Boy's World

Derek Zumsteg

Back to Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Karen was on the side, warming up with the third catcher on the team. She was throwing softly, but her motion was the same, the early start, the gliding finish.

"She's something else," Callahan said, shaking his head. His slow chin followed reluctantly.

"Yup," Steve said.

Callahan smiled. "Coaching Karen is the kind of thing that makes me look good. At least when she's trying to get her pitches down to the right speed, I can help her. Most of the time I just stand around and make supportive noises."

"She listens to you," Steve said.

"Maybe I should say more. What I can't figure out is why she's trying to learn a changeup," Callahan said. "She's already got three great pitches."

"And four varieties of each."

They stood and watched Karen

"Hey, did you hear who's playing for the Tampa Yankees this week?"

Callahan looked over. "Who?"

"Paul O'Neill."

"Really? I guess I should pay attention to the papers down here." He laughed.

"What?"

"The Yankees have this huge complex down here, Steinbrenner answers the phones sometimes, they're so... I don't know.. so they send their aging right fielder to down to home turf so he can beat up on high-A-ball for a week, and he's comes up against Karen?" Callahan laughed.

Karen finished on the mound and they walked with her back to the dugout.

"I feel good today," Karen said.

"Great, great," Callahan said. "You hear O'Neill's down here on a rehab?"

"I heard that rumor," Karen said. "I didn't know press passes got you field access."

Steve and Callahan looked at each other as Karen smiled. "Ah, you two. It's sweet you're bonding. I have to go work on my game face, so you'll excuse me." They stopped walking. "I'm going to be brilliant today," she said, and walked on back to the clubhouse.

Karen sat in the clubhouse as people came and went, talking of movies, bars, television, her head down, thinking over and over about how much she hated the Tampa Yankees, the way they rolled their shoulders as they walked to the batter's box, as if the only thing worth being was a Yankee farmhand. They didn't know. It was time for Karen to stop learning and begin to teach. Karen stared at the concrete floor and started to draw from it, feeling the thin hair on her arms raise up like static wires, the excitement in her spine. It was time.

Karen walked to the mound to start the game with her measured paces, head down like De La Hoya avoiding the eyes of his opponent at the glove-tap. From the stands she could hear a background of static, her cheers drowned by jeering fans -- did the Yankees have hooligans here in rehab, too? -- who had finally caught up to the Steve-seeded chants with obscenity and adapted truly tasteless jokes.

All the better.

The Yankees led off with a good fielding projectable outfielder who was tearing up the league by slapping singles and running them out for doubles. Karen started him with a curve on the black of the plate for a ball. She threw it again in the same place and got a strike called as the leadoff hitter watched it go by. Karen took her time setting up to throw the next pitch, the same curve moved outside, which he swung at. She brought it back in again for a called third strike, and he stood up, looked at her, and then walked back to the dugout.

Their second batter was a product of the Yankees' worldwide conspiracy of a scouting operation, a Central American second baseman with pop, struggling after being promoted from the rookie-league Gulf Coast Yankees. Karen knew why he was struggling and gave him three breaking balls on the knees for called strikes, and he stood there, not looking at the ump but at her, as if the hecklers had intentionally misled him.

"¡Siéntese abajo!" Karen yelled. He came to and walked back to the dugout. Her catcher shook behind his pads, laughing.

Karen offered the third hitter an easy breaking ball for strike one, and he obliged by grounding to short.

Karen sat on the bench between innings, staring at the fence in front of the dugout.

Paul O'Neill gave her the Paul O'Neill look, the same neutral I-own-you he used on the major league flotsam he preys upon. Karen stared back at him, knowing O'Neill from statistics and video, his first pitch ahead-in-count tendencies, a page of numbers for his last three years memorized yesterday, and she knew his powers were ineffective against her. Karen fed him a high fastball that he got ahead of and missed badly. The risk gone, Karen gave him another, an inch up, and O'Neill swung again, and then Karen brought the fastball again, one more inch up the ladder, out of the strike zone, and O'Neill bit again. He slammed his bat into the plate and tossed it off towards the dugout.

"Retire or move down another level," Karen said. O'Neill turned, arms out from his hips.

"What?"

"You heard me, scrub."

He gave her his best "coming revenge" look over his heavy shoulder as he walked on back to the bench.

Karen kept on, working the ground outs, the weak pop-ups, and when O'Neill came up again, giving her that glare, Karen gave it back. O'Neill's soured expression carried into his batting face. Karen brought him the same high heat, out of the strike zone, and O'Neill watched it for a strike and then stepped off at the batter's box, looking at her, confident as ever. Karen brought the heat on his hands for a foul, and then they stared at each other again. Karen gave O'Neill a perfect breaking pitch, coming back towards his knees as he swung at it, his obvious amazement turning to anger as he stepped off to grab his crotch.

"'s'matter, you never seen a breaking pitch before?"

O'Neill ignored her.

"Here, I'll show you again."

Karen gave O'Neill the same pitch in the same location, and O'Neill tried to come around on it, grounding the ball to the first baseman, who jogged to the bag where Karen was covering. "You're getting slow in your old age," Karen said as O'Neill peeled off for the dugout, five steps from first.

"Fuck you," O'Neill said.

"Ooooh nooo," Karen said to her first baseman, a massive Texan with a swearing problem that bordered on Tourette's. "Paul O'Neill swore at me."

O'Neill ignored her and threw his batting helmet down the clubhouse corridor ahead of him.

In the seventh, Karen had only given up a cheap single and had the Yankees ready to riot. She tossed the ball in her hand and looked into the Yankee dugout.

"How about I spot you a runner?" she yelled at O'Neill. O'Neill pretended not to pay attention.

Karen walked the first batter with obvious slow outside pitches as O'Neill watched from the on-deck circle, carefully not ever looking at her.

"It's your big chance," Karen said as the crowd cheered O'Neill. "You could tie this up."

"Shut up!"

Karen shrugged. "Here comes the pain," she said. She took deep breaths and stepped on the rubber and ignored whatever sign the catcher gave her. Karen went into her stretch and brought the fastball as hard as it went, right down the plate, and O'Neill didn't even move. Karen could feel the heat of her veins, napalm for blood, and turned away as the ump called the strike in the silence of Tampa. She turned back, took the ball, the catcher held down no fingers, and she nodded. Karen brought her right leg back and brought the fastball again, higher, and O'Neill bit for it, but he was slow, slow by age and his injury, tying himself up and then slamming his bat into the ground.

"Two strikes," Karen said. "You suck with two strikes."

O'Neill shook his head and kicked his spikes, digging into the box.

"Don't be digging in on me."

He waited.

Karen threw at his eyes, and O'Neill warped back like a bow as it came by.

"That's a warning," the ump said, looking at her. Karen nodded.

"One more time, O'Neill," she said. "Here it comes."

Karen gave him the change-up, the fastball all the way and then not, and O'Neill jumped on it, swinging early, knowing he was out halfway through, and he stood in the box, staring at Karen, adjusting his grip on the bat as he stared her down.

"Go take it out on the water coolers, you scrub," she said, and O'Neill came off the plate, his face screwed tight and ears red. The crowd came up, hockey fans all, displaced by the Lightning into hoping for brawls between prospects, finally rewarded.

Karen could see the infield collapse as O'Neill took his third step. Karen dropped her glove and came down towards him. She led him with two straight right jabs to his nose that stopped him in mid-stride, as if paused by the office of the commissioner. And in the seconds before the players swarmed them, she drew an left uppercut from her hip to his jaw that snapped his head back. O'Neill went back, turning away from the blow.

"Good night," the Texan called over the roar of the crowd, reaching to pull Karen to safety.

O'Neill struggled up as the different uniforms held him and Karen back. Blood ran down his nose and across his lips as he winced and struggled towards her.

"You will never get a base off me, O'Neill!" Karen yelled at him."Never!"

They were all ejected.

Karen sat in the locker room, arm in ice, and laughed. Steve paced in the dank room, bouncing in his steps, grinning.

"It's all ERA from here out," Karen said. "I figure maybe I can't hit 95 on the gun, but you can't ignore ERA, either."

"You've got the tools, you've got the talent!" Steve yelled. "You should consider a career in boxing if this doesn't work out. They're always looking for decent women boxers, and -- damn."

"Don't hit people with your pitching arm," Callahan said, breaking his silence. "Your arm's all you have, and if you go breaking your shoulder brawling once or twice, maybe you won't come back from that."

Karen's smile almost left her. "All right."

"But the buffet's on me tonight anyway."

Karen sighed and adjusted her arm in the ice. "Did O'Neill break your shoulder?"

"No," Callahan said, "I've just never liked him." He got up. "But come get me when it's time to leave -- and call your dad and tell him to tape Sportscenter. Now you're really going to be famous."

"Good," Karen said.

To Chapter Eight

about the author

Derek Zumsteg has been ghostwriting Tom Clancy's books for several years now, which isn't too difficult because he just changes the characters' names and sends it in as a new manuscript. Suggest naming one of the CIA men Ugueth.