Biggie (5 page)

Chapter 7

No Room for Me

My relationship with my step-dad remains complicated. I don't hate him. He loves my mom and my brother, and they are the two most important people in my life. I cannot be mad at someone who makes the rest of my family happy.

I know he doesn't hate me but I also know he hates everything about me. I know he's embarrassed by my weight and doesn't understand why I don't love sports.

When he married my mom, he knew the offspring of Aaron Abbott came with it. He must have thought I was the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. I was only four then and didn't hate sports like I do today. I'm sure it didn't take long before he found out that sports weren't the be-all and end-all for me like they were for most kids in this town, his hometown. He must have been pissed when I didn't dominate T-ball. He probably still is.

I guess it comes down to this: I put up with him and he puts up with me. I'm his tenant, and he's my landlord.

When I see him talking with Coach Phillips at the baseball meeting Maddux told me to attend, I cringe. With his blue eyes frosted and frozen, he watches me slowly climb to the fifth and final row of the bleachers in the gym. He says nothing. There are no waves or nods. I'm assuming he thought Maddux was kidding when he mentioned my upcoming pitching debut.

The more he stares, the more determined I become to prove him wrong. Yes, I'm at a Finch baseball meeting, I want to yell. My little bastard of a brother says he'll teach me to throw this magical knuckleball that will help me pitch the first perfect game in school history.

Even though I'm determined, I still feel stupid and out of place. Stupid for believing Annabelle was serious when she told Coach Phillips she wanted to see me pitch.

Three rows ahead of me, the rest of the natural baseball players are talking and laughing with each other. Kyle keeps adjusting his blue-and-gold baseball cap. Killer tells a joke with the arm movements of a mime. Everyone belongs here but me. As usual, I'm in the back of the room, quietly sitting by myself and praying that no one will notice me.

Coach Phillips talks, tells bad jokes, and hands out paperwork. As Jet hands back a pile of papers, I shake my head and wonder why I would ever pick a baseball meeting over hanging out in my bedroom. I miss my room so much right now. I love my king-size bed, my twenty-six-inch flat screen mounted on the wall. I love my MacBook. I love my online friends, 215 novels, and 127 comic books.

While I hate baseball, I do understand how it works. As I look down the bleachers, I see so many good hitters. And if—or when—I do take the mound against some other high school, they will have amazing hitters just like Finch does. What am I thinking? There's no way I can throw a perfect game. The idea sounded so interesting, fun, and, most of all, possible when I was talking about it with my brother in the comfort of my house. Now it sounds like a delusion created from hitting my head on the asphalt in gym class. If it wasn't for the forty guys sitting shoulder to shoulder and creating three rows of man-made barricades, I would sneak out. My love of the back row has done me in.

After sitting for an hour, the boys jump up and huddle around Coach Phillips. They chant, “Yellow Jackets,” and walk out. A few of them look over at me on the bleachers. They probably think I'm early for a meeting of the nerds or geeks or loners. Wait. Do loners have meetings? I think I'm losing my mind or having my first panic attack.

Coach Phillips breaks my trance. “Biggie, get down here.”

I keep sitting there, afraid that if I stand, I'll faint and fall to my death.

“Henry, come here.”

Suddenly death doesn't sound so bad, although I would prefer to die in a much cooler way than falling down the bleachers in the school gym. I lift my ass off the seat and wobble down the steps, clinging to the railing for balance. By the time I reach the gym floor, my heart is beating out of my chest.

“Are you here for a reason?” Phillips asks with Laser looking over his shoulder. Both terrify me.

“Pitching” is all I can say.

“I heard,” Laser says.

“You must have had fun in gym class, huh?” Coach Phillips asks.

I nod my head slightly. Sweat rolls down my cheek, cold sweat that normally teams with tears. But as of now, I don't feel like crying. Let me repeat. For now, I don't feel like crying. I'm out of my element, my comfort zone. I should want to go home. I should want to sit in my room, but for some reason I can't explain, I say something loud enough for Phillips and the Laser to hear. “I like pitching. I'm good at it.”

“Have you ever played baseball before?” Coach asks.

“Maddux, my younger brother has taught me how to pitch.” I look right at Laser. “We invented an unhittable pitch.”

I squeeze my lips as tightly as possible, look away, and nod.

Coach Phillips walks over to a big, black bag and pulls out a catcher's mitt that he tosses to Kyle and a clean, white baseball. He rubs the ball with his hands as he walks up to me. As he places the ball in my hand, he says, “Show me this unhittable pitch.”

Every night for the past two weeks, Maddux and I have sneaked down to the indoor diamond to work on pitching. At first I didn't own a glove, so Maddux had to softly toss the ball back to me. Eventually, I bought one off Craigslist for three dollars. Slowly but surely over the past few nights, I've been able to throw the secret pitch, nicknamed “the Wiffle ball” by Maddux, over and over again for strikes. Maddux says the pitch is part knuckleball, slider, curve, and change up.

I will need that smorgasbord of a pitch if I'm going to get through tonight. As I slip my three-dollar glove on without sneaking a peek at Laser, I try to imagine Maddux catching instead of Kyle. Maddux is a hell of a coach and I know I can throw strikes. I hold the ball in my left hand and put my forefinger firmly on one seam and my ring finger firmly on the other. My bird finger gently rubs the center of the ball and my thumb and pinkie hold the ball tight at the bottom. After a deep breath, I throw the pitch. The ball floats in the air, zigzagging left to right, north to south, and lands in Kyle's glove. His wrist barely moves. Laser gives me a small smile, which helps me breathe easier. At least I know I'm not in trouble.

Kyle throws the ball back. Once again, I put my fingers in the correct spots with the proper pressure and throw the pitch again. Perfect.

“Kyle, roll it!” Coach yells.

Kyle doesn't throw the ball to me this time. Instead, he rolls the ball a few feet out in front of him. It's déjà vu. I'm back in the parking lot playing Wiffle ball.

“Go get it, Biggie,” Coach Phillips commands.

I run as fast as I can, pick up the ball, and race back to Coach Phillips. Then, like a professional bowler, he rolls the ball along the basketball floor. Before it stops, Coach tells me to “chase it.”

Confused, I turn and look at Coach.

“Biggie, you're pitching, and a throw got past our first baseman. It's your job to back him up and grab the ball before everyone scores. Now go,” he says calmly, as if he knows how this story's going to end.

The ball settles against the bleachers on the other side of the gym. I run for it as fast as I can. When I reach the ball, my breaths are choppy, my legs are sore, and my hands shake. I turn and look at Laser. He seems a mile away.

“Throw it in here,” Coach yells.

I position myself and fire the ball as hard as I can. It slices and lands nowhere near Coach, Kyle, Maddux, or Laser.

“Bad throw and it took forever,” Coach Phillips yells. “Everyone scored.”

Shit. My butt lands with a thump on the bleacher.

“Let's try it again, Coach,” Kyle says with the ball in his palm.

I can't go again. I can't even walk back to the spot. Saliva rolls out of my mouth and onto my chin like I'm three months old. I spit uncontrollably onto the gym floor. I feel like I'm going to die.

Coach Phillips sits down next to me. “You know, Biggie, more than forty kids will try out for this team and two-thirds of them will hear what you're going to hear, and they have played baseball every summer for a decade. I'm sure you would love to pitch, and for some schools you probably could. But here at Finch, we can't have any rookies. We win championships; we don't hold training camps. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

“I can do this, sir,” I spit out.

“I'm sorry, son,” Coach says, “but there's no place for you on my team.”

As Coach walks away, Kyle comes over and hands me a plastic water bottle. “You threw some nice strikes, Biggie. It's just too bad you're out of shape. Have you ever thought about getting a personal trainer?”

I hand the cup back to him and lie, “I'm fine.”

Later that night, I struggle to get to sleep. I keep thinking about the three perfect pitches. For a brief moment, I think a personal trainer may help, but then reality sets in. I can't even run ten feet without almost having a heart attack. I'm way past a personal trainer. I'm a lost cause.

My phone vibrates and Lucy's picture appears with her crooked, cheerful smile, her tiny hazel eyes, and freckles.

“Hey, Lucy,” I say.

“I've been waiting all night to ask. How was the meeting? Did you show the coach your pitch?”

Ignoring the question, I mumble, “Lucy, I have to tell you something about me. I'm really, really fat.”

“Henry, I've seen your picture.” She chuckles.

“No, it's worse than you think. I'm not overweight. I'm not even obese. I'm something worse, off the charts. I can't run, walk right, or throw a ball without falling to the ground to catch my breath. I'm really, really fat and I don't deserve anyone.” I hang up on her and drop the phone onto the blanket. With the meat of my palms, I wipe the tears off my cheeks. The phone lights up again and there is Lucy's crooked smile. I press the power button until the phone disappears into the black.

Chapter 8

Close Your Eyes and Throw

I can't sleep. As slivers of Sunday morning sunshine pierce through open columns between my window blinds, I decide to give up on a good night's rest. For the past five hours, I've gazed at the ceiling. My eyes are bloodshot from tears and lack of sleep. It's no use. My body will not relax, my eyes won't shut, and my brain won't quit replaying what happened last night in the gym.

I need to quit thinking about sports and get back to what makes me great.

Lying on a shelf is my four-hundred-page government textbook with a backdrop of a bald eagle flying next to an American flag. As I stare at the book, calm comes over me. For the first time since I shut my bedroom door five hours ago, I feel like I'm home.

As I read about city government ordinances, my mom turns the doorknob.

“Are you okay?” She peeks inside.

“I'm fine, Mom. Just studying,” I answer. Of course I'm fine. I'm sitting in my room. I'm studying for a test that I'll ace. I'm in my zone. I couldn't be happier.

“Jim told me about the meeting.” She gives me a look like my grandpa died or something.

I know she's dying to ask me if I will go back again and beg for a spot on the team.

“I just wanted to check it out,” I say. “Maddux talked me into it. It was dumb and I'm glad it's over.”

Ignoring me, she begins a sales pitch. “Jim said he would teach you how to play if you're serious about being a Yellow Jacket.”

“Well, I'm not, so it's fine,” I interrupt. “Tell him that's okay.”

“I'd just like to see you two do something together,” she says. “You never hang out. It would just be nice if you and Jim could get along like he does with Maddux.”

“Maddux is his son,” I say.

“You're his son too.”

“Whatever,” I say, knowing I'm right. “Laser hates me. Or at the very least thinks I'm a fat loser. He's just like those jocks at school who think sports make the world spin. Well, sports don't. Governments do, so I'm just going to sit here and learn about the executive branch. If Laser wants to do something with me, why can't he come into my world? Why can't we work on school stuff together? Oh wait. That's right. To him, sports are everything and school is a nuisance, which is probably why Maddux has never been in a school.”

“Stop it,” Mom commands. “If you want to be homeschooled too, that's fine. Just ask. Nobody said you couldn't get a tutor like Maddux.”

“I don't need a tutor. I go to school and I get straights
A
s,” I yell loudly even though Mom is a couple of feet away. “I'm sorry for yelling. I'm fine, Mom, really. Just writing an outline.”

“Henry Abbott.”

My mom never calls me Henry Abbott, so the full name grabs my attention. It's quickly apparent that she hasn't accepted my apology. Henry isn't even my real name, or at least original name. When I was born, Mom, who had just turned seventeen, named me Aaron after my father, who was also seventeen. Both were one month away from starting their senior years of high school. Sixteen months later when my dad's parents presented Mom with papers renouncing his rights to me, Mom changed my name to Henry after my grandfather.

So why is my last name Abbott, even after my biological dad put in writing that he wants nothing to do with me? Well, because Laser has never adopted me. I guess in some ways I don't have a father. I have two contenders, but one left me legally and the other doesn't want me.

When I hear my full name, I quit debating her, throw out the empty bag of chips, and close my government book. I would do anything for Mom.

The indoor diamond sits next to our house but feels so far away from everything I know. It's like our home has two worlds: the baseball world and the Biggie world. Guess where I live? The walk takes me five minutes and Mom follows me the entire way. There's no turning back. I open the door and find Laser at second base placing baseballs into a white bucket.

“Jim!” Mom yells. “Henry wants to play baseball with you.”

Laser pulls a baseball out of a bucket and tosses it at me. I rapidly pull on my glove and catch the ball.

“Do you wanna play baseball?” he asks.

“I'm sorry for embarrassing you,” I say.

“That's not what I asked,” he says.

I'm so nervous, standing in his world, five long minutes from mine, that I forget to throw the ball back and instead let it fall to the ground next to my feet.

“Do you wanna play baseball?” he asks again and fires another ball to me, this time a little harder and sort of sidearm.

I flinch a little but catch the ball. “It's okay,” I say.

Laser drops his arms limply. “Jesus Christ, Biggie, could you just answer the question?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize, just answer the question.”

“I did!” I shout. Then I whisper, “But I don't anymore.”

“Why did you think you could pitch? You haven't played a single inning of baseball since you were six years old, and you quit T-ball after three games.” Laser loves to bring up my short T-ball career.

“I threw a perfect game of Wiffle ball in gym, and Maddux taught me a knuckleball so I could also throw a perfect game in baseball,” I quickly mumble, slurring words together. If Laser and I were in a chat room and I had some time to construct an answer and repeat it in a clear voice, I don't know what I would say. I can't honestly answer the question because I don't really know. Would throwing another perfect game be cool? Yes. Would I love to feel the rush of stepping on the mound? Yes. Do I want to give up a home run or turn my head over and over again as the other team racks up hits? Hell no. I don't know what to say.

Laser drops a ball into the bucket. For a second, I think, this is over. He's going to tell me to leave and his interest in me will end before it really starts. But it isn't over. He lifts the bucket, walks over, and drops it next to my left foot.

Although his eyes are peering right into mine, I can still see Mom over his shoulder. I think about her and Maddux and how happy they would be if I played for the Yellow Jackets. I also think about Annabelle and Jet talking about my magic curveball after gym class.

“Look at me.” Laser places a baseball in my hand and uses his fingers to bend my arm to a sixty-degree angle. He lifts my left hand behind my ear and brings it forward. “When you throw a baseball properly, you want the ball to almost touch your ear. Okay?”

I must be blankly staring at him because then he says, “Biggie, I need you to say something or at least nod.”

I choose to nod, keeping eye contact.

He reaches down and puts his hand behind my right knee and lifts my leg up, pulls it forward half a foot, and places it back down. “Perfectly straight. You need to lift your leg as high as comfortable and step forward out, perfectly straight, and as far as you can. You want your leg to hit the ground at the same time your hand with the ball reaches the side of your head. Plant and release the baseball. The power comes from your legs—which right now feel like a hundred pounds of pudding, but we're going to turn them into tree trunks—and then you'll get your velocity from the muscles in your legs.”

I nod a couple more times and begin to sweat. I don't know if it's because I'm nervous or from lifting my leg.

“Stand straight up,” he continues. “Feet parallel to your shoulders.” He grabs my wrist and spins it, like an evil school nurse taking your pulse. “Place your fingers comfortably tight across the seams. Lift your leg and slowly pull the ball back behind your ear, drop your leg, bring the ball past your ear, and fire. Keep straight and the ball will go straight.”

I nod again.

He walks away and I stand there by the bucket of baseballs. He keeps walking and walking. Soon, he's a lot farther away than Maddux or Kyle ever stood when I pitched. He picks up his glove. “Close your eyes tight and go through what I just taught you.”

That doesn't make sense. “Close my eyes?” I ask.

“Tight,” he shouts. “You'll throw straighter if you think about the steps and not worry about where you're throwing.”

That makes no sense, but what have I got to lose? With my eyes closed, I imagine the smile on my mother's face to keep myself calm. After a long, deep breath, I repeat the six steps in my head.

1. Place your fingers comfortably tight across the seams. I remember the step, but I really don't know what “comfortably tight” means, so I just grip it hard.

2. Stand with feet parallel to shoulders. I can't see if they are parallel, but it feels right.

3. Lift my leg and step forward as straight as possible.

4. Bend my elbow and pull it behind my head.

5. Drop my leg and rocket my arm forward at the same time.

6. Release the ball as soon as I plant my foot.

With my eyes closed, I can't see where the ball goes, but I hear the rubber hit off the diamond. I open my eyes and watch the ball bounce past Laser.

“You have to throw a lot harder. C'mon, you weigh three hundred pounds. Show me what you got.”

I grab another baseball from the bucket.

“Close your eyes!” he shouts.

I run through the six steps again, and this time I throw it as hard as I can. I open my eyes and the ball bounces to Laser—at least not past him this time.

“Not fast. Don't throw it fast. Throw it
hard
. Pretend like you're throwing it as far as you can, but remember the steps to throw it straight.”

With my eyes shut once again, I grab another baseball from the bucket and run through the six steps again, squeezing the ball tightly and grinding my teeth. This time I try to throw it over Laser's head and hit the back wall. Before I can open my eyes, I hear the ball pop into his glove.

“That's great, Henry,” Mom says, clapping.

“Again,” Laser says.

I pick up a ball and close my eyes. This time, I throw it even harder.

Pop.
“Woo-hoo,” Mom calls, clapping even louder.

“Again,” Laser shouts.

I close my eyes and throw as hard as I can. Now I'm trying to throw the ball through the back wall.

Pop.
I love that sound even more than Mom's clapping.

Laser walks up to me. “I thought I saw it last night. Under all of this”—he does an hourglass silhouette with his hands to remind me that I'm obese—“is that concrete block of a boy your father was. The fact that you can pitch like it's no big deal means you got some of his genes. Now we just need to find that concrete block. Not just drop pounds, but replace them with muscle. The good news is that it's only September and high school baseball here in Iowa doesn't start until late May. We will need every one of those days to make you a real ballplayer.”

“Coach said—”

Laser interrupts me. “You live in a Kaczor house and you're the only local offspring of Aaron Abbott. Trust me, you'll get another tryout, and when that day comes—and it's month and months and months away—you'll wear gold. If you eat right and work out with me every morning at five a.m., you will wear Finch gold.”

I turn my lips up a little to let him know I'll do it.

“Good. See you tomorrow morning at five.”

As Laser walks toward Mom, I want to ask him so many questions.

Do you really think I can make it? How much weight loss are we talking about? How long until I can throw fast? Why do you care now? Where were you the past ten years? Why doesn't school matter? Why do you only care about baseball?

All of the questions bounce around in my head, but when I open my mouth, “I don't want to be a failure” comes out.

Laser turns around, and he and Mom stare back at me.

I don't know what I'm saying. The words just come out like there's a man inside of me working my vocal cords. Maybe that's why I'm so fat; someone is living inside me.

Then I realize why I said it and continue, “I want to be the best, not a failure. I want to be great, you know. Can you promise me that?”

“That you'll be great?”

“That I won't be a failure.”

“Son, all I can promise you is this: when everything is said and done, you will feel something so wonderful and so addictive that you'll wonder why you waited so long to feel it.”