A High Five for Glenn Burke Page 7

  Yeah, you’re so gay.

  I’m sitting in the dark on the bathroom floor. I have been ever since everyone went to sleep, and everyone went to sleep hours ago.

  I can’t stop hearing the way Theo and Kareem said it. It’s the same way kids say it all the time. But I can’t say anything, because if I do say anything, kids are going to start talking and asking questions. And I don’t want them to start talking and asking questions. They can’t start talking and asking questions. They just can’t.

  I think about what Billy Martin said, what Billy Martin said to the Oakland A’s players when he introduced Glenn Burke to the team: Oh, by the way, this is Glenn Burke, and he’s a faggot.

  Even in the dark, I can see the rows of star-shaped stickers Haley has stuck to the vanity’s cabinet door. Each sticker has a different drawing. I’m able to make out some of them—flowers, a duck, a baseball, smiley faces, a rainbow.

  When Glenn Burke played for the Dodgers, he was the heart and soul of their clubhouse, but he must’ve been scared all the time. I know all about how he was angry and frustrated and lonely and heartbroken when he was run out of baseball, but when he was playing, he must’ve always been so scared.

  This is so gay, Silas.

  Yeah, you’re so gay.

  I press my palms against the tiles and stand up. I turn on the water, stare into the mirror, and look for my reflection in the dark.

  Other kids go along with it when kids say it. Other kids always go along with it. Not every kid, but the kids who don’t go along with it never say anything. They don’t stop it. They just sit there silently, because if they do say something, kids might think. Even when they sit there silently, kids might think.

  I cup my hands under the faucet and watch as the water pools out and circles the drain.

  It’s all I think about now. Whenever I catch myself lost in thought, it’s what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about what every kid does and what every kid says and how every kid looks at me.

  It’s like I’m keeping score.

  15

  DESTINY’S CHILD

  I’m staring at Zoey’s front door, and I have been for a few minutes. I never knock or ring the bell because I’m allowed to let myself in. And I know the door’s unlocked, but I don’t want to go in, because Zoey’s going to want to talk about what happened at practice and I really, really don’t want to talk about what happened at practice.

  She had a robotics meeting this afternoon, which is why she wasn’t in ELA and why we didn’t talk in school. It’s also why I took the bus here by myself instead of riding with her like we always do on Wednesdays. It feels weird—different—being here. It’s my first time here since telling her.

  Zoey already knows The Sandlot show didn’t go as planned because I texted her last night, but I didn’t go into details. I told her I would tomorrow, but I really, really, really don’t want to.

  I reach for the knob and pull open the door. Zoey’s waiting for me in the living room on the couch, just like I knew she would be.

  “So what happened?” she says, patting the cushion and motioning for me to sit. “Tell me everything.”

  I kick off my sneakers and slide my bag down my shoulders. “Oh, hi, Zoey,” I say.

  “Hey, Silas.” She pats the cushion again. “So what happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, sitting down.

  “Tell me everything.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “My dad’ll drop off the costumes when he picks me up,” I say. I reach behind me for one of the yellow throw pillows with the tassels on the corners and put it on my lap. “They can’t stay at the apartment because Semaj keeps wanting to know what’s in the suitcases, and that means it’s only a matter of time until she opens one, and as soon as she does…” I don’t finish the sentence. “I can’t even look at them right now.”

  “Have you been moping like this since yesterday?”

  I grip the pillow and don’t answer.

  Zoey’s staring at me. I know she thinks I’m overreacting again, but I’m not overreacting and really can’t deal with her telling me I’m overreacting.

  “Silas, Silas, Silas,” she says.

  She bounces off the couch and over to the orange-and-blue FC Cincinnati mini soccer ball against the wall in the corner and starts juggling it with her feet. Zoey can juggle a soccer ball hundreds of times, but the only time she does it in the house is when Dolores isn’t home, because of the ceramic vase incident in fourth grade and the picture frame incident last year.

  “This can’t be the only thing we ever talk about,” I say. “Since last week, we always end up—”

  “Stop.” She catches the ball with one hand and holds out the other. “That’s so not true,” she says. “You came in and said you didn’t want to talk about what happened at practice, so we’re not talking about it.” She drops the ball and starts juggling again. “It’s not the only thing we ever talk about.”

  “Fine,” I say. I wrap my fingers around one of the tassels. “Let’s just talk about … let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”

  “Robotics?” She traps the soccer ball with her heel.

  “Fine,” I say again.

  “Come with me.” She kicks the soccer ball into the corner.

  “Where are we going?”

  We head upstairs, and a few seconds later, we’re in Grace’s room, only it looks nothing like the last time I was in Grace’s room. It doesn’t even look like a bedroom anymore because the only piece of furniture left is the red dresser against the wall. On the floor and taking up practically the entire room is a robotics setup. It looks like someone lifted the top off a large pool table, designed a course on it, and dropped it in the middle of Grace’s room.

  “No way,” I say, walking around the setup. “When did this happen?”

  “A few weeks ago,” Zoey says, double-dimple grinning.

  “Where does Grace sleep?” I ask.

  “On the couch in the living room. She actually prefers it.”

  “This is so awesome,” I say. “Did you build this?”

  “Our team did.” She pats the table. “This field mat should actually be on sawhorses or table legs. That’s how it is at the rec center, but I keep it on the floor here.”

  I look around. The framed poster from the Playhouse’s production of Little Shop of Horrors, signed by the cast and crew, still hangs on the wall above where Grace’s bed used to be. “Your silence will not protect you,” the Audre Lorde quote, is stenciled in cursive on the wall over the windows. If not for those, I wouldn’t know I was in Grace’s room.

  “Meet Destiny’s Child,” Zoey says, sliding over to the dresser and picking up the catcher’s-mitt-sized robot.

  “Destiny’s Child?” I say, smiling. “The eighth graders let you name it?”

  “The eighth graders loved my name for our mission model. I told them it was our destiny to win the competition, and that this was our child. They thought it was brilliant.”

  “Did you tell them how much you love Destiny’s Child?” I’m still smiling. “And that you know the words to every song ever performed by Michelle, Kelly, and Beyoncé?”

  Zoey double-dimples again. “Well, you know that, and I know that, but they don’t need to know that.”

  “Can I hold it?” I ask.

  “Sure.” She hands it to me.

  “Wow. It’s heavier than I thought it would be.”

  I see robots like this all the time at school, but I’ve never held one or looked at one this closely. It’s all different colors—gray, white, yellow, and red—and has four wheels, two smaller turntable ones in the front and two bigger ones in the back. Between the wheels is a row of ports with wires connected to all different parts.

  “Zoey, this is amazing,” I say. “Your team’s definitely going to win.”

  “How can you say tha
t?” she says. “You haven’t seen the other mission models.”

  “I don’t need to. Destiny’s Child has to be the best.”

  “Silas, you do realize you have no idea what you’re talking about, right?”

  “How is it powered?”

  She reaches over and tilts it up. “Battery pack.”

  “What’s this?” I point to a circle on the underside.

  “A color sensor. It sends down a beam and then reads the information. So when DC’s driving along—”

  “DC?”

  “Destiny’s Child, DC,” she says. “So when DC’s driving along, a black line tells it to do something, and a red line will tell it to do something else. Watch.”

  A minute later, Destiny’s Child is following a black line on the field. When it reaches a structure that resembles a silo, it pushes a lever, and the top pops up. Then DC rotates around and follows a red line over to a small cylinder. It picks up the cylinder, brings it over to a large canister, and drops it in.

  “This is so awesome,” I say.

  “So the goal is to have DC perform as many missions as possible in two minutes and thirty seconds. That’s how you earn points. The more difficult the mission, the more points you earn.”

  “DC has to win.”

  She powers it off and picks it up. “This is the brain,” she says, waving her hand over the block section in the middle. “All the programs go in here.”

  “The programs you write,” I say.

  “The programs I write.”

  She puts DC back on the dresser and then turns to me. She stares but doesn’t say anything.

  “What?” I say.

  She’s still staring.

  “What?”

  “I think you should tell Grace,” she says.

  I stare back.

  “I’m serious,” she says. “You should—”

  “I thought we weren’t talking about this anymore.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Zoey, I heard you the other day.”

  “I’m not saying you need to today or tomorrow, but maybe when she’s done with Bye Bye Birdie, you can—”

  “I heard you,” I say.

  “I’m the only one who knows, Silas,” she says. “It’s so weird for me.”

  “Weird for you?” I clench my fists. “This isn’t about you!”

  Suddenly, it’s silent, and I’m staring at Zoey again, and she’s staring back at me again. There’s no longer any doubt about the weirdness between us, not that there was any doubt, but now I know beyond a reasonable one that Zoey feels it, too.

  I look down and run my hand along the edge of the border wall of the field mat. “So my mom … my mom’s taking Haley and me to Bye Bye Birdie opening night,” I say softly, breaking the silence. “We’re going to dinner before. You should … you should come with us.”

  “I should,” Zoey says. “Dolores was supposed to take me, but she’s shooting a wedding on Friday. So we’re going Saturday. After the first day of robotics.”

  “Everything’s next weekend,” I say. “Bye Bye Birdie opens, you have your competition, and I have a triple-header. If I didn’t have games on Saturday, I’d definitely be at your competition.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Zoey says, smiling, but she’s not smiling like she usually does.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I try to smile, too. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  16

  TEAMWORK

  I’m out in center field for fly ball practice, and I’m wearing a bright orange wig underneath my Renegades cap. I’ve had it on since I got to Field of Dreams, and I’ve been killing it all afternoon—raking the ball during batting practice and catching everything hit my way during fielding practice, and in baseball, when something’s working, you keep on doing it.

  “Wade!” Coach Noles shouts. “Last one!”

  I’m up on the balls of my feet, and my eyes are laser-locked on the feed chute.

  Coach Noles is manning the pitching machine by home plate. He’s been mixing speeds and trajectories the whole time Brayden, Ernesto, and I have been out here, but so far, I’ve chased down every ball, and I’m chasing down this one, too.

  The ball shoots out, and the instant it appears, I know it’s heading for the left center-field fence. I take off full speed because I need to cover a lot of ground if I’m going to catch it, and I’m going to catch it because, when I’m out in center, it’s where hits go to die.

  I’m gaining ground and getting close to the fence, but that’s not going to slow me or stop me. I leave my feet and dive, and with my glove fully extended, I catch the ball in the webbing and hold on as I hit the ground and crash into the base of the fence.

  “That’s what I demand from my outfield!” Coach Noles shouts.

  But I haven’t completed the play. I roll over and spring to my feet and then fire a throw to Ben-Ben at third. I aim for Malik—the perfectly lined-up cutoff man—who lets the ball go through, and my two-hop pea hits Ben-Ben’s glove right in front of the third-base bag.

  “Holy crap!” Brayden races over from left field and pats me on the back with his glove. “You’re a bad man, Wade!”

  “Dude!” Ben-Ben has both arms raised at third. “Dude!”

  “Epic!” Malik chomps on his mouthguard and pumps his glove at me. “The catch of the year and the throw of the year.”

  I take off my cap, shake out the orange wig, and then sprint back to my position in center.

  “That’s what I demand from my outfield!” Coach Noles shouts again. “But you’re not done, Wade. Let’s see what you really got out there.”

  It’s not like I haven’t been showing Coach Noles what I really have out here all practice, but if what I’ve been showing him hasn’t been enough, I’m up for showing more.

  The ball rockets out of the feed chute, and this time it’s heading for short right-center.

  “I got it, I got it, I got it!” I call on the dead run.

  Malik at short and Jason at second are both racing back, but Malik veers off because he knows it’s the center fielder’s ball, and I never give way.

  “Mine! Mine!” Jason shouts.

  I’m not stopping or slowing. “Me, me, me!” I call.

  Jason dives for it anyway, but the ball tips off the end of his glove. At the last possible moment, I somehow manage to hurdle Jason and avoid a full-impact collision. I also manage to keep my eye on the ball—which has changed direction—and with my bare hand, I reach back and snare it. But the toe of my right cleat clips Jason’s shin, propelling me into a midair flip. My cap flies off in one direction and the wig in another, and I crash to the ground, landing on my glove, shoulder, and side. I roll onto my back and hold up the ball, still gripped tightly in my hand.

  “Savage!” Luis races out from first base.

  “Holy crap, holy crap!” Brayden says, charging in from left.

  “Absolutely epic!” Malik says as everybody piles on. “The play of the year.”

  “That’s what I call teamwork!” Coach Noles pumps his fist. “That’s what I demand from my outfield.”

  * * *

  “Bye, guys,” I say as Jason gets into Coach Rockford’s car. “See you Saturday.”

  “Later, Silas.” Carter waves.

  “See ya,” Ernesto says

  I shake out my wig like a guitarist in a metal band and wave to Jason, Carter, and Ernesto as Coach Rockford drives off. When they turn out of the Field of Dreams parking lot, I look back at Webb. He’s doing a sweep of the bleachers and dugouts, making sure no one left anything behind, like he always does after practices.

  I sit on the curb and check my phone. Dad was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. I knew he’d be late, but I didn’t think he’d be this late, and I definitely didn’t think I’d be the last one to get picked up. I hate that Webb’s waiting on me, because I know he has to get to a coaches’ meeting, which is why Jason went home with Coach Rockford instead of him.

  “Last but not leas
t,” Webb says, walking my way. “Looks like Grace is running late.”

  “No, my dad is,” I say. “Grace has rehearsal for Bye Bye Birdie tonight.”

  “The show at the Playhouse?” he says, standing up the equipment bags he was wheeling. “My wife got us tickets. We’re going next weekend.” He knees my shoulder. “Text Gil. I’ll give you a lift.”

  “I thought you had a meeting.”

  “You’re on the way.”

  I text Dad, and a second later, I can see he’s typing me back. I know his text is going to be the double emoji response he sends all the time—a thumbs-up and praying hands—and that’s exactly what shows up on my screen.

  “Ready?” Webb tilts one of the bags to me.

  I grab my bag from the sidewalk, pop to my feet, and take the handle from Webb.

  “That was quite a catch you made at the fence,” he says as we head into the lot. “Quite a catch and quite a throw.”

  I shake the wig out of my eyes. “I’m like a human baseball magnet,” I say.

  “A human baseball magnet?” Webb laughs. “I like that.”

  “That’s because you said it!”

  He laughs again. “That does sound like something I’d say.”

  “The best fielders are human baseball magnets,” I say in my Webb voice. “They attract the ball and are one with the ball.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like me.” Webb nudges me with an elbow.

  I glance back at the fields even though I know we’re the only ones here.

  “Have you … have you ever heard of Glenn Burke?” I ask.

  “Glenn Burke the baseball player?” he says. “The guy who invented the high five.”

  “You know about him?”

  “Are you doubting my baseball knowledge, Number Three?”

  “My bad,” I say, smiling.

  “Darn right, your bad.”

  “I just did a report on him for school,” I say. “He invented the high five in 1977, but the opening scene of The Sandlot takes place in 1962, and when Benny scores after getting out of the pickle, Ham and Bertram give him high fives. That would’ve been impossible in 1962. It’s an anachronism.”