Finally I saw the black leather finger of it and pulled it out. A dingy-looking baseball dropped and rolled onto the floor. It must have been sitting inside the webbing for years. I picked it up and rubbed the palm, knelt down, and grabbed the baseball.
“You ready?” I asked, and my dad smiled, almost euphoric.
He’d been a different man since we’d gotten back from the hospital two days earlier. His eyes looked different, more like his old eyes, full of life again, and he’d gone out for a long walk the day before, Saturday, around the subdivision. He never did that.
“Is this bad for your throwing arm?” he asked as we got outside and walked to opposite ends of the front yard.
“I won’t throw that hard,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
He dropped his mitt in front of him and did windmills with his arms, which is what he always used to do when we played catch. When I was a kid, we did it every weekend before I got into football.
I watched him as he warmed up and I could see that there were changes to his body, recent changes. His arms and legs were thinner, and he had developed a little paunch in his gut, something he didn’t used to have. And the upper-body tone that he used to be so proud of was all but gone. His face was thinner, too. But then again, he was like almost fifty, so what do you expect? He bent over and picked up his glove, put his hand inside it, and slapped the glove against his leg. “Let’s do this,” he said.
It felt good, palming the baseball for the first time in a while. I slowly wound up and threw it to my father. The ball whistled through the air and hit his glove with a satisfying pop. I’d forgotten how much I used to love that sound.
My father’s eyes bulged and he dropped the glove off his hand with the ball still in the pocket. “Holy . . .” he said. “Jeez. You’re gonna kill me!”
I blushed, because I hadn’t really thrown it all that hard. Either I was a lot stronger than I was back when we used to play, or he was more brittle. Or both. “Sorry,” I said. “I’ll cool it a bit.”
He tentatively leaned down and picked up the glove. “Jeez,” he repeated. “Maybe you should go out for the baseball team this spring. Be a pitcher. I guarantee you’d be great with that arm of yours.”
I momentarily flashed to Todd Stanhope, and felt this curious heat over my body. But I was playing catch with my dad, so I blocked that thought away.
“Great,” I said. “Because I have all this extra time these days for new activities.”
He squinted at me. “Where’s all this snarkiness coming from?” he asked. For a moment I thought he was serious, but then I saw he was smiling and I felt like I’d met up with my best friend from many years ago.
“Jeez,” I said. “Sorry.”
“You will be,” he said, winding up exaggeratedly. And then he let one fly, a pretty decent throw that surprised me a bit with its velocity. It was high, too, and I had to jump to make the catch.
“Nice,” I said.
“Man, this feels so good,” he said, and I wanted to run over and hug my dad, hard.
“That’s great, Dad,” I said.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
I grinned. My dad and I used to have our best talks while throwing the ball around. This was years ago, when the topics were less intense than they would be now. Back when it was about him playing college baseball, or him advising me about how to handle a situation with a friend.
Soon he was throwing me pop-ups, like we used to do, and I was throwing back ground balls. He was bending his knees, his hands hanging down low in the correct fielding position for an infielder. It wasn’t graceful like it used to be, but you could tell, watching him, that he used to be pretty darn good. Then he had me down in a catching position and he was trying his curveball. It used to break almost a foot, but now it just sort of spun out of his hand and otherwise went straight.
He wound up and threw me a fastball, pausing on his follow-through. I could tell he was winded but was trying not to show it. So I caught it and jogged over to him.
“Let’s take a break,” I said. He nodded, breathing heavily, his eyes a bit puffy. I led him to the shade of the oak tree.
“I’m an old man,” he said, sitting down.
“Nah,” I answered, sitting down next to him.
“I think I’m still just a little tired.”
I nodded. His blood pressure was mostly back to normal now. He was taking it with a digital cuff every few hours, and if it was low, he was eating something salty, which sounded like a pretty good medicine to me.
“Okay, new rule,” I said. “Next time you’re going to get all old and tired out of nowhere, go to the freakin’ doctor, okay?”
He cuffed me on the shoulder. “Man oh man,” he said, shaking his head and laughing. “I can’t wait till you get old yourself, Bobby Framingham. I just can’t wait.”
I lay down and looked up at the tree, and then my dad did the same thing.
“You ever feel happy to be alive?” my dad asked, his voice sort of quiet, peaceful.
I thought about that. I mean, I’m generally a happy person, and that means I’m usually happy to be alive, but I guess he meant like focused on it. I thought about how I felt in the hospital after the doctor told us he was going to be okay. “Sure,” I said.
“That’s me today,” he said.
I smiled. “Good, Dad.”
We were silent for a few minutes. I stared up into the branches of the tree, thinking about how there wouldn’t be many more of these moments now that I was a year away from college. When I turned to say something to him, he was looking at me and smiling.
“Whoa, you startled me,” I said.
He smiled.
“I’m just so damn proud of you,” he said. “You’re a success.”
“Great success,” I said, imitating Borat. He ignored me.
“You’re the quarterback of an undefeated team, and you’re a good person.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him we weren’t undefeated anymore. We’d lost the game against Laguna Hills by a touchdown.
“Thanks,” I said, careful not avert my eyes even though I wanted to. “You okay?”
“I’m better than okay,” he said. “I feel like I have this whole new goddamn lease on life and I want to change things. Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded, because I did.
“I want us to talk more,” he said, raising up and resting on his elbows.
“Okay,” I said, and of course I began to think about my secret. What would my dad think? I mean, he hadn’t really been much of a sharing kind of guy, and now here he was, sharing, and I was thinking, would he be okay with it?
He talked, and it was different than I’d ever heard him speak before. My dad’s not exactly an open book. Back when things were normal, it would be hard to get basic information out of him. Now here he was, telling me about his life.
He told me about growing up in New York City, about my grandfather, who had been a gambler, how it had ruined his life, and about the time my grandmother pulled Grandpa out of a racetrack by his ear. Then he talked about how they sent him to sleepaway camp when he was just five. He was the youngest camper by two years, and during baseball games he would stand out in right field picking flowers. The other kids made fun of him because he couldn’t swing a bat yet. At night he would pray that in the morning his parents would come to take him home, but they never did.
“Wow,” I said.
“I think that’s why I’ve always been so cold to you,” he said, his eyes focused on me.
“You aren’t cold,” I said, reaching over and squeezing his shoulder.
He didn’t say anything, just looked at me and smiled.
“You weren’t,” I repeated.
He sat up and mussed my hair, which was still pretty short from shaving but had grown in and was now sort of spiky. “Things are going to be different from now on,” he said. “We’re gonna do things together again.”
“I’m all for that,” I answ
ered.
“And I want us to talk. I want to hear about what’s going on in your life. I’m not going to let a little fatigue run my life anymore, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I want to hear about Carrie. And you know what? If you like her, I like her.”
I laughed. “Okay, Dad. Fine.”
He laughed back. “I know I’m being weird. Just give me today, okay? I’m so goddamn relieved to be feeling like myself again.”
I peered at my father, and it was freaky, like I was seeing my future. Someday I’d be older, but that didn’t mean I’d have it all figured out. My dad sure didn’t. That was sort of scary, in a way.
“I’m glad, Dad,” I said. “But can we come back down off the moon for like one second? I miss the dad that used to say, like, normal things.”
He doubled over laughing. “Oh man, I can’t wait till you have kids of your own who cut you down to size. I cannot wait.”
18
“Yo, Framingham needs to think twice before running with the ball,” yelled Haskins from the sidelines as we huddled on the field. “Boy thinks he’s Michael Vick. Runs more like Vick’s VapoRub.”
“That’s cold,” said Rahim.
“Yo, that last play took five minutes!” Haskins said back. “Thinks he’s Vick. Next thing you know, dude’s gonna be into dog-fighting.”
There was laughter on the sidelines and in the huddle. I laughed, too. On a play where no one was open, I’d rolled to the left, tucked the ball in, and headed for the first-down marker. Unfortunately, I’d miscalculated something, maybe not taking into account the curvature of the earth or the speed of light, because defenders came quick and what had at first looked like an easy ten yards wound up with me sliding after a long two-yard gain. I’d run about fifteen yards, but almostall of it parallel to the line of scrimmage, and I’d still not even made it out of bounds.
My speed just wasn’t where it needed to be.
I turned from the huddle and yelled back, “Yo, Haskins, learn to throw,” I said. “It’s a football, not a purse.” There were a couple hoots from the sideline, and I heard Coach’s laughter, too.
“C’mon, boys, back to work,” he yelled. And with a smile, that’s what I did.
It was a warm, sunny Wednesday, and we were going first-team offense versus first-team defense. For the first time in a while, Coach seemed to be warming up to me again. He’d slapped my butt after a good timing pattern to Somers worked, just like he had hundreds of times in the past. Then I called a “Waggle” play, where I’d roll left, fake a handoff to Mendez, and then all but one of my receivers would flood the left side of the field. I loved throwing on the run, and that play always seemed to leave someone wide open.
I barked out the snap count and we sprang into action. My fake to Mendez wasn’t perfect, but a couple defenders stayed to the right, where he was heading. With Somers and a fullback coming out of the backfield, the defense looked confused. Their reaction left Austin wide open on a crossing pattern, and I fired a rocket into his hands about twelve yards down the field. He looked upfield and with a quick juke got rid of Dennis, the only guy standing between him and six points. Perfect execution.
Coach was pretty animated. “Excellent! Framingham, you got it now! Quick six if you play it right, Bobby. Sell the fake better, okay? Way to go, Rivera,” he said to Austin, slapping him on the butt as he ran to the sideline.
I was changing after my shower when Coach came to my locker and motioned me into his office. I got goose bumps on my arms. We’d barely talked at all since the coming-out conversation, which had happened exactly three weeks before. I towel-dried my wet head, threw on a shirt, and hustled into his office. Coach was sitting at his desk, peeling an orange. He looked up when I walked in and began speaking immediately.
“I wanted to ask about your father.”
“He’s doing good,” I said. “Seems a lot better.”
Coach offered me a section of orange and I declined. He jammed several pieces into his mouth at once, and I watched his lips as he savored the juice explosion before swallowing. “I’m glad,” he said, his mouth full. “Give him my regards.”
“I will,” I said, looking at the chair in front of me.
“Sit,” Coach said, and I did. “That’s not the only reason I wanted you to come in. How’s Bobby?”
“I’m okay,” I said as I sat, my face feeling warm.
“Good, that’s good,” he said. “You’re looking good out there, today especially.”
“Yeah, it felt good today,” I said.
“Good, that’s good.” Coach rolled the orange peel between his fingers.
I scanned my brain for any safe topics of conversation. “Other than the tier, it’s all coming together,” I told Coach.
Coach smiled and seemed relieved to have a comfortable topic. “Bobby, I instituted the tier formation for you.”
I looked at Coach, my eyes wide. “For me? How is that good for me?”
Coach crossed his arms over his massive chest, then uncrossed them. “This team is built around you, Bobby. Not Mendez. He’s a good back, but it’s your team. The tier gives you more receivers, not less, but you don’t see that.”
“I guess I don’t,” I said, eyes locked with Coach, intent on his every word.
“Bobby, the three backs behind you, are they possible receivers?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Well, picture it from the perspective of the defense. There are three possible receivers behind you. What do you do if you’re covering a guy out of the backfield?”
“You cheat toward the line.”
“Yes! And do you cheat toward the line out wide, or in the center?”
“Depends, I guess.”
“Yes again. They can’t get used to anything, and what we have in the backfield is like a swarm of bees. All three guys can go in any direction. It’s confusing. You ever wonder why you keep finding Mendez open this year? Or why at least a couple times a game we got a guy open deep? It’s the formation. And with your arm, I wanted to give us a chance to be dangerous on every single play.” Coach smiled and made a throwing motion as if he were throwing a bomb.
I thought about that. All this time I’d been seeing the tier as my enemy, but what it really allowed was the chance to take my skills to the next level. I’d balked at it because it was different, and different things were always hard to handle. “Cool. I didn’t get that,” I said.
He nodded at me. Coach was one of the most humble people I’d ever been around. He never took credit for anything. “Otherwise, you okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “Doing better.”
“Me, too,” he said, nodding his head again, and it took me a moment to realize he was saying he was doing better with what I told him. I smiled at him, and he offered me a tight-lipped grin back.
19
The phone rang early on Saturday morning. I was still in bed, not sleeping exactly but not awake either, just zoning, in a fantasy world after the game last night. We’d won and I’d played well. I was replaying the highlight reel in my head. The best play had been a simple hook-and-go to Rahim. I’d rolled out right, chased by a blitzing linebacker who almost sacked me before I could throw. I threw just in time, a perfect spiral that I watched drop into Rahim’s hands like a cherry off a tree. A painless six points.