The Player’s Son
The Player’s Son
By Richard Moriarty
“Alright, men,” Coach Rod bellowed, always refusing to call his players “boys,” even though the oldest of them was fourteen (that was Reid J., whose proudest moment in life so far was eating four Jimmy John’s sandwiches in one sitting). “Here’s the starting lineup.”
After hearing that, the players all gathered around to hear where their names might be called. Nate crowded in with the rest of them but did so with a bit less anticipation since he knew his name would be called out first. Sure enough, “Piscatelli, center field” was the first thing out of Coach’s mouth
“Now don’t get discouraged if you didn’t hear your name just now,” Coach said after he finished reading the rest of the lineup. “Can’t have that negative energy floating around in the dugout and wafting out onto the playing field. If you didn’t hear your name you better believe you’re gonna hear it in the later innings of the game when we need a pinch hitter to drive in a go-ahead run or a relief pitcher to come in and hold the lead. Always gotta be ready, men. Alright. Here we go. Time to lock-in. Gonna be some tough competition out there today, I promise you that.”
On the way back into the dugout to get some water before the warm-up, Nate caught up with Frankie, who, after not hearing his name called, was moping like they’d already lost the game.
“Hey, Frankie,” Nate said, clapping him on the back. “Chin up, kid. We might need you in there later in the game, when it really counts.”
“Thanks, Nate,” Frankie said. “Just wish I could hit like you.”
“Thanks, Frank,” Nate said. “Helps having a batting cage in your backyard, I gotta say. That makes me think, Frank, I’ll be hitting in my cage every day this summer, you should join me sometime. Or all the time, I don’t care. This summer is all baseball for me. I wouldn’t mind having some company.”
“Hell yeah, Nate!” he said, hardly making an effort to contain his excitement. “I mean, I’d love to. Let’s do it.”
***
So Nate worked out with Frankie throughout the summer. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Frankie’s mother dropped him off at Nate’s house, and the two spent at least an hour, and sometimes two, just hitting non-stop. They would start by hitting off a batting tee, one guy setting the ball for the other, the hitter trying to drive the ball off the tee so it would hit the back of the net, the goal being no groundballs, only line drives. Frankie’s first round on the tee that first Tuesday, he made more contact with the tee than the ball, but by the second week he wasn’t hitting the tee anymore and by the third week he was even stringing together a few line drives in a row, peppering the back net so the ball would hit the net and then dribble a few feet back toward their direction.
“So Nate, where’s your dad this weekend?” Frankie asked him one Thursday, after they had finished their practice and they were hanging out in Nate’s father’s den.
“Arkansas,” Nate replied, with mild interest. Nate’s dad had played in the minors and was now coaching for one of his former teams.
“Pretty cool how your dad travels so much,” Frankie said. “My dad never travels for work. Well, except if you count his old job working as a postman. He says they used to send him all over the city. But that’s nothing like what your old man does.”
“I didn’t know your dad used to be a postman,” Nate replied, feeling like keeping Frankie’s father as the topic of discussion. “You ever ask him if he ever barked back at any dogs?”
“Well, no. No,” Frankie said. “That’d be such a weird thing to do, Nate,” he said, as his face puckered up like he had just tasted something sour.
“I think that’s what I would do,” Nate said. “If my neighbor’s dog started barking at me for no reason, I’d just bark right back at that dog. Can’t try reasoning with him.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” Frankie said. “Speaking of, how come you don’t have a dog, Nate? Seems like every other friend of ours has a dog.”
“I don’t know,” Nate said, “Just never really wanted one, I guess.” Which was the opposite of the truth: Nate had asked his father if they could get one but he said no. He didn’t want anything getting in the way of Nate’s attention on baseball. Nate supposed he was right, supposed that having a dog to play with and walk and feed and show off to his friends wasn’t going to help him be a better baseball player.
“I gotcha,” Frankie said. “I guess dogs aren’t for everyone. I can’t imagine getting home and not playing with Ike, though. Anyway, what do you wanna do? My mom just texted me, said she won’t be able to pick me up until five at the earliest.”
Nate looked up at the Budweiser wall clock and it showed a quarter after two.
“Video games?” Nate asked.
“Sure, which one?”
“Well, I’ve got Madden, NBA, MLB, FIFA,” Nate said.
“MLB, man,” Frankie said. “Let’s see if all this practice out there makes me a better gamer in here.”
“Alrighty,” Nate said, knowing fully well that it didn’t, or wouldn’t. Although Nate enjoyed video games, he had a hard time arguing in defense of clicking away summer afternoons in a dark room, lit only by the wall clock and the TV screen.
“Who are you gonna play as?” Frankie asked. “Your dad’s old team?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Nate said. “You can be them, though.”
“Sounds good,” Frankie said.
Nate picked a team because their stadium used to have an incline ramp in the warning track in center field. It seemed so impractical to Nate until he was watching a game on TV and saw the centerfielder scale the ramp and, when he reached the top of it, jump up and reach his glove over the wall to catch a ball that would’ve sailed over the fence for a home-run. Lying in bed, Nate had since pictured himself doing the same thing a dozen times over.
Frankie played as the away team. After all, he said, he was the visitor in Nate’s house.
“Hey, Frankie, let’s grab a snack before we get going,” Nate said.
The two boys went into the kitchen. The first thing they heard was the voice of Nate’s stepmother, Adrienne. “You boys hungry?”
“Yes we are!” Frankie said, placing emphasis on each word. In a few minutes, the boys returned to the den with their snacks. Peanut butter and banana bagel sandwiches, which Adrienne always made for them after their practice. They placed their plates on Nate’s father’s desk before commencing with the game, which Frankie won easily.
Nate took the empty plates back into the kitchen, where Adrienne was sitting at the counter reading, with the TV on in the background.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Nate asked her. “Having the TV on while you’re trying to read?”
“Not really,” she said, looking up from her book, smiling at him. “Actually, I think it helps me focus. Something about trying to tune out a distraction helps me focus more on what’s in front of me. Maybe that’s just BS, though, something to tell myself. You know, it probably is. Nothin’ but bullshit.” She covered her mouth with her hand as if she’d said something truly awful, then laughed at herself.
“Jeez, Adrienne,” Nate said. “I’m thirteen, I can handle a cuss word.”
“I know you can. I know how you boys talk in the dugout. Just like your dads. I don’t mean to baby you. Even though my baby brother is older than you…”
“How’s he a baby if he’s twenty-five?” Nate shot back.
“He’ll always be my baby brother,” she said. “That’s just how that goes.”
“Well,” he said, “I highly doubt he likes that.”
“Well, that’s his problem,” she said. “You still hungry?”
“Not really,” Nate said, even though he was. He grabbed a bag of chips on his way back to the den.
***
After Frankie left, Nate agreed to watch a movie with Adrienne. She complained that he never did anything with her, and he couldn’t argue with that, it was pretty near the truth, and honestly he felt a little bad for Adrienne being married to someone who was hardly ever at home. It was this type of arrangement, Nate’s mother had told him, that led to things not working out between his parents. They had divorced when he was four. His mother lived in Michigan now, where she had remarried. Nate only saw her twice a year, and when he did, he couldn’t stop his mind from drifting back to baseball. Every time she asked him about school or friends, he yearned to be home again, not to be near his father or Adrienne or anyone else, but to be back in the batting cage, hitting ball after ball in silence.
When the ending credits rolled, he looked over at Adrienne and saw she had fallen asleep. He took the blanket from where it was resting on his chair and spread it out over her. Then he saw Adrienne’s phone light up on the coffee table. It was his father, “Husbie” in her phone. He answered it
“Hello?” he said.
“Nate?” he heard his father say. “You there?”
“Yes, Dad, I’m here.”
“Where’s Adrienne?”
“Asleep,” Nate said.
“Alright,” Nathan Senior said. “Will you wake her up for me?”
“She’s fast asleep, Dad, right here on the couch. Can’t you just tell me what you want to tell her?”
“Got some news for us, Nate. Wish you’d go ahead and do as I said, wake her up.”
“Adrienne?” Nate said in a loud whisper away from the phone and reached down to give her shoulder a gentle shake. When she didn’t wake up, he shook her shoulder again, a bit more firmly this time. Still sound asleep, she started to snore.
“You hear that?” Nate asked his father. “She’s out. Just tell me the news, Dad.”
“Alright,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “I just got word from the front office. Gonna be moving back home, Nate. Pitching coach with the big league club got fired and they want me to replace him. This is big for me, Nate, big for us, too. I’m finally back in the show.”
“That’s awesome, Dad,” Nate said. “When do you start?”
“Right away. Tomorrow. I’m flying back home tonight. Got a home series starting tomorrow night. What do you think of that, Nate? How ‘bout that, huh? Your old man, back in ‘The Show!’” Nate heard another voice and then his father’s voice again. “Well, thank God I’ll be flying private from now on, y’all won’t let me talk to my own son. Listen, buddy, I gotta go now. I’ll be seeing you soon.”
***
Nate got in bed and stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like a whole night, wondering if sleep would ever come. He thought of all the times he’d watched his father get in his car and drive from their house to the stadium, where he would board the bus for another road trip with the team. Nate had always felt a tinge of relief seeing him go, and he had always kept this feeling to himself, never feeling guilty for it until this night, when he heard his father burst through the front door, then into the living room, where Adrienne screamed with joy at the news. Then the door to Nate’s room clicked open.
“Nate?” he heard his father say. “You awake? You up, son?”
“Does it look like I’m up?” Nate replied.
“What’s with the sass? Damn, just thought you’d wanna pay respects to the majors’ newest pitching guru.”
Nate got up from his bed, walked over to his father and gave him a hug, buried his face in the bend of his father’s throwing arm, suddenly aware of all those little sinews buried beneath the skin, built up from whipping his shoulder joint around at maximum speed, who knows how many thousands of times.
“What do you think about it, Nate? Your dad back on top, huh? How about that?” Nate caught a whiff of what smelled like mouthwash, then remembered the few times he’d been on an airplane with his father and the whiskey Cokes he always ordered.
Nate said, “I’m proud of you, old man.”
“Thanks, son,” he said. “I’m glad to be back home.” Nate had welcomed his father back home from countless road trips, and he’d never once heard his father say the words “I’m glad to be back.” He couldn’t help but wonder how long that feeling would last.
After his dad left, Nate went into the bathroom and stared in the mirror, noticing the red splotches on his neck. It seemed like he was always sunburned during the season. He got back into bed and looked up at the scuff marks on the ceiling from the weighted baseball he flipped up toward it nightly to strengthen his wrist. He picked the ball up from his nightstand and started tossing. He heard nothing besides the ball slapping against his skin each time it returned to his palm, and occasionally, when he tossed the ball just a bit too high, the sound of it barely scraping the ceiling.
He pictured his dad’s arm, the forearm that was bigger around than Nate’s thigh, the spiderweb of veins that spread from his wrist up through his bicep even when he wasn’t working out. Nate lay there and wondered how many more rounds of long toss and full afternoons spent on a sun-dried field it would take to get his own arm that strong. He wondered if that kind of arm strength would make him a great player someday, and not just a standout in high school and college. He wondered if he’d make it to the pros one day, just like his dad. If, maybe, he’d make it even further, all the way to the majors. That would be a life, Nate thought. That would be enough for him.
Richard Moriarty is originally from Kansas City, MO, and currently lives in Greensboro, NC, where he teaches at N.C. A&T State University. When his dreams of playing pro baseball didn’t work out, he began writing fiction. His stories are also featured in Stymie Magazine and Boog City.
The Twin Bill is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. You can support The Twin Bill by donating here.