Abner & Me (11 page)

“
HEY STOSHACK
!
YOUR MOTHER IS A REFRIGERATOR
repairman!”

I hate Bobby Fuller. I'm not talking about the kind of hate like when you hate broccoli or hate math class. I'm talking about true, deep-down, wish-somebody-would-die kind of hate. Sometimes I think the world would be such a better place if only people like Bobby Fuller weren't in it.

It was Thursday, and we were playing Fuller's team. The game had just begun, and he didn't waste an inning before he started getting on me. Fortunately, there weren't many parents in the bleachers to listen. It was after school, so I guess a lot of moms and dads were still at work. My mom wasn't there, as usual.

I looked at the first pitch, and the ump called it a strike.

“You can't hit, Stoshack!” Fuller hollered at me
from third base. “Why bother trying? You should take up a sport that suits you better. Like gymnastics.”

Be cool
, I said to myself. What I really wanted to do was fling the bat aside, charge over to third base, and stomp him into the dirt. But I knew from experience that it wouldn't help me any. I had to try to ignore him.

All he wanted to do was rattle me, throw me off a little. I took a deep breath. I wasn't going to let him do it. The next pitch came in, and I let it go by for ball one.

“We missed you, Stoshack!” Fuller yelled. “We missed you when we were all standing in line for brains and good looks!”

How come nobody ever shuts him up? Why doesn't his coach say something to him? I know that if I ever started harassing somebody on another team, Coach Valentini would pull me aside and tell me to knock it off.

The next pitch sailed over the catcher's mitt and went all the way to the backstop. Ball two. Two and one.

I shifted my left foot over just a little to increase my chance of pulling the ball down the third-base line. The thought briefly flashed through my mind that it would be so cool to hit Bobby Fuller in the head with a line drive.

That's when I hit Bobby Fuller in the head with a line drive.

I didn't mean to, honest. But the pitch was a lit
tle inside, and I got around on it pretty good. I hit a rocket right at him. I wasn't even out of the batter's box when I saw him put his glove up, a millisecond too late. The ball bounced off his head and ricocheted about twenty feet straight up in the air.

I didn't stick around to see what happened after that. I was digging for first. Kit Clement, who was coaching there, waved his arms for me to keep going, so I did.

As I was rounding second, I looked up and saw Bobby Fuller. He was flat on his back next to third base, his arms and legs spread out as if he had been making snow angels. He wasn't moving. The ball was sitting on the infield dirt a couple of feet away from him.

This wasn't any decoy. He was really hurt.

“Somebody call a doctor!” Flip Valentini yelled.

I know that when a kid on the other team gets hurt, you're not supposed to help. It's just not cool. You're supposed to stand around quietly and not crack any jokes or anything until the kid looks like he's okay. But Bobby Fuller was just lying there like he was dead. I was the one who hit the ball, so I suppose it was my fault. I was the closest one to him too. So I ran over and knelt beside him.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

No response.

“Don't help him, Stosh,” one of the guys on my team yelled. “He's a jerk.”

I tilted Bobby's head back with my hand and put my ear to his mouth to listen for breathing. I couldn't
hear anything. A bunch of Bobby's teammates had gathered around.

I pinched his nostrils shut with two fingers and opened his mouth with my other hand. Then I covered his mouth with mine and blew some air inside.

“Oh man!” Burton Ernie said. “Stoshack is kissing Fuller!”

“Oh, shut up, Burton!” somebody said.

Fuller's chest went up slightly, and when I took my mouth away it went down again. I took a deep breath and did it again, a little harder.

Suddenly, Bobby opened his eyes. I took my mouth away. He was going to be okay. Everybody on both teams started cheering.

I didn't mean to hit Fuller with the ball, and I didn't mean to save his life or anything. Sometimes you just do things without thinking. Your instincts take over. But at least some good will come of this, I thought to myself. He can't hate me anymore. If I hadn't acted quickly, he might have died. He owed his life to me.

“Get your filthy lips off me, Stoshack!” Fuller said, spitting on the ground and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “You're a sick freak!”

I didn't know what to do. I never expected him to
like
me, but I thought a little thank-you was in order.

Then Fuller did something that shocked me even more. He picked up the ball lying on the ground near him and tagged me with it.

“You're out, Stoshack!” he said.

“What? You gotta be kidding!”

The umpire came over. Fuller held the ball up to him.

“He's the base runner, right?” Fuller said. “And he isn't on a base. So I tagged him. He's out, right?”

Everybody looked at the ump. He thought it over for a minute, scratching his head.

“The base runner is out,” he finally announced.

Well, I went ballistic.

“I came over to
help
!” I shouted at the ump. “I might have saved his
life
! Why didn't you call timeout when I was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? This is so totally unfair, it's ridiculous!”

“Yer out,” said the ump. “I don't change my calls.”

Well, I felt like walking off the field. Forever. I felt like giving up baseball. I felt like punching somebody too.

But I didn't do any of those things. Flip Valentini put an arm around me and walked me around the outfield for a few minutes. Flip has a way of calming a guy down. He told me I had done a wonderful thing helping Bobby, even though he was a big jerk. He said he was proud of me. And he told me how much respect I would earn if I would be able to control my temper and come back and play the rest of the game.

So I did.

 

Bobby Fuller's coach tried to talk him into seeing a doctor to make sure he was okay, but he wouldn't do it. I guess he didn't want to admit he was hurt.

Everybody pretended like the incident never happened. We scored a run in the second inning, and Fuller's team got two in the third. We tied it in the fourth, and they jumped ahead, scoring three runs in the fifth.

Fuller was still yelling things at me, but they were mostly of the “Stoshack, you suck!” variety. Totally unimaginative. That bonk on the head must have scrambled his brains a little, preventing him from thinking up his usual clever zingers.

We were down by three runs when we came up in the sixth inning, the last inning. But they were on their third pitcher, and this kid was not nearly as fast as the first two. Our guys started hitting the ball. Sean Phillips got a single to start things off, and Gabe Radley doubled him home. Then Kit Clement drove Gabe in and suddenly we were just one run down. You could feel the excitement on the bench. We had a rally going. Hitting is contagious.

Kit was on first. It was my turn to hit.

“You suck, Stoshack!” Bobby Fuller yelled at me from third base.

Man, what do you have to do to make somebody like you? Sometimes I feel like just saying to him, “Why don't you like me? What did I ever do to
you
?” But then he'd know I cared. I really didn't want him to know I cared.

I looked over to Flip Valentini, coaching at third. We both knew I would be swinging away. A hit would tie the game, and a homer would win it. I settled into the batter's box and pumped my bat back
and forth to get loose. I looked at strike one.

“You suck, Stoshack! You suck you suck you suck you suck…”

I didn't want to hit the ball anywhere near Bobby Fuller. Not after what happened in the first inning. I just didn't need that aggravation. Ball one came in.

If I could drop one in down the right-field line, it would tie the game, I thought. I shifted my left leg a little to try to hit the ball in that direction. The next pitch looked good, but I swung through it. Strike two.

The stance felt uncomfortable. I went back to my regular stance. One ball, two strikes. Got to protect the plate. I didn't want to hear what Fuller would say if I struck out.

The next pitch was a little inside, but I felt I had to take a rip at it because the ump might call it strike three. I made contact, and hit a sharp grounder down the third-base line. I didn't hit it hard by any means. Fuller dove for the ball, but he was an inch or two short. The ball skittered past him.

“Go! Go! Go!” everybody started screaming.

I was off with the crack of the bat. Now it was just a matter of how far I could make it. When I turned the corner at first, the ball was still rattling around the left-field corner. Kit scored easily to tie the game. I dug for second and didn't even look for the coach's sign. I was going for third.

“Slide! Slide! Slide!” everybody was screaming.

I slid into third, but I didn't have to. The ball got
past Fuller. The pitcher backed him up, and I stayed where I was.

I asked for time so I could brush the dirt off my pants and examine the situation. The game was tied now. If I could score from third, we'd win it. There was one out. Burton Ernie was up.

“You suck, Stoshack,” Fuller informed me.

“What is your problem, man?” I said, unable to restrain myself. “You should really think about getting some counseling or something. You've got problems.”

“You're my problem, Stoshack.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Fuller.”

“You ain't gonna score,” Fuller said. “No way you're gonna score.”

“Okay, let's go, Burton!” hollered Coach Valentini from the third-base coaching box. “Drive him in. You can do it!”

Burton got himself set in the batter's box. The catcher went out to say a few words to his pitcher. Coach Valentini sidled over to me.

“Stosh,” he whispered in my ear, “loosen your belt.”

“Huh?” I must have misinterpreted what he said.

“I said loosen your belt. Take the buckle off.”

“Why?”

“Just
do
it!”

I opened up my belt buckle, and I didn't figure out why until Burton swung at the first pitch and sent a high fly ball toward centerfield. It wasn't
deep, but it was deep enough for me to try to tag up. I scurried back to get my foot on the third-base bag. When the ball was caught, I broke for home.

I knew I was going to be sliding no matter what. I hit the dirt, and the catcher slapped the tag on me.

“Safe!” the ump hollered, and everybody on our bench came out to mob me.

“Hey look!” Burton shouted. He was pointing toward third base.

Bobby Fuller was standing there. And he was holding my belt in his hand.

 

“You done good, Stosh,” Flip said when he dropped me off at home. “I'm proud of you. You should be proud of yourself too.”

I was, come to think of it. I couldn't wait to tell Mom that I had saved somebody's life, even if it was that jerk Bobby Fuller, who didn't deserve to live anyway.

She was hunched over the computer in the kitchen when I walked in.

“Mom, you won't believe what happened!” I bubbled. “I hit a line drive off Bobby Fuller's head, and he might have died if I hadn't given him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation just like you showed me. And then I scored the winning run because Flip told me to loosen my belt, and after I crossed the plate Bobby Fuller was standing there with my belt in his hand and it was so cool—”

“Joey,” Mom said, looking up from the screen, “did you know that President Lincoln had a secre
tary named Kennedy, and President Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln?”

“Huh?”

“I was looking at this website,” she continued. “Check this out. Lincoln took office in 1861 and Kennedy took office in 1961. There are fifteen letters in John Wilkes Booth and fifteen letters in Lee Harvey Oswald, the guy who shot Kennedy.”

“So?”

“There's more. Booth ran from a theater to a warehouse, and Oswald ran from a warehouse to a theater. And get
this
. Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre and Kennedy was shot while he was riding in a Lincoln automobile, which is made by—are you ready for this—
Ford
!”

She looked up at me, that devilish gleam in her eye. “Doesn't that strike you as curious?”

“No!” I said, backing away from her.

“What?” she said, all innocent.

“I am
not
going to go back and try to prevent the Kennedy assassination!”