The Summer of the Yellow Jackets

Part 1:

If you go back to the edge of time, you can find it there on the corner of Ivy and 4^th streets. You would need to look closely to see, but still, you could. Examining that old chain link fence, you could make out the dents carved from 1973 where the ball struck there too many times. If you squinted in the afternoon sun, you could see a baseball diamond, you could visualize ghost shapes of kids now coalesced into adults. You would see him there winding back, ready to throw the baseball, gearing up for a curveball, eyes scanning the horizon like a pendant winning dreamer. Like the dreamer he was, the ball player he never became.

Our team was the Yellow Jackets, and one of my best friends was a girl. Lucy Feinner could bat right up there with us guys, and she didn’t care about a tomboy label. We would bound up the steps of the massive front porch of her grandmother’s house on Sunday afternoons. “It’s haunted, you know,” she would call back to me. “Yeah, okay,” I’d say back. I was too tough to shy away from spirits, I was way more worried about covering second base and about how a starting second baseman should act.

“Do you think Coach Grey will be mad today?” she asked as we entered the parlor.

“Nah, maybe not,” I replied looking around sheepishly for flying objects and floating mists.

Coach Grey could get heated at times. Baseball was his everything too. He wanted to win; he wanted to get his name out there. He was also really loyal to us kids. Coach would take us aside and work with us individually, telling us when we were good, not hounding our every mistake. Our biggest rivals were the Kingland Dodgers from a neighboring town about thirty miles east of ours. That was the game we had to win at all cost, so we were practicing long and hard in preparation for it.

I remember when Eddie Vigaro came to town. The Yellow Jackets were just mediocre, at best. Randy Gilbert was the pitcher, and he wasn’t too good. He was so slow that anybody could hit when he wasn’t throwing strikes. We looked up one day and Eddie was there, nose pressed up against the chain link fence, his dark eyes scanning the field. Nobody knew who he was, just that he was a new boy that had moved into town. “Who’s that?” asked Lucy. I looked at her. She never asked about boys, never seemed to have any interest in them. “I think it’s the new kid,” I answered, frowning beneath my ball cap. Lucy stepped back to outfield, David Gibbs hit a ground ball, I turned around and Eddie was gone.

After practice, Coach Grey asked me if I had met the new boy. “No, I haven’t,” I replied. “Does he play baseball?” I didn’t know the answer to that question either. “Well, he might. He sure looked like it,” I said. I was hoping if that kid, Eddie, was interested in baseball that he wouldn’t want to play second base. I had been doing okay beating base runners on tags, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“Is he the boy whose parents came in to help work the fields?” Lucy asked.

“I think so,” I gave her a sideways glance. I couldn’t figure out why everybody wanted to know about him. We rarely got new kids in this town, but what was the big deal? We decided to go her house to eat a sandwich. She wanted to show me an owl house that her uncle had built for her grandma in the backyard.

“Did you know that one owl eats twenty-five mice every day?

“Really? I had no idea.”

We were happily camped out on the back porch with our snacks.

“Oh gosh, I left the chips on the counter, I’ll be right back,” she said.

I was drinking soda admiring how long that porch was and thinking that Lucy could pretty much run laps on that porch when it was raining. That’s when my bat came off the porch swing all the way down the other end just rolling on the floor. I started. It was all the way from the other end of the porch. I jumped up. Lucy’s grandma came in from outside.

“You kids should be drinking milk, it helps build your bones,” she said. She walked through nonchalantly heading for the kitchen.

I was all creeped out, looking around, seeing invisible air and Lucy’s grandma acting like nothing at all to worry about. Lucy reappeared and sat down and I placed the bat firmly under my feet and we ate ham and cheese sandwiches while we talked about just baseball and nothing else freaky or ghostly.

The next day at school, kids were milling around talking about the new kid. Eddie, no less. He was in the office and enrolling in class. I couldn’t believe it. I looked up, and Eddie caught my glance. I wanted to smile, but he seemed uncomfortable and aloof like he was the other day when watching us on the practice field.

Buddy Holmes came running up at lunch, “Did you see the new kid?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said munching on my crispy bar slightly drizzled with chocolate. Miss Mavis’ cafeteria bars were a specialty. School dining at its best.

“He is one of those farm workers; they came to pick the potatoes,” he said.

“Yeah, so?” I said.

“Yeah, I didn’t even think they came to school here,” he said.

“You never know, don’t think many kids his age every came with their dads before either,” I said.

It was a big deal to have a new student in school. Teachers were too nice and over accommodating. The kids were looking over Eddie’s clothes, their eyes coming to rest on his shoes.

“Did you see his shoes? They are old,” said Trey Brown.

“So? What’s the big deal?” I looked away.

“Well, you know they are poor. His dad is a farm worker,” Trey added.

“It don’t really matter. At least he has shoes. He might be alright.”

“Hmph!” said Trey as he walked away.

Across the hall, I couldn’t believe it. There was Lucy and she was talking to Eddie, and she was smiling! It was just so unlike her. I shook my head. After school, Eddie’s dad came and picked him up. He had an old, beat up Ford pickup truck.

“Wonder how long he will be here?” asked Jay Wilson.

“Long enough to harvest the potatoes,” said Buddy Holmes.

“Does it matter?” I asked. They shuffled away into cars and buses. I was hoping Lucy didn’t like Eddie. After all, we were only twelve and just in seventh grade. Something like that might impact how she played third base.

The next day at baseball practice, Lucy acted like she didn’t even know a thing about Eddie. Coach Gray was teaching us a couple of new baseball signs to add to our secret language. Then he looked up over us into the distance. It was Eddie Vigaro. He was leaning into the chain link fence, two fingers hooked over one of the metal diamonds. Brown eyes attentive, head tilted slightly to the side.

“Hey!,” Coach Gray called out to him. Eddie nodded back. “You guys go on out and warm up,” said Coach as he walked over to the fence. I looked around suspiciously. Lucy smiled and caught some dirt in her glove.

“You ready?” she asked…. “Head out, and I’ll throw ya one!”

Eddie was walking around to the fence. Coach Gray was shaking his hand. Geez not second base, I said to myself. Why doesn’t he want to play basketball instead?

“Duh!” shouted Lucy. “Are you gonna pay attention or not? That almost hit you in the head!”

“Oh, I’m ready now,” I was determined not to watch Coach Gray who was now pitching with Eddie the New Guy.

“I’ll bet we have a new player!” Lucy smiled.

“Naw, too late already. Coach Grey is just humoring him.” I shot back. Lucy scowled and threw the ball too far to my right. I went chasing it in outfield. When I turned around, I saw it. Eddie was at the plate. His arm had just let go. It was a fastball, strong, true and harvesting the wind in sheer speed. My jaw dropped. Everybody’s jaw dropped. Nobody had seen a kid pitch like this. It looked like he was gonna get a spot on the team after all. At least it wasn’t my spot.

“Okay team, ya’ll come on in now!” yelled Coach Grey. We stampeded toward him. He was grinning broadly. We gathered round him. Ronny Wayne’s hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned around and glared at him. “This here is Eddie in case none of ya’ll have met him at school yet. Eddie is gonna be playing with us. I think we found ourselves a starting pitcher. So Randy, you’re gonna be second pitcher, but it is important that you keep working and working hard. You can work with Eddie.”

I stole a look at Randy, but he seemed more relieved than hurt. He shook his head.

“Alright, what are ya’ll waiting for? Stop standing around gawking! Let’s get this field lined out. Take your places, batter up!”

After that, Eddie was hip to all of us on the baseball team, but the other kids in school liked to make fun of him because he was poor. Baseball kids would sit with him at lunch, trying to get him to talk, but he would say very little always with that far away look in his eyes. I managed to get him all to myself one day.

“Hey Eddie,” I said as I sat down across from him in the cafeteria.

“Hi,” he replied looking down at his fruit cocktail gelatin.

“What’s up?”

“Nothin’”

“I can’t even tell you how great you throw! We can’t even hit them. I know you slow them down for us at practice.”

“Not much,” he smiled a little when he said it.

“I mean, Eddie, do you know, do you really know how good you are?” I had to say it.

He was looking across the cafeteria in that dreamy, far away manner he had.

“Eddie,”

“I’m okay, I guess,” he said.

“You know you are gonna play baseball, Eddie. I mean, someday for real, right?”

He looked at me with a slight smile. “I think I’m gonna give it a try!”

I noticed Trey Brown and Buddy Holmes snickering at the next table.

“Don’t pay those boys any mind, Eddie. They are just jealous. Nobody has ever seen anybody that can throw a baseball like you. No kid can do it, for sure. I mean…” Eddie cut me off.

“You ever have to move?” he asked.

“Uh, no.”

“Anybody new ever move into this town?”

“Not much, most people have been here forever. But…”

Trey and Buddy were walking and stopped right beside us. Looking down, Trey said, “Those Adidas shoes won’t ever make you look rich.” Buddy laughed.

I started to stand, “Don’t,” Eddie replied. “It’s not worth it.” I looked over his shoulder to see Mrs. Cantrell watching us. “It don’t bother me. School is almost out, anyway.”

I looked at Eddie. I guess everyone in town knew that Pastor Blevins had bought him new shoes. Isn’t that what going to church is for? Aren’t we supposed to learn to be better people by going? I’m glad he had them. One day he was gonna pitch so many balls that he could buy ever kid in this country new shoes, that’s what happens when you have a talent like that. It only comes along once ever blue moon. That’s what my daddy said.

“It’s time to take your trays,” Mrs. Cantrell announced on her way down the table rows.

“See ya at practice,” I called out to Eddie. He nodded. “Oh and after practice, we are going to Lucy’s house. Don’t forget!” He nodded again.

At practice that day, I swear, half the town was there. Word had gotten around about Eddie. The dads in the stands were watching, patting each other on the back. We were doing so great, you’d think it was football season already. Lucy’s mom waved to us from up high. I could always tell her by her colorful necklaces. We were stars that day. I was beginning to think that we just might ride Eddie’s coat tails all the way to the major leagues someday. That was fine with me, baseball was my favorite sport…..