Story #10: "The Knuckleball Artist" (Chapter 14)

Morning origami, a Magic 8 Ball, boulders on the Big Sioux, and What Cheer's notoriously long streetlight.

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CHAPTER 14

HINTS

On the morning of the Cougar’s inevitable Game 12 defeat, Reginald was woken by a low, thump-thumping in the front seat and an unpleasant draft coming from the Sleepmobile’s driver-side kitchen window. He struggled to remove his toes from the backseat vent, tuck his knees in, swivel, untuck his knees, and pivot his full 6’4” frame into a seated position. All this morning origami was not getting easier with age.

On the floor of the driver’s seat, someone had littered half a dozen fresh, white baseballs. Seven baseballs, actually, to put a finer point on it. Something was scribbled on each of them.

They were not numbered, but together they were saying something. Reginald cleared the sleep from his eyes and tried to order them left to right below the windshield. Getting this right was like deciding on a batting order, something else he’d been struggling with.

He rowed them up as best he could.

Reginald had to read them a few times to make sure he understood, but when the penny dropped, he was so moved that The Boil changed that he bit into his throwing knuckles.

All was forgiven! For the first time in twenty-one years, it never mattered who got to the big leagues first just like he never thought it did. Reginald had what we call in Iowa, “a good soul, that one.”

The sentences were too wonderful. They were like having Magic 8 Baseballs. Then he gave each one a good luck shake, closed his eyes, and rolled them around on the dashboard to see what other wonderful things The Boil might be telling him.

Reginald scrambled the balls up on the dashboard like he was playing a game of “Go Fish” by himself and losing his temper. He pulled a pen out of the glove compartment refrigerator, crossed out the message on each of them and angrily scribbled the same thing on every one of them.

When he got to the very last one, he thought of a tea towel and remembered he was “raised right,” so he took a deep breath.

He arrived early to The Boil’s house so he’d have time to throw the baseballs onto his old teammate’s lawn. Even throwing underhanded, the first one was such a poor throw it rolled under the rhododendrons. The Boil was never going to find that one.

When Phineas came out of the house exactly on time, he picked the balls up like a mother collecting children’s toys from the lawn, including the one that rolled under the rhododendrons. It took a minute under there before he popped out again feet first.

“Oh, dear,” Phineas said, reading the ball. He pursed his lips and shook his head.

“No need to litter. After we lose today, I’ll let The Boil know you quit. But, and this is a fat, big butt, today is an important game. It’s our last chance to get our hopes up.”

On the way to the field, Reginald just missed the green at the notoriously long red light. If there was one thing everybody agreed on in What Cheer it was if there was a car with a conversation nobody wanted to have, that red light stopped cars cold like a teacher putting kids in time-out.

“You know you could ask for help,” Phineas observed. He locked his big, glassy eyes on Reginald. They were more smeared than ever.

“Help who? Help how?” Reginald shot back. That was not a word he liked.

“You. The team. Help! H.E.L.P.” Phineas waved his hands in the air like he was drowning. “I’m over here! I’m over here!”

Satisfied he’d said something important, Phineas leaned out the window with his face into the wind like a dog who was finished barking.

Reginald liked the word “help” even less when someone was spelling it out for him.

“Roll your window down, you little brat.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t sass me. Roll it down. Now.”

If you were a parent you would have called how Reginald was talking to Phineas “yelling at my kid” — unless you were the parent doing the yelling, in that case, “mind your own business, mister. I’ll talk to him how I want.”

Phineas made a deep groan and dropped his passenger seat all the way back, slamming it with a thud. Reginald threw the baseballs out into traffic, one by one, each baseball angrier and further than the last. With the last one, he came notably close to throwing overhand.

The baseballs slow-rolled to the far lane then disappeared under a pickup truck with a tough-guy driver.

While all this was going on, and even though he was having quite the parental tantrum with the baseballs, you couldn’t say the coaching offer hadn’t gotten his attention.

When he’d ejected all but the seventh baseball, he had a mouse-squeak of hope.

Reginald looked up at the dotted roof fabric, pursed his lips and shook his head back-and-forth. He didn’t know if it was even possible to ask what he was about to ask. Things had now arrived at the impossible. He got lost in this unpleasant daydream.

Phineas woke him.

“Is it over? Is it safe to roll my window up?”

Phineas snapped his seat into the forward position. He banged into place a tad too upright, and he made of small show of flapping his arms like he was only saved by his seatbelt harness. Reginald wasn’t having any of it.

Reginald pointed at the floor under the Sleepmobile refrigerator. “Give me that pen.”

Phineas handed it to Reginald, who scribbled furiously.

And, I’m telling you, Reginald came oh-so-close to writing the word “help.”

He rolled the ball in a big circle, then scribbled on the other side,

“Hints?” Phineas pondered out loud. Then he took the pen, rotated the ball for a clean spot and began to scribble.

Phineas held his hand out offering the ball back. They were playing catch.

The two looked back and forth at each other making faces as if they were playing charades and weren’t allowed to speak.

Reginald finally spoke softly. It wasn’t clear if he was talking to the kid or himself.

“You can’t even catch the ball coming back to the mound. Why do you think you’re going to throw a knuckleball?”

Phineas answered out loud, but he was getting frustrated. If Reginald was speaking more softly, Phineas was getting louder.

“Because I already have, and nobody saw.”

The notoriously long light was never going to turn green.

“Kid, I can’t even remember how to throw a knuckleball anymore.”

“You don’t need to throw it. You need to teach it. Tell me stories about it. Maybe that would remind me how I did it. Tell me about the bee and the tulip.”

Reginald banged his hands really hard on the steering wheel, but in a private way. It was impossible the light still hadn’t turned green.

Phineas changed the subject.

“You know, you wouldn’t believe what he hides in his biggest trophy.”

“Who? Your dad?” Reginald answered his own question.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“What’s in your dad’s trophy? Something about me?”

“Nothing. Something. Yes. It’s about the two of you. I said never mind.”

They were distracted by the pickup in the far lane giving up waiting and running the light.

It ran over six baseballs, lifting the truck up and down like it was driving through boulders on the Big Sioux. After number six, the pickup smashed down with a horrible thunk. The tough-guy, pickup driver yelped “like a little girl,” but Reginald and Phineas didn’t say a word. It was the funniest thing that happened in What Cheer, Iowa, possibly ever, and neither of them would have any part of it.

Phineas snatched the seventh baseball from Reginald. He took a very long time scribbling before he handed it over.

Phineas looked away from him and out the window. Reginald read the ball.

Reginald didn’t know what to say, but he stared at it for what felt like twenty-one years. Then the crossed out “in” made him angry for some reason, and he threw the baseball past Phineas and out the window. Phineas didn’t turn around, but Reginald saw the kid take his glasses off for some reason.

Phineas muttered. “And you don’t believe in me either, but you’re both wrong. And if you don’t help me, I’m not helping you. Strike three. You’re out.” He made a quick thumbs-up “you’re out” sign with the same hand holding his glasses.

It was as serious as Phineas got, which turned out to be very serious indeed.

The town’s notoriously long light had gotten about as far as it could with the two of them and finally changed.

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