His eyes lock into mine.
I want to jump up and
promise him I will, but
I’m stuck to my chair.
There’s no fire or
sinking mud, but
something binds my legs—
just like in my nightmare.
Why can’t I ever say the things
I want to say?
I smash my salad volcano
so that lava dressing runs in
every direction on the plate.
Coach says he’ll still try
to come to our games
whenever he can.
You’ll do well, if you
continue to work together,
he says.
That’s what sports is all about,
learning to work together.
I hear Coach talk,
but I’m stuck in Vietnam
with the smell and the smoke
and the sound of someone crying.
Maybe the Americans
should have brought baseballs
instead of bombs.
Until they find a full-time
replacement for Coach Robeson,
Mr. Chambers, a math teacher
and the girls’ basketball coach,
is helping Coach Louis.
His practices don’t run as long
because off-season
he’s also the moderator
of the debating club,
and they’re getting ready
for a state tournament.
Without Coach Robeson,
Rob is free to
accidentally
step on my jacket,
or dump my books.
So sorry, Frog-face,
I must have lost
my focus.
Shorter practices
leave me more time
to practice my scales.
My fingers climb up
the keys perfectly now.
I only stumble
sometimes on the
way back down
when I get close
to middle C.
While I run
my fingers
up and down
the keys,
Tommy drives his
yellow bus underneath
the piano bench.
Let’s let Matt
practice in peace,
my mother says.
She picks up Tommy
and smiles at me.
Sounds good, she says.
Sounds good,
Jeff agrees on Wednesday.
You’ve got a nice touch, Matt.
Not too heavy, not too soft,
just right.
On Thursday night,
before Dad gets home,
I finish all my homework.
I practice the piano,
I take out the garbage,
I even clean out
Tommy’s toy box.
The elevator
feeling
is gone.
I can’t wait
to walk with Dad
down the hall,
behind the janitor’s closet,
to the small, crowded
room behind the stairs.
I want
to go.
I want
to remember.
She held me
and sang a soft song.
He followed me
everywhere,
he follows me still.
The business part of the meeting
lasts only a few minutes
and before long
we are scraping ourselves
into a circle.
Jeff’s hand is on my shoulder.
Are you sure it’s okay? he asks.
I nod.
I know there will be no daring
dragon prince who fled
behind the mountain.
I wonder what Jeff will say instead.
He pulls a piece of paper
out of his pocket, unfolds it,
and starts to talk.
Hope you don’t mind,
but I wrote my thoughts down
so I wouldn’t forget anything.
My stomach does a quick flip.
Jeff begins to speak quietly.
For the past few meetings,
I’ve brought my friend Matt
with me, he says, nodding
at me and smiling.
A lot of you have asked
who he is and why he’s here.
Some of you find it upsetting
to have a Vietnamese kid
sitting here, reminding you
of the place
we all want to forget.
Others want to know
what he knows.
Hearing Jeff talk about me
is a little like floating underwater;
I can hear him,
his voice is clear,
but distant too.
Even though I went to all those
Saturday classes
at the adoption agency,
it’s strange
to be called
a Vietnamese kid.
What does that mean?
I know it doesn’t mean
believing in mountain fairies
or celebrating Tet Trung Thu.
I know it means
something else,
but I’m not sure what.
Matt was one of the older kids
airlifted out of Saigon,
Jeff says.
He’s reading a sentence at a time
and then looking up.
He was almost ten, but he looked six.
He was born during the war.
His whole life was the war.
He’s got an American father
who left and never came back.
He’s got a mother who
entrusted him to us
even though his father,
an American soldier,
ran out on her.
She gave her child to a bunch
of American soldiers …
Jeff emphasizes the first syllable
in soldiers
as if it were souldiers,
… so we must have done
something good.
Americans who’ve never
been to Vietnam
don’t understand.
They spit at us.
They call us baby killers.
But we can’t have been all bad,
or what mother
would have given us her child,
knowing she might never
see him again?
What kind of faith is that?
What kind of love?
Love?
I thought she wanted
me to leave because of
who I was and what
I’d done.
But did she mean it
when she said she loved me?
Did he mean it
when he said he loved her?
Was it hard for her to
push me away?
Does she ever wonder
about me
like I wonder
about her
and about him?
Does she remember me?
Jeff’s words rush through me,
my heart pounds, and
a red hotness spreads
across my face.
I hadn’t ever thought
she gave me away
because she loved me.
We lost a big piece
of ourselves in Vietnam,
and none of us will
ever be the same,
but we did some good too.
We made a difference.
Don’t let anybody tell you
different.
Jeff looks at everyone in the circle
one by one,
holding their eyes with his eyes
before turning away.
Next time someone stares at you
like you’re a freak
because you went to Vietnam,
think about Matt,
and there are hundreds like him,
hundreds of kids we saved.
Jeff finishes talking, and
he seems quiet again,
like the Jeff who lets
his music speak for him.
He asks if I have anything
I want to say, and Dad gives me
an encouraging nod,
but I shake my head.
Jeff’s words change the mood.
The next two people talk
about Vietnamese friends,
the boy with his face burned off
who learned
to sing “Yankee Doodle,”
the old man who sat outside
one vet’s hooch waiting
to offer homemade rice wine
to thank him for taking
such good care
of his sick daughter.
Slowly the heaviness
in the room lifts,
the stories stop coming,
and the circle is broken.
Dad is tossing away
Chris’s Coke can
when another man
in a wheelchair
rolls over to me.
Thanks for coming,
he says.
Don’t think too badly
of your birth father.
It’s hard to come home,
but it’s harder to go back.
It doesn’t mean he didn’t care.
In the car
we are quiet for a while
and then Dad asks me if
I have any thoughts about
what Jeff said.
I shake my head.
Do you ever think about Vietnam?
he asks, taking his eyes
off the road
and looking at me.
I shrug.
It’s okay
if you don’t want
to talk about it right now,
he says.
But someday,
I hope you will.
That night when I go
to sleep, I hear her voice
whispering,
Bui Doi,
you cannot stay here.
I try to follow her.
I want to follow,
but I fall asleep,
and I don’t wake up
until morning.
On Wednesday afternoon,
Coach Chambers tells us
there will be a new coach
starting the following Monday.
He doesn’t tell us anything
about him except to say
he has a lot of experience
and we should treat him
with respect.
He glances at Coach Louis
and adds, Handpicked
by Coach Robeson,
so you know he’s good.
He’d better be
better than good.
We’re more than halfway
through the season
and our record is 7–2.
We have a shot
at the championship.
We’ve got two games
over the weekend.
On Saturday, I’m surprised to see
Chris’s wheelchair parked next to
the bottom bleacher.
Jeff and my parents
are sitting beside him.
I am even more surprised
on Sunday
when Chris is scribbling
on Coach’s clipboard.
By Monday,
I’m not surprised at all,
but the other kids are.
Chris wheels himself
onto the field.
Before we start our stretches,
Coach Chambers introduces him
as Coach Williams.
He nods and tries to smile.
In the sunlight
his scars run deeper,
stained with different shades
of red, purple, and blue.
I’ve watched you play, boys.
You’re good.
But Coach Robeson and I
have some ideas
to help you get better.
Yeah, well, Billy says, we’ll just wait
for Coach Robeson to come back.
Then everyone starts talking
at once.
What is Robeson thinking?
How can he coach us when he can’t even walk?
We might as well give up our trophy now.
Maybe the cancer has spread to his brain.
What was Coach Robeson thinking?
If I had scars like that,
I’d never go outside again.
But Chris didn’t do anything
to those kids.
How can they be so mean?
Leave him alone, I say.
Give him a chance!
Shut up, Frog-face, Rob answers.
He knocks me down.
Suddenly his knee
is on top of my chest,
his fist is in my face,
and Billy is standing
above me.
Finally the whistle blows
so long and loud
it hurts my ears.
Coach Louis pulls Rob off me.
That’s enough of that.
Coach Williams’s voice
is stern but calm.
Begin your stretches, he says.
Coach Robeson is back
to tell us
what he’s thinking.
He walks onto the field
slowly.
He looks thinner
but still not sick.
For a minute, I think
his leaving
is just another nightmare,
and now that it’s daylight,
he’s going to partner us up
and tell us to start stretching.
Instead
he motions for us
to sit down.
He takes a breath.
His voice sounds like
he’s whistling through a straw,
only instead of blowing air,
he’s blowing words,
thin, wavy, watery words
that mean something
even though he barely
has the power
to say them.
Coach Williams was a student of mine,
he manages.
His eyes move first to Rob,
then to me,
then to each player
one at a time.
When I first met him,
he was the same age as you.
We called him Whirlin’ Will.
The way that baseball danced,
no one could get a hit off him.
I followed his career into high school.
I follow all my boys,
but I knew that Chris
had what it took.
Baseball was more than a game
to Chris.
If anyone was going
to play in college, maybe even
get scouted for the majors,
it was going to be Chris Williams.
Coach takes another breath,
swallows, and continues.
But, it didn’t happen that way, did it?
The war changed a lot of things
and a lot of people. I’m not going to argue
for or against; that’s not my place.
But I can tell you, the war was worse
than this cancer I got.
It destroyed us
from the inside.
While we were going about our business,
while we were working, or studying,
or playing baseball,
the war was working agai
nst us,
spreading its poison.
Coach coughs into his fist.
He waits a moment,
then continues.
It’s still spreading its poison,
and I don’t know
of any treatment that can stop it.
That’s up to you.
Chris Williams isn’t going
to make it to the major league.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t be useful.
That doesn’t mean he can’t be a part
of the game he loves.
And he doesn’t need to park his wheelchair
and simply watch.
Baseball isn’t only athletics.
You should know that by now.
You don’t just pitch or swing with your arm.
Baseball’s about concentration.
Focus.
Coach Robeson looks right at me.
Then he looks at Rob.
There’s no reason Coach Williams
can’t coach, except maybe
you won’t let him.
Coach Robeson swallows again.
Just talking seems to tire him out.
People see that withered arm,
those wheels and scars,
and they think they know
everything about him.
What can they learn
from someone so beat-up?
But I’ll tell you something,
even if I hadn’t gotten sick,
I was going to ask Chris
to be my pitching coach.
Coach takes another deep breath.
His eyes are drained of color,
tired and gray.
You’re a good group of kids,
but you’ve got some mixed-up attitudes,
which you probably learned from us adults.
Now officially I’m not your coach anymore.
So maybe some of you think
you don’t have to listen to me,
but I hope you will.
I’ve always told you the truth.
Give Coach Williams a chance.
Give each other a chance.
I look over at Rob.
His arms are crossed
in front of him.
He doesn’t seem to be listening
to Coach Robeson at all.
He won’t even look
in his direction.
His eyes are angry bullets
aimed somewhere
beyond him.