Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,111

single one. She was there for every single one until she got sick. Sitting by herself in the stands. Wrapped up in a blanket if it was cold. Wrapping me in a blanket on the drive home.

Marcus pitches again and I swing and catch a piece of it. It flies up behind me and hits the wall.

After six pitches I finally hit one: a grounder between second and third base, closer to third, and I think that if I had been standing on that base I would have dived for it and chucked it hard to first. I’m a good fielder.

At this point I would have struck out already and it fazes me. Marcus’s pitches don’t let up. His best pitch is his fastball.

I used to cry when we lost until a coach told me not to. I was nine or ten. Don’t do that, he said. Coach Laughlin was his name. Don’t do that, Don’t cry, he said to me. I never did again.

On the twelfth or thirteenth pitch I hit a homer. Well, what would be a homer on a regular field. Here it hits the back wall with a little thup.

There you go, Kel, says Gerard Kane, and I think maybe, maybe I still have a chance. If I don’t fuck up anymore. Please let me stop fucking up.

But I swing so hard at the next one, and miss so hard, that I almost hit the ground. I stagger backward, trying to catch my breath, trying to stand up straight.

Gerard Kane walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. Kel, buddy, he says. You nervous?

No, I say. Just—football, you know? I’ve been playing football all season.

You’ll stick with baseball, if you know what’s best for you! he says.

On the pitcher’s mound, Marcus tosses the ball up in the air and catches it.

How many hours have I spent in my life doing that. Just doing that with any type of ball I could find. Baseballs and basketballs and footballs. Rocks when there were none. Marbles. Pennies. Flipping quarters. Throwing books in the air and catching them. Just tossing things. I think it is what I have done most in my life. Lying down on my bed or standing up or out in the little backyard or on the street or on the way to or from school or in practice or at recess or on the neighborhood court. The clean release of a sphere into space. The muscle behind it. The force from your legs, from your gut, from your back, from your shoulders and biceps and elbows—the sling of the elbow, the catapult—and then the flicking wrist, and then the loving palm, and then goodbye, goodbye. The dance off the fingertips and into the air. The skipping spin. The last loving touch and then it’s gone, gone, and you know when you’ve done it right and when you’ve done it wrong. There is certainty and there is justice in it. You know when you say goodbye to it with your skin. Whether it will go right or left, too high, too low, you know. You know. You know.

I swing. I miss. I wait. A strike. A ground ball. A strike. It’s not terrible—I take a piece out of a lot of them, and I hit one more home run—but I’m not here. I fail. I don’t hit my stride and I can’t get used to Marcus’s pitching. He is better than I am. I know it to be true. A better player. More deserving. Once I allow myself to have this thought I can’t shake it. I can’t unthink it. I want to feel sorry for myself, but I almost feel relieved.

The last thing we do is a sixty-yard dash. Mr. Kane gives us a while to warm up. I run a lap around the bases while they measure the distance and set up cones. Normally I can do it in 7.1. That has always been my speed. But I know, today, that 7.1 won’t be impressive, that I must dig into all of my reserves and come up with something better than that. So when I run it I tell myself that I am on fire, that I am running from a murderer. I used to run up the stairs to my room as quick as I could when I was little because I always imagined a bad guy running up them after me. So I picture this. And when I’m done, Gerard