“We’ll have to move you out of your room, abuelita, to put all of Junior’s trophies. What will you do when the newspaper reporters come to interview you about your major league grandson?” Bill asked her in Spanish.
She shook her head. “I don’t care about baseball,” she said.
These days Rickie doesn’t look at his trophies much. He used to wipe them down each week, but now they gather dust until his grandmother notices and cleans the top of his dresser. He doesn’t think about his future in baseball very often any more either. He used to see himself starring in high school, being scouted, signed, playing minor league ball in a town somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley or some place in the South, riding buses from game to game, finally getting his chance to go to “the Show.” That’s what they called it in a movie he’s seen. He wonders if they really do.
It isn’t as though he suddenly hates baseball. He still plays in a game every Wednesday and Saturday, practices Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. But the game has lost its luster. Baseball is no longer the sure avenue to the future it once seemed to be. He doesn’t know when the change took place. One day he became aware of feeling a desperate aloneness. He began to worry that he was going to die before he reached twenty. Lopez told the group that most kids feel these fears as they enter adolescence, but rather than ease the fear, her easy dismissiveness made Rickie angry. He wanted to shout to the world that he no longer cared about baseball or his trophies or his Xbox or the baseball and basketball cards he had so carefully preserved in plastic sheets inside large three-ring binders or Taz or anything that he had once thought important.
Life has lost dimension, has no depth or length or width, has simply become one day followed by another that amounts to nothing, like steps taken across an expanse of desert, one footstep in the sand looking exactly like the next, going nowhere, perhaps only in a circle. He wants to scream his fear about this to someone, but to whom? Lopez? Maybe. A teacher? A counselor? He snorts at those ideas. Teachers are all too wrapped up in their grades and lessons. Counselors never counsel. They have too many papers to sign, papers to sort, papers to file.
Who then? His brother? His sister? They’re too busy working. When they aren’t, Bill goes to parties and Daisy goes to school all the time. He wonders about them. Maybe they feel the same disconnectedness he does, and that’s why they go to school and parties and work, just to cover the emptiness where purpose and belief and happiness are supposed to be.
A TV stands on a bookshelf next to his dresser. The bookshelf has no books in it, but there are a few Xbox games, some DVDs, and some magazines, Low Riders and a few old issues of Mad and SI. His Xbox gathers dust on top of the TV.
Rickie hardly watches TV, but he lies back on the bed and turns it on with the remote as though to discover why it holds so little interest for him. He turns to a cartoon channel—little kids’ stuff. ESPN—car racing, two men talking about some upcoming race. MTV—girls in bikinis on a beach, one blonde, one dark, both with beautiful lips, full, round breasts barely covered by little triangles of cloth. They are jabbering about something and laughing. Who cares? Maybe they think they’re saying something important or funny, but they’re pathetic. He and every other boy knows why they’re there. He glances at the clock. Practice in twenty minutes. Ten minutes to walk to the park. He has time. Just him in the house. He reaches down and undoes his belt.
Normally he thinks about someone he knows, but not too well. Never the girls at school even though some of them, like Gloria, are hot. Not Claudia. They’re too close, too known. It has to be an adult, someone young, a little distant but who clearly knows things. Like the young woman next door who says hi to him, whose nurse’s uniforms are tight across the hips and breasts. Or some young female teacher who might wear a skirt a little too short and sit facing him with her legs open just enough or a blouse too loose, who might thoughtlessly or, even better, on purpose, lean over to work with another student and reveal the rounded globes of her breasts, then look up and catch him and smile knowingly. Women who know, who touch him, pet him, caress him, who kiss him passionately but with tearful, sympathetic eyes, who want him in a way they never want boyfriends or husbands, who find ways for the two of them to be alone--in a darkened classroom, in the back seat of a car, here in this room, the women sneaking in and out of the window, feverish to get to him because only he can quiet their moaning, their clutching hands, their bodies writhing beneath him or swooping and diving on top of him; only he can bring them to hissing, grunting, high-arching, wild-eyed release.
As he cleans himself, he becomes aware of the noise and jumble of images issuing from the TV depicting teenagers playing sports on the beach or driving, everybody beautiful and rich enough to spend their time doing nothing but this, against the background of a song he doesn’t recognize but he’s sure is a song by a rock band that white kids listen to. He clicks the TV off and silence fills the room. He lies on the bed without moving. He experiences the emptiness he always feels afterwards. Now that release has come, he plumbs the depths of his need and feels the absence of tenderness and mother-loving. That’s what he misses. When he and a girl finally do it, Claudia probably, he fears that he will feel just like this. Will he search her face and not know her?
CHAPTER 5
Rickie shows up for practice about a minute before it begins.
“I don’t know why,” he says when his coach gently chides him about being the last one there, the first one gone.
“You used to be the first one here and didn’t leave until it was dark. What happened?”
“I don’t like hanging around.”
“Mi’ jo, with your skills… A little extra practice around the bag, a little more hitting… This is the time to put in the extra effort.”
“I’ll try next practice, Coach,” Rickie says, but they both know he won’t be there early.
Rickie takes batting practice. He never tries to hit for power. He is short and thin, delicate for a seventeen-year-old. Occasionally someone in the past felt safe calling him puto or maricón because of his small stature, but they didn’t know about the anger he wore below the surface like a fiery undergarment. One time, when he was in eighth grade, Rickie went after a kid more than twice his size. They were out on the field at P.E. A group of boys was choosing up sides and positions for flag football. Rickie told a big kid that he was too slow to be quarterback.
“Hey, maricón, suck my dick,” the kid said to him.
They were standing in a group waiting for the teacher to come out from the gym office with the flags, belts and football; the teachers always took their time getting out to the field.
The big kid’s friend knew about Rickie. “What do you want to say that for, fool? You are too slow. You should block.”
“Shut up.”
Rickie didn’t wait. He charged the kid and knocked him down. When he was on top of him, he began to hit him as hard as he could in the face. When the kid was bleeding from his mouth and nose, Rickie seemed to grow more dangerous and detached. The big kid howled and held Rickie’s hands away with fearful desperation. The others dragged Rickie off, and Alex held him in a bear hug until the rage passed. By the time the teacher got there, everything was over. The big kid said he’d been tackled hard and hit his face. The teacher looked at the other boys, and they all concurred. The teacher shrugged and sent him to the nurse.
“Let’s play flag football, guys, okay? No more rough stuff,” the teacher said.
From that day on they called Rickie “the shark” or Jaws; a boy who witnessed this attack said that Rickie’s eyes looked like a shark’s eyes during a feeding frenzy. The name stuck, but only a few referred to it openly. Rickie was proud of his reputation; that’s when he adopted his tag, “Grt Whyt.” The big boy, Alberto, and all of his friends who had been there or heard about it later, were sure that Rickie was crazy and would kill someone one day. He and his friends kept their distance from Rickie and didn’t make eye contact with him when they passed him
in the hallway.
Rickie performs with a liquid grace at second base that sometimes surprises even him; when someone asks him about it, he says he sees everything that’s about to happen before it does. He occasionally catches Coach Vega marveling at his talent: he has agility, speed, a great glove, and intelligence in the field and at the plate. He can hit the curve and the fastball, can lay down a bunt, take a pitch when called upon, or hit behind the runner in a hit and run. He can turn a double play smoothly. Rickie shines with pride when he knows he is playing well and the coach is watching.
He’s been there, too, in a nearby booth with other teammates, when the coaches talk about players at their Saturday morning meetings at Denny’s; when they compare notes, laugh about some players, speak with a kind of reverence about others. After a while, the coaches forget that players are in booths within hearing distance.
“That kid, your second baseman, he’s got skills.”
“Skills? Just skills? The kid is amazing.”
“Are you just realizing that, man? The kid’s been playing like that for years.”
“Did you see him against us?” another coach joins in. Most of the coaches are at the fields for one another’s games. “Damn! We’ve got runners at first and third, no outs. The batter, you know, Sammy, hits a hard grounder over second. Your kid, I don’t know how, he gets there, backhands it, holds the runner at third, flips an easy throw behind his back to the shortstop who throws on to first for a double play. I thought I was watching the damn Dodgers for a moment. The next kid strikes out and we lose the game by a run. Your kid has got baseball sense, compa. He knows the game like from birth. You want to trade him?”
“Yeah, for your centerfielder who lost his pants chasing the ball to the fence?”
“Mi cinto se rompio!” the coach says, making a sad clown face and whining. “I found a piece of rope in the bag and belted his lardass up good!”
Everyone laughs. They played ball in high school and at the local junior colleges together. After they joined the workforce, they formed a park league and coached.
“Or how about mine? Fernando,” one of the others joins in. “His jefita makes tamales last Friday night. I’ve had her tamales--”
The others seated around the booth let out a chorus of “Ooohs” and “Aaahs,” raise their eyebrows, elbow each other and laugh.
“I’ve heard about her tamales.”
“What did Cynthia say when you told her that you were eating another vieja’s tamales?”
“No, man, Cynthia was there. It was the team picnic. Pinches cabrones! What do you take me for?” he asks and everyone laughs again. “Anyway, she makes them real hot, man, and the kid pigs out. Game time Saturday, the kid’s in the Andy Gump. He’s supposed to catch. ‘Fernando, que pasa? Are you sick?’ I call at the door. He’s in there moaning. ‘Oh, man, I’ve got the cold sweats. I’m sick.’ He moans again like a bull, man, and I hear that awful sound, you know, chorro. ‘Fernando, how’s your culo? Did you eat too many chiles?’ I’m laughing now. ‘Tamales. Don’t laugh, Coach, I think I’m going to die. It burns! I’m never going to eat again.’ The kid spends the whole game going back and forth to the Andy Gump. He’s green, man, sweat all over his forehead, and on a hot day, he’s cold. And we lose the game, too. Our power hitter spends the whole time in the Andy Gump!” Rickie and the other boys sitting in the booth with him snicker at this, and Coach Vega raises his eyebrows at them; they look down at their sodas.
The coach across from Miguel Vega asks quietly, “Did your kid, what’s his name? Rickie? Did he play ball at school this season?” Rickie strains to hear.
“No. Bad grades. He got in trouble with the law.” The coach lowers his voice, glances over at Rickie, who pretends to listen to a joke a teammate is telling. “He got caught with a car. I don’t know. He doesn’t talk. He’s like a ghost. The kids, the other players, they respect him, but he’s not real close to any of them. He comes to the field alone, leaves alone. Most of the time. Sometimes there’s this other kid, tall, real dark, moreno, real quiet, who sits in the stands. Looks like a gangster with his Dickies and long T-shirts. Never causes any problems. When he’s there, they leave together. But that’s all.”
“Any family ever show up?”
“He’s got an older brother, maybe a sister, too, but they don’t live around here. Sylmar, maybe. He came to a game once, asked about his kid brother. I told him he was doing great. I’m not going to tell him that I worry that the kid is too quiet, too alone, that it’s scary for a kid not to have a single friend on the team. It’s not my place.”
Rickie and the other players in the booth overhear all of this conversation; he sits with his head down looking intently at the empty glass in front of him. Finally, the boy sitting across from him says quietly, “That’s not true, dude. We’re your friends, aren’t we?” The others nod or agree quietly. Rickie looks up at them gratefully, even though he knows it isn’t true; he has done very little to encourage their friendship. Maybe he will try to do that during next season.
As he takes infield practice, Rickie notices Alex sitting in the stands. Alex is tall and muscular. He has a shaved head and a little goatee. His skin is dark and his eyes are black, and he looks sullen and menacing until he smiles. His smile is radiant, but Rickie suspects Alex rarely displays it because he fears it makes him look vulnerable.
Rickie gives Alex a quick nod as he heads out to second base to take infield practice.
Now Rickie knows what nags at him. It returns to the forefront of his mind as he picks up a slow roller and shovels it to the shortstop. He doesn’t put enough on it and it falls at the shortstop’s feet.
“C’mon, Rickie,” Coach yells. “Get with it. Concentrate.”
Oscar is bothering him.
Oscar from Pacoima, tall and light-skinned with a sharp, intolerant face, scoffs at the fact that Rickie and Alex stole a car; brags about gang-raping a young girl who’d been given something to knock her out at a party; says he robbed a 7-Eleven in San Fernando, and who served time in Juvy for almost kicking a kid to death.
“You alone?” Dennis had asked skeptically. Dennis is tall and thin like Oscar, but his face is uncomplicated and young. They were sitting on a bench at school in the shade; it’s lunchtime.
“No, fool, a bunch of us.”
“How many?” Tony asked. Tony and Dennis have never done anything except tag and shoplift. Tony is heavy and slow; he and Dennis are best friends.
“I don’t know. Five, six.”
“Shit,” Dennis said. “Anyone can do that. How’d you get caught?”
“The kid didn’t die, and we didn’t kick him hard enough in the head. He ID’d us.”
The members of the crew don’t talk about it openly, but everyone looks to Rickie. They know, too, that he has to do something to equal Oscar or in some subtle way, Oscar will take control. It aches in the pit of Rickie’s stomach. The idea of joining five or six other people to rape a girl or kick a kid until he’s almost dead holds no interest for him. That’s bullying, what others wanted to do to him since he was a little boy. That’s why he hates Oscar: he’s like all of the kids he had to fight and beat up so that he wouldn’t be beaten up instead. Mean and cowardly, depending on a group rather than fighting one on one, that’s how people like Oscar fight. Rickie will have to beat him up, hurt him, hit him until someone pulls him off because that’s the only way to ensure being left alone. Unless Oscar gets stupid and arms himself with a weapon. A kid did just that a couple of months before, brought a baseball bat to school, but the vato he attacked was twice his size. The bat only dazed him for a moment, and the assailant knew he was in trouble. He was grateful when the school cop caught him jumping the fence. He was put away in Juvy for a while.
Or like the dropout who came for someone after school and stood in the crosswalk brandishing a golf club. He even swung it at a female assistant principal. A driver who figured out what was going on and who was probably pissed at having to wait
so long, drove right at the kid and knocked him down. The school cop subdued him, and the driver drove on.
If Oscar is dumb enough to come at him with a weapon, Rickie will have to beat him even worse. But even that won’t be enough. He will have to do something that shows reckless disdain for human life and for the law, no matter whether Oscar’s stories are true. And he will have to do it soon.
The team goes through practice listlessly, no matter how much Coach Vega yells at them.
Anger and frustration play across the coach’s face as he stands in the batter’s box leaning on the bat and watching the languid play of his team on the field.
“You guys look like you don’t care out there.”
When he gathers them around after practice, he says, “You got a big game tomorrow, and you don’t look like you give a damn if you win or not. You think they’re going to hand you the win? Think again. They’re a good team. They’re going to fight you to be in the championship. What is it? Too hot? Too tired? Is that it? Let’s see how hot and tired you are. Five times around.”
Everyone groans.
“If I see any slackers, it’s another five for everyone. Let’s go! On your feet. Now!”
They scramble to their feet and begin their jog around the field.
“Rickie,” the coach calls. “Come over here.”
Rickie walks toward the coach down the first baseline. The afternoon has begun to cool slightly now that the sun is low on the horizon. The scent of heated pine trees fills the air. Mockingbirds trill and whistle in the branches.
“You’re supposed to be a leader out there. What’s going on? Where’s your spirit? Where’s your hustle?” the coach asks. “Laziness is unacceptable.”
Rickie says nothing. He stands facing the coach looking down at his spikes.
“I need to count on you,” Coach Vega says. When Rickie still doesn’t respond, the coach says, “Well?”
Rickie Trujillo Page 3
