7 Days at the Hot Corner (7 page)

“
You're
sick of it!” Dad exclaims, unable to keep the annoyance out of his tone. “How can
you
be sick of it? Travis is the one who's paying the dues on that deal. His parents won't let him in their home. He hasn't asked you for anything, and as near as I can tell, you've been really accommodating in giving him exactly that … nothing.”

“I can't help it,” I say, feeling madder each second. “I'm not as
nice
as you are! I don't even know what I could do to help. I'm really messed up; I don't get any of this!” All of a sudden I feel like I might start punching walls and breaking things.

Dad seems to see this and he backs off. “It's been a tough thing for both of you, Scott. I know that, but there's nothing to get.” His voice is softer and real understanding. “Travis is gay, but he's still your friend.”

I say, “I know that, but …” I can't even find the words for what I feel.

Dad asks, “What else is going on?”

I tell him about the fight at school, how scared I was that it was Travis getting beaten up; I tell him about what Matt said about “the gay guy”; and I explain a little about the arguments Travis and I are having and how bad that feels. I almost tell him about the batting cage and blood and all that, but I hold back—if the news there is bad, there'll be time later for us to discuss it.

I say, “I'm not like you, Dad. I just can't be calm about this.”

He smiles and says, “You're a good person, son, a great person. And this is all part of growing up, as clichéd and simplistic as that sounds—it really is.” Then he adds, his voice gentle, “But a lot of this stuff really has nothing to do with Travis being gay—you know that, right?”

I say, “I don't know
anything
right now, except that I feel really screwed up.”

Dad and I have always been close, always been honest with each other—and I know that he'd never do what Travis's parents are doing,
never
, no matter what I did!

Dad puts his hand up to his chin and strokes his beard gently. I see the wrinkles around his eyes; I notice how old his hands look and the white hairs in his beard and at his temples. Dad's always seemed big and strong to me; he still does, even though I'm now taller than him.

He takes a slow, deep breath, and then says, “Trav doesn't have anyplace else to go right now.” His tone is soft and reasonable. “He needs us to be his friends, Scott.”

I say, “Yeah, I know that. I don't even really want him to leave, but I don't know how to handle this. It's like he's a different person now. I know he isn't, but that's how it feels.”

I look away from Dad and try to focus on something else. On the radio the Mariners are playing, but they're no help, trailing 11 to 2 in the seventh. It feels like
everything
sucks right now.

Dad says, “Maybe you should spend the next couple of days out at your mom's, give both you and Trav a little breathing room.”

I can tell that Dad isn't saying this like a threat, or because he is mad at me. He just wants me to know that if I want to go to my mom's house to stay tonight, on a day that I usually spend with him, it won't hurt his feelings. Dad has to have noticed the tension here too, both Travis and me tiptoeing around each other, avoiding eating dinner together, doing everything we can to keep our distance.

I think about Dad's suggestion to go to Mom's place, realizing that I haven't even spoken to her since all this stuff started. “Yeah,” I say, “that'd be good.”

Dad says, “I want a hug.”

It's ridiculous, you know, a guy still liking a hug from his dad at my age—but ridiculous or not, it feels good.

I feel better, not all the way better, but better. I finish a Raspberry Twister, then go upstairs and take a quick shower. I come back downstairs, ready to head to Mom's place.

The M's have lost, but somehow I don't care. After saying good-bye to Dad, I take off.

There's a Safeway right around the corner from my house, and I decide to run in and grab a snack for the drive out to Mom's. It's not that far, but I kind of need a junk food rush.

I drive a yellow 1989 Toyota 4x4 pickup truck. I know that 1989 sounds really old, but I love my rig. It's a short-bed SR5 with big oversize tires for off-road driving (which I never actually do). I keep it in pretty nice shape: great chrome wheels, a decent sound system, sheepskin seat covers, and a heavy-duty storage box bolted onto the pickup bed, just behind the cab. Yeah, I love my truck; I even tried to get my dad and mom, separately or together, to go in on personalized license plates for me. I checked with the department of licensing and both “Hotcorner” and “Baseball23” (my uniform number) were still available, but my parents said no. I guess that really would have been sort of show-offy.

But because my truck is bright yellow, I think a lot of kids know it's mine, and as I pull up and park, I see a couple of ninth-grade girls I recognize from school watch me get out and walk into the store.

I'm standing at the chips rack, trying to decide between Cheetos and Doritos, when the two girls approach me. I don't even notice them until they're right next to me. They're only frosh and real young-looking.

The taller of the two, a blond girl, asks, “Aren't you on Thompson's team?”

I say, “Yeah, the baseball team.”

The other girl says, “Like there're any others....”

I smile and say, “Don't let the tennis, golf, or track-and-field guys hear you say that.”

They both laugh, and the blonde says, “We read about you in the paper this morning.”

I say, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” they both answer at once.

The shorter girl says, “You guys are awesome; you play third base, huh?”

I smile again. “Yeah, I do. Have you guys been coming out to our games?” Kind of a stupid question, but I can't really think of anything else to say.

“Yeah,” they both say again, nodding their heads at the same time.

They look so incredibly young to me, more like sixth graders than high school girls. But they're cute, and someday they'll be the kind of girls who would refuse to even glance at me at a dance or something. Right now, though, they look all starry-eyed and happy.

I make my junk food decision and reach for the Doritos, a medium-size bag, when the blonde suddenly asks, “Can we have your autograph?”

I look at them closely to be sure they're not kidding. Nobody has ever asked me for an autograph before, and it seems ridiculous, but they look sincere.

I say, “Come on, why would you want my autograph? I mean, we go to the same school, right?”

The shorter girl speaks right up. “You're gonna be famous someday.”

I laugh and say, “Not too likely.”

The blonde says, “You're already famous! Your name is in the paper today.”

I say, “Yeah, it's in the box scores every day too, but—”

“No,” the blonde interrupts, “it was in the article about Thompson. You're Scott Latimer, and it said you're one of the best players on the team.”

I feel myself blush. “We've got a lot of good players—I'm just one of the guys.”

The short girl says, “You're a senior.”

I say, “Yeah.”

“Next year you'll be a big league player—you'll get like five million dollars a year or something.”

I keep myself from laughing and say, “The stars get that. Not regular players—”

The short girl interrupts me. “No,” she says. “The stars, like A-Rod of the Yankees, get twenty-five million dollars a year—but some pitchers, even guys with ERA's over five, still make millions.”

I laugh, surprised that she's so smart about baseball. I say, “That's true, but anyway, there's no guarantee that I'll even make the pros.”

“You will,” the blond girl says. She asks again, “Will you give us your autograph, please?”

Seeing that they're serious and feeling my face turn redder than the Doritos package in my hand I say, “Sure, I guess.”

They both smile and clap their hands. The shorter girl pulls out a Sharpie and two pieces of paper from the back pocket of her jeans, like she had this autograph thing all planned out ahead of time.

She asks, “Will you make them to Angela and Davita?”

I say, “Sure,” taking one more glance at them to be certain this isn't some kind of practical joke. I look around to make sure some joker isn't watching and laughing at the end of the aisle. But the coast looks clear, and the girls seem to be completely into it. I have to ask how to spell “Davita” and then I sign my first-ever autographs.

“Thanks,” they both say at the same time.

I say, “Sure.”

The shorter girl, Angela, says, “Good luck with the rest of the tournament—I know you guys are gonna win it.”

Her friend says, “Yeah.”

I say, “I hope so, thanks.”

“Thank you!” the blond girl says, and stares into my eyes. I glance back, and suddenly she says, “You're cute.”

The short girl kind of screams, “Davita, you promised!”

Davita quickly says to her friend, “I'm sorry.” Then, turning to me, she says, “But you are.”

I blush even worse and look down at my Doritos. I say, “Thanks.... It's nice meeting you both. See you out at the games.”

Angela grabs Davita and begins to pull her away, saying, “Yeah, we'll see you there. Forgive Davita, she's brain damaged, one too many foul balls off her skull.”

“Shut up!” Davita says to Angela, then looks back at me, staring into my eyes again. “See you.”

I just smile at them.

Back in my truck driving to Mom's, for the first mile I feel really happy and full of myself.

I'm famous.

I'm gonna be a great baseball player.

I'll make the pros and be rich and happy and …

I just miss the green at a stoplight on the corner of Seventeenth and Grand. It's a busy intersection with signals from all directions: east, west, north, and south; and four different left-turn lanes with lights of their own. I'm on Grand, facing south, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a cat races into the middle of all this traffic.

I guess you'd call it an orange tabby: orange striped with flecks of white mixed in with the orange. It runs right in front of my truck, with cars streaming by from both my left and right, and now it just stops in the middle of the street and looks right up at me.

Cats' eyes are so strange-looking. Cats stare at you completely differently than dogs do: Dogs always look like they want to know you, but when a cat stares, it's like it's daring you to look back at it; it's just a weird feeling. Does this cat know how much danger it's in? A cat with eight of its nine lives left wouldn't stand a chance in this traffic—but this one isn't moving, it's just sitting out between the two lanes, staring straight at me as cars and trucks and SUVs and vans drive by it.

I freeze. If I honk my horn, it might run into the path of a car and get killed; if I jump out and try to stop the traffic or grab the cat, it might get scared and run anyway. The only thing keeping it alive this second is that it's just sitting still; but how long until a car drives too close to the middle line and runs it over? None of the other drivers seem to even see it. I don't know what to do! Just when I don't think I can stand it for another second, the cat shoots off across the street, heading away from me. Two cars drive right toward it, but by some miracle, some totally perfect bit of luck, they miss it. The last I see of the cat, it's running through a gas station parking lot, leaping up, and clawing its way over a wooden fence into the backyard of a small house.

The car behind me honks—not just a little
beep-beep
, either, but a long blast. I look up and see that my light has turned green, so I ease forward.

I drive on thinking about the cat, about Travis, about my inability to make things okay. Before I realize what's happening, my whole feeling of happiness from the girls at the Safeway has completely collapsed. Famous? A pro? A millionaire jock? Come on! I can't even handle my own life: My parents got divorced; I don't know what to say to Travis; I can't save a suicidal cat; I struck out four times today.

Baseball legend?

Big-shot sports hero?

No way!

The whole rest of the drive out to Mom's, I feel worse and worse, absolutely stupid and worthless.

Mom's house at Weaver Lake used to be Mom and Dad's place before I was even born. We all three lived there together until I was four and they split up. For several years after the separation Dad would stay overnight sometimes and they “tried to work things out,” until they finally gave up for good and got the divorce. And that divorce changed everything forever—at least for me it did.

Although the town is also called Weaver Lake, Mom's house is right on the lake itself, twelve miles southwest of Spokane. I pull my truck into my parking spot next to the fence and look out at the wind gently playing across the water. Against my will I say to myself that Weaver Lake would be as good a place as any to lie around and die of AIDS. I gotta knock this off; I don't even know if Travis has ever had sex with anybody before, much less whether he's infected. I've been acting totally stupid.

I open the truck door and climb out. I love the smell of the lake: kind of a seaweed-meets-fresh-air scent. Off the shore from our house, about a hundred yards out, there are some big rocks. Seagulls and ducks hang out there. Twice a year Canadian honkers, a huge gaggle, show up and hang around for a couple of weeks. Mom and I have always taken walks along the lake, and it's beautiful. For a guy my age, the line between boring and relaxing can be pretty thin sometimes. But at Mom's, even though there's really not much to do, it's almost always good; I guess you'd have to call it peaceful.