Center Field (16 page)

Coach Cody ambushed him. He strode out of his office as Mike walked into school Friday morning. He must have been watching the front door. Mike tensed.

But Coach was smiling. “Mighty Mak! Got a minute?”

Could he say no? He followed Cody back into his office. Muscles rippled under his tight white shirt. His head was freshly shaved. Smelled of cologne.

Coach gestured Mike to a chair and perched on a corner of his desk. The friendly position. “Talk to me about Billy Budd. What's he like?”

“He was nice. Was he a nice kid in Little League?”

Coach waved the question away as if he were sorry he had ever mentioned it. “Zack enjoy himself?” The Coach's smile seemed frozen.

“I guess so.” He felt a need to fill the silence. “He'd never been to a ball game before.” He was sorry he said that.
Didn't need to. Was Cody's silence part of Ranger psych? SEAL psych?

“How come you took Zack?”

“My dad wanted me to,” said Mike. Lying exhilarated him. He was in the zone. Maybe I can play this game. Cody thinks I'm a dumb jock. “He's still afraid they'll sue us for hitting him.”

Coach's eyes narrowed. Was he buying this? Did it matter? Am I keeping him off balance? “That makes sense.” He slid off the desk and stuck out his hand. Mike stood up and shook it. “I like the way you're handling this, Mike. I've always had the feeling you were a leader. See you at the game.”

His mind was a sandstorm all morning. What am I doing? What's my plan? I can just cool it now, play center field, stay out of trouble. Oscar's gone, Kat's gone, everything's back to normal, where it was five weeks ago before I shoved Zack. But I'm different.

Dr. Ching came up with a new problem. A pilot is performing loop-de-loops when his plane abruptly disintegrates. What happens to the pilot? Does he plummet straight down or spin off into space or continue the loop-de-loops? I am the pilot, he thought. Everything is coming apart. Will I fall, spin off, or continue in the same old patterns? Do I have a choice?

In math at least there will be an answer.

In Social Issues Andy seemed to have lost some of his steam without Kat. I know how he feels.

And then lunch.

Lori, Tori, and Ryan were careful not to look at him as he approached their table. Andy was across the room striking out with a girl at the Young Republicans table. Got to talk to Andy about his approach. Like I'm such a role model.

He briefly considered sitting down at the geek table. Zack looked up and nodded but was too cool to call out or wave. Mike was grateful for that.

Not a good time to appear too friendly with Zack, he thought. Bite the bullet.

He sat down next to Lori. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“How could you?” she said.

“Because he's a…” said Tori. She couldn't or wouldn't find the word.

It took him a moment to figure out what they were talking about. By that time Tori had her arm around Lori and was pulling her out of her chair and away from the table. Mike looked at Ryan, who was studying his cheeseburger as if it were a lab specimen. “Thanks. Brah.”

Ryan shrugged. “They were bound to find out, hoss.”

“From you?”

“Tori knew something was going on. She asked me point-blank. Can't lie to her.”

“Like you can't back me up if she tells you not to.”

Ryan's face hardened. He'd never seen him angry before. “You screwed things up, man. You forgot who your friends were. We had a good thing going.”

“You had a good thing going. Because you're just a dumb jock.”

Mike kicked his chair back as he stood up and stomped out of the cafeteria. He kept going out to the parking lot.

 

It was the first time he'd ever walked out in the middle of a school day without a pass. It was an outlaw feeling that scared and excited him. The same way being with Kat scared and excited him. He thought about her as he drove to the county park and walked alongside a slow shallow river. He followed the river path toward hills that looked like steps up to the early afternoon sun. He remembered running the hill trails with Kat and then making love on the soft earth of the top. Slow and gentle at first and then rougher. He felt freer than he did with Lori, not afraid of hurting her. She wasn't as heavy as he was but almost as long and very strong.

But in some ways she wasn't strong at all. And now she's gone.

So what are you going to do now, Mighty Mak? Send another question to the Buddsite? What did you expect from Billy? Jesus in a Yankees cap? Coach let you down. Ryan let you down. Dad let you down.

You are really out there, man, all by yourself, racing the ball to the wall, and this time the ball is your life and if you miss it, if it goes over your head, if you turn the wrong way when you hit the fence…

Think positive. You'll catch it, make the throw home. He looked at his watch. Time to go back and make the game. Cody might know you ditched, but he won't do anything. He wants to win.

 

He felt loose and strong, in a sweet, mindless zone where nothing existed except the ball coming at him. Coming TO him. He could make out the seams, read the lettering, track the spin, see the moment his bat made contact, crushing the roundness. He blasted the rock. He was on fire.

He blasted the second pitch in the bottom of the first and ended up on third. DeVon singled him home with the first run. Craig patted his butt as he crossed the plate. Win, and all is forgiven. His homer in the fourth cleared Hector and Todd off the bases.

Ridgedale was leading 4–0 in the seventh when he saved Craig's shutout with a diving catch of a sinking liner over short. That got him a hug from Craig.

Slaps and shouts in the locker room. Eric Nola said, “Good job, Mak, what got into you?”

“You mean who'd he get into,” said Ryan.

Everybody laughed. They knew. He swallowed the anger down. Stay cool.
BillyBuddBillyBuddBillyBudd
. Why am I still saying that?

He nodded and high-fived his way through the locker room. Coach Cody gave him a thumbs-up and a wink.
TigerbitchTigerbitchTigerbitch.

He almost didn't notice Andy cleaning out his locker.

“What's up?”

“I'm off the team.” Andy looked sad. He did care after all.

“Why?”

“Cody doesn't think I'm a positive influence.” His face was so pale the freckles were reddish-brown polka dots.

“Backing me up in the cafeteria?”

Andy shrugged.

Mike lowered his voice. “Let's bring him down.”

Andy shook his head. “Can't. He won.”

“Only if we let him.”

“Let it go.”

“You want him to retain his totalitarian control of the school? Of our lives?”

Andy turned on him, his face flushing. “Don't mock me, don't…”

“I'm not, man. You were right. He lied about a lot of stuff. I can't just stand there anymore while he lies and lies, about Kat and Oscar, even me…”

“Probably lied on his résumé to get this job,” said Andy.

Mike lost his breath. “You think so?”

“Be like him, wouldn't it?”

“What if we could prove that?”

Andy shrugged again. “What if we could?”

“If the school board knew that…”

“It's over, Mike. He can fuck us up.” He zipped his bag and walked out.

Mike followed him. “You've got the balls, you…”

“Leave it alone.” Andy didn't look at him.

“He's got something on you, too, doesn't he?” He grabbed Andy's shoulders. Andy sagged.

“Good luck.” Andy's eyes glistened. “I'm sorry.”

“What is it?”

“He found out it was me who turned Oscar in to Immigration.”

“You? Why?”

“He shouldn't be in center field.”

Mike felt nauseous. “You did it for me?”

“Partly, yeah. But why should some illegal beaner walk in and…”

“Okay.” Mike held up his hand. He didn't want to hear this.

“I took some cell phone pictures of Oscar at school getting out of that car with New York plates. And getting
picked up. I turned them in on a hotline.”

“How did Coach find out?”

Andy looked down. Tears formed. “I guess I shot my mouth off.”

“We'll get him,” said Mike. He squeezed Andy's shoulders. “I've got another idea.”

Zack was scared. “I'm on probation. Part of the deal was that Cody could make random checks of my hard drive.”

“Sounds like steroid testing.” When Zack didn't react, he said, “We'll use my computer.”

“He'll check that, too.”

“No, he won't. He thinks he knows everything about everybody. He thinks I'm coachable.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I'll do whatever he says.”

“Why are you doing this?”

It just tumbled out. “He messed with people I care about. Kat. Andy. Oscar. My dad. You.”

Zack looked at him for a long time. Mike thought Zack's face was changing, eyes getting squintier, lips pressing together, even the flesh around his jaw tightening. A geek game face. Finally Zack said, “You really think we can bring him down?”

“We're the perfect team,” said Mike.

“What are you talking about?”

“Pukes know how to do stuff,” said Mike, “and jocks hate to lose.”

 

They started with the copy of Coach Cody's résumé from the official website, the résumé he had submitted for the dean of discipline's job at Ridgedale High five years ago. According to the résumé, Gary James Cody was forty-eight years old. He was born in Kansas City and joined the Army after high school. Five years later he left the service as a Ranger sergeant with a Bronze star and went to Michigan State University on an Army Reserve scholarship. He played baseball there and graduated with a degree in education. He served five more years as a Ranger officer. He left the service as a captain with a Silver star and taught for ten years in various high schools in Michigan and Illinois before he was activated for a year by the Army during the Gulf War in 1990. He was wounded. Then ten years as a school administrator in Utah, Nevada, and New Hampshire before coming to Ridgedale.

Zack studied the résumé as if it were a math problem. “This is going to take a while,” he said. His game face had solidified.

“What should I do?” said Mike.

“Get me spicy potato chips and A&W root beer,” said
Zack. He was serious. He sounded in charge. “And gummy bears.”

Mike took a deep breath.
BillyBuddTigerbitchBillyBudd
. Making a junk food run for a puke wasn't exactly what I had in mind, he thought. Suck it up, Mighty Mak. Jock keeps his eyes on the prize, does whatever he needs to win.

“Oh, and I need my tunes.”

“Some Mozart while you hack?” said Mike sarcastically.

Zack didn't get it. “For this, some Fishnchip. It's on my iPhone.” He dug into his dork bag.

“Fishnchip?” He dimly remembered a Canadian band Andy had listened to for a week. “Grunge?”

“No one's used that term in a decade,” said Zack, and smiled.

When Mike got back from the store, Zack's eyeballs were locked onto the screen and his fingers were glued to the keyboard. He had a headset on. The cat was sitting on his lap. For a long time he didn't notice that Mike had returned or had cleared space near him for a six-pack of soda, three different bags of chips, and a sack of gummy bears.

He blinked. His fingers moved. Every so often he jerked his head and mumbled,
“‘Squeeze don't pull.'”

Mike thought of movies and TV shows he'd seen where the tough guys, heroes or villains, waited while their geek henchman, usually an Asian or black guy, but always skinny
with glasses, tapped on his laptop. The tough guys would be growling, “Go, go, we've got forty seconds,” and the geek would tap furiously until something popped on the screen and he'd yelp, “We're in!”

At first it was easy to follow what Zack was doing. Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Altavista, Technorati, then search engines that Mike had never heard of, then deep into state, federal, and military websites. Zack's head and body barely moved.

He stopped once for a can of A&W and one of the bags of chips. Two gurgles from the can and a handful of crunchies, then back to the screen. He wiped off his greasy hands on the cat. She purred. If I did that, thought Mike, she'd tear the skin off my fingers.

“Anything?” said Mike.

Zack shook his head. “So far his résumé checks out.” He sagged back in the chair. The music continued to play in the background:
‘Aim for the brain and squeeze don't pull'…
Zack rubbed his eyes and jammed a handful of gummy bears into his mouth. He locked back into the screen.

Mike heard the garage door hum up and down, car doors, his parents coming into the kitchen. It was after eleven o'clock. He locked his bedroom door and stretched out on the bed. He looked up at Billy Budd's puzzled gaze—
What are you up to, young ballers?

Good question, Billy.

Zack was going back and forth between sides of a split screen, when he suddenly straightened up and yelped, “Game on!”

“We're in?”

“What?” Zack turned down the sound.

“What do you have?”

“He wasn't just wounded. Captain Gary James Cody was killed on January 23, 1990, in Kuwait during the Gulf War.”

“That must be someone with the same name.”

“Don't think so. His obit in the Kansas City Star says he was a schoolteacher in a Ranger Psych warfare unit who played baseball at Michigan State.”

It took Mike a moment to get it. “Coach stole his identity!”

“Elementary, my dear Semak.” Zack fell back in his chair. “Now we have to find out his real name.”

“Don't people ever check out résumés?”

“Only when they want to find something.”

Mom rattled his doorknob halfheartedly, as if she just wanted to go to sleep herself. Zack and Mike were still until they heard her walk away, whisper to Dad, and close their bedroom door. Too much to explain if they got caught, Mike thought.

Zack chugged an A&W and ripped open another bag of
chips. “Census,” he said, logging onto a government site. “It could be someone who knew the real Cody, even grew up with him in the same town.”

Zack occasionally grunted and hummed, but his thin shoulders barely moved. In the zone. He could be lifting or running through outfield drills, Mike thought. Who'd ever think pukes could concentrate like this? Why not?

His mind drifted. What was Kat doing right now in that group home? Did they let her out to run? Was she thinking about me? Cody had pushed her over the edge. To what? He remembered Lori wondering if she was bipolar. What does that actually mean? Will I ever see her again? Will she be different?

“Nothing,” said Zack.

It took Mike a moment to get back to now. “Nothing?”

“Too many people around Captain Cody's age grew up with him in Kansas City. Dead end.”

The poster shook its head.
Never quit, young baller.

What would they do on
CSI
?

“Centerburg, Colorado,” said Mike. “Can you see if anyone who was in Kansas City with the real Cody was also in Centerburg like twenty years ago?”

“Why?”

“Cody said he coached against Billy Budd in Little League.”

“Sounds like another one of his stories,” said Zack.

“Maybe not. Would you try it?”

“Might as well. You got any chocolate chip cookies?”

By the time he got back from the 7-Eleven in Nearmont, Zack was rocking in his chair, nodding and grunting. “Roger Wald. Kansas City and Centerburg. He could be the one.”

“How do we find out?”

Zack smiled, leaned back, and flexed his fingers.