Chapter 5

By Monday morning I was pretty much back to normal. I guess Mom knew I would be since she was up early and cooked up a big breakfast. I hopped in the 1 FISH and drove to Kim’s house. When Kim came to pick me up, I was always waiting. When I went to pick up Kim, it didn’t seem to be the same. I waited a minute, started to walk to the door, and she ran out.

“I’m not used to this,” she said, sliding into the front seat.

“What, the extra five minutes?” She semi-glared at me and I decided to leave it alone.

With Much Ado About Nothing over, English seemed dull. We’d taken a break from drama and were analyzing some of his sonnets. I was ready to dig into All’s Well that Ends Well, or even Macbeth. It would be a couple of weeks before we got back into a play. Ugh.

History was even more depressing. I thought Japanese war crimes during the Bataan Death March were bad. They paled in comparison to the Rape of Nanking, which happened four years earlier. What is it with generals who let their soldiers rape and murder innocent civilians? Three hundred thousand murders and eighty thousand rapes is an unbelievable number. Japan attacking both China and the United States was pretty bold. I thought they deserved more than just getting their asses kicked but I guess that was about it. We’d be on World War Two for weeks.

Fortunately, precalculus was going fine and I was having a good time with anatomy in biology class. I asked Mrs. Nichols if she knew anything about hip replacements and she did. She really knew about it. She explained four parts of the mechanical hip, from the titanium stem to the ceramic ball. I asked how she knew so much about it. She smiled and patted her hip.

“You have one?” I asked, amazed. I thought she would limp or something.

“Six years ago. It works fine and is a fairly common procedure. Kim’s mom will be on her feet within a day or two. Two or three weeks after surgery, it will be hard to tell she’s got one.”

“Sweet. I’m going to try to share all that with Kim but if she has questions...”

“Then I’ll do my best. I was a patient, not a doctor, so my answers aren’t going to be as good as her doctor’s.”

“No. They’ll be better. Thank you so much.” I was pretty excited about it.

At lunch, I explained it all to Kim. A couple of kids were listening in and had questions I couldn’t answer. It didn’t matter. Kim seemed relieved and that was the main thing. No one else knew anything about it. I think Mel was the only other person who knew Kim’s ‘mom’ was really her grandmother. I’d finally grown to understand why she’d kept that a secret from everyone else.

Chemistry was book work and we wouldn’t have another lab for a couple of weeks and that sucked. In keyboarding, I wasn’t getting much faster but I was definitely getting more accurate. I wondered if I’d be using computers in engineering. I knew one thing for sure. I’d be taking mine with me when I went to college. So would Kim. I was sure she’d have a lot of papers to write.

Baseball practice was interesting. Coach Hamilton wanted to get an idea how consistently everyone could hit. There’s a science to determining your batting order. He told us that there were a lot of philosophies about it and he had one that he thought was commonly used, logical, and therefore, pretty good. He wanted his first batter to be someone who got on base a lot. He didn’t care if they got a walk or a hit, as long as they got on. It helped if they were a fast runner.

“I want my number two batter to have good control. We need someone who makes contact. If my number two can advance the runner and put him in scoring position, he’s done his job. If he gets a hit, even better.

“Our number three is our best hitter. If one gets on base, two advances him, and three gets a deep hit, then one scores. If three hits a homerun, so much the better.

“Our four bats cleanup. He’s our best long-ball hitter.

“Five sort of starts the line-up over with a lot of the same qualities as one. Six through nine are sort of a toss-up. It’s pretty unusual for everyone on the team to have the same number of at-bats. We want our most consistent hitters to have the most opportunities. Let’s talk about signals.

“I expect you all to be smart batters and alert and ready on the basepath. That’s code for don’t get caught sleeping. Our third base coach will rotate and you may get the chance, so pay attention.” He gave us signals for everything from bunting, to swinging for the bleachers, and telling a runner when to try to steal. There were only six signals and they weren’t hard to remember.

“The hot signal is touching the nose. If we use the same signals all the time, the other team could figure it out. For practice, we’ll use the nose touch. What that means is that the next signal is the real signal. Everything before that was a decoy. Zip, show us a few signs. As soon as he gives the real sign, shout it out.”

It was a pretty simple system and even us newbies caught on quickly. When we’d done that, he sent everyone to the field except the first three batters. I took my spot in center field to watch the action. The routine was good. Each of the first three batters faced Randy, then Rusty, then our two relief pitchers, Cherry, and Bull. You had four chances to get on base and faced each pitcher. When that was done, we rotated in three new batters and those guys took the field.

Zip and Two-Hop both hit one to me for easy outs. Coach Hamilton motioned like he was waving a runner home and I threw it there. Thumper caught the ball and made a tagging motion. I sure wanted to do that in a game. Catching the ball for an out, then throwing home for the tag seemed like the best you could hope for as a center fielder.

When it was my turn, Randy smiled at me. I knew he wanted to strike me out. I hit six foul balls but he eventually got me with heat. “Next time, Randy. Next time,” I hollered. Thumper pounded his glove, waiting for the next victim.

“Nice at bat, Pierce. What did he get you on?”

“It sank, Coach. I swung over the top of it.”

“Yup. Randy’s been working on developing a slider. I guess he’s done developing it. Look at my hand,” he said and held it out like he was grabbing a cup with two fingers. “At the end of his throwing motion, you’ll see his hands like this. That’s your big tip. Slider is coming so you’d better get under it. He’s not going to leave it hanging out there for you to stare at. Maybe you see it and maybe you don’t.”

Randy struck out all four of us and it was Rusty’s turn. He threw a fastball low and outside twice in a row, then walked me. I got to stay in the box. He tried the low and outside again, then a changeup, and I swung early. On his third pitch, I connected and sent it over the left field wall. I felt pretty good about that. Our relief pitchers weren’t quite as good and I hit both of them deep. Lefty caught one of them about ten feet in front of the fence but I put the other one out. I was really happy with that.

“Pierce, you’ve got a really nice swing. You keep your hands in and the bat over the plate longer than anyone but Two-Hop.”

“Thanks, Coach. Have you figured out where I’ll be in the line-up?”

“Patience, Pierce. Patience. I still need to see a few guys and the line-up I figure out could change from game to game, anyway. I think you’ll probably end up first, third, or fourth up.”

“You already know who will be second.”

“Two-Hop. He rarely strikes out, has great bat control, and can push the ball if I need him to.”

“Push the ball. What does that mean?”

“Damn, you are green, Pierce. You’re like wet clay. I get to mold you any way I want. Normally, a right-handed batter will pull the ball to left. You do. If I want you to push the ball, it means I want you to hit to the opposite field.”

“To give a runner more time.”

“That’s it. Nice swim season, if I haven’t already told you. Congratulations. Don’t break a flipper this year.”

“Thanks, Coach. I’ll do my best.”

That afternoon, after lifting, Kim, Mom, and I were talking about diet, health, fitness, and all that. I said that baseball wasn’t particularly demanding, at least not physically. “During swim practice, you’re physically exerting yourself probably forty or fifty minutes out of every hour. For baseball, it’s maybe two or three minutes out of every hour, unless you’re the pitcher or catcher.”

“Does that bother you?” Mom asked.

“Kind of. Swimming changed my body, right? Look at major league baseball players. Look at guys who have been playing for ten or twenty years. Some of them look out of shape. Compare them with gymnasts, for example.”

“No,” Kim said. She hardly ever said ‘no’.

“I’m not going out for gymnastics, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just an observation. Which sports force you to be in great shape and which sports don’t care?”

“I think you have to be in good shape to compete in just about any sport, don’t you?” Kim asked.

“Golf, bowling, pool, golf, curling, archery, badminton, and golf don’t require much athleticism,” I said.

“You said golf twice,” Kim said.

“Three times, because it doesn’t require any athleticism. You know what does? Boxing, decathlon, triathlons, rugby, wrestling, and especially water polo require a lot more athleticism.”

“Alright, so what does that mean for you or me?” Kim asked.

“I don’t know. I think it might mean that I’ll keep doing kung fu until I’m pretty old. I think a lot of the others put too much wear and tear on the body. Triathlons and kung fu, I think.”

“What about boxing? You love boxing.” I could see Mom shaking her head.

“I do like it. A lot. But if I kept boxing, I’d want to compete and that means getting hit in the head. Once or twice probably doesn’t matter but I don’t want to risk it. Have you ever seen soccer players heading the ball? That looks like a good idea,” I said, sarcastically. “Mom?”

“I swim laps. It’s low impact and I can do it for a long time. I think you’ll probably find a way to keep doing that. We all like to lift, or at least we like the results. I’d like to watch one of your kung fu lessons sometime but it sounds like something you could do into your fifties or more. How old is Chen?”

I didn’t like that Mom just called him Chen without his title but I didn’t say anything. He wasn’t her teacher. “I don’t know. He’s definitely older than fifty. Probably older than sixty,” I said.

“Dad’s sixty. Sifu Chen is older. It’s kind of hard to tell with oriental people, at least for me,” Kim said. “But you’re having fun playing baseball now, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s new and so it’s something I have to learn and that makes it fun. I just don’t think I’ll be playing baseball when I’m old, you know, in my thirties or something.”

“Hey! Old? Thirties? Ahem.” Mom made it funny and we laughed.

“How long have Dane’s knees been bothering him?” I asked.

“You’ve got a point. He can still dance but I guess he’ll need replacements before long, too. We’ll let Phil experiment on Mary and see how she does. Then, maybe we’ll consider it.”

“Y’all think you’re funny. Mom and Dad are the oldest of our little group and Dad keeps up with just about anybody on the dance floor.”

“That’s true. He’s been athletic his whole life and it pays off, I guess. I left out dancing. Dancing is more athletically demanding than golf, or bowling, or archery, or golf.”

“I’m going to laugh, young man, if you end up on the Georgia Tech golf team.”

“I wonder if they have a dance team.”

“You’re a funny guy. You know what I want to do? I want to go home and start doing some deep cleaning. I know it’s a ways out but I don’t want Mom to have to worry about anything after her surgery.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Honey. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I think I’ll walk,” Kim said and started walking. I looked at Mom and she shrugged. I got the car and drove after her. When I pulled even, she laughed and hopped in. “I was just kidding. You walked home a lot.”

“I like quiet time and that’s a good way to get it. Want help?” I asked as I pulled into her driveway.

“Tomorrow. No, you have kung fu tomorrow. Wednesday, maybe. Today, I want to make a list of things. I haven’t done that in a while. We have a service but she doesn’t organize or anything.” She leaned over and we kissed, then she ran in. I waited until she opened the door, then pulled out.

I sat there at the end of the driveway for a minute, just thinking. I had an hour until dinner and nothing I had to do. And, I had wheels. I tried to think of all the places I could go to in the time that I had. I drove six minutes to the Wappoo Cut.

I parked 1 FISH and walked over to the picnic table and sat down, looking out at the water. I let my mind bounce around without settling on anything in particular. I watched boats come and go, then the kayak Kim and I had seen the previous fall go by at a smooth and steady pace. Paddling a kayak required a certain degree of athleticism and you have plenty of quiet time, I thought. I wondered where he put in.

An eighteen-foot center console pulled in with two men who’d caught a lot of fish. Eighteen feet is plenty long enough for in-shore fishing but too short to go out to the jetty unless the water was like glass. One of the guys looked my way three or four times as they were securing their gear and the boat. His friend made a dash for the restroom and he walked over to me.

“Where do I know you from?” he asked. He was probably in his mid-forties, with rough hands and a short beard. It was just February but he looked like he’d already gotten a lot of sun.

“I don’t know. Maybe here. I kind of like to sit and unwind and this is one of my favorite spots.”

“I watched you help a newbie land his boat once. I remember that. But there’s something else. I know there is. Al. Al Pinkney,” he said, holding out his hand. “It will come to me.”

“Jack Pierce,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Ha. You were on the news. That’s it. I’ll be darned if I can remember why. It will come to me.”

“I get that a lot. My fiancée and I were interviewed on Live Five because we got engaged pretty young.”

“That’s it. And you had just won something. Now, what was it? It will come to me.”

“Swimming.”

“That’s it. I remember now. You’re a local kid and you cleaned up at the state level, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I did pretty well.”

His friend came back and he introduced us. We were old friends, now. “Congratulations, at any rate. Twice, I guess, right? She was pretty. Did you see it?” he asked his friend, who shook his head. “She’s got a doozy of a smile, and that’s a fact.”

I had to smile at that. “Her dimples are my undoing.”

“Is she as nice in person as she seemed on TV?”

“Nicer.”

“Well, then, double congratulations. We’ll let you get back to unwinding,” he said and they both shook my hand. Something like that had happened a couple of times since our TV interview. At least it didn’t happen all the time, and probably would less frequently as time went by. What had Andy Warhol said about everyone being famous for fifteen minutes? I was pretty sure my fifteen minutes was up. I hoped so.

I got home in time for dinner and answered Mom’s questions about my day. I told her what I’d learned from my biology teacher about hip replacements.

“Dane is a surgeon, you know. He could tell you about all you’d want to know. And what he doesn’t know, Phil or Hank would be able to tell you.”

“But not Lula Mae because she’s a brain surgeon. Do we know any rocket scientists?”

“I can’t think of any. Why? Oh, you! She is very smart, isn’t she?”

“I tried to read an article she wrote for a medical journal and I couldn’t follow it. Mom, we’re kind of surrounded by that.”

She stopped what she was doing and put her hands on her hips. “I think I’m the underachiever.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. Dane, Hank, Phil, and Lula Mae are all doctors. They have doctorates. Pat and Mary both have law degrees. Franklin has a bachelor’s but he’s working on an MBA.”

“That leaves Marie, Veronica, and Karen from our most frequent guest list. And Angela, I guess.”

“Marie has a degree from some university in Spain, I think. Foreign relations, or something. And she’s fluent in five languages. I think that’s right. Veronica has a bachelor’s in business administration and she’s fluent in Spanish. Oh, and she used to have a realtor’s license, whatever they call it, but she let it lapse. Angela was an accountant and I know she’s got at least a two-year degree. She might have a four. I think she’s fluent in Spanish, too. There are a lot of Spanish-speaking people in San Diego. I think Karen’s going back to school.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of tuition.”

“That is an awful lot of tuition.”

“What kind of a degree did Ronnie have? I don’t think he ever said. I don’t remember him talking about it.”

She laughed. “He didn’t have a degree. He went to college at USC but dropped out after his first semester.”

“Holy crap. He made millions and he didn’t have a college degree?” That caught me totally off guard.

“He was bored with it. Not all smart people go to college, you know. Hector is an entrepreneur with several crews. He balances work and home life pretty well and provides not just for his own family but all the people that come to him for work. No college.”

“I guess I just sort of figured that you went to college to keep learning.”

“Of course, you do, but that’s not the only way to learn. Have you ever really examined our library? Of course you have. You read the encyclopedia, for crying out loud. If anyone should know that you don’t need to go to college to keep learning it should be you.”

“I guess. I mean, I look for books I want to read and everything. But there are whole sections I haven’t paid much attention to.”

“Maybe you should take a look. Most of those books were Ronnie’s, not mine. He read constantly. Everything from classics like Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith to The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. He could have taught graduate-level classes in securities, corporate structure ... the works. He probably did better because he didn’t have a degree. In fact, I’m sure of it. The companies he salvaged had been screwed up by men with degrees.”

“That’s crazy. I don’t even know what to do with that.”

“Not surprised.”

“The Ray Bradbury, Zane Gray, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were his, too.”

“Did he like Hemingway?”

“He did. He particularly liked The Old Man and the Sea and he though Spencer Tracy was great in the movie, as well. He usually hated movies adopted from books but he liked that one. That, and To Kill a Mockingbird. He thought that was Gregory Peck’s best movie and that it did the novel justice. That was high praise from him.”

All of that was new to me, and definitely gave me something to think about. I agreed with him about novels. I thought I’d have to take another look at the books on our shelves that I’d never read.

Dane got home in time for dinner and I asked him about hip replacements. He knew a lot more about the process than Mrs. Nichols but that wasn’t really surprising. As soon as we finished, I went to the library to see what I’d been missing. I’d been looking at Ronnie’s business books for a half hour or so when Mom popped in. “Start with this,” she said, pulling The Intelligent Investor off the shelf and handing it to me.

I was halfway through the first chapter when I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Nope. I walked to the kitchen and sat down across from Dane. Mom guessed that I wanted to talk and took a seat at the end.

“Was Ronnie addicted?”

“No. What a weird question. His father was probably an alcoholic but he wasn’t.”

“Not to booze. To money. You can get addicted to a lot of things, right? Can you get addicted to making money?”

“That’s a really good question,” Dane said. “I think people have tendencies to behave in certain ways. Some seem to be passed on from one generation to the next and some are developed all on their own. You have habits but they don’t own you the way something like alcohol or drugs might. I’ll bet you tie your shoes the same way every day but if I showed you a new and better way, you wouldn’t feel compelled to keep doing it the way you have.”

“And you can feel compelled to make more money, right? Like an addiction.”

“I think that’s true. The number one addiction, at least in the US is to alcohol followed by nicotine. After that, probably the next ten most common addictions are to some form of drugs. Addictions cause your brain to be re-wired. Compulsions don’t.”

“So, an addiction is like chasing dopamine?” I asked.

“Where did you get this kid?” he asked Mom. “Look at it this way. People who suffer from an addiction chase pleasure. People with compulsive behavior look for relief.”