Bottom of the First
Louis and his father returned to White Plains on the 6:45 p.m. train. The town was already quiet, and as they walked through the empty parking lot to the car and drove through the deserted streets, Louis wished that it was the middle of the day. He wanted to show someone—anyone—the ball. He wanted to find one of the stickball players and describe the catch. He wanted to tell the story of how he had actually spoken to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris—and, best of all, how Mr. Houk had asked him, Louis May, to be a batboy for the New York Yankees.
But instead Louis was alone with his father, and as the car pulled up the driveway, Louis tried to find his courage. Louis hadn’t mentioned his amazing chance to be a batboy, mostly because he was sure that his father would say no. He would probably give a long list of reasons: Louis’s age, school starting in a few months, what Louis’s mother and stepmother might say. And Louis would have to nod his head and swallow his disappointment and pretend that Mr. Houk had never made his incredible offer.
“Dad,” Louis said as the car stopped at the top of the driveway.
Louis’s voice sounded small even to him. His father must have sensed something was wrong because he turned in his seat, the keys dangling from his hand. Louis stared at the dashboard.
“There’s something I have to tell you and it’s really important and I know you’ll want to say no but—”
“What is it, Louis?”
“They want me to be a batboy.”
“Who? The Yankees?”
Louis nodded and managed to pry his eyes away from the dashboard. His father was smiling, but as Louis caught his eye his expression changed. Louis knew that look—it meant no promises.
“That’s great,” his father said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
As Louis climbed out of the car, he tried to comfort himself with the fact that his father hadn’t said no. There was still hope. But Louis also knew that “we’ll talk about it in the morning” really meant “we’ll talk about it after I’ve asked your stepmother.” And very few conversations with Louis’s stepmother went the way that Louis wanted them to go.
Louis went upstairs and brushed his teeth before tiptoeing into the bedroom that he shared with Bryce. The moon was almost full, and the light was streaming through the window. Louis was tucking his baseball mitt into the box at the foot of his bed when Bryce sat up and peered at him, his eyes just dark shadows.
“Why’d you bring your glove to the game?” he asked. “You can’t catch.”
Louis reached into the webbing of the mitt, pulled out the ball, and held it up. The leather looked ghostly in the moonlight.
“No way,” Bryce said. “Your dad bought that.”
Louis just smiled. Bryce flopped backward on his bed, and a few seconds later he began to make the faint snores he produced when he was pretending to be asleep. Louis tucked the glove into his trunk, took off his clothes, and slipped beneath his sheets. He was still clutching the ball, and he gently ran his hand back and forth across the laces. The rough feeling on his fingertips was a reminder that he hadn’t just imagined the catch or being in the clubhouse. It was a reminder that he really had met Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. And it was a reminder that if his father would just say yes, he would be able to go back to that locker room—and this time he would be able to put on a Yankee uniform.
Louis awoke the next morning to the muffled sound of his father’s and stepmother’s voices. He lay in bed for a minute or two before sliding out of bed, carefully opening the door of his room and creeping to the top of the stairs. Louis didn’t consider himself a sneaky kid—he generally didn’t eavesdrop or spy on people—but if this conversation was about his chance to become a batboy, he had to hear it.
“Why do they want him to be a batman?” his stepmother asked as Louis settled beside the wooden banister. They were in the kitchen, and her voice carried clearly up the stairs.
“Bat boy,” Louis’s father said. “I don’t know, exactly. But I think it had something to do with the ball he caught.”
“If anyone should be a batkid, it’s Bryce. He’s actually good at baseball.”
“Louis loves baseball. He can quote more statistics than any adult I know.”
“How’s he going to get to the games?”
“He can take the train,” Louis’s father said. “And I’ll pick him up at the station at night.”
“I worry about Louis on that train. Who knows what kind of people are coming out of New York after a ball game?” She paused. “And what’s he going to do when school starts in the fall? It’s hard enough to make the transition to a new school without being at baseball games all the time.”
“That’s fair.”
“I just think it would be a better fit for Bryce,” his stepmother said after another pause. “He needs more men in his life. I know he misses his father.”
“I’m his father.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m sure that Louis misses his mother, too. That’s not the point.”
“She can come out from the city anytime she wants. But Bryce will never get to see his father again and—”
She continued talking, but Louis didn’t want to hear any more. He slid away from the banister, and when he closed the door to his room the steady drone of his stepmother’s voice was reduced to a distant mumble. Bryce was still asleep—his breath was quiet and steady, unlike his fake snore—and Louis climbed into bed. He tried to force himself to relax, but his brain kept returning to the argument downstairs.
As far as Louis could tell, his father always won his arguments with Louis’s mother and always lost his arguments with Louis’s stepmother. It was at moments like this when Louis missed his mother the most. She didn’t know anything about baseball, but she would have been excited about the catch. She wouldn’t pretend that Bryce was the only kid in the world or make Louis play stickball or get in the way of his chance to be a batboy or—
Louis swung his feet out of bed. Usually when he started thinking about that kind of stuff he’d end up crying, and if Bryce heard him cry he’d call him a baby. And maybe Bryce was right. Would a batboy for the New York Yankees lie in bed feeling sorry for himself? No … a real batboy would go down to the kitchen and ask for what he wanted. That’s what a real batboy would do.
Louis pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. As he padded down the stairs, his father and stepmother were still talking, but the voices stopped as he pushed his way through the kitchen door. They were sitting at the oak table, coffee mugs in front of them.
“Good morning,” his father said with a smile. “Sleep well?”
Louis stayed next to the door. “I want to be a batboy.”
“We know,” his father said, his smile disappearing.
Louis’s next words came in a rush. “It’s a great opportunity and I’ll get myself to the stadium and you don’t have to worry about school because I can do homework at recess and when the Yankees are out of town. And I’ll do extra chores around the house as soon as the season is over.”
The pause after his words probably only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like an hour. His father was just watching him. Louis couldn’t bring himself to look at his stepmother, but he was pretty sure that her eyes were narrow—the way they got when she was really mad.
“Okay,” his father finally said. “You can be a batboy. But if your grades start to slip or you make trouble for your stepmother …”
Louis felt his cheeks tighten and knew that he must be smiling like an idiot. He wanted to go over and hug his father, but he also thought that he should leave the kitchen before his stepmother said anything or his father changed his mind. And so Louis just nodded his head and pushed his way back through the swinging door, and it was only when he was alone in the living room that a small whoop escaped from his lips and his fist instinctively punched the air.
© 2010 WES TOOKE
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