Two and 0

By Don Mayhew

Tino Renzo is a maintenance worker at the World Trade Center who's starting to feel the crushing disappointment of middle age descend upon him. When terrorists fly two hijacked airliners into the twin towers, he must overcome the indecision and fear that have been hallmarks of his life.

Josh White is a janitor at a California high school who finds respite from the overwhelming complexities of modern life playing amateur baseball. Even there, his problematic crush on the sister of one of his teammates confuses things.

How these two working-class guys' parallel lives of quiet desperation intersect is the central mystery of a tale filled with romance, action and, naturally, baseball.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Mayhew
• Release date: Sep 2, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452495873

Don Mayhew

Don Mayhew is a former reporter with The Fresno Bee in Central California, a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox and a father of three. He bats left and throws left.

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2 and 0

by Don Mayhew

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 by Don Mayhew

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. If you’re reading this and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you, please consider going to Smashwords.com to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

* * *

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locales or events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

* * *

For Kim – and the rest of my teammates.

* * *

Chapter 1

The baseball jumped from the pitcher's right hand toward home plate. It never ceased to puzzle Josh how clearly he could see a fastball when the rest of life was such a blur.

The world falling off its hinges had made it worse, of course. But his brain had been in a race against – what exactly? He had no clue – since long before that. As a kid, lying in bed in the dark, waiting for sleep, he'd given great thought to the 21st century: how old he'd be, where he'd live, whether his wife would be pretty, two kids or three.

Twenty-five years later, a fresh millennium wasn't at all what he'd imagined. Instead, he lay in bed, thinking about stupid shit. Breakfast burritos, for instance. Or the bass line from that White Stripes song they played nonstop on the rock station. Then there was the war on terror, the cute girl behind the counter at the drug store on Academy Avenue, boob jobs, weapons of mass destruction, Sammy Sosa's corked bat, left-wing, right-wing, a coup somewhere in Africa, that hott mom in the snug, paper-thin sweatpants he'd seen both at the grocery store and retrieving her kid from kindergarten, the Ebola virus, the war on drugs, Iraq, Afghanistan, peanut butter jelly time, anthrax, that adorable Mexican girl with the long, jet-black hair he'd seen waiting tables at Fermin's, SARS, orange-level terror alerts and ... .

Slumber, when it arrived, was fitful. Josh had this dream where he hit a baseball over the outfielders' heads. It looked like an inside-the-park home run. But every time he turned one base to run to the next, there was another. And another. It never ended until he woke up, his legs oddly tired.

Awake, he was just as restless – if not manic, like the guy in Bruce Springsteen's ''Roulette.'' Josh liked the song, but it made him feel uneasy, like a rat scurrying through a dark maze filled with traps and poison, bat-wielding maniacs, boot-wearing skinheads and maybe a pissed-off 10-year-old from a broken home with an abusive stepdad whose only toy was the flame thrower his crazy uncle the former Marine gave him last Christmas.

Yeesh.

People said you'd never see it coming, ''it'' being some tragic twist of fate that screwed you over. That made Josh laugh. Oh, he'd see it coming, all right. Thing was, the world threw so much at him from so many angles, he wouldn't be able to move out of the way fast enough. Working late at night, sweeping the polisher back and forth over dirty classroom floors, he could feel something bigger, something better, maybe just a moment of clarity, out there in the dark someplace, just beyond his comprehension.

Maybe he'd never make sense of it all. He even had two baseball announcers in his head, doing play by play of his day. Technically, he figured this made him a little insane. But there'd been a lot of craziness after 9/11, and no one seemed to notice. Besides, it wasn't as if the voices were telling him what to do. They just kind of kept him company. Even at the plate, as the pitch hissed toward him, Josh heard them start up.

Welcome to today's game, folks. Chaps McGhee here. If you're just joining us, the Fresno Sox are threatening to break open a scoreless game in the bottom of the first inning. With runners at second and third and two out, the Sox's new center fielder, Josh White, is at bat. Next to me in the booth here, I've got the coloredest color man in baseball, Reggie –

Chaps, I think they realize I'm black.

Hello? Reggie? This is an imaginary radio broadcast. The people at home are going to need pretty fucking good eyesight to see that you're black.

Just keep this shit up for much longer, they'll get the picture real quick.

Ah, Reggie, that's what I like about you – your thick, thick skin.

I'm serious, Chaps.

Josh tried to focus. Almost idly, his eyes searched the red stitches on the ball bearing down on him. Two-seam fastball or four? Chaps and Reggie kept talking.

So anyway, it's a great day for baseball. Nice and warm for June here in California's San Joaquin Valley, where relentless heat awaits us the rest of summer. It is, of course, a dry heat. But today we've got a mild breeze coming from the northwest for this Fresno Old-Time Baseball contest between the Sox and, uh – who is it they're playing today?

It says Forty-Fives on their uniforms.

Forty-Fives? What kind of name is that? Is that the year they were born?

Maybe it's the average number of runs they give up per game.

Ouch. Reggie, you da man! Gimme some, right here, up high.

Stop.

What? I'm just trying to give you props for that little zinger. Don't leave me hanging.

Can't we just talk about the game?

We can. But as you know, this isn't exactly scintillating baseball out here. They bat 10 or 12 or 15 to a side and freely substitute players on and off the field, making it seem more like a giant game of tag than baseball. Then you have to be at least 30, and most of these guys are so old, they can barely count to 30 anymore. It takes at least three of them, so they don't run out of fingers.

I know what you mean, Chaps. There's over the hill. Then there's over the hill, past the river and through the woods. Some of these guys are halfway to grandmother's house. Hell, a few are married to grandmothers. Even the ones who used to be able to play a little, their peak is no closer than the Sierra mountains east of here.

There are mountains to the east? Are you shitting me?

Nope. They're behind that curtain of hazy smog that chokes us all summer.

Brown sky. Josh still couldn't get over that.

Josh has struggled away from the ballpark lately. But hand him a bat, point him toward the batter's box, and it's all good. Well, mostly good. Good with a smattering of bad.

At bat was the one place Josh truly lived in the moment. The past didn't haunt you. And if you made a habit of learning from your mistakes, experience at the plate only helped.

He's hitting .437 nearly a third of the way into the season. And I know what you're thinking there at home: You're wondering whatever happened to that fastball. Well, just hold onto your ticket stub, Missy. We'll get back to that in a moment.

Chaps, you'd think they'd never hit the pause button on their video player or something.

No kidding. We need to talk about this guy on the mound, whoever he is.

You don't know his name?

I thought you did.

Nope. If you stop and think about, we're really crappy announcers.

Speak for yourself, Tonto. I do know that this guy throws decently hard. Probably his high school's ace, back in the day. Maybe even a little college ball someplace.

But he comes at you straight overhand. Hard as he throws, the ball goes straight. He also throws his curve overhand, hard, so that it darts down.

Does he throw a changeup?

If he does, he's keeping it a secret. That means you can sit on the cheese. And you know, Chaps, when you're hot like Josh right now, the game slows. Every pitch looks like a beach ball floating to the plate.

As the fastball closed in – a four-seamer, by the way – Josh inched his right foot toward the pitcher. At the same time, he lifted the bat off his shoulder and, almost imperceptibly, moved his hands so its handle pointed at the catcher's head.

Most people, even a lot of baseball fans, think of a good swing as one fluid motion. But it's more a series of small competing movements that allow a guy to swing off his ass without falling on his face.

Zzzzzzzzz. Oh, sorry. Was I snoring? That's fascinating, Reggie. Really. Any chance you could save it for the commentary on the DVD? I understand little extras like that really give sales a boost.

Josh's left foot began to pivot. His hips turned. His hands started forward, then stopped.

This beach ball is going to be wide, a few inches off the plate. Josh watches it pass. The count is 2 and 0.

In the dugout, his teammates buzzed.

''Attabaybee, Josh.''

''Good eye up there.''

''Right man, right spot.''

You know, the joy of baseball at this level isn't measured by wins and losses. It's that intangible feeling you get when you smell a newly mowed outfield. Or you step onto infield dirt and notice how it gives just a little bit, solid enough to run like wildfire but soft enough to throw your body into a hook slide perfected through years of practice. Or simply the crack of the bat....

I call bullshit.

What?!

C'mon, Chaps. Look at that outfield. Hasn't been mowed in a month. The infield's so craggy, you couldn't drag it thoroughly with a team of Times Square transvestites pulling two-ton metallic bras. And when someone connects with a pitch – excuse me, if someone connects with a pitch – it'll be a lot more ping than thwack. Only an idiot would use a wood bat when aluminum sends the ball faster and farther. So stuff that romantic crap in your ball bag.

It was true. What made Josh happy on the field wasn't poetic or picturesque. It was the chatter that crashed from the dugout, pitch after pitch. Nothing particularly funny or exciting had to happen. A batter could, as Josh just had, take a close one for a ball. A teammate could muff a high-five. Someone could fart. Didn't matter. Suddenly, everyone was yapping. Laughter would erupt, fill the air like a short string of firecrackers and disappear, gone until the next pitch.

''Here we go, Josh. Ducks on the pond.''

''Hummina, hummina, huhhhhhhminnnnaaaaah.''

''Swing the fuggin' bat, you big baboon.''

The Sox are quite boisterous, Reggie. That last bit of – what was that? Verbal excrement disguised as encouragement disguised as sarcasm? Whatever it was, it came from Ignazio Santino.

No one curses more, complains longer or laughs louder.

It's almost as if, as a child, someone set his volume to 10, and somewhere along the way, the knob broke. And in case the name has you fooled, Zio – as his teammates call him – is quite Italian, from his greazy black hair down to his red cleats, white laces and green grass stains on his pants.

The colors of the Italian flag.

Right. Santino really is amazing. For the third straight year, he leads the league in racial slurs.

Teammates say barely an inning passes without him reminding someone that he happens to be Italian.

Really?

Oh, yeah. Either he'll point out how some random, ridiculous thing is derived from Italy, or he'll ask someone else about his ethnicity. That's excuse enough to start in about all things dago or wop or – on special occasions – guinea. His Italian Insight Index, which pits everything he says against the number of times he mentions Italy, being Italian or eating Italian food, remains a robust .387.

For someone who doesn't actually speak Italian, that's pretty impressive.

No kidding. I think it's safe to say that when it comes to being Italian, Zio gives 110 percent.

With several Italians on the team, there was a lot of loud name-calling among them. They assumed that gave them license to make fun of their Mexican, German, Polish and Armenian teammates – to say nothing of the one black guy on the roster, who caught nine innings almost every week, no matter how hot it got. He'd shake his head, mutter something about plantation work, and everyone would ignore him.

It doesn't seem like the banter and quibbling among the Sox ever get nasty, Reggie. Does that surprise you?

Not at all. It's been that way on almost every team I've played on. Baseball draws people together in motley groups. If you're lucky, the result is a rainbow coalition of stupidity.

Baseball helps people overcome prejudice then?

Whoa, hold on there, Biggun. No, no, no. It's more like they tuck their beliefs under the bench, with their other equipment, and leave 'em there for nine innings. You know, bonds form. Guys get to know one another, and they make exceptions. But put 'em in a confrontation later with someone who's different, and it gets ugly.

Ugly like your momma?

Your momma was so ugly, it looked like someone put out that fire on her face with a pickax.

So it wasn't all ''Sesame Street'' in the dugout, despite the furry characters cheerfully spouting nonsense from the bench. But playing again did lead to the kind of fun Josh had hoped for on a Sunday morning months before, when he'd shown up at the last moment to league tryouts, carrying his glove and cleats in a crinkled, torn brown paper bag, nothing but socks on his feet.

And if you'll recall, one of those socks had a ragged hole where his big toe pushed through. He looked like he'd fallen off a movie poster for ''The Grapes of Wrath.''

On the field, a dozen guys in various stages of baseball attire – T-shirts with half-sleeves, shorts or gray pants, a clashing assortment of brightly colored caps – awkwardly played catch. A fat guy holding a clipboard by home plate yelled instructions. Everyone ignored him. Josh figured he must be in charge anyway and checked in, giving the guy his name and the league fee in cash.

Josh walked behind the backstop and sat. A grizzled old guy with a nose the size of a meat hook sidled up, took one look as Josh pulled his muddy cleats from the torn bag and quietly said, ''Oh, sweet. Is that one of those new Nike duffels?''

Josh smiled at the insult. He immediately felt at home.

''I'm Josh,'' he held out his hand. The guy shook it: ''Theo Higgs.''

In khaki shorts and a navy Fresno Old-Time Baseball championship T-shirt, bony knobs for knees and a narrow, pointy face, Higgs looked far too old and frail to actually play baseball. Slung over his shoulder was an equipment bag. It appeared to be bigger than he was. Josh thought of an ant lugging a giant blue vinyl breadcrumb back to the nest. He pegged Higgs for someone's grandfather. The old guy did have three grandchildren, as it happened.

''You here to try out?'' Josh smiled. He meant it as a joke but posed it seriously enough that Higgs could take it either way.

''Nah,'' Higgs said. ''I'm scouting the new meat. Our roster is pretty full, but you never know what you might find scrounging around out here. I run the Sox.''

''Red or White?'' Josh asked.

''We're what you might call ambivalent about that,'' Higgs sighed. ''Some of us argued for Red, but we have a couple of Yankees fans on the team, and there was no way they were going to agree to that. So someone else suggested White, but then the one guy from Chicago on the roster grew up on the North Side.''

''A Cubs fan.''

''Naturally. So we actually wear green.''

''Green?''Josh winced. ''The Green Sox?''

''Yeah, I know. Like puke, right? See, this is why they don't run pro ball teams as little democracies. You can't settle anything. You compromise, then everybody hates the result. So we call ourselves the Fresno Sox and leave it at that.''

They were interrupted by the fat guy with the clipboard calling Josh's name. It was his turn to hit. His small bag wouldn't have held a bat, even if he had one to stick in it. He looked around a moment and started toward the field emptyhanded.

''Here,'' Higgs said, pulling a bat from his blue bag and handing it over. What was left of its black leather handle was held together with ragged strips of white cloth tape. The aluminum probably was red once. But the paint was so chipped, dinged and faded that it appeared to be a sour pink.

''It's only a 32-incher,'' Higgs said. ''I'm not quite the strapping young man I used to be. It's all I've got.''

Josh shrugged and took the bat, found his way to home plate and realized it had been a long time since he'd tried to hit a baseball. The guy on the mound didn't have much on the ball, which in theory should've made it easier to hit. But he also threw with a little sidearm motion that made his pitches tail away from a lefthanded batter in a sloppy, loopy arc.

Everyone on the field turned toward the plate as Josh stepped into the box.

The 6-foot White usually avoids calling attention to himself. But at bat, it's different. He embraces the tension as the focus falls on him.

You have to have that, Chaps, that ability to flip the switch up there at the plate.

Here comes the first pitch, and Josh starts his swing too early. He barely fouls it off.

Josh took a deep breath and watched the second pitch skip across the dirt in front of the plate. Shaking off rust is easier when you're getting strikes. But you get what you get, so when the third pitch looked just a little wide, Josh flailed at it and hit another foul tip.

This is not going well, Reg. The next one is a weak pop-up that lands harmlessly in front of the third-base dugout. Sucks to be Josh right now.

The rough handle of the little bat gnawed on the soft spot of his left hand between the thumb and forefinger. He knew from experience that he was about six swings short of a blister.

The infielders started talking among themselves. Something about a hangover. The guys in the outfield were clumped together in threes or fours, cracking up at something one guy yelled across to the others. They weren't laughing at Josh, and he knew it. He sensed not derision but disinterest. Derision might've been easier to take. But nobody was paying much attention now.

Next pitch: another one in the dirt. Not good. Then he got a pitch over the outside half of the plate, belt-high – and the parts of his swing that had been fighting with one another suddenly fell into place. He didn't exactly crush the ball. How could he with the little baby bat? But he sent a low line drive between third and short that whistled into left field.

How about that? The turd can actually still hit a ball every once in a while.

Then a lazy fly ball to right-center on a pitch that was a little high. Then Josh turned on an inside pitch and hit another low liner. This one buzzed down the right field line.

''Next,'' the guy with the clipboard said.

Back behind the backstop, Josh returned the bat to Theo.

''Well, that was ugly,'' Josh said.

''Where'd you play ball?'' Theo said, looking straight at him.

The question caught Josh off-guard. Based on what he figured was one of the most unimpressive rounds of batting practice ever, he didn't think anyone would assume he'd played anywhere.

''Oh, I played a little junior college ball back East,'' he stammered. He shrugged. ''It was a long time ago.''

''All right. What's your – what is it you youngsters call 'em now, 'digits'? Your number?'' Theo said. ''I'll give you a call.''

''Isn't there a draft or something?'' Josh said.

Theo laughed. ''The idiots out here today wouldn't know a real hitter if he smacked 'em right between the eyes with a line drive. They'll be glad when I tell them that I want you on the Sox. But I suspect with a better bat and a few more rounds of BP, you'll do just fine.''

''Hey, if you say so.''

And that's how Josh found himself in the middle of the Sox lineup a few months later. There'd been some grumbling from other teams about him sandbagging when he hit two home runs the first three games of the season. He'd done well since. But it wasn't like he was thrashing every pitcher who walked out there.

Besides, grumbling was second nature to almost everyone in the league. It was like breathing, only louder. Except when someone tried to score from first on a double. Then, back in the dugout, the breathing was louder than the grumbling. But there was always grumbling.

His teammates' voices broke from the dugout.

''C'mon, Josh, get us going now. Any way you can.''

''Put that good stick on it.''

''Let's knock this guy around early.''

Josh scratches a spot in the batter's box with his left foot and plants it there, then steps into the box and squares up to home plate.

Chaps, days like this are made for hitting. The bat feels warm and light when you pick it up. A cold day, even if you put the barrel of the bat on the ball, it might sting a bit. But today, a pitch will rocket in the opposite direction if you hit it solid. You don't even have to swing hard.

Yes, but a 2-and-0 count often gives Josh fits.

That's right, and it shouldn't. You're in control. The pitcher has to throw a strike. You can look for your pitch. But Josh's approach at the plate is feral. Since his mind races like a bunny fucking on meth, he knows from experience that thinking too much at bat can be paralyzing. See ball, hit ball. That's what they tell you. So more often than not, he takes a big hack 2 and 0.

To be fair, Reggie, he's gotten some big hits that way. The rest of the time, though, he looks like a damn fool swinging at what could've been ball three.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda, Chaps. If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. You can't worry about what isn't. It's a capricious, unfair game anyway. You hit a line drive 250 feet, and sometimes it seems like your odds of getting a hit are the same as someone who sends a blooper half that far. But as someone told me once, you love baseball like you love a woman who's bad for you: stupidly and with all your heart. The attraction lies in the impossibility of it.

The next pitch is another fastball. The pitcher takes a little off, trying to get it over for a strike. It darts for the heart of the plate, thigh high, begging to be crushed. Josh has no trouble getting the barrel to it and smokes a line drive just to the third baseman's left!

Ohhhhh, but it disappears into the guy's glove for the third out.

Can you believe that shit? Practically left a vapor trail behind it.

It happened so fast, Josh hadn't even dropped his bat yet.

Fuckin' game.

Chapter 2

The doors on the New Jersey Transit train slapped shut, and the commuter lurched toward New York. Tino staggered in the opposite direction down the aisle of the third car. He had to laugh at himself. As long as he was on that train, he could walk as fast as he wanted toward the back. It was going to take more than that to get out of going to work today.

Tino found his legs as the train left the Red Bank station, took a few more steps and flopped onto one of the dull orange vinyl seats. The color always reminded him of his mother's kitchen, remodeled in full-blown 1976 décor and still that hideous shade a quarter-century later. She'd been so proud. She could no more admit it was outdated than acknowledge that the crow's feet crowding the corners of her eyes wouldn't go away with a good night's sleep.

He didn't care what the kitchen looked like anyway – it always smelled fantastic. This was particularly true Sunday mornings. As a kid, Tino would wake to the pungent aroma of spicy Italian sausage simmering to life in a big pot of his mother's homemade sauce. She'd get up at dawn to get started. The meatballs would come later, rolled into shape after the family got home from church. Then more pots, pasta boiling.

Cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents would