Base Ball Dads

by Matthew Hiley

  Dave started giggling at the idea of both of them smoking weed at the same time and motioned for Dwayne to roll his window down. “Hey, bro, you need any more weed?”

  “No, Dave, I appreciate it though.”

  “Things not working out the way you’d hoped?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Dwayne froze. He didn’t want to give this jackass any indication that he’d been involved in the Ricky Dale situation.

  Dave looked puzzled. He always looked puzzled, but even more so this time. “Oh. Never mind. I got some good weed back at the trailer if you ever wanna come smoke out or something.”

  “Sounds great, Dave. I’ll put it on my calendar.”

  Dwayne rolled his window back up and tossed the joint on the ground as he exited his vehicle. He walked back into the ballpark, as batting practice had begun, and took a seat by his crew.

  Pete was pitching the ball to the batters. He couldn’t pitch a single ball into the strike zone. It frustrated Pete to no end that Dwayne, Russ, Tommy, and Steve were in the bleachers, watching … judging … harassing.

  “I think they sell some good stuff for pitching practice at Target, Pete,” Tommy yelled out to him.

  “I mean, you could probably pick something up while you’re greeting people at Walmart,” Russ added. “But Walmart stuff sucks. Target is way better.”

  Pete was sweating. He was about to lose it. He continued to throw balls everywhere but where a kid could hit. The kids were swinging wildly, swatting the bats high and low, trying to make something connect.

  “Wow,” Tommy continued. “This is such a huge loss for Major League Baseball. I can’t believe you never got signed. But Walmart sure scored. Damn, they are one lucky company to have you.”

  “Did you throw your arm out stacking tampons on the shelves? I hear that stacking tampons has ruined several otherwise potentially great athletes,” Russ shouted.

  “Guys, PLEASE!” Pete screamed. “I can’t concentrate!”

  Pete went through the first seven batters without throwing a strike. The catcher was sweating profusely from having to dive in every direction while attempting to catch the wild pitches.

  “Hey, Pete, if your arm gets sore, I think they have sports cream on aisle seven,” Russ yelled. “I’m sure you know where the sports cream is, being such a fucking athlete.”

  “Jesus, Russ,” Dwayne said. “There are kids around.”

  Everyone was suddenly silent as Alex came out to bat. Dwayne almost didn’t let him bat because he didn’t want him to get in the habit of swinging at bad pitches. He was too pissed off to stop him, though.

  The first pitch that Pete threw to Alex was high and inside. It wasn’t intentionally high and inside, but that just happened to be where it went. And Alex loved the high and inside ball. He ripped into it with his gorgeous, natural swing … absolutely crushed it. It was a beautiful ball, sailing as sweet and deep as a ball can sail toward center field. It cleared the smiling, leathery face of Ricky Dale on the Ricky Dale’s Furniture Store Official Scoreboard by a good ten feet.

  Everyone in attendance stared at the face of Ricky Dale looking down upon them. Pete took his hat off as a gesture of respect. Ace dropped to the ground in tears. It was a touching moment.

  “FUCK YEAH, ALEX!” Russ jumped to his feet. “WAY TO KNOCK THE SHIT OUTTA THAT BALL!!!”

  Alex took off running around the bases, as you would in an important game with everything on the line. He raised his arms up in the air as he rounded third base and headed home. Jonathan, TJ, and Jackson all ran to home plate to tackle him.

  The rest of the team had their arms around Ace, who sobbed uncontrollably.

  “That’s it for the day, people,” Pete announced to the nannies, parents, and kids. “We’ll practice again day after tomorrow, same time. I’m sure I’ll see most of you at the funeral. Take care.”

  Pete set off solemnly toward the dugout.

  “Thanks, Pete,” Russ replied. “That was really cool of Walmart to supply your wardrobe, by the way.”

  Pete began to gather his things, as did the kids. He was angry and embarrassed at how the practice had gone, especially the heckling from Russ and Tommy. No one respected him. It was just like when he told his family he’d gotten a job at Walmart.

  Alex ran up and hugged his dad. Dwayne’s eyes teared up momentarily. Alex knew how much his dad wanted him to be happy, and he knew it upset him when he had to play left field again. Hitting the ball over the fence vindicated both of them.

  Dwayne didn’t have much to say to anyone as he walked out to his car with his son. He felt drained. Pete had taken the wind out of his sails. He told himself he would fight on, though. He wasn’t going to give up. He liked who he was becoming. He had hope for his family, his business, his marriage …

  He watched Pete with a simmering gaze as Pete exited the field juggling a large bucket of balls, a bat bag, and catcher’s gear.

  His jaw dropped as he watched Pete pop the trunk open on a five-year-old burgundy Toyota Avalon.

  17.

  Dwayne dropped Alex off at the house. He told him to let Estelle know he didn’t get a chance to finish his work that day and had to head back to the warehouse. “She’ll understand,” he assured Alex with a smile.

  Dwayne couldn’t face Estelle right then. Things had been going too well. He needed to think about things. Technically, he thought to himself, she’d had sex with Pete before things were looking better between the two of them. So he might be able to give her a pass this time.

  But Pete? Seriously? She had to fuck a guy that worked at Walmart? Jesus. He had known for a while that she’d slept around, but he didn’t care then because he didn’t even like her. Now, he thought, he might be falling back in love with her. And that Walmart thing really bugged him.

  Dwayne needed to have a few stiff drinks and talk it over with a friend. He wasn’t looking for advice. He wanted someone to shut up and listen. He definitely didn’t feel like dealing with Russ, and Tommy was too woven into the social-climber scene to be trusted. Those two would never let him live it down if they knew Estelle had allowed a Walmart guy to throw a bone at her.

  He dialed his phone.

  “This is Steve.”

  “What’s going on, bro?”

  “Just looking at my teachers’ progress reports and watching MSNBC. You?”

  “Awww, man, I just need to have a few drinks and talk to somebody. I was gonna see if you wanted to join me.”

  “I would, but I—”

  “Thanks, man. I’ll see you at The Tavern in ten minutes.”

  Dwayne whipped the Audi into the run down old parking lot of The Tavern. It seemed a little bit out of place. He usually drove his truck there. The Tavern was a run-down old joint on the outskirts of the good part of town. Dwayne liked it, though. The people were real. You might actually get knifed if you ordered anything other than beer, tequila, or whiskey.

  Dwayne waited until Steve pulled up. He arrived in his Prius and parked it between two heavy-duty GMC diesel trucks. Steve hopped out of his 50-MPG Democrat hauler wearing gray corduroys and a tight white silk Sean John t-shirt.

  “Holy Jesus,” Dwayne said. “Are you trying to get us killed? What the hell is that shirt, man?”

  “It’s Sean John, by Puff Daddy, or P. Diddy, or Diddy. Why?”

  “Didn’t they at least sell them in your size?”

  “It’s formfitting. And it’s a really nice shirt. I’ll have you know that several kids at my school have been beat up for their Sean John clothes.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  “No, I meant they got beat up in a good way.”

  “Of course. Hopefully, tonight you won’t find out that there’s really no difference between being beat up in a good way and being beat up in a bad way.”

  The two friends perched themselves atop a couple of barstools near the end of the bar. On the old square television hanging above a wall of cheap liquor, Dwayne wa
s glad to see that the Rangers were up over the Angels 6–0.

  “Two cold ones and two whiskeys, neat, please,” Dwayne called out to the pregnant, acne-scarred bartender.

  She poured the drinks and slid them in front of Dwayne and Steve. Steve recognized her from his high school a couple of years back. She’d been to his office several times. This was exactly where he told her she would end up if she didn’t get her shit together. Steve’s disapproving look was trumped by her look, which said I’ll fucking gut you like a fish. He decided not to talk to her.

  “So, what’s going on, man?” Steve asked in his best school counselor tone.

  Dwayne turned up the whiskey glass and slammed it, wincing and feeling the burn as he turned to answer. “Estelle is having an affair.”

  He tapped the counter for a refill.

  “Oh, Jesus, Dwayne, I’m sorry,” Steve replied. “Is it Russ?”

  Dwayne shot a disgusted sideways glance at Steve.

  “Russ?! Are you fucking kidding me? Why the fuck would it be Russ?”

  The bartender set another whiskey down for Dwayne. He slammed it and tapped the bar for another, waiting for Steve to answer.

  “I don’t know, man. It’s just the way he always talks about her to you. And Tommy. He mentions covering her ass in honey at least a half-dozen times a day. He never talks about my wife that way.”

  “Steve, Judith has a terrible ass. It’s huge. It’s not proportionate at all to the rest of her body.”

  Dwayne looked at Steve. He’d gone too far. He could tell he’d hurt his feelings.

  “I’m sorry, bro,” Dwayne said consolingly. He threw an arm around Steve. “That wasn’t cool. Judith’s a sweet girl. I’m sure she’s got great tits or something.”

  The two sat for several minutes in silence. The bartender continued to bring refills of whiskey and beer. Dwayne built up a healthy buzz.

  “So anyhow,” Dwayne broke the silence. “I asked you here because I needed to talk. I thought I turned over a new leaf today, bro, and it was really working for me. I got my shit together at work. Estelle stopped by the office and rode me like a mechanical bull. Things were going great, seemed like they might turn around. Then that Walmart bastard Pete fucked up the baseball practice.”

  “Yeah, he sure did. Same old shit.”

  “And he’s the one that’s fucking Estelle.”

  It was a hell of a bomb to drop. Steve was beside himself. He went into total shock. He picked up his whiskey and slammed it, tapping the bar afterward for another.

  “I don’t mean to rub salt in the wound here, Dwayne,” Steve said. “But you know you can’t make fun of Judith anymore. I mean, you know me, I’m not a big ‘class warfare’ kind of guy. But he fucking works at Walmart, man.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “That’s gotta sting, Dwayne.”

  “It does.”

  “So what’re you gonna do? You could probably get past it if it were a Men’s Warehouse, or hell, even a Target. Target is pretty nice these days. I mean … Even Costco has stepped up their game. But Walmart? No sir. They don’t even try, man.”

  “I know. Even if it were Sears, or JC Penney, I mean … Christ, just give me something to work with, you know?”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  Dwayne slammed another whiskey. He was good and drunk now.

  “I don’t think I could’ve said this last week, or hell, even yesterday. But I think I love her, man.”

  Steve hunched over the bar and stirred his whiskey with his finger while he pondered the situation. Was Walmart something they could get past? Would it eat at Dwayne for the rest of his life?

  “I think you’ve gotta try, Dwayne. You’ve got Alex to think of here. You need to take control of the situation and fix it.”

  Dwayne rose to his feet. He could feel it again: that really good feeling about the way life was going. He knew he could get past this. It was worth a try.

  “Thanks for being a friend, Steve.” Dwayne extended his hand in gratitude.

  Steve reached out and shook it, clasping his other hand on top for a more heartfelt gesture of support.

  “And if you tell anyone about this,” Dwayne pulled Steve in close, “I’ll rip your fucking arms off and beat you to death with them.”

  Steve’s smile dropped from his face. Dwayne turned and walked out the door.

  Once he was in the Audi, Dwayne sparked up another joint. He turned the music up loud. It was Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” He threw the car in reverse and punched the gas. He flew over the curb and into the middle of the road in a stunt-like reverse 180, popped the car down into drive, and sped toward home.

  Only … he didn’t go home. Dwayne drove past his street and headed to Walmart.

  18.

  There was a fire burning deep in Dwayne’s soul. It was consuming him. It was that same level of emotion that had made him call every past-due customer. The same level of emotion that had pushed him to make love to his wife on top of his desk two more times than she had expected. It was that same level of emotion, only darker.

  Dwayne parked in a quiet corner of the Walmart parking lot. From this spot, he had full visibility of the entrances and exits. It was a twenty-four-hour Walmart, he told himself, so he would have to be alert, watching every single vehicle.

  He wasn’t prepared for the midnight creatures of Walmart. It was mainly the meth-lab crowd: shirtless men and tube-topped women, all with mullets, carting around four- and five-year-old children, each wearing nothing but a diaper and drinking a coke. There were several “Dixie flag” bumper stickers on rusted vehicles with mismatched tires. It was a sight to behold. If they hung in there long enough, Dwayne thought, MTV might come along and give them a reality show, turning the process of evolution and the idea of celebrity completely on its head yet again.

  He waited, lit a joint, and then waited more. His head began to fall every few moments from utter exhaustion. His eyes began to close. He managed to slap himself back to a state of alert several times before giving way to a whiskey- and weed-induced slumber.

  A couple of hours later, a truck door slammed and jolted him to consciousness. He popped up, ready for action. It was 3:00 a.m.

  Dwayne started his car and put it into drive. He still felt hammered. Just as he turned his vehicle’s lights on, he noticed a five-year-old burgundy Toyota Avalon making its way into the lot.

  Dwayne’s heart raced. He was sweaty and mad, and had a crick in his neck. Neil Diamond’s “America” played on the radio. Obviously, the station he had been listening to switched formats after he passed out. He turned it up anyway, inching the Audi to the end of the row of cars where the Avalon was parking.

  No one was around. Dwayne watched Pete Rearden, showered and ready to kick ass for another day at Walmart, exit his Avalon and walk to the rear of it. He began to stack files of paperwork beneath his arms as he hunched himself over, digging around in the trunk.

  The rage overtook Dwayne. He jammed his foot down on the gas pedal, and proved the manufacturer’s impressive zero-to-sixty claims to be spot-on. Pete turned to look at Dwayne at the last second, right before Dwayne nailed him head-on, sending him high into the night sky over the Audi with a full flip. Files of paper exploded into the air.

  “Clean up on aisle four, motherfucker!” Dwayne screamed as Neil Diamond belted out the climax of the song with all his heart. He jacked the brakes hard and looked in the rearview mirror.

  “Oh, shit,” he whispered. He wasn’t scared; he just hadn’t planned anything out.

  Dwayne threw the car in reverse and stopped just short of Pete. He got out of the vehicle and looked around. There was still no one. Pete was in bad shape. His legs were a mangled mess. He had propped himself up on his elbows and was trying to drag himself to safety. Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth. Dwayne had no idea how Pete was still conscious.

  He popped the trunk on the Audi, impressed as the day he bought it at the ample trunk spac
e. The salesman at the time had joked that there was room for three bodies back there. Dwayne needed room for only one.

  He reached inside Alex’s baseball bag and pulled out his $349 lucky tournament bat. He walked up behind Pete and took a full swing at his head, making that glorious Tink! sound that bats make when you put one over the fence.

  Thankfully, Dwayne had spent a lot of time in his warehouse loading huge bags of dirt onto trucks. It was good training for loading a body into a trunk. It had always seemed so difficult in movies, he thought to himself, but this wasn’t that bad at all. Dwayne threw the bat on top of Pete’s lifeless body in the trunk, slammed it shut, and headed to the warehouse. Pete’s spreadsheets and files flew up from the pavement in a horizontal tornado behind him as Dwayne hauled ass out of the parking lot.

  He cranked up the radio again. It was more easy listening. He didn’t mind. Dwayne was an easygoing kind of guy. He slapped his hands on the steering wheel to the percussion genius of Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.” When he arrived at his office a few miles away, he was singing The Commodores’ “Sail On” at the top of his lungs. God, those Commodores could sing.

  He felt great.

  19.

  He pulled to one of the large warehouse doors around the back of the property, opened it up, drove the Audi in, and closed it again immediately. He then moved the car to the rear of the cavernous interior where the heavy equipment was housed. As he parked next to the hoist and leaf shredder, Dwayne heard soft thumps coming from the trunk. Pete wasn’t quite dead yet.

  Dwayne looked at his watch. It was 3:37 a.m. He was making good time. He knew that his work crews would start showing up around 6:30 a.m. He had enough time to make sure he did things right.

  Dwayne grabbed some thick vinyl zip ties and opened the trunk.

  “Dwayne,” Pete sobbed. “Please … help me.”