Bullet Point (2 page)

COACH BOUCHARD MET
all the baseball players after school that day in the gym. The coach was a little white-haired guy with big hands and cold blue eyes that never seemed to blink. He’d coached baseball at East Canton High for forty years, won many district championships and six state championships. But before that he’d had a long career in the minor leagues, finally making it to the majors for the last week of his last season, and going one for seven at the plate, that one being a triple, as Wyatt and the whole team knew from looking him up online.

The players sat in the stands, Coach Bouchard on his feet before them. “Any of you guys not heard the news by now?” he said. No one spoke. “Pretty straightforward—we got the ax. Not just us, all sports, all what they call extracurriculars.” The coach had a way of dragging out certain big words, like
extracurriculars
, resulting in a tone Wyatt thought was sarcastic. “Excepting for the marching band—that got saved at the last minute. What’re they gonna march for, that’s my goddamn question.” Coach Bouchard glared at the team, like
they’d done something wrong. “How about you guys? Any questions of your own?”

The boys were silent.

“This ever happen to you before?” the coach asked. “Don’t think so. Then there gotta be some questions.”

A kid said, “Why? Why is this happening?”

“Town’s broke,” said the coach.

“How can the whole town be broke?” said another.

“State’s broke, too,” the coach said. “School budget comes part from the state, part from property tax here in East Canton. But when folks is in foreclosure—you all know what that means? Foreclosure?” Nods here and there. “When the bank’s taking your house away—that’s foreclosure.” Wyatt knew already: he’d seen it happening on his own street. “And when folks are in foreclosure, do they keep on paying their property tax?”

“Why should we?”

Wyatt glanced back up in the stands, saw that question had come from Willie Garcia, a senior, the backup middle infielder. He didn’t remember ever hearing Willie speak before, never seen much expression on his face, either. Plenty of expression now: he looked angry.

“I hear you,” said Coach Bouchard. “And it’s not just folks’ houses. When a business goes under, say a business like Baker Brothers, then they stop paying taxes, too. Not many businesses that size in East Canton. Town can go broke in a hurry.” He gazed at the boys. “Any other questions? If there ain’t, those of you what got equipment belonging to the team, go on and keep it, far as I’m concerned. Other’n that—”

“I’ve got a question,” Wyatt said.

“Shoot,” said the coach.

“Where are we going to play baseball?”

Coach Bouchard closed his eyes and shook his head slowly from side to side.

The coach left the gym, walked down the hall to his office, and went in, leaving the door open. The boys hung around for a few minutes, saying how fucked-up this all was, and how much the school sucked and the town sucked, “and the whole stupid planet,” Willie said. And because that was funny, or maybe because Willie was suddenly talking, everyone started laughing, and they left the gym, pushing and shoving a bit, but in a better mood. As they went down the hall, Wyatt, toward the back of the crowd, glanced in and saw that Coach Bouchard was packing stuff in boxes. He looked up at Wyatt.

“See you for a sec?”

Wyatt nodded, entered the coach’s office.

“Close the door.”

He closed the door.

“I’d say take a seat,” the coach said, “but Herman already took the chairs.” Herman was one of the janitors.

“Where are you going?” Wyatt said.

“Home.”

“I mean how come you’re packing up?” No more baseball, but coach doubled as a health teacher.

“Handed in my resignation, effective”—he checked his watch—“eleven minutes ago.”

Wyatt gazed at him, didn’t know what to say.

“Thinkin’ I’m a rat?” the coach asked. “Deserting a sinkin’ ship?”

A rat? Wyatt could never think of Coach Bouchard that way. The coach wasn’t exactly what you’d call a warm person, but he was straight up, gave each kid a fair shot—no one ever complained about favoritism—and besides, he’d taught Wyatt so much: how to be patient at the plate, wait for his pitch, even set the pitcher up a bit, plus all the intangibles like being relaxed and alert at the same time, and putting the team first, and playing hard until the last out. “Oh, no, Coach, I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking, you know, what about health class?”

The coach paused, his hand on a trophy he was taking from a desk drawer. “Not gonna help them sugarcoat this,” he said.

Wyatt didn’t understand. Who was “them,” for starters? He remembered something from history class, how even the Great Depression had finally come to an end. “The economy’s going to get better, right, Coach? What if it gets better soon, like by the summer? Then we could have a team again next year.”

The coach gazed at him. Those cold blue eyes didn’t look quite so cold. “Yeah, sure, anything’s possible. And I’m the last one to run my mouth on any of this. But we got complicated problems, maybe more complicated than people can handle.”

“But people made the problems in the first place, didn’t they, Coach?”

The coach smiled. His teeth were yellowish plus a couple
were missing, but there was something nice about his smile. “Got a head on your shoulders,” he said.

Wyatt didn’t get that at all. Except for math—and not that he was great at math, B’s, yes, but he wasn’t in the top stream—he was an average student, maybe below.

“You’re a smart kid, is what I’m saying,” the coach explained, perhaps because Wyatt was standing there with his mouth open. Wyatt came pretty close to arguing the point. “Want some advice? About playing ball, I mean. An old dumbass like me ain’t qualified to opinionate about nothin’ else.”

What was going on? Wyatt had never heard the coach talking like this; he was always confident, teaching the team, Wyatt figured, how to be confident by example. “Yeah,” he said, “sure.”

“Reason I’m tellin’ you this,” Coach Bouchard said, “is you’ve got some talent for the game, maybe the kind, if it keeps developin’ and you grow some more, that’ll take you to a college. Not sayin’ D-One, you understand, no promises on that score, and notice I’m not breathin’ a word about pro ball, but—somewheres. Meaning scholarship money, son, and the chance to get a real education. You follow?”

Wyatt nodded. College: that would be something. How much more did he have to grow? Wyatt was a hair over five ten and built solid, weighing one seventy-five.

“My advice,” said the coach, “is for you to get out of here fast.”

“Get out of where, Coach?”

“This school, this town. Got to establish residence in some
other town, a town that’s got a high school with a good baseball program.”

Establish residence? What did that mean? He named the only team from their district that had given them trouble last season. “Like Millerville High?”

The coach snorted. “Think Millerville’s in any better shape than us? Same thing could happen there, if not this month then next, or next year. No, where you gotta go is someplace more prosperous, the kind of town that’ll have baseball no matter what, even in a crappy economy.”

Wyatt tried to think of towns like that. He hadn’t traveled much, had been out of state only once, last year when the four of them—he, Cammy, Linda, Rusty—had taken a trip to Disneyland. He’d seen prosperity on that trip—they’d spent an hour or so driving around Beverly Hills—but the coach couldn’t be meaning somewhere like that. Was there even a high school in Beverly Hills? That would be like transferring to the moon.

“I’m thinkin’ Silver City,” the coach said.

“Silver City?” It was at the other end of the state, four hundred miles away.

“Know any folks down that way?”

“No.”

“Not an issue—I got some contacts at Bridger High. I’ll make some calls—just say the word.”

“So, I’d be, like, living in Silver City?”

“Exactly. Living there. Residing. Can’t just parachute in and suit up. That’s only in The Show.” Coach Bouchard laughed.

Wyatt didn’t get the joke. “But, uh, Coach, living with who?”

“Some family that likes baseball. Boosters, kind of thing. Coach down there’s Bobby Avril—should be able to set you up, no problem. Bobby sent a kid to Tulane last year, full ride, and another one to Arizona State.”

Full ride:
sounded like words to make a magic spell. This was all so much. Wyatt tried to line it up in his mind the way the English teacher did on the blackboard, using—what were those marks called? Bullet points? Yeah, that was it. Wyatt lined up the most obvious bullet points, like living in a new place, a booster family, Bobby Avril, and leaving home.

“Well?” said the coach.

Wyatt took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“Smart man,” said the coach. “All you got to do is keep doin’ what you’re doin’. Play hard, stay relaxed.”

Wyatt nodded. Yes, he could do that. He was going to miss things, his mom, of course, and Dub and the team, and other kids at East Canton High, but: yeah. And Cammy. He was going to miss her, too. Wyatt held out his hand. “Thanks, Coach, thanks a lot.”

“Don’t thank me,” the coach said. They shook hands. The coach’s hand was hard and rough, the big fingers twisted. Wyatt turned to go. He was almost at the door when the coach called him back. “One more thing,” he said. Wyatt walked back into the room. The coach opened a filing cabinet under the window, searched through the bottom drawer. “Here you go,” he said. “Might as well have this. Everything’s just gonna end up in boxes in my garage, moldering away.”
He gave Wyatt a photograph, six by nine or so.

“What’s this?” Wyatt said. A black-and-white photo and obviously kind of old, the edges yellowish and turning up, it showed two guys in baseball uniforms with East Canton on the chests, although the lettering was different from the lettering on the uniforms now. One of the guys, the unsmiling, older one, had a salt-and-pepper mustache. The other was a kid, maybe about Wyatt’s age, a good-looking kid with a big white smile on his face. Wyatt didn’t recognize either of them. “Who are these guys?”

Coach Bouchard jabbed his finger at the older one. “That’s me, for Christ’s sake.”

“Oh,” said Wyatt. “Sorry.” The mustache had fooled him, plus how young the coach looked; his face—now deeply grooved—had hardly any lines at all. But those cold eyes were the same; he should have seen that. “Who’s the other one?”

“Take a guess.”

Wyatt had no idea. “The team captain, maybe?”

“Woulda been, if he’d stuck around for another season.”

“Uh-huh,” Wyatt said. Why did the coach want him to have this picture?

“No idea who that is?” Coach Bouchard asked.

“Nope.”

“Look closely.”

Wyatt looked closely, shook his head.

The coach gave him a long stare. “Maybe this ain’t such a good idea,” he said. He reached for the photo, got a corner of it between his fingertips, but Wyatt didn’t let go.

“Why not?” he said. “Who is this guy?”

Coach Bouchard sighed. “Ah, Christ,” he said. “It’s a slick-fielding shortstop I had way back when. Name of Sonny Racine.”

The photo trembled slightly in Wyatt’s hand. “My father?” he said. “My real father?”

The coach sighed again. “Biological, I guess they say these days, ’stead of real.”

WYATT HELD THE PHOTO
in both hands, kept it steady. He’d never seen a picture of his father before; they’d been separated, if that was the way to put it, prior to Wyatt’s birth. First had come six or seven years of ignorance, then his mom—it was just the two of them then, pre-Rusty—had sat him down and told him the story. After that came a year or two of intermittent questions, and since then he’d pretty much stopped having any thoughts at all about his—how had Coach Bouchard put it?—his biological father. Had he ever asked to see a picture? Maybe, long ago, because he had a faint memory of his mom telling him there were no pictures. Now, with this photo in his hands, one thing was clear: the son looked a lot like the father, at least the father as a young man.

Wyatt glanced up. The coach was watching him, eyes narrowed. “How come you never told me about this?” Wyatt said. “I never even knew he…he played ball.”

“You never asked,” the coach said. “And it was all a long time ago. Maybe a mistake, like I said. Give it back. I’ll put the damn thing in a box. End of story.” He reached out.

Wyatt drew the photo away. “I want to keep it.”

The coach raised his hands, palms up. “Okay. It’s all yours. And as far as I’m concerned, might as well tell you I had no problem with him. Never in trouble that I knew of, fine fielder, fast, like you, but nowhere near the hitter. Didn’t have your pop. Don’t know whether that’s information you want or not.”

“I—I don’t have much information at all,” Wyatt said. “About him.”

The coach nodded. “Prob’ly best. But I figured at least you knew he went here, East Canton High.”

“I guess I should have realized,” Wyatt said. “But I never really thought about it.”

“That’s prob’ly best, too.”

Wyatt took another look at the picture. That flashing white smile: this kid—wearing number eleven, Wyatt noticed, his own number, an observation that gave him a sudden strange feeling in his gut—seemed pretty happy. “How come he stopped playing?”

Coach Bouchard shrugged. “Stopped lovin’ the game, maybe? Lots do, no idea why. Don’t recall the details in this case, not like he was the star of the squad or nothin’. Mighta dropped out of school. Lots more did that back then. Now, drop outta high school and you haven’t got a chance.”

“How come?”

“How come? Lookit the world out there.”

Wyatt swung by Dub’s place on the way home. The Mannions lived in a big farmhouse just outside of town;
they had chickens, a couple of horses, and a mule they’d named Wyatt. As Wyatt drove past the corral, Wyatt the mule curled back his lips, showing huge yellow teeth; he was a mean bastard. That was the joke: the Mannions were fond of Wyatt—Wyatt the kid—and almost treated him as one of their own.

Wyatt parked beside Mr. Mannion’s car—a shiny black Caddy, three or four years old. Mr. Mannion could probably afford a new one every year, but the Mannions weren’t like that. Wyatt knocked on the front door.

“It’s open,” Mrs. Mannion called from inside.

Wyatt went in, saw her in the kitchen, slicing a big red tomato. “Hi, Mrs. Mannion.”

“Hi, sweetie. I think he’s downstairs.”

Wyatt found Dub and Mr. Mannion in the TV room. The Mannions called it the TV room but really it was a cool home theater, with a huge flat-screen TV, surround sound, soft leather couches, and an old-fashioned popcorn machine. But the TV wasn’t on, and Dub and his father were talking, Dub on a stool, his father behind the bar. They stopped as Wyatt came in.

“Hey.”

“Hi, Mr. Mannion.”

“Lousy goddamn news,” Mr. Mannion said. He was a big bald guy, once a Big Ten linebacker, now twenty or thirty pounds overweight.

“Yeah, I know,” Wyatt said.

Dub glanced at his father. “Can I tell him?”

“Don’t see why not,” said Mr. Mannion.

“Tell me what?” said Wyatt.

“The thing is,” Dub said, “my dad’s kind of, you know, like, arranged, uh—”

Mr. Mannion interrupted. “Listen to him, Wyatt. Seventeen years old and he can’t string two words together. What he’s trying to say is that starting next week he’s going to be living with his aunt in Silver City.”

“Silver City?” Wyatt said.

“I’m transferring to a school down there,” said Dub.

“Bridger High?”

“How’d you know?”

Wyatt laughed. “I’m doing the same thing.”

Mr. Mannion gave him a quick, sharp glance.

“You are?” said Dub.

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “When did the coach talk to you?”

“He, uh, didn’t,” Dub said.

“Coach didn’t talk to you? I don’t get it.”

“My dad—”

“The Bridger AD and I went to college together,” Mr. Mannion said.

Mr. Mannion was a smart businessman, as everyone said, knew how to get things done. “Cool,” Wyatt said. “We’ll be there together.” He laughed. “Maybe the whole team’ll move down.”

Dub laughed, too. Then he said, “Hey, Dad—any chance Wyatt can live with Aunt Hildy, too?”

“One thing at a time,” Mr. Mannion said. He checked his watch, then went upstairs.

Wyatt and Dub made popcorn, cracked open some sodas, watched
SportsCenter
. “Ever been to Silver City?” Dub said.

“No.”

“Pretty nice town,” Dub said. “Practically in the mountains. They got elk there.”

That sounded good.

“We could take up bow hunting,” Dub said,

“Nah,” Wyatt said.

“Ice climbing?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “We’ll need crampons.”

“What’s that?”

“Kind of spikes for your boots.”

“How do you know that?”

Wyatt shrugged. They were showing highlights on TV. A skinny guy with full-sleeve tattoos on both arms drained a long three-pointer. “The coach gave me something.”

“What?”

Wyatt had the photo in the big inside pocket of his jacket. He handed it to Dub.

“Is that the coach?” Dub said. Dub was pretty smart, although hardly anyone seemed to know; he was an even worse student than Wyatt.

“Yeah,” Wyatt said.

“Looked just as mean back then,” Dub said. “Who’s the kid?”

Wyatt gazed at that big smile for a moment; a confident smile, even cocky. “My father,” he said.

Dub’s eyebrows—bushy and expressive—went up. “Whoa,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“He played ball for Coach Bouchard?”

“News to me, too.”

“He looks kind of…you know, normal,” Dub said. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I meant like which prison.”

“Got that,” Wyatt said. “And the answer’s still I don’t know.”

Dub took another look at the picture. “What position did he play?”

“Short.”

“’Cause he’s wearing the same number as you—would have been amazing if he was a center fielder, too.”

“I guess.”

They sat on the couch, feet stretched out on footrests, ate popcorn, drank soda, watched more highlights.

“Can you believe that pass?” Wyatt said. “Sick.”

“You never, uh, talk about him, huh?” said Dub.

“Who?”

“Your father.”

“Gone before I was born—you know that.”

“Yeah.”

“So there’s nothing to talk about.”

They lapsed into silence, not an uncomfortable one. Wyatt and Dub had spent lots of time together, just like this.

“Play some Madden?” Dub said after a while.

“Sure.”

“Gonna beat your ass,” Dub said. They played Madden.
Wyatt was up by two touchdowns—Dub never won—when Mrs. Mannion called down, “Wyatt? Staying for dinner?”

“Thanks, I better get going,” Wyatt said.

He drove home, stopping for gas when he noticed the needle quivering down near empty. He put in three dollars’ worth, all he had on him. Standing at the pumps, cold wind whipping through under the overhang, sky dark, he tried to find the right words for telling his mother about Bridger High. Nothing came to mind. He decided to just wing it. Why not? She was his mom.

She was in the kitchen, still in her office clothes except for slippers, thawing a frozen red block of spaghetti sauce on the stove.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, honey. Dinner’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“I—”

“And Coach Bouchard called.”

“Yeah?”

Wyatt went into his bedroom, closed the door, called the coach on his cell phone.

“Hi, Coach. Wyatt.”

Silence on the other end. Then came what might have been ice cubes clinking in a glass.

“Coach? You called me?”

The coach cleared his throat. “Yeah, hi. I did.” The coach sounded a little strange—like he’d been drinking. Wyatt rejected that idea immediately.

“What’s up?”

“Kind of a—what would you call it?—bump in the road. That’s it—bump in the road. We’ve hit a little bump in the road.”

“Who?” said Wyatt. “What bump?”

“About Bobby Avril. Seems like the school committee—talkin’ about Silver City, not East Canton—has these rules I didn’t know about, rules—what’s the word?—governing, rules governing transfers. Transfers and sports, is what I’m referrin’ to. Anybody else can transfer, of course. But for playin’ sports, don’t matter varsity or JV, there’s only one transfer who can play on a team each year, meanin’ the year of transferrin’. After that, why, you’d be resident, so no problem for the next year. Get what I’m sayin’?”

Coach Bouchard was taking fast, and again Wyatt got the feeling he’d been drinking, but he thought he grasped the general idea, and it led to a bad thought: Dub wasn’t going to be able to play for Bridger.

“So, um,” Wyatt said.

“Bottom line—you can transfer to Bridger, no problem, but you can’t play ball for Bobby Avril, not this season.”

Wyatt’s heart began to beat way too fast. “Coach? I don’t think I heard you right.”

Coach Bouchard’s voice sharpened a bit. “There’s nothin’ I can do. Rules is rules.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“Don’ understand? Chrissakes, by the time I called Bobby Avril, first thing I got in the door, that one transfer space was already taken.”

“Someone else transferred first?”

“Exackly. Turns out his dad goes back a ways with the AD, just like I go back with Bobby. Only thing is he beat me to the post.”

The post? What post? Wyatt didn’t get that, maybe didn’t get any of it. “Whose dad?” he said.

“Dub Mannion’s,” said the coach.

“Dub got the position?” Wyatt thought back to that sharp glance Mr. Mannion had shot him down in the home theater. What had Wyatt said just before that?
I’m doing the same thing.

“What I’m tellin’ you,” Coach Bouchard said. “First come, first served basis.”

Silence. And then the ice cubes again.

“Coach? Can I stop by your office tomorrow? Talk about this?”

“Tomorrow? Not gonna be there tomorrow or any other goddamn tomorrows. I resigned. Done, all through. Weren’t you listenin’ today?”