The Summer of the Yellow Jackets (2)

Part 1 is here:  https://broussardlana.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/the-summer-of-the-yellow-jackets/

 

“See that, kids. The town is behind us. We are gonna rock this year!” Coach Grey exclaimed.

“Lookout, Kingland!” said Oliver.

“Well, we don’t want to get all crazy, they still got a good team. Don’t ya’ll get lazy and quit batting practice. We will still keep working!” Coach Grey said.

We gathered up our stuff. “Time to study for that Physical Science Test, are you ready, Eddie?” Lucy asked.

“I guess,” he replied.

I watched Eddie and Lucy walk out ahead of me. I couldn’t believe Eddie was that tall. I also couldn’t believe he could field almost as good as he pitched. On my way out, Mr. Morrison, caught me by the arm. “What’s that kid’s name again, the pitcher?”

“It’s Eddie.”

“Oh yeah, that’s his name. What a ballplayer!”

I smiled. I wasn’t even jealous anymore. I ran after them. “Wait up!”

We sat in Lucy’s big parlor room with all the couches my mother referred to as vintage. There was a fireplace, a piano, lots of chairs to go with the couches, bookshelves with every type of book you could ever read and curtains with those loop things on the top that my mother called drapes.

“I left my notebook upstairs, I’ll be right back,” said Lucy.

“Nice house,” said Eddie.

“Yeah,” I replied. I always hated when Lucy left the room. You could almost bet that something weird would happen.”

“What are you gonna do this summer?” I asked Eddie.

“Probably help my dad.”

“You wanna come swimming with us sometimes?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Eddie sure didn’t talk much. Since he became a baseball hero, the kids that were messing with him had backed off. Probably because their dads were baseball fans.

“You like this town any better?” I asked.

“Yeah, it grows on you after awhile.”

“You think ya’ll are gonna stay here?”

Eddie gave me a funny look sorta empty and vague. “Uh, well we might. It’s okay. Gotta live somewhere.”

I shifted in my chair. I had that uneasy feeling I got sometimes when I was at Lucy’s. There was sort of an electricity in the air. The room felt colder, and the little hairs on my arms seem to stick straight up.

“Hey, Eddie, you uh, feel anything?”

“What?”

“Uh, you uh, feel anything different in this room?”

“No, not really.” He was making little squiggle lines across his notebook paper. He was lost in artistic concentration when right behind him a book left the Victorian pie table that my mother referred to as an antique. It hung in the air rather eerily just like someone was holding it out to us. I went white as a sheet.

“You okay?” he asked. About that time the book fell flat onto the floor with a loud smash.

“What was that?” Eddie asked coming off the sofa just as Lucy and her grandma rounded the corner. “I’ve lost my eyeglasses, again. You boys seen ’em?” her grandma asked.

“Uh no. We were sitting here. Then that book, that book kinda left the table, and then..” I said.

“This book?” Lucy’s grandma asked.

“Yeah, it kinda….”

“Oh did it? Well someone must be hacked off then,” she said as she walked from the room.
Lucy smiled sheepishly. “My house is a little different,” she said looking at Eddie.

Eddie shrugged. “Being different is okay. In my book, anyway.” We laughed as Eddie really never joked, but I kept a good eye on that book that Lucy placed back onto the pie table which was an antique. Maybe the book was an antique too.

One minute we were studying for final exams at Lucy’s house, the next minute we were released for summer. It was gonna be one incredible one for the Yellow Jackets. We were determined to set the game of baseball on fire. We were determined to put the town of Winfield on the map. I remember that Kingland game just like it was yesterday. Kingland was up first. You could tell they had been studying Eddie’s pitches and had been paying attention at batting practice.

In the first inning, they scored five runs on Eddie’s perfect record. These were the only runs scored. We were all amazed and couldn’t figure out what happened. Coach Grey went to the mound, we all knew what he was saying, “don’t get rattled, settle down.” Eddie stared out over the field. He kicked the dirt. After that, it was his turn to play the game like he always played it. After the talk, Eddie threw smoke and after two pitches, David Gibbs, our catcher, knew Eddie would be fine.

It was downhill after that for Kingland, and we won the game all riding on the coattails of Eddie’s dreams. It seemed like everyone in our town became a baseball fan. “We’re gonna have a victory party like nobody has ever seen!” beamed Coach Grey.

On the evening of the party, rumors were flying everywhere that even college coaches from around the area were gonna show up and talk to Eddie about baseball. And Eddie was still only in junior high school! Lucy and I were ecstatic. We had such a smooth season, and we still had three weeks before school started again. Best summer of our lives.

When I got to the baseball field, they had tables and tents set up, they had ribbons running through the chain link fence all around. There was so much food. I remember thinking, this is what heaven must smell like. I was just taking it all in admiring how happy my parents seemed in the distance. Lucy came running up to me.

“Hey you, where’s Eddie?”

“He is not here? I’ll bet he will be any minute?”

“Well, I know how he doesn’t really like hanging out with a bunch of people,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, but he is a star. He has to come. Everybody wants to see him! Let’s go ahead and get some food.”

Lucy and I heaped our plates with hot dogs, potato salad, and chips. My mom made the best potato salad in the world.

“Where’s Eddie?” asked Randy. “Yeah, where’s the Pitch?” asked David.

“I’m sure he will be here,” I said. Lucy and I were looking around.

“Do you think we should go to his house?” Lucy asked.

“Well I, I just bet he is running late. Maybe his dad had something to do before they left.”

We turned around and there was Coach Grey. “You guys seen Eddie?” We shook our heads.

After Coach’s speech, the party was still going. Everybody was whispering about where Eddie was. Lucy was worried.

“Let’s go to his house and see.”

“Alright,” I said and we took out on foot. Eddie lived about six blocks from the field in a small, one bedroom house. Just him and his dad. He said he liked it that way cause there wasn’t much to clean. The little house loomed in the distance. It was stucco on the outside with one long, narrow window in the front. As we got closer, we could see that the truck was gone. We knocked on the door.

“Eddie! Hey Eddie! Eddie, you there?” we called. We knocked again. Nobody answered.

“I guess they aren’t here,” I said to Lucy. “Where could they be?” she asked. Then against my better judgment, we went around back and looked in the window.

“There’s nothing here!” Lucy said. “Let me see!”

We went around front and this time tried the door. It wasn’t locked. “Eddie? Mr. Vigaro?” We entered the small living room. Everything had been packed up. Nobody was there, it looked like nobody had ever lived there. Eddie was gone. Just like it had all been a dream, he was gone! Somehow I just knew that we would never see Eddie again.

Lucy and I were crushed. We went back to her house to sit on the porch and contemplate it all. Her mother and grandma came in. “Hey, kids what’s up?”

“Eddie’s gone,” Lucy answered

“Oh no, maybe they just had something to take care of,” her mother suggested.

“Nope, the house is vacant,” I replied.

“Vacant?” asked her grandmother. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” She didn’t even ask us how we knew.

They went on inside and we sat on the porch swing pondering the purple cornflowers in the flower vase. Right in front of us, a singular purple flower came floating through the air and sat gently down in front of us. I wasn’t even scared.

“Thank you, Cassandra,” Lucy said. “She must know we are sad.”

“The ghosts have names?”

“I name them,” Lucy smiled.

On the day he disappeared, Eddie left this town just like he came in, just like he played ball, smooth, soft, and traceless. Lucy was one of the best friends I ever had. We all grew up, got through the ghosts, the games, and many struggling agriculture seasons. I think we remain a little haunted by the past and the magic of baseball. I will never forget that year we beat Kingland and the way Eddie Vigaro pitched that ball. I spent many years after we graduated high school looking for Eddie to appear on the rosters of big teams. I even looked at the rosters for the minor teams. His name never came up and Eddie just became a phantom legend who drifted into our town and made us win like real stars even it was for only one season. The darkness won the first part, then the light came back. Like a good baseball game. Won like champions. Won like the Orioles beat the Tigers last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KQydlJ-qc