Plunking Reggie Jackson (22 page)

He was in the process of toweling himself off when he lifted the lid of the toilet to take a leak. And there it was. Suspended on the surface of the toilet bowl water, it hung motionless like a dead mouse. It still held enough blood to pinken the water. It was a tampon.

It was a tampon. Coley stared at it a minute or two while the reality it represented was sinking in. It was
Bree's
tampon. She wasn't pregnant. He took a deep breath.
Oh, wonderful
, he thought to himself.
This is just perfect
.

When he was finished drying off, he wrapped the towel tightly around his waist. Gingerly he fished the tampon out of the toilet bowl by its string tail and held it up between thumb and forefinger in a pincer grip. He watched dumbly while the drops tumbled down to land in the toilet, splashing their pale pink hue the instant they contacted the water's surface.

He wasn't sure what he intended to do with the dead soldier, but when it was dry enough that drops fell only every five seconds or so, he held it at about shoulder level and leaned against the door frame. Bree was propped up against the headboard of the bed, still watching her movie.

“Hey, Bree. Look what I found.”

She looked in his direction before she used the mute button on the remote to turn off the sound. “What did you say?”

The tampon was swinging from its string like a visual aid a hypnotist might use. “Look what I found.”

“What is it?” But she was turning white even as she asked the question.

“It's either a dead mouse or a tampon. I haven't figured it out yet.”

“What would you be doing with a tampon?” she asked.

“That's a good question. But here's a better one: What would
you
be doing with a tampon?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sure I don't know where that tampon came from.”

“I suppose it came from somebody else's room. Maybe room 122 or one up on the second floor. Room 200, for instance.”

“Why are you being so sarcastic? What are you saying to me?”

“I'm sayin' you're not pregnant, Bree. You flushed the tampon down, but it didn't stay down. It came back up.”

The tears in her eyes came quickly. “Now you'll be mad at me, won't you?”

But it all seemed so absurd, Coley was surprised to find how little anger he did feel. “You're not pregnant. You lied.”

“I didn't lie about that, I really thought I was pregnant.”

“Why did you think so? Because of that stupid home pregnancy test you told me about?”

“No, not that, the test was inconclusive.”

“Inconclusive?”

“I wasn't exactly sure how to read the results. You have to believe me.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. If this whole thing weren't so desperate, it might be comical. “Okay, it wasn't the test. What made you think you were pregnant?”

The tears were rolling down her cheeks. “I was more than a month late. I thought I was pregnant.”

“I told you bein' late a few weeks might not mean anything. Anybody could have told you the same thing.”

“But I thought I was, I really did.”

“You're havin' your period right now. That's why you're not in the mood for sex. That's why you had to get out of your swimsuit so fast. Look me right in the eye and tell me I'm wrong.”

She didn't look up when she said, “But I didn't lie to you, Coley, truly I didn't. I thought I was pregnant. Please don't be mad at me.”

It was odd how he felt sorry for her. When men were mad at her, they beat her up or they used her for gratification. He felt sorry for her, but not mad. “I'm not mad at you, Bree. I'm just disgusted with myself.”

She was using the back of her hand to wipe her tears. “This doesn't have to change things, Coley. We're still in love and we're still on our own. You can pitch and we can still make it.”

He wasn't listening, though. He was headed out the door, seeking the darkness of the terrace where it joined the beach. “Just don't follow me. I need to be by myself.”

He didn't care at all about pitching for Bobby Ricci or any of the other Royals player personnel. But he did it anyway. He figured he'd made the appointment so he had to honor it. Besides which, it would get him away from Bree for most of the day.

It was probably due to the fact that he didn't give a damn that his performance was so superb. No pressure. He found himself plunged into a thoughtless state of being where nothing could intrude.

Ricci gave him a pair of generic baseball pants to wear, a Royals cap and a three-quarter-sleeve undershirt. He got loose along the third-base line, throwing to an ex-big-league catcher named Eby Rosen.

Then Ricci wanted him to pitch from the mound. There were two other men standing near home plate too, but Coley didn't know their names. They both had speed guns. Either he didn't get their names, or he didn't care to remember.

Maybe this was what it had always been like for Patrick. You brought all the heat, all the time, with an utter disregard for the rest of the world. Maybe that was the killer instinct: disregard.

Coley's fastball was blazing and tailing sharply. His slider had a nasty bite. Everything he threw was around the plate and alive. Then he pitched to a right-handed batter named Gary Hoyle, who was from some area junior college. Coley didn't know if he was a prospect or not, and he didn't care. Under other conditions he might have been nervous. But not on this day. He just kept striking him out. Hoyle couldn't catch up with the high heat, and when Coley threw him a couple of cut fastballs, they were in on his hands so tight they practically sawed his bat off.

Gary Hoyle might just as well have been the Reggie Jackson statue in the backyard, except he was right-handed. Coley visualized the statue in his mind's eye and hated it. He hated all it was and all it stood for. He unleashed a 95 mph fastball under Gary Hoyle's chin.

When Ricci told him to stop, Coley was sweating profusely but he wasn't tired. He felt like he could keep on going forever. He only wished there were no other time and no other place and no other people in the whole world.

When he took a seat behind home plate, though, his high energy level vanished almost immediately. He hadn't had much sleep the night before, not after the confrontation with Bree over the pregnancy scam, and he hadn't eaten any breakfast this morning on his way to the stadium. The sweat rolled down his face while Ricci gave him compliments.

“We had you at ninety-four on the speed gun at least a dozen times,” the scout told him.

Ninety-four
, Coley thought. He couldn't remember ever throwing that hard consistently.

“Even better,” Ricci continued, “your ball is live. It's got that nice tail and a downward motion. Your slider is better than it oughta be in a pitcher your age.”

“So what are you saying to me?”

“I'm saying you're a helluva pitcher with a helluva future.”

“Thanks,” Coley replied. But he wondered glumly what the future might be, with Bree back at the motel room, not pregnant at all, and the two of them on the run. “You think maybe you'll want me in the first round?”

“Maybe,” said Ricci. “Can't promise anything. We might need a shortstop more. You might not be available when it's our pick. That's the way it is anytime you have a player draft, everything is maybe.”

“I want to pitch in the Gulf Coast League,” was all Coley could think to say.

“Yeah, you told me.” Ricci had a cigar out. He was using his tongue to moisten at least two inches of it. Coley wondered why people did that when they smoked cigars. “There's something else I think,” said Ricci.

“What's that?”

“It's none of my business, really, but I think maybe you've got something goin' on. Something you need to take care of.”

“Oh, really.” Coley didn't look in Bobby Ricci's face. Instead, he used an available towel to wipe the sweat from his face and neck.

“I don't know what it is, and I'm not gonna ask. But you wanna make sure you get your mind right.”

“I haven't told you any lies about bein' down here,” said Coley. He didn't take the time to add that most of his truths had been essentially half-truths.

“I didn't say anything about lying, and you don't need to tell me anything. But a great arm will only take you so far unless you've got your mind right. That's all I'm gonna say.”

“I better go,” said Coley. He stood up to shake Ricci's hand. “You'll keep in touch, right?”

By the time he made his way back to the motel, it was past 7
P.M.
He had a couple of McDonald's Quarter Pounders in a carryout sack and two large Cokes. Bree was glad; she said she was starving.

They ate this supper while sitting on beach chairs from the terrace down at the water's edge. “Where have you been all this time?” she asked him.

“I was pitching for Bobby Ricci.”

“How'd it go?”

“I was awesome,” he replied in a flat voice. “I was Sandy Koufax.”

“That's wonderful, Coley. But who is Sandy Koufax?”

“He's just an old pitcher from a long time ago. He's in the Hall of Fame.”

“You'll be in the Hall of Fame too, I know you will. But where were you the rest of the time?”

“I was at the airport. I was drinkin' beer and watchin' the planes fly in and out.”

“How did you get the beer?”

Coley had his mouth full of hamburger, so he couldn't answer right away. He swallowed, and drank some of the Coke. “I can't say for sure, they just didn't card me.”

“I can't understand why you'd want to sit in the airport so long. You could've been back here with me, swimming or scuba diving or anything. It's because you're still mad at me, aren't you?”

He ignored the question. “I was timin' the planes, Bree. With my watch. Sometimes they come in two minutes apart, sometimes four minutes. One time it was almost ten minutes.”

“Boring, boring. The truth is, you're still mad at me.” Her sandwich finished, she took hold of his hand. “You still think I was lying, but I wasn't really. I cleaned up our room today, by the way.”

“You cleaned up our room? You cleaned up our motel room?”

“Yes, I did.”

“They have
maids
for that. Nobody cleans up a motel room.”

“But the maids don't do the laundry and fold up the clothes in the dresser drawers. Those are the things I did.”

This was no subject to pursue. He removed his hand so as to pick up his cup. “The truth is, I'm mad at myself. I've been doin' all my thinking with my dick. Ever since I met you, Bree, that's what I've been doing. We both know it.”

“You can't say that, Coley. It makes it sound like I don't love you.”

“It's supposed to sound like this: You tell me I'm smart, but you're the one who's smart. At least you think with your head.”

“I can't tell what that's supposed to mean.”

“Think about it, maybe it'll come to you.”

Then they were both silent for several minutes. The wind was up, so the gulls were in a higher pattern to take advantage of the force. A stronger tide pounded in with each surge. Coley finally said, “This is where Patrick died.”

“Your brother died right here?”

“Not here exactly. It was farther up the coast, near Tampa, at a place called Longboat Key. That's when the Mets were still training at Tampa.”

“Do you really want to talk about something so sad?”

“He was in a speedboat with two other guys. They were all drunk out of their mind. They crashed their boat into a pier, but Patrick was the only one killed. The other two were in the hospital for about six months.”

Bree took his arm with both her hands but didn't speak.

“Patrick was stupid,” Coley continued in a hollow voice. “He was one dumb son of a bitch. He could have been a great pitcher. He could have been a star.”

“Don't say he was stupid, though. That seems too disrespectful.”

“He was a stupid son of a bitch because he wasted all his talent. He spent his life livin' on the edge, so it was bound to happen. And all for what? For absolutely nothin'. My mother was always right about him.”

“Maybe you shouldn't talk about this anymore.”

He ignored her. “And that's why I feel so sorry for her. Because she was always right, but he's still dead.”

She gripped his arm tighter. “Coley, why are you telling me all of this? I don't like the way you're talking.”

He turned to look at her. “When I was at the airport, I did something else, Bree. I bought airline tickets.”

“You did what?”

“I said I bought plane tickets. We're going back home. Tomorrow you and I are out of here.”

“Oh! You can't be serious.” She released his arm dramatically. It was astonishing how swiftly her green eyes made their transformation from deep to flat. She flopped back on her recliner.

“I'm very serious. Our flight leaves at nine fifteen in the morning.”

“You're just doing this to punish me. You think I lied to you, and this is how you want me to pay for it.”

“I don't want you to pay for anything, Bree. It's time to go back.”

“How can you even think of doing this to me? Can you imagine what Burns will do to me?”

Coley nodded his head before he answered, “I've thought of it.” He was surprised at his own inner calm and had to wonder if it stemmed from finally doing
the right thing
.

“Have you thought how he'll beat me?”

“I told you I've thought of it. I don't think he'll beat you.”

“How can you be so stupid? Of course he will. What have I been telling you all this time? D'you think you can beat him up or something?”