A Hiccup

A Hiccup

“You don’t need insurance,” Taylor Nickles told John Todd. The younger man nodded and finished filling out the paperwork for the newer model car. As Todd finished the paperwork, Taylor paced the linoleum floor behind him. He looked as if he were already coaching, with his hands on his hips and his eyes scanning over the people walking out the automatic doors, their suitcases being drug behind them.

John Todd had flown into the Waterloo airport because this was his last chance at proving he was still good enough on the mound to be worth the trouble. He had always been good, from sandlots on up. He had just become more trouble as the years went on. He had busted a water cooler or two in single A ball and almost didn’t get called up to the next level the next year. Then, it got worse. He had always smoked weed, and he was pretty sure people knew about it. When he started hanging his breaking balls and missing the outside corner of the plate, the coaches didn’t seem as interested in making sure the cops didn’t investigate the funny smell coming from his hotel room. The team used it to take away part of his signing bonus and he told them he’d sign with another team and start beaning players left and right. Except no other team would sign him.

The woman behind the counter gave him the car keys and he smiled. Taylor just nodded and started walking to the door. John was paying for this entire trip out of his own pocket, because Taylor Nickles wasn’t convinced he was worth taking a chance on, even at as small a level as an independent team in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Taylor looked like the kind of guy who didn’t trust much. He lit his cigarette as soon as they were out of the airport and pushed his ballcap back on his head.

“Looks pretty near brand new,” he said about the car, which had been pulled up by an eighteen-year-old kid with thick beard stubble.

“Maybe I should’ve gotten insurance,” John wondered out loud.

“It’s for wusses, son,” Taylor said. He got into the passenger side and immediately cracked his window so he could ash out of it. Taylor walked around the car and got the key from the attendant. He tossed his duffel bag in the back seat and drove out of the airport.

“Small little airport,” John said.

“You ain’t up for big airport towns anymore,” Taylor said, never making eye contact with his potential pitcher. Up until now, the two had only spoken on the phone. “I told you what this team is about. They’re gonna know about your pot bust and getting cut from the team. Whole team’s full of people like that. They’re gonna boo you as much as they cheer at home. Maybe more so. The Cedar Falls HooseCows will have all been in trouble in their lives. That’s part of why people will want to come out and see them ”

John nodded, and Taylor motioned for him to turn left onto Airline Highway. The snow was still deep, filling the ditches to the point where John couldn’t see the true depth of the valleys. Baseball practice would be starting in three months, but it was hard to believe this world could ever be free from snow. John had grown up in Wisconsin, so he did know spring would eventually come. He just couldn’t be a 100% sure anymore.

“We going to see the stadium?” John asked, suddenly aware the car was very silent.

Taylor didn’t shake his hand or take his gaze off of the road before him.

“No,” he said. “Something else I want to check out.” He flicked his cigarette out the window of the car and took another slow drag. “Want to see if we can’t do something about that little problem of yours.”

John bit his lower lip. He knew Taylor wasn’t talking about the pot. In fact, most teams were over the bust, too. He had been given two chances with two major league teams, since he was cut. Both times, he had failed and been released, and neither time had he been surprised.

Baseball players called it the “yips,” which sounded either racist or cartoonish. It was neither of those things. It was just a sudden inability to get the ball over the plate when he was standing sixty feet and six inches away. He’d talked to doctors and surgeons and they had found no damage. He’d come to the field early and stayed late. He’d talked to coaches and gurus. But when all was said and done, he wasn’t able to hit the strike zone. His lack of control was obvious after just one pitch, and all a batter had to do was put the bat on his shoulder and wait, knowing he would get walked before he struck out. He tried harder, and his control got even worse. He hadn’t even made it in a game.

The red Taurus barely made it through a set of stoplights and the car moved forward, away from the city of Waterloo and the stadium the HooseCows would be playing in. The land was now composed of farm houses and fields. With nothing but snow in them, John could see over the fields for miles and miles.

“We got a few miles to go yet,” Taylor said, sensing the question John was about to ask.

“Someone asked me the other day of ‘Tombstone’ James was going to be on the HooseCows. That’d be a pretty big name to have,” John said.

“We’re talking to him,” Taylor said, and nothing more.

After a few turns, the roads were gravel and John realized he was going to have to wash this car before he returned it and flew back to Wisconsin. He realized Taylor could probably murder him and get away with it, as isolated as they were. It was something it might’ve made more sense to worry about earlier, when he still had a chance to get away. He knew he wasn’t really at risk from the older man with the wrinkled, Clint-Eastwood squint. But if something weird happened, and he tried to tell someone about it, he knew they’d ask why he let a complete stranger direct him out in the middle of a corn field.

The middle of a corn field was exactly where they were going, too. Someone had plowed the snow off of a gravel path into the field. Taylor told him to park and he did so, noticing the plowing continued off to his right, in a perpendicular line to where the car had stopped. The second path was the width of one good-sized snowplow.

“Gotta roll your window down,” Taylor said. He rolled his own window down. Unsure of what else to do, John did as he was told.

“All right. Head over by the chair and the bucket,” Taylor instructed.

Snow-blind, John had no idea was Taylor was talking about at first. Then he saw a tall white bucket and a lawn chair in the snow. Taylor was already walking toward them, the cigarette now out of his mouth and flicked away. John walked a few feet behind him, his balance unstable on the remaining snow. The path had been plowed recently, but the left-over snow had developed a slippery icy crust.

“You’re gonna want to take that coat off,” Taylor said. He reached the bucket and pulled out an orange rectangular pitcher’s rubber; the kind they sell at department stores for kids.  He placed it on the snow and peered back at the car. “That’s about the right distance, I think?”

“You got me throwing on this shit?” John asked, feeling like he might slip and break his wrist just walking on the snow.

“Right now, your throwing is shit,” Taylor said. He settled into the patio chair and made himself comfortable. “If it weren’t, we both know you’d be somewhere warm right now, getting ready to cash great big checks and chase the ladies around at the bar. But you can’t get it together and now you’re here.”

“So what?” John asked. He took off his coat and tossed it to the ground behind him. He looked in at the bucket and saw a pile of balls.

“Fifty in there,” Taylor said. “Windows are your strike zone. You throw it straight threw, nothing gets hurt. You miss, you ding it up. And you’re gonna have to pay the man for the repairs when you return the thing.” Taylor leaned forward, and John could smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath. “I was you, I’d make damn sure I got the ball through the window.”

The wind blew particles of snow up and into the air. There were no other sounds, and John was pretty sure he couldn’t even see the city of Waterloo from where they were. He looked down at the baseballs.

“They ain’t that cold,” Taylor said. Brought ‘em out when I came to pick you up.”

“This is stupid,” John said.

“It’s just a little different strike zone,” Taylor said. “And I’d rather find out if you feel like getting over this little problem before I waste time and money putting you on  my team. This way, you’re just wasting your own money if you don’t care at all.”

John put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky, which was cloudless and pale blue.

“You ain’t got to do nothing you don’t want to do,” Taylor said. “But if you want a shot at getting on a mound again for something more than a softball game, you probably don’t have any chances other than this.”

John stuck his hand in the bucket and came out with a baseball. It looked well-used, and it fit into his hand like they always did. He planted his right foot and took the ball in his left hand. His breath began to go ragged, and he forced himself to move the breaths in and out by picturing a traffic cop directing the flow – a trick he learned from one of the billion people who tried to help him. He went into a slower, simpler version of his delivery and focused on keeping the ball on course. He felt the ball release from his hand gently.

Then, he heard the sound of the front panel of the car’s body, right above the wheel, getting smacked hard by the baseball. The dent was clearly visible from where he was standing. He tried to keep his chin up and the swearwords inside his mouth, but when he heard Taylor cackling away behind him, he couldn’t keep his composure. He swore and kicked the snow.

“That’ll cost ya,” Taylor said. “You ‘bout done?”

He had over-thought it last time. John picked up a baseball and steadied himself. Before he could think about what came next, he went through the motions and threw the ball. As he did so, he slipped a little on the ice. That may have been what caused the baseball to fly up and to the right, where it shattered the rear window. He might have missed because he slipped, but he might have just missed the mark because he didn’t have it anymore.

“That’ll really cost you,” Taylor said. “You keep missing the mark like that, we’re going to drive back to that airport to set up a payment plan. Least with you being out of baseball, you’ll be able to get a job and start working on paying off the damages.”

John kicked at the ice and snow and settled his gaze on the older man. He was hoping Taylor would feel some shame. The bastard didn’t even avert his eyes. He kept smiling at the frustrated pitcher. He looked like a man who was watching a drowning and refusing to do a thing to stop it. Taylor knew damned well what he was doing.

“’Bout ready to head back and quit wasting my time? While you’re behind?” Taylor said. He got out of the chair and folded it up. “Bet you must be proud. Flew all this way just to break the hell out of car, lose money, and go home with nothing to show.”

At this, John truly acted without thinking. He picked up the ball, whirled around, and threw it hard and fast into the air. It went between both open windows, and it was in the exact middle of the open space. It was a kill shot of a pitch. He turned back to face Taylor.

“So do it again,” Taylor said.

John went back to the bucket, grabbed another ball, and threw another pitch without a moment of hesitation. And then another, and another. After that, Taylor sat back down in his chair. John proceeded to throw the rest of the bucket of balls through the open windows of the car. He threw nothing fancy, but his form did not leave him. Four of the remaining forty-four balls missed, dinging the exterior of the car a small amount. But it didn’t matter, because his form was finally back.

When the bucket was empty, Taylor folded up his chair and grabbed the empty bucket. He motioned for John to pick up the pitcher’s rubber and they walked to the car. John was smiling broadly but, though he seemed much happier, Taylor’s facial expression hadn’t changed. The two put the gear into the trunk and walked back to the seats.

“Thought you might not be ready to quit,” Taylor said.

After Taylor winked at the guy behind the counter of the car rental place and asked for a car without “hail damage,” he promised to take John out for a good Maid-Rite sandwich at a local place. He didn’t explain why the car damage wasn’t going to be a problem, but it was clear Taylor Nickles who was owed a lot of favors in this town.

“Would you have let me off the hook if I had pitched every one of those baseballs into the side of the car?” John asked.

“That particular hand of poker has been played,” Taylor said. This time, he was driving. “Can’t be answering that now.”

They were driving on Logan Avenue, past a grocery store and a hospital. In addition to be relieved from his pitching anxieties, John was also relieved to see there was an actual city he would be living in. For a moment out there, he thought there was nothing but the fields and empty space to look forward to.

“You got a spot on this team, John,” Taylor told him. “You still got an arm, and you’re going to be fine. Maybe we get a pro scout or two down here at some point, maybe they see you. Things happen sometimes in the independent leagues. Maybe you get back up there and remember this moment.”

“That’d be all right,” John said. He watched the houses go by the car window, and then he turned back to Taylor.

“You ever do that before? To help someone fix the yips?”

“Yeah. Not always like that, though.” Then, Taylor chuckled low in his throat, like the gravel in his voice was shifting and clanking together. “One time, there was a guy who couldn’t make the throw to first anymore. Always ended up throwing it to the same spot past the first basemen, over by the dugout.”

“So what’d you do?” John asked. He leaned back in his seat.

“He had this son,” Taylor said. “Not too old. We had the kid stand right where he normally threw the ball. I don’t think the kid really though his dad would hit him, so he let us stand him over there. Even waved at his dad.”

“You made the guy peg his own kid with a bad throw?” John asked.

“Didn’t say that,” Taylor said. He turned into the parking lot of a small building that hadn’t changed its outer décor since the early eighties.

“I guess if it works,” John said. He unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Didn’t say it worked, either,” Taylor said. With that, he finally smiled.

(NEXT)