39

“MIKE?”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody.”

“Who’s the Buttcrust?”

“This mound. It’s frozen solid.”

I walked toward the mound. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to conduct a burial service.” When I got a few feet away, I saw what was in his hand: one of his mom’s little gardening shovels.

“What are you burying?”

He set down the little shovel and held up the Baseball Encyclopedia.

I wanted to ask him what he was doing burying a book in a pitcher’s mound, but he spoke first.

“I’m sorry, Mikey.”

Wait. What? He was sorry? What did he have to be sorry about?

“I just couldn’t see it,” he said. “I wanted it... to make the team, to get an at-bat, to... I wanted it so badly, I couldn’t see how impossible it was. You tried to tell me, and I couldn’t hear you.”

I was about to say I’m sorry, too, but the words seemed inadequate, especially as a response to his apology. Echoing his words weren’t nearly good enough.

“I’m not sure it’s wise to bury the Bible,” I said instead. “The baseball gods might smite you or something.”

“I’m willing to risk it. What are you doing here, anyway?”

I told him.

Everything.

I started with Kirsten running down the driveway and worked my way forward. Eric didn’t interrupt, analyze, or judge. He just listened. Even in the pitch-black, I could tell he was listening closely and completely.

As I told him about the game I’d just watched, how wiped out Kirsten had looked, I felt my anger rising once more. It occurred to me that Dad had been right: winning solved a lot of problems. In just one game, fans had gone from booing to cheering. And if his team kept winning, the cheering would no doubt keep getting louder. Dad would come out of this fine. But how about everyone else? Kirsten Howard, THE Kirsten Howard, didn’t want to play basketball anymore, and it was his fault.

Dad may have been a visionary—but how many people would he hurt so he could make his vision a reality?

Which got me thinking about a freezing cold day at the beginning of winter, when Mom was in the car, staring at this very field.

“So,” Eric said, “what are you going to do now?”

Just like that, I had come up with an idea and made up my mind to act on it. I pointed toward the backstop.

No, I pointed through the backstop, toward the football field.

“I’m going to steal that turnstile,” I said.