High Heat (14 page)

English class had hardly begun on Monday when the phone rang in the back of the room. Mrs. Joyner, who had started talking about Emily Dickinson, scowled at the interruption, and she scowled again as she looked at me. "Shane, you're to go to the coach's office." I
gathered my books together and headed for the door. "But you are not excused from your homework or from your reading."

The gym is clear across campus from my English class, so it took a while to get there. When I reached it, I could hear voices inside. I waited a moment, then knocked.

Grandison wasn't usually at school in the mornings, but I wasn't surprised when he opened the door. His face was solemn as he motioned me inside. "Shane, this is Mr. Brock, head of the WIAA. He wants to ask you a few questions."

Brock was a big man with short blond hair combed forward like a kid's. He had a gold ring on his little finger—some sort of championship ring—maybe a Super Bowl or World Series ring. His deep voice filled the room. "Nice to meet you, Shane. I knew your father a little. We played against each other when he was at Washington State and I was a Husky. I was sorry to hear what happened."

I never knew what to say when people talked about my dad, so I was relieved when Brock sat down at Grandison's desk and opened a laptop computer. I sat in front of him while Grandison stood off to the side. Brock typed for a moment, then looked at me. "You know why I'm here, don't you, Shane?"

"Because I hit that guy from Shorelake."

"That's right. And that
guy
has a name. Reese Robertson."

Brock leaned back in his chair. Ten seconds ticked by, then another ten. "Do you know what the WIAA is?"

"Not really."

"It stands for Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association. We supervise high school sports, make sure everything is on the up and up. I'd like you to tell me what happened with that pitch."

I swallowed. "It was an accident. I was trying to come inside with a fastball, move him off the plate, but the pitch got away. It sailed up and in, and he was leaning out over the plate. He barely moved."

Brock folded his hands in front of him. "So there was nothing different about that pitch?"

"Only that it got away from me."

Brock typed something, then looked up. "You were losing badly. That must have been tough."

"It's always tough to lose."

"But you know Reese Robertson, don't you? And that made it tougher."

"Not really. I barely know him. His parents bought my old house, but I've only talked to him once or twice in my whole life."

"You don't hold a grudge against him?"

"Why should I hold a grudge?"

"I can think of a few reasons. He's living in your old house; he's going to your old school; he's playing—and starring—on your old team."

"Look," I said, "I didn't hit Reese Robertson because his parents bought my house or because he goes to Shorelake. That'd be stupid."

Brock leaned forward. "I've talked to the Shorelake coaches, the Shorelake parents, the Shorelake players. They think you set Reese up with outside pitches, got him leaning out over the plate, and then went headhunting. They think you hit him on purpose."

"Well, they're wrong," I said, my body getting hot all over.
I paused. I could tell he didn't believe me. "Look. I went to the hospital to see him. Would I do that if I hit him on purpose?"

"You visited Reese?"

"Yeah. I took the bus on Saturday. He's in room B3213," I said. "I didn't talk to him because his mom and dad were with him and nurses were all around him. But I went. And I called the hospital the night it happened to make sure he was okay. If I was such a bad guy, if I hated him so much and wanted to hurt him, I wouldn't do that, would I?"

For a moment Brock stared at me. "I don't know, Shane. Would you?"

"I'm telling you," I said, my voice rising, "it was an accident."

For a long time no one said anything. Finally Brock spoke. "All right, if you say it was an accident, then I guess it was an accident. You can go back to class now."

I stood up, went to the door, then turned back. "What's going to happen? Am I going to be suspended?"

Brock shook his head. "No. You won't be suspended."

I was shaky all day at school. At practice I could feel the eyes of my teammates on me. After we did our stretching and running, Grandison sent me along the sidelines to play catch with Miguel Alvarez. We stood about one hundred feet apart and threw back and forth. Long toss makes your arm stronger without risking injury.

It was exactly what I needed. We got into a nice rhythm,
and time passed by. As I threw to Alvarez, I could hear Grandison barking at the infielders and outfielders, but he might as well have been a million miles away.

I'd been throwing for ten minutes when he strolled over. He'd watched a dozen throws or so when he stopped me. "You feel okay about pitching Wednesday?"

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Just what I said."

"Of course I feel okay. I'm looking forward to it. Why wouldn't I?"

He shrugged. "Some pitchers have trouble throwing hard after they put a guy down."

"If I'd hit him on purpose, then maybe I would," I said. "But the guy was leaning..."

Grandison put his hand up. "I've heard it already, Shane. I was there. Remember?"

"Right."

"All right, regular plan then. If Wednesday's is close, you'll be going in."

The Roosevelt Roughriders were a decent team with a decent record: 4–3 or 5–2. Something like that. While watching them as they warmed up before our game, I could sense they weren't likely to make great plays in the field but they'd catch the balls hit to them, and they'd hit any fat pitches that were laid right down the middle.

Cory Minton started. We staked him to an early three-run lead on a bunch of walks and a bases-clearing double by Jeff Walton, but Roosevelt scratched back, scoring a run in the fourth and another in the fifth. Grandison turned to me in
the top of the seventh. "Shane, get yourself warmed up. You'll close the game for us."

I grabbed my glove and hustled out, Miguel Alvarez right behind me.

As I loosened along the sidelines, I felt the familiar excitement come back like an old friend. I was done with hospitals, done with explanations. It was time to pitch.

I had great stuff along the sidelines that night. I wasn't throwing any faster than usual, but the ball was moving as if it had a mind of its own. When that happens, everything is simple. All I do is aim for the catcher's glove, and in the last twenty feet or so the ball will tail a few inches inside or outside. I don't really know which way it will go, but that doesn't matter. Batters swing at a ball that looks like it's coming right down the middle, but when their bat crosses the plate, the ball isn't there.

Confident, I stopped throwing and looked out to the field. Benny Gold took a hard swing and hit a mile-high popup that the other team's third baseman caught for the last out in our half of the seventh. I threw one more practice pitch to Alvarez. It tailed down and away, an impossible pitch to hit. Alvarez gave me a little smile and a thumbs-up, and I trotted out to the mound.

"Play ball!" the ump yelled. Gold fired the ball to second; it went around the infield and came back to me. I rubbed it up a little, stepped back onto the mound, and looked toward the plate as the Roosevelt batter stepped in.

That's when the dizziness hit me. It was like being punched in the head. Everything started rocking this way and
that. Gold put down one finger for the fastball, the most basic sign, but for an instant I couldn't register what it meant. I stepped off the rubber to get ahold of myself.

Gold popped out of his crouch and took two steps toward me. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"All right then. Let's go."

I stepped back onto the mound. Quickly, I wound and delivered. But my great stuff was gone. Instead of letting the ball fly free and easy, I choked it. The ball bounced up to home plate. Gold smothered it, fired it back. "Come on, Shane!" he shouted, making a fist with his bare hand. "You can do it." Behind me the infielders were calling out the same thing.

Again I wound, and again I hurried everything. The ball bounced at least ten feet in front of the plate. In the stands I heard laughter. Grandison leaned through the opening from the bench and cupped his hands into a megaphone. "Relax, Shane. Relax."

Gold signaled for another fastball. I nodded, then delivered. I told myself to let the ball go, to fire it in there, but I held back, and the result was a nothing pitch that floated over the heart of the plate.

The Roosevelt hitter swung so hard he nearly corkscrewed himself into the ground, sending a line drive to deep left center that landed about ten feet in front of the fence and then bounced over for a ground-rule double. Roosevelt's players and fans screamed in delight.

Gold got a new baseball from the umpire and carried it out to me. "It's okay," he said, holding his palms down. "It's
okay. Just relax and throw the ball."

He returned behind the plate. I tried to pretend there was no batter standing there. I focused entirely on Gold's glove. But as my arm came forward, I guided the ball. Instead of going eighty-five miles an hour, it went seventy-five. The Roosevelt guy, first pitch swinging, caught it solid—a mammoth drive down the left field line. For a moment I thought it might curve foul, but it was out of the park so fast it never had a chance to. The Roosevelt players danced onto the field as their parents whooped and hollered behind them.

My teammates trudged past me back to our bench and started packing their gear. The loss was sudden and unexpected. We'd led the whole game. The whole game!

I stayed on the mound, too stunned to move, until Grandison came and got me. "It happens," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "Some days you just don't have it. You'll get them next time." I nodded, but inside I was in knots. Because I
did
have it. While warming up I'd never been sharper.

When I stepped inside the house that night, Mom had already left for work. Instead of being up in her room, Marian was downstairs. I knew something was bothering her. She would read, get up and wander around, then go back to the sofa. Every once in a while I'd catch her looking at me funny.

Once I had finished my dinner, I went to the front room. "Something wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing's wrong."

"Come on. What is it?"

She looked at me angrily. "Don't you know what today is?
One year ago today Dad killed himself. Mom didn't say anything, but I could tell she remembered. And you don't even miss him."

"Come on, Marian," I said, ashamed. "Just because I didn't remember the exact date doesn't mean I don't miss him."

"You don't miss him. All you care about is baseball and being a star pitcher."

"That's not fair, Marian. I don't wake up with nightmares, but that doesn't mean I don't care about Dad. Okay? So layoff."

I could see her flinch at the word
nightmare,
and she immediately opened her book and hid behind it. I went upstairs to my room and lay on the bed. Was she right? Was I forgetting about my own father?

Two of my grandparents had died a few months apart when I was seven. I could sort of picture them if I tried hard, but only sort of. And I never thought of them, except maybe at Christmas. But with my dad it was different. He wasn't getting hazy in my memory. The way he lived and the way he died were clear. Maybe it wasn't that I couldn't remember him. Maybe I didn't want to.

At the next practice I asked Grandison if I could pitch batting practice. When I'd asked before, he'd always said no, afraid to risk an injury. He started to refuse me that day too, but then he stopped himself. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea," he said.

There was an old paint bucket filled with balls right next to the pitching rubber. I picked up a ball and motioned to Kurt Lind. "You ready?"

"Fire away," he said, stepping into the batter's box.

You're not supposed to throw one hundred percent during BP. The idea is for hitters to build their confidence. But you're not supposed to throw so easy that it does them no good.

I laid in a sevenry-five-mile-an-hour fastball, which Lind smacked past my ear and into center field. My next four pitches were like the first one, and he creamed three of them, finally leaving the cage flexing his biceps. But that was okay, because I had a plan. I was going to pick up my velocity batter by batter, never getting to full speed, of course, but coming as close as I could without having Grandison chew me out. The five pitches I put up for Brian Fletcher had more zip on them, and as I worked through our hitters, I pushed myself a little harder with each one.

"Last batter," Grandison called to me as Pedro Hernandez stepped in.

This was it. Hernandez was a dead fastball hitter. Anything but my best and he'd be all over it. But if I was on top of my game, I'd have enough to blow the ball by him. I rocked and delivered.

If you were watching from the sidelines, you'd have sworn that I was throwing all out, one hundred percent. I couldn't tell you how I was holding back. But I was. I could feel it, and I could see it in the results. Hernandez sent a line drive down the left field line, then hit a long fly to center that
would have been out of half the parks we played in. He fouled the next pitch straight back, his timing perfect. He ripped the final two pitches into left center. After each pitch I vowed to let the next one go, but I held back every time.

On Saturday afternoon we had another away game, this time against the Ingraham Rams. Before the game, I went into the men's room and threw up. I'd never done that before. I'd always been nervous-excited; this was nervous-terrified. When I finished puking, I sat down gulping air for a while, trying to pull myself together.

"Where you been, Hunter?" Grandison barked when I finally returned to the field.

"In the bathroom," I said.

He must have seen something on my face. His anger changed to concern. "You sick?"