Stumptown Kid (9 page)

“Right,” I said. “We better get started. We’re playing a game in three weeks.”

Everyone looked surprised. “We’re going to play the Wildcats,” I told them.

“What?”
Bowie yelled.

“Why?” Walter asked, worry spreading over his face.

“It’ll give us a goal to work for,” Luther said. “We can win this game. We just have to hustle. Hustle wins more games than base hits.”

Everyone looked scared except Will. Maybe he was trying to decide which team he’d play on. I was wondering the same thing. He’d be playing “official” games with the Wildcats, but would he play with us against them for
this
game?

“Lobo’ll kill us,” Walter said. His voice was higher than usual, and his mouth went down so far at the edges I thought he might cry.

“No he won’t, Walter,” Luther said. “I’ve seen you kids play ball, and you all have talent. You just need a little coaching and lots of practice. And most of all, you need to believe in yourselves.”

“Well, I believe we’re gonna get stomped,” Kathleen murmured, scratching at a mosquito bite on her leg.

Luther didn’t look at her, but he said, “There’s no room for negative thinking. You have to believe in yourselves and your teammates. When you’re standin’ in the batter’s box, you
tell
yourself you’re going to hit that ball. It don’t matter if we have two strikes against us and you’re the player we’re counting on. You say over and over while you’re up at bat, ‘I’m gonna hit the ball; I’m gonna hit the ball.’ And you keep your eyes on that ball every second. You have to make contact with the ball to put it in play. You
will
hit it.”

I could tell my friends were listening hard. They were leaning forward to hear everything Luther said.

“Luther?” Walter put up his hand.

Luther smiled. “You don’t have to raise your hand, Walter.”

“Are we going to have a team name?” he asked.

Luther’s smile widened. “I’ve been thinkin’ about that. How about the Stumptown Stormers?”

“That’s good!” I said.

We all said the name to try it out. Everybody liked it.

“Wouldn’t it be something if the Stumptown Stormers beat the Wildcats?” Eileen said. “We’d be famous around here!”

I glanced quick at Will. He frowned, but he didn’t say anything.

“We’ll
never
beat—” Walter stopped himself midsentence. “Uh, no, I mean—”

“Good, Walter,” Luther said, nodding. “You caught yourself in negative talk. Keep aware, and stop when you catch yourself talkin’ or thinkin’ that way. We
can
and
will
beat the Wildcats.”

I thought I saw Mr. Malone smile. I wasn’t sure whether he thought that was funny or whether he just agreed with Luther.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Luther went on. “We’re going to work on hitting tonight. Here are some things to remember. It’s important to feel comfortable in the batter’s box. Wear loose clothes to practice and games. And be sure to keep your body closed while you’re at the plate. No ‘steppin’ in the bucket’ to the side. Step
toward
the ball. Now let’s see your bats.”

Alan brought three bats up to Luther. They were all cracked and taped. Two of them were Louisville Sluggers signed by Stan Musial and Ralph Kiner.

“Okay, these’re good,” Luther said. “We got any newer bats?”

Nobody said so, and he nodded. “Okay. We’ll use these. Everybody line up to bat now. Charlie, you pitch, and remember what I told you about keepin’ your fingers across the seams. Follow through. And grab up a pinch of dirt afterward. Use Walter’s catcher’s pud as a target.”

He turned to Walter. “Hold that pud in the middle of the plate about as high as the batter’s knee,” he said.

First up was Alan. He picked up the Stan Musial bat and got ready.

“Close your stance more,” Luther told him. Alan turned slightly to the right. “Now I want to hear you say, ’I’m gonna hit the ball—I’m gonna hit the ball.’ Keep sayin’ it till your turn’s over. And watch that ball. Never take your eyes off it.”

Alan’s face squeezed up as he focused. “I’m gonna hit the ball,” he said. “I’m gonna hit the ball.”

Luther nodded at me. I wound up and pitched Alan a good one. He socked it high over my head.

I heard Mr. Malone whistle.

“Excellent!” Luther called out. “Remember the three Cs of hitting: be
comfortable, concentrate,
and make
contact
with that ball. Next up.”

It was amazing how much better everybody batted that day. It was almost like Luther worked some kind of magic on us.

I pitched better, too. I only threw two wild ones, and that was because I was thinking about how good we were all doing and I forgot to concentrate.

After everybody had batted awhile, Luther told me to vary my pitches. “Charlie, sometimes aim as high as the batter’s left shoulder or as low as the batter’s knees,” he called out. “Your pitches are much better now, so you don’t have to pick up dirt anymore. But be sure you follow all the way through on every pitch.”

It was harder, tryin’ to aim high and low and in and out. But the more I did it, the better it went.

At the end of practice, Luther gathered everybody around him again.

“Before we come back here tomorrow,” he said, “I want you all to practice hitting. Hang up a blanket on your clothesline and hit into it. Don’t ever hit a baseball against the backstop or a brick building. It shreds the stitching on it, and you’ll ruin it. Use a rubber ball or tennis ball instead.”

“Luther?” It was Devin McNally. “We got a coupla balls at home,” he said. “But not enough for us all to practice at one time.”

Luther thought a second. “You know any farmers?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Devin said. “Our grandad has a farm along Highway 218.”

“Ask if you can have some corncobs,” Luther told him. “Cut ’em in two-inch pieces and soak half of ‘em in water for a while. Then dry ‘em out for a day or two. Mix ‘em with cobs you don’t soak and use ‘em for pitching and batting practice. See, the dry ones’ll float, and the ones that got waterlogged will be heavy. It’ll work on the batter’s concentration, ‘cause he won’t know what kind of cob is comin’ at him till it leaves the pitcher’s hand.”

Everyone grinned. I looked over at Mr. Malone. He wasn’t the only person watching now. A teacher from the high school who was out for the summer sat on the bleachers, and a lady walking her dog had stopped to watch. I hoped word would get around town that Luther was a great coach. I wanted everybody to be happy he was here. I knew that was impossible with people like Vern and Mr. McNally, but I bet we could win over most of the people in Holden. All they’d have to do is listen to Luther coach us for a while. Then they’d see he was an expert and he just wanted to help us.

Luther worked with us till it was getting dark. Everyone thanked Luther and walked off toward home looking tired and happy. Just before he and Brian left, Mr. Malone went over to speak to Luther.

“You’re doin’ fine, Luther,” he said. “I’m sorry for some of those things that were said tonight. People just have to get to know you, I guess.”

Luther nodded.

“It’s great the kids can learn from someone of your caliber,” Mr. Malone added.

“Thank you, sir,” Luther said.

I thought about all the things Luther had taught us tonight. I was beginning to see what he meant about baseball being played mostly in your head. You really did have to believe you could do it and concentrate hard.

I just hoped we could concentrate when we were looking into Lobo’s beady eyes and seeing that mean old smirk.

That would take a whole lot of concentration. And we only had three weeks to get ready.

I walked down to Woolworth’s the next morning to get the writing paper and envelopes for Luther. I put them on the counter next to the cash register where Mom was working.

“What’s this, honey?” Mom asked.

“It’s for Luther,” I said, handing her the dollar. I looked around. Nobody was standing nearby, so I leaned in and whispered, “Mom, could you just call me Charlie?”

Surprise took over her face, and I thought she might laugh. But she clamped her lips together and nodded. “Sure, hon—” She shook her head and smiled. “Sure, Charlie. Sorry. It’s a hard habit to break after eleven years, but I’ll try to remember.”

I nodded.

She looked at the clock. “Say, it’s time for my break. Let’s get a strawberry lemonade over at the lunch counter.”

Mom waved to another clerk who came and took her place at the cash register. I followed Mom to the back of the store. We sat down on round, cushy seats and leaned our elbows on the smooth lunch counter. Mom looked up and said, “Nancy? Two strawberry lemonades, please.”

She turned to me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you—what would you like for your birthday supper? It’s coming up fast.”

I thought for a minute. “How about hamburgers?” I asked. “Could we cook ’em on the charcoal grill?”

“Sure,” Mom said.

“And can Luther come?”

“Oh.” Her smile faded. “Well, I—I thought we’d ask Vern to join us. He knows your birthday’s on the sixteenth, and he has a present for you.”

“I don’t want Vern there,” I said. “Just Luther.”

Nancy came over and set down two icy glasses of lemonade and two straws inside paper wrappers. “Hi, Charlie,” she said. Nancy just got engaged a few months ago to the new dentist in town. She likes to flash her diamond ring in people’s faces when she hands them their drinks. “I hear you and your friends have a new coach.”

“Yeah.” Like I said, word travels fast in this town.

“I think every person I’ve seen this morning has had something to say about it.”

“Thank you, Nancy,” Mom said. I could tell she was hoping that Nancy wouldn’t stand there talking to us.

“Me, I just say live and let live,” Nancy said.

Mom smiled and nodded but didn’t say anything. I guess Nancy finally took the hint, because she walked away.

We tore the paper off the straws and poked them into our lemonades. I wrapped my hands around the cold glass and took a sip. The sweet drink slid down my throat. I closed my eyes for a second and let the coolness spread through me.

“Charlie.” Mom swiveled her seat a little toward me, her face looking troubled. “I hope you can learn to like Vern.”

I told her the truth. “I don’t see how I’ll ever like him. He’s about as far away from Dad as anybody can get.”

“Honey, you can’t compare him to your dad,” she said. “There was only one Bill Nebraska.”

“But it seems like Vern’s always pretending to be somebody he’s not.”

Mom sipped her lemonade and look at me sideways. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” I said, “he pretends he knows a lot about music. And his songs are horrible.”

Mom smiled. “They’re really something, aren’t they? But he loves his music. And he tries so hard.”

“He pretends he’s a nice guy,” I said, “but when he breaks Mrs. Banks’s window, he acts like he didn’t do it.”

“Remember, I told you he said he’d pay for it.”

“Only ’cause I told you what he’d done. And most of all, he pretends he’s not prejudiced against colored people.”

Mom gave out a long sigh and rested her cheek on her hand. “I’ve got to tell you, Charlie, that disappoints me about Vern. But that’s what he was taught growin’ up. You learn what your parents teach you.”

“That don’t make it right,” I said.

“Doesn’t.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” I said impatiently. “Besides, Vern’s all grown up now. He oughta be able to think for himself.”

Mom nodded. “You’re right.”

“How can you like somebody who hates a whole group of people?”

Mom stirred her lemonade with the straw. “Well, I like how Vern’s thoughtful.” She smiled. “Those flowers he bought me the other day were beautiful. You know, he cares a lot about both of us. He really wants to spend more time with you.”

I was in the middle of a sip, so I didn’t say anything.

“I do believe that Vern will work his way up in his company because he works so hard. Wouldn’t it be good to live in a nicer house? You’d have a grown-up man to do things with, and I’d have company.”

This time I opened my mouth, but Mom put up her hand. “Okay, okay. You already told me you don’t want to do things with Vern.”

She leaned forward again and rested her elbows on the counter. She looked a little sad.

“When he gets to know you better, I bet Vern won’t try to pretend so much anymore. He just wants us to love him back, so he tries to be what he thinks we want him to be.”

“Except for someone who doesn’t care about people’s skin color,” I said.

Mom sighed again. “Luther’s the first colored person we’ve had living in Holden for a long time. So before Luther came to town, the topic only came up once with Vern and me.”

“I just want Luther at my birthday supper,” I told her again.

Silence hung between us for a little bit. I heard the store sounds around us—clattering dishes and people’s voices, mostly. A baby cried up front near the door. Finally Mom said, “Okay, Charlie. Luther’s your special friend, so he should be the one sitting with us at your birthday supper. Maybe Vern can come the next night.”

I didn’t ever want to have supper with Vern. But at least he wouldn’t be there on my birthday to wreck it. “Thanks, Mom.”

“I’ll just have to think of what I’ll tell Vern so he doesn’t show up to wish you a happy birthday.”

“I think you should tell him the truth,” I said. “Tell him I want Luther there, that he’s my friend.”

Mom stared the table and seemed to be working on something in her mind.

“We’ll see. I’ll figure something out.” She frowned a little. “I guess maybe we both need to get to know Vern better. Before we get marr—” She looked up at me. “Well, before anything, I’ll have a long talk with him about Luther. But I don’t want to make an issue of it on your birthday. Let’s keep that day fun, okay?”

* * *

That afternoon Will and I practiced hitting old rubber balls into the side of Hayes School where there weren’t any windows. I was kind of surprised that Will wanted to practice with me. He’d been acting different ever since he got picked for the Wildcats, and I was beginning to think that he didn’t want to be my friend anymore. But I saw him when I was walking home from Woolworth’s, and we decided to practice.

“Hey, Will,” I said, after smacking a good one against the brick building. “Whose side you gonna play on when the Stumptown Stormers play the Wildcats?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. He just hit the ball against the building.

“I gotta play with my team,” he said finally.

“The Wildcats?”

“Yeah.”

“So why’d you stay at practice with us last night?” I asked him.

Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I know,” I said. “’Cause we’re your friends. You’re still my best friend, you know.” I wasn’t really sure if that was true anymore—Luther felt like my best friend now—but I wanted to hear what he’d say.

“Yeah,” Will said. But he didn’t look at me. And he didn’t say I was
his
best friend.

“Do you like Luther?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not prejudiced, are ya?” I asked.

“No.”

“So … what’s wrong, then?”

“Nothin’,” Will said. “Come on, let’s practice.”

Will had been my best friend since kindergarten. But everything had changed now. It didn’t feel the same. I felt like I was practicing with someone I didn’t know very well.

We practiced for a while. Then we took a break in the shade of a big oak.

“How come Luther stopped playin’ baseball?” Will asked me, settling onto the grass.

“Haven’t you noticed his right arm?” I asked. “It don’t work very good.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “How’d he hurt it?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. It seemed like Luther had been telling me a secret when he told me about it. But I wanted to show Will I was still friends enough to tell him.

I looked over my shoulder to make sure we were alone. “You swear not to tell this to anybody?”

“I swear.” Will’s eyes were bright like he knew he was about to hear something important. He edged closer.

So I told him about Luther’s game against the white team, and how the batter came up to the plate drunk. “Luther’s pitch hit him right in the head and killed him.”

“What?”
Will’s eyes were huge now. “Are you
kidding
me?”

I shook my head.

“Man! So Luther’s on the run from the law?” Will looked impressed.

“No,” I said. “The ump told everybody it wasn’t his fault. But the hitter’s brother—Ruckus somebody, I think—was going to kill him, so Luther had to get out of town.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But we can’t tell anybody.”

“I won’t tell,” Will promised.

I knew I could count on him. He was still my best friend. Sort of.

We got up and practiced some more and pitched balls to each other, too. I could tell that Will had been listening when Luther reminded me to follow through, all the way to the ground practically. He was practicing the things that Luther taught me. It started working in my mind that Will would take what he learned from Luther and use it against us in the game with the Wildcats.

As I hit the ball, it all got bigger and bigger in my mind. I stopped hitting and looked at Will.

“What?” he asked. “Why’d you stop?”

“I think you should pick,” I said, frowning. “The Wildcats or us. You shouldn’t come and learn everything from Luther and then play against us. We’re still friends. But if you aren’t going to play with us, I just don’t think you should practice with us.”

Will stared at me a second or two. “Okay,” he said. There was an edge to his voice, and his eyes looked dark. “If that’s how you feel.”

He put down the bat and ball.

“We can still be friends,” I said again, softer.

But he turned and walked off across the school yard.

I watched him go. An uneasy feeling lay heavy in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sorry for what I’d said, though. Will had to choose once and for all.

And he did.

I picked up the ball and bat and headed for home.

* * *

I took the writing pad, the envelopes, and the change from Luther’s dollar to Scott Park for baseball practice and left them on the bleacher while we worked that night. Will didn’t come. I didn’t think he would, but I was hoping he might change his mind and decide to play with the Stumptown Stormers instead.

It was strange not having him there, and I had some mixed-up feelings about it. I hoped that Will was still my friend, but it wasn’t fair for him to learn pointers from Luther and then help the Wildcats kill us.

I tried not to think about him too much.

Eileen’s dad Mr. McNally came to watch this time, along with three other men who didn’t even have kids playing on the Stormers. Mr. Burford, who owned a clothes store downtown, Dr. Pritchard, the new dentist who was engaged to Nancy from the Woolworth’s lunch counter, and the third guy who worked at the bank.

I guess most everybody in town had heard about a player from the Negro Leagues coaching us Stormers and they wanted to see what it was all about. Mom said a lot of people were talking about Luther down at the store. Some liked the idea that he was willing to coach us, and some were mad about him teaching white kids. Others thought it was curious that a stranger who just happened to be a professional baseball player had come to Holden, Iowa.

I had a feeling there was going to be a big crowd watching our game against the Wildcats. I figured some would be rooting for us because we were underdogs, and some probably hoped that Luther’s team would get creamed. And some others might come just to see how everybody else acted about it.

We concentrated that night on fielding: catching and throwing.

Bowie had tied a softball into his new glove and soaked it and rubbed it with hog lard like Luther told him. He was catching every ball that came near him.

Luther told us that the cardinal rule for the infielders when a grounder is coming your way is to get that glove all the way down on the ground. Luther said too many balls go right under the glove. And he showed us how to hold the glove up as a shield against the glare of the sun.

“Peek around that glove to see where the ball is,” Luther said. He gave us all a chance to catch balls that were coming at us from the west where the sun was edging toward the far trees.

He talked about pitching after that. He had me show everybody what he’d taught me, how to keep your first two fingers over the seams and follow through and pick up dirt or grass after releasing the ball. Everyone worked on that, too.

This was only our second practice, but I could see that we were all getting better already. Like before, it was because of Luther’s magic. He just seemed to know the right thing to say to make us better players. Everyone was smiling a lot. Mr. McNally was listening hard to Luther, and I saw him nod once at something Luther said. He still didn’t look too happy, though.

I didn’t let myself think about Lobo and the game we’d have to play in a little more than two weeks. All I wanted to think about was how much fun it was to work on baseball with Luther and my friends, even though Will wasn’t there. After practice, Luther and I ended up walking through the park.

We passed a bench sitting under a tree, and a big hornet came buzzing around Luther.

“Watch your head,” I told him. “There’s a hornet followin’ you.”

He swatted at it and another one came out of nowhere.

“What the …” Luther looked up into the branches of the tall oak tree. “Well, look there, Charlie,” he said. “A big old hornets’ nest.”

And there it was, hanging from the second branch, about ten foot over our heads, looking white and papery and big as a softball.