CHAPTER TWENTY
Home Run Trot
After he talked to Harry Foster and confirmed he would indeed be in Cincinnati that weekend, Dan disconnected the call and dialed his dad’s number at HBM. David had returned to work, as usual, after dropping Dan off, and he picked up on the third ring.
“Good evening, you’ve reached HBM Ferncastle. This is David speaking … how may I help you?” David answered in a very official voice.
Dan guffawed. “Sheesh, Dad, don’t you ever drop the formal treatment? I mean, come on, it’s almost game time, after all?”
David exhaled before answering, “You’re a real card, buddy boy. What’s up?”
David listened as Dan filled in the details of his conversation with Croft and asked if David could drive him to the game that night. Coach might still drive him, but Dan wasn’t sure it would be proper since he had been stricken from the access list. He didn’t want to get the coach in trouble, and he sure didn’t want to jeopardize the Eagles’ season in any sort of way.
David agreed, but said he needed to work for another half an hour or so. If Dan didn’t mind waiting, David would pick him up a little after 6, and they would get to the game before 7. They might miss a few minutes but would catch most of the action. With little choice and still feeling stunned by the day’s events, Dan said that would be fine.
“Thanks, Dad,” Dan said.
“It’s what I do, Dan,” David told him. “I’m a dad.”
—
By the time David pulled into the South Pickens lot, Dan had long since made his way back outside to tell Croft goodbye and wish him luck that night.
“Really wish I could be part of this,” Dan said.
“I know, Dan,” Croft said, “but you have to understand why I did this, right?”
Dan nodded.
“Besides, you ARE part of this. You were working with the team just this morning in batting practice and I can tell you for sure that if our offense tanks tonight, I’m blaming you!”
Dan had been staring at the asphalt, but at Croft’s words snapped his head upwards just in time to see the coach break into a grin. Dan returned the smile and delivered his own dig: “That’s good, because when we win big tonight, I’m going to write a letter to Principal Stetson telling how happy I am that I was able to help!”
The two men said their goodbyes and Dan watched the shiny blue Ford roar down Highway 40 until it disappeared from sight beyond a grove of trees.
—
Thirty minutes later, Dan was in the middle of his fifth slow jog around the diamond when he saw his dad’s pickup truck pull into the back entrance to the school lot. When Coach Croft left him, Dan began to feel the fatigue the day’s excitement had masked, and he nearly dozed off leaning against the backstop. A car horn on one of the major roads passing by the school snapped him out of his daze, and Dan decided he wasn’t ready to let his condition overtake him.
Not on that night. Not yet.
So Dan had walked from home plate to first base, just to clear his head and to move around a bit. When his foot touched the bag, a bolt of electricity shot of up his leg, and Dan sprinted for second, gazing deep into center field, imagining a young Willie Mays tracking down a drive toward the fence. In his mind, “Say Hey” jumped and stretched out to the full extent of his lithe body, like a thoroughbred lunging for the finish line at the Kentucky Derby. For just a moment, Dan was sure he saw a real baseball disappear into the green canopy which stood between the diamond and the bus barn, and he hopped with a whoop as he rounded second base, thrusting his arm into the air.
Home run!
Dan slowed to a swaggering trot when he touched third, then headed for home where his imaginary teammates were waiting to lift him on their shoulders. In the stands, phantom fans screamed Dan’s name and begged for more from their hero. When he crossed the plate, he stopped and doffed his cap, a gesture which resembled a salute since he wasn’t wearing a hat.
Remembering the scene from Hank Aaron’s celebration in Cincinnati, and especially the one in Atlanta a few days later, Dan kept his left arm extended and jogged toward the stands on the first-base side of the field, then ran along what would have been the fence line had he been inside a stadium with an enclosed field. Past the open expanse that bled from right field into the grass in front of the on-site sewage treatment plant, around the horn in center, under the chilling shadow’s of the football bleachers in left, and looping back to home, Dan made his slow swooping circuit.
One time, two times, three times, before he began to lose track of how many laps he had run, and then, of why he was running the laps. With every step, Dan grew colder and less energetic, and, when David finally pulled to a stop in the gravel behind the backstop, Dan was sure of one thing: he was not well, and he was getting worse all the time.
Even from a distance, David must have noticed something was not right, because he bolted from his driver’s seat and ran out to meet his son at second base. Dan fell forward into his father’s arms, sobbing. David pulled him close and squeezed him tight. David wasn’t sure what was happening with Dan, but it didn’t matter. His boy was in pain, and it was a dad’s duty to make things better, no matter how old his child might be.
“It’s OK, Dan,” David whispered in the boy’s ear, smoothing his ruffled black hair with a strong, steady hand. “It’s OK, son. Let’s go home, what do you say?”
Dan nodded, but pushed away from his father, shaking his head. “No, Dad,” he said. Then, with more force, “No! I have to go the game tonight.”
“But you’re clearly not feeling very well, Dan,” David said, concerned. “It’s been a long day, and I’m sure you’ll feel better if we get you home and in bed.”
“Dad,” Dan said with a serious voice, “I’m going to have plenty of time to sleep, soon enough.”
David’s eyes widened, and he shook his head slowly. “No, you’ll be fine, son.”
“No, Dad,” Dan said with a firm voice. “It’s happening again. And quickly.”