Thou Shalt Not (24 page)

The game soon started, and right away the Rays were losing. The second batter of the game for Baltimore had hit a home run that sailed over my head and into the glove of a college kid who looked well on his way to getting drunk.

By the end of the fourth inning, the Rays were losing 6-1. This put me in a good mood because I liked that they were mired in mediocrity, but it also upset me because for some reason I wanted to see Marco come into the game.

If he comes in and does well, then things will be okay with him and April
, I told myself.
But, if he comes into the game and does badly, then things will never go well for April and she will always be miserable in her marriage.

I guess it was sort of like flipping a coin to decide something. Or, like sitting on the couch in the living room watching the road outside and saying that if the next car that passed was white, then the girl I had been crushing on would also feel the same way for me. Yes, I had done that. The girl was Rachel Ross, and no, the next car had been blue. Fucking blue. Who knew what sort of magic Rachel and I might have discovered together if that goddamn car had been white.

Slowly, the Rays began to make a comeback. By the end of the fifth, the score was 6-3, and during the seventh inning stretch, the Rays were coming up to bat down 6-5. Marco began warming up in the bullpen, along with one of the Rays right-handed pitchers. I knew that if Marco was going to come in to pitch in the top half of the eighth inning, the Rays would need to take the lead right now.

I sat my second helping of black beans and rice on the ground next to my feet and inched forward in my seat. The first batter struck out, looking like a blind man swinging at a small piñata. The second batter popped up to the shortstop and there were quickly two outs. Marco stopped throwing in the bullpen and just stood on the mound, watching what was happening on the field. The right-handed pitcher kept throwing, and I knew I would see him if the Rays didn’t score.

But then something wonderful happened. The third batter of the inning walked on four pitches. If there is one thing that can change a game in baseball, it was the two-out walk. Giving a team a free runner on first base and injecting a little hope into the players often turned out badly for the team that gave up the walk. The next batter ripped a single into right field, and the player who had walked was now on third base. Then another walk loaded the bases and Baltimore’s manager had seen enough. He stomped out to the mound and brought in one of their best relievers to try to get the Orioles out of the bases-loaded jam.

Then, the next Rays’ batter walked up to the plate, swung as hard as he could at the first pitch he saw, and hit a grand slam to left field. The small crowd in attendance leaped to their feet and cheered loudly as the Rays rounded the bases to take a 9-6 lead. Even Marco had a smile on his face as he resumed throwing in the bullpen. The right-handed pitcher sat down, which meant that Marco was a sure bet to come in.

I wondered if April was watching the game from home. I doubted very seriously that she was here in the stadium, but I thought I would text her just to see. The thought of texting the pitcher’s wife while I watched him work seemed rather intriguing to me. I am also a terrible person.

Are you at the game tonight?
I sent.

Once again, she amazed me with how quickly she responded. She must have her phone in her hand at all times.

No, not tonight. Kids aren’t feeling well and I was tired. What are you up to?

Oh, that’s no good. Hope they feel better. I am at the game. Ken gave me tickets or I promise I’d be at home reading Dubliners. ;-)

Slacker! Are they losing?

It was a telling sign when the wife of a pitcher didn’t ask, “Are they winning?” when referring to her husband’s team. I laughed.

Surprisingly no! They just took the lead. And it looks like Marco might be coming in soon.

That is a surprise. I will have to turn it on. Maybe the kids will want to see their dad.

The inning ended and Marco jogged out onto the field to pitch the eighth inning. I ended my conversation with April by putting my phone back into my pocket.

Can’t keep talking to the woman I am going to be pre-breaking up with.

The inning started and Marco looked off right away. His first two pitches weren’t even close to the strike zone, and the next pitch was hit hard right back up the middle for a single. I wondered if the brief suspension he had received had been weighing on his mind at all. Who knows what went through the head of a crazy man?

Pitchers sometimes attempt a pickoff move when they think the runner on first base is going to try stealing second base. That means they will make it seem like they are going to pitch the ball to the batter, but will instead make a quick throw to the first baseman. The runner is allowed to be off the base, but if he is tagged before he gets back, he would be out.

In this particular situation, with the Rays up three, it didn’t make much sense for Marco to try picking the runner off, but that’s exactly what he did. He lifted his leg up and made a quick throw over to the first baseman. Only the ball bounced into the dirt to the first-baseman’s right side, and skipped away from him and into the outfield. The runner took off for second base and made it there easily.

Marco looked tense, but he seemed to be attempting to keep his composure. Knowing him, he was probably blaming the first baseman for the bad throw.

The next batter came to the plate and Marco threw four straight balls, walking the batter so that there were now two runners on base. The tying run came to the plate and the crowd started murmuring and mumbling and a few of them even started to boo.

Maybe since he had thrown so many balls to the previous batter, he decided to throw one down the middle just to get a strike, but the batter hit it into right field, down the line. The ball rolled all the way to the wall in front of me, and the two runners who were already on base scored easily and the speedy batter ended up on third base with a triple. The score was 9-8.

Now the boos were more noticeable and I heard a few “Marco, you’re a bum!” chants being yelled across the stadium along with other colorful phrases that would probably have made mothers cover the ears of their children.

Marco was now obviously upset, but he had no one to blame but himself. He needed to get the next few guys out if he wanted to get out of the jam. But, on the next pitch he hit the batter in the head with a fastball, and after the sickening thud, the batter dropped straight to the ground. Gasps shot up from people around the stadium and everyone stood up to see if the batter was going to be okay. The coaches from Baltimore came running out to check on the player. Marco just stood there on the mound, watching, making no sign that he was in the slightest bit concerned.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text from April.

Oh my god
was what it said.

Please tell me the kids weren’t watching...

No, they didn’t see it.

The manager of the Rays walked out to check on the batter, who had been lying motionless for a few minutes and was finally starting to stir. After the manager was sure the player was okay, he walked out to the mound to talk to Marco, who still hadn’t moved or shown any remorse or worry about the player’s wellbeing. The conversation between the two looked pretty heated, but because no one had been warming up in the bullpen when Marco hit him, there was no one to bring in. Someone had begun to throw, but probably wouldn’t be ready in time to face the next batter.

The crowd clapped when the batter finally got to his feet with the help of the trainers and was led to the dugout. A different player came off the bench to run the bases for him, and the next batter came to the plate, now with runners on first and third base.  

There were still no outs and I could tell Marco was fuming. He checked both of the runners, and then seemed to come out of his body with the pitch, throwing it as hard as his angry body would let him. If it had been a few years before, a fastball from Marco thrown with that much effort probably would have blown right by the batter. But, he was older, and his pitches were slower, so when the batter saw the fastball coming, he swung mightily. The crack of the ball hitting the bat was the sound every batter wanted to hear when they came up to hit. Everyone on the field turned and watched as the ball sailed deep into the bleachers for a three-run home run. It was one of the furthest balls I had ever seen hit, and the Rays were now losing 11-9. Marco had allowed five runs without getting a single out.

The manager came out quickly and gestured toward the bullpen for the next pitcher to come in. The boos were deafening now as Marco walked off the field. I was surprised such a small crowd could make such a loud noise. He took his glove off his right hand, chucked it into the crowd, and then with both hands flipped off the people in attendance. It wasn’t a quick flip either. He stood there for five to ten seconds just saluting the crowd that was now somehow booing him even more loudly. A couple of the Rays’ players bounced out of the dugout and practically pushed Marco down the steps, and when he was out of sight, the boos finally began to die down.

April was married to this piece of shit. In my head I hoped that things would be okay for her, but I knew in my heart a woman like her couldn’t survive long in a marriage to a person like this. There was a difference between being fiery and competitive, and just being an awful person with deep-rooted issues. Marco was beyond awful.

I texted April.

I hope your kids didn’t get to see that either...

See what?
she quickly replied.

You mean you didn’t see what just happened?

No. They went to commercial.

Oh, god.

Luke, what happened?

I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

Fuck. Luke, what happened?

No sense in not telling her.

He gave the crowd a two-handed, one finger salute.

He what??

Yeah...flipped off the crowd. For like ten seconds.

Oh my god
, she replied. Then she said,
He humiliates himself, his family, and he doesn’t care.

I’m sorry April...

I didn’t need to stay for the end of the game, nor did I care to. I had only come with the hopes of seeing Marco get hit around, but I hadn’t expected anything like this.

I felt sick to my stomach as I drove home.

Maybe the reason West was in April’s classroom today was so that you couldn’t have the talk with her that you had planned
, I thought to myself.
Maybe some powers outside of your control kept you from doing it because you are the one who can rescue her from the hell she lives in.

I think I had stopped believing in fate, in destiny, in anything after I found out Carrie only had a few months left to live. I felt so strongly when I was younger that we were high-school sweethearts who were going to live life together, always be happy and never have anything go wrong. People are naive when they are young, and I knew I had been the epitome of that. But, still part of me had sat and considered all the things that had happened to even bring Carrie and me into each other’s lives, and then I felt like it had to be fate.

Hearing that the woman you thought you were destined for was going to die before you had turned twenty-five basically fucked up my thoughts and proved to me that life is random and chaotic. Nothing happened for a reason. People you loved got sick, they died, and none of it ever made any goddamn sense. That was the conclusion I had come to after she died.

But, now my thoughts were jumbled again and I wasn’t sure what I believed. Why had Robin died so quickly? Why was April the one they got to fill in for the time Robin was out? Why had her husband been traded to Tampa Bay in the first place, when no one else seemed to want anything to do with him? Why was April making me rethink everything about fate, about life, and about love?

I wanted to protect her. I knew that more than I knew I wanted to tell her we couldn’t hang out with each other, couldn’t see each other anymore. I wanted to take her away from Marco and never look back. I hadn’t met her children, but deep down I knew I didn’t want them growing up in a home with a father like Marco. Being around her, I felt like I had known her forever, as cliché as that sounded, even though I barely knew her at all. God, what a mess.

Before I knew it, I was home. Sometimes it would scare me when I would reach a destination I had been driving to and I couldn’t even remember driving there. That had happened a lot since the invention of texting. But, this drive had been distracted by my thoughts and not my phone.

I got home at around ten o’clock and sat on my couch with a toothpick in my mouth, watching the Marco story continue to unfold on SportsCenter. I wanted to text April again, but I had no idea whether or not Marco was home yet, and I sure wasn’t going to be texting her when I knew he could be home. Psychos were not to be trifled with. And here I was thinking about the psycho’s wife.

I felt myself growing tired. It had been a long week. Holly would be coming over in four hours, and I wanted to take a nap. Sex with her wasn’t something I really wanted to do anymore, at least not now, but I couldn’t explain that to her. So, I turned the volume on my phone up, set my alarm, and laid down on the couch to try to squeeze in a couple hours of rest before she got there. Maybe with a little rest I could fake it.

I awoke to a loud ringing and rolled over toward my phone, which was lying on the floor. At first, I didn’t have a clue where I was; it was one of those moments where you wake up and think you overslept when you needed to be somewhere important. I went to turn off the alarm, when I realized it wasn’t the alarm at all. It was a phone call from April.

I shot straight up on the couch. It was almost midnight.

“Hello,” I said, hoping to sound much more awake and coherent than I felt.

I could hear April crying. The sound was slightly muffled, but it woke me up immediately. She wasn’t saying anything, only sobbing.