The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon(19)
"Thirty thousand or so umps in the stands didn't agree with that one, Joe," Troop remarked.
"True, but Larry Barnett behind the plate's got the final say and Barnett said it was high. The count runs full to Dar-ryl Strawberry. Three and two."
In the background the rhythmic clapping of the fans swelled. Their voices filled the air, filled her head. She knocked on the wood of the tree-trunk without realizing she was doing it.
"The crowd's on its feet," Joe Castiglione said, "all thirty thousand of them, because no one has left the joint tonight."
"Maybe one or two," Troop said. Trisha took no notice.
Neither did Joe.
"Gordon to the belt."
Yes, she could see him at the belt, hands together now, no longer facing home plate directly but looking in over his left shoulder.
"Gordon into the motion."
She could see this, too: the left foot coming back toward the planting right foot as the hands - one wearing the glove, one holding the ball - rose to the sternum; she could even see Bernie Williams, off with the pitch, streaking for second, but Tom Gordon took no notice and even in motion his essential stillness remained, his eyes on Jason Veritek's mitt, hung behind the plate low and toward the outside corner.
"Gordon delivers the three... two... pitch... AND - "
The crowd told her, the sudden joyous thunder of the crowd.
"Strike three called!" Joe was nearly screaming. "Oh my goodness, he threw the curve on three and two and froze Strawberry!
The Red Sox win five to four over the Yankees and Tom Gordon gets his eighteenth save!" His voice dropped into a more normal register. "Gordon's teammates head for the mound with Mo Vaughn pumping his fist in the air and leading the charge, but before Vaughn gets there, it's Gordon with the quick gesture, the one the fans have gotten to know very well in just the short time he's been the Sox closer."
Trisha burst into tears. She pushed the power button on the Walkman and then just sat there on the damp ground with her back against the tree-trunk and her legs spread and the blue poncho hanging between them in its hula-skirt tatters. She cried harder than she had since first realizing for sure that she was lost, but this time she cried in relief. She was lost but would be found. She was sure of it. Tom Gor-don had gotten the save and so would she.
Still crying, she took off the poncho, spread it on the ground as far under the fallen tree as she thought she could wriggle, and then eased to her left until she was on the plas-tic.
She did this with very little awareness. Most of her was still at Fenway Park, seeing the umpire ringing Strawberry up, seeing Mo Vaughn starting for the mound to congratu-late Tom Gordon; she could see Nomar Garciaparra trot-ting in from short, John Valentin from third, and Mark Lemke from second to do the same. But before they got to him, Gordon did what he always did when he secured the save: pointed at the sky. Just one quick point of the finger.
Trisha tucked her Walkman back into her pack, but before she put her head down on her outstretched arm she pointed briefly up, the way Gordon did. And why not?
Something had brought her through the day, after all, horri-ble as it had been. And when you pointed, the something felt like God. You couldn't point to dumb luck or the Sub-audible, after all.
Doing this made her feel better and worse - better because it felt more like praying than actual words would have done, worse because it made her feel really lonely for the first time that day; pointing like Tom Gordon made her feel lost in some heretofore unsuspected fashion. The voices which had poured out of the Walkman's earbuds and filled her head seemed dreamlike now, the voices of ghosts. She shivered at that, not wanting to think about ghosts out here, not in the woods, not cowering under a fallen tree in the dark. She missed her mother. Even more, she wanted her father. Her father would be able to get her out of here, would take her by the hand and lead her out of here. And if she got tired of walking he would carry her. He had big muscles. When she and Pete stayed weekends with him, he would still pick her up at the end of Saturday night and carry her to her little bedroom in his arms. He did that even though she was nine (and big for her age). It was her favorite part of their weekends in Malden.
Trisha discovered, with a miserable species of wonder, that she even missed her boogery, endlessly complaining brother.
Weeping and hitching in big watery gusts of air, Trisha fell asleep. The bugs circled around her in the dark, moving closer and closer. Finally they began to light on the exposed patches of her skin, feasting on her blood and sweat.
A puff of air moved through the woods, ruffling the leaves, shaking the last of the rainwater from them. After a second or two the air fell still. Then it was not still; in the dripping quiet came the sound of twigs breaking. That stopped and there was a pause followed by a flurry of mov-ing branches and a rough rasping sound. A crow called once, in alarm. There was a pause and then the sounds began again, moving closer to where Trisha slept with her head on her arm.
Bottom of the Fourth
THEY WERE behind Dad's little house in Malden, just the two of them, sitting in lawn chairs that were a little too rusty, looking out over grass that was a little too long. The lawn-dwarves seemed to peer at her, smiling secret, unpleasant smiles from deep in their clumps of weeds. She was crying because Dad was being mean to her. He was never mean to her, he always hugged her and kissed the top of her head and called her sugar, but now he was, he was being mean, all because she didn't want to open the cellar bulkhead under the kitchen window and go down four steps and get him a can of beer from the case he kept down there where it was cool. She was so upset that her face must have broken out, because it was all itchy. Her arms, too.