Straight Off Of Highway 63
Looking back down the aisle of the darkened bus, Hank could tell what type of music each player was jamming to on their discman just by watching their heads move. The rap guys were a minority on the team, but they were the only ones whose heads moved with any sort of rhythm; chin out, back and forth to the beat. The grunge and metal contingency mostly just sneered as they looked straight forward or out the window. There were a handful of good, Midwestern country fans that looked earnestly to the sky and mouthed the words to songs about women who had moved on. All of these players were packed into a bus one step up from the public school level, and all were lost in their own worlds. At least, they would be until the first sets of batteries started wearing out.
Taylor, who had always been on the phone or on the road getting all of the other towns in line for the start of the season, had insisted they leave the night before the day season opener in Rochester. Part of Hank wasn’t sure this season would happen after all. It was just a guarded tone in Taylor’s voice. The players seemed to sense it, too, but they didn’t talk about it with Hank.
In fact, they didn’t talk much at all lately. It was probably shock from finding the body outside of the stadium. Her name had been Leigh Palmer. She had just about finished one year of college down in Iowa City, and she was from a town near there. None of her family or friends had any idea why she would have been in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area. The cause of death was strangulation, and the police were already being accused of incompetence.
Several seats back on the bus, one of the players tried to open a window with his right hand while he held a compact disc away from his seatmate. Since this bus was also rented by travelling high school groups, none of the windows opened, and the bullying player had to give in and return the CD. Another player was starting to loudly explain he was pretty sure the professional basketball player that was trying out baseball in the minors would totally end up playing in their league, if there was a major league strike.
Hank stretched his neck and tried to pretend it was the beginning of another real season. It wasn’t working very well. He went back to looking over the bus and wondering if Taylor Nickles would get anything more than a beer league softball effort from these guys. Hank kept waiting for the coach to give the guys some sort of a team-building speech. It hadn’t happened yet. Right now, the coach was just staring forward in the front seat of the bus.
There were four empty seats on the bus, and all were next to the more veteran players. Some of the younger guys had tried to claim them, but it didn’t take more than a well-practiced growl to clear them out. The bus was going to feel pretty crowded with half a season under their belts and yet another game to go across the Midwest for. It would have been nice if they had a big enough bus for each player to spread out across two seats, but Hank knew the money just wasn’t there.
There weren’t many lights or towns when you hit the halfway point of the trip, up Highway 63. It was easy to imagine there was no world out there anymore, and all that was left of everything was a busy full of tired athletes who were getting more bored by the minute. Some of these trips felt like they would never end. There were elements of that in the majors, at least.
A look of puzzlement crossed Hank’s face, and he redid the math. Adding up the coaches (five, including Nickles) and players (seventeen, including him), there should have been five seats left on the bus. He counted all of the seats again and came up with twenty-seven. Then, he counted the empty seats and there were four.
A lost and frightened feeling worked into his heart, like it had that day taking pictures in the cold winter. He looked over the faces of his fellow ballplayers, trying to convince himself he had made some simple mathematical error. He looked for a friend or tag-along, but he found he could recognize all of the faces. Then, he counted the empty seats again. Four. He turned to the front of the bus.
He heard a seat squeak and he turned around again. Everyone was seated as they had been, or so he thought. This time, he noticed five empty seats. He looked over the players and could not spot anyone missing, or even which seat had been filled. He scratched the stubble on his cheek and counted again. Five. Again.
For the rest of the ride, he took a cue from Taylor Nickles and stared straight out the front window of the bus.
