Chapter 3

It was looking like a great week, right from the start. The weather was clear and warm for January and baseball season was upon us. Kim picked me up and on the way in, I said, “I’ve been thinking.”

“You’re always thinking. Me too. What about?”

“We blew it with Marci. We were thinking she was naïve and defenseless and here she is, a kung fu expert with a couple of handguns.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I wonder how many books I’ve judged by their cover and gotten it wrong.”

“Yup. Thinking the same thing. Look at Veronica. I sure got that wrong.”

“You didn’t get Veronica wrong. She changed, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“She didn’t earn it until Puerto Rico, did she?”

“No, I guess not. We think alike. We should get married.”

“I think that’s today, Benedick.” I held the door for Beatrice and we headed for the chapel.

We finished the play and were talking about it in class when Rob Francis, who hadn’t said two words all semester chipped in. “What kind of a play was this, anyway?” he asked, obviously disappointed. “No one dies. No one gets married and even Mel finishes the play still a virgin.”

“Hero, Rob. It’s a drama. Mel’s virginity was never at risk in the play,” Mrs. Middleton said and everyone laughed.

“You know what I mean. Hero’s chambermaid got it but that’s it.”

“No explosions, either,” Mrs. Middleton said, a bit sad that not everyone enjoyed the comedy. “Benedick, what say you?”

“I think it was pretty funny. I think it was a warning that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The whole play was about people trying to recover from people thinking they knew each other when they didn’t.” It hadn’t dawned on me until right then that Kim and I had done the same thing; judged books by their covers.

“Beatrice?”

“Benedick and I were just talking about that. We’ve judged books by their covers and been surprised a couple of times. But you know what? Sometimes the cover does a pretty good job of telling you what’s inside, too. Isn’t that the job of the cover?”

That got the conversation going. The two of us had started things off. We sat back to listen to everyone else and boy, did it go around in circles. When the period finished, Mrs. Middleton reminded us of a truth she’d given us at the beginning of the class. “We study Shakespeare, not just to learn about Shakespeare but to learn about ourselves. Pick up an assignment sheet on the way out. This one has no wrong answers.”

I took a look at the assignment on my way to history. “Does the comedy aspect of Much Ado about Nothing, make it more or less difficult to find lessons in the play? What did you personally learn from the play? You may list one to three lessons. Three page minimum.” We’d already talked about it a lot in class and if anyone was paying attention, they already knew, or at least suspected what Mrs. Middleton thought the big lessons were.

In history class, we’d finally made it to the Korean War. We were a bit out of sequence, but Coach always had a plan. The topic of the day was on the choice to engage. Which Presidents would have chosen to fight and which would have stayed home? I could see a defend-your-position paper on the horizon. We were on to a new section in precalculus, finally getting out of trig altogether.

Biology was kind of pissing me off. I knew we needed all the basics but I’d had those in seventh grade and I hadn’t forgotten. It was easy. I wanted to get into the meat of it. What I really wanted was to be in an anatomy, physiology class instead of basic biology. I stayed after to talk with Mrs. Nichols about it.

“This all seems like review to you, does it?”

“Yes, ma’am. We had much of this in seventh grade. It’s not like you can change the class all around to suit me, though.”

“Perhaps not. I have an idea, though. I don’t think you’ve missed two test questions all year. I’ll talk to Mr. Trent. He’s the department chair. If he agrees, I’ll let you test out, then do independent study, if you like.”

“What do you mean, test out?”

“I’d give you a cumulative test. Pass or fail. It would simply be a way to ensure you weren’t going to pass biology without knowing the material. Then, you’d be able to do independent study. We’d work out an anatomy, physiology curriculum and run with it. What do you think?”

“That would be great. I have chemistry right after lunch. I could ask him then.”

“Ah, no. Let me ask. It will be more like submitting a proposal rather than begging for freedom,” she said and we both laughed. “I suppose you’re getting the same good grades in his chemistry class.” I nodded. “And you no doubt plan to take physics next year. Be patient and we’ll see what he says. If he says, ‘no’ you’re just going to have to suffer through with the rest of us.”

“Yes, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

“I wonder why we don’t have a human anatomy class. We’ll see,” she said and I was off to lunch.

Kim and I probably should have gone off to our private table to talk but the squad and boyfriends were all together, talking about the weekend. I thought Kim and my weekend seemed a lot more interesting than any of theirs but I doubted they’d agree with that. The conversation was at the other end of the table when Kim leaned forward and tapped my forearm.

“I’m fast,” she said, quietly. I waited. “I can run fast and I can do hurdles. Track starts soon.” I knew all that.

“Ah. You think you want to try out for track and field?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Doesn’t hurt to find out. When are try-outs? Is that even what it’s called?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Szczypien is the coach. I’ll ask at PE today. You start baseball practice, right?”

“Supposed to. A bit chilly. What kind of a name is Szczypien, anyway?”

“Someone said it was Polish, which makes sense, I guess. I had her for Freshman English. It took the first month just to learn how to spell her name. Once we all did, she let us call her Mrs. Z.”

“Mrs. Z. That’s awesome. Find out, then try out, Baby. Why not? You’re thinking about running events, right?”

“I like the idea of doing the pole vault but, yeah, mainly running. I was the fastest in our PE class at every distance but that doesn’t mean much. And there are girls that have been doing it since their freshman year.”

“Meaning, they’ve had a couple of years to work on technique.”

“Exactly, but if you’re fast, you’re fast. How much technique is involved in that?”

“Obviously, there’s a lot of technique for hurdles. I think there’s probably a lot of technique in the start, at least for sprints. In swimming, no one is going to win the fifty if they don’t have a great start and that means great technique.”

“That’s probably true. I’ll find out.”

“Don’t do pole vault,” Marci said. Kim shrugged at her. “Your boobs are too big. They’ll flip that bar off every time.” She said it with such a straight face I didn’t know if she was joking or not. I laughed anyway. Kim wasn’t so sure.

“I’m kidding. I’ve got a knocker locker for Wing Chun. Works great. I’m just teasing. I tried out when I was a freshman.”

“A knocker locker? Ha, ha,” Kim laughed. “How did that go?”

“Dad talked me out of it, sort of. He didn’t try real hard but he made sense. He said the only reason anyone needs to be fast is if they’re trying to catch someone or trying to not get caught. He said I should be a cheerleader because it was about as close to the opposite of my Friday nights as I could get.”

“He’s not wrong,” I said. “I think it’s kind of cool.” I was about to say something else when Marci held a finger to her lips. Kim and I were the only two that knew about her and Wing Chun and she was trying to keep it that way.

That afternoon was the first day of Spring training. We sat in the bleachers as Coach Hamilton took roll, added a name or two, and noted a couple of absences. He looked us over as though he was deciding what to say and how to say it.

“Gentlemen, welcome to Spring training. Over the next few weeks, my job will be to prepare you to play competitive baseball. The best I can do for you is provide you with the best possible opportunity for success. What you do, individually, and as a team, is up to you. I don’t pitch, catch, hit, or steal bases. That’s all you. Each one of you brings a certain degree of potential.

“If you each maximize your potential, we’ll have a successful season. Notice I said successful, not winning. We have no control over how much potential and effort Northwoods Academy, Ben Lippen, or Bishop England will bring to the field. In the fourteen years that I’ve been coaching at Porter-Gaud, we’ve never had a losing season. We’ve always finished above five hundred. I don’t think that’s luck.

“There are four major factors that play into that. The first, but not the most important, is how much ability you have. I’ve seen a lot of you play before and there’s enough ability. The second is coachability. Are you willing to learn? If I tell you to move your foot two inches closer to the plate, are you willing to learn why, and then try it, or are you too pig-headed for that?”

Someone coughed the name Frank Bartollo and the returning players all laughed. I guessed he’d been pig-headed the previous season. Coach gave the cougher a pretty good stare and then laughed.

“Showing up with potential and responding to coaching is a good start. But a half-hearted response is going to get you a half-hearted result. If you want a successful season, you’re going to need to make the effort. I don’t want to hear anyone say they’re going to give a hundred and ten percent. You can’t do that. You can give one hundred percent but you can’t do that all the time, either. In my office, there’s a picture of Pete Rose on the wall. Charlie Hustle. Pete Rose never walked to first base. He ran, because you never knew what opportunity you’d have once you got there and he wanted to be ready to take advantage of that.

“I expect the same from each of you. But if you’re playing left field, I don’t expect you to sprint to your position to start the inning. You’re going to have to be smart enough to know when to give it one hundred percent and when you can simply get the job done. If it’s time to give it your all, don’t fool around. I expect appropriate effort. We have a preseason for you to figure that out. It’s not rocket surgery.” I thought I was the only one that liked to mix those two up.

“The last thing you need for a successful season is trust. Trust me to steer you right. Trust each other to do their best. Back each other up. Encourage each other. So, let’s find out. Is there anyone here who isn’t coachable?” He waited. “I’m not saying don’t ask questions. Look around, gentlemen. No hands in the air. I’m going to trust that you’re all coachable. Is there anyone here who isn’t willing to make the appropriate effort? Look around, gentlemen. No hands in the air.

“That leaves us with the trust issue. In my experience, my players have been willing to trust each other. They’ve been willing to do that right until someone breaks that trust. Once you break trust, it’s damned near impossible to get it back. You’ll have the opportunity to build trust with each other during Spring training. Once you’ve learned to trust each other and be trusted, don’t violate that. Tough to recover from, and that’s not just in baseball. Any questions?”

“Gizmo, anyone have a problem with any of this last year?”

“No sir.”

“How about the year before?”

“No sir. None.”

“How’d we do?”

“Thirteen and seven last year. Second in conference.”

“I don’t know if last year’s team maximized their potential or not but I’ll tell you this, they had a successful season. They can all be proud of their effort, teamwork, and results. I know I am. Alright, let’s talk about the season, the schedule, positions, and all that. Then let’s get warmed up and toss the ball around. The period will be over before we get started.”

We did a couple of laps around the field as a loose group, then grabbed our gloves, formed a couple of lines, and just threw the ball back and forth. The period was over and we started for the locker room when Coach stopped us.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to start with our roster. I want you to think what your top three position choices are. Everything is on the table. If you were a starting pitcher last year and you want to be a catcher or shortstop this year, that’s on the table. Hit the showers.”

On the drive to my house, Kim said she’d spoken to Mrs. Szczypien about track. They’d already started conditioning and would begin workouts the following week. Track for Kim and baseball for me had a nearly one hundred percent schedule overlap.

“Mrs. Szczypien’s name sounds like she’s from Mississippi,” I said.

“Oh, my gosh. That’s exactly what it sounds like. I bet she’s heard that before.”

“Probably a hundred times. Strange name. I wonder if she’s done her genealogy.”

“We still need to figure yours out so we can see if maybe we’re related,” Kim said.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Oh, gosh. Hi, I’d like you to meet my husband, cousin Jack.”

“No. That just doesn’t sound good at all. Maybe I won’t research the family tree. Wait a minute. What if we were fourth cousins? Then, when we have children, they wouldn’t just be brothers and sisters. They’d be cousins, too.”

“Stop. Let’s just lift some weights. I don’t even know how that works. Fourth cousins twice removed and all that.” We started for the gym and she stopped. “Jack, if you know how that works, don’t tell me. I really, truly don’t want to know.”

Mom had left a note that she was teaching. Kim and I had a pretty good back and biceps workout without her. When we finished, she challenged me to a sit-up contest. She explained the rules. We would get to use a weight to hold our feet and we’d have sixty seconds to do the most sit-ups we could. We had to touch our knees with our elbows at the top.

“How about on the downside? How do I know you went all the way down?” I asked.

“Same way I’ll know you did,” she said pulling a couple of dog toys out of her bookbag.

I didn’t get it. We got in position next to each other and she set the dog toy even with my shoulders, then put one back for her. “When the second hand gets to the top,” she said.

We gave each other grief as we watched the clock move. When it got to the top, I dropped back and when I did, the toy squeaked. I tried to do a sit-up but I started laughing. Kim was going to town. Squeak, one, squeak, two, squeak, three. I started squeaking my toy but it was tough to keep from laughing. I was going faster than she was but she had a head start. It’s hard to be serious when you have a stupid squeak toy announcing every sit-up.

“Seventy-one,” she said a bit too happy with herself when the minute was up.

“You cheated. You practiced with the stupid squeak toy.”

“And?”

“And you beat me. That was ridiculous.”

“You’re just upset because I’m more athletic than you.”

“Yup. That’s it. How did you do that without laughing?”

“I practiced. I must have done a thousand sit-ups with those stupid things.”

We showered and got dressed. I grabbed my bat and batting glove and we went to dinner at Bennett’s, near the batting cage. I told Kim about practice and my impression of Coach Hamilton.

“There are a lot of guys on the team that I don’t know. There aren’t any sophomores or freshmen but only a couple of seniors. Apparently, they all know me, though.”

“You’re famous.”

“Yeah. Great. That’s your fault,” I said and we stood to go through the buffet line.

“Right. Do they know you as Jack, Pierce, Kim’s fiancé, or Aquaman?”

She knew the answer to that. Aquaman. We filled our plates with pulled pork, rice, camp stew, corn, and Cole slaw and sat back down to eat. Bennett’s was probably the only barbeque place in the Lowcountry that was open on Monday.

“What do you like about Coach Hamilton?”

“I guess the first thing is that he was willing to give me a try last season. That’s kind of a big deal. He’s got experience and a winning record. Plus, I haven’t heard anyone say anything negative about him.”

“That’s a big deal right there. I’ve heard kids complain about some of the best teachers.”

“Yeah. No complaints. I like what he said about our goals for the year. He talked about potential, effort, trust, and coachability. He said those were our keys to success. I guess it’s worked so far.”

“Who’s on the team?” Kim asked.

“I’ll miss people if I try to list them now.”

We finished up with some banana pudding and went to the batting cage. I warmed up with slow speed pitches and then kept increasing it until I was hitting eighty mile per hour pitches pretty consistently. Then, I asked Kim to change it up between seventy and eighty-five.

“So just change the speed between pitches?”

“That’s it. Your job is to try to make me miss?”

“I should have brought the squeaky toys.”

She did just fine mixing it up and making me miss without the use of squeaky toys. A change-up after a couple of fastballs was killing me. For some reason, when she threw two or three slow pitches in a row, I was still able to connect with the surprise fastball. When my hands had enough, I signaled for Kim to shut it down.

On the way home, Kim asked, “So, what are we doing on your birthday?”

“I don’t know. What’s the date today?”

“Holy crap, Aquaman. Your birthday is Thursday and you don’t know it?”

“I guess it sort of snuck up on me.”

“How is that even possible? You’ve been learning how to drive for six months. Sometimes you’re a genius and sometimes you’re a dufus, you know that, right?”

“I knew the dufus part.”

Kim dropped me off at home so we could both get busy on homework. She called me later and asked some Spanish questions. I was pretty good with vocabulary but grammar wasn’t my strength. I helped her the best I could and pointed her toward the grammar appendix in the back of her book. She hadn’t known about that.

“Hey, Buddy. How’s it going?” Mom asked from my office doorway.

“Good. Almost done. Writing papers is a lot easier with this thing.”

“Glad to hear it. Where do you want to go to dinner for your birthday Thursday?”

“I’m easy. You know what I like.”

“I do. I’m going to take you to get your license first thing Thursday morning and we’re going to Liotto’s for dinner. You said you wanted a small party, right?”

“Yeah. Liotto’s is great. That’s good.”

“It’s small. Franklin, Karen, Angela, Kim, Dane, me and you would be seven. Is that okay? Anyone else? I didn’t list any kids. Bobby and Mel?”

“No. That’s fine. It’s not a big deal so that’s great. If I asked Bobby, he might think he would need to get me something.”

“Perfect. We’ll start the day off the way I know you want to start it. You can skip English and I’ll take you to the DMV and get your license. How’s that?”

“Sweet.” Mom had planned my birthday as well as I could have hoped for. Who needed a big party anyway? Wait, I thought. Kim had a huge birthday party when she turned sixteen. In fact, that was one of the most fun days we’d had together. I remembered her riding the mechanical bull and all that. I was happy just to go to dinner. What I didn’t want to do was say something that would make Kim feel bad for having a big party.

Mrs. Middleton was the fastest paper grader I’d ever had. We got our papers back the next day, graded and with comments. She always found something good to say about what you wrote. Mel was probably always upbeat because her mom was. I got to thinking about other people and wondered if it was always really quiet around Bobby’s house.

That afternoon at practice, we started to sort out who would play which position. I already knew who our two starting pitchers would be and I’d faced them both when I tried out the previous spring. Randy Zenka and Rusty Milicent had a lot of good experience and they could both hit pretty well for pitchers. Thumper Carrol would be back as catcher. Everyone had a nickname. Thumper Carrol always thumped his glove, whether he was waiting for a pitch or not.

Legs Diamond and Lefty Stiltz were the other two most likely fielders. Legs name was Jack but since there was a gangster named Jack Diamond, he got the same nickname, Legs. Lefty probably didn’t have a real first name. He was just Lefty. The three of us raced to see who could cover the most ground the fastest. Then we did a couple of drills to see if we could catch the ball while running. I did well enough to end up in center field with Lefty appropriately in left and Legs in right.

Coach Hamilton told us our positions weren’t set in stone and that we needed to be prepared to move around. I was happy to be in center field. I guess some people would think it’s a lonely position but I liked it. From center field, you got to watch everything in peace and quiet. Walking back to the locker room, I talked to Thumper.

“Thumper, you know I’m new at this.”

“You can hit.”

“Yeah. I can catch and throw, too. What I need help with is setting up in the right place for different batters. I don’t want to be out of position.”

“I’ll move you then. When a new batter comes up, watch me. When you see me look at you, the next thing I’ll do is look where you should probably be.”

“Is that going to work?”

“Maybe. Take your cues off Lefty, too. If he slides toward you, you can move closer to right. On a right-handed batter, Legs will probably be in a little closer. A batter hitting to the opposite field tends to hit it shorter.”

“Take cues from Lefty and position myself depth-wise halfway between Legs and Lefty, then look to you if I need to move.”

“That ought to do it. You play the odds. Oh, and if there’s a runner on third, expect the batter to try to hit it to right to give him a chance to score. Stuff like that.”

“Great. There’s only about a thousand cues like that,” I said.

“A thousand a six, I think,” he said, joking. “You’ll pick it up. Oh, and if someone gets a hit because you don’t think you were in the right place, doesn’t mean you weren’t in the right place. If you could always be in the right place, no one would ever get a hit.”

That afternoon, Mom and Kim asked me about baseball. I gave them what I thought would be our team roster along with a couple of other guys that would probably be subs. We had one guy that could play just about any infield position and another that could do well in the field but neither of them could hit as well as the rest of us. We had another guy that was really fast and if the situation were just right, he’d be running bases if the guy with the hit wasn’t that fast. I was starting to get the hang of it.