Horseplay

Horseplay

By T.R. Healy

Turley knocked on the door of the third-floor apartment. No one answered, so he knocked a little harder. Still there was no answer.

Just as he started to walk away, the door creaked open and a slope-shouldered man with a slight frown stood before him. His eyes were barely open. Turley suspected he must have woken the man up, even though it was nearly noon.

“Yeah?” the man growled.

“Keith Parrish?”

The man nodded, leaning against the side of the door.

Turley gave his name and explained that he was part of a construction crew doing some work at Longhill High School. The other day he found a class ring when he was digging out the backstop on the baseball field. He took the ring out of his pocket.

“Is it yours?”

“Why do you think it would be mine?”

Immediately Turley quoted the inscription on the ring: One Team, One Dream.

“I understand it was a favorite saying of your baseball coach.”

Parrish, a utility player, barely looked at it. Reluctantly, he admitted it was his ring.

“You’re sure?”

Parrish nodded, lifting the ring out of Turley’s hand.

“You don’t seem very excited about getting it back.”

“I suppose you expect some kind of reward for returning it to me?”

“Not at all.”

“Then I thank you, sir,” Parrish said, and closed the door.

Turley, still surprised by the other man’s attitude, stood in the hallway for a minute, wondering if it had been worth the trouble to return the ring to someone so ungrateful. He didn’t think so, not now.
 
1.
 
The night before he graduated from high school Parrish had visited the baseball field for what he was sure was the last time. It was close to eleven o’clock so no one else was there. He sat down on the rickety wooden bleachers behind home plate and recalled the few games he had played in that season. He pinched hit in a couple and played some third base in the late innings. Most of the time he sat in the dugout between a couple of other benchwarmers who were only on the team because their brothers were on the team. He should have got in a lot more games, he believed, but Coach Alvarez didn’t think he was good enough.

“Idiot!” he barked, startling himself.

A minute later, thinking he heard a voice other than his own, he got up from the bleachers and looked across the moonlit field. He didn’t see anyone. Relieved, he stepped behind the backstop, looked around again, then knelt down and took out of his jacket pocket a small spade which gleamed in the moonlight. He began to dig a hole in the sunbaked ground. It was harder than he expected. What he thought would take only a minute or two too much longer but, finally, he dug a hole that he deemed deep enough. He knelt back in relief. Setting the spade aside, he slipped off his class ring and dropped it into the hole. For a moment, he just stared at the clunky piece of jewelry, wondering if he had made a mistake putting it there, then picked up the spade and quickly covered up the hole.

He would never have to look at it again, he thought, no one he knew would, and, grinning, he clasped his hands together and held them above his head.
 
2.
 
The ball was hit high in the air, along the third-base line, and Parrish, who was playing third, ran back to catch it. He was always confident coming in to make a catch but less so going back because it was so difficult to maintain eye contact with a fly ball.

This time, though, was different. He was able to watch its flight despite having to make an all-out sprint. Briefly he wondered if the ball might carry deep into the outfield—he was running so far—then it was within his reach and he stuck out his glove, snaring half of it in the web. A can of corn, he thought. Then, just as suddenly, the ball spilled out of the web. The runner on third base charged home and scored what turned out to be the winning run.

For the second year in a row, they had lost the league championship by a single run, only this time he alone was responsible for the loss.

Afterward, showering, he couldn’t move, he hoped the steaming water would wash away all the guilt he felt for his error. He had made errors before, everyone on the team had, but never one that cost a championship. Standing on the far side of the showers, away from all the others, he wished he could swirl down the drain with the rest of the dirt pouring off of him.

“Hey, Parrish,” one of his teammates shouted as he tossed a bar of soap in his direction. “See if you can catch this!”

Parrish reached out but the bar slipped off his fingers.

“Christ, can’t you catch anything?”

Another teammate threw a bar at him, which also bounced off his hand.

“Goddamn butterfingers!”

Others, laughing, started pelting him with more bars, even a half-full bottle of shampoo. One bar nearly struck him in the eye and as he spun away to avoid it, he slipped on the slick floor and fell to his knees.

“Here, catch this!” Schiff snarled as he stood over him and jammed the wooden handle of his shower brush into his rectum.

Parrish howled in pain while Schiff and the others roared with laughter. Desperately he tried to get up but someone kicked him in the shoulder and he fell back next to the brush. The laughter grew even louder.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Coach Alvarez demanded as he appeared at the edge of the shower room.

“Just horsing around,” Schiff answered, picking up his brush.

“Well, knock it off,” he snapped. “You guys didn’t win today. You lost, remember? So now is sure as hell not the time to be horsing around.”
 
3.
 
Always after a game or practice, Parrish rode his bike home. Not today. He was in too much pain even to swing his leg over the frame, let alone sit on the seat, so he walked it home. Half a block from the ball field, a driver asked if he needed a lift. Parrish shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood to speak with anyone.

He couldn’t believe what happened to him. The boys who attacked him were his teammates, his friends. He couldn’t understand how they could do what they did. Almost in a frenzy, it made no sense, none whatsoever. Sure, his error cost them the title. But no one deserved that.

He wondered if he should have told Coach Alvarez what had happened. Maybe later. But would the coach believe him? Even he found it hard to believe.

Someone in a pickup truck honked at him as he pushed his bike across an intersection. He turned to look at him, expecting to see one of the boys who had attacked him. But it was just a delivery man.

“Fuck you!” he screamed at the driver. “Fuck you and everyone you know! Fuck you! Fuck you!”
 
4.
 
Parrish told his mother he wasn’t feeling well and missed the next two days of school.

When he returned, he discovered that others knew what had happened. He could tell from the leering glances, smiles and whispering when he passed people in the hallways. Some boy, grinning manically, dropped a Butterfinger candy bar wrapper as he walked by him, which he knew was intentional, and then a couple boys tossed soap bar wrappers in his path, which had to be intentional. Few of his teammates even looked in his direction when he saw them. Fewer still had anything to say, except for Ike Jennings, another utility player, who said he heard about the attack and couldn’t believe it.

“Neither can I, Ike.”

“Did you say something to rile up Schiff?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Unbelievable.”

He didn’t see Schiff until his second day back at school when they approached one another outside the cafeteria. At first, Schiff didn’t say a word, just glared at him.

Then when he got within a yard of him, he mouthed, “Catch this,” and pretended to throw the book bag he was carrying.

“That’s it?”

“Huh?”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“That’s all I have to say to you, loser.”

Schiff continued on, laughing as furiously as he had in the shower.

So that was it. Parish was some kind of pariah, other students snickering at him or looking away, while the prick who rammed a wooden handle into him carried on as if he had done nothing wrong. And those who knew what he did weren’t the least bit outraged. Bastards.

More than just about anything Parrish wished he could transfer out of Longhill, maybe to a school on the other side of the river. But it was too late, because in less than five weeks he would be graduating. Then he would never have to see his teammates again, never have to think about what they did to him in the shower.
 
5.
 
The pitching machine fired before Parrish was ready. He swung late, hitting a dribbler across the floor of the Big Show Batting Range, which was just three and a half blocks from the Longhill baseball field.

“Damn it,” he groaned, tightening his grip on the metal bat. “Be alert.”

He was ready for the next pitch, cracking a blue darter that he was positive would have been over the head of even a Major League shortstop. Again and again he made solid contact with the ball, hitting one hard line drive after another, which filled him with satisfaction. For the first time in a week he smiled, knowing that his skill with a bat was as good as anyone’s on the team.

Though the season was over, he went over to the batting range after school because he enjoyed nothing more than hitting a baseball. It was something he could do all day long. In the batting cage he felt confident, strong, convinced he could achieve whatever he set out to do.

“Your elbows are tucked in too tightly,” a familiar voice observed from behind the cage.

It was Coach Hayden, a former All-League player for Longhill. Hayden now served as a volunteer batting instructor for the team. A college student in his third year, he also worked nights at the Big Show Range.

“You had some real nice cuts,” he remarked after Parrish finished his session in the cage.

“Thanks.”

“Other than loosening up your elbows some, I’d only remind you to keep your head still. Sometimes you have a tendency to wag it a little.”

He nodded as he set the bat back in the rack.

“I understand you had a rough go of it after the title game?”

“Where did you hear about that?”

Hayden shrugged, slipping a pencil behind his left ear.

“From someone, I don’t remember who.”

Of course he remembered, Parrish knew, he just didn’t want to identify the person.

“Was it from Coach Alvarez?”

Hayden shook his head. “I don’t believe he knows anything about it.”

“I’ve been thinking about telling him what Schiff did to me.”

Hayden frowned.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Parrish.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Schiff has received a scholarship from State to play ball.”

“So?”

“So, if what he was involved in is revealed, he might have it taken away.”

“What’s that to me?”

“You’d ruin his life.”

“What do you think he’s done to my life?”

Hayden, stroking one of the bats in the wall rack, did not answer him.

“He did something no one in his right mind should have done,” Parish said.

“I agree. No question about it.”

“So he should suffer for it.”

“Well, it’s your decision, Parrish. I just know I would try and put it behind me and not say anything. I mean, for all intents and purposes, you’re through playing organized baseball, while Schiff has an opportunity to play at the college level and, who knows, maybe professionally.”

Parrish realized what Hayden was saying was also what Coach Alvarez would say to him. Schiff was a talented pitcher who had earned a college scholarship. They would protect that.

It was pointless to speak with anyone. Parrish’s father, who had a finger-snap temper, would want to report the attack to the police. But what would come of their inquiry? It would be his word against Schiff’s, and the rest of them.

Parrish thought of his Uncle Sean. He had complained to the state medical association that he had not knowingly given his permission to have a surgical procedure performed on him. The surgeon, along with two nurses, contended that his uncle had given his consent, and the hospital agreed even though the signature they claimed was his uncle’s looked like the scrawl of an infant. His uncle had been heavily sedated with morphine. It was impossible he was alert enough to make such a decision. Still, his word was dismissed. Some people are more important than others.
 
6.
 
Walking to the lake, which was not quite a mile from his apartment, Parrish stared at the moon. It was almost directly above the water. Sometimes the moon, when it was that full, made him think of a baseball, it was so round and smooth and bright. When he was young he was often tempted to reach up and snatch it out of the sky, bring it back to his house, so that every room would be full of light. Always it was so dark and bleak, the shadows, the length of the front lawn.

“Hello,” an elderly woman said, as she walked toward him with her terrier. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I haven’t been walking as much as I should.”

“Well, it’s a nice night for a walk.”

Parrish nodded.

“It is.”

When he reached the lake, Parrish stared at it for a while, trying to figure out where it was the darkest. Over by the horseshoe pit, he decided, and made his way over there, making sure no one else was around. No one was, to his relief. Carefully he walked to the edge of the lake, close enough that his shoes sank a little into the sand. He looked around again to make sure he was still alone. He was. From his shirt pocket he took out his class ring, and without so much as a glance at it raised his right arm and threw it as far as he could into the dark water, where he was sure no one would find it again.

T.R. Healy was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and is the author of a collection of stories, A Time of Times, published last year.

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