Mudville Read online

  I order a chili dog with fries and a root beer.

  “Lots of onions on the chili dog,” I tell the waitress.

  “You got it, champ.”

  My mother just gets a Diet Coke.

  “Lot of people rooting for you,” my mom says with a smile as the waitress runs off to put in our order.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Your father among them,” she says. “I hear he rebuilt the ballpark, just so he could see you play. He wants you to win, Roy.”

  “He's been acting kind of neutral,” I tell her. “Since Sturgis is on the other team, he's trying to be impartial.”

  “Deep down inside, your dad is a Moundville boy,” she says. “This place brings out the hero in him.”

  “You mean his defining moment?” I ask.

  “What?”

  I remind her how his base hit forced a rain delay, saving Moundville from a horrible defeat, even if it didn't get them a win.

  “I remember it well,” she says. “He was up there forever. I couldn't help but love him, the way he fought off all those pitches. It was so heroic. Even though part of me died when he got that hit, I was proud of him.”

  “Part of you died?”

  “I was rooting for Sinister Bend, silly. I'm from Sinister Bend.”

  “Oh, right.” I sort of knew that but forgot. “What about tomorrow?” I ask her. “Who are you rooting for?”

  “Now that's a chili dog!” She changes the subject, but when I see the plate, I understand. They've completely drowned the dog in chili, and there's so much chopped onion piled on, it looks like a ski slope. There's also shredded cheese and jalapeño peppers and a couple of handfuls of Fritos thrown in for good measure. As the waitress puts it down, the whole crew gathers around her and cheers. It's like birthday cake with no candles.

  “I'm a lucky girl,” my mom says. “I'm on a date with the biggest hero in town.”

  “Please don't say weird things like that,” I ask her as I grab the mustard from the end of the table.

  “You need mustard, too?”

  “It's not a hot dog without mustard.” I sploosh it on.

  For a while, I focus on my hot dog and root beer. My mother sips her Coke and steals a couple of my fries, dipping them in the wildly excessive chili and cheese on my plate. Meanwhile, I discover there are two frankfurters hiding under the mess of toppings. It's absolutely the best meal I've ever had.

  “Your father might think life is about defining moments,” my mom says, “but it's not. It's about what you do day to day. He's not a hero because of what he did in that game. He's a hero because of what he did after.”

  I look at her blankly.

  “Roy, your father helped save this town,” she says. “He found a way to save people's homes and keep them here.”

  “It's just his job,” I tell her.

  “Then it's all the more heroic,” she says. “He could have chased his own dreams, but he stayed behind and did what he had to do.”

  I sip my root beer and scoop up some chili dog drippings with a French fry. My silence says more than enough.

  “Oh,” she says sadly. “I didn't, did I? Roy, I was just a kid when I got married. Barely out of high school. It was always raining, and I was really unhappy. I guess I just needed to leave, to save myself.”

  “It's okay,” I tell her. I don't sound like I mean it, but then, I don't mean it.

  “I knew your father would raise you right, and he did.”

  “I guess,” I tell her.

  “He's doing great with Sturgis, too,” she says.

  “I guess,” I say again. “He doesn't drag him to dogfights anyway.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  I recount the story about the dogfight in Sutton, but it sounds lame even to me. I remember Rita saying it sounded made up. It probably is, I realize.

  “Roy, Sturgis was hurt in the same car accident that killed his mother. Carey was drunk and insisted on driving home from some party, wherever they were that night. He crashed into another car. It hit the passenger side, and Evelyn, your aunt … she died immediately, and Sturgis was badly hurt by shattered glass. Carey wasn't hurt at all. They found him on the highway, running, scared out of his mind, and so drunk he couldn't remember any of it later.”

  So maybe Sturgis had scabs of his own he didn't want to pick at. I suddenly feel queasy and claustrophobic. I want to be doing anything other than talking to my mother in a crowded diner. I'd rather be digging ditches in the rain.

  “I need to go,” I tell her.

  “You'll be okay?”

  “Why would I not be okay?” I ask her. It's not her business to ask anyway, I think. It's not like she can check in every few years and buy me a chili dog and ask me if everything is okay.

  I brush by the people in the diner, nodding politely, not hearing whatever they shout in my ear. I go out the door, across the street, and back to the outfield grass Sturgis and I laid out with our own hands. I go to the dugout and lie down on the brand-new bench. I pull my cap low over my eyes and sink down until I'm invisible.

  So it wasn't a wolf that left a mark on Sturgis, I think. It was his dad.

  “What's going on with Roy?” someone asks.

  “Search me,” says another voice.

  I'm shaken awake by Miggy. He's with Google and Anthony and, of course, his shadow, Carlos. I sit up and rub my eyes.

  “We want to practice,” he says.

  “What time is it?”

  “Evening.” He shrugs. I see the shadows are getting longer in the outfield.

  “Will you pitch batting practice?” Miggy asks. “Just an hour or so?”

  “Nah,” I tell them. “If you can't hit now, one more hour's not going to help.”

  Miggy nods and speaks a bit to the other boys in Spanish. Google answers, and Miggy laughs.

  “He says he wants practice dodging bullets,” he explains.

  “We'll probably need that,” I agree.

  “We're going to get killed, aren't we?” asks Carlos.

  “Probably,” I admit.

  Google says something in Spanish again, and Miggy translates.

  “He says he can't wait,” he tells me.

  I head home, skip supper (I'm still pretty full from lunch), and go to bed early. Exhaustion wins out over insomnia, and I finally get a good night's sleep.

  I do have bad dreams, though. In one, I oversleep and show up late to the game. When I get there, we're already trailing by a score of twenty-three to nothing, and the Sinister Bend team is in full Dakota war dress, looking like extras from an old Western. In another, my mom stands up in the bleachers, just like the woman in The Natural. Sturgis throws a ball at her and knocks her head clean off. The crowd cheers, and the umpire hands him a giant stuffed panda.

  I blame the bad dreams on stress and too much chili dog.

  When I wake up, Sturgis is long gone. So is my dad. Somebody's scrawled “Good luck!” on the marker board and drawn a smiley face in a baseball cap. Either it's my dad and he means it or it's Sturgis and he's being sarcastic.

  I can smell burned frankfurter two blocks before I get to the ballpark, and I figure my dad has already set up his hot dog tent. I hope he's just testing out the equipment and not selling whatever it is I smell to customers.

  He gives me a friendly wave as I walk by.

  People begin to fill the bleachers as we practice. They clap and chatter as we take batting practice and shag fly balls. The fielding warm-up is crisp and steady. Maybe Bobby Fitz was right. We just needed a day off.

  The Sinister Bend team shows up an hour later. They're wearing their Pirates uniforms and new yellow caps with SB drawn on the front, the S hooking the B. No two are the same. Most of the logos are misshapen or out of proportion. Sturgis still wears his old cap.

  “Hey, let's get off the field so those guys can warm up,” I tell my team. We gather our stuff and head for the dugout.

  I pass Sturgis as he heads out
on the field.

  “Hey, Coz,” I say, offering a hand.

  He trots by me without a word, his game face on.

  A few of us visit the hot dog tent while the Sinister Bend team gets ready. My dad is grilling up hot dogs by the dozen. “Free hot dogs for players!” he announces, and starts lining up the counter with paper baskets, each with a hot dog, a little pile of chips, and a dill pickle. We all take one, and a couple of us take two. Not even my dad can mess up hot dogs that much, even if he does offer people sliced olives and crushed pineapple as optional toppings.

  “Use both,” he tells us. “I call it the Caribbean!” My stomach is unsettled enough without subjecting it to experimental hot dogs, so I go with my usual dog, mustard and chopped onions. Google tries it just like that, though, with olives and pineapple, and loves it. He compliments my dad in Spanish and makes a thumbs-up sign.

  We carry our hot dogs back to the dugout while spectators cheer and reach out to slap my hand in greeting. The bleachers are already packed. More people are gathered beyond the outfield fence.

  Channel 4 from Sutton is there to tape highlights of the game for the evening news. A radio van is there, too, with bullhorn-style speakers on the roof. They're going to announce the game later, but for now classic rock is piping out of the speakers. Sturgis stops practicing and talks to the DJ. It's his kind of music, so I'm not surprised.

  Bobby tries to inspire us with a few words about the long, noble tradition of Moundville baseball. We even do a little pregame ritual, stacking our hands and shouting, “Moundville! Moundville! Let's go!”

  The announcer calls the Sinister Bend team's names first, to scattered applause. Then he reads our names as we come out of the dugout. I feel a thrill when I'm announced as catcher and team captain, batting fourth in the order, and the crowd goes nuts. It's a tremendous feeling, like being in the big leagues. I try to find my mom among the sea of faces, but I can't see her.

  We run out onto the field to take our positions. A local singer belts out the national anthem. The mayor throws out the first pitch, and I have to move about a foot right of the plate to catch it on the bounce.

  Finally, it's time to play baseball. The roar of the crowd grows louder as Rita throws a few warm-up pitches, and the first Sinister Bend hitter stands on deck and takes a few practice swings. When the batter steps into the box and takes the first pitch for a strike, I wonder if the entire town will simply be swept up into the sky by pure joy and excitement.

  The excitement doesn't last long, though. The first batter raps the second pitch into shallow center field for a hit, and the next batter singles to left. Rita panics, walks a batter, and then gives up a double to Peter “the Bat” Labatte. Just like that, the score is three to nothing, and there's still no-body out.

  It feels like the inning might go on forever, the Sinister Bend team piling up runs until all of us are old and gray. The crowd gets restless, muttering encouragement that sounds a bit sharper as Rita falls behind the next hitter.

  I see P.J. getting careless, taking too long a lead off of second base. I catch Kazuo's attention and fire the ball to him. We have P.J. picked off. The crowd goes wild as he runs back and forth and the ball is tossed back and forth in front of him.

  Please don't goof this up! I think just as the runner tries to dive past Google and touch the bag. Google applies the tag, and a tremendous cheer goes up, shaking the ballpark. The radio van blasts a song called “Been Caught Stealing,” with dogs barking, and the Moundville fans join in, barking and stomping on the bleachers.

  It changes everything. Rita gets her screwball working, and the next two batters ground out. We go back to the dugout trailing by three but feeling better.

  When Sturgis goes out to throw his warm-up pitches in the bottom of the inning, the speakers blare an old hard-rock song.

  Outlaw from the badlands baby badlands baby.

  “That's his dad's song,” says Bobby Fitz. “Ironic, isn't it? I mean, considering what happened to him.”

  “What's that?”

  “They played that song in Baltimore when Carey Nye came out to pitch. It was his theme song, you know, like Mariano Rivera has with that song about the Sandman. All them pitchers have theme songs now.”

  “Of course.” That was why Sturgis went to the radio van. He wanted to put in his request for mound music.

  I know the Robinsons are seated right by the dugout, so I pop out.

  “Mr. R., can you get the PA guy to play Rita a song? For when she comes to the mound?”

  “Sure. Like what?”

  “You know music better than I do. Just don't pick any-thing too weird.”

  “I have an idea,” he says, squeezing past his wife and eighteen other people to run down the bleachers.

  “Nothing weird!” I holler after him.

  Sturgis quickly strikes out the side. A few minutes later, we're running back out onto the field. I wonder how we're ever going to score four runs on these guys. The radio van blares another old-time rock-and-roll song:

  Foxey! Foxey!

  Now I see you come down on the scene.

  Oh, Foxey.

  You make me wanna get up and scream!

  Foxey!

  It's pretty great. The crowd is into it, and Rita is pumped up by it, bouncing around on the mound, throwing her warm-ups with new zip. She gets the first two batters out on ground balls, then strikes out Sturgis to end the inning.

  “I can pitch!” she shouts as we go back to the dugout. “Who says I can't pitch? ’Cause I can pitch!”

  I lead off in the bottom of the inning. Sturgis throws right at me. I dive, but the ball still clips me in the shoulder. It smarts like anything, and for a split second, I think I'll charge the mound and force-feed him the ball. Instead, I take first, just hoping we can make him pay for putting the leadoff batter on base.

  Instead, he strikes out the side.

  “He's so amazing,” Shannon says as Sturgis saunters off the mound, her eyes misty with emotion.

  “The boy can pitch,” I agree.

  Rita settles down, and for a while, it's a pitchers’ duel.

  The Sinister Bend team gets a few base runners but doesn't score any more runs (PJ. ends up three-for-three). We get out of trouble with some good pitches and some good plays on defense. The highlight is a triple play started by Google, but it's taken back by the umps, who decide in retrospect that the in-field fly rule ought to have been called.

  There are no highlights on offense. We're hitless through four innings plus. Our only base runners have been on a hit-by-pitch and an error. Nobody's even gotten to second base.

  The highlight for the Sinister Bend team is a strikeout by Sturgis, with me at the plate swinging out in front of what I can only describe as a twenty-six. It's got so much heat it leaves burns on my jersey. Sturgis loses his prosthetic ear on the pitch from the effort. He's still out on the mound, swaying like a scarecrow in a windstorm, one-eared and fragile, long after I've dropped my bat and skulked back to the dugout.

  Rita is supposed to lead off in the fifth inning.

  “I'm going to have Anthony pinch-hit,” I tell her.

  “All right,” she says.

  “I think I'll have someone else pitch the sixth, too. Get a fresh arm out there.”

  “So you don't need me anymore?”

  I don't know how to answer that. It's too loaded with meaning.

  “You were amazing,” I tell her. She was amazing, too, pitching far above her ability on nothing but grit and determination. “But yeah, I guess that means you're done.”

  “Okay,” she says casually, setting the bat aside. I can't tell if she's relieved or disappointed. Then she gives me a big hug, squeezing the life out of me. I can't help but wonder if there's a bit more than team camaraderie to it. I'm redder than the stitches on a baseball when I get back to the dugout.

  Anthony digs in, staring down Sturgis. He swings past two fastballs but lifts the third over the shortstop's head. The ball
bounces on the grass in no-man's-land. Anthony is so stunned he doesn't leave the batter's box right away.

  “Run! Run!”

  He does at last and gets to first base just in time to beat the throw. The crowd sends up a deafening roar. We have a hit! We have a base hit!

  Sturgis stamps on the mound and wheels around to bark at the shortstop for being out of position. The boy shrugs and takes a few steps back.

  Peter walks out to the mound. He hasn't had to do too much as their team manager so far. He talks to Sturgis and calms him down, gives him a friendly pat on the back, and returns to the dugout.

  Sturgis fools Miggy on a changeup, striking him out, then stages a long battle with Steve.

  Google squints at Sturgis while he pitches to Steve and says something in Spanish.

  “He says watch the way the mean boy is breathing,” says Miggy, translating.

  “Huh?”

  Steve manages to draw a full count before swinging over another junkball and striking out. The crowd groans, then groans again: Anthony has taken off on the pitch and is thrown out trying to steal second. So much for our first base hit of the game.

  Google is talking excitedly. Miggy shrugs him off.

  “I don't know what the big deal is,” he tells me. “He keeps talking about how Sturgis breathes.”

  “No kidding?” I wish I could replay the last inning and see what he's talking about, but it's time to put on the tools of ignorance and squat through one more inning.

  We have to juggle the defense a bit, with Rita gone. Kazuo will pitch the last inning, so I move Google to second base and Miggy up to third. I put Anthony in left field. That worries me a bit, since Anthony is a slow runner, but there's not much else I can do.

  We're facing the bottom of the order, so I feel okay about Kazuo pitching. He doesn't have any trick pitches, but at least he can throw left-handed to the left-handed batters and right-handed to the right-handed batters. His switch-pitching starts a long talk among the umpires, but they find no rule against it, so they let him do it.