Nine Inches (8 page)

It didn’t help that Carl had three normal boys living right next door.
Th
ey were always in the backyard kicking a soccer ball, tossing a football, or beating the crap out of one another. Sometimes they included my son in their games, but it wasn’t much fun for any of them.

Jason didn’t want to play Little League, but I made him. I thought putting on a uniform might transform him into the kind of kid I would recognize as my own. Despite the evidence in front of my face, I refused to believe you could be an American boy and not love baseball, not want to impress your father with your athletic prowess.

It’s easy to say you should let a kid follow his heart. But what if his heart takes him places you don’t want to go? What if your ten-year-old son wants to take tap-dancing lessons in a class full of girls? What if he’s good at it? What if he tells you when he’s fourteen that he’s made it onto the chorus of
Guys and Dolls
and expects you to be happy about this? What if when he’s
fift
een he tells you he’s joined the Gay and Lesbian Alliance at his progressive suburban high school? What if this same progressive school allows boys to go to the prom with other boys, and girls to go with girls? Are you supposed to say,
Okay,
fi
ne, go to the prom with Gerald, just don’t stay out too late?

I only hit him that once. He said something that shocked me and I slapped him across the face. He was the one who threw the
fi
rst punch, a feeble right cross that landed on the side of my head. Later, when I had time to think about it, I was proud of him for
fi
ghting back. But at the time, it just made me crazy. I couldn’t believe the little faggot had hit me.
Th
e punch I threw in return is the one thing in my life I’ll regret forever. I broke his nose, and Jeanie called the cops. I was taken from my house in handcu
ff
s, the cries of my wife and children echoing in my ears. As I ducked into the patrol car, I looked up and saw Carl watching me from his front stoop, shaking his head and trying to comfort Marie, who for some reason was sobbing audibly in the darkness, as if it were her own child whose face I’d bloodied in a moment of thoughtless rage.

LORI CHANG
kept her perfect game going all the way into the top of the
fift
h, when Pete Gonzalez, the Wildcats’ all-star shortstop, ripped a two-out single to center. A raucous cheer erupted from the third-base dugout and bleachers, both of which had lapsed into a funereal silence over the past couple of innings. It was an electrifying sound, a collective whoop of relief, celebration, and resurgent hope.

On a psychological level, that one hit changed everything. It was as if the whole ballpark suddenly woke up to two important facts: (1) Lori Chang was not, in fact, invincible; and (2) the Wildcats could actually still win.
Th
e score was only 1–0 in favor of the Ravens, a margin that had seemed insurmountable a moment ago but that suddenly looked a whole lot slimmer now that the tying run was standing on
fi
rst with a lopsided grin on his face, shi
ft
ing his weight from leg to leg like he needed to go to the bathroom.

Th
e only person who didn’t seem to notice that the calculus of the game had changed was Lori Chang herself. She stood on the mound with her usual poker face, an expression that suggested profound boredom more than it did killer concentration, and waited for Trevor Mancini to make the sign of the cross and knock imaginary mud o
ff
his cleats. Once he got himself settled, she nodded to the catcher and began her windup, bringing her arms overhead and lowering them with the painstaking deliberation of a Tai Chi master.
Th
en she kicked high and whipped a fastball right at Trevor, a guided missile that thudded into his leg with a mu
ffl
ed
whump,
the sound of a broomstick smacking a rug.

“Aaah, shit!” Trevor
fl
ipped his bat in the air and began hopping around on one foot, rubbing frantically at his leg. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

I stepped out from behind the catcher and asked if he was okay. Trevor gritted his teeth and performed what appeared to be an involuntary bow. When he straightened up, he looked more embarrassed than hurt.

“Stings,” he explained.

I told him to take his base and he hobbled o
ff
, still massaging the sore spot. A chorus of boos had risen from the third-base side, and I wasn’t surprised to see that Carl was already out of the dugout, walking toward me with what could only be described as an amused expression.

“Well?” he said. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“
Th
e batter was hit by a pitch. It’s part of the game.”

“Are you kidding me? She threw right at him.”

Right on schedule, Tim came trotting over to join us, followed immediately by Ray Santelli, who approached with his distinctive potbellied swagger, radiating an odd con
fi
dence that made you forget that he was just a middle-aged chau
ff
eur with a combover.

“What’s up?” he inquired. “Somebody got a problem?”

“Yeah, me,” Carl told him. “I got a problem with your sweet little pitcher throwing beanballs at my players.”

“
Th
at was no beanball,” I pointed out. “It hit him in the leg.”

“So that’s okay?” Carl was one of those guys who smiled when he was pissed o
ff
. “It’s okay to hit my players in the leg?”

“She didn’t do it on purpose,” Santelli assured him. “Lori wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t know,” Tim piped in. “It looked pretty deliberate from where I was standing.”

“How would you know?” Santelli demanded, an uncharacteristic edge creeping into his voice. “Are you some kind of mind reader?”

“I’m just telling you what it looked like,” Tim replied.

“Big deal,” Santelli replied. “
Th
at’s just your subjective opinion.”

“I’m an umpire,” Tim reminded him. “My subjective opinion is all I have.”

“Really?” Santelli scratched his forehead, feigning confusion. “I thought you guys were supposed to be objective. When did they change the job description?”

“All right,” said Tim. “Whatever. It’s my objective opinion, okay?”

“Look,” I said. “We’re doing the best we can.”

“I sure as hell hope not,” Carl shot back. “Or else we’re in big trouble.”

Sensing an opportunity, Santelli cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Hey, Lori, did you hit that kid on purpose?”

Lori seemed shocked by the question. Her mouth dropped open and she shook her head back and forth, as if nothing could have been further from the truth.

“It slipped,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”

“See?” Santelli turned back to Tim with an air of vindication. “It was an accident.”

“Jack?” Carl’s expression was a mixture of astonishment and disgust. “You really gonna let this slide?”

I glanced at Tim for moral support, but his face was blank, pointedly devoid of sympathy. I wished I could have thought of something more decisive to do than shrug.

“What do you want from me?”
Th
ere was a pleading note in my voice that was unbecoming in an umpire. “She said it slipped.”

“Now, wait a minute — ” Tim began, but Carl didn’t let him
fi
nish.

“Fine,” he said. “
Th
e hell with it. If that’s the way it’s gonna be, that’s the way it’s gonna be. Let’s play ball.”

Carl stormed o
ff
, leaving the three of us standing by the plate, staring at his back as he descended into the dugout.

“You can’t know what’s in another person’s heart.” Santelli shook his head, as if saddened by this observation. “You just can’t.”

“Why don’t you shut up?” Tim told him.

Lori quickly regained her composure when play resumed. With runners on
fi
rst and second, she calmly and methodically struck out Antoine Frye to retire the side. On her way to the dugout she stopped and apologized to Trevor Mancini, resting her hand tenderly on his shoulder. It was a classy move. Trevor blushed and told her to forget about it.

RICKY DISALVO
was on the mound for the Wildcats, and though he had nowhere near Lori’s talent, he was pitching a solid and e
ff
ective game. A sidearmer plagued by control problems and a lack of emotional maturity — I had once seen him burst into tears a
ft
er walking
fi
ve straight batters — Ricky had wisely decided that night to make his opponents hit the ball. All game long he’d dropped one fat pitch a
ft
er another right over the meatiest part of the plate.

Th
e Ravens, a mediocre hitting team on the best of days, had eked out a lucky run in the second on a single, a stolen base, an overthrow, and an easy
fl
y ball to right
fi
eld that had popped out of Mark Diedrich’s glove, but they’d been shut out ever since. Ricky’s con
fi
dence had grown with each successive inning, and he was throwing harder and more skillfully than he had all game by the time Lori Chang stepped up to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the
fift
h.

I guess I should have seen what was coming. When I watched the game on cable access a week later, it seemed painfully clear in retrospect, almost inevitable. But at the time, I didn’t sense any danger. We’d had some unpleasantness, but it had passed when Lori apologized to Trevor.
Th
e game had moved forward, slipping past the trouble as easily as water
fl
owing around a rock. I did notice that Lori Chang looked a little nervous in the batter’s box, but that was nothing unusual. As bold and powerful as she was on the mound, Lori was a surprisingly timid hitter. She tucked herself into an extreme crouch, shrinking the strike zone down to a few inches, and tried to wait out a walk. She rarely swung and was widely, and fairly, considered to be an easy out.

For some reason, though, Ricky seemed oddly tentative with his
fi
rst couple of pitches. Ball one kicked up dirt ten feet from the plate. Ball two was a mile outside.

“Come on,” Carl called impatiently from the dugout. “Just do it.”

Lori tapped the fat end of her bat on the plate. I checked my clicker and squatted into position. Ricky glanced at his father and started into his herky-jerky windup.

On TV, it all looks so fast and clean — Lori gets beaned and she goes down. But on the
fi
eld it was slow and jumbled, my brain lagging a beat behind the action. Before I can process the fact that the ball’s rocketing toward her head, Lori’s already said, “Ooof!” Her helmet’s in the air before I register the sickening crack of impact, and by then she’s already crumpled on the ground. On TV it looks as though I move quickly, rolling her onto her back and coming in close to check her breathing, but in my memory it’s as if I’m paralyzed, as if the world has stopped and all I can do is stare at the bareheaded girl lying motionless at my feet.

Th
en the quiet bursts into commotion. Tim’s right beside me, shouting, “Is she okay? Is she okay?” Ricky’s moving toward us from the mound, his glove pressed to his mouth, his eyes stricken with terror and remorse.

“Did I hurt her?” he asks. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“I think you killed her,” I tell him, because as far as I can tell, Lori’s not breathing. Ricky stumbles backward, as if someone’s pushed him. He turns in the direction of his father, who’s just stepped out of the dugout.

“You shouldn’t have made me do that!” Ricky yells.

“Oh my God,” says Carl. He looks pale and panicky.

At that same moment, Happy Chang’s scaling the third-base fence and sprinting across the in
fi
eld to check on his daughter’s condition. At least that’s what I think he’s doing, right up to the moment when he veers suddenly toward Carl, emitting a cry of guttural rage, and tackles him savagely to the ground.

Happy Chang is a small man, no bigger than some of our Little Leaguers, and Carl is tall and bulked up from years of religious weight li
ft
ing, but it’s no contest. Within seconds, Happy Chang’s straddling Carl’s chest and punching him repeatedly in the face, all the while shouting what must be very angry things in Chinese. Carl doesn’t even try to defend himself, not even when Happy Chang reaches for his throat.

Luckily for Carl, two of our local policemen — O
ffi
cers Freylinghausen and Hughes, oddly enough the same two who’d arrested me for domestic battery — are present at the game, and before Happy Chang can
fi
nish throttling Carl, they’ve rushed onto the
fi
eld and broken up the
fi
ght.
Th
ey take Happy Chang into custody with a surprising amount of force — with me they were oddly polite — Freylinghausen grinding his face into the dirt while Hughes slaps on the cu
ff
s. I’m so engrossed in the spectacle that I don’t even realize that Lori’s regained consciousness until I hear her voice.

“Daddy?” she says quietly, and for a second I think she’s talking to me.

MY WHOLE
life fell apart a
ft
er I broke my son’s nose. By the time I got out on bail the next morning, Jeanie had already taken the kids to her mother’s house and slapped me with a restraining order.
Th
e day a
ft
er that she started divorce proceedings.

In the year that had passed since then, nothing much had changed. I had tried apologizing in a thousand di
ff
erent ways, but it didn’t seem to matter. As far as Jeanie was concerned, I’d crossed some unforgivable line and was beyond redemption.

I accepted the loss of my wife as fair punishment for what I’d done, but it was harder to accept the loss of my kids. I had some visiting rights, but they were severely restricted. Basically, I took my daughters — they were eleven and thirteen — to the movies or the mall every other Saturday, then to a restaurant, and then back to their grandmother’s.
Th
ey weren’t allowed to stay overnight with me. It killed me to walk past their empty rooms at night, to not
fi
nd them asleep and safe, and to be fairly sure I never would.