Fanfare (Country Roads #2)
Travis Starnes
Fanfare
Country Roads, Book II
Travis Starnes
Table of Contents
Fanfare
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
About The Author
Other Books
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Fanfare
Country Roads II
Copyright © 2021 by Travis Starnes
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-1-7372156-5-3
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Chapter 1
It was close to midnight and I was sitting with Hannah Phillips and Katherine Moore in Hannah's living room. Hanna was the first friend I’d made moving to town and had become my best friend of the last few months. My relationship with Kat was … complicated. We were huddled up under a big blanket together on Hanna’s couch, watching the commentator kill time while they waited for the countdown to midnight. Hanna had just gotten back from her skiing vacation and the three of us had spent all day together, just catching up. Our parents thought we were being overdramatic, since two weeks wasn’t that long for most people to be apart, but I don’t think they really understood what we meant to each other.
Until four months ago I’d lived my life in an RV traveling up and down the east coast as my dad went from gig to gig. It wasn’t until his drunk ass accidentally killed another man in a bar fight that Mom and I settled down in one place. I’d hated it at first, since I’d gone from us being on our own and seeing new places all the time to being on our own in one place. Then I got into a fight to help this little kid that turned out to be Hanna’s cousin. Hanna and I became friends and she showed me all the stuff I’d been missing, growing up on the road.
It turned out Hanna had needed someone too. She’d been in a depressive spiral since she was sexually assaulted the previous year, and had cut herself off from anyone else. I don’t know why she decided to open up to me, but it had saved both of us.
Kat was a different story altogether. Where Hanna and I had just been cut off from others, Kat had an actual disorder with a capital D. Her dad had refused to get her help, but the doctor I got her to talk to before Christmas diagnosed her with something called Dependent Personality Disorder, which basically meant she was incapable of standing up to anyone or even saying no. The worst kid in school had figured out she was vulnerable and had been taking advantage of her in every way imaginable. She’d been forced to do stuff she didn’t want to do, and without treatment, there seemed no way out.
That was about when I figured out a loophole, based on a warning the psychologist had given me. It turns out if she found someone she trusted, there was a danger she’d latch on to them, and start seeing them as the final authority over her, kind of like a small kid does with a parent. He’d warned me because it would make later treatment harder and told me to be very careful with how I acted with her to make sure that didn’t happen. Since her dad refused to even get her looked at, let alone treated, it didn’t look like she’d be getting that therapy anytime soon.
That was around the time Aaron stepped things up, using her to actively hurt other people. Kat recognized what she was doing was wrong but was powerless to go against him, and she was starting to spiral all on her own. The loophole was doing exactly what the doctor had warned me against, and convincing Kat that I should be the person she listened to. I’m sure when she finally got to see a psychologist for real, this would become a problem, but for the last month she hadn’t had to do anything she didn’t want to do, and it showed.
She’d stopped being so soft-spoken and even given her opinions several times. We were still on training wheels, but she was making progress, at least in how it affected her day-to-day life. She seemed really happy for the first time since I’d met her, so that was something.
Hanna and Kat had spent a bunch of time together recently, before Hanna went on vacation, and had become friends. Besides me, Hanna was the only other person who knew Kat’s diagnosis, and she’d been making an effort to get Kat to start being more independent, which was good. I’d worried that everything I did just pushed her more into giving up her own autonomy, since it was easier for Kat to do than deal with the panic attacks and physical symptoms of her disorder. Hanna didn’t have that kind of relationship with Kat.
So here we were; three broken people each using the other two to find a way back to normal. If I explained it to someone, they’d probably see us as some kind of sad story, but I was probably the happiest I’d been in my life, just sitting here with my girls.
“I still can’t believe you went snowboarding,” Kat said.
“Why? It’s a rush. It kind of feels like flying, especially if you go over one of the jumps. I didn’t go on any of the real slopes, but I swear next time we go, I’m just going to snowboard. Skiing is fun and all, but you don’t just let go like you do on a board, you know?” Hanna said.
“I’d be worried I’d fall down and break my neck.”
“Nah, I wasn’t going that fast. I fell down lots of times, but I was wearing a helmet and so many clothes I just kind of slid. Besides, of the three of us, I’m the least athletic. You two would do great.”
“Maybe Charlie, but not me. Swimming may be a good workout, but it doesn’t do anything for your balance. Heck, I think all that time with my head underwater would probably make it worse.”
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “After breaking my foot, I’ve got a new respect for how fragile my bones are. I like being on firm ground, thank you very much.”
“How was the show tonight?” Hanna asked.
Chef had decided on a big New Year’s Eve show, which he hadn’t done before. When I’d first gotten to the Blue Ridge, Willie Johnson and his band played there on weekend nights. He was an old blues player and they’d had good size crowds, but mostly of older folks from Wellville and the surrounding farming communities and some tourists who’d been passing by on I-26 heading up into the Shenandoah or down towards South Carolina and Georgia.
Willie had heard me play when Hanna first brought me to the Blue Ridge and taken me under his wing. Eventually, they’d given me a shot at playing on my own, or at least being the frontman for Willie’s band, doing pop and rock music instead of blues. We’d worked it out so that we split up each weekend night where I’d play a set for the younger crowd and then Willie’d play a set for the people who still wanted to come in for blues. Things had taken off from there.
“It wasn’t as full as Chef had hoped. It wasn’t dead, but we’d had busier nights. I think with the holiday, people were able to go down to the clubs in Asheville, so we lost a lot there.”
“That sucks.”
“Nah, it’s all right. Chef had been making noise that maybe I should do both sets and play till midnight, since it’s still a holiday, but when he saw the crowds he said I could knock off after the first set. Which means I get to be here with you two.”
“You know I would have come down to the Blue Ridge if you were still playing?”
“It’s okay, you’ll be forced to hear me play a lot more before you leave for college, so maybe it’s good that you’re getting a break. Kat showed up and gave me a ride home, so it all worked out.”
“You know I love your music, so stop with the whole ‘forced to hear me’ BS,” Hanna said before looking across me at Kat. “How did you manage to stay out so late? Doesn’t your dad always make you get home by like nine or whatever?”
“He’s out of town on work, so I’m on my own until Thursday. He called to check on me, so I had to stay home till then and only heard the last half of Charlie playing, but it means I can stay out and watch the ball drop.”
We fell into silence again, looking at the TV. Kat’s dad was a subject of some contention. I was still fairly certain he was in some way responsible for Kat’s condition, and his unreasonable demands on where she went didn’t help those suspicions. I’m all for parents wanting to know where their kids are, but having a nine o’clock curfew on a teenager, even on weekends, was strange. That with his unwillingness to get help for Kat’s condition and the fact that no one I knew had ever met the man just added to the growing list of things I disliked about him.
“What’s your plan for the rest of the year?” I asked Hanna, breaking the silence.
“Just make it through, I guess. I sent off my last applications by the middle of December, so now we’re just waiting for decision letters to see what my choices of schools are. We should start getting acceptance and rejection letters in the mail any time now.”
“Have you thought about which school you prefer, if they all accept you?” Kat asked.
“No. When we started sending out applications at the end of the summer, all I wanted was to be really far from here, so my original list was all west coast, Florida and New York, with a few Texas schools. Mom made me expand that and apply to most of the major universities in the state, and some other ones closer, like Virginia Tech. If you’d asked me four months ago where I wanted to go, I’d have said USC, just to get as far away as possible, but now … I don’t know.”
“Don’t let us affect your decision,” I said.
She’d made a few comments since the end of last semester about how much happier she was now that she had real friends again, and how she’d miss us once she left for college. She’d said it enough times now that it felt almost like she was building herself up for choosing somewhere close, so that she didn’t have to go that far away.
“While you know we’d love to have you nearby, please don’t choose something just because we’re within driving distance. Where you go to college will be a big factor in setting you up for everything else in life. You have to think really selfishly on this.”
“I know, but I’m not sure it really matters as long as it’s a halfway decent school. Hell, I don’t even have a clue what I want to major in, so I can’t really judge any schools by specific programs.”
“You don’t have any idea?” Kat asked.
Kat’s dad had her whole life planned out for her, so uncertainty about what to go to school for was probably completely alien to her.
“No. When I was a freshman and sophomore, I was so sure I had it all planned out. I’d major in primary education and a minor in history, since I always preferred social studies when I was a kid, and join a sorority. Now, I can’t even remember why I’d wanted to be a school teacher. I don’t have some big jones for kids or education or whatever. I think it was because that was what all the other girls I knew wanted to do.”
“I think it’s okay to start in something more general like a basic liberal arts degree or a business degree,” I said. “You can always switch programs when you find the thing you like. Hell, I have no idea what I want to do either, although I still have a year and a half before I need to start applying, so I guess it’s not quite the same.”
“I know, and that’s probably what I’ll do. I’m just … I don’t know, everything’s different, and I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“You know we’ll support you no matter what you go with.”
“I know,” Hanna said, leaning into me as we watched the countdown to midnight finally start.
Monday, we were back in school. It felt strange coming back after some time away, and I wondered if everyone had that feeling. Since this was my first year with actual public education, it was all new to me. I was sure once things got rolling I’d fall back into the same patterns as before and it would become routine but at the moment, just walking in, I couldn’t shake how the place seemed a little smaller than it had before we left for winter break.
I was partway to my first class when I heard my name called out behind me. My first instinct was to tense up, since the only person to call me out like that had been Aaron Campbell, my nemesis. It only lasted for a second, since it wasn’t his voice, but it did show I wasn’t completely over my concern about him, despite kicking his ass before we left for winter break. He wasn’t the kind of guy to let things lie, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he retaliated.
It took me a second to place the teacher who’d called my name. I’d only met Coach Dean once, during one of my run-ins with Aaron’s crew. The vice-principal had been ready to suspend me for fighting when he’d shown up as a witness for the event and defended me.
“You forgot to sign up,” He said when he caught up with me.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“After the thing on the baseball field, I told you I wanted you to try out for the baseball team this year. You had a hell of an arm.”
“Ohh, yeah. Sorry. I’ve had a lot going on and I forgot all about it.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard you’re some kind of musician. Tryouts are Wednesday afternoon and I’d really like to see you out there. Can I put your name on the list?”
“Coach, I really appreciate the offer, but things are kind of crazy. I’m still in tutoring ‘cause I have a lot to catch up on if I want to pass this year and make it to eleventh grade. So it doesn’t leave a lot of time in the afternoons to get to practice, and after that, I go and do band practice most days, because I play at the Blue Ridge on weekends. I’m also not sure I’ll be able to make it to games because I’ve already committed to playing there. I would love to play, honestly, but I just don’t have the time.”
“Charlie, after we met last semester, I looked into you, so I’m perfectly aware of how busy you are. I also saw you throw that ball to stop Harry Torres from attacking that other kid, and you have a hell of an arm on you. He was running full out and you were still able to hit a pretty small target without a lot of lead time. We could really use that kind of accuracy on the field.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that, but …”
“Hear me out. I know you’ve had some problems getting along with some of the other students, especially in the athletics program. I think it would do you some good to participate in student activities and integrate yourself better with the rest of your class. Now, as I said, I’m aware of your schedule. I did some checking and heard you were close with the guy who runs the Blue Ridge and you’ve been spending time there every day, so I went to talk to him. Feel free to give him a call, but he agreed with me that you might get some benefit out of being part of a team, and he said he’d make sure you’d find a way to get everything worked into your schedule.”
I hadn’t expected that. While I knew a lot of people in town knew Chef and it was true I spent most of my time at the Blue Ridge, it surprised me that anyone would start checking my schedule through him, although it probably shouldn’t have. What surprised me more was how much work Coach Dean had done, considering I hadn’t even tried out for the team.
“Again, I do appreciate the offer, but I’m a little confused by this. You’ve only ever seen me throw one ball. You don’t know if I can hit or if I’m fast enough or pretty much anything else except that one throw. Why are you going through all this trouble to get me on the team?”
“Call it ‘gut instinct.’ Recognizing when someone has potential is what teachers and coaches do, and I can see it in you. I also saw why you threw the ball that day. You’ve got a good heart. More than athletic ability, that’s something we really need on our teams. All that matters is, do you want to play ball? If yes, then we’ll work it out. Anything else is just excuses.”
I thought about it for a minute. I had to admit it was flattering how much the coach had done so far to get me on the team, and I really did miss playing baseball. When I was traveling with my dad, we’d stop at RV parks for a few weeks occasionally, if he had a lot of gigs in one area. In the afternoons there’d usually be pickup baseball games, and I always loved it. It’d been several years since I played, and I hadn’t realized I’d missed it until now.
“Fine, I’ll come to tryouts.”
“Good, it’s Wednesday after school.”
“Sure.”
Part of me hoped I got on the team, both because it would be fun and because he was right, except for Hanna and a few of her friends, I really had just been separated from everyone else. Maybe it was from being homeschooled until this year, but I didn’t really have a great grasp on how to navigate high school very well. Joining into school activities might help me deal with people like Aaron. Probably not, but it was worth a try.
Of course, I was setting myself up to be even busier, but the change might do me some good.
Speaking of changes, I wasn’t done yet. After a bunch of nudges and hints from Mr. French, the music teacher, at the end of last semester, I’d put in for a new schedule. I’d dropped the art class I was in, since I was never going to be any good at drawing or painting, and signed up for Choir. I’d been concerned I was coming in late, since everyone else had been in all year, but Mr. French wasn’t worried.
I’d already seen some success on the vocal practices. Cameron - who was in Choir - had introduced me to Mr. French in the first place, and I hoped this would help that along. Working with Willie at the Blue Ridge had advanced my guitar playing, but Willie was a classic blues man, where the singing had a particular style. While I thought I was a pretty good singer, and he tended to agree, just like guitar, the voice is something that you never stop working to improve. He’d admitted that in that area, he wasn’t going to be a big help and had suggested I find a vocal coach.
There weren’t a lot of those in a town this size and we didn’t have the money to pay for something like that. I liked Cameron, but he was a student and a different kind of singer than me, also, focusing on Broadway-style projection singing, rather than something more nuanced that I’d need if I ever wanted to get past live performances and actually record music.
This seemed a good - and more importantly, an affordable - alternative. Walking into class I realized I didn’t know anyone and for a second just hung back by the wall. I felt a little out of place, since joining something like this your sophomore year was unusual, more so when it was halfway through the year.
Thankfully Cameron appeared from a clump of kids and came over to find me.
“So you did get signed up,” he said, slapping me on the arm.
“Yep. Mr. French took care of it, although now that I’m here, I’m not sure what’s happening.”
“The first few minutes are always a bit chaotic, but it’ll settle down. You’re a tenor, so you can come with me. We group by range, so the basses are at one end and the sopranos are at the far end,” he said, pointing at the half-circle of chairs all facing a center podium thing that was probably where Mr. French would stand. “We’ll do some vocal warm-up to start, just follow along. They’ll seem weird, but some of them you did with me already. It’ll all make sense.”
“Are we working on something specific?”
“Probably. We spent most of last semester getting ready for the Christmas concert and some performances we did at nursing homes and places like that. Now we’ll switch to music for the spring concert and UIL.”
“UIL?”
“It’s the school competition thing. All of the arts programs like band, debate, and whatever all compete in UIL programs. There’s a separate national competition that we’ll do but it will probably be the same piece. At least that’s what we did last year.”
“How’d you do?”
“Not great. We got through district but got knocked out in regionals. Hopefully, we’ll do better this year. Maybe Mr. French wanted you in as a ringer.”
“I’m not that good of a singer; my thing has always been the guitar.”
“You’re joking, right? Once you train to use the full range of your voice, you’ll be amazing. Your pitch is on point, you’re mid-range is silky smooth and you’ve got this rasp in the lower range that is really something. Hell, now that I’m thinking about it, I think we might do well this year.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Hey, I’m just happy to have you here.”
Mr. French tapped on the music stand, settling everyone else down.
“Welcome back. I hope you all had a good winter break and got a chance to relax a little bit. I’m going to hand out our new music here in a second, but first I want everyone to welcome our newest member, Charlie Nelson. Some of you might know, Charlie’s already working in music himself and plays most weekends at the Blue Ridge. He’s also done a few shows down in Asheville. Everyone make sure you take a moment to welcome him after class.”
A bunch of people looked my way. I was used to people looking at me on stage, but this was different. It felt like I was being judged before I’d even done anything, and wished Mr. French had not given me the build-up. I didn’t mind performing, but I didn’t need everyone who’d been in the class all year feeling like I was trying to upstage them. I had enough enemies in school without making new ones.
“Okay, now for what we’re going to be working on. We’ve picked The Proclamation, Gloria in Excelsis Deo for State. For our spring concert, we’ll be doing that as well as Mamma’s House and Into the Fire. If we have enough people sign up for show choir, then those will be the two that you compete with as well, so no time wasted.”
I hadn’t heard of the first song and assumed it was something classical. The other two were really popular at the moment, getting a lot of play on the radio. Mamma’s House was a pop-country song, veering more to country, and Into the Fire had been bouncing in and out of the number one spot on the pop charts for months. I was a little suspicious of his choices, since both songs were in the rotation I did at the Blue Ridge, and I’d performed both of them a dozen or more times.
Of course, everything we did was top 40 on either the pop or country charts, so it wasn’t that big of a coincidence.
Like Cameron said, we started off with the vocal warm-ups he’d had me learn to do. I still thought they were silly, but I had to admit they did make my throat feel looser and made it easier to hit some of the notes at the top of my range.
That done, we did a couple of run-throughs on all three pieces. To say it was rough would be an understatement, but I’d seen enough of the process of working up a song that I assumed it was just the first steps and it would get better. At least, that was how it worked with a band, and I assumed this wouldn’t be that much different.
I was pleasantly surprised by the response I got after class. Once we finished up, a good half of the class stopped me to welcome me to Choir and everyone seemed friendly enough. Even those who hurried out seemed pleasant enough.
Things were starting off a lot better than they had the previous semester. I knew it was too much to ask, but I hoped it continued like this.
Of course, that wasn’t likely.
Chapter 2
Wednesday afternoon I was at the baseball field in my PE clothes along with about thirty other kids. I’d let Chef know I was going to be late and Hanna had agreed to wait for me. Actually, both she and Kat had waited and were currently sitting up in the stands with a handful of other friends and people trying out, watching us.
I felt a little bad about having to constantly beg rides, but there didn’t seem to be much I could do about that any time soon. My birthday was coming up in two months, but even with the money I was making at the Blue Ridge, we weren’t going to afford a second car any time soon, let alone insurance on it.
We started with warm-ups and stretching before they had us run sprints and do several full laps of the field, I guess to see if we had any endurance. The sprints I did okay on. I was far from the fastest, but I felt like I held my own. The endurance part I was more than ready for, since Chef had already run me enough that I was able to treat it as almost a meditative experience. I found if I just ran but kept my mind calm, putting one foot in front of the other, I wouldn’t notice myself getting tired and could do more than if I just focused on the running all by itself.
I thought about Aaron and what to expect from him, since I knew he wasn’t over getting put down in the parking lot in an armbar at the end of last semester. I hadn’t seen him since, but I knew my luck wouldn’t hold there. I also thought about Hanna and how she seemed to avoid talking about college and Kat and what I was going to do about that whole situation. I probably took the whole thing too far, because I was in my head as we stopped and formed back up, lost in thought. It wasn’t until I heard my name called and shook myself back into focusing on the here and now.
“You’re with Coach Bryant,” Coach Dean said.
He’d called several other names, and those kids had already started to jog over to third base, where Coach Bryant was set up.
“Sorry, Coach,” I said, and hurried after them, feeling a knot in my stomach.
Had I known Coach Bryant was also a coach for the baseball team, I wouldn’t have agreed to try out. He was staring daggers at me as I ran up. To my joy, I also noticed Harry Torres was in my group.
“If you’re not going to pay attention then get off my field, Nelson,” Bryant said when I caught up.
I ignored him. I’d already learned from being in his history class that apologizing would just get me yelled at more, and the best thing to do was stay quiet until he went on to the next thing.
“This station is for fielding drills to see how you boys are at catching the ball. I won’t be hitting them all at you, and I won’t tell you if it’s a pop up or a grounder. I expect you to eye the ball coming off the bat and figure out where you need to be. Drop too many balls and we’ll drop you from tryouts. Got it?”
“Yes, Coach,” we all said in unison.
“Torres, you’re first.”
I was sure this was somehow a way to show Harry favoritism, since he was one of Coach Bryant’s golden boys on the football team, but I was happy Harry went first. Although I’d played plenty of ball over the years, they’d all been pickup games. I’d never been to a tryout before and had no idea what we were actually supposed to do. I got the gist, of course. He’d hit the ball at us and we were to catch it and throw it back, but it was still nice to be able to watch someone else do it.
To his credit, he didn’t seem to be taking it easy on Harry. He always placed the ball where Harry wasn’t, making him run every minute to get to the ball. He also kept a good variety of hits, with rolling grounders, bouncing grounders, pop-ups that dropped right down, line drives, and several that required Harry to run backward to get to them.
I watched each one and tried to think where I’d need to be to get to the ball, trying to use the time mentally going through the motions. It turned out, I’d have lots of time to prepare, as Coach Bryant called out other kids in my group, one after another, until I was the last one.
“Your turn, Nelson.”
It might have been my imagination, but it felt like he was almost grinning as I ran out into left field. Everyone else he’d let them get out there and get set before he hit the first ball. I already knew he was going to try and screw me over, so I wasn’t surprised when the first ball, a line drive far to my left, came my way before I was two-thirds of the way out.
I cut hard and ran towards the ball, leaping and extending my arm out as far as it could go, and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d placed it where, theoretically, it was within range to field, but just barely. He definitely hadn’t put the balls this far out for anyone else.
I threw it at the student he’d assigned to catch the returns, when he hit another ball, before the kid even caught the first one I threw back. It was like this for almost five minutes, longer than he’d kept anyone else at it. Every ball was hit far enough out that I had to leap or dive to get it. Everyone else had gotten a couple of bouncing grounders right at them, to see if they could get it on the hop, but mine were all so far out I’d had to track and snag those on the run.
The last one I was pretty sure he was trying to get me hurt. He hit it far back, and it looked to be headed for the waist-high fence that marked the edge of the field. I was almost certain he’d count it against me if I didn’t get it, even though it was outside the field. Thankfully, I was in the best shape I’d been in my life and the fence really wasn’t all that high and I was already near the fence after chasing the last ball he’d hit. I pushed off, running full out for the fence. I’d tracked its trajectory and felt I had a good sense of where it was going to go over, so I had my back to it for the moment to be able to cover as much ground as possible.
The fence was coming up fast, and even though Chef had been focusing on leg exercises for the last month, I didn’t think I could jump high enough to the ball or clear the fence, at least without snagging myself on the metal chain-link protrusions. Had I thought about what I was going to do, I probably would have second-guessed myself, but at the moment it seemed like a good idea to jump as I got close to the fence, pulling my legs up almost like a frog leap, which was one of the exercise Chef had me do most days.
Basically, you jump as high as you can and pull your legs up so your hands are near your feet. In this case, I didn’t lean forward to get my hands that low. Instead, I’d jumped forward and managed to get my hand and glove on the fence railing and pushed up hard. I didn’t get much height off that push, but with my legs pulled in, I got enough for my feet to clear the top of the railing, crouched down. I kicked off with my legs, turning around as I leapt back towards the field, looking for the ball. Thankfully, I’d judged its trajectory pretty close, otherwise, I would have looked the fool jumping past the ball as it went out of the park. It wasn’t dead-on, but it was enough that I could stretch my arm out and snag the ball before landing hard.
Once again, Chef’s training came in handy, since he believed in knowing how to fall. It wasn’t the somersault you might see in the movies. Rather, it was flopping over as my feet hit the ground and tumbling sideways, but it kept me from hurting my knees or spraining an ankle. I got my free hand and feet back under me and pushed back up into standing, rocketing the ball towards the helper, who almost didn’t get his hand up in time, since he was standing open-mouthed, looking at me.
The kids I didn’t know all cheered as I jogged back in while Coach Bryant stood there looking pissed, along with Harry and a few others I recognized as being part of the football team.
“All right, calm down,” Coach Bryant said as I reached the rest of them. “We’re here to play by the numbers baseball. That kind of showboating doesn’t fly here. If you can’t take this seriously Nelson, you’re welcome to leave.”
I hadn’t said or done anything but catch a ball he’d purposefully made impossible to catch, and hadn’t joined in the celebrating the other kids had done, but I knew that didn’t matter to Coach Bryant. He’d find some reason to take this out on me if he could, so I just ignored him.
“Go see Coach Dean for your batting rotation,” he said, still giving me the stink eye as I walked with the rest of my group towards home plate.
There were a few good-natured back slaps as I walked, although Harry and his friends kept their distance. I was just happy to be clear of Coach Bryant and on to the next thing.
“Good hustle out there guys,” Coach Dean said as we joined him, the group before us having already rotated to fielding. “Especially that last catch. You might not want to try that very often Nelson, since it’s a good way to get hurt, but it was a thing of beauty. Okay now, we’re here to see how you guys hit. We’re going to throw you a variety of pitches to see how you do with them. We play incremental baseball here, and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re not looking to see who can crush them out of the park or if you can hit to open field position, that’ll come once you’re on the team and we start practicing. What I want to know is who can make contact and hit the kinds of pitches you’re going to see this season. Getting on base is our number one concern. If we can get you on base, and then the guy after you, and keep it up, we’ll start putting up runs. That’s what we’re looking for here. Nelson, you’re up first.”
That was quite the change from Bryant. I would have preferred a bit of time to rest after hustling all over the outfield snagging balls, but I guess it was good to get it over with right away. Unlike with fielding practice, which I hadn’t done before, hitting the ball was hitting the ball, and I couldn’t imagine it’d be different than when playing a pickup game.
I found a good bat and a batter’s helmet and made my way to the plate. The first pitch was a fairly slow fastball which I got a solid piece of, sending it sailing out in a shallow arc into right field.
“Just starting you off with something simple. Now that you’ve got it, let’s get started.”
He wasn’t kidding. The next pitches were all over the place. A curveball, which I wasn’t used to, since most kids at pickup games didn’t have that kind of skill, followed by sinkers, fastballs that sailed over the plate faster than anything I’d seen in pickup games.
I’d like to say I blew them out of the water with my natural ability, but that’s a lie. I did think I held my own against everyone else, who were generally struggling too, which I think was the point. A lot of the guys were hard on themselves when they struck out, smacking their bats on the ground or stomping away from the plate, but I recognized what Coach Dean was doing since Chef often did the same thing. He wasn’t looking for everyone to pass some minimum qualification, if a kid hit two of this kind of pitch and one of that kind. He was looking to challenge everyone, putting stuff across the plate even the best hitter would have problems with and see how we adapted. Chef explained that the best way to see what someone was capable of was to get them to stretch for something just out of their reach. It showed them not just how close the student could get, but how willing they were to reach it and how they dealt with missing, giving the teacher three pieces of information instead of just one.
I hit two of the five fastballs, fouled off all the curves, but managed to get the speed on the change-ups and sinkers, getting at least a piece of each of them. Eventually, the coach called a halt to the torture and had everyone huddle up.
“Not bad guys. I know some of you might get discouraged and that’s okay. You weren’t meant to hit all of those. I was purposefully making it hard on you. Baseball isn’t a game of just natural talent. It’s a skill and even the best guys in the Majors have to work on it and learn to get better. Plus, remember that getting a hit, one out of every three at bats, is a really good batting average. It’s how we deal with those misses that makes us good ballplayers. Okay, it looks like Coach Bryant is wrapping up, too. Everyone, go hit the showers and we’ll have the team rosters up in a few days.”
Walking towards the locker rooms I felt really good. Chef’s training definitely had benefits. Had I tried this a year ago, I’d be a limp noodle after all the running, throwing, and hitting we’d done today. Instead, I just felt energized. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed playing ball until today, and even with Coach Bryant being an ass, I felt good.
I also wasn’t stressed if I made the team or not. Now that I’d gotten some play-in, I realized I would enjoy playing ball regularly again, but I didn’t have anything tied to making the team or not. Until Monday I hadn’t even planned on trying out, so not making it wouldn’t really change anything.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Harry said, walking up to me.
I’d caught sight of him catching up to me and had been watching him, but there were too many people, including coaches, nearby for him to actually try anything, so I hadn’t been that concerned.
“We were trying out for the baseball team, Harry. I can see how that’d be confusing, what with all the head trauma you must get during football season.”
“You don’t belong on the team, why aren’t you off with your faggotty choir friends? You’re never going to make the team, you throw like a girl.”
“You’re a joke, Harry. How many of those grounders rolled right past you and you hit, what, less than a fourth of your pitches? Based on today, one of us can perform for the team, and it isn’t you.”
“You piece of …” he started to say, taking a threatening step towards me before one of his friends put an arm around him and pulled Harry back.
“Not now man,” the friend said, looking over at Coach Dean who was headed inside behind us.
“You’ll get yours,” Harry said, storming off into the showers.
I decided to hang around outside the locker room until Harry left. He wasn’t as absolutely reckless as Aaron, but I didn’t put it past him trying to catch me in the locker room where there’d be less of a chance for someone to stop him from taking a swing at me. I wasn’t particularly scared of Harry. Compared to Aaron, he was a pushover, all bark and no bite, but I’d had enough run-ins with the administration during the first semester. I’d managed to make it out intact so far, but I didn’t want to keep pushing my luck.
“Charlie,” Coach Dean said, catching up to me. “Everything all right?”
“Sure, Coach. Harry and I just don’t get along well. I’m going to hang out here until he’s done, just to keep anything from happening.”
“Good. That’s the kind of thinking I like to see from you guys. I’m actually happy you’re out here, since I needed to talk to you anyways.”
“Okay.”
“I want to start by saying you did great out there. Of course, there’s a lot you have to work on, but you’ve got a lot of raw talent that we could really build on.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“You said there’s a lot I could work on. I think that’s right, but it’s easier to work on them if I know where my weak points are, so I know where to focus.”
“You know, I think this is the first time I’ve told a student they had work to do on the field and they asked for specifics. Normally I get arguments or just an ‘okay.’”
“I probably would have done the same thing at the beginning of the year, but what the last several months have taught me is that there is a ton I don’t know, and fighting that fact just puts me further behind. While I’ve got just as much ego as the next guy, I’m not too stubborn to listen to someone who knows better than me on what I need to work on.”
“Good. Good. That’s what I like to hear. Well, the little stuff like hitting the trickier pitches and how to get more out of your swing you’ll get with more practice. The two main things you need to work on are gamesmanship and field position. I know it’s easy to think of baseball in the simplest terms, like your batting average, but baseball is really a game of strategy. The sooner you understand that, the better ballplayer you’ll be.”
“What do you mean?”
“No play is by the numbers. You don’t grab a ball at shortstop and just throw to first every time. It’s easy to teach young players a specific progression of, look at this, and then this, and then this, one after another, but that’s now how pros treat it. Any play has to be made by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the other team and the current field positions, and understanding the right strategy to make that split-second decision. Say you have a guy headed to first who has a poor record when it comes to advancing to the next base and a guy on second who’s known to make tight plays, getting the run. Do you throw out the guy at first, the easier out, or try to get the guy at second, who might or might not go for third, if you’re holding the ball at shortstop?”
“What would you do?” I asked.
“It depends. Two outs down, go for the guy at first every time, get that out and close out the inning. Less than that, I’d take a second and see what the guy on second was going to do. If he hasn’t stepped off, go for first and see if your first baseman can make the double play if he takes off for third after you throw. If he has stepped off and is going for it, I’d rather have a weak runner on first than an aggressive one on third, especially if you have a good hitter coming up to bat.”
“How do you know who’s a good base runner and who’s not?”
“Every team, even at the high school level, looks at their opponent’s records and the numbers their players put up. What you have to do is know how to read those numbers, so you have the information you need at game time.”
“Okay, so gameplay. What about field position?”
“That’s easier to fix. It comes down to understanding where everyone else is and where you’re needed to get that next out or stop a runner from advancing. Once you get assigned to a position, you’ll start learning that. I watched some during the fielding exercises, and you were often out of position. Not a lot, but enough that it could make a difference. I’d chalk that up to you saying you’ve mostly played pickup games. You’ve never had coaching to learn those kinds of things. I think you’re trainable enough that you’ll get it worked out.”
“So, I made the team?” I asked, reading between the lines..
“Well, that’s what I actually wanted to talk to you about,” he said, pausing and looking away from me.
I felt my heart drop. Until this moment, I hadn’t really wanted to play ball and had mostly agreed to come to tryouts because Coach Dean had helped me out after the incident last semester. After playing out there today, though, I realized that he’d been right. I might have gotten flak from Coach Bryant and Harry and his friends, but I’d also gotten shouts of support from some of the players who knew me through Marcus and even some kids I didn’t know.
I got lots of support and attention when I was on stage, but this was different. There was something about being part of a team like this that I hadn’t gotten since playing pickup games when I was younger. There was something about playing a game where everyone, even strangers, rallied together. I hadn’t known I’d been missing it until it seemed like it was being snatched away from me.
“Ohh,” I said, not hiding the disappointment in my voice.
“I still want you to play, but I think there might be a problem putting you on the varsity team. You definitely have the athletic ability for it, but we decided to rotate coaches this year. Normally I coach varsity, but we’re losing a lot of our seniors, and really need to build up our younger guys this year if we’re going to be able to contest next year. That means Coach Bryant will be taking over with varsity.”
“Ohh,” I said, realizing the problem.
“I’d heard that you might have an issue with him, but watching you out there today, I realized you might not have as much of a chance as possible to succeed as you would if you stayed with me.”
“I get it. I can try out next year if you want.”
“I don’t think you’re getting me, I still want you to play, but I want you with me on junior varsity. Actually, I think this will be good for you. Like I said, you have the athletic ability, but you’re light on experience and actual game time. I think this would be a good chance to get you that experience without the pressure of being on varsity. Can you live with that?”
“Sure,” I said, feeling relieved. “Honestly, all I want is to play. I’m not trying to get a trophy or anything.”
“Good, although if you can reach the potential I think you have, I think we might have a shot next year, as long as you put in the effort. Can you do that?”
“Sure, Coach. I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Keep it to yourself until the rosters come out. We haven’t made our picks, but I’m confident Coach Bryant will be fine with you sticking on junior varsity.”
“Okay,” I said.
Harry had left the locker room in his street clothes, giving me the evil eye as he passed, since he couldn’t do much more with the coach standing right there. I waved bye to Coach Dean and went to get my stuff. I still needed to go to the Blue Ridge and train with Chef. There was no point in getting cleaned up now just to go get covered in sweat and dirt again.
It did occur to me that I was pushing it. I had daily training with Chef, one practice a week with the guys at the Blue Ridge, not counting practices on performance days, to get the setlist worked out, tutoring with Kat and homework to do. I really didn’t have the room to start a new thing, but I really wanted to play ball.
I’d just have to make it work.
Chapter 3
I’d warned Chef the day before that I was going to be late, although I hadn’t explained the particulars, since I hadn’t planned on anything coming from it. He, however, saw it as a good chance to run me ragged. Again.
“Okay, stop,” he said as he paced in front of me as I pushed through pushups. “You’re just making me want to cry watching this. This is the worst effort I’ve seen from you since we started. What’s going on today?”
He wasn’t wrong. Between all the running I’d done at tryouts and the first twenty minutes of Chef trying to kill me with conditioning, I was falling apart. My arms screamed at me each time I pushed myself back up and my legs felt like jelly.
“Sorry, Chef,” I said, wobbly coming to my feat. “One of the coaches at school convinced me to go to baseball tryouts today, and that’s where I was. They ran the hell out of us already, so I’m pretty beat.”
“You want to play baseball?” He asked, sounding surprised.
“I didn’t, not at first. He’d helped me avoid getting suspended when that thing happened on the football field, where the guy was chasing Cameron, so when he asked, I felt like I owed him. After playing, though, I realized that yeah, I really do want to play.”
“Are you going to have time for this with everything else you’re doing?”
“I was just thinking that on the way here. Honestly, I don’t know, but I want to give it a shot. I had so much fun today, and I realized I was missing being part of a team, you know?”
“Kind of. We didn’t really have that kind of thing when I was growing up, but living in the temple, there’s a kind of brotherhood that we get that I imagine is sort of like being on a sports team.”
“So you get it. If it doesn’t work, I’ll let them know I can’t do it, but I want to give it a shot.”
“Ohh, well, I guess that kills what I was going to ask you about today.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it; you really don’t have the time.”
“No, Chef, tell me. Please?” I asked, making puppy dog eyes.
“Don’t try that shit on me,” he said, although I knew it worked from how hard he rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. A friend of mine told me about a competition happening in Myrtle Beach in May that I thought you might want to go to. It’s a mixed martial arts competition and is part of Martial Arts Federated.”
“I don’t know what that is,” I said. “Also, aren’t I too new to this to compete against anyone, unless the point is me going and getting my ass kicked?”
“The MAF is the largest mixed martial arts organization in the world, and holds a wide range of tournaments and the like.”
“So it’s like the groups that send teams to the Olympics? Dad and I were at this place a couple of years ago when the Olympics were being held and they had Jujitsu or Judo or something like that on TV. I remember seeing a banner for some kind of organization on the side.”
I actually had vivid memories of that day, since it was one of Dad’s dry spells, where he actually made an effort to spend time with us, instead of disappearing to the bars as soon as he woke up. We watched the TV and talked about the two people throwing each other all over the place. Dad went on this whole thing about how neither of them would make it in a stand-up bar fight and, at the time, I believed him.
The whole thing was burned in my brain.
“No, those are different. They tend to be organizations that manage international rules and competitions for one discipline, and they tend to look down on MMA as a whole. There’s actually a lot of politics and contentiousness around it, or there was when I was competing. I know the MAF was trying to get MMA as an exhibition for several years, and they kept getting blocked by the discipline-specific groups.”
“But MMA seems way more popular. At least, I hear about it on TV all the time.”
“Well, yes and no. MMA is a broad term, and there are several organizations that deal with it, some at the regional level and some at the national level. It might be why they’ve all had trouble finding traction, but it does give lots of opportunities for people to hear about MMA in general.”
“I’m still not sure I should compete. I’ve only been learning for a few months.”
“True, but I wasn’t thinking of throwing you in the deep end. I was thinking about the juniors competition in the fifteen to sixteen division. Most of those kids have been training less than a year, so they aren’t that far ahead, and you train a lot more than they do. I guarantee you none of them train almost every day like you do. Besides, it isn’t for several more months, so we have time to really focus on it.”
“As you said though, my playing ball on top of music and school makes it not practical, right?”
“I don’t know. It depends on you. I’m sure we could figure it out if you wanted to do it. I just thought it would be good experience.”
“I guess I’m not sure this is something I want. I started learning so I could defend myself against Aaron and his friends. I mean, I really enjoy it actually, and want to keep learning, but I never really thought about it past that.”
“Well, we don’t have to decide now, but I think it would be a good experience. Right now, if you want to practice, it’s against training partners, which means everyone is being careful not to hurt each other, or it’s against some of the kids who’ve been bothering you, which has its own complications. This would be a way to practice all out against others who’ve also learned to fight, but in a way that’s acceptable to everyone. It’s fine to train with me, but training and actual experience are two different things. This would give you what you don’t get from me.”
I looked at Chef, considering. I’d told him about my fight with Aaron at the end of last semester, and he’d approved of my restraint. Now he was suggesting I get into a ring with some kid I didn’t know and we’d wail on each other. It really was a switch, although this probably fell in some sort of middle ground, since he’d mentioned before about fighting in these kinds of things.
I wasn’t convinced; both because I really didn’t have the time, and because I didn’t feel any pressing need to prove myself in a fight against others. I’d started learning because I knew I was going to continue having issues with Aaron and the like at school, and I wanted to defend myself, not to fight in tournaments.
What I did know was this meant something to Chef. Spending time with him every day, for the most part, I’d had a lot of opportunities to talk to Chef. It wasn’t always instructions or lessons, sometimes he just wanted to talk or he’d answer my questions. In none of those conversations was he as excited about something as much as he was right now, talking about this competition.
“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he said when I hesitated, almost disappointed. “I know this isn’t something you’ve thought about before, and I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing you into it. I just thought it would be good experience and you might even find yourself having fun.”
I couldn’t imagine any context in which I actually had fun fighting someone, especially a stranger, but I also couldn’t imagine letting Chef down. He probably did mean it when he said he wasn’t trying to push me into it, but this mattered to him. Considering everything he’d done for me, I couldn’t let him down.