Fragile Beasts (39 page)

I want to put my arm around her. She’s rubbing her own arms because of the cold. It should be easy. I even have a reason to do it. But I can’t.

Before Shelby left for France, I was too intimidated by the differences in our backgrounds to try and make a move. Now that she’s returned, I’m too intimidated by the difference in her. She ended up spending six months in Paris and came back serenely sophisticated. She talks passionately about politics, surrealists, and cheese. She drops French phrases into every conversation. Her color-coordinated, perfectly put together outfits have become a careless wardrobe of textured tights, patterned miniskirts, and slouchy tops in black
and other neutrals. She always wears a scarf wrapped around her neck—even when it’s not cold—and she gives everyone air kisses on both cheeks.

She’s been out to Miss Jack’s house twice since she’s been back and spent both times talking to her aunt. I was invited to sit in on the conversations but after a few minutes, I felt like an outsider.

I remembered Hen telling me the night of the fight with the Hopper brothers that she thought Shelby was sheltered and I was worldly, and I wanted to laugh out loud.

“Where’s your hotshot brother?” Starr asks me.

“Second base,” I tell her.

The words are hardly out of my mouth when a groundball is hit between second and third. Klint snags it on the first bounce, tags the runner who hit the double only moments earlier, and throws out the hitter on first.

It was a play he could do in his sleep and one that wouldn’t receive any excessive praise from Coach Hill but the smoothness and beauty of that one fluid motion—snag, tag, throw to Tyler—has everybody on their feet.

“A bee-yooooo-tee-ful double play by Klint Hayes,” the announcer booms.

Shelby bursts into shrieks and squeals that sound like something I’d expect from Britney. She claps, whistles, and jumps up and down.

Starr has stood up, too, but only because she had to in order to see what was going on. She doesn’t clap or scream, but she smiles at me as she rolls her eyes at Shelby before sitting down and taking a pack of cigarettes out of her purse.

She leans forward to light her cigarette, and her hair falls over her face like a veil. She parts it with her fingers and sees me watching her. I turn back to the game.

Shelby squeezes my arm.

“He’s going to be okay,” she whispers.

“Yeah, he’s good.”

The next batter hits a fly ball to Matt Martelli, and he’s able to redeem himself.

Klint and his teammates jog into the dugout.

“Excuse me, Miss.”

The woman sitting in front of us cranes her head around and glares at Starr.

“There’s no smoking allowed here.”

Starr slowly takes her cigarette out of her mouth and blows a long stream of smoke in the woman’s direction.

“Says who?”

“It’s a public place,” the woman says indignantly.

“So?”

“There are children here.”

“So?”

“Smoking can kill you.”

Starr leans forward over her bent knees.

“Don’t worry, lady. You have a much better chance of dropping dead from a heart attack caused by those fifty extra pounds you’re lugging around than by being exposed to a couple minutes of outdoor secondhand smoke.”

She sits back, smiling, and blows another cloud of smoke at her.

Everyone around us falls silent. The woman picks up her purse and leaves along with another fat woman sitting beside her.

Shelby’s face has turned pink with embarrassment.

I’m pretty embarrassed, too.

People wonder why jerks rule the world. It’s because everyone gets up and goes and sits somewhere else instead of dealing with them.

Starr was being a jerk, but I forgive her almost immediately. It’s hard for me to hold anything against a girl this good-looking, but Shelby obviously doesn’t feel the same way. I can tell that she’s genuinely upset with her sister, another sign of her newfound maturity. The old Shelby looked up to Starr, went to her for advice, and admired her wild behavior even thought she didn’t approve of it, but right now she looks almost disgusted by her.

Cody Brockway, long since recovered from his days of fleeing from his father, is our leadoff man. He hits a two-bouncer into near left field and makes it safely to first in part due to his superior speed. The next two batters strike out, then Klint steps up to the plate.

The fielders adjust their positions. It’s more subtle than it used to be when he was a kid and everybody just moved as far back as they could go. Now it’s about infielders and outfielders alike trying to fill in the holes while knowing if he gets a piece of something good, it’s all a waste of time.

The first two pitches are balls. The third is a strike, an inside pitch he misjudged, and I can tell as he moves away from the plate that he’s pissed at himself.

Coach Hill yells something at him. He doesn’t turn around. He goes back into the box.

Klint swings faster than most high school hitters, so he can take more time to commit himself. The ball is one-third of the way to the plate and he hasn’t begun to swing yet but I can tell he’s decided to do it by the way he moves his weight to his back leg and cocks his fists back.

At this point his eyes have left the pitcher and are focused on a zone right in front of the plate. He lets loose with a roundhouse swing and the ball scorches into right center field, taking two bounces before coming to rest in front of the home-run fence. He’s already running to first base as he completes his swing.

The right fielder goes after the ball. By the time he gets his throw to the cutoff man, Klint has rounded second with no intention of taking the easy double and Cody is already at home.

All the fans are on their feet again, the cold and wet forgotten.

Klint slides. The third baseman takes the throw high. He slaps down the tag, but Klint’s beaten it.

Bill’s cheering so hard, he’s almost crying.

He grabs my arm the same way Shelby did and says the same thing, “He’s going to be okay.”

I watch my brother get up from the field. For a moment I think he’s covered in blood but it’s only mud.

S
tarr disappeared right after the game, but Shelby waited around long enough to say hi to Klint. I watched them standing next to his truck, her in Parisian black and a pink scarf and him in a mud-stained baseball uniform. He didn’t say anything just nodded now and then. She chattered away giving him adoring smiles.

Even six months in France hasn’t changed her opinion about Klint. It’s unbelievable. She’s stopped liking cheddar but not him.

Klint has a truck. Klint has a beautiful, rich girl in love with him. Klint has the potential to be a famous professional athlete. Klint has everybody in the world worried about him.

He’s lucky he’s my brother or I’d hate his guts.

No one’s worried about me. Maybe a few people were for a little while, but it was over pretty quickly. They didn’t follow me around holding their breath to see what my grades would be like after Dad died. When they saw I got an A on my first geometry test, they didn’t grab each other’s arms and cry, “He’s going to be okay!”

No one asked about my drawings, or my eating habits, or if I’m still able to masturbate effectively.

The really funny thing is, the only person in the world who ever seemed to care more about me than about Klint was Mom; but I don’t know what that’s worth since she woke up one day and decided she didn’t care about me at all.

T
HE GAME ON
Thursday was good. The Flames won 4–1. But the game today had been great. A 12–2 blowout called in the fifth inning. Klint hit a
triple and two singles, had two RBIs, and scored twice himself. Brent Richmond hit a home run with two men on. Cody Brockway loaded the bases with a bunt and a blazing sprint to first, and then Tyler hit the double that brought two of them home.

It’s a Saturday and since the game ended earlier than expected, a bunch of the guys were planning to go over to Lucky Lanes and bowl a few games then head to Quaker Steak & Lube for some hot wings.

They invited me to come along, too. This year they’re a lot nicer to me. Maybe it’s because they feel sorry for me after Dad died or because I grew four inches in one year or because I’m in high school now and I’m not a puny middle-school kid anymore. Whatever the reasons, I don’t care. I plan to take full advantage of any opportunity to improve my social life. Not to mention, baseball players attract some of the best-looking girls.

I walk into Klint’s room just as he’s finished his shower. He’s got on his jeans and he’s going through his drawer full of T-shirts even though there’s only three he ever wears. He finds one of them and pulls it on over his head.

“Do you know how much money Miss Jack makes off Ventisco’s jizz?”

“What?”

“I’m serious. They sell his stuff. Twenty grand a pop for prize bull semen.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“No. Luis and Jerry were talking in the barn just now. They’re getting ready to bring Ventisco in to hook him up to this machine that basically jerks him off …”

Klint makes a face at me.

“Enough. Thanks.”

“I can’t wait to finally see him.”

“Yeah, great. Have a good time. Maybe the two of you can wank off together.”

He takes a seat on the corner of his bed and starts pulling on his socks.

“I would if somebody’d pay me twenty grand.”

“Nobody’d even pay you twenty cents.”

“Nobody’d even take it off my hands for free.”

Klint looks up from tying a shoe, and he’s actually smiling.

I look past him at the blankets bunched up on the unmade bed and notice something moving.

I walk over and see a stretched-out Mr. B rolling over onto his back. He opens one eye and looks up at me.

“What the hell? Mr. B? What’s he doing here?” I ask, completely stunned. “He’s not allowed in the house.”

“She doesn’t know.”

I sit down next to my cat and scratch him between the ears. He starts purring. For once the sound doesn’t make me feel good. Shelby’s bad enough because she never belonged to me, but this is a serious betrayal.

Mr. B and Klint have always mutually hated each other, but then I remembered the way Baby took to him and how Klint seemed reluctant to give him back.

“I thought you hated him,” I say, angrily.

“I was walking around outside one night when I couldn’t sleep. He followed me in. I think he was cold. He’s an old cat.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Yeah, he is. Look at him. You don’t have any idea how old he was when you found him.”

I keep petting him, but his purring slacks off quicker than it used to. He’s in a sound sleep already.

Great. Someone else to lose. My cat’s going to die. Suddenly, I don’t want him around at all. I want him to be gone already. I don’t want to wait for it.

“Are you gonna take him to college with you?” I ask.

“Are you nuts? The cat’s just lying on my bed. Big deal. He’s your cat. I don’t want him.”

Just as quickly as I was overcome with anger, now I’m overcome with grief. I feel like I’m going to start crying for Mr. B because Klint doesn’t want him.

“You know you’re gonna have to start getting serious about college soon.”

“It’s only spring of my junior year. A lot of guys don’t decide where they’re going ’til they graduate.”

“Not if you’re serious,” I start riding him. “Not if you’re serious about big schools and big scholarship money. You’re going to have to sign a letter of intent in the fall.”

“Lay off,” Klint shouts at me.

“How about going over to Western Penn next week and checking out the team? Coach would let you miss a practice.”

I’ve really gotten under his skin. The tips of his ears are turning red.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you? You’re the one who’s obsessed with my future and now you want me to go to a crappy college?”

“Western Penn’s not crappy. It’s just smaller than the other schools you’re looking at. You know, they’ve got a shot at Shane Donner.”

“Shane Donner,” he scoffs. “Give me a break. He’s going pro.”

“Why do you always think the worst of everybody?”

“How is making shitloads of money being a pro pitcher thinking the worst of somebody?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you have such a bug up your ass about college?”

I don’t answer right away.

“You don’t think I can hack it in the majors, do you?” he spits at me.

“That’s not it. It’s just … what if something goes wrong? There’s all kinds of things that can happen even to the world’s greatest players.”

“And you think a college degree will save me?”

“At least it’s something. I don’t want you to be one of those broken-down guys playing on some farm team going out drinking every night.”

Like Dad, we both silently finish the sentence.

“No, I’ll be one of those broken-down guys with a useless college degree working in a cubicle going out drinking every night. You think too much about the future.”

“You never think about it.”

“Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I don’t want a future.”

“What do you mean? You’re going to have a future whether you want it or not. You might as well try and make it a good one.”

“I don’t have to have a future. That’s my choice. That’s the one fucking choice in this world no one can take away from me.”

“What are you talking about?”

He gets up and strides toward the door.

“Wait up for me,” I call after him.

“No way. You stay here. I don’t need you hanging around me worried about me all the time like some fucking faggot.”

I follow him out into the hall.

“Come on,” I beg.

He keeps going, never looking back, his way of dealing with everything: don’t deal with it.

I feel tears burning my eyes. I wanted to go do something. I’m tired of never having fun.

I look in Klint’s room. Mr. B yawns at me.

“Traitor,” I yell and pull Klint’s door shut, then go to my own room and slam the door behind me.

I throw myself on my bed.

I really miss my dad right now. My dad never solved a problem in his life, but he could always make me not care about the problems I had.