It’s Sunday night and I’m thinking, How do you do it? What are the mechanics of quitting your team? It’s so easy on TV. There’s an announcement, a press conference. The athlete speaks for a few minutes and cries a little at the end. That’s the part that goes on ESPN: some guy with gray in his hair tearing up in front of two dozen microphones.

But no one’s going to hold a press conference for me. I’m going to have to tell people one at a time. The ACE is off, but I’ve wrapped my wrist up in two layers of white athletic tape, the stuff that was supposed to be under there the whole time anyway.

I walk past Mom and Dad in the living room. They’re sitting on the couch. The TV is on, there are snacks set out, and Dad has a beer. I hear the announcer’s voice: “Sunday Night Game of the Week.” I can still do that. I can still watch. The players can’t look through the TV, shake their heads in disgust, and turn their backs on me. I mean, we’ve got HD, but it’s not that good.

I look at Mom and Dad. There’s a spot for me on the couch, like always. But this time, it’s right in between them. It’s a bad sign. I sit down in between my parents.

“Who’s playing?” I say.

They don’t answer right away. I just look and see for myself. There’s a saying, something Dad used to say to me when I asked questions like that. I just go ahead and say it for him. “If you’d look with your eyes and not with your mouth, maybe you’d find out.”

“Yep,” says Dad.

“Yep,” says Mom.

“Yep,” I say.

It’s the Yankees versus the Indians. It makes me think of Major League and all those funny lines, like “Couldn’t cut it in the Mexican League.” I’m going to have a T-shirt made up that says that.

We don’t divide up into teams this time. There’s no Brew Crew versus Los Dodgeros. We all root against the Yankees.

I need to tell them, but there’s just no way I can do it right now, sitting in between them on the couch, watching this game. What am I supposed to say: “Didn’t really look like he ran out that fly ball. Speaking of quitting on your team…”?

Anyway, the Yankees jump on the Tribe early. It’s a total blowout by the sixth, and I decide to go upstairs.

“Homework,” I say.

I wait for them to object, but they don’t. They know I lied to them. They figured it out or maybe they talked to someone. I think about the three or four times the phone rang today. I get off the couch and Dad does, too.

“I’m getting another beer,” he says.

“Don’t, Stephen,” says Mom, but he does.

Upstairs, I close the door to my room. I try to do my homework. I make stacks out of my books and decide what to do first.

None of it looks very good. Normally, I’d start with English, but our new assignment for English is poetry. I don’t want to read any poems right now.

I don’t think I can concentrate enough for math. I pick up my history book and flip through it. That’s about as much as I get done. I’ll do as much as I can tomorrow, I tell myself. It seems like a good morning to be bent over a book, anyway. A good morning to be reading and doing problems and not, you know, talking.

That reminds me: I still haven’t called Andy. I pick up my phone. I just look at that, too.