Heavy Hitters

by Mike Lupica

  “Even if you can’t seem to get it out of the way of pitched baseballs these days,” she said. “Whether they’re being thrown by humans or nonhumans.”

  “I’ve just got to do a better job of getting out of the way,” he said.

  His dad grinned. “You think?”

  “Next time,” Ben said.

  “Which won’t be practice today,” his dad said. “Lots of ice the rest of the day, no baseball.”

  “I’m still going to practice,” Ben said. “Even if all I do is run around on the bases a little bit.”

  “I’m just asking,” his dad said, “but do you suppose you’ll be able to accomplish that without the ball finding you?”

  “The parents on Modern Family aren’t as funny as you two,” Ben said, “no kidding.”

  “Thank you for noticing,” his dad said.

  His mom said, “And here I thought football was the only contact sport I had to worry about with my baby boy.”

  Me, too, Ben thought.

  Me, too.

  * * *

  Ben didn’t remember until he saw Justin at practice that he’d forgotten to call him back the day before.

  Justin was warming up on the side with Darrelle, Clayton and Shawn. Ben wanted to be out there with them, but he wasn’t allowed to even play catch today, parents’ orders. They’d even taped his wrist, his mom saying it was as much a reminder for him not to use his left hand as anything else.

  “Sorry I forgot to call you back, J,” Ben said.

  Then he held up his wrist, showing him the tape. “I was too busy getting a hit-by-pitch from a ball machine.”

  The guys stopped throwing. “You’re making that up,” Darrelle said.

  “Wish I was.”

  Shawn said, “How come you didn’t tell us at the pool?”

  “Would you cop to something like that if you didn’t have to?” Ben said.

  Darrelle said, “Please tell me you’re not hurt bad.”

  “Just my pride.”

  “Didn’t you say before the season that one of our goals was for nobody to get hurt?” Shawn said.

  “This is it for me, promise,” Ben said. Then he said to Justin, “Anyway, sorry again about yesterday.”

  “No worries.”

  Justin threw the ball back to Darrelle, said he was warmed up, went over and sat down on the bench. Ben went with him.

  “So what’s up?” Ben said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Must’ve been something,” Ben said. “You wanted to come over.”

  Justin turned and looked right at Ben. “Now you want to talk?”

  “I would’ve remembered to call you back,” Ben said, “if I hadn’t been so busy being what my dad likes to call a chowderhead.”

  He held up his taped wrist again and said, “No kidding, who do you think feels worse right now, you for having to miss a game or me?” Smiling as he did.

  “Me,” Justin Bard said in a low voice.

  “C’mon,” Ben said, “what did you want to talk about?”

  “I told you,” Justin said, “it was nothing.”

  “Was it about throwing the bat?” Ben said. “You just had a bad moment, is all. Happens to everybody.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Justin said. “The worst thing that ever happens to you is getting hit by a couple of baseballs.”

  “That’s not true,” Ben said. “You saw how I scuffled going up against Chase in basketball, we were on the same team. You know it was my fault that Sam got hurt and missed most of the season. And everybody can see how messed up I am at the plate right now.”

  “You can come out of slumps,” Justin said, staring out at the field, Sam and Coop throwing with Shawn now.

  “Is there something going on you’re not telling me?” Ben said. “Talk to me, man.”

  Still staring at the field Justin said, “I wanted to talk yesterday.”

  Ben said, “I’m trying to be your friend.”

  Justin stood up. “That’s what I wanted you to be yesterday,” he said, and started jogging toward the outfield, running all the way to the right-field fence and then making his way toward center.

  By the time he got back, Mr. Brown said he was ready to pitch himself some serious BP.

  “Who wants to hit first?” Mr. Brown said.

  “I will,” Justin said, batting helmet already on his head, Ben not sure if he was anxious to take some swings, or just wanted to get it over with.

  Justin grabbed his bat, got into the left-hander’s side of the box, took the same stance he’d been using since the first time they’d all played together, the stance he said his dad had taught him in their backyard. Feet wide apart, hands set right near his left shoulder, just the slightest waggle to his bat as he waited for Mr. Brown’s first pitch.

  “Okay, big man,” Mr. Brown said. “Let’s have some fun today.”

  Justin lined the first pitch he saw over first base so hard that Shawn, who was standing there, didn’t even have time to get his glove up.

  Then Justin hit the next pitch over the right-field fence, making everybody on the field at Highland Park whoop and holler, right before Justin hit the next pitch.

  No smile from Justin, no change of expression. He just set the bat and waited for everybody to settle down.

  “Better dial it up a little, Dad,” Sam said. “He’s making you look like this is slow-pitch softball.”

  Coop said, “That’s actually kind of insulting to slow-pitch pitchers.”

  “Dig in, Justin,” Mr. Brown said. “You’re going to have to pay for the serious chirp I’m getting.”

  Sam, waiting to hit, said, “Chirp, Dad? Really? Please don’t try to talk like us.”

  “I’m feelin’ you on that,” Mr. Brown said, and now Sam just said, “Oh God.”

  Justin hit the next pitch to the base of the centerfield wall, didn’t even look as if he’d swung hard. Ben was totally focused on Justin now, watching how cool he was in the batter’s box, how little wasted motion there was, how short his stride was. Wondering what had changed inside him since Friday night’s game, when he’d looked as if he couldn’t play dead. Saw how focused Justin was.

  Saw no fear in him, none, as Mr. Brown did try to crank it up now.

  Justin went to the opposite field this time, hit one over the left-field fence. Still not looking as if he were swinging as hard as Ben knew he could. Ben didn’t know what was bothering Justin these days, why he’d acted like a stranger when Ben had tried to talk to him before, but all Ben knew watching him hit was that he would have changed places with him in a heartbeat.

  Coop was behind the plate, in his catcher’s gear.

  “Okay, boys, Justin Bard is back,” he said.

  Took off his mask, grinning, being Coop, and said, “Good thing, too. We were thinking about trading you right out of town.”

  Justin wheeled on him, his face red, just like that, and yelled, “Shut up, Coop!

  The force of it actually made Coop step back.

  “Dude,” he said, “I was joking.”

  “Well, you’re not funny,” Justin said, his voice still way too loud, too hot for what Coop had said.

  “Hey,” Coop said. “Relax.”

  “Don’t tell me to relax,” Justin said.

  He took a step toward Coop. Ben couldn’t believe what he was watching, but he was running over from the bench as Mr. Brown came running in from behind the mound.

  Justin took a step toward Coop, but Ben knew Cooper Manley well enough to know that he was through backing up.

  “Hey,” Coop said, “it’s not my fault you threw your bat.”

  “I told you to shut up, Manley.”

  Now he was Manley.

  Ben didn’t have to step between them because Mr. Brown already had.

  “I don’t know what this is about,” he said to Justin. “But I don’t think Coop meant anything by what he was saying. I think you owe him an apology, Justin.”

&nbs
p; Justin, still staring at Coop, said, “You’re not my father.”

  “No,” Mr. Brown said. “But I am your coach. And I think maybe you need to take the rest of the day off.”

  “Fine,” Justin said. One last word coming out of him hot.

  He turned and walked over to the bench. Took off his helmet, dropped his bat on the ground, grabbed his glove, got on his bike, and then was gone.

  Nobody on the field, not even Mr. Brown, said anything right away. They all just watched until Justin’s bike had disappeared.

  Finally Mr. Brown said to Sam, “You’re up.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said.

  Coop said to Ben, “What was that?”

  “Unclear,” Ben McBain said. “But I’m going to find out.”

  Somehow find a way to be the friend today that Justin wanted him to be yesterday.

  “We could go with you,” Sam said to Ben after practice.

  “I should go,” Coop said. “It was my big mouth that made his head explode.”

  They were all standing near the bike rack that was between the home team’s bench and the fence at Highland Park.

  “It had to be more than what you said,” Shawn said to Coop. “You’ve said a lot dumber things than that.”

  “A lot,” Sam said, nodding.

  “I get it, okay?” Coop said. “I get it.”

  “Seriously?” Shawn said. “He acted like you stole his phone.”

  “Or broke it,” Sam said.

  “I think I gotta do this myself,” Ben said. “I’m the one he wanted to talk to in the first place, even if he says it was nothing.”

  “You don’t even know if he went home,” Sam said.

  “Then all I did was make a trip over there,” Ben said.

  “It’s a haul getting to his house,” Coop said.

  “Nothing’s that much of a haul in Rockwell,” Ben said.

  “Call us after,” Sam said, “maybe we can get pizza or something.”

  Ben said he would and headed off on his bike. It wasn’t just him not knowing if Justin would be home or not. He didn’t know if Justin would even want to talk if he was home. But he had to do something, that much he did know. Justin had freaked as much with Coop — basically over nothing — as he had throwing his bat the way he did in the Darby game.

  The only times he’d ever been to Justin Bard’s house was for birthday parties. It was right next to Rockwell Country Club, part of something called Country Club Estates, big houses with a gate and a little guard shack in front, the guard having to buzz you in, Ben remembered, if you didn’t live there.

  It was on the north side of Rockwell, from Highland Park you had to go back through town to get there, go past the high school, go all the way to the imaginary town line between Rockwell and Silver Springs. Ben didn’t know how long it took him to get there from the field, didn’t check the time on his phone when he left. He just knew that Coop was right. It was a haul. But the whole way over, he kept going over in his head the weirdness with Justin and Coop, how mad Justin had gotten. Nobody ever got that mad at Coop.

  Justin had, and all because Coop had tried to give Justin a funny shout-out on the most awesome batting practice any of them had ever seen.

  But why?

  The only way to find out was to ask him, straight up, just the two of them. Sam had always said there was a good reason Ben was captain of all their teams, because he was a born leader.

  Ben was being that kind of leader now.

  As he finally arrived at the gate to Country Club Estates, Ben realized that he was going to have to stop and give his name to the guard, and that the guard would then have to ring the house. And if Justin decided he didn’t want Ben to come all the way up to the house, then the guard shack was going to be the same as a dead end.

  But then he got a break, the gate opening for a car that had just stopped, obviously a visitor, Ben timing it just right so that he followed the car in, smiling and waving at the guard, just shouting, “Friend of Justin’s, he knows I’m coming.”

  The guard just waved. When you were eleven and Ben’s size, they clearly didn’t view you as much of a security threat.

  So he rode his bike up Fairway Drive, noticing again how big the houses were in here, how much property each one of them had, remembering that Justin’s was the last one on Fairway Drive, at the top of the hill overlooking one of the fairways on the golf course, Justin telling Ben that when the course was empty in the early evening, he and his dad — who were members — would go out and chip golf balls, just the two of them.

  But it wasn’t the size of Justin’s house, at the top of that hill, catching Ben’s attention now, stopping him cold at the bottom of the driveway.

  It was the “For Sale” sign next to the mailbox.

  * * *

  Ben did something he never did in sports.

  Hesitated.

  Stay or go? He didn’t know whether the sign meant that Justin was just leaving this house or leaving Rockwell. All the sign meant was that he was moving somewhere.

  But if it was just a move across town, what was the big deal about that, why couldn’t he have told the guys on the team? This had to be something that had just happened, the sign going up, the house going up for sale, just because everybody seemed to know everything about everybody else in Rockwell, it was that kind of small town. Even though Justin’s house was a little bit out of the way, it seemed as if somebody would have known, Ben’s parents always seemed to know if one of their friends had bought a new car, or sold one, or put a new coat of paint on their house.

  Maybe the sign was new, had just gone up in the last few days, maybe that’s why Justin had been acting the way he had been. Ben’s mind was racing with all kinds of thoughts, questions without answers, standing there with his bike propped against his hip at the bottom of the driveway.

  Thinking: What if he really is moving out of town?

  Then asking himself this question: What if it were me? What if I was the one who’d just found out that my family was moving away from Rockwell? What if I’d just found out I was leaving the Core Four Plus One?

  Leaving Sam and Coop and Shawn?

  And Lily?

  Ben McBain knew the answer to that one, knew he would need his friends more than ever, whether he was about to leave them or not.

  He hopped back on his bike, catching his left wrist on the handlebar, feeling the quick stab of pain, but knowing in that moment that it was nothing compared to what Justin was feeling, if Ben was right about the move.

  He got to the top of the driveway, laid his bike down in the grass, rang the doorbell, waited.

  When the bright red front door opened, Mrs. Bard was standing there.

  “Hey, Ben,” she said. “This is a surprise.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Bard,” he said. “Is Justin here?”

  “Upstairs in his room,” she said. “Is he expecting you?”

  “Nah. I just decided to stop by, is all.”

  She tilted her head slightly. “Not exactly on your way home from practice. Did something else happen today?”

  Ben said, “Just the usual dumb guy stuff.”

  True enough.

  Mrs. Bard said, “I offered to drive my slugger and pick him up, but he said he wanted to take his bike. Said he needed all the exercise he can get since he doesn’t get to play the next game after that little episode with the bat.”

  “I tried to tell him, Mrs. Bard,” Ben said. “There’s always a lot of dumb guy stuff going around. Lily’s always telling me it’s practically required if you’re a guy.”

  From another part of the house, Ben could hear a man’s voice, probably Mr. Bard, sounding as if he were talking to somebody on the telephone.

  “You want me to tell Justin you’re here,” his mom said, “or do you want to just go ahead up?”

  “I’ll head up.”

  “Maybe you can lighten him up,” she said. “Things have been a little tense around here lately.”

  B
en didn’t wait around to find out why, if she meant that it was because of the “For Sale” sign or because of the way Justin had been playing. And acting.

  He ran up the stairs to find out, Justin’s mom telling him it was the second door on the left.

  * * *

  “What do you want?”

  That was Justin’s greeting when he looked up and saw Ben. He was on his bed, long legs stretched out in front of him, pillow in his lap, laptop on the pillow.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Justin said. “You’re already in.”

  Ben thought: It’s like we’re strangers all of a sudden, even though we’ve been in school together since kindergarten.

  Gone to school together and played three sports a year together since they’d started playing organized sports. And hung out together. Again: Not boys the way Ben and Sam and Coop and Shawn were boys. But Ben had always considered Justin a friend. Was trying to be his friend now.

  Even though Justin wasn’t making it easy.

  “I felt like you might want to talk,” Ben said, then put his hands up in front of his face, the way you did when you thought somebody might take a swing at you, and said, “Even though you told me before you didn’t want to talk.”

  Justin sighed now, loud enough that Ben wondered if his mom could hear it downstairs, closed his laptop, tossed it on the bed beside him, Ben trying to remember the last time he had seen him smile, thinking that if he’d hit baseballs today the way Justin had, it would feel like his birthday.

  “Not a good time,” Justin said. “But you probably figured that out.”

  “You really want me to come back when it’s a better time?”

  “There is no better time,” Justin said.

  Ben took a deep breath now, let it out, said, “I saw the sign out front. Man, I’m sorry, this is an awesome house.” Paused and then said, “You guys moving to another part of town?”

  Hoping that was it, plenty of his friends’ parents had moved from big houses into smaller ones the past few years.

  “I thought you were here to talk about Coop,” Justin said, ignoring the question.

  “Aw, don’t worry about Coop, Coop’s fine,” Ben said. “You know him. He hardly ever gets mad at anybody, and when he does, he doesn’t stay mad for long.” Ben grinned. “It requires too much concentration.”