Slide - Kyle Beachy [35]
“Tell me.”
“A gallon of milk,” Ian said.
“You want to guess how much a gallon of water weighs?”
“I don't know how to do that,” he said. “I can't guess in water.”
I waddled the cooler away from the wall so I could get at its handle. The coolers themselves weighed less than a bottle, but their weight was distributed so unevenly there was really no best way to carry them. The longer you worked with things, the better you became at handling their specific system of challenges. The calluses on my hands proved my body's proclivity to make its job easier. But I hadn't been exposed to enough poor children alone with nothing but cartoons and darkness to get them through the day.
“Eight pounds,” I said. “Eight per gallon.”
“I didn't know that.”
“And milk probably weighs a little more, because of its density.”
Ian shut his eyes and whispered, “Density”
Something was wrong. My character was not supposed to be here. I realized if I didn't get out of there with all possible diligence, there was going to be failure. Something was sure to crash, the system would fracture, and everything in this kid's already shitty plane would go even further to shit. I picked up the cooler and began the walk to the door. I heard the kid's footsteps behind me and started walking faster. Halfway through the living room, I stepped on some floorborne object and dropped the cooler to the ground. Of course. The kid stood behind me and watched. I bent and picked up an inexpensive baseball mitt. Tucked inside was a brown-green baseball, scraped with the marks of street use.
“If you're gonna take the cooler we should at least play some catch.” He was wearing swimming trunks and a peach T-shirt with fluorescent designs puffy-painted in bright yellow. “Fair's supposed to be fair.”
“We need another glove,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. Me and Dad both got one at Glove Night. It was a long time ago. The guy at the gate gave me a glove just for coming. Free except for paying for the game. I got one and so did Dad, ‘cause he found one sitting outside the bathroom. It's in the closet somewhere.”
I opened the closet and found two winter coats, both turquoise, hanging among a dozen empty hangers. The floor was a pile of assorted balls and skates and hockey sticks. The other glove was on a shelf above the hangers, stuck between board games and the wall. In the front yard we stood only a few paces apart and tossed lazy overhands that arced and fell into basket catches. Gradually, we spread farther apart and began throwing with more velocity There was catharsis: the movement to reel in Ian's throw, eye-hand coordination, the quick rescue of ragged ball from glove, spun with intuition into throwing hand so that index and middle fingers crossed the fraying seams. And finally the pendulum drop to the waist before rising behind my head. Release with follow-through. There was artistry somewhere within this sequence of muscle memory; too long dormant, awakened now by this filthy poor little kid and a pair of complimentary pleather gloves.
After a while our throws crossed the length of the yard. I was shocked by the strength of his tiny little arm. Arms like this were reserved for corn-fed little machine boys who went to summer camps with Louisville bags and sliding pants and sweatbands, who wore protective cups even before they knew why. I stood backed against the old porch and Ian was near the van. Back, forth. Each throw and catch was a link to the continuum of baseball procedure and lore. There was tradition here.
One of Ian's throws bounced short, but before it did I watched it change from a short throw to a blooped single knocked out to me in left field, and I saw a runner circling third, his coach maniacally waving home the potential tying run. I charged and scooped just as I was supposed to, crow-hopped, and fired.
Ian screamed JESUS and fell to the ground. The ball hit the van with a hollow crunk and rebounded back into the yard. Ian glared at me from his knees. My shoulder twinged with pain as I made my way slowly to the ball.
“Ow,” I said.