Fucked-up Miami Story #42 Alex Perez
I hadn't seen him in five or six years when he showed up at my
practice. He had a beard now and he'd put on some weight, but when he took a
sip from the bottle he'd been hiding behind his back, I knew it was him. I
dove and kicked up dirt and turned double plays and made throws from the
hole like a young Ripken, doing my best to impress this man who'd never
given a shit about me or my mother. We didn't know if he'd gone back to
Cuba, or headed out west, but here he was, standing behind the backstop as I
stepped into the batter's box. I blasted line drives into the gap and laced
grounders through the infield and even hit one off the centerfield fence,
showing warning track power for the first time in my life. He clapped. I was
so shocked that I dropped the bat, but I picked it up immediately and dug in
again. Never in my life had he done anything but faintly nod at me when
boozed up, not a hug or a kiss or a pat on the back, but my newfound power
at the plate had made him clap! I squeezed the bat and crouched down into my
stance and when he clapped again as the coach released the ball I felt
electricity surge through me. Everything slowed down and went quiet. The
laces on the ball shimmered as it approached the plate. The bat was
weightless. My teammates disappeared. When I made contact, I felt nothing,
and I screamed the scream I'd been holding back my entire life. The ball
left my bat and I watched it rise and rise as I took off for first. I hit
the bag and ignored the taunts from my teammates as I headed for second.
"This isn't a game," they yelled. I didn't care, as a homerun is a homerun,
and I knew this was the only one I'd ever hit and the only one he'd ever see
me hit. So you better believe I milked it. He watched me run the bases and
stomp on the plate and throw my hands in the air like I'd just won us the
World Series, and then he picked up his bottle and disappeared just as
quickly as he'd appeared and I knew I'd never see him again. And I was
right.
Alex Perez was a Maytag Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He's had stories in
Subtropics, Hobart, Guernica and others.
Detail of art on main page courtesy
of Thiago Fonseca.
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