The Batboy (19 page)

Brian couldn’t help himself
.

“I’ll pick them up for you,” he said in the sudden silence. “If you want.”

“You don’t give up, do you?” Hank said.

“Just doing my job,” Brian said, squeezing out a smile. “Picking up balls is part of it, you know.”

Brian came through the netting then. The two of them picked up balls together. When they were finished, Hank said, “You don’t have to stay.”

“I’m good.”

“Yeah, just like me.”

Hank readjusted his batting gloves, almost like he needed something to do. “Guy I used to play with said to me one time, ‘When you’re young and in a slump, it’s just a slump,’” he said. “ ‘But when you’re old and in a slump, you’re just old.’”

“You’ll get to 500,” Brian said.

“You think that’s what this is about?” he said.

“Well, no,” Brian said, almost like he felt his own words tripping him up. “I mean, yeah, I thought that was
part
of it.”

“It was never about that,” Hank said in a quiet voice. “Never.”

He went back to driving balls off the tee, taking his time, checking his hands before every swing and setting them behind his right shoulder, setting them high, holding his follow-through sometimes. Brian stood there and felt as if he’d been watching this swing his whole life, as if this were some kind of old Hank Bishop highlight reel come to life.

Yet he knew better.

This swing was different.

Hank Bishop was the one carrying his hands too high, the one with the small hitch in his swing, throwing his timing all out of whack.

Brian was sure of it. He’d noticed it yesterday.

The question was, What was he going to do about it?

Hank valued Brian’s opinion the way he would value a fly’s.

“I’m swinging late even hitting off a stinking tee,” Hank said now.

Okay, Brian thought, now or never. No guts, no glory.

He took a deep breath.

“You know, I’ve been noticing something, watching you.”

Hank turned toward him, hands already cocked in his batting pose. Not looking at Brian in a mean way. Just slowly shaking his head. “Seriously? I’ve gotten advice from everybody, kid. And I mean
every
body. You should read my mail. Please don’t you start, I’m begging you.”

Brian put up his hands, making himself smile, feeling himself actually backing up into the netting as he did. “No,” he said.

“No is right,” Hank said. “No more talk.”

“Got it.”

“Excellent.”

He took about twenty more swings, the swings becoming more and more fierce, his face looking more and more angry, sweat pouring off him at the end the way it had when he’d been taking his BP outside with Rudy.

Brian picked up the balls by himself this time. Hank had had enough for the night.

About fifteen minutes later they were coming out of the elevator together, walking across the lobby and into the cool night air. And the air was cool enough to make Brian think that his summer with the Tigers was beginning to come to an end.

He looked up and saw his mom standing near their car. “I was afraid I was going to have to come in after you,” she said. Then to Hank she said, “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going to have to use the Jaws of Life to pry him loose from the Tigers.”

“It wasn’t Brian’s fault tonight, Mrs. Dudley,” Hank said. “It was mine.”

“Liz,” she said.

Hank grinned. “We’ve gone over this already, haven’t we?”

“That we have.”

“Your boy was helping me out tonight,” Hank Bishop said. “Little late-night batting practice. Trying to break me out of this horrendous slump I’m in.”

“And did he?” she said. “Help you out of it, I mean.”

I could have, Brian thought. I just didn’t get the chance.

Wimped out, totally.

“I’m not sure anyone can at this point.”

“I can,” Liz Dudley said.

“Excuse me?”

“I know exactly what you need, Mr. Bishop.”

“Hank.”

“
Hank
,” she said. “What you need is a home-cooked meal away. Far away from baseball. Far, far away.”

No way he says yes, Brian thought.

No way ever.

Please say yes.

“I couldn’t,” Hank said.

“Well, I insist,” she said. “What about after Sunday afternoon’s game?”

Brian stood there waiting, holding his breath, looking from his mom to Hank Bishop, still thinking, No way in this world.

“I accept,” Hank said.

S
unday afternoon. The Tigers had beaten the Twins 5-1.

Hank even managed a clean single to right his last time up, Brian hoping that it might put him in a better mood for dinner, still worrying he might find some kind of last-minute excuse to beg out.

So in the clubhouse after the game Brian said to him, “My mom just wanted me to check with you, that you’re still coming tonight.”

Hank had already showered and changed by then. “Been a while since I’ve had a home-cooked meal cooked by anybody except me,” he said. “So, yeah, kid, I’m still in.”

Then he said he had to stop by his apartment on his way to Bloomfield Hills and pick something up. Told him to tell his mom not to worry—he’d be there.

“You know,” Finn said in his mom’s car on the way to drop off Brian at home, “I’ve checked my own calendar and I’m actually free tonight.”

“Dude,” Brian said, “if I could, you know I would. But it’s just supposed to be the three of us, Mom’s orders.”

Finn nodded. “I hear you. In our house you break Mom’s orders and even one of those presidential pardons can’t save you.”

From the front seat Finn’s mom said, “I always love it when you talk about me as if I’m not here.”

When they dropped Brian off, Finn made him promise to send texts throughout the evening. Brian laughed and said he’d just set up his laptop in the middle of the table so they could video-chat between courses.

They were eating in the dining room tonight. Brian couldn’t even remember the last time he and his mom had eaten in there. They always ate at the kitchen table when it was just the two of them.

And it had just been the two of them for a long time.

She had set the table with her best plates and silverware and glasses, even had two candles she said Brian could light when the time came. She had tossed a huge salad, was preparing to throw a couple of steaks on the grill, and had made one of Brian’s favorite desserts, banana cream pie.

Liz Dudley was also wearing a new dress, a blue summer dress she had bought the day before.

“You look awesome, Mom,” Brian said when she came downstairs in it.

She looked down. “It isn’t too much?”

“Too much awesome?”

“I mean, does it look like I’m trying too hard?”

“To do what?” Brian said. He smiled at her.

She smiled back. “Shut up,” she said, heading outside to check on the grill. But she looked happy, as happy and excited as he had seen her in a long time. Brian knew this was more than just dinner for her. It was a little weird, but he had to admit, he got it.

Hank showed up right on time, seven thirty on the nose. Brian and his mom were waiting on the front step as he came up the cobblestone walk with a bottle of wine in his hand.

He handed the wine to Liz Dudley and said, “A little contribution to this fine meal.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

He was wearing a blazer and white button-down shirt and blue jeans and had even shaved, Brian noticed—something he never seemed to do at the ballpark. He somehow always seemed to be three days into growing a beard.

To Brian now he said, “Hey.”

“Hey, Mr. Bishop.”

“We’re both off duty tonight,” he said. “Let’s make it Hank.”

Brian said he was good with that and the three of them went inside. As they did, it occurred to him suddenly that this was actually
Hank Bishop
and that he was actually inside
his house.
It was as if Brian was getting the chance to meet him again for the first time. Thinking that if somebody had told him at the start of the summer that a night like this was going to happen—if somebody had
ever
told him that a night like this was going to happen—he would have laughed.

It was during dessert that his mom said, “I’m sorry things haven’t been going as well for you as you must have hoped they would.”

“Wow,” he said. “Ain’t that the truth?”

“I know you said everybody’s off duty tonight,” she said. “So we can drop this if you like and talk about something else.”

Hank looked at Brian. “Your mom is a lot nicer than most sportswriters.”

“Whoa,” Brian said, “not so fast,” and everybody laughed.

When the table was quiet again, Hank said, “Maybe my expectations for myself were overly high coming in. But I never thought I’d sink this low, to tell you the truth.”

“Your batting average, you mean?” Liz Dudley said.

“I mean everything.”

There was another silence at the dining room table now, feeling to Brian like the longest one of the night, until his mom said, “If I make up one more small pot of coffee, would you have some with me, Hank?”

“Love some.”

Brian’s mom said, “So why don’t you two go into the living room while I clean up and get the coffee going.”

“Please let me help,” Hank said.

“Go,” she said. “Both of you. If I continue to monopolize the conversation, I am going to hear it from my son when you leave.”

Brian said, “We could sit in the den if you want, and watch some of
Sunday Night Baseball.
”

“No, thank you,” Hank said. “I’ve had enough baseball for one day.”

So they sat in the living room, Hank on the couch, Brian across from him in one of the formal chairs he hardly ever sat in. They weren’t in the ballpark world now. Just Brian’s world.

“I didn’t think my mom would start talking baseball,” Brian said.

“It’s fine.”

“But you just said you were baseballed out today.”

In a soft voice then, one Brian almost didn’t recognize, Hank Bishop said, “I don’t know if I can still do it.”

Brian said, “Not true.”

“Yeah, kid,” Hank said, “I’m afraid it is.”

“You’ll come out of this,” Brian said. “I know you will. You hit a great pitch today your last time up. The guy was sure he had you set up inside, and you stayed right with him anyway, went the other way.”

“I guessed right.”

“You’ve guessed right a lot in your life.”

“Mostly when I was still the Bishop of Baseball.”

“You still are.”

From the kitchen they both heard Brian’s mom call out, “Five minutes more, I promise. Try not to miss me too much.”

“We’re fine,” Hank said.

“You can’t give up now,” Brian said. “You’ve come back from . . . You’ve come too far, is all I’m sayin’.” Brian grinned. “And I know you say you don’t care about the 500, but you’re
right there.
And once you hit number 500, you’ll probably hit six in a week. Isn’t that the way it always happens when you bust out of a slump?”

Hank leaned forward, big hands on his knees. “I told you this before. It was never about 500. It wasn’t even about playing in a World Series, as much as I’d love to do that.”

“You will.”

Brian looked past Hank, toward the door to the kitchen. Not wanting his mom to come back. Not yet.

Not right now.

Hank shook his head. “Why am I talking about this with you?”

Brian just came out with the truth then, as plainly as he could.

“Because I’m still the biggest fan you’ve got,” he said.

“After everything I’ve done.”

“Yeah,” Brian said. “After everything you’ve done.”

“Amazing,” he said. “The way people stay with you.”

“So if it isn’t 500 home runs and it isn’t the Series, then why
did
you come back?”

“Because I had something to prove.”

Brian took a deep breath, let it out, said, “You mean to the people who said you were all about steroids.”

Hank stared at Brian now, almost as if they both knew it was his turn to tell the truth.

“No,” he said. “Believe it or not, it was never about them, either. I came back because I had to prove something to my
self
.”