Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories (5 page)

He looked at the rippling moonlight and
wished to see Vree one more time.

Just then, shimmering outstretched hands
broke through the water’s surface and came for him. The nearest
hand bore five black ruby rings, blistering from the gold of each
ring. That hand grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him from
the depths of Myers Creek.

His lungs sucked in air and bits of water. He
coughed and sputtered fitfully while Ademia managed to get him to
shore. There, lying on his stomach, he vomited creek water and bits
of chewed hotdog on the bank of Myers Creek until he caught his
breath.

“Your friend David is safe,” Ademia said,
helping him to stand. “I stopped the dogs from attacking. But I was
too late to keep you from falling.”

Still weak and exhausted, he fell to the
ground.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking up at her.
He shivered wet and cold at her bare feet, and looked at her,
puzzled. She was as dry as when she had sat at the fire
earlier.

“I am someone you beckoned,” she said. “Now I
ask the same of you, young man. Who are you?”

He paused and wondered what she meant. And
while he wondered, he suddenly knew.

“You’re Cathleen Myers,” he said. He forced
the words through a clenched mouth that trembled from the cold that
burned at his bones. “And it’s true. Your husband … and his dogs …
froze to death.”

She was quiet while she studied him with
darkened eyes below a troubled scowl.

Finally, “I am the scorned wife who called
forth an ancient, evil power from Myers Ridge,” she said. “A power
that froze to death my unfaithful husband and cruelly cast me to my
grave.”

At that moment, they heard Dave crying out
Lenny’s name from atop the ridge. Lenny trembled too much to holler
back. Ademia placed her hands atop his head and filled his body
with warmth.

“Answer your friend,” she said; “you’re safe
now.”

“Thank you,” he said to her. Then he called
out and told Dave that he was okay. Dave told him to go to the
bridge on Russell Road and to wait.

“I owe you my life,” he said to Ademia. The
rubies of her rings began to glow, turning from dark to bright
white light. She held her hands to her face.

“I am forgiven,” she said before the light
from her rings engulfed her and she vanished.

Lenny stumbled upright. Ice water fell from
his clothes but he was not cold. As he headed toward Russell Road,
he wondered about his rescuer Ademia, the ancient power she had
called from Myers Ridge, and whether he would see her again.

He would.

#

Bottom of the Seventh

I wrote this short story in 1974 when I was in
high school and edited it 2000 when I published it at my website.
In this story presented in 7 parts, love helps win a high school
baseball game in the BOTTOM OF THE SEVENTH
.

Now

MY NAME IS Tyler Lake. I’m a junior at Ridgewood High
School. Today is the first Thursday in June and the last day of
school. It is also the last regulation Varsity baseball game of the
season.

It’s the bottom of the seventh inning, the
last chance my team has of scoring two runs and winning this game.
Coach Walker is reminding us of that as I peek into the bleachers
behind our dugout. The pretty blonde-haired girl, Julie Sommers,
sits in the third row. The evening sun seems to spark her hair and
I see a halo of white around her from the dress she wears. I avoid
making eye contact.

“Do you really see her?” my friend Derek
Hampton says next to me in the dugout as I twist and crane my head
to get a better look at her.

“I do,” I tell him, thankful he isn’t
questioning my sanity.

I look away and try to focus on the game.
Coach Walker’s pep talk is over and Danny Richards now watches the
coach give him signals from the third base coach’s box. Coach
Walker is a short, heavy man who always has a pipe clamped between
his teeth. He smokes his cherry tobacco only when our games are
over. Never before and certainly never during our games. He’s
superstitious that way.

I steal another glance at Julie and shiver
while Danny approaches the batter’s box at home plate.

Then

“I HAD MY first chance to kiss her when we were in
seventh grade,” I said to Derek in the lunchroom at school almost a
month ago, “Remember? It was three days before Halloween at my
snooty cousin Lisa’s house, during a party for her fourteenth
birthday.”

Derek and I sat across from each other,
avoided eye contact, and kept our voices low. I reminded him how my
Aunt Debbie had invited the neighborhood boys and girls over for
cake and ice cream. Aunt Debbie was always generous to us kids, so
it wasn’t unusual to see twenty or thirty of us hanging around.
And, she had a heated in-ground indoor swimming pool unlike the
rest of us with above-ground outdoor pools, so it was possible to
swim yearlong there. I loved to swim but couldn’t stand my cousin,
so I wasn’t complaining too loudly when I was late for the party
because my mom’s fIx-or-repair-daily automobile blew a back
tire.

When we arrived, I tossed Lisa her present
along with the card my mom bought and made me sign, gobbled down a
big bowl of strawberry ice cream topped with chocolate syrup, and
practically flew to the pool. There were almost twenty kids in
there when I cannon-balled into their midst. I maneuvered around
other kids and swam until I came to a circle of six girls playing
Blind Man’s Bluff. They were classmates from school, and they
surrounded another girl wearing a white bikini and a red
neckerchief blindfold. She tried tagging one of the girls who
crouched low, while the others snuck up and yelled “Boo.” I watched
as the stunning “blind man” waded through waist-high water toward
me.

A beach ball bounced off the back of my head
and I turned partway around to see Derek and some of my other
friends laughing. Just then, the “blind man” stumbled into me,
fell, and accidentally pulled down the back of my trunks. I
squirmed around to haul them back up as the two of us went
underwater. My legs tangled with hers and for a moment her body was
on mine and had me pinned to the pool floor, her stomach pressed
into mine. When we stopped struggling, she and I floated into a
gentle embrace. Then she took off the blindfold. It was Julie
Sommers. Our faces were inches apart and I wanted to kiss her. But
she disappeared from view and a strong arm pulled me up. Uncle John
and Cousin Paul brought us to our feet and asked if we were okay.
Julie said “yes” and I mumbled an affirmative. Julie returned to
her game and I sat on the sidelines and daydreamed about
what-ifs.

“You should have kissed her right then and
there,” Derek told me that day in the lunchroom.

He was right.

Now

THE FANS IN in the rickety metal and wood bleachers
behind me jump to their feet as Danny laces a hit over the second
baseman’s head. The spectators on the Franklin High School’s side
of the diamond moan at first, and then shout encouragement to their
pitcher. The Franklin Yellow Jackets players do the same.

I glance again at Julie and forget about the
game happening in front of me. I think of the past month when it
became hard for me to stay focused on anything for long. It was
when my grades took a turn for the worse, when my hitting slump
started, when—

Players dodge and dive around me and bring me
out of my reverie.

“Fire in the hole,” someone shouts as the
foul ball skirts past me and ricochets off the bench, and then
sails back onto the field. I sneak another glance at Julie. Her
face and hair glow more luxurious as the evening sun reddens toward
the horizon.

Never have I seen such beauty. I am
stricken.

Then

IT WAS LESS than three months ago when I finally
became less petrified talking to girls and asked Julie Sommers on a
date. I tried so hard not to act like a jerk that I wound up acting
like a jerk.

We met for pizza at the local pizza shop. We
sat at a window seat with Derek and his girlfriend where the
evening sun glowed against Julie’s perfect skin. She was like an
artist’s finest creation. To be in her presence made me a nervous
wreck. I tried to lighten my jitters by telling jokes, but I was
late with some of the punch lines, and forgot them altogether and
had to start over. The best I could do was fill my mouth with pizza
and be quiet, but I even failed at that. Derek had to hammer me on
the back to dislodge the pepperoni wedged against my windpipe.

When my breathing became regular again
(although looking at Julie made inhaling difficult). I ended our
date by reaching for a napkin and knocking over my cola, spilling
it into the lap of Julie’s pretty dress.

After that horrible event, I entered a funk
and spent some time at a safe distance, dreaming of Julie and
achieving the perfect date with her.

Our next date went well. She came to a
baseball game, I hit a home run, and I gave her the ball after the
game. She kissed me on the cheek and made me forget my name for a
moment.

“It was the perfect hit,” I said when mind
returned to reality. “It’s such a wonderful feeling when a batter
connects with the ball and hits the perfect hit.”

“What’s the perfect hit feel like?” she
asked.

“The ball feels soft against the bat.
Sometimes there is barely a feeling at all.”

“How soft? Like hitting butter?”

Yes. Like hitting butter. She was
perfect.

Now

DEREK POKES ME in the ribs with a bony elbow and
tells me I’m on deck. I seem to float from my seat and up the
steps. In foul territory, I almost hover above the on-deck circle
where I swing a weighted bat, all the while dreaming of hitting
another home run for beautiful Julie Sommers.

I put on a batter’s helmet and observe the
scoreboard telling me there are two outs. I wonder if Petey Wilson
will be the final out, but he answers my question by placing a hot
bouncing double between left field and center field. However, the
center fielder is quick to catch up with the ball and throw it to
his shortstop, thereby keeping Danny Richards from rounding third
base and scoring the tying run.

The Yellow Jackets’ coach calls for a pitcher
change and Coach Walker is at my side giving me a gut wrenching pep
talk.

“Forget about those last two strikeouts,” he
says, which causes those last two strikeouts to loom large in my
mind. “Just get a hit, Tyler. Just get a hit.”

I steal a glance at Julie. Coach Walker tells
me to get the crowd out of my mind, but their excitement fills my
head and their noise drowns out Coach’s words. He places a beefy
hand on my thin shoulder and his touch brings the sight of him back
in focus.

“You can do this, Tyler. All you need to do
is empty your mind of everything around you and focus only on the
ball. Can you do that?”

I nod and wonder if I can forget about the
anxiety dancing across my back.

Coach Walker puts an arm around my shoulders.
“Imagine yourself hitting the ball … connecting,” he says.

My mind is searching. I know what he means.
Whenever I connect with the ball, it feels soft against the bat.
Sometimes there is barely a feeling at all, like—

“Like hitting butter,” I cry out.

“Sure. Butter. Why not?” He smiles. “Now you
go to that plate and you imagine you’re going to hit a stick of
butter. See it in your mind. When that pitcher throws the ball,
it’s nothing but a stick of butter.”

Then

“A LOAF OF bread, a container of milk, and a stick of
butter!”

Derek and I laughed at my mom’s shopping list
for bread, milk and butter as we walked beneath the gentle May sun
to the grocery store. We had my eight-year-old brother with us, and
the three of us sang again the segment from television’s Sesame
Street.

“A loaf of bread… a container of milk… and a
stick of butter!”

We carried on, two high school eleventh
graders and a third grader sharing a wonderful moment together.
Then Derek and I got into a serious conversation about school and
classes and girlfriends.

“Julie and I have a date to the movies Friday
night,” I told him. I’m sure my face beamed as bright as the high
beams on headlights as we made plans to double date.

When we left the store, an ambulance screamed
past us toward the hospital as we came to an accident scene three
stores down. While we waited for the police to let us cross the
street, someone—an elderly woman—told us a car had run a red light
and hit another car broadside. The driver from the second car was
okay, she said. However, a passenger in the car was in critical
condition.

We stared at the dented cars and broken glass
on the street. I’m sure I prayed for the injured passenger. Derek
and I even reflected on our own mortality. It frightened me to
think someday I would die and never play baseball again. When my
little brother began to cry, we detoured the scene and took the
long way home. The accident was soon out of mind.

“A loaf of bread,” Derek sang out.

“A container of milk,” sang my brother. He
looked up at me and waited for me to finish.

Now

“A STICK OF butter,” I say.

“Whatever it takes.” Coach Walker nods and
returns to his spot next to third base. I watch the pitcher throw
bullets to his catcher until the home plate umpire tells him he’s
thrown enough. The umpire beckons me to enter the batter’s box. A
Yellow Jackets’ fan demands that the pitcher strike me out. My
teammates plead for me to get a hit. Coach Walker gives me the take
sign and then swings his arms to try to fool the other team into
thinking I’m hitting away. My self-assurance teeters; my boosted
spirit descends for a moment. I dig my cleats into the dirt anyway
and swing my bat menacingly at the pitcher. He responds with a nod
to his catcher, mimics a professional pitcher’s windup, and blows a
letter high fastball past me.