Asked For (30 page)

James backed out of the batter’s box, swinging the bat just to keep moving. He scanned the field, wondering why they’d stopped the game. A man called the pitcher off the mound. James watched him go, the young man looking as puzzled as James. James looked back around the bases, infielders slapping their gloves, watching. He gazed along the fence, past the waiting batters, beyond the bleachers, then stopped. He let the bat hang down, the tip resting in the dirt at his feet. Mr. Morgan. His fingers were woven through the fence, his eyes on James.

Mr. Morgan tipped his head to the left. James frowned. Mr. Morgan stood straight and stepped back, his fingers still looped through the fence, his arms outstretched. The baseball hit the catcher’s glove. It sounded like a gunshot. James yanked his gaze from Mr. Morgan to the catcher, who flinched, shook his glove hand, and threw the ball back to the pitcher. James followed the ball, followed its lazy path to a pitcher he recognized. Long and lean, the one Mr. Morgan had said was pro at the last tryout. James wheeled back to Mr. Morgan. He nodded, he moved close to the fence then stepped back again.
Step back. Gain perspective.

In the hot afternoon air James felt a chill. Why had the scout switched pitchers on him? He stared at Mr. Morgan, hoping he had the answer. Mr. Morgan nodded. He let go of the fence and clapped his hands once.

“You can do this, James,” Mr. Morgan said, at the same moment his mother’s voice called the same thing.

Step back. Gain perspective.

James looked from Mr. Morgan to his mother, her auburn hair, her slender arm raised in a wave. She was beautiful, beautiful like Mr. Morgan had said, beautiful and didn’t know it, like Magdalena had said.

“Batter up!”

James didn’t know how many practice pitches had sped by. He hadn’t heard any after the first one. He’d only heard Mama and Mr. Morgan. He glanced back to where Mr. Morgan stood. He wasn’t there. He’d moved. James looked but couldn’t see him. He stepped to the plate, bat high.

Step back. Gain perspective.

James held the bat in the air while he stared at the pitcher, but it was Mr. Morgan he saw, in his mind. He kept the bat up; he needed another minute. Mama was there next; he saw her lithe form in faded dresses, always at the games. James stepped back, several inches farther from the plate than he usually stood. He lowered the bat to his shoulder and dug in. He was ready. He had his perspective.

There was no warning, barely a motion. But James didn’t need a warning this time. He was ready for the pitch. His bat was as quick as the pitcher’s snaky arm. James swung, he connected, and the ball sailed away.

“Go, James!” Mama yelled, her voice rang with excitement, while Magdalena whooped.

“Go, James, run!” Mr. Morgan’s voice came from behind, like two hands at his back, pushing him.

James jetted off the plate, his legs carrying him around the bases as fielders ran after the ball that dropped behind them. It wasn’t over the fence, but almost. James pounded the dirt, his heart beating in stride. He rounded third. He ran, and ran hard. He knew Mr. Morgan was to his right and Mama somewhere ahead. He dug deeper, he pushed forward, he flattened himself and slid feet first, slid under the smack of the ball in the catcher’s glove. People cheered, the catcher helped him up and congratulated him. Mama screamed with excitement, and somewhere nearby Mr. Morgan clapped. James just knew it without even seeing the man.

****

His sweat didn’t seem to bother Mama or Magdalena when the game was over. James’ two best fans wrapped themselves around him when he finally stepped off the field. Mama held onto his arm, Magdalena grinned, bobbed up and down a little, and ran her hand through his damp hair.

“You did good, little brother. If there was a scout here, he noticed you!” Magdalena tussled his hair, then let go.

“Oh, they were here,” James said. Magdalena raised her eyebrows, and James nodded to his right, toward the other bleachers where the two men had been sitting. Magdalena turned, so did Mama, and when James looked along with them, the scouts were gone. It was Mr. Morgan they saw, he was standing there, watching them.

Standing back. Gaining perspective.

James looked at his mother. Lana was staring at Mr. Morgan. She dropped her hand from James’ arm. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but Mr. Morgan seemed to understand. He came their way, a warm smile on his face.

“Mama?” James touched her arm with the tips of his fingers. She was lost in a communication he was afraid to interrupt, but he felt a part of it somehow. He just didn’t know what was being said.

“Mama.”

Lana looked his way. She was younger suddenly, yet sage in her expression.

“Mama…”

“Son?”

James turned. He looked into the face of the scout, the one from the first tryout, the other man James didn’t recognize standing beside him.

“You’re James Paine,” the scout said.

James Paine. Magdalena had said it, James had said it himself. James glanced at his mother, then turned back to the man. “Yes, sir, I am.”

“I remember you from Marshall, where you tried out before. You were good then. You’re even better now. Stronger. But even then you were good enough for an offer, though you looked a little young. Why didn’t you take it? Why are you trying again?”

James sputtered. Surely he misunderstood. Or the man was confused. He glanced at his mother, at Magdalena. Neither one seemed to understand either.

“I beg your pardon,” James stammered. “What offer?”

“The one we sent you. You never responded. Just wondered why.”

“Sent me…?”

“In the mail. A letter. Didn’t you get it?”

Mama’s eyes grew wide, Magdalena’s fierce. James read in their faces all the agony he’d felt every time Pop missed a game, every time Pop ridiculed him, every time Pop called him
that boy
, or every time James’ enthusiasm was dashed by Pop saying baseball wasn’t in his blood.

“Pop,” he whispered.

“I’d be willing to offer you a second chance at a contract if I knew for sure you were interested. You have a reason why you weren’t before? And would you be now?”

“He sure would.” A hand clapped over James’ shoulder. Tan fingers squeezed as Mr. Morgan spoke near James’ ear. “Not sure what happened to that last offer. I vouch this young man never saw it, or he would have been playing for you long before this.”

Pop. The name lay dead in James’ gut. Pop.

“Be happy to send you another offer, then,” the scout said.

“Send it to me. I’ll make sure he gets it. Name’s Glen Morgan. Here’s where to send it…”

Pop. James heard Mr. Morgan recite his address. He saw Mr. Morgan move and lean over the paper the man was writing it on, making sure the scout had it right. Why hadn’t Pop given James the letter?

Chapter 43

James 1959

Choke up on the bat. You won’t hit as far, but you’re more accurate.
James inched his fingers higher on the bat the way Mr. Morgan had showed him years ago. The bat quivered in his hands, his fingers tightening, then loosening, repositioning as he stared at Pop’s desk.

“You thought all these years I didn’t know how to handle a bat, didn’t you?” The end of the bat circled high in the air, making rings and loops as James held it off his shoulder. “You wanted me to be no good. Baseball was your game, and I wasn’t good enough to be your boy. I was
that boy.
”

James inched around to the back of the desk where Pop sat. He kicked Pop’s worn desk chair aside, the rusting casters catching on the gouged floor, sending the chair toppling over. James kicked it again, harder. It skidded against a cabinet, knocking a binder to the floor. James sneered at the scattered papers as he eyed the drawers of Pop’s desk, all closed, probably none locked, but it didn’t matter. He was going to open them with this bat, one by one, until he found what he was looking for.

“Choke up on the bat. Who taught me that?” James yelled, his voice resounding in the shop. It was empty, dark except for the lamp he’d lit in Pop’s office, and it echoed back at him. James’ voice sounded bigger than Pop’s as it bounded against walls and the high ceiling. “Not you, that’s for sure!”

The light from the lamp flickered in his eyes, wetness and light distorting his perspective. He rubbed his eyes against his shoulders, drying away the moisture, keeping the bat up, ready to swing. He inched his fingers higher for stronger impact. “I never cried. I wanted to. I wanted to cry and scream my whole life. Seems now screamin’ ain’t gonna be enough!”

James raised the bat over his head. He squared himself with the row of drawers on the right. If that letter was in there, the first one from the scout, he’d find it, he’d get it out. Even if Pop really did burn it, he’d beat the desk until he knew for sure. Tears rose again, blurring his vision, but it didn’t matter. The desk was his target, the envelope, Pop.

“James.”

The bat was at its peak, heaved backward over his head. It quivered as he stretched, every muscle taut, ready to throw the wood forward and smash the desk.

“James.”

The voice was closer. He couldn’t see who it was.

“Look the other way if you don’t want to see this,” James yelled. “I came to get something out of this desk, and I aim to get it.”

“Don’t, James.”

The bat sailed across the room. It cracked against the wall, a satisfying splintering of wood, an explosion almost as gratifying as if he’d destroyed Pop’s desk. James closed his eyes after the impact. He squinted hard, forcing the wetness out. He drew in a deep breath. He was trembling.

“He deserves it,” James spit out.

The smell of cigarettes came near, cigarettes and a whiff of automobile, and gasoline.

“But Mama doesn’t.” Magdalena moved in front of him. She was facing him now, standing between him and the desk.

James looked up. He felt fierce as he looked into his sister’s eyes, but when he saw them, saw Magdalena’s heart, he stopped. “What’s Mama got to do with this?”

“When I told you you’re different from Pop, that means you’re like her. Fight your battles like she does, not like him.”

You got your mother’s heart, not your father’s talent.

“Your battle’s not much different from hers.”

Be patient, be kind, and fight above the hurt.

Mama never fought Pop. She reasoned. She discussed. She never got anywhere except the time she slapped him. Once for herself and once for Magdalena. Pop shut up after that. Kept quiet around the house for several days. “Mama didn’t fight.”

Magdalena leaned against Pop’s desk and sat back on its top, her long legs stretched out in front of her the same way Pop did when he was talking to a customer. “She doesn’t fight like Pop, but she lives a battle.”

They’d all lived a battle. Alex joined a war to get away from this battle. A war could destroy his outsides, but this family battle was destroying his insides. Harold chased a girl until he caught her and got married. Betsy withdrew, Gail lived on a tightrope, Carla emulated Mama and followed her shadow, and Magdalena… Magdalena fought. She fought every day by living in rebellion and hardening her whole being so she didn’t care. “What’d Mama do?”

Magdalena frowned, her eyebrows pinching together. “What do you mean, ‘What did Mama do?’ ”

“I guess I don’t know anything. I’m five years younger than Carla. It’s like I’m a separate family, one Pop made pretty clear he didn’t want. Who are we? How did Mama and Pop end up like this with me?”

Magdalena looked up toward the dark ceiling. James liked it when she thought before she fired off a comment. Beneath her bristly exterior was some depth, a wisdom born out of desperation. “Pop didn’t end up like this. He was always this way, but the path he chose made him worse. I told you before, he caused his own problems. Mama didn’t end up either. She had a tiny spark hidden inside. The battle was so constant no one ever saw it, not even her. Until it got fanned.”

“Fanned? How?”

Magdalena shrugged.

“Did I help fan it?”

Magdalena grinned. “Let’s just say you keep it alive. You’re that boy Mama always hoped for, James. You were the love child that was supposed to make Pop change. She pinned everything on you.”

“That boy. I really was
that boy,
then. That boy that Pop didn’t want as much as Mama thought.”

“It was too late by then. Pop kind of ruined things.”

“Five years too late. So why did they do it? Why did they have me? Love seems like the farthest thing from Pop’s mind. He doesn’t love anyone. How could I be a love child?”

“You’re Mama’s love child, James.”

“Mama’s love child?” There was no love in Mama’s life except what she brought into their family and what he and his brothers and sisters returned to her. Mama’s was a loveless existence. Her marriage was mechanical, a union formed merely to get two humans through adulthood, and nothing more. “Pop never loved Mama.” James looked at Magdalena. “Pop was never good to her. He wasn’t even kind.”

Magdalena stared, a thought teetering on the tip of her tongue. She straightened, lifted herself off Pop’s desk. “It isn’t kindness that makes a baby, James. Kindness is what turns a boy to a man.” She turned and left Pop’s office. James heard the outer door close behind her.

Kindness is what turns a boy to a man. He looked through the back wall of Pop’s shop, through the wall and across the alley, to the only kindness he’d ever known.

Chapter 44

Lana 1941

He seemed to know what they wanted. Mr. Morgan didn’t even bother to ask anymore. When he saw Lana and Magdalena come into the restaurant, he nodded at the booth they had sat in from the first, and they took their seats.

“You look beautiful, Mama,” Magdalena said.

They came to town more often. Cletus left money for movies or whatever they needed, and he left it fairly often, left it and left her, never suggesting what she should buy or asking where it had been spent. When they came, Lana wore some of the cosmetics Magdalena had given her, a touch of color that felt obvious but nice, just never nice enough to cover over the hurt that sometimes bled through the artificial tones on her face.