Rooting for Rafael Rosales Read online

  “Look,” he interrupted. “I’m the grown-up here, and I’m the one with a college degree and twelve years of experience in agribusiness. I think I know more about this than you do.”

  Maya’s shoulders tensed up. Dad wasn’t talking to her like an adult anymore.

  “Maya, we worry about you because of the way you worry about…well, bees and polar bears.” He reached out and gently combed hair out of her face with his fingers. “Honey, the adults haven’t broken everything as much as you think they have.”

  Maya saw how rumpled and unshaven her dad was, how rimmed his eyes were with redness. Now she was worried about him too. She decided she wouldn’t bring up the bees anymore.

  ***

  They had a late lunch at a restaurant near the airport, one with fishing nets strewn along the walls. The restaurant was busy even though it was late for lunch and early for dinner. The heaping plates of fried shrimp made Maya wonder if any were left in the Gulf.

  Baseball fans in red jerseys were sitting at a table talking about the game that afternoon. Maya felt a tug of regret: her own family could have squeezed another game in before they flew home. She wanted to stand in the bleachers and cheer with her sister beside her.

  Grace had barely spoken to her all day. Even when Maya asked if the Twins won yesterday, Grace pretended not to hear. But now her sister elbowed her in a chummy way.

  “Look at the bar,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.

  Maya glanced over and saw the baseball blogger from the stadium. He was drinking a king-sized beer and eating a plate of crab legs. He had a laptop open on the bar next to him and was clattering on the keys in between bites.

  “It’s your boyfriend,” Maya whispered.

  Grace snickered and rolled her eyes. “You’re the future Mrs. Rhombus,” she teased. They were acting like the mean girls in middle school, but at least they were getting along. Danny noticed them on their way out and waved. Maya waved back since he was being friendly.

  “Were you at the game?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “I’ve got an interview lined up,” he said. “I better not tell you who it is with, but if you stick around, you won’t be sorry. I’ll tell you that much.”

  “We’re about to fly back to Minnesota, actually.”

  “Well,” he said, “you might run into your friend Rafael Rosales at the airport.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s gone,” he explained, scissoring his fingers through the air like he was cutting a thread. “They sent him back to the Dominican Republic. You can tell him hasta luego, but it might be more like hasta nunca.” He shrugged. “My condolences.”

  If Grace hadn’t reached back to grab her elbow and pull her toward the door, Maya might have dumped the king-sized beer on Danny Rhombus’s head.

  The sugar farm where Papa worked shut down forever after the harvest. Papa said it was because the price of sugar dropped. The owners couldn’t keep the place going even with their lousy wages and never buying new equipment.

  It happened a few weeks after Christmas. That was good timing because the Three Kings had already given Rafael the real baseball glove he’d asked for. His birthday wasn’t until August. Dad might have a new job by then, but Rafael couldn’t count on it.

  “What’ll happen to the girl with the chicken?” Iván whispered to Rafael that night.

  Rafael had not forgotten the little girl at the batey, but he was surprised Iván remembered. They’d only seen her once for a few seconds.

  “You should worry about us,” said Rafael. “Papa lost his job, you know.”

  “Papa will get a new job,” said Iván.

  “So will that girl’s parents,” said Rafael. “There’s other cane to cut.”

  “But the other sugar farms are far away,” said Iván. “It’s a long way to carry a chicken.”

  “She’ll be all right,” said Rafael. “They’ll both be all right.”

  “I hope we see her again,” said Iván. He paused. “When you’re a rich and famous baseball player like Sammy Sosa, can they come live with us in your mansion?”

  “Of course.”

  “Including the chicken?”

  “The chicken will have its own room,” said Rafael.

  ***

  Papa couldn’t find another job as a mechanic. He opened a shop inside the house and started fixing appliances.

  “Those are completely different from the machines you’re used to,” Rafael’s mother said, worried. But Papa patted her hand. “It’s fine. All machines are the same. I can tell how things work by looking at them.” Soon the house was crowded with broken televisions and radios.

  “Let me show you how this works,” Papa said one day to Rafael. It was summer, and Rafael was home but restless and bored. Papa had the front panel off a coffeemaker, a fancy one with a dozen buttons, and was studying the tangle of wires inside. “You’re almost ten, and you’re ready to learn a trade. Let me show you how to fix things so you always have work.”

  Rafael tried to concentrate, but his mind wandered outside to the street where he heard laughter and cheering. Something was going on. Something bigger than the usual game of streetball.

  “See here, a broken wire. Five minutes to fix,” Papa told him. “You can even use bits and pieces from other machines. It’s very easy.” Papa nimbly twisted wires and wrapped them with black tape. His hands were big but could handle small things. “See?” He replaced the panel, plugged in the pot, and found that the light-up display still didn’t work. Papa cursed, removed the panel again, and saw a new smoldering of melted plastic. “Everything is more complicated than it needs to be!” he complained, poking at what looked like a circuit board. “Why does a coffeemaker need a computer?”

  The noise from outside was even greater. There were so many voices and so much clapping and stamping that it sounded like Tetelo Vargas stadium. Papa didn’t seem to notice.

  “Can I go outside?” Rafael asked.

  “Fine, you go outside,” Papa muttered. “You go play games, and I’ll break everything I am supposed to be fixing!” Rafael knew his father was being sarcastic, but he was dying to find out what was going on. He jumped off his chair.

  “Where are you going?” his mother asked. Rafael had barely noticed she was there, but now she appeared in his path, wagging her finger. “Your father is trying to teach you. It’s important to him that you learn.”

  “But I don’t want to fix machines,” Rafael protested.

  He was braced for a fight, but his mother crouched down, took him into a fierce hug that squeezed the breath out of him, and whispered in his ear as she did so: “Your father needs you to believe in him, Rafael.”

  He knew what she meant. She wanted him to stay. But the excitement in the street was too much to ignore. He pulled away from her.

  “I believe in you, Papa!” Rafael shouted, and darted out the door.

  He had never seen so many kids in the street at once. They must have poured in from every corner of the barrio and were crowding around the spot where they played streetball.

  “What’s going on?” he asked a boy he didn’t know.

  “Rogério Romero is here!”

  Rafael’s heart skipped a beat. There was a real, live major leaguer right here in front of his house. Not only a major leaguer, an all-star! He leaped into the fray, overwhelmed by the need to shake hands with this man, to feel the magic in his hands. He had a feeling that Rogério would recognize the same magic in Rafael, would give him a knowing look and say, “I’ll see you in the big time.”

  He wormed his way to the front and saw that inside the mob was a circle of sawhorses. Inside the circle, Rogério had a hand on Juan’s shoulder and another on his throwing hand, showing him his famous cutter grip. Also inside the circle were men with cameras and microphones, and other men who kept the crowd back.

  Rafael felt sick. If he had been playing today, Rogério Romero might have picked him to teach a cutter grip f
or the camera. The lesson had ended, and now they let another dozen boys gather around Rogério for a photo. Rafael was not quick enough to be one of them. Rogério crouched as the boys crowded around and put his long arms around their shoulders. There were snaps and flashes of photography.

  One of the other men handed Rogério a big canvas sports bag, and he started to dole out baseballs. “Don’t use this in the street,” he told the first boy he handed a ball to, a boy who was not even part of their games. “You might break a window.” The boy smiled and nodded and held up the ball proudly for the camera. The worst was yet to come. Rogério reached deeper into the bag and came up with a Dodgers cap.

  “We have to fix this problem!” he said. He took the Yankees cap off Juan’s head, replaced it with the Dodgers cap, and tamped it down on his head.

  “Who’s your team now?” he asked.

  “Los Dodgers!”

  The men laughed and the boys cheered and the camera moved in for a close-up of Rogério’s big, happy face and Juan’s, arms around each other like best friends.

  He stole this from me, Rafael thought, against all reason. Juan stole this from me.

  To see another boy live his own dream cut into Rafael like a blade. No hay mal que por bien no venga, he reminded himself: good always came from the bad, like the sweet juice pouring out of cut cane. The good thing to come from this badness was that Juan started playing at the field by the taxi stand. Juan saw him walking there with Hugo one day; Juan had the brim of his Dodgers cap pulled down to shade his face, the way Rogério Romero wore his.

  Juan’s absence meant that Rafael could at least play streetball. He sneaked out of the house one morning before anyone else was awake and found Tomás and Diego and another boy practicing over by the old factory. They didn’t have enough players yet for a game.

  “Can I play?” Rafael asked.

  “Claro,” said Tomás. “If you play on my team.”

  “Where have you been?” Diego asked.

  “I’ve been helping my papa. Learning his business.” Rafael puffed up his chest a bit, feeling grown up, even though he hadn’t learned a thing.

  “Go get your brother,” said Diego. “He should play too.”

  “Really?” Had Diego forgotten what happened the last time Iván played?

  “Really! My brother Eddie is playing now.” He gestured at the boy Rafael didn’t know. “He knows Iván from school and wants him to play.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.” Rafael’s father would be awake by now and would rope Rafael back into helping him work.

  Other boys came along, and soon they had enough players for two teams.

  It felt great to swing at a ball and connect, to see the ball hop past the pitcher, and to hear the laughter and shouts of other boys as Rafael sprinted to the base. It was exhilarating to chase after a ball and catch it on the bounce, whirl around and fire it to Tomás as he tagged the base. He liked how Eddie watched him and imitated his moves. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have Iván here too.

  When Rafael got home for lunch, his father had cleared off the table, but the guts of some device were piled in the corner. Papa barely looked at Iván as they ate their bandera. Rafael had skipped breakfast and was ravenous. He gobbled up his rice and beans and asked for more.

  “You were out playing ball?” his father finally asked as he pushed his chair back from the table.

  Rafael nodded; his mouth was too full to speak.

  “It’s understandable,” his father said. “Boys need to play, but you can help me this afternoon.”

  Rafael gulped some water to wash his food down. They used to buy water in jugs, but now Mama boiled tap water on the stove until it was safe to drink. It tasted of metal.

  “I could use another set of hands,” said Papa.

  “The others are expecting me to play ball,” said Rafael.

  Papa looked at him with lowered eyebrows. Rafael met his gaze. He realized that his father really wanted him to stay. If Papa had said he missed Rafael and wanted him around, not to learn a trade but simply to be together, Rafael would have not been able to say no. But his father stood and picked up his plate.

  “I know how it is,” he said. “To do what is expected of you.”

  ***

  “The other boys asked about you,” he told Iván that night. “Do you want to play tomorrow?”

  “Last time you yelled at me.”

  That had been months ago and felt like years to Rafael.

  “You got in my way. Anyway, you hit another kid with the bat!”

  “He called you a name.”

  “I promise I won’t yell at you again unless you hit somebody with a stick.”

  “I promise I won’t hit anybody unless I have a stick.”

  Rafael guffawed. “Then I guess you don’t get to bat.”

  “I’ll play if I can be on your team,” said Iván.

  “Of course.”

  “And if you yell, I’ll quit.”

  “I won’t yell.”

  So the next day Iván walked with Rafael to the culde-sac. Rafael insisted on being a capitán and picked Iván first. Diego picked Tomás.

  “Eddie!” Iván insisted. “Pick Eddie!”

  “Fine. Eduardo.” Eddie came over, and Daniel joined Tomás and Diego. That made the teams uneven, with older boys on one side. Rafael decided this would be a good day to not keep score.

  Rafael would have to pitch. “You be catcher,” he told Iván. “If a player is coming home, be ready to catch the ball and tag him out.”

  “I know. I know.”

  He didn’t know though and was not paying attention when the first run scored. Eddie tried his best to field, but he was too small to catch up with a lot of the hard-hit balls. Rafael remembered his promise not to yell and bit his tongue. The three older boys batted three or four times each before they made three outs.

  When they finally came up to bat, Rafael let Iván go first. His little brother swung at everything. Nothing was looser in streetball than the number of strikes that made an out; it was especially high for the smaller boys, but after ten or eleven swings, Iván himself gave up.

  “I don’t want to hit anymore.”

  “You have to,” said Rafael. “That’s part of the game.”

  “I don’t want to,” said Iván. He looked close to tears. “I don’t know how.”

  “Watch me,” said Rafael. He took the stick and took practice swings.

  “You move too fast,” said Iván.

  “I’ll slow down.”

  “You watch too,” Diego told his brother. “Rafael is the best hitter I know.” He lobbed a soft pitch, one Rafael should have creamed. Rafael anchored his foot, pulled his weight back, and swung. He tried to do it slowly but lost his balance and stumbled.

  “Nice lesson!” Daniel teased from behind the plate.

  Rafael tried to laugh it off. “I was showing them how to whiff.” He missed a second time, swinging ahead of the pitch because he was so eager to prove himself. The boys laughed again. Rafael muttered to himself. He wouldn’t miss this time. He would scorch the ball past Tomás and into the street beyond. He would show them. Iván looked at him, his eyes full of hope. He wanted Rafael to show them too.

  “Throw it faster,” he told Diego.

  Diego threw it faster. Rafael froze and watched the ball sail past him. He dropped the stick. He would give anything to have that moment back. Plenty of boys got extra pitches, but he didn’t dare ask.

  He didn’t think it was possible for the moment to get worse, but it did. He glanced up and saw Juan Santos Garcia, back from the baseball field, wearing his Dodgers cap and smiling a lopsided smile.

  Rafael stormed past Juan without a word. Iván hurried to keep up.

  “What happened?” Iván asked. “Did you strike out?”

  “What do you think?” Rafael snapped. He turned around and saw Iván stopped in his tracks, his eyes damp.

  “Come on,” said Rafael. He took a deep breath and let i
t out slowly. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

  “It’s not that,” he said.

  “What then?”

  “I’m sad you struck out,” said Iván.

  “It’s no big deal,” said Rafael. “Everybody strikes out sometimes.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Sure I do,” said Rafael. “David Ortiz strikes out. Vladimir Guerrero strikes out. I strike out too. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  But he wasn’t fine.

  After that day, everything he did with the bat felt wrong. He was too aware of his knees and elbows. His feet seemed to slide around on the asphalt. He swung early or swung late. He hit balls that dribbled back to the pitcher or flew back over his own head. The worst part was knowing that Iván was watching him, his eyes full of hope, and Rafael was letting him down every time.

  “I’m not going to play anymore,” Iván said after a couple of weeks.

  “I haven’t yelled at you since that first game,” Rafael reminded him.

  “I know,” said Iván. “But you’re the one who’s going to be the famous baseball player. Papa is going to teach me how to fix things, and I’m going to help him.”

  “He said that you could?” Iván was only six. How was he going to help?

  “It was his idea.”

  “Wow.” Rafael felt a mixture of relief and regret. Papa must have given up on teaching him anything. “Do you want to fix things?” he asked.

  “I want to make a living,” said Iván. “Papa says people always break things, and they will always need people to fix them.”

  “Papa is smart,” said Rafael.

  “Rafi,” said Iván. “You should ask that older boy to help you out of your slump.”

  “Diego or Tomás?”

  “The one I fought with that time. He’s good, right?”

  “You mean Juan. Yes, he is very good.” Rafael had bitter feelings toward Juan but couldn’t deny that the older boy could play baseball. He was also good at showing other boys how to do things. But Rafael couldn’t ask because Juan was so arrogant, with his Dodgers cap and hotshot big brother. He couldn’t ask because Juan had called him a gallina in front of the other boys. He couldn’t ask because Juan had hogged Rogério Romero’s time. He couldn’t ask because Juan acted like the boss of everyone. He couldn’t ask because everything about Juan made him sick with jealousy.