Dad took David and me on July 4th to see the fireworks at Buhr Park. We sat on a blanket, but when we heard that “shoop” sound of a fireworks rocket being shot up, David and I would run in that direction like we were soldiers charging the impossibly strong and dug-in enemy until the fireworks exploded with a big bang and we would pretend to be blown up and fling our bodies to the ground. And with each new rocket launched we would repeat the game. I was too old to do this sort of stuff with my own friends, but with David, who was still more of a little kid just turned nine, I figured it was okay to do and even kind of fun.

Before the fireworks, Dad took us to Mel’s Dog ‘n Suds for hotdogs for dinner and told us all about his new job in September teaching English at Wilberforce University down in southern Ohio, and that he would be driving down there next week to look for a place to live and planned to move down there sometime in August. He sounded excited because he’d be back to teaching as his main job, plus making more money, but he also wouldn’t see us as much, though he said he planned to come back up to Ann Arbor at least once a month and take us down there to spend the weekend. That felt sad, especially for David, and though dad didn’t say anything about feeling stuff like that—he NEVER did—his voice sounded a little that way, like it sounded sometimes when he used to sing a song to us at bedtime that was sad.

I mean both David and I already knew he was moving to Ohio to teach at that Wilberforce place, and he knew we knew, because mom had told us about it. She said “we deserved to know what was going on” and “your father has a problem being honest about sad things.” First she told me, and not David, that dad was thinking about taking that new job and moving out of town, I guess cuz I was older, and she was worried how David would react. Then she told both of us a week later that dad decided to take the new job and leave, and David got really sad and worried like she thought he would. I guess I was sad and worried too, but I was older, and I’d already been thinking about it for a whole week so it wasn’t the same for me.

When dad finished telling us about it, I guess he hoped we wouldn’t be sad, but we still were. David even asked him why he couldn’t just do teaching at Eastern, where he taught before. He said he wasn’t sure they’d give him “tenure,” which meant that you could teach there for as long as you wanted, but Wilberforce would. I guess that made sense, at least kind of to me, but David was still sad and dad didn’t know what else to say, so instead he put a quarter in the jukebox for six songs, three for David and three for me, but David and I wanted him to get two, and each of us the other two.

David picked two Monkees songs, “A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You” and their new one that he really really liked, “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” I liked the Monkees, they were okay, even though my friend Arthur and that Leon guy in The Good Squid band thought they weren’t a real band, but I picked “Light My Fire” by the Doors and “Jimmy Mack” by the Vandellas, because they seemed more like older kid songs. They also had “Purple Haze” and “Somebody to Love”, but those songs reminded me of Rose and the Spring Dance.

Dad picked “Cherish” by the Association for one of his. Since I’d told him about the song last year, he’d continued to hear it and like it, because he said the band did nice four-part harmonies like in barbershop songs, and that it also sounded kind of like a college song. The only problem with that one, was that it reminded me of him and mom getting divorced, and I wondered if it did for dad too…

Perish is a word that more than applies
To the hope in my heart each time I realize
That I am not gonna be the one to share your dreams

He couldn’t figure out what to pick for a second choice, but David and I thought he might like the Association’s new song, “Windy,” which we both really liked…

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

And Windy has stormy eyes
That flash at the sound of lies
And Windy has wings to fly
Above the clouds

As the song ended and we got up to head over to the park so we wouldn’t miss the beginning of the fireworks, I was thinking that If I could ever imagine having a girlfriend some day, it would be somebody like Windy!

***

I was spending a lot of time in the park. It was baseball season, so most of my days were spent on one of the diamonds in pick-up games, but I started playing tennis with Andy, too. Sometimes I’d even join in a soccer game with some of the younger kids who still went to Burns Park School. Since they played soccer every single school day – just like we used to when we were in elementary school there – they were “creatures of habit,” as Mom would say, and kept the games going right into the summer.

My Little League team from last year was together again and having practices in the park, now with a new coach and sponsored by Bimbo’s restaurant instead of Michigan Tube Benders, the plumbing supply company our old coach had worked for. From playing on the team last year, and being left-handed, I was the guy everyone knew was going to play first base. That made me feel good, knowing I had my special place on the team and that all my teammates thought so too. I didn’t have to prove to anybody that I was a good hitter or that I could handle my position. Dad even got me one of those special first-baseman’s mitts for my birthday. It was longer than a regular glove, and I guess, according to the rules, only someone playing first base could use it. Just like only a catcher could have the special catcher’s mitt.

We were finally playing the game with all the real major league baseball rules and the larger size of major league diamonds and with base stealing allowed even before the pitcher threw the pitch. And that included stealing home, which I thought was like the coolest thing in the world to do, if you could somehow pull it off. There was that shortstop guy on the Kansas City Athletics, Bert Campenaris, who batted first, and dad said he was the best base-stealer in the American League, but when I asked dad if Campenaris ever stole home, he wasn’t sure he had.

The Saturday after the last day of school last month, Dad took David and me to a double-header at Tiger Stadium where they played the Athletics. It was a pretty amazing day. The first game was supposed to start at 10:30 in the morning, but it was raining so everyone just sat there. We had seats way up on the first-base side under the roof, so at least we weren’t getting wet. The rain finally stopped and they started the first game. That Bert Campenaris guy was the first one up, and instead of getting a walk or hitting a single so he could steal second base, he hit a HOMERUN. Later in the game, when he did get a single, he actually got THROWN OUT trying to steal second base. Dad said it was all “ironic,” but the Tigers went on to win the first game 7-6 when pinch-hitter Bill Heath singled with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th. Everybody in the stadium went wild, especially dad. David and I never heard him yell that loud, and it actually scared us.

Then the second game went into EXTRA INNINGS, not just one or two, but TEN of them! It was tied 4-4 after the ninth, and it wasn’t until the top of the 15th that the A’s scored a run. But Mickey Stanley hit a clutch solo home run in the bottom of that inning to keep the Tigers alive. Again Dad stood up and yelled, but David and I were used to it by now; it was actually kind of cool to see him so excited. Then, no more runs until the top of the 19th, when Dave Duncan on the A’s hit a home run. The Tigers couldn’t score in their half of the inning, and they lost. Dad was really mad at that one, but later, when we were driving home in the middle of the night, he said it was an “epic double-header!”

But the main thing I did was watch Norm Cash play first. I mean I already knew how to warm up the other infielders by throwing them ground balls that they’d throw back to me while the pitcher threw his warmup pitches. Also to make sure the right fielder moved toward the line when a left-hander came up, and also back up myself, anticipating hard-hit balls to my side of the field. And if someone got a single to right, to run out into short rightfield, and be the cutoff man. I’d been a Little League first baseman for the last four years already.

But Cash did other stuff too. When there was a runner on first, especially one that was a base-stealer like Campenaris, he’d stay right over the bag with his right foot against the inside edge of it, ready to take the pick-off throw from the pitcher to keep the runner from taking a big lead. Dad said that by putting his right foot like that, it made it harder if there was a pickoff attempt for the runner to get his foot or hand back on the bag, without being an against-the-rules “obstruction” to the runner by standing in the basepath. Then at the exact moment the pitcher went into his motion, he’d jump back super fast to his regular position behind and away from the bag. I hadn’t had to do anything like that at first base in the twelve-year-old league, because runners couldn’t lead off.

I watched how he always stayed in close touch with Dick McAuliffe playing second—talking, saying just a couple of words, nodding, or pointing. I really liked watching how the two of them worked together whenever a ground ball was hit to the right side of the infield between them. Cash would break for it, but only if he knew he could get it. If he fielded it, he’d toss it to the pitcher, who had to run over from the mound to cover the bag and take the throw. But if Cash figured he couldn’t reach it, he’d immediately retreat to first base, plant his foot, and let McAuliffe field it and throw it to him.

But the plays that were really cool were the ones where Cash had to save his infielders from their own bad throws to first. As the second game went into extra innings and everyone got tired, the throws from shortstop and third base started bouncing or sailing all over the place. I watched Cash keep his left foot glued to the bag, stretching his body way out and sweeping his glove through the dirt to scoop up the short-hops. And then there was that high throw that looked like it was going to go way over his head. Cash leaped straight up into the air, his foot completely leaving the bag to catch the ball, and the instant it was in the pocket of his glove, he swung his glove down and across his body, slapping the tag onto the runner just a split second before the batter’s foot could touch the bag. That one really impressed dad.

Also at the Tigers double-header dad had brought one of those scoring books to keep track of everything that happened at the game. It was a grid of squares with one row for every player and one column for every inning plus a few extra ones. In each row, to the left of the first inning column you put the name and position of each player in their batting order and on the right side, and at the end of the game you put down counts of how many official at bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, strike outs, walks, sacrifice hits and stolen bases. And over to the left their fielding stats: put outs, assists and errors. And then at the bottom of each inning column you put the number of hits and runs for that inning.

Dad showed me how you did it. As each guy got up you would write down what he did in the box on the grid for that batter’s row and that inning’s column. Each box had a diamond in the middle (just a rotated square really) that was like the baseball diamond: the right vertex was first base, the top one second base, the left one third base, and the bottom one home. Then there were lines coming out of each of the four vertices that divided the rest of the box outside the diamond to four quadrants.

So if the guy got a single to right, you’d put an “H9” in the bottom-right quadrant—the “H” for a hit and the “9” for right field—and draw a crisp pencil line on the diamond from the bottom vertex to the right one, tracking him from home to first. If he walked, you’d draw that exact same line but put a “W” in that lower-right quadrant instead. Any immediate out went into that first quadrant, too: a “K” for a strikeout, “F8” for a fly to center, “P4” for a popup caught by the second baseman, “L6” for a line drive caught by the shortstop, or a “5-3” for a grounder to third thrown across to first.

But if the batter hit a double to left, you’d move to the top right quadrant of the box, putting an “H7” in the top-right quadrant while your pencil line advanced from home, past first, and up to the top vertex at second. For a triple to right, you’d go over to the top-left quadrant with an “H9”, running the pencil line along three sides of the inner square all the way to third. Finally, for a home run, you’d write a big “HR” in the bottom-left quadrant, trace the line over all four sides of the little diamond, and then shade the inside of the square to show that a run had officially crossed the plate.

The whole thing was super cool because the system also let you track how the baserunners advanced to each new base using a whole different set of symbols—like writing a little “SB” for a stolen base, or using the other guys’ numbers to show a runner moving up on a ground ball, a sacrifice fly, or a walk. And if a guy finally made it all the way around, you’d draw that heavy, dark line all the way home and again shade the inside of the little diamond to show the run had officially scored.

When the game finally ended, it was like 1:30 in the morning! I couldn’t remember ever being up that late. I mean I had woken up in the middle of the night before, but I was in my room in our house, not way off in another city at a real baseball game. And then when we walked out of the stadium down the street toward the big parking lot where dad had parked the car, the places around the stadium looked so different in the middle of the night than they had in the daytime. The bar places we walked by were all lit up and full of people, talking and laughing. They had neon signs on their outside walls and windows for “Stroh’s”, “Hamm’s” and “Pabst Blue Ribbon” beer.

Mom and dad had let me taste a beer a couple times and it tasted pretty bad, but I knew some older kids had talked about drinking it. Dad would even drink a beer sometimes. When it was a hot day and he had just done a lot of hard work outside, he said it was “refreshing.” Or maybe when we went to a daytime party. A lot of men drank beer but most women didn’t, though they might drink wine instead. And both men and women would drink that “punch” stuff grownups had at a lot of parties, or the “Bloody Marys” mom had at her parties, which I guess was like punch but with tomato instead of fruit juice. And even though it tasted weird it had alcohol in it and you could get drunk and get extra happy, like grownups had done at parties all my life. But if you got too drunk you could start saying or doing stupid things, and might even get sick and have to throw up.

It was interesting that some grownups stayed up into the middle of the night and even went out to bars to drink alcohol stuff and have fun. It was like their own world where there weren’t any kids around, I guess kind of like the park which was pretty much us kids’ world with no grownups around, except maybe over at the tennis courts playing tennis.

When we got to dad’s car, which was his little VW Bug, both David and I sat in the backseat, like we had done driving to the game this morning. Even though I was older and more used to sitting in the front seat, David said it wasn’t fair, so I agreed to sit in the back with him. When we got out of the city streets and onto I-94, it was pretty dark except for the lights of all the big trucks we drove by.

Dad said the “truckers” drove a lot in the nighttime when there were fewer cars on the road. I’d never ridden in one of those big “semis,” but I’d seen inside where the driver’s seat was, way up high, at one of those freeway rest stops we stopped at when we drove back east to Binghamton or Cape Cod. And I thought it would be cool driving one of them because you were sitting up so high that it would maybe feel more like flying an airplane and looking down on all the regular cars.

On the way home it was mostly dark off to the sides of the freeway except for when we drove by the new Detroit Metro airport, and then the old Willow Run airport and that giant car factory across from it. When we drove by Metro, a big plane came in for a landing right over us, which was super cool. Its landing lights lit up the freeway around us for a few seconds and looking up we could see the brightly lit underside of the plane.

When we finally got home mom had left the lights on for us and she even came down from her bedroom in her bathrobe when we came in the front door. She was mad at dad for not calling to let her know we’d be super late getting home. She had turned on the game on the radio, so she already knew the second game had gone on for nineteen innings. At least they didn’t get into a big fight, but I still felt bad for dad when he left.

***

It was our seventh Little League game of the season and we were playing our first game ever “under the lights” at Veterans Park on a Saturday night. I mean for the first few innings it wasn’t really dark yet, but now everything around us was getting gray and hard to see. The lights made the game more intense somehow, like it was more important than a regular game in the daytime, like everyone was watching you or you were on TV somehow. I think I actually preferred our daytime games, they felt more relaxed somehow, less like you were in the spotlight and if you didn’t win you were lame and stupid.

Sure it would be cool if we won the game, because all the guys would get excited afterwards and smile at each other like we WERE a team. And if we lost, they wouldn’t feel like we were a team so much. What was more important to me was that we worked together LIKE a team, win or lose, and for me that meant trying to do all the things I saw Norm Cash do at that double-header dad had taken us to. Throwing grounders to the other infielders to warm them up before each inning in the field. Trying to hold runners close to first and calling out when we should try to turn the double play. Checking in with Gill behind me out in right field and Dale playing second base, and reminding them how many outs there were. And when a left-handed batter came up, making sure Gill backed up and moved toward the line, and our pitcher was ready to cover first if I had to take the ground ball.

I was always worried that Gill would get distracted, since most people didn’t hit balls to right field so it was hard for him to keep his head in the game and not space out. I didn’t really expect him to catch any flyballs, though he had actually caught one in another game. I just didn’t want the rare hit to right to get by him because he wasn’t paying attention. If it did the coach would get mad at him and other kids on the team would think he was stupid and tease him. I mean I had teased Gill plenty of times in the last three years, but I really didn’t like doing it anymore. And if Gill DID have to chase down a well hit ball, I made sure to run out into right field to cut off his throw because he didn’t have much of an arm. I’d seen way too much teasing people at Tappan and had constantly worried about being teased myself to want ANYONE else to be teased EVER!

Of course Billy, who was our catcher, liked to tease all the batters on the other team when they were up at the plate, whispering stuff to them that I couldn’t quite hear to distract them, and even calling out to our pitcher that the guy up was “no hitter.” But I guess that was a special case, because most Little League catchers did that, like it was part of their job. I wondered if Bill Freehan did that for the Tigers.

But if we were playing a pickup game, there was no way he should do stuff like that, and usually he didn’t. But Billy really loved to talk, about anything and everything. And honestly, that really was part of a catcher’s job, in a REAL game, talking to the pitcher and keeping the whole team alive in the field so our heads stayed in the game.

So it was the top of the sixth inning and Grant was pitching and I was playing first base. There was a guy on first from their team who had gotten a basehit up the middle. I could tell he was a really good player, but the way he talked to the kid on his team who was coaching first base, I could also tell that he was kind of full of himself. Now that we were in the thirteen-year-old league, where you could lead off and start running before the pitcher threw his pitch, it was a lot easier to steal bases. And Billy’s throw down to second wasn’t that great.

So this guy decided to tease me and said, “I’m going to steal second base. Think you guys can stop me?”

After all the crap in seventh grade, especially in Homeroom, Phys Ed and in the halls, there was no way I was going to let this kid think he could tease me and make me worried. So I just looked at him and chuckled and said, “Probably not. Our catcher doesn’t have much of a pickoff throw. Go for it!” like we were both on the same team. He kind of looked at me, confused, along with the other guy on his team that was the first base coach. Seeing both of them do that, I decided to take it farther and said, “Nice hit, by the way.” And yeah, on the next pitch he stole second.

After doing that, which felt pretty good, every time for the rest of the season someone on the other team got a single and stopped at first I’d say, “Nice hit.” And even if they got a double, once the play was over, I’d walk toward them on second, point at them and say the same. A couple times our pitcher, or Dale playing second, walked over to me to ask why the hell was I doing that. I just shrugged my shoulders and said to them, “A good hit’s a good hit.” Pretty soon they didn’t say anything about it, it was just something their crazy first baseman was gonna do. And I liked them thinking about me that way—their crazy first baseman—because I knew they’d put up with me because I got a lot of hits and walks and I played my position pretty good.

It was Mike, actually, that gave me the idea. During last year’s big game against his Huron Valley team, with the bases loaded, I hit a hard line drive off of his pitch down the first-base line. It could have been my first ever real homerun, but Gill was in front of me running the bases and hesitated rounding third base and I got stuck behind him. He finally slid into home and scored, and there was a loose ball and Mike picked it up and ended up tagging me out. So no homerun for me, but I knocked in what turned out to be the winning runs. After tagging me, Mike looked me right in the eye and said, “Wow… nice hit!”

Huron Valley’s catcher, Blake, mad that we’d taken the lead, said to Mike, “Hey man, whose side are you on?” But Mike just looked at him and said, “Hey, Blake, Coop’s a good friend, and it WAS a nice hit! They’re just the other team, we’re not enemies!” Blake didn’t like it, but I remembered it.

And back in our game under the lights, later in the bottom of the ninth inning, with us ahead by just a couple runs, I made a big defensive play that may have saved us a win. There were Abbott Oil guys on second and third with two outs. The guy up hit a hard one-hopper to Todd at third, who fell down on his knees in front of the ball to stop it, and it took a high hop and bounced off his chest in front of him. Todd scrambled forward to grab the ball and awkwardly tried to get on his feet and throw the ball to me at the same time.

He ended up not getting off a very good throw, which bounced once on the ground and was way in front of me as I stood with my left foot on the bag waiting to catch it. His throw was so far in front of me that I realized I couldn’t even stretch, like Norm Cash did, to catch the ball with my foot still touching the bag. So I decided to take my foot off the bag and field it like a ground ball. Then immediately when the ball was in my big first-baseman’s mitt, I turned and leapt toward the runner and my glove managed to catch his left foot just before his right foot stomped down on the base.

That was the third out, and the game. But if the ball had gotten by me, the guys on second and third probably would have scored, to at least tie the game. Or even if I’d gotten the ball and not tagged him, the guy on third would have at least scored, and the hitter on first or maybe second, and another chance to tie or even win.

Something about it all happening under the lights made that whole play way more intense, like we were playing in the World Series or something. When the batter lined that ball right at Todd, and it took a short hop and then went right up against his chest, I could hear pretty much everybody—on the field and in the stands—make a bunch of gasping noises. Then as Todd scrambled for the ball and made that bad throw towards first, I could almost feel the energy of all my teammates silently thinking, “Oh no!” And then when I managed to leap toward the runner and just catch his heel with my glove, the ump calling him “out!” that split second before everybody cheered or said “yeah,” at least everyone rooting for our team, while others who weren’t groaned.

***

Right after the game we were all standing around and everybody on our team was all excited and talking, feeling like a real team cuz we won. I noticed Cal’s older sister Rita still sitting by herself quietly in the stands writing things with a pencil on a pad that looked like one of those scoring ones that dad had showed me at the Tiger’s game. I think she was at all our games, but I’d never talked to her or realized til now that she was scoring them. She saw me looking at her pad on her lap, and gave me a serious look.

“That was a great play you made in the ninth to get the win,” she said, “You looked like Cash out there!” I liked that she said that but I also was kind of embarrassed.

“Bet ya don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. I nodded my head really fast, like I was saying that I sure did know.

“You’re scoring the game,” I said, grinning, feeling super cool that I knew.

“You’re right,” she said, smiling. “How’d you know that? Most kids your age don’t.”

I pushed my lips together and nodded slowly, the way my dad did sometimes when he was proud of himself for figuring something out—like I was saying that, yeah, maybe other kids don’t know, but I do. I felt like I was super cool. I didn’t want to tell her that Dad had shown me; I wanted her to think that I knew all sorts of cool stuff like that and that I wasn’t just another kid.

“No, really,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Who showed you?”

I couldn’t think of anything I could make up about how I’d learned.
“My dad showed me,” I finally said, giving up. “We were at Tiger Stadium for that double-header the day after school ended.”

“OH MY GOD!” she said, her eyes lighting up. “That second game went nineteen innings and ended at two in the morning. Were you guys there till the end?” I nodded.

“It must be heartbreaking,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “To lose a game like that after NINETEEN INNINGS!”

I nodded, but I realized I’d never heard a kid, even an older kid like her, use the word “heartbreaking” before.

***

Cal’s dad gave me a ride home from the game and when I got home it was a little after ten o’clock. The porch light was on and mom had kept the lights on in the living room, I guess for me. I saw the blue light from her bedroom window so I figured she was up there as usual sitting on her bed watching TV. She said she’d leave the front door unlocked so I’d be able to get in when I got home.

I noticed a pair of gleaming yellow green eyes under the spruce tree to the right of our front stoop. It was our cat Midnight, the parts of his shadowy black body pulled tightly together as he kept watch on things in the yard, across Wells in the park and across our street in our neighbors’ front yards. He’d been in a fight recently, presumably with another cat, and his right ear was kind of chewed up. The other cat probably got worse.
I went inside and took my cleats off in our little front entryway. Mom would get mad if I walked with them into the house. I put my first-baseman’s mitt on the round table in the living room and ran up the stairs. Even though I was a big kid now I still ran up the stairs like I’d started doing when I was three.

As I turned the corner of the stairs up to the upstairs hallway I heard that new Beatles’ Sergeant Peppers’ album coming out of David’s room, his door was closed. He’d gotten the album for his birthday just two weeks ago, but we’d already listened to it a hundred times. It was different, really different, even for the Beatles, who I guess liked doing different stuff on each of their new albums. It was like all the songs were chapters in a story, not like rock ‘n’ roll songs anymore but sounding more like grownup songs even.

The one playing was “Fixing a Hole.” The words of the first verse were strange and kind of made sense but kind of didn’t…

I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go

So I guess if he fixed that hole in the roof then the water that used to come down into the house would go somewhere else and he was really wondering where that other place would be, so if he fixed the roof he could finally figure out where it would go instead.

“Hey Cooper,” I heard mom’s voice calling from her bed, just over the sound of some movie she was watching on TV. She used my regular name rather than “Coolie” or even “Coop,” so that wasn’t a good sign.
I peeked into her room and there she was on her bed, wearing just a t-shirt and her underwear with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Both her bedroom windows were open but there still wasn’t much of a breeze on a warm sticky night. Hearing the noise of the crickets outside gave me a sense of yeah, being inside, but of the outside all around us too. The little fan on her big dresser to her right was on—humming and whooshing as it oscillated.

She pointed at the TV set and said, “Turn the sound down, sweetie.” I did and sat in my spot in her wood rocking chair. The warm, muggy air just wrapped around my skin except for when the fan oscillated my way for the moment.

“You’re home late,” she noted, looking into my eyes, hers looked tired and kind of sad, or even a bit scared.

“Yeah,” I replied, “It was a night game, under the lights. The first time I played one of those.”

“That’s interesting,” she said, “I’ve played some tennis under the lights, just for fun with friends, but never a real match in a tournament. It’s different… isn’t it?” I nodded. She was right, it was.

“It’s more intense,” I said, “Like the field is all lit up and everything around it is dark. It’s weird.”

“Who won?” she asked.

“We did,” I said, nodding, feeling good that me and my team had played a good game. “Six to four. Nine innings like a real baseball game. Grant pitched most of it. He’s our best pitcher. And on the last play there was a really bad throw to me at first but I saved it and got the guy out. If the ball had gotten by me they could have scored two runs and tied the game.” She nodded and did her best to smile.

“Wow, that’s great sweetie,” she said. “You’re quite the first baseman. Like that guy on the Tigers… What’s his name?”

“Norm Cash,” I said.

“Norm Cash,” she repeated, nodding. Then she took a deep breath and blew it out. Okay, here we go, I thought.

She looked down at the bed and put her hands on her forehead. “I’m thinking about your father moving down to Ohio.” I nodded, but she wasn’t even looking at me anymore to see me do it, and I couldn’t think what to say. Something like, “I know”, would be pretty stupid. Of course I knew.

“It’s a dream job for him,” she said. “It’s that full professorship that Eastern wasn’t giving him. He’ll be able to get tenure and probably have a job there for life if he wants it.”

She paused, then the words finally burst out of her mouth, “DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!” Then she looked up at me, her eyes teary. “We had a DEAL. I help him get his PhD, his teaching career going, then he helps ME get my degree in Art. Where’s my half of the fucking deal?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her say “fuck.” She didn’t swear a lot, only sometimes when she was really mad.

She shook her head really fast, like she was trying to wake up from a bad dream or something, then dropped her head and shook it slowly.
“I’m sorry sweetie,” she said, “I shouldn’t be laying all this on you.”

I realized that if I didn’t say anything NOW, that meant that I agreed she shouldn’t be telling me this stuff. I mean I didn’t LIKE hearing her say stuff like this. It scared and worried me. But was it better if I didn’t even KNOW about it? Was it better to be clueless? I figured I had to say something.

All I could manage was a quiet, “That’s okay,” which sounded pretty stupid.

With her head still down, she kind of chuckled a little through her nose. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ve got to get through this somehow. I can’t go on like this!” I nodded. I figured it was okay to just do that in response.

I’d heard her say stuff like that so many times since she and dad got divorced. Most of the time she was yelling at him on the phone and I heard her through the wall from my room. It made me worry that she might do something crazy, like kill herself or run away. But at least this time she said that she had to get through it somehow. I figured I had to help her, because who else would. Maybe Maryjane, who I guess was her best friend now, but she wasn’t around mom as much as I was.

She reached for a kleenex from the kleenex box already next to her on her bed and wiped her eyes and just stared at the TV screen. Neither of us said anything for a while, as I tried to figure out if I should stay or if she’d said what she needed to say and I could go to my room.

“I appreciate you listening, Cooper,” she said, still staring at the TV with almost no facial expression now at all. “I don’t expect you to solve anything. It’s just good to have someone to say it to.”

She had me turn the sound back up on the TV and I scooched the rocking chair around so I could see the screen too. I was happy not to have to look at her and have her talk to me anymore.

On the TV was a closeup on a woman seated in a chair wearing a short-sleeved shirt that kind of looked like a military uniform because it had those extra things on the shoulders and a round patch just down on the arm. She said…

He was trained to destroy, and he does it magnificently… and oh, so completely. He’s left me with nothing—not even the desire to hate or forgive.

The screen changed to an older woman she was talking to, also wearing what looked like a military uniform for a woman. That woman just listened, nodding slightly. Then the screen faded and a commercial started. It was that same Roy O’Brien one I’d seen and heard since the first time we got a TV back when I was three and turned it on…

Stay on the Right Track, to 9 Mile & Mack,
Roy O’Brien trucks and cars, make your money back!
Roy O’Brien’s got them buyin’ & buyin’,
They come from many miles away!
You’ll save yourself a lot of dollars, dollars,
By driving out his way today!

So stay on the Right Track to 9 Mile & Mack,
To get the best deal in town,
‘Cause Roy O’Brien’s has the best deal around!

“You don’t need to stay, sweetie,” mom said. “This movie’s pretty heavy and I don’t think you’ll care for it. I’ll see you in the morning. Thanks for listening!”