The Youngest Hero (8 page)

Could he be even more than I dreamed? Could he do something for people far beyond what would bring him success and money in
a profession he loved? Was it possible he could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a college professor? Who knew? It was delicious
to think about all the options. Everything about Elgin spoke of the future, not of the past.

The past was gone, a painful, bitter memory that sneaked up on me late at night when I needed a baby in my arms or to be a
baby in someone else’s arms. In my mind, I would take Elgin’s face in my hands and turn him toward the future, toward the
ris
ing, not the setting, sun. I wouldn’t push; I would merely enable. I would steer, guide, help, provide. He had the tools,
and so far he seemed to have the drive.

I would give him what I had never had: freedom. I didn’t want him to be perfect. I knew he was not. For all the skills and
talents and the wonderful mind, he could still be selfish, sometimes obnoxious, sometimes angry. Sensitivity and maturity
would come with age. I desperately wanted to stay close enough to be assured of that. But I also knew the day was not far
off when I would have to let him become what he wanted to be, not what I had mapped out for him.

I was amused one evening when he did a play-by-play of our sock-tossing game.

“Woodell goes back, back. He may never get to this one!” He motioned to me to throw the sock ball. “He leaps!” I tossed it
higher than ever, just missing the ceiling and heading for the faded drape above the couch. Elgin got a finger on the sock,
causing it to tumble end-over-end. As he settled onto the couch, he reached up with both hands and gathered in the sock.

“He’s got it!” he cried. “Elgin Woodell, youngest player in the history of baseball, saves the game for the Cubs! The ten-year-old
center fielder climbed the vines for that one, tipped it, and came down with it!”

That line of Elgin’s was one I had never heard from my brothers. They had always imagined themselves as Braves, making the
game-saving catch or the game-winning hit when they grew up.

This was something else that set Elgin apart from others in my life. They all waited and hoped to get the big promotion, to
win the lottery, to get a break. But Elgin didn’t dream about being a big leaguer when he grew up. He dreamed about being
a big leaguer now.

I
tried to get Elgin interested in football and basketball throughout the fall and winter, but though he enjoyed following
the Bulls and Bears, baseball remained his true love. How could a boy his age care so much about box scores and statistics?
We were learning a lot from each other. He had inherited my knack for math, and he used fractions and percentages to teach
me how to figure earned run and batting averages. I pretended to care.

“It isn’t just the numbers,” Elgin told me. “Every game starts with an empty box score, and no two are alike. There’s always
the chance for a perfect game, or a no-hitter, or a shutout, or a blowout. Games have patterns. Sometimes you’ll go along
with nothing happening for five or six innings, then one team will explode. Sometimes both do.”

One night he made me wonder if he was gifted. Was there some dormant gene from a distant ancestor?

“Baseball is, like, sort of balanced,” he said. “You’re supposed to suffer when you walk too many people, and usually you
do. But sometimes you get out of jams when you shouldn’t, and then you see things fall apart with no one on and two outs.
The best play of a game might not work. It’s just like how we live.”

Could he have been thinking of the choices I had made, the
divorce, the move, my leaving him alone every day until I got home from work? I wanted to ask him, but he quickly moved back
to baseball.

He went on and on about how sometimes a great play doesn’t work while a mistake can work out for good.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Don’t you see it, Momma? On a bad play, out of position, lucky, a guy makes a double play that gets his team out of trouble
and keeps them in the game. Then, on the best play he makes all year, the runner is safe anyway and the game starts to turn.
In the scorebook, his best play looks like his worst and his worst is scored a double play.”

“So what’s the moral of your story, El?”

He smiled. “The moral is, you talk to your mother about baseball stuff and you get to stay up later.”

I chased him to bed.

“There really is a moral to that story, though, isn’t there?” I said as I tucked him in.

He shrugged.

I said, “I think that if you do the right thing because it’s the right thing, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but
it evens out. You can do the right thing and fail, or you can do the wrong thing and get lucky. But you can never do the wrong
thing on purpose and get lucky often. Isn’t that just like life?”

He shrugged again.

“That works in life as well as in baseball, El. Don’t you think?”

I didn’t know what Momma wanted me to say, so I just scowled and concentrated on getting better situated under the covers.
She was talking about adult stuff now, and though she seemed to think I understood, it made me uncomfortable. I just didn’t
want her to make such a big deal of it.

“I tried to do the right thing with your dad and nothing worked out,” she said. “I tried to do the right thing by moving
to Chicago. We won’t know till spring if that was the right thing, at least for you.”

“You mean if I get to play in a good enough league, we’ll find out how good of a player I really can be?”

“El, I didn’t come here just to find out what kind of a baseball player you would become.”

“I know.”

“If I only wanted to see how good you were, I would have kept you down there where you could play most of the year and where
they would have moved you into a higher league.”

“They better do that here, cause I’m better than the kids my age here too.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“I wouldn’t mind playing with the men in the softball league.”

Momma threw her head back and laughed. “Let’s not get carried away,” she said.

I was glad the conversation found its way back to baseball, as our talks usually did. I felt guilty trying to steer such a
young boy into adult talk. I longed for the day when he would be old enough to understand.

The Chicago winter had been depressing for both of us. No snowdrifts or traffic jams like the locals predicted, but it was
bitter cold. Hot water was sometimes scarce. A hot meal charity mistook our address for someone else’s and tried to deliver
dinner one night. I explained that we were not needy, and that our dinner was on the stove.

Elgin was curious to know whether what they had to offer—hot turkey—was better than the ravioli in the kitchen. It was, he
decided, but I dragged him from the door and explained the situation to him. We had a good laugh over it, then I went to my
bed and cried.

I didn’t understand my own emotions. The sun setting so soon after Elgin’s school let out depressed me. The sweetness of
people delivering hot meals to shut-ins or the elderly touched me. But being mistaken for a charity case, probably because
of the building we lived in, reached my soul.

Yes, we were needy. But I couldn’t bring myself to accept handouts. We were not eligible and did not need the hot meal, but
when a church group came by with warm winter coats, it took all my reserve to send them away with a thank-you.

Sub-zero temperatures were new to me, the windchill piercing as I waited for the bus and made the frigid walks from the bus
to the transient hotel. I had taken to wearing several layers of clothing, but there was something about my porous cotton
overcoat that made me long for something down-filled.

I had bought Elgin a warm parka. I would not have been able to live with myself if he’d had to get to and from school and
play outside without it. For me, earmuffs, a hat, a scarf, and decent gloves helped make up for my flimsy coat. By spring,
if it ever came, I would have not only my savings, Elgin’s college fund, and my bills up to date, but I would also have enough
to register Elgin in a real baseball league.

As the days grew longer, but hardly warmer, Elgin began playing fastpitch with his friends a few blocks away on weekends and
for a little less than an hour on school days. He devoured the sports pages, which Mr. Bravura saved for him from the lobby.

Ricardo Bravura was a man in his late fifties, short with spindly legs and arms but a waistline that belonged to a much larger
man. His remaining wisps of hair were greasy and unkempt, and he only occasionally kept his teeth in all day. He was not intimidating,
but he ran the place for some absentee owner, which pretty much meant no breaks for anyone. He threw out the drunks who wandered
in to doze in the warmth of the lobby. And he evicted tenants who didn’t keep their rent paid in advance.

He made clear he was not there as a referee for the residents. It was up to us to keep out of one another’s way. He might
threaten to keep people quiet, but once a renter got past Bravura’s desk, he was on his own. Two maids changed the linens
once every three days or with each new client, unless you
rented by the month—which we did. Then you did your own housework.

I could tell Mr. Bravura was enamored with me. For all I knew he might have been a devout lecher in his day. But now he was
old and tired and seemed content to just notice and compliment women when the mood struck him. He was overly friendly to me,
but he had never been inappropriate. I tried to carry myself in a way that made that impossible.

I appreciated that Mr. Bravura was nice to Elgin. He let him use the office phone in emergencies, though Elgin was to use
the pay phone whenever he had change. Best of all, Mr. Bravura finally caught on that Elgin was willing to tidy up the dingy,
smelly lobby in exchange for the day’s newspaper—specifically the sports section.

So, every morning after the early risers had cleared out, Ricardo would find the most unwrinkled sports section from those
that had been left, and save it for his young lobby attendant. Elgin breezed through the dusting of dark, greasy wood and
cracking leather in just a few minutes, clearing and tossing the trash. Then he would move past the cluttered, glassed-in
cubicle with “Manager” stenciled on it. He would take the
Tribune
or
Sun-Times
, promise to greet his “lovely mother,” and head to our apartment.

There, with just enough time between breakfast and school, while I dressed for work, Elgin memorized the numbers that defined
his world. All through the dark, cold days there had been little mention of trades, deals, and winter meetings. But with February
had come spring training.

“The scores mean nothing, Momma,” he tried to explain. “The managers are experimenting, trying everyone, working on plays,
pitches, situations. But the batting averages mean a lot. The veterans don’t care if they’re facing the Cy Young award winner
or some guy who will never play in the big leagues. They’re there to prove they still have it. They don’t want a rookie proving
it’s his turn.”

I half listened as I steeled myself for the day. With every layer of clothes I reminded myself that this was worth it. This
was why
I had come to Chicago. Today it would be spring training box scores. Tomorrow it would be Little League. But someday, it
would be broadcasting. Or something. Anything. Elgin would be more than his daddy, more than anyone who had ever bore that
name. I would make it possible, give him all the opportunities, and he would not squander it.

“H
ow are you doing with your fastpitch hitting, El?” I called, pulling on a boot.

“I’m the best hitter every day, and I’m still the youngest.”

I stopped and looked out the door at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, ma’am. Hardly anybody can get me out twice in a row.”

“You caught on to that pretty fast.”

“Seemed like forever to me. Using a broom handle to hit a tennis ball, pitched from up close like that, seems like the hardest
thing to do. But once you catch on, it’s fun. You should come and watch sometime.”