Out of My League (12 page)

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Authors: Dirk Hayhurst

BOOK: Out of My League
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Chapter Twenty
A few nights later, back at the hotel, I sat at the kitchenette’s mini table, across from a reclined, couch-bound Aden, who was watching some horror movie about zombies, when my cell phone rang. My parents’ number flashed on the screen. Picking up the phone, I went into the other room, shutting the door behind me to tune out the sound of people getting mauled by the undead.
“Hello?”
“So, are you still getting married?” asked the voice of my mother.
“Nice to hear from you too, Mother.”
I stepped over a pile of dirty clothes that sat at the side of Aden’s bed, heading to my bed on the far side of the room in case any screaming on my end proved disruptive to Aden’s enjoyment of the screaming on his end.
“I’m just asking you a simple question.” Simple, but loaded.
“Yes, I am, Mom. I told you I was and I meant it. Is that all you called for?”
“Just making sure. Gosh. Calm down. I wanted to know because your grandma said you’re a no-good son of a bitch and you took her bird figurines—”
“I never touched her bird figurines!” I shouted.
“She can’t find the one with the blue jay feeding its babies.”
“Did she check behind those camel figurines she—oh, forget it! Why am I even talking to you about this? God, I’m three time zones away and I still can’t get away from this crap. It doesn’t matter, I’m not going back there, and I don’t care about the bird figurines. Why are you calling me, just want to piss me off?”
“I thought you’d want to know what she said. I thought you’d find it funny.”
“You’re amazing, you know that?” I sat down on my bed, palming my face.
“You know how your dad goes over there every once and a while when you’re gone to make sure she’s not dead?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of how odd my family’s definition of visiting Grandma was compared to others. Grandma had insisted she was going to move out of her house and into a comfortable assisted-living home for the last ten years, but had yet to make any effort. Instead, she’d become an expert in finding reasons why not to move; everything from the terrible food to “too many colored people.” The family had come to terms with the fact that she was never going to leave, and consented to performing a weekly “death check” on her.
“Your dad wasn’t there five minutes before she started in on your dead grandfather,” said Mom.
I let out a long sigh.
“She said Sam can’t be your grandpa’s son because your grandpa had gonorrhea and couldn’t have kids. Your dad asked her who she had an affair with to give birth to him, and she told him to go to hell because a woman of her good graces would never do such a thing. Your father and Jesus”—Mom laughed—“the only two people in history to be immaculately conceived.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, come on, Dirk. That’s funny.”
“Whatever.”
“Wow, you’re in a bad mood, huh?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Well, let’s talk about baseball. Do you know if you’re going to make the Triple A club?”
I thought of how hard it would be to explain to her all of the possibilities that could derail a shot at Triple A. I thought of how hard it was explaining it to myself. “Camp is over in two weeks, call then.”
“Fine. How’s Bonnie?”
“Mom, the last time we talked, you and Dad told me getting married was the same as pissing my life away. Now you want to chitchat like that didn’t happen?”
My mom let the receiver go silent for a minute or two. I lay down on my bed and stared at the spackle on the ceiling.
“I don’t understand why you are still so upset about that,” said Mom.
“How can you not understand that? I’m trying to take my life my own direction right now, and instead of supporting me, you and Dad are both resistant to it. It’s like you think I’m fucking up my life by splitting myself into a person who doesn’t strictly focus on baseball.”
“We’re not resistant to you.”
“Then what, you don’t like Bonnie?”
“She’s a wonderful girl, we love Bonnie. We love whoever you love.”
“Then why, when Dad told me he didn’t think Bonnie was the one, did you not say any of this? Why did you say you’d only believe it when it happened?”
“I don’t know,” Mom said meekly.
“Bullshit, you do know.”
“I didn’t feel it was my place.”
I grabbed my head. “Not your place? Well, then, whose place is it? You’re my mom, you’re his wife.”
“That’s right, I am his wife, Dirk. And for the last couple of years I haven’t wanted to be. You have no idea what marriage is like, what it can turn into when things fall apart. Your father is right: you don’t know what you’re getting into. You’re starting a relationship at the expense of things you’ve wanted your whole life. You’ve been spending the last how many years of your life doing this job, and now you’re okay with not doing it anymore for a girl? The last thing you want to have when you start a life together is regrets.”
“I won’t have regrets walking away from our family mess, Mom. And if for some reason I do, I wish you’d just support me instead of telling me I’m going to fuck my life up.”
“We just want you to be happy.”
“Are you happy?”
“No! No, I’m not. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been happy.”
The conversation stopped for a long stretch of time. One thing children do well is criticize their parents, and I was so full of criticisms I had no room for sympathy. I knew she was in a bad place. I knew she was unhappy in her relationship with our family, but so was I. I hadn’t enjoyed my relationship with my family for the last several years. I too wanted out and was hoping to make my break into something better with Bonnie. I didn’t want to be told what dangers I might be headed toward by people I never wanted to be like. I didn’t want to listen to anything she had to say. If she wasn’t for me, she was against me.
“Your dad is bipolar,” Mom said, breaking the silence.
“Did Grandma say that too?”
“No, the doctor did.”
“What doctor?” I sat up again.
“Dad came home from your grandma’s angry ’cause she went nuts on him. He got into it with me because he couldn’t make any headway with her and he needed someone to yell at.” The customary casual tone she used for all the stuff she recited to me left her voice in favor of a more serious tone. “I told him everything you probably wanted to. He got the gun out of the closet and ran me from the house with it. I left, and I only came back to make sure he wasn’t dead.
“He didn’t do it,” she continued. “He cried for hours, but he didn’t do it. I took him to the hospital when he was calm enough to go. I thought he was going to have to be committed, Dirk, I really did. I thought he’d finally lost it. The doctor who checked him out asked me if he’d ever been treated for bipolar disorder.”
Mom went on to explain how, given my dad’s extreme mood swings, it was worth trying to treat him for post-traumatic bipolar disorder, since the other options were more severe.
“So, what does this mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It will take a while to see how the medication works on him. But if it doesn’t, Dirk, I ...” The phone went blank again as I waited for her to finish, but she never did.
“So, what if it doesn’t work?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Would he go to an institution?”
“He would never let that happen.”
“What does that mean?”
“This isn’t your mess, remember. You just worry about you, okay? You’re good at that.”
“What the hell does that—”
She hung up.
Chapter Twenty-one
I pulled JiC duty again the next day. Since my conversation with Ox and Frenchy, going over to the big league side of camp no longer felt like a lottery ticket opportunity. Now I felt a lot like one of the red shirts in
Star Trek
: nameless, faceless, and the first to die. Convinced the event was a waste of time, I didn’t pay much attention to the major league operation. Instead, I spent most of the day in my head, trying to decide how I should feel about my phone call with Mom.
I knew things were getting worse with my dad, but I wasn’t sure if I should care or not. After so many years of watching the family tear itself apart, I’d developed a sort of immunity to it. As much a survival trait as anything else, there are only so many knock-down, drag-out fights a group of loved ones can have before their hearts become callused, and mine was pretty tough these days. I almost wanted there to be casualties now. Thinking in such a way felt cold, even in my hotheaded state, but it might actually solve the problem. My dad didn’t want to live anymore; he hadn’t wanted to for years. The only activity he seemed to share with the family was fighting. My mom was miserable and wanted out; so did I, and so did my brother.
It was surprisingly easy for me to wash my hands of it all. I was going to be married, I thought, heading off in my own direction. Maybe my mom, despite her anger, was actually right? Maybe I should worry about myself and let the dead bury the dead? Besides, what could I really do from here anyway?
 
The big league bullpens always have more goodies than the minor league ones, a fact not lost on a guy who never exited it, like me. I’d gotten good at sifting through all the gum, candy, seeds, and bars available to me during my stints as a blowout counter measure. I had stuffed my pockets full of the choicer-flavored gums and was adding to a wad lodged in my cheek, mulling over the next step I should take with my family, when I spotted the great Trevor Hoffman making his way across the field. He always had such a regal gait, like he was gallivanting his way through some Renaissance-era court, not a baseball field. The bullpen coach, Darrel Akerfelds, accompanied Hoffman, as well as another gentleman dressed in a Padres uniform.
Like Maddux, Hoffman was a hero of mine. I took every opportunity to watch him move on a baseball field. Unfortunately, each time I’d been called to JiC, Hoffman had been MIA. Today, he was here in all his splendor, and yet it was not him I watched but the unidentified person in full Padres dress walking next to him.
Unlike Trevor, this person did not move gracefully, but slowly and methodically. Indeed, he labored for steps as it didn’t seem like his legs’ natural inclination was to obey him. His right hand was curled up slightly, and his right arm stuck to his side like an injured wing. Even so, he walked along wearing an expression that exuded joy, doing his best to match the pace of Hoffman and Akerfelds, who, in turn, did their best to match his.
When they arrived at the bullpen gate, Hoffman found a chunk of outfield grass to stretch in while Akerfelds tended to bullpen business, hanging charts and rosters near the pen’s phone box. The mysterious man stood near the gate, using the solid construction to steady himself while he watched the players loosen. Occasionally, one of our boys would walk by and slap the mystery man on the shoulder and say, “Hey, Stump. How you doing?”
“I’m doing great, buddy. How are you?”
“Good, man. Real good. Looking for a win today.”
“You know it,” said Stump.
Sometimes the conversations would stretch longer, revealing that Stump had trouble recalling a word or a two, stammering to get them out. Sometimes he would trace the word in the air in front of him with this left hand until it came to him or the person he was talking to did so for him. I marveled at this. Not because I’d never seen a handicapped man before. In fact, this wasn’t even the first time I’d seen one on a baseball field. Rather, I stared at Stump with transfixed eyes because he looked remarkably like my dad, except happy.
“Excuse me,” I said, looking to one of the players nearest me in the bullpen.
“Heath,” said the player, introducing himself and reaching to shake my hand.
“Dirk,” I said, taking his offer. “I was wondering, what is the story behind Stump?” I looked back at Stump, who was laughing with someone.
“Oh, Mark?” asked Heath. “Mark Merila? Everyone calls him Stump. He used to be the bullpen catcher for the Padres until he was struck with a brain tumor back in ’05. He had a seizure on a subway train to Shea Stadium, that’s how they found out.” We both looked over at Stump, smiling and talking with the players who stopped to chat with him. “He’s a great dude, a medical miracle,” said Heath.
“You ready?” Hoffman called at Stump.
“I’m ready, big man,” Stump said.
“Then quit jackin’ around and let’s get to work, man,” said Hoffman, pretending to actually be angry, which made Stump as well as everyone else laugh.
Stump ambled to the white foul line parallel to Hoffman’s patch of grass in the outfield. About sixty feet away, Hoffman stood, ball in glove, at the ready. Akerfelds handed Stump a catcher’s mitt, which Stump worked on to his left hand before putting it up as a target for Hoffman.
Stump looked so much like my dad it was uncanny. Not only did their faces share similarities, so did the way their afflictions manifested in their bodies and movement. I actually moved toward Stump to make sure he wasn’t some supernatural thing, some figment of my imagination. I simply could not believe there was a man on earth with so many similarities to my father, and so merry. However, when Stump lifted that mitt, I realized I
was
watching something supernatural.
Now it was me who needed the gate’s support, as what happened next was the single most beautiful thing I’d ever seen on a baseball field. Stump’s range was obviously limited given his condition. Even so, no one stopped him or told him what he was about to do was dangerous. They paid him the biggest compliment they could, which is to say, they acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. Of course, the person with the largest role in the execution of this event was Hoffman, who shouldered the responsibility of putting the ball in Stump’s mitt, or as close to it as possible. I suppose it should come as no surprise that, of all people in the game, baseball’s all-time saves leader was up to the task. This isn’t to say Stump didn’t make it look easy catching every ball thrown to him.
After receiving each throw, Stump turned his mitt over so Akerfelds could collect the ball and throw it back to Hoffman. The cycle repeated until Hoffman finally confessed, “I’m good, Stump. Thanks a lot.”
“Anytime,” Mark said.
I didn’t want them to stop throwing. When they finished, it was all I could do to not burst from the pen and ask if I could pitch to Mark. But as I stood there, holding on to the gate, I realized I didn’t want to pitch to Mark, but to my dad, that I would give anything to see him happy, if it meant we could share a moment like Hoffman had just shared with Stump.
Then I realized that it was only minutes ago I’d convinced myself that my dad killing himself didn’t matter.
“Where’s the players’ bathroom?” I asked Heath.
“Out the gate, second set of double doors.” He pointed to the path. “There’s two sets, you can use whichever.”
I got up and left the bullpen. Walked past fans asking for autographs. Pushed through the double doors and into a bathroom where I turned on the faucet, before collapsing into a corner where I wept.
 
That night, when I knew my mom was at work and I was sure she wouldn’t answer, I called her cell phone. “Hey. It’s me,” I said when the voice mail picked up. “I was just thinking. When Dad looks like he’s feeling down, you should put on some of his music. A little music therapy or something. I think he’d like that. I’ll ... I’ll talk to you later.”

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