The Youngest Hero (28 page)

Friday was payday, and I was home a little early. Elgin was watching the end of the Cubs game.

“Did you work out today?” I said.

“Everything but hitting.”

“Don’t wear yourself out before tomorrow.”

“Momma, I’m in the best shape of my life.”

“Still planning on doing some hitting?”

“When the Cubs are over. Maybe for an hour before dinner.”

When the Cubs won on a clutch hit, Elgin seemed to take it as a sign. “Everything’s gonna go right this weekend,” he said,
grabbing his aluminum bat.

As soon as he was gone to the basement I hurried out. Lucky’s Secondhand Shop was a little farther than I had remembered.
As I had hoped, Lucky himself was there.

“Mrs. Woodell!”

“Mr. Harkness! I came to look at that bat.”

“It may be a bigger bat than your son’s ever used,” Mr. Harkness said, “but it is very, very light for its length. You can
see it bears the stamped name of a former Kansas City Royal who liked light bats. Elgin chokes up on this baby and he’ll be
able to get it around. I’ve seen him play fastpitch, and he tells me about his exploits with the ball team.”

“I’m sure he does,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe he used to be humble.”

“He’s got nothing to be humble about, ma’am. Kid that age makes a team for older kids, well—”

I told Mr. Harkness about the next day’s tryout. He whistled through his teeth. “Makes me wish I could give this bat to you
at my cost.”

“Which was?”

“I could have paid thirty dollars for it.”

“I heard on TV that bats like this, even for big leaguers, go for a little more than half what you’re saying.”

“You’re offering me twenty?”

I smiled. “No, sir, but I just found out you were lying about the thirty, didn’t I?”

Lucas Harkness looked stricken. “I never said I paid thirty! I said I
could
have. But for a genuine big leaguer’s bat—”

“I have twelve dollars,” I said. “And I’ll bet that would double your investment.”

“Well, it’d be more like breaking even.”

“Oh, come on,” I said, still smiling. “You telling me I couldn’t go to Kmart and find this same bat?”

“No, and I’m telling you that honestly.”

“But everything else you’ve said is dishonest?”

The pained expression returned. “Now why do you want to say that?”

“You’re the one who said you were telling me something honestly, as if the rest was just—”

“I know, okay. You drive a hard bargain. Let me show you my original receipt.” He rummaged in a cardboard box behind the counter.

“You have to prove to me that twelve dollars would make you only break even,” I said.

“I said twelve would be more
like
breaking even. Closer to breaking even than doubling my investment. Here, see, I paid eight dollars for this bat.”

The twinkle was still in his eye, but my financial mind was whirring. “I’ve finally caught you in a lie,” I said.

“No, please. You didn’t. I don’t lie. I bend and twist and imply to get the best price I can, but don’t accuse me of that.”

“My offer of twelve is four dollars more than what it would take for you to break even, right?”

“Right,” he said carefully.

“So I made you an offer that is just as close to your breaking even as it is to doubling your investment.”

He thought for a moment. “You figured all that out just standing here?”

I smiled at him.

“I want to give you the bat.”

“No way, Mr. Harkness. Twelve is a fair offer. Take it or leave it.”

I
stood in against the pitching machine, hoping to break my record of ten solid hits for fifty-seven balls. I grabbed my old
aluminum bat, the one that had been too heavy for me when I lived in Hattiesburg. I hit only five good drives then grabbed
the lighter, fatter bat.

I started by fouling off a half dozen pitches, then hit four line drives in a row. By the end of the first basket of balls
with the aluminum bat, I had hit fourteen solid shots. I felt guilty, as if I had cheated. I would never completely give up
using the fungo bat, but this was fun.

When I finally trudged back upstairs, my mother seemed to have something on her mind. I told her how I had been able to adjust
the machine to throw a variety of pitches. I said, “I wonder what would happen if I took that old piece of plastic railroad
track, from the train that kid traded me, and stuck it between the wheels.”

“What would that do?”

“Seems like it would fit real tight between those wheels. It would jam them when the little ties came through, then release
before the next tie. Some balls would just drop through, but other ones would have all different speeds and directions.”

“You think of that yourself?”

I nodded.

“I have something else for you,” she said, smiling.

“What, another bat?” I was teasing.

Momma’s smile disappeared. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, right! I’m sure you got me another bat.”

“I did!”

“C’mon, Mom!”

“I did!”

“Let’s see it.”

She pulled it from behind the couch. For once, I was speechless. I could only shake my head as I hefted the new wood bat.

“Where?” I managed finally.

“Lucky’s,” she said.

“He rip you off?”

“Nope. He paid eight dollars for it. I paid him twelve.”

“No way. He lied to you. If he paid eight, he would have sold it for sixteen.”

“Hey, I’m a good bargainer.”

“Not as good as he is. Did he show you what he paid for it?”

She nodded.

“He’s got a lot of phony receipts he can pull out from under the counter,” I said.

“That scoundrel!”

“Ah, he wouldn’t lie to you, Momma. He asks about you all the time.”

I rummaged under my bed for the piece of plastic railroad track, then headed for the basement. I had to choke up about an
inch to make the wood bat feel as light as my aluminum one, but what a wonderful feel! My dad had always told me I should
switch to wood bats as soon as I could afford it, even if everyone else in my league was using aluminum.

“It’ll cost you in your batting average,” my dad had told me, “because you can get hits off the handle of a metal bat that
would break a wood bat. And you can figure a metal bat is gonna push the ball about twenty percent harder. But the sooner
you get used to wood bats, the better.”

I had been so young when my dad said that, I didn’t even
know what a career was. I hadn’t even played in an organized league by then. Now, the advice sounded good. I would use the
wood bat in my tryout the next day.

It was late, but I wanted to try my experiment. I poured a basket of balls into the machine and started it up. I fed one end
of the plastic track through the underside of the spinning wheels. The machine whined and groaned and nearly stopped. Then
it seemed to heat up and struggle as the plastic was drawn through in a slow, herky-jerky motion. The contraption smelled
of electricity. I counted sixteen pitches affected by the plastic. What those pitches did amazed me.

Some hit the ceiling, some hit the floor, some shot out either side. But about five seemed to break three or four feet before
banging into the wall for what would have been strikes.

The machine slowed and strained, and then began to smoke. I tried to pull the strip out, but it was already halfway through
and would go only in one direction. The machine nearly came to a stop, yet the motor kept grinding, emitting gray smoke.

I yanked at the plastic from both ends, and now it wouldn’t go either way. By the time I turned off the switch, the smell
sickened me. The switch clicked but the machine was still running. The cord! I yanked it and the machine slowly wound down.

I found my tools and loosened a wheel so I could dig out the mangled strip of plastic. I quickly reassembled the machine,
but when I plugged it in and flipped the switch there was only a low hum, heat, and that tiny column of smoke. I was sick.
What did I know about fixing an electric motor?

The last thing I wanted was worry about my pitching machine when I was supposed to be getting a good night’s sleep before
the tryout. With a huge screwdriver I removed the whole motor, amazed at how heavy, and still hot, it was.

Upstairs I told my mother the story. “I’m hoping Biker can fix this for me.”

“What makes you think he knows anything about motors?”

I shrugged. “He knows everything about everything.”

*      *      *

“How bad do you need this?” Luke Harkness asked me the next day. He plugged in the motor and flipped the switch.

“Did I ruin it?” I said.

“Smells like somethin’s melted in there. It’s froze up good. I got a friend who works on these things, but I could probably
get you a rebuilt one for the same price, maybe better.”

“How much?”

“Thirty, forty bucks.”

I scowled.

“I could carry you for a while,” he said. “You could even work it off. Do odd jobs for me.”

“I’d love that! Only thing is, I’m trying out for the high school summer league all-star traveling team this afternoon, and
I don’t know when they practice and play and all that.”

“We’ll work around it. See if you can give me a couple of hours a day.”

“All right!”

“Listen, just because you’re a good kid and you have a nice mom and I’m not payin you real money doesn’t mean I won’t expect
you to be here on time every day and work hard.”

“You just wait and see.”

“One more thing, buddy. You didn’t say anything about that bat.”

“I love the bat! Thanks!”

“I gave your mother a good deal on that. Didn’t do more than four bucks over breakin even.”

I laughed. “Which worked out to a fifty percent profit.”

Harkness smiled sheepishly. “You would be the kid of a numbers woman.”

M
y mother was under the weather Saturday morning, which was okay with me. I had wanted to go alone anyway and didn’t know how
to tell her.

I felt conspicuous at the dusty practice field across the street from Lane Tech. A dozen of the fourteen all-stars showed
up, and they all had metal cleats, of course.

The distances were major-league—the mound sixty feet, six inches from the plate, the bases ninety feet apart. A strange-shaped
outfield fence was three hundred feet all the way around, about as far as I had ever hit a ball.

I introduced myself to the coach, a stocky Mexican who wore a straw fedora with a black band, nice loafers, and a pullover
shirt and shorts. He had a neatly trimmed mustache. He asked me to sit in the stands and watch until noon, when I would get
my tryout. His accent was thick.

“Could I sit in the dugout?” I said.

He seemed to study me. “In the stands,
por favor.
”

“Will I be facing you or one of your best pitchers?” I said.

Again, Mr. Villagrande hesitated. “I will decide when I decide. In the stands, please.”

“I brought a wood bat. I hope that’s okay.”

Villagrande looked at me and then back to the field.

“I mean, I can hit with either, but I’d like to get used to wood. My dad told me that. He was a ballplayer. Almost made the
majors with the Pirates.”

The coach turned his back on me.

“Um, do you think someone could warm me up a little before noon, so I don’t have to start cold?”

Mr. Villagrande hollered an instruction to the batting practice pitcher, a real tall guy in his late twenties who threw hard
and straight. The coach turned back and looked at me with dark eyes.

“This is not the stands, is it,
Señor
Woodell?”

My face burned. “No, sir.”

“Let us see how well we can follow instructions and respect a man’s time and responsibilities; then we will see what kind
of a ballplayer we are. Okay?”

I felt terrible. I still wondered about starting cold, but I sure wasn’t about to ask again.

“At about ten to noon, take a slow jog around the field. Don’t wear yourself out in this heat.”

“Where should I leave my stuff?”

I knew as soon as it was out of my mouth that my just-one-more-question had angered the man. Villagrande’s eyes narrowed.
He tilted his head and sighed. “Anyone who qualifies for this team takes care of certain things himself.”

I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t want to open my mouth again. I trudged high in the stands, where I sweat in the sun until
almost noon. Even from up there, the players looked huge. Throws were crisp. No one was criticized for an error, but they
were if they got out of position or threw to the wrong base. Hector Villagrande’s rage was hottest for anyone who didn’t hustle.

“We have ballplayers,” he said, “standing in line for your jobs!”

When the time came, I hurried down and dropped my bat and glove next to the first-base dugout. As I jogged slowly around the
field, outside the fence, I watched the last few hitters take batting practice.

They crashed hard liners and long fly balls all over the field against the big right-hander, who was throwing harder now.
I
hoped to face him. There was not a pitcher I feared, and I daydreamed about standing in against a major leaguer.

Shortstop and second base were played by twins who looked as smooth and strong as any double-play combination I had ever seen,
even on television. I wondered where I might play. Maybe in the outfield.

Hector called his boys in to the third-base dugout. I got my equipment and walked across the diamond to hear. When he noticed
me he stopped and spoke quietly. “
Señor
Woodell, if you would excuse us a moment, please.”

When will I learn
? I wondered, humiliated as I stepped out of earshot. I might enjoy this team if I could quit irritating Mr. Villagrande.

The boys filed out and took a hard lap around the field. As they headed toward their cars, a couple of them approached me,
which drew a small crowd.

“You’re the rookie we’re supposed to worry about?” one said.

“I guess,” I said, smiling.

“What position?”