Rain On Tin
Part Two
"Look at this, Sean. Sean—look,"
said Jon, nodding at the television screen. "Man! Four weeks into the season,
and the Mets have been in, what, six brawls?"
"Like
two, maybe three," replied Sean. "Hey, sorry I let your runners cross the
plate. If only I'd gotten that first kid out, those runners you left out there
wouldn't have scored."
"Yeah,
well, Peterman's a tough out. I think he's third in the league in average," Jon
responded, tugging his blankets.
"Still,
that was a stupid pitch for an 0-2 count. Goddamned stupid! Fastball on the
inner-half of the plate, belt-high. I should've been low and away with a
slider, see if he'd chase it."
"Eh,
he would've seen a breaking ball coming."
"And
I really fooled
him with that heater. Well, you can blame me if your ERA got pushed over 8.00."
Jon
was briefly silent, mulling the statement before clasping his left hand to his
forehead and saying, "Oh, fuck!" and he leapt from bed and headed to the
bathroom.
"It's
damn cold in here. Aren't you cold?" he asked when he came out, closing the
door behind him, yet forgetting to shut off the light.
"Not
really. It's damn cold on that field all day, though. Even when the sun is
shining I always shiver and I can't figure out why. It's as though my blood
stops pumping. Remember three years ago, that freezing game on Staten Island?
We stole coach's jackets and wrapped them around our legs and hid the number on
the sleeve so he didn't realize it was his, and he pissed and moaned all game.
Goddamn, it was so great!" he laughed. "I always think about that."
"I
always think about that game I had freshman year, I think it was my first game in fact—"
"Seton
Hall, down at that Florida tourney."
"Yeah...I
was good, huh? Seven innings!"
"That
really was something, Jon. Seriously, that was great. Too bad we still lost."
"But
man, I was on. It's like, I came in to relieve when we were already losing by
10 runs, but I didn't even care. It was like I could do no wrong."
Sean
turned and leaned over on his left side to face Jon.
"That
was something. You've still got it, too. It's just, something—something small has been off for you this
year, and no shitty coach here will ever catch it, you know? It's not your
fault."
"Well—"
started Jon.
"And
think about it, your first game," continued Sean. "Shit! You remember my first one?
I got lit up, and all the older guys on the team were so hung over from the
night before they couldn't catch a fucking thing. God...I was so livid, I swear,
it's a good thing I didn't have a gun in my equipment bag. It would've been me
or them."
"Sam
pitched well that day, though," said Jon. Sean's eyebrows relaxed; his brow
unfurrowed. He paused and thought.
"That's
right—he did, didn't he? I forgot about that. We both made our debuts
that day."
"Ha!
Yeah, and he was so nervous, too!" cackled Jon. "He was always so nervous! I never saw a
kid throw four wild pitches and four walks and get out of an inning unscathed.
So fuckin' lucky!"
They
both laughed and then silenced as the rainfall regained dominance of the room's
acoustics. They stared at the ceiling, and a palpable tension arose into their
respective throats as they realized that it had already been a year.
---
It
was a Friday morning. Sean burst into Phillips Hall in a hostile whirlwind,
late, as usual, head down and typically bitter. It was the warmest day of the
year, a Friday, and the sun caught the back of his neck as the door swung shut.
In retrospect, he thought, it was the warmest the sun ever felt, or would ever
feel from that day forth. He got that familiar sinking feeling of trivial dread
over his CJ 101 exam. Thirty feet into the building he caught the eye of his
oldest and best friend at the school, who rushed up behind Sean as he turned to
walk up the first flight of steps.
"Sean
I don't know if it's true," said Jon with panicked excitement as Sean placed a
foot on the first step, "but I just heard this crazy rumor just now that
Palmiteri didn't wake up this morning."
Some
other guys on the ball team stood around, leaning against the wall,
indifferently conversing, goofing around. Sean looked into Jon's eyes, unblinking,
silent.
"I don't know what that means, man. What—what
the fuck does that mean?"
Jon
opened his mouth before any sound came out. "They found him in his bed this
morning and he wasn't breathing."
"What, I don't understand it. I don't know what
you're saying. ...they revived him, right?"
"No.
Sam's dead." He shook his head and looked down.
---
On To Part Three of Rain On Tin