Desperation Road(65)

Damn it, Russell, he thought.

He drove on from the football field and he stopped in front of his house and Lacey was outside watering the flowers in her window boxes with the garden hose. Jesus H. if shit don’t change, he thought as he looked at her. She turned and smiled and waved and it filled him in such a way that for a moment he felt born again and it made it more difficult to stop thinking about how it would read in the newspaper. Deputy shot and killed. For apparently no good reason. Survived by a wife and two sons.





44


THE WAY LARRY REMEMBERED IT THEY PLAYED BALL JUST ABOUT every night of the week, so he figured he had a decent chance of seeing him. He hung around at a job site until around five and then he drove over to Buddy’s and ate a shrimp poboy and had a few beers. He watched a couple of innings of the ball game and at the end of the fifth inning he left Buddy’s and stopped by the liquor store and bought bourbon and then he stopped at a gas station and filled a cup with Coke and ice. He drove down to Kentwood with the stiff drink between his legs and the night falling earlier than usual because of a settling of clouds. He listened to M?tley Crüe as he drove. Turned up loud. The drink and the music getting him going in the direction he liked to go.

He turned off the interstate at the Kentwood exit. Check cashing offices and condemned houses lining the main road. Few signs of progress. Fewer signs of effort. He saw the lights of the ball fields shining over to the right and he drove toward them and turned into the parking lot that sat behind the outfield fence. He circled around the lot and when he couldn’t find a space he hopped the curb and parked in the grass. He poured another shot into the cup and then he got out of the truck and he followed the walkway that led to the concession stand and bleachers.

Little brothers and little sisters ran up and down the walkway, faces pink and knees dirty and wet hair matted to their heads. Teenage girls stood along the fence lines with their shorts high and backs arched and they talked to the boys in the field or in the dugout. Mothers sat in the bleachers with magazines or with their hands folded on top of bare knees and fathers and grandfathers stood around the concession stand smoking cigarettes and griping at the umps. He checked the bleachers for Dana and when he didn’t see her he sat down and sipped at his drink and tried to remember if his boy was thirteen or fourteen.

After an inning his drink was low and he hadn’t seen the boy but he had noticed two more teams warming up behind the outfield fence. The scoreboard said it was the bottom of the sixth. So there was another chance. He figured he had time to mix a drink so he stopped at the concession stand and bought a Coke and then he walked back out to the truck. He poured the ballpark Coke into the big cup and then he poured in what was left of the bourbon and he made his way back toward the bleachers.

He drank. Not paying much attention to the game. Convinced that if his boy was there he would be in the next game. It was hot and the drink made it hotter and he began to look around at the mothers and the teenage girls. Couldn’t decide which he liked better. And then he heard someone yell come on Cody. And then somebody else yelled let’s go Cody. Start it off Cody. And he looked back to the field and a lanky kid waltzed toward the plate, the tip of the bat dragging on the ground until the third base coach yelled for him to get his ass in gear and the kid put the bat on his shoulder and he stepped into the batter’s box.

He took a fastball right down the middle and the ump yelled strike.

The voices said come on Cody. That’s all right. Ready now. Get your pitch.

He took the second pitch right down the middle. Another fastball. This time the ump didn’t yell and only gave the strike sign.

“Swing the bat for Chrissake,” Larry whispered.

He swung awkwardly at a curveball and when he walked back to the dugout he threw his bat against the fence and the kid on deck had to jump out of the way. The third base coach ran over to the dugout and let him hear about it and made him come out of the dugout and pick up the bat. Cody came out leisurely and picked up the bat and set it in the rack and then he walked into the dugout and sat down. The women in the stands shook their heads. Larry heard a man standing next to the bleachers say something about attitude.

Larry turned up his drink.

After the third out Cody’s team trotted onto the field for the last inning and Larry watched him cross the pitcher’s mound and end up at first base. She was right. He was getting tall. He tossed grounders to the infielders as the pitcher warmed up and when the pitcher was done he lobbed the ball toward the dugout, missing the coach who had made him pick up the bat by only a couple of feet.

Larry turned up his drink again. And then he walked down the bleachers and around behind the first base dugout and he leaned against the fence. The first pitch was a grounder and the shortstop picked it up and threw it over to first. Cody tossed the ball to the pitcher and held up one finger and then as he walked back to his position he looked at the man leaning on the fence with the big cup.

“Hey,” Larry said.

The boy didn’t reply and didn’t look at him long. He turned and faced the plate and waited on the pitch.

“Hey,” Larry said again. Louder.

The kids in the first base dugout looked at the man. So did the first base coach.

“I’m playing,” the boy said with his eyes toward home.

Larry sipped on his drink. Watched a few pitches go by.

“You swing at fastballs,” he said. The boy ignored him.