LESSONS TAUGHT FROM THE MOUND OF ST. LUKE'S FIELD: Chuck MacLean

Charlie wipes the dirt his palms on the seams of his jeans. Little gravel rocks dimple the sides of his hands and burn where his skin's torn. The friction seems to dulls the sting. He looks up at his father on the mound and Dad is staring right back at him, waiting, spinning the ball in his hand as if coaxing it to fly.

“What the fuck was wrong with that one?” his father asks. Charlie shrugs. His father steps off the rubber, shaking his head.

The boy takes a deep breath. The sun is going down beyond right field and he has to squint to see. He picks up his bat and steps back into the box, leaning the bat against his shoulder. Looking out over the mound, he exhales. He squats down in his stance and tightens his grip on the end of the bat. He holds it straight up, wrists cocked; like Yaz used to - like a good power hitter should: all hips and speed.

His father throws in another one. It sails two feet over Charlie's head and rings the chain link on the backstop fence. Charlie lands on his hands, again. Why doesn’t he stop? The boy asks himself, lying in the dust.

Dad just bites his bottom lip, shakes his head like a wild horse. “Just stay in the fucking box,” He says, and walks over to the ball as it bounces along the third base line. “It’s not gonna hit you.”

“Okay,” Charlie says.

He pushes himself up, and makes a face as the stones dig into the cuts on his palms. A few wisps of blood have come through the top layer of skin, and he cautiously wipes the dust off his yellow jersey.

“You think Yaz would’ve dove out of the way of every pitch that went a little high on him?” Dad asks, dropping his big calloused hands to his sides. They make a sound like thunder clap.

“No,” Charlie says, and whispers under his tongue, “But I bet Tony Conigiliaro wished he had.”

Dad throws one at Charlie's head, flat footed. The ball pings off the head of the bat and knocks it out of Charlie’s hands, and the kid falls back on his ass, the bat rolling on the ground like a spent shell casing.

“You know what it’s like watching your son dive out of the way of every pitch?” His father asks, strangely calm. He walks off the mound, all the way to the backstop, and picks the ball up.

Charlie crawls to his feet. “Yeah.”

“Can you guess what that feels like?” His father asks, standing above him, tossing his black hair out of his black eyes.

“Probably embarrassing,” Charlie whispers.

His father doesn't answer as he walks back out to the mound. He just talks to himself. In the silence that follows Charlie thinks to himself: I have nowhere to go. He suddenly realizes he’s paralyzed. He can’t move. His arms are stuck holding the bat, his small hands aching, his arms locked at the elbows. His legs buckle, his thighs burn. His knees lock and pop, imperceptibly but uncontrollably. Please don’t make me move, please don’t ask a question, he says to himself. Charlie knows that if he has to move, if he has to answer in too many words, or say them too loudly, he won’t be able to hold it back. And that’s the last thing he wants right now, for that to happen.

“Yeah,” his father says, finally. “It is. It’s embarrassing," He violently nods his head, biting off the last words, "having a coward for a son.”

Charlie swallows. “I’m sorry.”

But Dad sees that Charlie isn’t moving, and that the boy isn't moving his lips when he talks. Suddenly knowing, Dad looks away. He kicks the dust off the rubber mound, but it won’t come off. It’s been burnt on from years of sun and being walked on. Dad mouths a silent “fuck” to himself and not knowing what to do he decides to toss in an easy one over the plate. A fat one. An olive branch. Let the kid win one, he thinks. But the bat never leaves Charlie’s shoulder and the ball hits the dirt. His father is astounded.

“You not even gonna try now?” He asks, holding his palms up at his sides. “You done?”

“Yeah.” Charlie coughs.

“No,” Dad decides, nodding towards the backstop. “You're not. Go get the ball.”

Beaten, Charlie backs out of the batter’s box. He tries not to make too sudden of a move, as he drops his chin to his chest and drags the bat on the sand, like chalk across slate. Just don’t look him in the eye, he says to himself, and you’ll be alright. Just keep your head down. He drops the bat at the backstop and heaves the ball out to the mound. His father catches it with one hand and starts pacing, thinking to himself.

"You’re too young to understand this," he begins, "but there's can be a certain honor in losing." He paws the ball in both hands, along the stitches. "There is something to be said for a man who takes his beatings and keeps going.”

Dad stops pacing. "Believe me, you never want to be this man, but if you end up as him at you least know you’re no less of a man for it.”

He sets his feet in the dirt, a knowing half frown on his face. “There’s something worthwhile about that man,” he adds.

Just throw the ball, Charlie thinks.

Dad tosses in another one, lightly - a pathetic gesture. It breaks Charlie's heart to see it now, but he half-heartedly swings, just trying to make contact, to get this over with. Let me go home, he thinks to himself, just let me go home. When he misses he struggles not to swear out loud, and he grinds his back teeth together, as if trying to wiggle them loose for the money under the pillow.

“It takes faith to do that, Charlie,” his father says, walking off the mound. “It takes a whole lot of faith to take a beating and keep coming. Not everyone can do that.”

As his father passes, Charlie backs away. His father ignores him, walks to the backstop and grabs the ball.

“Some people," his father says, pointing at Charlie, "are too afraid to even step into the box, let alone take their swings.”

Charlie has to look away from his father. He can't take another hole in him. So his eyes wander and his father keeps talking. But Charlie, he sees the sun coming out of the clouds and how the leaves dance in the trees out beyond right field, how their shadows wave in the breeze over the brown patches of outfield, where the big puddles form when it rains. He watches the younger kids run around the monkey bars in the playground, way out past centerfield, and for the first time he hears their squeals of joy, delayed for the distance. He notices the gray stones in the infield and the pieces of shells trailed in from the bottom of cleats. He hears the cars passing on the road behind them and an engine struggling to start in the parking lot. He can feel the calluses forming on his hands where the rubber of the handle gets in between his fingers and his palms; and he has the odd feeling that he will remember this moment for a long, long time.

And he fails to notice another pitch sailing in. It hits the dirt behind home plate and bounces to the back stop, ringing the fence. Charlie leaps out of the way.

“Christ!” His father yells, charging off the mound. “At least have the fucking faith to step in the goddamn box and look for a pitch to hit."

He walks up to Charlie, his finger leveled at the boy's throat. "Courage takes faith, kid, and let me tell you this: it's the fucking case with everything. It’s scary, but that’s life. If you were religious you’d have to believe that God’s there. In baseball, you gotta believe the pitcher is going to throw a strike. And you’ve always, ALWAYS have to be looking for a good one to hit.”

His father grabs the ball and walks back to the mound. He stops with his back turned to the plate and, for just a second, he studies the space beyond the outfield fence, the kids swinging form the monkey bars, as if suddenly remembering something. A slight breeze moves over the infield and echoes off through the trees.

Turning, he says, almost quietly: “If you take it on faith that the ball isn’t coming at your head, you can look for a good pitch,” he holds up the ball as if to signify what a good one looks like. “And if you’re looking for that, you won’t take any chances on a ball. And if you’re looking for that, you’ll know when it’s coming at your head.”

Dad fires one at Charlie's head. The boy sees it coming and falls flat on his back, and the ball rings off the backstop like a handful of pennies dropped into a coffee can. In a cloud of dirt, with the wind knocked out of his lungs, Charlie thinks to himself: Oh my God, I can’t hold it. His throat tightens. His eyes pin shut. Something wells up inside of his chest, like a great big sneeze, and he quickly turns over on his knees. He bites his cheek and spits into the dust and swears to himself, and he tries to breath despite the dirt floating into his face like cigarette smoke.

The ball slowly rolls back into the infield and his father bends down to pick it up.

“There was honor in what Tony C. did because he caught a bad break and he didn’t let it beat him,” Dad holds the ball up. “Even though he had every right to. He never played as well again, but he at least played it right.”

A small frown on his face, Dad shrugs, as if to say well, that’s all I got, kid. Good luck with it.

But as he turns around to walk back to the mound, he suddenly says, “If you don’t learn how to do that now," he says, "you’ll be afraid of everything for the rest of your life.”

Dad spins the ball in his right hand like a lucky coin – waiting. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Charlie gets up and licks the dirt from the sides of his mouth, and drags his sleeve across his face. His eyes bent against the falling sun, he stares out at the mound for a good, long while. Fuck him, he thinks. And he steps back into the box.