Every good boy
will always do fine.
I like that.
That night,
when Dad comes home
from work,
we practice baseball
in the backyard.
For the past two years,
we’ve gone
to the rec field
to watch the kids
pitching, hitting,
running bases.
They are my age
but bigger.
Every year, Dad says,
You have a good arm, Matt.
You should try out.
Maybe next year,
I always say.
You have a good arm, Matt,
Dad says as
a high ball crackles
through the branches
in a darkening sky.
You should try out
for the school team.
Outside the school gym,
the sign-up sheet shows
forty kids.
Forty kids
pitching,
hitting,
running
for fourteen spots
on the team.
This year,
I surprise him.
One of those names
is mine.
Open practice
before tryouts
is every day this week
from three until four-thirty.
Tommy and my mother
pick me up
in the Impala.
I throw my stuff
in the backseat.
Tommy climbs on my lap,
babbles,
and pulls my ears
the whole way home.
Leave Matt alone,
my mother says.
She shakes her head
and smiles at me.
Her hair moves
like sunshine.
He misses you
when you’re at school.
At home,
I quickly shower
and practice my scales
before Jeff comes.
One–two–three–under,
one–two–three–
four–five.
Five–four–three–
two–one–
over–three—ugh!
Why do I always stumble
going back?
At the door,
Jeff and my mother talk.
Tommy plays with the pots
in the kitchen.
My fingers tap the air
while I wait.
Go ahead, Jeff finally says.
Let’s get started.
Every week, I nod and say,
Okay, and every week, I wait.
Even with Tommy’s clatter,
I don’t want to disturb them.
My fingers stumble
through the scales
and through
“The Gypsy Camp.”
They crowd the keys,
landing in two spots
at the same time.
They slip, clank, and clash
into sounds
that aren’t music.
Watch, Jeff says calmly
when my fingers freeze
in frustration.
Jeff’s fingers are
bigger than mine,
but they know how
to touch each key,
one at a time.
They unlock each sound
separately.
Jeff doesn’t make mistakes.
His fingers brush
across the piano keys
like branches
of the tamarind
swaying in the wind.
How can such big hands
make such quiet music?
I’ve been practicing
a lot longer
than you, he says.
Slow down. Be patient.
I wish I could be.
Jeff is slow, patient,
quiet.
But he isn’t
an afraid quiet.
Just a calm quiet,
like he’s looked into
a closet of monsters
and found empty
candy wrappers instead.
I wish I
could do that.
It’s great being part
of a team, Dad says.
taking his bath
and the two of us
are clearing the table.
It’s great being
part of something
bigger than yourself.
I might not make it, Dad.
Forty kids are trying out.
I might get cut.
I don’t see how, Dad says.
You’ve got a great arm.
Coach Robeson’s a great coach.
He won’t let you get away.
Tryouts
are on Monday.
On Tuesday,
we’ll learn
who made the team.
On Wednesday,
fourteen of us
will learn our positions.
The rest of us
will creep home
with our caps
pulled down tight,
slanted way below our noses
so no one can see us cry.
I have my cap.
I have my
hooded sweatshirt.
I’m ready.
But whether I
make the team
or not,
I won’t cry.
All my tears
I left
in Vietnam.
Tryouts start
just like training.
We stretch.
We run.
Coach Louis,
the assistant coach,
hits ground balls.
But the air is jumpy.
Electric currents spark
the gym.
Coach Robeson
is walking around
with a clipboard,
smiling, nodding,
scratching notes
and names.
At first I thought
I heard wrong.
I never bothered
anyone.
Why would anyone
bother me?
But when different kids
get called to bat,
and I’m told to stay
and pitch,
their voices
get stronger.
Someone steps in to bat,
Coach Robeson and Coach Louis
huddle,
and the words hit me
like a punch.
Billy Alden is the loudest.
Hey, Frog-face,
where’d you learn
to play baseball,
in a rice paddy?
Davey Laice grumbles,
Matt-the-rat,
if you make the team,
I’ll quit.
When tryouts
are over,
Rob Brennan
bumps into me.
I fall
into the bleachers.
When I stand up again,
he hisses
in my ear,
My brother died
because of you.
If I drop out now,
my father
will ask questions.
If I tell anyone,
I will be a rat.
Last year Billy
accidentally
dumped sour milk
on a fifth grader
who wouldn’t give him
one of his Twinkies.
Everyone still calls the kid
“stink.”
Who knows what
will happen to me?
I pull my cap down tight
and pray I get cut.
Dad meets me outside the gym
after tryouts.
How’d it go?
Okay.
I bet it went better than that.
He puts his arm
around my shoulder
and we walk to the car.
When he turns the key,
the radio goes on with the motor.
Right away, the Bee Gees
start singing,
Got the wings of heaven
on my shoes.
I wish I did. I’d fly far away
from Billy and Davey and Rob.
Dad starts singing
with the radio.
His voice is low and off-key.
Whether you’re a brother
or whether you’re a mother,
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive,
he sings quietly,
bopping his head
and his shoulders.
Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’,
’cause we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
It’s hard to worry about stuff
when my father sings.
Don’t worry, he says,
nodding his head to the music.
You’ve got a great arm.
You’ll make the team.
He pushes up my hat and smiles.
Even if you don’t make it,
you’ll always be our MVP.
Whether you’re a brother
or whether you’re a mother,
you’ll always be our MVP.
I’m trying to read Kidnapped
but the Bee Gees are rolling
through my head.
Stayin’ alive,
stayin’ alive.
They rock and roll
through my head
as I wash up for dinner,
as I chew my meat loaf
and my mashed potatoes.
Stayin’ alive,
stayin’ alive.
As Tommy bangs
on his high chair
and squashes
his sliced bananas,
as my mother offers
stayin’ alime
Jell-O for dessert.
Stayin’ alive,
stayin’ alive.
Whether you’re a mother
or whether you’re a brother,
my brother died
because of you.
On Wednesday
the list is posted
outside the gym.
I check it twice.
My stomach drops.
Only four seventh graders
made the team,
and I am one of them.
There’s a note
taped to my locker.
It’s a picture of a rice field
torn from a magazine.
In black marker someone
drew a big-eyed rat
and wrote the words
Matt-the-rat.
I know what the note means.
Because of you
there’s no place for me.
Prejudice is ignorance
in a catcher’s mask,
Coach Robeson says, coughing.
His face is white-angry
and his eyes
are like steel bullets.
I didn’t tell anyone
about the note
but somehow Coach
must have found out.
Alex, Billy, and Rob
are the only other seventh graders
who made the team.
Alex is a quiet boy
with curly hair and glasses
who lives across the street from me.
Sometimes we ride our bikes
together or toss the ball around.
Did he know about the note?
Did he tell Coach Robeson?
There are two Michaels, a Drew,
an Eric, a Daniel, and a few boys
I don’t even know yet.
Did they know about the note?
Would they even care?
I hear one more derogatory comment,
Coach says, looking at everyone
slow and steady,
one at a time,
his sharp eyes
locking their eyes
before they have a chance
to look down,
you won’t play on any team,
in any school, in any town.
Period.
Either plan to play like a team,
or get out
now.
He doesn’t mention my name
or the note.
Sometimes the words people don’t say
are as powerful as the ones they do.
Most of the time
I pitch,
but sometimes
I play shortstop.
Standing between
second and third
is tricky.
Do I shift toward second,
or lean toward third?
Do I trust
that my teammate
wants to win
more than he wants
to hurt me?
I’d rather pitch.
It’s just me
and the ball
and the batter.
Me and my arm
and my eyes.
I face my enemy head-on,
and he’s always on the other team.
The assignment is
easy enough.
Without describing them physically,
choose one member of your family,
and write a brief character sketch
about them. Remember, we learn
more about a character
through their actions than their appearance.
Actions speak louder than adjectives.
I pull a pencil
from my top drawer.
My top drawer
is full of pencils, new,
used, half used, and
all-the-way-to-the-eraser-cap used.
I never get rid of pencils.
I never get rid of anything.
Who knows?
Even a stub
is worth something.
If bombs fall here,
if something so terrible
ever happens
that I get sent away,
I’ll stuff everything
I can fit
into my pockets.
Even the broken pieces
are worth something
to me.
I pull out a well-sharpened pencil
with a high, clean eraser.
My mother, I write.
I draw a box around the word My
and another box
around the word mother.
I color the boxes lightly.
I can still read the words so
I keep coloring them.
Darker and darker.
And darker.
Soon I have just one
long rectangle.
Just a plain,
dark,
black
box.
No one would even know
there’s something inside.
The piano sits
in an alcove
at the bottom
of the stairs,
between the den
and the kitchen,
closer to the den
but in a separate
space.
It’s hard not
to touch the keys
as I pass by.
When I wait
for my mother
to pack a snack
for Tommy, or
when the phone
rings just as we’re
leaving the house,
I pull out the bench,
and zip through the C scale
or “Shenandoah”’s
rolling river.
When I play the piano,
I’m sheltered
in that safe place
where the only thing
that matters
is music.
Something’s going on.
They’re disagreeing
about something.
I hear whispering as I pass
their bedroom door.
I wait. I listen.
It might be better for everyone,
she says.
I’m just not convinced
it’s a good idea, he answers.
But maybe we can’t provide
what he needs, Michael.
Mrs. Mack called yesterday.
Matt’s classwork is slipping.
He’s not doing his homework.
Maybe if he goes, he’ll understand more.
He’s just a boy. How much more
can he understand?
I hear them move toward the door
and I jump.
At the top of the stairs,
she smiles at me,
smiles like my teammates,
like she was just talking about
what color to paint the hallway,
or whether we should have potatoes
or rice for dinner.
Time to wash for supper, Matt,
she says.
I feel something like a cold fish
shimmy inside me.
Maybe it’s time
to let me go.
Now they have Tommy,
happy as summer,
and even starting to say,
Me play ball.
With a cute kid like him,
why do they need me?
If I run away,
maybe they’ll miss me
and want me back.
But where would I go?
And what about Tommy?
Who would he follow around,
saying, Ball, ball, play ball?
In the yard, I want to run,
but my legs are locked.
It is late afternoon.
The sun still shines bright.
My mother watches
from the window.
Her face is in the shadows.
Her hair and her eyes
seem darker than they are.
She studies me.
Her smile