Middle Innings

Which story do I tell my son? The one about Melinda, and how she sat in the same spot in the bleachers, top row, along the first base line? How she had been a lifeguard that summer at the pool across from the ballpark, and how after the pool closed and she had showered and changed, she would pick her way carefully across the gravel parking lot to watch a few innings of our American Legion game, the only action in a small Nebraska town on a summer night.

“Dad, this glove’s too small, let me use yours.”

“Ah, it’s alright, just catch it in the web.”

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“Web? What am I, a spider?”

“The pocket. Here, between these fingers.”

“Geez, Dad. I know.”

His eight-year old fingers wrapped around the baseball, he wouldn’t understand how I would watch her from my shortstop position, how she would rise to her spot on the bleachers, her bare feet pressing on the boards, the faded green paint curled from years in the sun. She would sit near the local teenagers, her face turned toward the sun as she looked into the distance, brushing out her long hair, drying to a smell of baby oil and chlorine.

“Throw one out here, I wanna dive for it.”

“Here, ready?”

The grounder bounces over his sprawled body, his belly flop mistimed. He flips the glove off and lies in the unmowed grass, watching the ball as it settles against the back fence.

“Cody, you’re supposed to run after it. And don’t throw your glove.”

He shrugs, rises to his feet and starts back toward the fence, tossing Ninja kicks at the shadows inching across the backyard. How can I explain to him that what we had that year was special, not like the previous summers, when the season ended the first night of districts, with losses to Auburn, Nebraska City, or to other teams with more confidence and better uniforms. We won over 20 games. Lempke and Barnpool were in the outfield, and Gordie and Gopher at second and third, all skilled hitters and fast, and the Foster boys, swinging those huge hay baling arms, how they would launch pitches high over the short fence in right field, short because Mr. Murphy wouldn’t sell his garage to the city. And Chopper, my best friend, how his fastball would jump and pop into Big Chief’s mitt, his hat black ringed by sweat stains that looked like mountain peaks.

“Hey, there’s a soccer ball in the bushes. Let’s kick some.”

“Let’s throw a little more, it will be dark soon.”

He kicks the ball back into the bushes and wanders back, picking up his glove on the way. We throw easily, his small body shifting right, left, catching most of the balls I toss glove side, some of the balls tossed the other way, leading him to use his backhand. I’m aware that the kitchen light has gone on in the house, my wife’s face in the window, looking down, the dishes washed, rinsed, set aside. The neighborhood is quiet, conversations concluded, lawnmowers rolled into garages. I foolishly wish there were stadium lights in the backyard, advertisements painted on the fence, so we could go on throwing like this, back and forth, forever in this moment.

“What’s so funny?”

“What? Nothing, I’m not laughing.”

“Yes, you are. You’re smiling. Laughing cause I’m not any good.”

“No, Cody. I’m just having fun.”

“Why?”

“Oh, just this, playing catch.”

I could describe how Chop and I would ride around late after games, driving down every street in the town we had lived in for 17 years, listening to Cardinals games, fading in and out on KMOX, depending on the cloud cover. That was when Harry Caray called Cardinal games. When Gibson pitched and Carlton was still a Cardinal, and there was McCarver, Flood, Gagliano and, how, eventually, we would park in the shadows a block from where Melinda was staying with her grandmother. We sat with our thoughts, sipping warm Coors beer from Kansas, the night air finally cool after a dry day, just watching the dark two-story, wondering if she was watching TV, or asleep, or if she was even home.

“I’m thirsty.”

“Yeah, me too. Throw me a hard one, like you’re a pitcher.”

I struggle into a catcher’s squat, my 39-year old legs stiff from injuries never fully healed. I could tell him, though he likely wouldn’t care, how at our high school reunion I struggled initially to fill the pauses when I talked to those guys after 20 years, most who had stayed, some who had left, all of us in polo shirts, wallets full of photos of our kids. Then we had played softball, and what stiffness there had been fell away as we jogged out to our old positions. We tossed the ball around the infield, dropped fly balls, and sat between innings, our dress shoes discarded beneath the bench, swapping insults and memories like ball cards laid out on the table.

Cody’s first throw was high and wide. His wind up convoluted, ending with another belly flop.

“Here. Try another. Watch my glove, it’s OK to throw hard.”

His next throw was belt high, inside.

“Strike. That’s the way to throw.”

He pumped two more in the same general area. I let the next throw hit crisply in the palm, stinging bone. A smile exploded on his face.

“Now that’s a fastball. Throw another.”

Melinda had been from Atlanta, appearing one spring day after our junior year. I first saw her at the Orbit Inn, sitting on a picnic table in the shade, drinking ice tea, stirring the cubes with a long straw. We had finished practice and the rest of the team had piled in their pickups and roared off, either to finish chores or just ride around, but I had stopped at the burger place across from the park, its windows covered with signs for Slushes and Corndogs and Orbit Burgers. She sat easy, in a sleeveless white top and denim shorts, her legs tanned even though it was May. Her gray eyes watched as I stood under the overhang, waiting for my order, reading the list of sno-cone flavors.

“There’s a baseball over there,” she said, a slight tilt of her chin indicating the area behind me. Her voice was full of sailboats and golf courses. “It bounced across the street during your game.”

Sure enough, a worn baseball had settled into tuft of high grass, fouled off during batting practice. Its once-white cover was now brown with a green sheen, from infield dirt and outfield grass, tightened by rain so the cover had receded, leaving the red seams rough and elevated. A perfect ball to throw a curve, I thought, as I picked up the ball and my order and sat down.

“Thanks. It’s hard to keep these together.”

She smiled and shaded her eyes with a slender hand, her gaze moving back to the swimming pool.

“The pool doesn’t open for awhile. After Memorial Day, I think.”

“Oh, I start work today, but no one is there.”

True enough, the blue double doors were closed. No one moved inside the fenced area.

“Grady McPherron runs the pool. She drives a green pick-up,” I offered.

On cue, a green pickup with a black fender downshifted around the corner and slid up to the pool’s entrance, a bed-load of poles and buckets and life preservers slamming against the back of the cab.

“There she is now.”

She smiled and slipped gracefully off the table.

“See ya.”

She crossed the street towards the pool, walking carefully across the gravel, until she had entered the dark interior of the swimming shed, her silhouette merging into the cool shadows.

“Dad. I’m still thirsty.”

My son’s body cast a long, fading shadow in the twilight. He tossed me the ball one last time, lobbing it so it could be seen against the gray sky.

“OK, grab a couple of pops and I’ll wait for you out here.”

Cody slipped into the house, closing the back door carefully behind him. I settled into one of the metal patio chairs that my wife and I had bought at a yard auction. Chairs we had sanded and spray painted together and which now sat apart on the patio. Old Charlie James sat on a chair like these, I thought, in his yard next to the ballpark, under an old ash where he would watch night games, pointing his cane toward foul balls that bounced into his yard, kids scrambling in pursuit.

At one point we won 13 games in a row, including the Fourth of July tournament, and everyone assumed that we would win districts, especially since they were in our park, and then move on to state, the first Tecumseh team to make it that far. I could tell him about an afternoon practice the week before, shagging balls in the outfield, but mostly watching the action at the swimming pool across the way, Melinda in her blue swimming suit sat atop the lifeguard’s tower, under a wide-brimmed hat, a white towel over one shoulder. At breaks she’d step to the end of the high board and gather herself to a focused moment, then spring forward, her lithe body folding first in, then out, then curving into the cool water, the distant splash reaching the ball field well after impact.

“There’s only two left, grape and root beer,” Cody said, handing me the root beer as he moved his chair closer. Somewhere he had found a Yankees baseball cap, tilted back on his head.

“Did I ever tell you what happened to me once when I played baseball?”

He popped the can and studied the foam that rose from the narrow opening.

“Uh-uh.”

“I was a shortstop and we had really good team. There was an important game and we were ahead by a couple of runs. If we won we would have been the best team in that part of Nebraska.”

“Dad?”

“What?”

“Do you think Scottie Pippen is as good as Michael Jordan?”

“Oh, they’re both pretty good players. Depends if you want scoring or rebounding. Anyway, the other team scored a couple of runs and we were ahead by only a run.”

Maybe now was the time I would tell him how after the game, after it was all over, while I was walking toward Orbit Inn, I saw Melinda slide into a car with Gopher’s older brother, back from the university, her hair tied back as she laughed, gray eyes sparkling as she saw me, yet didn’t see me. The car had pulled a quick u-turn away from the park, the red taillights flashing once, twice and then gone.

“What color were your uniforms?”

“Uniforms? Ours? White. White with black stripes. Pinstripes.”

I hesitated. How much does he need to know?

In the seventh inning Falls City loaded the bases and with one out Porkorny, their left-handed centerfielder, had swung late and laced a shot over Gopher’s head at third, the ball spinning sideways in the lights. It was sliced toward the left field line, that area where the shortstop has to turn and sprint, head down, then reach up to backhand the ball. Gopher at third had looked at me wide-eyed as the ball shot over his head. Everyone in the stands had watched as the ball started its descent, its seams spinning erratically, and on my final reach the ball stuck in my out-stretched glove, then spun out, landing just fair, deflected down the line into the shadows. I chased after, aware of the collective groan from the crowd as the runners raced home, all eyes on my back as I grabbed the ball and threw toward home, too late, always too late.

“So,” my son asked, hesitantly, a faint grape mustache on his top lip, “What happened?”

“We lost. I dropped a ball I should have caught. Our season was over.”

“Oh.”

There was more to say, but we sat together in silence until a streetlight hummed, sputtered, and then clicked on.

“Did the other players blame you, for goofing up?”

“Nah, they understood. It just didn’t work out. A lot of things in life don’t work out, even though you want them to.”

I turned the baseball around in my hand, feeling along the seams for the familiar grip of a two-seam fastball, where the seams are closest together. The thumb found its place, underneath, centered for balance. I stood and handed him the baseball.

“See you tomorrow, same time?”