get to the field, Ba tells me to get the equipment bag out of the trunk of the car. It’s really heavy, and when I drop it in the dugout, I figure out why. About a half-dozen bats and helmets come spilling out of the bag. The helmets tumble out like boulders, while the bats roll on the ground in
small arcs.

  One of the bats is a Louisville Slugger with red tape on the handle.

  It’s Nelson’s.

  I’d know that bat anywhere. Even if I didn’t see the notches, I’d recognize the way the tape is peeling off the handle. I run my fingers over the notches, silently adding one. It should say fifty-three. Fifty-three home runs.

  I don’t know how Nelson’s bat ended up here, instead of packed away with everything else, but I am grateful. I feel like I’ve run into an old friend.

  “Peter, arrange the bats along the third-base line,” says Ba. “And get the bucket of balls.” He is standing at home plate, making notes on a clipboard.

  I wonder if Ba would know what the notches stood for if I showed him the bat. I wonder if he even knows this was Nelson’s.

  When Ba isn’t looking, I take the bat and lay it in the tall grass, along the fence behind the dugouts. The fence is supposed to separate the Port-o-Potties from the rest of the field, but no one comes back here—everyone uses the woods. I’ll come get it later, and then I’ll put it away, somewhere safe.

  Ba places a batting helmet next to each bat. He doesn’t notice that one is missing. After all the kids have arrived, including Martin, he has us warm up, and then we sit on the ground, waiting.

  “Today, we are going to work on the correct batting stance and swing,” Ba announces. He holds up a book. “We will be following the advice of this book. I would like Aaron, Sean, Jimmy, Martin, and Bobby to stand up and take a bat.”

  The guys he called stand up and pick up a bat. Ba asks them all to take a batting stance. Bobby is a lefty, so he stands slightly away from the others so he won’t knock bats with them. Then Ba shows us the front of his book. It says, The Young Man’s Guide to Baseball.

  Ba begins by reading about how a hitter should keep his head still while he is in a batting position. Actually, Ba doesn’t say “hitter,” he says “batsman” because that’s what the book says. A couple of kids smirk when he reads batsman for the first time, because it sounds like Batman.