$200 and a Cadillac

III



“Swing like you’re trying to kill it.”

Ronald Grimaldi held the Louisville Slugger right over left and swung slowly, demonstrating the rotation of the hips, the follow through. The kids watched him, some of them mimicking his movements with imaginary bats of their own. “You see, just like this.” He spoke to them over his shoulder. He demonstrated again, feeling the weight of the bat in his hand, thinking back to all the nights, the screams, the cracking sounds, the tension, and the hushed silences.

Every time he swung one, a distant, atavistic rush overcame him. The bat felt like an extension of his body, as though his own blood coursed through it, his own pulse throbbing at its extreme end: a lonely human thud in the cold and silent wood. Perhaps a symbol of the loneliness of his own existence in the vast, uncaring desert? Perhaps not. But in any event, to Ron, the bat was a manifestation of his own power, his own potential to impact the world, and he loved it. He loved the feel of it in his hands, the smooth fit of the grip in his palms. He loved the vibrations of the impact against his fingers as they traveled back through the wood and into him, where his body absorbed and fed on them.

But to the kids, he was just a coach, a grown-up who liked baseball.

“You see, it’s all in the hips. That’s where all the power is. If you try to just swing hard with your arms and shoulders, you won’t be accurate, and you won’t hit very far. Form is the most important thing. Feel the bat in your hands. Treat it like an extension of your body. Become one with the bat.”

But ten-year-olds have no philosophy. They bounced around from foot to foot, puffed out their cheeks, bored only three minutes into practice. Across the grass, beyond the diamond, far out into center field, was another team already forming up. The sight of it made Ron’s team even more restless and he knew he was mere minutes from complete systemic breakdown.

While he enjoyed coaching little league, the headache of dealing with a mob of unruly ten-year-olds was something Ron Grimaldi had little tolerance for. He gave up hope, tossed the bat onto a pile of bats and clapped his hands together.

“Okay, listen up, red team on the field, blue team’s batting first.” The kids split up, with members of the red team complaining about having to take to the field. “Go on, get out there,” Ron said to two stragglers, who immediately went from a slouching walk into an unenthusiastic trot.

He stood on the sidelines and watched the lights click on all around the field. The high chain-link backstop occupied one corner of the only park in town, which also comprised about eighty percent of the town’s green grass. The desert climate was bad for grass, but the warm evenings were perfect for baseball.

The team practiced ineptly and Ron stood along the first base line shouting instructions to the shortstops, outfielders, the batter, catcher, and pitcher. A small group of parents sat in the bleachers behind the backstop and clapped or called out to their kids for little or no reason at all. On the whole, little league practice wasn’t very exciting, but it attracted a decent crowd regardless. Weeknights in Nickelback had little else to offer.

Along the parking lot there were a dozen cars with people leaning against them or sitting at the park benches, watching the action, or lack of it. One of those cars was the Chevy Suburban police cruiser driven by Sheriff Mickey O’Reilly and one of his deputies. They came to every practice. Ron could set his watch by it.

After four years in Nickelback, Ron could tell a stranger where the police were at almost any given moment. They were that predictable. He saw them at Ruth’s in the morning, getting coffee and stealing donuts from the tray by the register. Then they drove out east of town, did a long circle through the monument, and were driving near the schools by mid-morning to make sure there wasn’t any trouble. Then he would see them out around the refinery when he took his lunch break and sat out in the parking lot, keeping to himself, eating a sandwich and taking an occasional nip from a flask he kept in his glove box. They’d sit at one of their four or five favorite radar traps in the afternoon and try to catch people speeding home from the refinery or coming in on the south road from the freeway. Then, in the evening, they’d stay around Main Street and walk through the bars and the cocktail lounge at the Golden Dragon Mandarin Palace, keeping the peace, which was harder to do lately, with the layoffs and all.

But Ron Grimaldi could give two shits about Mickey O’Reilly and his deputies. The only thing good about knowing where they were was knowing you could stay the hell away from them—not that he needed to—not these days. Since moving to Nickelback, he had become a model citizen. Not that that was his nature, he was just holding up his end of the bargain, but it was the truth, nonetheless. The local cops had no idea who he was. To them, he was just a lucky guy who’d managed to land one of the last jobs at the refinery and hang onto it, even in the downturn. Ron Grimaldi was a lucky guy, and he aimed to keep it that way.

“Follow through!” he called out, with his hands cupped around his mouth. Showing the kids something was like talking to a rock. They didn’t listen to anything. “Scottie! Look!” Ron demonstrated the follow through again, but the kid just nodded and proceeded to jerk the bat at the ball in convulsive fits.

“Hey Ronnie!” It was Rick Smitts—a strange and childless Vietnam vet who came to every practice—calling from behind the backstop, his fingers poking through the chain link. “Ronnie!”

“What, Smitts?” Ron turned toward him, irritated. He’d long since stopped correcting him by reminding him his name was not “Ronnie.”

“The kids are really shaping up.” The fat bastard smiled and gave him the old thumbs up. Smitts was an idiot. Only an idiot would feel the need to call something like that out in the middle of practice.

Ron just nodded and sneered. “They sure are.” Smitts had annoyed him from the moment Ron first met him. He hadn’t been on the job for twenty minutes and Smitts came wandering up to him and started talking like they were old drinking buddies. Smitts was that kind of guy. He had no ability to see that he annoyed the people around him. Sometimes Ron would look into Smitts’s eyes when he was talking and wonder if there was anything behind them at all. There was a certain emptiness there, like the brain was on autopilot, the last few neurons flickering in the vast darkness inside his skull.

When practice was over, and the kids had raided the coolers for sodas and slices of orange, Ron made his way to the parking lot with the heavy canvas sack of bats, balls, and bases. He tossed them over the side into the bed of the truck and took off his hat. Nine at night and still hotter than hell. April to October, it never seemed to cool down enough to keep him from sweating. Ron leaned against the truck and closed his eyes, remembering the Jersey shore, the cool breeze of a June night coming in off the water. Now that was living. This, the high desert, Southern California, this was something else entirely.

Although four years at the refinery had gone quick enough, Ron knew he had his limits. He knew when he came out here that he’d reach his breaking point eventually. Frankly, he was surprised it took four years. What was almost worse was that, despite the layoffs, the arrangement was such that they wouldn’t let him go because of the tax break the refinery got for hiring what they believed was a disabled veteran. With that, he’d be the last guy they fired because it cost them damned near nothing to keep him around. Hell, they’d probably have him put the lock on the gate the day they finally shut it all down and have him hand himself his own pink slip.

So he was stuck there with nothing to do but drive his forklift around unless he took action on his own. Of course he could quit. He could always quit. But where would he go? He ended up out here because it was the best place for him. And it had kept him out of trouble. But it was only natural that he get into a little something out in the desert. Something low risk. Something designed merely to spice things up. And now that he had, he was feeling more content than ever.

Back by the bleachers he could see Smitts looking over at him, trying to break away from the people he was talking to so he could come over and say something else inane. Ron got in the truck and started it quickly. The bat he kept under the seat rolled forward and he kicked it back under with his feet, trying to work the pedals so he could get away. Too much shit in the truck, he really needed to clean it out.

But the bat reminded him of the two buffoons. Ron backed out of the space and took off, watching Smitts start to walk toward him and then stop with his mouth half open, staring at the back of Ron’s truck as it sped away. Ron laughed at the image in the mirror. It was the same look the buffoons were wearing the night before. It was the slack expression of someone whose brain has simply shut down, quit processing, ceased every effort to comprehend the world around it.

But unlike Smitts—who was actually a moron—the buffoons were just slackers with no focus or direction. Ron imagined they’d learned a thing or two last night and he was expecting them to shape up, quit f*cking around, and start getting serious. In many ways the buffoons were like the kids. They needed direction, training, otherwise they’d flounder aimlessly. But Ron knew what he was in for when he got involved with them—both the kids and the buffoons—and his batting instruction had come in handy with each.

He waited at the light and watched the Suburban with the red and blues on top pull out of the parking lot and come up behind him. Ron turned up the radio and let his left arm dangle out the window, his fingers tapping the door in time to “Sympathy for the Devil.” He glanced in his mirror at the two cops behind him.

When the light changed, Ron drove away slowly. Nothing was wrong, he was just the baseball coach heading home from a late practice. When he checked his mirror again, he saw the Suburban still sitting at the light. Then its blinker came on and the cops turned and headed out the south road toward the freeway.

Just like clockwork.