Burger Wuss (14 page)

“Deep meaning what?” I yelled. “Twenty-thousand fathoms?” Nobody laughed. I backed up.

Marston bunted.

Everyone swore. People just wanted to quit. There was a little dispute, because the ball washed into foul territory. The ump was on their side. They got the runs. Turner looked angry, or like he was about to cry.

It was at about this time that I looked up and saw some girls arriving in a station wagon. I knew Diana had been hanging out with some of the girls from BQ and Wendy’s. I couldn’t make out faces through the rain. Something was happening to my left.

“The ball! Stop gawking! You have got to think, Anthony! Concentrate!” Mike yelled.

The ball was dribbling out past me. Too late.

I stood, dripping and defeated. Silt washed through my boxers.

By the time we were up again, the score was 13-2. I was determined to do something heroic before she left. It didn’t look like she was going to be staying long. She and the other girls watched the game, but they didn’t look very interested. It looked like they were just there to switch cars or pick some people up.

The top of the seventh did not start very well. The first batter struck out. The second batter popped a fly right to first. I was milling around on the shore. I tried to wander in her direction to hear what they were talking about. Mike saw me.

“Anthony!” he said. “Where the heck are you going? Where is your team spirit? Explanation as to why you aren’t watching? Explanation as to why you’re lost in your own world? Explanation as to why I should give you the chance I’m giving you?” She heard my name and looked over. I stood and concentrated on the catcher’s back. Rick and Turner were up, then me. I was already feeling weak and nervous.

Rick drove a single to left field. Turner stepped up to bat, gritting his teeth. I could tell he was mad. The BQ pitcher was Johnny Fletcher, who worked window. Fletcher was teasing Turner. He sent Turner pitches which were high and slow. They had a weird spin, almost dainty. Turner was covered in mud. I could hear him swearing. On the third pitch, he finally swung and connected.

“Go, O’Dermott’s!” yelled Mike’s wife. “Go, go, green!”

The ball shot past the right fielder’s shoulder. He splashed after it. The ball thwacked into the water. Turner slogged to first. The fielder was scrabbling way off in the outfield. Turner was kicking up a spray somewhere around second. Rick had made it to third. He had just started home when the ball flew back into the infield and smacked into Fletcher’s wet glove. Rick turned and hurled himself back toward third. He came up choking
and wheezing. The third baseman had caught the ball. Rick’s eyes were wide and he was hiccupping.

“Player’s choking!” yelled the ump.

“You choking?” asked the third baseman. Rick couldn’t answer.

“Use the Heimlich maneuver!” yelled the BQ coach.

“That a play?” asked the third baseman.

“No! You grab him around near the ribs, like this!”

Rick gagged and thrashed his arms.

The third baseman caught on and went to help Rick. Rick was gargling. The third baseman went to wrap his arms around Rick’s torso. Rick saw the ball in the glove and backed off, choking. He thrashed one hand in the water, and with the other, grabbed at the buoy that marked third. He fell, and writhed backward.

“What’s the matter?” yelled the ump.

“He’s running away. I think he’s trying to make sure he’s safe.”

The ump trudged over. “Is he touching the base?”

Fletcher asked, “Is the ball still in play?”

Mike screamed, “Would you just declare the boy safe before he drowns to death?”

The ump shrugged. “Ho-key-doh-key. Safe!”

“Now give him the Heimlich maneuver!” said the BQ captain.

It just took a minute before Rick was spewing water. His face turned back from red.

I was up. Everyone glowered at me. They were not happy about Mike’s lineup. Men on second and third, two outs, and I was up. This didn’t look good to anyone.

Fletcher smiled at me like a wolf or some other cruel pack animal. I turned and looked for Diana. She was watching.

“Strike one!” the ump called.

“Would you concentrate?” Mike roared. “For once?”

Fletcher caught the ball and wound up. He threw it again. I swung.

“Strike two!”

Turner started yelling from second base. “Come on, you little pansy! You little shit! Would you do something right for once? Hit the goddamn ball! Just hit the goddamn ball!”

“Language!” said Mike.

“Umpire,” said Fletcher. “I can’t possibly concentrate with all this bickering.”

“Right,” said the ump. “Runners should shut their gobs.”

Turner watched me with hatred.

Fletcher wound up again. He threw it. I swung.

And connected. It seemed so easy, now that I had done it. The connection was firm. The ball went flying. I ran as hard as I could. I didn’t even look toward Diana. As I splashed down the base line, I thought to myself,
I’m just concentrating on running, not looking at all for Diana or getting distracted by other things.

I rounded first and headed for second. I didn’t even allow myself to look up.

I had therefore almost gotten to third before the third baseman told me Fletcher had caught the ball on the fly and I had been out for some time.

That was three outs. Then BQ was up. It just kept going on. I don’t remember the details. I plunged after a ball or two. Fletcher hit a homer. When Turner pitched, Kid didn’t budge his bat. Kid made a big show of yawning. He struck out on purpose. I wasn’t very aware of what was going on. Finally they were saying it was over. They were saying the score was 20-2. People were swearing. That was it.

I walked back toward the slope. I was soaked. I was shivering. Kid and Fletcher were talking to Turner.

“Great final inning,” Fletcher said to Turner.

“Don’t mess with us,” Kid said.

Fletcher added, “This’ll teach you O’Dermott’s girls not to steal.”

Kid said, “Any time you want to apologize and give it back —”

“You can kiss our butts,” Fletcher finished.

“What the hell you talking about?”

Kid and Fletcher looked at each other. “Sure, Turner,” Kid said. “Keep playing dumb. You seem like a natural.”

They walked away. Turner saw me. I changed direction. It wasn’t fast enough. He caught me.

The first few times underwater weren’t so bad. I’d managed to catch my breath soon after he grabbed my hair. I was very calm and blew out through my nose. There was a stick in the water, and I was afraid it would put my eye out. I could feel how soft my eye was. Each time my head slammed into the water, the stick reared up toward my eye. I tried to splutter that he couldn’t
push me so deep, that it was really dangerous. The next time I went down, I got water in my mouth. I started gagging. It tasted earthy. It stung inside my nose.

He kicked me in the spine. I curled up in the water. The stick was digging into my cheek. I wrapped my hands around my knees. My whole body ached. Turner was walking away. Just behind him, I saw Diana, watching us without moving, like it was someone’s funeral. The next time I looked, she was gone.

I stood up. My body was soaked. I climbed the hill.

Rick was getting ready to leave. I had to catch a ride with him. He had put down towels on his car seats. I was about to get in when I saw Shunt quietly unlocking his bike.

“Shunt!” I called. He looked up. “Where are you going?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “The bushes.”

“You can’t go to the bushes in this rain,” I said. “The bushes will be flooded.”

“I have a piece of plastic.”

“Don’t go to the bushes, man. It’s like fifty degrees and pouring.”

“The bushes are fine.”

“I bet my parents would let you stay on the sofa. It’s a sofa bed. It folds out.”

“Is something wrong with the bushes?”

“It’s pouring! Won’t you just find a friend and stay at their house? You can’t stay out in this!”

Shunt shook his head. He got on his bike. “Yeah, thanks, but screw you, Mom,” he said, and started to ride off. “See you later.”

Rick looked after him like he was diseased. I got in the car and closed the door.

Rick drove me home. He didn’t say anything about the fact that I had lost him his run. He didn’t say anything at all. He let me out of the car almost without talking. I stood there as he drove away. I had a coughing fit.

I went inside to take a shower. I was glad I had a Plan.

The next day, Mike gave me photocopied signs that explained to our patrons we would be closed the next four days on account of a commercial. He told me that we needed to keep the place spick-and-span, more than usual. He told me to look smart, by which he meant snappy. He explained he needed the signs taped to all the doors. He was worried about Management coming.

He gave me a roll of tape. It was a weighted dispenser. I went from door to door. I spooled out lengths of tape and ran my finger along them to fasten them to the corners of the paper. I hung them inside so they looked out.

At one point I got the tape caught on myself. Then I got it caught on an announcement. Then I got the announcement caught on myself. I was clutching the other announcements under my arm. My arm was folded like a chicken wing. I reached my head down to bite the tape. It didn’t tear.

I knelt down and dropped the flyers. They fanned out
across the floor. I put down the tape. I pulled it off my shirt. I tried to peel it off the announcement. The announcement tore. The letters were the first things to go. I crumpled up the announcement and threw it in the trash. Then I started to gather up the other announcements from the floor.

I heard Turner yelling, “Dudes! About time. Where you been?”

I had all the flyers in my hands. I tapped them on the tiles to make their edges straight.

“Can’t hear you, man,” said one of the guys. “You’ll have to speak up.”

“Excuse me? Excuse me?” said another. They were the two guys we’d gone to the graveyard with.

“What the hell you been doing?” Turner said. “And what the hell’s that?”

“Can’t hear you, man. Please talk into the microphone.”

“Periscope up,” said the other.

They were right on the other side of some plastic plants and trash barrels. I heard a rustling and looked up fearfully. A long metal stalk poked up over the plants. It had a box for a head.

“What is that thing?” asked Turner. “Where you been?”

“We’re not going to take that BQ bull.”

“No way,” said the other one. “Picking that field? No way are we gonna take that. Them like paying off the ump? No way.”

“So we just had a little payback.”

“What?” said Turner. I could hear the excitement in his voice. “What’d you guys do?”

“So we swung by the Burger Queen —”

“Home of the Jumbo.”

“No,” said Turner. “That’s my pants.”

“Swung by BQ, pulled up in back.”

“The drive-thru lane.”

“Drove right up to the microphone.”

“Right up.”

“Stole it.”

There was a silence.

“The microphone. Which is what we —”

“Taa-daa!”

“— have right here.”

“That’s theirs?” Turner hissed. “Man, you have to hide that thing! Mike sees that, we’re dead! Why’d you bring it in?”

“You’ll have to speak into the microphone.”

“Hi, Turner. Can we take your order?”

“Please proceed to the first window.”

“Shut the hell up,” said Turner. “Get that out of here!”

“Periscope up!” said one of them.

The plastic ferns wagged. Suddenly the square head of the microphone thrust through again. It stared down at me. I flattened myself against the trash barrel. The head jiggled. It was dented.

“Stop screwing around!” said Turner.

The head pulled back.

“Are you pissed off or something?” said one of them.

“’Course I’m pissed off!” said Turner. “You’re a couple of idiots! Why didn’t you take me with you? I’d’ve gone, man.”

“It was kind of a spur of the minute thing.”

“We were just like, hey, we could throw a rock at their camera and then grab their microphone.”

“You broke the camera?”

“That’ll teach ’em to laugh at my goddamn game.”

“We had to break the camera, man. Otherwise they would’ve seen us hitting the microphone with the softball bats.”

“BANG! BANG! And it was like,
wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.”

“Stop waving that thing around. Jeez, you girls are stupid. Mike sees this, he’ll be completely ripped and he’ll call the cops.”

“So what do you think of it?”

“It’s risky, man,” said Turner, “but necessary. I mean, you got to do what you got to do.”

“Exactly.”

“Thank you for such a great game, Mrs. BQ. BANG! BANG! BANG!”

“It wasn’t all them,” said Turner. “I was on sucky form.”

“Yeah. We shouldn’t have gotten stoked before the game.”

“We didn’t play too good either.”

“You sucked,” said Turner. “And that little shit whatsisname — Little Miss Anthony —” (my fingers tightened on my knees) “— he sucked bigtime. After the game I
kicked him so hard he was puking. I like held his head underwater. He was gasping for breath and stuff. I said, ‘That’ll show you to mess up my game.’ Then I put his head under again for a really long time. And gentlemen, it felt beautiful.”

“Please, Turner. Just once. Speak into the mike.”

When I got home, my parents were sitting holding hands in the den. The den was dark. The day wasn’t bad outside, but the shades were drawn.

“Hey,” I said, and started up the stairs.

“Anthony,” said my father.

“Darling,” said my mother. “We need to talk.” She had a legal notepad next to her on the sofa.

My hand was on the banister. “What’s up?”

“Why don’t you take a seat in that chair?” my father said sorrowfully. “It’s very comfortable.”

I walked over to the recliner. I was suspicious. I sat down slowly. “Should I extend the footrest?”

My father shook his head. My mother said, “Anthony.”

I wriggled. I wanted to center myself on the cushion. It seemed like it might be the kind of conversation where you wanted to be in the center of the cushion.