Home Run: A Novel (4 page)

Cory Brand was definitely done for the day.

He pried the hands off his uniform and tried to go back to see if the boy was okay, but the guys wouldn’t let him.

Now the booing and yelling was intensified.

Suddenly Cory felt like he was part of the visiting team. Suddenly he felt like he was back in LA with all those fans who hated him because he’d beaten them so many times.

I didn’t mean to hit him. It was an accident.

He was forced to go to the locker room by himself. Cory walked there in the darkness of the hallway, the sounds of the crowd fading behind him.

For a while he just stood there in the clubhouse, watching the incident replaying on one of the monitors on the wall. Seeing his own behavior made him cringe.

I gotta get out of here.

Yet he continued watching to see what happened with the kid.

The boy was flocked by the trainer and a couple of other guys, but soon he held his nose and gave a thumbs-up as he was led off the field.

The camera panned to his fellow Little League teammates cheering and yelling in the stands.

It wasn’t Cory Brand they were cheering, however.

It was the kid Cory Brand had knocked over and bloodied on his home field.

“Come on, man. Nobody’s gonna find out.”

“I don’t care if they do.”

Rex is two years older than Cory but can’t hit a ball like Cory can. Nobody can, to be honest. That’s why the older kids look up to him, and why he’s been invited to this house where the parents are gone for the weekend. Rex’s older brother is a junior in high school and is taking care of Rex, whatever that means.

It obviously means Rex has the house to himself and is now searching for booze.

“Roger does it all the time,” Rex tells him.

Cory could tell Rex that his father does it all the time too. He’s not impressed with drinking.

“Come on. Roger got a case of beer. He won’t care if we have some.”

Cory doesn’t tell the seventh grader in front of him that he’s never had beer in his life.

“I don’t want any.”

“Why not?”

“Just because.”

“You’re not gonna get in trouble.”

“Did I say I was gonna?”

“Lighten up, man. Come on.”

Cory looks at the kid and doesn’t intend to back down. One part of him is defiant … but another part is curious.

“I don’t want any beer.”

“Yeah, you told me that.”

“Do your folks have anything harder?”

Rex looks at him and smiles. “They got a whole cabinet in the other room.”

“Okay, then. What are we waiting for?”

It’s the first time Cory takes a drink. The first time he feels the burn in his throat and his stomach. It’s pretty awful. But he doesn’t back down, not after Rex takes his second sip.

Cory never backs down. He decides to take another sip.

It won’t be his last.

Chapter Four

Cleanup Hitter

Clay was dumbfounded. Not at the train wreck he and the rest of the country had watched up close as Cory flipped out and got thrown out of the game.

No.

What he couldn’t believe was his son’s response. The only thing that could possibly have topped the day for Carlos was if he had personally slammed a home run to win the game. He seemed to have forgotten what had actually happened and who had done this to him.

As the Bulldogs and their parents gathered around, Clay walked Carlos to the bus. His son held an ice pack like a trophy as several of his teammates rushed around him to ask how he was doing. His nose had gotten dinged, but it wasn’t broken. He was going to live.

As for his uncle’s career … that was a different story.

Karen hurried toward them, a concerned look on her face. Clay hugged her and gave her a kiss on her forehead.

This Father’s Day hadn’t exactly turned out the way they had imagined. Or at least the way
he
had imagined. Karen probably was biting her tongue to keep from telling him “I told you so.” Because she had told him so, several times.

He was sure they’d be talking about it soon enough, but now wasn’t the time. Especially since he had something else to tell her.

“I’m thinking about sticking around.”

Now it was Karen who was dumbfounded. With the hum of the bus motor next to them, they were safe from being heard by the rest of the group.

“Are you serious? Why?”

“I can’t leave him like this,” Clay said.

Karen gave him a look of disbelief. “What can you possibly do for him?”

“I don’t know. Just talk. Find out what’s up.”

He didn’t want to share how he really felt. He wasn’t just worried about Cory. His worry had turned to fear, the same kind of fear he’d felt growing up around Dad.

“That’s ridiculous, Clay. How are you even going to get home?”

“I’ll figure it out. I’ve got cash and credit cards.”

His wife still didn’t seem to believe what she was hearing. She waited for more of an explanation, but Clay didn’t offer one.

“I would think—under the circumstances—you’d be heading back with us,” Karen said.

He glanced over at Carlos. His teammates all surrounded him as he told about going inside the stadium to the trainers’ room to be examined. One of his friends asked to hold the ice pack.

“Just for a second, Tyler,” Carlos said in a serious tone that caused Clay to smile. “It’s an official ice pack only for players and people who work for the team. And I need it.”

“Dude, you were on that giant screen,” the normally unfazed and cool Stanton said. “The whole place was cheering for you.”

“I know! I was all …” Carlos acted like he was being led out of the parking lot and made his thumbs-up gesture again, which made the rest of his teammates laugh and cheer again.

Clay looked back at Karen and offered her a smile. “I think Carlos is fine.”

Karen couldn’t dispute it.

“Seriously, he’s been checked out by the team doctors. They completely indulged him in there. Used every state-of-the-art gadget they have.”

“Good. Is there something to examine your brother’s head?”

“I think they’re still looking for that tool.” He sighed, staring back at the massive brick stadium in the distance. “He’s all the family I’ve got left.”

Karen nodded her head slowly. “All right.”

He glanced at his wife, who still looked so young and beautiful in her baseball cap and shirt. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Do you think you’ll even be able to get hold of him?”

“I don’t know,” Clay said. “But I have to try. I have to do something.”

Cory deliberately skipped meeting with the media, and he also made sure he delayed leaving the stadium for a while. As he walked out of the empty clubhouse, after getting an earful from Ross, he recalled his conversation earlier with Helene. She’d barged in on him as he was watching the other team score five runs in the eighth inning.

“You’re killing me,” she’d said as she walked toward him, wearing her panic-mode face.

“Technically it’s only batboys I’m killing,” he replied, trying to make a joke. “And he’s still alive, last I looked.”

“This isn’t funny, Cory.”

“I know. They scored five runs now that I’m out of the game.”

Helene stood next to him but didn’t even look him in the eyes as she spoke. He knew she was already trying to figure out whom to talk to and when, and what she would say to get him out of this mess. All the reasons he paid her so well.

“This is serious, Cory. I mean it.”

Cory yawned and nodded. He was tired and needed to get out of this place.

“You better get on your knees and pray that his family doesn’t sue you and the Grizzlies.”

“Get his family season tickets and some vouchers for free beer,” Cory said. “They’ll be more than excited.”

“This isn’t the year to be messing around like this,” Helene continued.

“It’ll change.”

“What will change? The team or you?”

“Both,” he said, flashing his grin and trying to convince her that everything was under control. “Once I start hitting again, everything will be fine.”

“You have to stay in the game in order to hit.”

They watched another shot to left field. The score was now six to nothing. “Yeah, they’re dying out there.”

Helene looked at her phone and shook her head. “I need to put out some fires. Can you just make sure you avoid the media?”

“What do you mean?” he joked. “Why do you think I’m waiting here? I got a seat warm and ready for Johnny Steiman.”

“Stay away from them, especially Steiman.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

Helene brushed back her hair and gave him her trademark laugh. “You bloodied a kid’s nose out there. No, you’re not an idiot. You’re just a jerk.”

“Thanks for having my back.”

“I’m here to
save
your pretty backside.”

Her phone summoned her attention, and she left Cory in the silence once more. He liked the banter with Helene a lot more than the solitude and the waiting.

A little while after that, one of the trainers came up to him with a smile. “We took good care of him, don’t worry.”

He’d just coldcocked a kid, and yes, it was an accident, and yes, he was trying to tell himself that over and over again. But smiley-guy here was making it seem like everything was fine and he hadn’t been just kicked out of a game they were now losing by seven runs.

“You should’ve seen the kid. He couldn’t believe he was actually being examined by an official trainer. He was really proud of that.”

“Yeah, great. Cool.”

It was already dusk when Cory walked to his car. He’d had a few uncomfortable moments with the manager and gotten cold looks from some of the guys, but that was it. He’d managed to avoid the media. Heaven forbid he came within earshot or eyesight of another Little Leaguer or his mother or perhaps a 350-pound father waving a baseball bat at his head. He wanted to leave without any fanfare or without anything to do with a fan at all.

He was ready to go home and leave this waste of an afternoon behind. Hopefully the whole thing would blow over by tomorrow.

As he approached the last remaining vehicle in the players’ lot, a black luxury Porsche SUV, he noticed someone standing by it, waiting. He wasn’t worried, because security was top-notch and not just anybody could get in this lot without clearance.

But the last person he expected to find waiting there was his baby brother, whom he hadn’t seen in over a year.

“What’s this, Clay-boy? You should’ve told me you were coming!”

To be honest, it was a relief to see him.

The relief lasted about the amount of time it took to drain a beer. The smile on Cory’s face wasn’t coming back from grim-faced Clay.

“I did.” Clay looked like he’d been knocked in the face.

Cory tried to remember if they’d spoken about Clay coming even as he grinned and unlocked the car doors.

“That’s right, that’s right. You know—that’s why I put on the big show out there.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Clay glared at Cory. “What happened to you?”

Cory shook his head. He knew how to deal with Clay. “Aw, it’s just show biz.”

This was the last thing he needed, his little brother starting in on him. So he didn’t know Clay was coming, and didn’t play the part of the loving brother who met him on the field and introduced him to everybody and promised him a grand slam later in the game.

Yeah, maybe next time.

Cory casually tossed his bag into the back.

Clay’s expression didn’t change. “That was some serious rage out there.”

“Whatever.” He opened his car door, unwilling to be lectured.

People didn’t understand the pressure of the game. He could tell Clay this, but he was too tired and too thirsty.

“Cory, we should talk.”

Oh no. I don’t like that tone.

“Talk? ’Bout what?”

“About—you’ve got a problem.”

Clay looked so dang earnest, like a judging parent or principal or priest. But the fact was, he was none of those things. Cory didn’t have the time or the energy to be lectured by his kid brother.

“Okay, I think we’re done here.”

Cory climbed into the SUV and slammed the door, then watched as Clay opened the passenger door and sat down next to him. Cory ignored him, refusing to start the vehicle, refusing to say another word.

“I need a ride,” Clay said.

“Then call a cab. I’m going home.”

“I need a place to crash too.”

Cory chuckled in disbelief. “Forget it.”

“Hey, slugger, that
kid
you elbowed in the nose? He’s my son. Karen and I adopted him two months ago.”

Cory turned and saw the grim face looking at him. There was no punch line coming, no
Just kidding
. Clay was serious. In the black hole of his mind, Cory connected a few dots.

The team sitting behind the dugout, the kid stammering when he met him, the special attention placed on him …

“You know,” Clay continued, “it’d be nice if you actually read an email or returned a call once in a while. Or remembered when you do.”

Cory exhaled. He felt like a hot-air balloon shriveling up and dropping back down to the earth. Then he let out a curse.

No wonder he was so excited to see you, you complete and utter moron. No wonder he was the designated batboy.

“I’m sorry.”

His words felt like a lone island in the middle of an endless ocean.

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t the first apology his brother had heard from him. But it was the first he’d heard personally in quite a while.

Cory rubbed the back of his head and then his eyes. For a moment, he just sat studying his brother.

The days of the two of them running around their farm seemed like a whole other life.

“You look kinda pudgy,” Cory joked.

“I could kick your butt. And I could do it without a personal trainer and a masseuse. I
work
for a living.”

Clay wasn’t joking, yet he still made Cory laugh. Clay always made him laugh, when he wasn’t making him feel the need to go find a priest and a confessional. Cory couldn’t believe that the batboy was Clay and Karen’s son, or that Clay had been in the stands watching the whole thing.

Uncle Cory. What a loser.

“So you’re what. Mayor now?”

“District attorney,” Clay corrected. “I get a parking place and a key to the restroom.”

“Congratulations. Just tell me they’re in different places.”

“Your humor’s not going to get you out of this one.”

It had been a year since they’d seen each other, and a lot longer than that since he had been home. Cory wasn’t even sure how many years, to be honest. When you were in this business it was hard to remember facts about others. Those details everybody else kept track of—stuff like birthdays and anniversaries and names of nieces—all drifted away like a fly ball soaring over the fence, out of reach.

“How’s Emma?”

Hearing her name on his own lips was strange. It was one thing to occasionally think of someone who used to be a big part of your life. It was another thing to utter the name out loud and realize you hadn’t done so in a long time.

Clay got serious and sober so quickly that Cory almost laughed.

“She’s good,” Clay said. “It’s been hard on her and Tyler since James died.”

Names from yesterday, from yesteryear. Cory stared at the dashboard and for a moment lost himself in a strange cloud of memories.

“She says she likes being back home in Okmulgee,” Clay said.

Good for her, and good for Okmulgee.

Cory wanted to crank up some Rage Against the Machine, but that might have been a little obvious, so he decided against any music. The cologne he’d doused over himself to cover up the smell of booze on his breath seemed to be competing with Clay’s scent of sweat and nachos.

“I think she was geared up to see you at Dad’s funeral,” Clay said. “I think we all were, to be honest.”

It’s going to come any moment now, any second, just like that inevitable curveball you just know
is gonna get thrown.…