Part two of four of "Curveballs."

For anyone that missed it, part one can be found at:  http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/17/726610/curveballs-a-short-story-p

This part takes the story through approximately page 14 in the double-spaced Word document form of the story, so this serialization of the story should be a total of four parts, and I'll try to continue to post every 2-3 days for the next two parts.

Without going into too much plot discussion so as to reveal a spoiler, this 2nd section is where we see the main issues of the short story reveal themselves.

Anyway, without further delay, here is part two of the story.

            Nick looked in to his catcher, Murph, to see him extend his index finger, the signal for the fastball.  Nick checked the runner on first, who he had just walked to put the tying run on base in a 1-0 game that the two pitchers had dominated.  He began his windup, looking only at the center of the catcher’s mitt, placed over the outside corner of the plate, and hurled the ball with as much strength as he had left this late in the game.

            Several scouts were in the crowd that game, one wearing a shirt with Rice University’s logo, one with the University of Missouri, and even one from the legendary and far-off University of Southern California.  Lined up with radar guns locking in on every pitch, the USC scout had a pleased look upon his face as he read the radar gun. Johnny continued to look up towards the scouts to try to catch every look.  All of the schools were good schools, but none would be better than USC.

            Nick looked in for the next sign.  He nodded off a change-up and wasn’t happy until Murphy gave him another signal for a fastball.  Checking over towards first, as the runner there juked like he was going to steal before returning towards the bag, Nick looked back in to the catcher’s mitt and began his windup again.

            “Strike two!” came the umpire’s voice as the hitter took a huge cut and missed.

            Johnny looked up again to see all the scouts in tandem checking their radar guns and writing in their notes. 

            Murphy threw the ball back calmly to Nick before yelling out to his team, “Two away, guys.  We got this one.”

            Nick’s solitary focus was on Murph’s glove though.  He felt for the seams in his hand as he looked in to see Murphy give the signal for the slider.  They had been thinking on the same page almost the whole game, and yet again, they had the same pitch in mind.  Nick found the seams, holding the ball in his glove, began his windup, and unleashed the ball towards the catcher’s mitt again.

            With a more controlled swing, the hitter bit on the slider and started to swing, when the bottom fell out and the slider cut down and away from the plate, eluding the bat.

            “Strike Three!” came the umpire’s voice once again.

            Murphy dropped the ball on the ground beside the umpire and rose to his feet, as Nick raised his hands in victory.

            A few weeks later, the good news came in the form of a phone call shortly after Nick and Johnny arrived home from school.  Picking up the phone, Johnny answered plainly, “Cooper residence.”

            “Mr. Cooper.  This is Mike Gillespie at USC.  Is your son available?”

            Johnny nearly forgot to reply as he looked around excitedly for which direction in the house Nick had gone.

            “Yeah, one moment, let me find him,” came the words on the phone eventually.

            Johnny quickly paced back towards Nick’s room, barging in the door to find him laying on his bed watching TV.

            “Nick, Mike Gillespie is on the phone for you.”

            Hearing that, Nick jumped out of bed and nearly knocked Johnny off his feet trying to get past him to the phone sitting off the hook down the hall.  Picking up the phone, Nick cleared his throat and finally said, “Hello?”

            Johnny studied Nick’s face while he stood beside him, waiting for the verdict.  He wouldn’t possibly call to let him down, would he?  Considering the situation, he was almost certain his son would be a Trojan the next year, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions until he heard the news for sure. 

            “Yes, sir,” Nick said into the phone, continuing after a brief pause saying, “Thank you very much.  I’ll see you next fall,” as he placed the phone back on the hook.

“I GOT IN!” he continued to shout as he jumped in the air and pumped his fist.  He then turned to his father and threw his arms around Johnny, who was laughing and smiling as though he had just won the lottery.

            Practice that night was unfocused, with most of the attention being around Nick being given the honor of throwing batting practice.  With a game in three days, they didn’t want him to tire out his arm, so he was told to keep the fastball down around sixty miles per hour and no breaking balls at all.  The other players would all razz him every time they got a solid hit off of the mild fastballs, which was often, saying things like, “Man, I’m killing this guy, where’s my scholarship?” and “4 for 4 already, forget college, I’m declaring for the draft.”  Nick would smile and roll his eyes at all the guys as Johnny looked on from the bench, beaming with absolute pride that his son would be going to the same college that produced great pitching talents like Randy Johnson and Mark Prior. 

            Coach Hardwick ran most of the practice, as Johnny was just too much in a mode of internal celebration and pride to give any serious criticism at all.  Hardwick even looked over a few times to see Johnny just looking at his son with a look of contentment that you would rarely find on his face, especially in accordance with his son.

            After an abbreviated practice that was more a celebration of the success of one of their own, Hardwick called the players in, and Johnny came back onto the field from the dugout area to join the team. 

            Getting the team in a tight circle, Hardwick began, “Now, we got the season finale coming this weekend.  We’re all very happy for Nick, but we need to finish this season right and win this last game.  Are we gonna let the boys over at Cypress beat us?” 

            “NO, COACH HARDWICK!” cried the team in unison.

            “What’s that?” he shouted back at them.

            “NO, COACH HARDWICK!”

            “Alright boys, hit the showers and get some rest. One more good practice tomorrow and you’ll have Friday off before the game on Saturday.”

            Breaking up the circle and heading to the showers, the team evacuated the field, leaving only Johnny and Hardwick.  Johnny still had a glow surrounding him and Hardwick smiled, chuckled a little bit, and said, “Boy, you sure are proud of that boy, aren’t you?”

            “Yeah, I can’t help but be.  He can get on my nerves sometimes, but he’s a good kid.  Always tries hard at everything he does.  Ya know, it ain’t easy nowadays to get good grades and be in sports.  A lot more shit these kids got to get through nowadays.”  Johnny replied with a smile on his face, as the two men started walking back towards the school.

            “Yeah, I know Johnny.  He’s a good kid.  Hard worker too, despite his mouth.”

            “Yeah.  It’s gonna be a long way to go to see any of his games way out in California.”

            “Shit, he probably wants to go there just so you’ll leave him alone for a little bit.” 

            Johnny smiled and let out a little chuckle. “Yeah, I know.  I am hard on him sometimes.”  They walked back in, laughing and letting the euphoric sense of pride wash over them both before they went their separate ways, getting ready to go home.

            The day before a game, Johnny always had Coach Hardwick check up on every last detail.  For home games, that meant that the field had been taken care of and that the locker rooms were at least relatively clean, and for away games that meant making sure the bus would be ready when they needed it.  The first couple of seasons they coached the baseball team together, Johnny always had to ask Coach Hardwick to make sure, but after coaching together for nearly fifteen years, it wasn’t even something either of them even mentioned anymore. 

            Shortly after his last class of the day, a sophomore History class, Hardwick dropped his books and papers off at his office, still thinking about how the sophomores irritated him so much with some of their stupid questions.  The “Was King Richard the Lionhearted really gay?” question seemed to come up every year around this time somehow.

            He began to walk back towards the back exit of the school, back by the locker rooms and close to the baseball field.  Like always, he had to go check the field to make sure it was in playing condition.  Walking out the back door and over to the field, he was so enthralled in thinking about his history students he almost didn’t even notice the voice of a student saying, “Oh shit, put it out.”

            Looking over into one of the dugouts though, there he saw Adam Murphy and Nick Cooper, along with two other players, Ricky Stone, a junior third baseman, and Tony Murphy, Adam’s younger brother, fumbling with something he couldn’t make out from the distance he stood from them at the time.

            “Hey, what are you guys doing out here? Shouldn’t you be heading home and resting up for tomorrow?” Hardwick said to them, wondering what was going on, but not sure yet.  He began to approach the dugout to see what it is they were doing.

            “Uh, yeah Coach.  We were just checking out the field, talking about how we’re gonna destroy Cypress tomorrow.  We were just about to take off and go home,” Nick said, as they all began to leave the dugout to escape.

            “Wait just a minute.  None of you are moving.” Hardwick continued on.  Besides the obvious suspicion that was raised by four of the ballplayers randomly hanging out, he could smell something strange in the air as he approached the dugout.  Matter-of-factly, he asked, “What’s that smell?” 

            “What smell?” Nick replied.  Adam and the other two boys just tried to look away while Nick continued trying to talk his way out of the situation.

            “I think you know what the smell is, Mr. Cooper.  And I think you know that I’m well aware of what it is too, where’s the roach?”

            “What the fuck are you talking about?” Nick asked, putting a false look of disgust upon his face, “I don’t have to take your accusations.”  He started to step out of the dugout, when Hardwick stepped in his way and put his hand out to push him back into the dugout.

            “Don’t you act like I’m stupid.” 

            “Don’t BE stupid then, coach.”  Nick replied. 

            Hardwick was furious and began towards Nick when Cooper walked up to the field.

            “Hey Coach Hardwick. Nick. Boys.  What’s going on?” Johnny could sense something wrong in the air, but didn’t know what it was.

            “Johnny, could I have a word with you in private?”  Hardwick turned away from Nick and the boys towards Johnny to look him directly in the eye.

            “Sure Steve, there a problem?”

            Hardwick’s look of anger began to subside as he looked upon Cooper’s face, knowing how proud he was of his son.  “Let’s just talk in private,” he said, “Boys, I want you all to wait in my office.”

            Johnny and Hardwick escorted Nick and the other boys back to Hardwick’s office before proceeding to Johnny’s office.  As they both entered Johnny’s office, Hardwick closed the door behind them and they both went to their respective chairs and sat down.  Hardwick pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger and looked down at the nameplate on Johnny’s desk, deciding how exactly to say what he had seen.

            Johnny looked back at Hardwick skeptically, and finally started off, “Steve, what’s up?”

            Not knowing of a better way to say it without being patronizing, Hardwick finally said flatly, “Nick and the other boys were hiding out in the dugout smoking pot.”

            “Oh. Alright.”  Johnny pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting off a suddenly inevitable headache.  Several thoughts began racing through Johnny’s mind.  Could his son be involved with drugs?  Not possible.  He thought about the punishment for a drug incident.  The school’s rule on a drug infraction on the campus was immediate dismissal for any and all extracurriculars, a two week suspension, and for the incident to then be handed over to the police. 

            More importantly than the possible police involvement or the two week suspension though was the dismissal from the baseball team.  A charge like this would show up on Nick’s transcripts and would probably lead to the termination of his scholarship to USC as well.  Johnny began to feel sick at the possibility of all that he and Nick had worked for could be swept away by one incident.  Nick was a good kid.  It probably wasn’t even his idea, but rather one of the other boys. 

            “Are you sure about what you saw?” Johnny asked.

            “One hundred percent.  They were acting very suspicious and I could smell it in the dugout.  I didn’t actually see it, but I know that’s what they were doing.”

            “Maybe you smelled something else,” Johnny said more forcefully, looking Coach Hardwick directly in the eyes.

            “What?”

            “Look, I’m not telling you what you saw.  But perhaps you didn’t smell what you thought you smelled.  Nick’s a good kid, got that full ride to USC.  And you know Murphy’s never been in trouble like this before.  Maybe you smelled something else.”

            Hardwick had disbelief in his eyes as Johnny made it very clear what he meant.  He had always looked up to Johnny for the way he always did what he thought was right.  Now Johnny was telling him to lie about what he saw though.  A fire burned inside him as he began to grow angry that Johnny would use his power at the school to try to protect Nick.

            Hardwick got up out of the chair, and walking towards the door, said, “I know what I smelled.”  Opening the door and proceeding to his office, he didn’t know whether he wanted to go back and tell Johnny off or go hide in his office and cry.  Either way, he knew he had to deal with Nick and the other boys first.  Reaching the doorway of his office, he saw Nick sitting on the front of his desk, the other boys standing and sitting in various places in the office, awaiting their judgment.

            Hardwick cleared his throat before beginning, “Well, you boys head on home.  You need your rest for tomorrow’s game.”

            Watching Nick’s face, Hardwick could see a glimpse of shock in his eyes, but at the same time, a new degree of arrogance was born, as Nick knew he had won this round.  Coach Hardwick watched as the boys gathered themselves and filed out of his office to leave the school.  After he knew the boys were far enough away, he slammed the office door and sat down in his desk chair, wondering how this could have happened.