Slide - Kyle Beachy [95]
At the slam of my car door he turned for a second, looked at me, then returned to the game. I took a seat in the grass. On every fifth throw or so a little bit of roof came down with the ball. I picked up a blade and tried unsuccessfully to make it buzz. I watched Ian for a while longer, then shifted onto my back with hands behind my head, closed my eyes, and listened to the ball hit the roof, clunk off gutter, clap into hands. This continued for twenty-nine more tosses. When the sound stopped I sat up and saw that he was sitting on the porch.
“I tried to break in one of my gloves with some oil and it fell apart. Now I only got one glove. What's even the point of having one glove?”
“You could've used it just now.”
“No, because of the way that other one fell apart I feel like I should get used to not having any glove. Because who knows when the other one's going to fall apart or get lost or explode.”
How was this goddamn kid so goddamn smart?
“The Tower Tee batting cage is hands down the best batting cage in the city The old machines, the old netting and fences. The sounds and the smells. The whir and creak of ancient machinery. Come on. I'll drive.”
It had been years since I'd been to the cage, and I hadn't made the connection that it was so close to Ian's house, just a few miles. The sign for Tower Tee was tall and yellow, jarring out here among the many trees and grass and so many other trees. Upon turning into the lot, I was overwhelmed by the most pleasant subsection of memory. The last time I was here I would have been fine-tuning my swing, sheer repetition, confident in the causal chain between work and success. They still had the old Fanta machine.
We finally had our break in the heat. Daily temperatures had fallen to the upper eighties and the chill had lured people outdoors; there were cars overflowing the slim strip of parking lot onto grass. Among them I saw the familiar pinched snout of an old silver Datsun 280Z, much like my father's. The car was backed into its spot just as he would park, almost always, a memory of Richard lifting his arm to my seat's headrest and glancing over his shoulder, eyebrows up, a bit of paternal showmanship justified by a valuable lesson when we left—look how much easier to get out.
And now I saw him up there, standing over a section of Astroturf at Tower Tee's driving range. He was wearing dark pants and a plain white undershirt. At his feet sat two mammoth wire buckets, one halfway empty the other overflowing with cheap range balls. Just across the lawn, fifty feet away.
What day was it? Was he even in town officially? Had Edsel sent him the pictures? Only now did I consider that there would be no warning when he did. No courteous heads-up alert. I looked to the main Tower Tee building over by the putt-putt course and batting cages. Was I the type of son to pretend like I hadn't seen him here? My own car was parked not far away.
“We should go say hello to my dad.”
“Oh,” Ian said. Then he sighed, and I wondered, should this go on record? Age eleven, sighing like a sixty year old.
We walked past three high school football players dressed in practice uniforms, legs still padded, seeing who could come closest to hitting the fence at the far end of the range, a good four hundred some yards away. Absolute brute force and laughter. The singularity of what was happening here, the one-way propulsion of objects into a void. The sounds were fwip, then clinnuk, as clubs cut through thick air and caught a bit of turf along with ball and rubber tee. About halfway down the line of golfers was Richard, with one club and two buckets. We stood behind him for several minutes, unnoticed. Ian climbed onto the park bench and watched from there. We might have stood there all day long.
“That's a lot of balls, Pop.”
Sudden laughter from Ian because balls, yes, balls are funny. Kids and their comedic carte blanche: balls, farts, midgets, monkeys. Richard turned and took the two of us in for a moment before