A WAY TO GO HOME

I looked quickly for Momma, but still she wasn't there.

We got quiet and listened as he read from a piece of yellow paper. He read off some names and some numbers and then a group of boys swelled together and moved out onto the field. Their cleats scraped along the concrete floor and then were quieted by the red clay, and I was left behind with one other.

"Jesse," Coach called to me. "Jesse, son I'll get you in later. Everyone'll play. Just sit tight with Tony here and watch the game."

Coach said this and then spit a large wad of chewing tobacco on the steel pole by his leg. I watched as it slid slowly to the ground and near the feet of the other boy. He cried out:

"Aw man, c'mon Coach lemme in, huh? C'mon man, I wanna play! Lemme in! I wanna play!"

"Shut up Tony," said Coach. "I said that you're watchin' the game right now." With this he spit out another shot of tobacco, and walked away. A baseball lay upon the bench behind me, and Tony, pouting, picked it up and began to bounce it hard off the concrete floor.

We were alone. I stood away, trying to keep my face turned forward and looking out onto the field. The ball kept bouncing. My eyes were drawn toward Tony. The first thing I remember noticing about him was the growth of dark fuzz above his upper lip. "A chocolate milk moustache" I thought to myself. He had stringy, shoulder-length hair and it was dirty. His arms seemed extraordinarily long and they ended in oversized, nervous hands. I recognized him from school. He was two grades ahead of me, but almost three years older. The story I had heard from the other kids was that he had been held back at least once, and probably would be again. At school, whenever I saw him, he was always jumping around, always slapping at something. A light hanging down from the ceiling, a loose flyer waving out from the bulletin board, or just another kid; they were all the same to him, all the same, and they all got the same reckless slap from the wide, hard palm of his hand.

And there was scarcely a time when I saw him that he wasn't wearing the same pair of green corduroy jeans; dirty with grease smeared along the legs, and wrapped around his waist by a large leather belt engraved with black letters: T-O-N-Y. Those jeans always fell just short of his ankles so that the whites of his socks stared back at everyone who looked at him. We were not now at school though. I was not, from a distance, watching him running through the hallway slapping the other kids. He was now next to me, in this small three foot by eight foot cage.

I tried to forget about Tony. I stood in the corner. First game, I thought, first game. I chewed on my collar. First game and I'm not starting but it's okay; it's okay, it's alright, I'm too nervous anyway and besides these other kids know what to do out there better than I do, played before, and yes it's just like father was telling me the other night, just like he told me as I sat upon his knee that things don't always go, son, the way you want them to but don't get upset, just have fun `cause that's the name of the game you just have fun but Momma my stomach hurts no you must go to school, if you don't go to school you don't get to play but no she's not here she's not watching the game but here is Ricky's mom, and there is Chris Tyler's mom, she's wearing her dark glasses and with the attic fan on in the house by myself the telephone rings and Jesse i can't take you but Chris Tyler's mother will come and get you and she did come and get me wearing her dark glasses and driving a big green van that smells like our woodpile out back but she was there at first practice and i didn't feel good and she knew that i was nervous but she was there, she was there and--

And then I jumped. I jumped back from the fence I had been leaning on. The fence was slapping back and forth and I jumped back and watched the ball roll down first base, along the bottom of the bent chain-linked fence, and come to rest below where my father stood.

My father paid no attention to the kid that scrambled in front of him to pick up the ball. He did not move at all, but stood slightly bent, silently, stoically, staring out well past the field. Perhaps he was looking at something odd or bright that stood out along the green horizon; I do not know. But that is how I remember seeing him for the first time that day: elbows resting on the fence, baseball rolling by his feet, and staring all the while.

I was so excited to see him that I did not care that he never noticed me waving at him and jumping in the dugout. His shirt tail was untucked from his gray business-suit pants, and I looked my own self over again, worrying about how I looked. My T-shirt was still tucked tightly behind my white cotton knickers. I was very proud of the way the uniform looked on me. The first night after Momma had bought it, I put it on and wore it at dinner and while watching television and then to bed that night and then around the house the next morning until being ordered to finally take it off. "You're going to ruin it, darling, before you even use it."

How I liked wearing that uniform; earlier that day I rushed home from school, leaping from the bus, and dressed up in it three hours before the game would even begin. Momma wasn't home. I had the whole house to myself, and a world so sweetly at my command. I went in and out of each room, stopping in front of each mirror to judge how I looked, until I ventured into Momma's room and stopped before her full-length dressing glass. I stayed there for some time, turning and twisting and prancing, inspecting the fit and look from every angle. The white-on-white looked pure and crisp and I thought myself transformed into some type of brilliant soldier, a gallant knight, ready to ride into battle, or, if nothing else, show the world just how splendid I looked. I exhausted finally, and placed a blanket on the floor beneath the attic fan, and with a perfect breeze and peaceful drone from above, I laid down and took a nap.

So I stood there in the dugout, leaning against the fence. I didn't want to sit down on the dirty wooden benches.

The fielding nine soon bounded back in and took their turn at bat. I noticed that some of the other kids knickers and shirts were already stained from the clay, and I gloated privately that mine were still unspoiled.

Soon they left, however, and I was alone with Tony again. I turned to a corner and tried to forget that he was there. It didn't last long. A loud bang from my right and I turned to look at Tony. He was crouched down low to the ground. He bounced a few times on his haunches and then sprang up and slapped hard the underside of the tin roof. He did this again and again, each time getting a little bit lower to the ground. I remembered the quiet of my house earlier that day, the blanket beneath the fan, and I wanted to be back there, by myself, and alone in front of a mirror.

A loud cheer and then I looked up to see the other kids running around the field. I saw first one then another cross safely over home plate. I was looking at them running, but I was not watching them...

And then I jumped when Tony spoke his first words to me.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice rusty, parched. He was leaning over me.

"What?"

"You heard me. `Said what's your name?"

"Jesse."

"Jesse? Seen you at school, right? Yeah I seen you at school. My name's Tony."

"I know your name."

"Oh really? How'd you know?"

"Jus' did. Seen you at school."

"Yeah. Right. Hey is that your dad over there?" He pointed down the fence. "He rich? He looks rich. You rich? You look like a rich kid."

"No. No I guess not."

"Yeah. You rich. You a rich kid, you got money. Hey rich kid, watch this. Watch me slap the roof with the palm of my hand. You can't do that can you? Watch me, man!"

Tony swung down and threw himself up and slapped the roof. He almost came down on top of me, and when he came down, he stared at me, grinning. I turned quickly away and looked out at the field. I didn't know what else to do.

"Hey man, what's your problem?" he yelled to me. "What's your problem? You can't do it. I know you can't. C'mon little Jesse, let's see you do it, huh? Hey man look at me. Why are you so quiet, huh? Huh little Jesse? Why are you so quiet man, are you a fag or somethin'?"

I turned around. In his face, thick black letters flashed before me. In the bathroom at school, near the last sink and below the only window, I had seen those letters colored on the wall. I had seen them almost every day, but I was always ignorant to their meaning.

"You don't know what that means, do ya?" said Tony, reading my face, my face so open and simple. "No you don't, do ya? You don't know what fags is!"

"Yes I -- yeah I do!" I lied. Tony stood above me.

"No you don't. You don't know what fags is. Want me to tell ya, huh? Huh little Jesse? Want me to tell you what fags is?"

I did not speak.

"Oh, I'll tell ya. Fags is boys kissing other boys. An' not just on the cheek, little Jesse, but on the lips and with their tongues. My dad says that when he was younger, he used to beat `em up for fun. Says he'd beat me up too if I ever kissed a boy. You don't kiss boys, do you little Jesse?"

"No!"

"You sure? You sure you don't kiss boys? Bet you never even kissed a girl before, have you? Huh? Well I've kissed lots of `em, and seen lots of `em naked too. You ever seen a naked girl, Jesse?"

I could not speak. I had begun to sweat hard and my stomach burned. My legs felt weak. Tony loomed above me. He was pushing me. Into a world for which I had no words, that was where he was pushing me. In the groups of the older kids, their grins and laughter, taboo cigarettes, by the fact of their height, I was naive. I was afraid at the pull I was feeling. There was that varnish, so protective, that had long been my lacquer that Tony, with his steel-wooled voice was now stripping away.

I looked over to father, but he remained dead against the fence.

"My father," Tony began slowly. "He's a bastard right? But he's got these magazines, whole stacks of `em. Picture books with pictures of girls, lots of `em, with no clothes on. Not just that. These girls, they strut and poke themselves out at you, and it shows them with guys too, and they're naked. Makes me feel real jumpy when I look at `em. It gives me a hard-on."

Tony read my face again. He was breathing on me, his breath strong like sour milk.

"You don't know what that is, do you little Jesse? Huh? You don't know what a hard-on is, do you?

"Stop it!" Iscreamed. "Stop it! Get outta here! Leave me alone!" I wanted him gone. I wanted so badly to swat him away from me, away from me and out of the dugout forever.

"Hey man! What's wrong with you? Huh? What's wrong with you, you faggot!"

And with one swift motion it was done. His palm, flat and open, and his long fingers spread wide came down hard and fast on my right arm. He stung me. A poster on the wall. I was now nothing more than a poster on the wall at school that he had slapped down and left lying on the floor.

"Stop it!" I screamed again. Outside the dugout, Coach finally heard me yell.

"Cut it out in there and watch the game!"

Tony spun around to face him.

"Why? You ain't gonna let us play anyway, right? Why don't you let me play, huh? C'mon man, lemme play!"

"Maybe Tony if you'd show up for practice once in a while I'd let you."

"Well maybe I don't want to."

"Well maybe that's your problem boy, your attitude."

"Oh yeah? Well maybe you're the problem, man. Yeah, you got the problem, not me!"

Coach, so tall with black hair, stared at Tony.

"Alright smartass, get outta here. Get outta here and don't come back around until you're ready to act like the rest of us. I don't need this crap. Get the hell out!"

Coach spat another wad of tobacco on the ground and waited. Tony looked him down as well, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his hands dangling by his side, working themselves into and out of a fist.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I'll just do that." And he leapt up and slapped the roof once more. He broke to run out of the dugout, but caught himself and turned toward me. "See ya around, little Jesse," he said to me, grinning, and then disappeared.

And suddenly the dugout grew larger. It breathed, relaxed, and so did I. I could now move freely. I was alone again, and I could now move, and I didn't have to worry about Tony, but still, I was confused. I looked down along the fence. Father was still frozen. I was confused and so unsure and as I looked down along the fence, I wished that father had seen and heard all the things that Tony had done and said, and I wished that he would come and take me upon his lap, and in his deep voice soothe me, and answer all my questions within. But he never would. The other kids soon came running back inside, and I moved over toward the corner, turning inward as I went.

"Jesse."

"Jesse!" I heard some time later.

"Jesse!" Coach called out to me. "Jesse, pick up a bat, I want you to go hit for Jay."

Quietly I obeyed and moved through the other kids and out onto the soft red clay. I didn't know how long I had been in there, in the corner, and I did not know the score of the game as I stepped up to the plate. I didn't know much of anything.

I reached first base on four straight balls. "Two outs," I was told. "Two outs and so you run on anything that's hit." The kid who followed promptly drove his first pitch deep into the outfield. I took off. Exploding down the base paths, arms swinging wildly, legs pumping hard through the clay, I looked up to see a man yelling and jumping and waving frantically at me. "Go home, Jesse, go home! Slide, boy slide!" And I moved. I took the final turn wide and I moved fast down the chalk-lined path. I moved as fast as I could and I was leaning so far forward that I began to be lifted off my feet. But I caught myself, and I cut back, and I dropped down upon my knees, and I slid safely across home plate.

The parents on our side cheered. Ricky's mom cheered. Chris Tyler's mom cheered. But father, he stood dead against the fence.

High fives and back slaps kept stopping me as I tried to move through the other kids in the dugout. I fell against the far wall in the corner, and I tried to catch my breath and slow myself down. Finally I did, and then, when the last rush of adrenalin had been swept out of my head, I looked down upon my uniform and saw for the first time what I already knew. Across my right thigh, and down along my knees, streaks of red clay lay stained along my legs.

I think we won that game. I think that we won, although I now forget the score, for I was happy as I ran along the fence toward my father. He greeted me with a firm hug and kept his arm tight around my shoulder as we hiked down the little grass hill and out into the parking lot.

"Good game, Jess, " he said to me and rubbed my hair. "Did you have fun?"

"Yeah," I said. "Did you see me run an' slide an' score that point?"

"Run."

"What?"

"Score that run, not point."

"Oh yeah, well did you see me?"

"Sure. Fine job." His tone was cold and distant.

And then I remembered Tony. And then I remembered father, and the baseball rolling by his feet. We walked in silence the rest of the way to the car.

We both didn't talk. As we drove to the intersection at the end of the lot, he turned to me in the front seat in an effort to break the quiet. Looking up into his silent face, I saw for the first time that my father, I think, had been crying. Blood vessels swelled and cracked a thick red pattern across the whites of his eyes, and tiny rings of water shimmered along the bottom lids.

"So did you have fun?" his voice cracked weakly. I squirmed in my seat at hearing this question for the second time.

"Yes," I answered softly, and then: "Where's Momma?"

His eyes darted quickly away from mine, and he waited until after turning out onto the road to answer.

"She couldn't make it."

The next two words, I fought hard not to say, for I did not want to hear the answer; but the growing lump in my throat swelled, and pushed the letters out onto my tongue, and into the audible air.

"How come?"

"What?"

"Why? Why isn't she here?"

I was choking. I dug my nails into my leg and I waited. Finally he spoke.

"Jesse, your mother, she's -- she's gone away for awhile. A long time."

I was choking. I was choking and I tried to speak but I couldn't.

"She's, I'll -- I'll talk to you when we get home son. There are some things that you probably just won't understand. There are some things that I don't understand myself Jesse, but -- I, I want you to always remember one thing. I want you to remember that she is your mother. She is your mother, and no matter where she goes, she loves you."

He stopped.

"I love you too, Jesse, and I'm sorry... So sorry."

Father reached and cut the air conditioner on. The outside world blurred through my watered eyes and that was all that he would say to me. He later would talk to me some more, but never would he say anything else.

And then I saw Tony. He was walking up ahead of us. His uniform was white. My arm began to ache. I did not look as we passed him in the car, but in the rear-view mirror I looked and I saw him jump up and slap a street sign on a pole.

And soon I would be home. Soon I would be home, and I could leap out from the car, and I could run fast into my room, and I could sleep, quiet and alone, and I could wait (but across the hall, in the room where the mirror stands, she will not come to me with her hair brown and long, she will not come to me whispering silence in mint flavored breaths while her nails skate a gentle path around my rising back. She will not come, she will not come...). I put my finger in my ear and looked down upon my mud stained pants and I wondered who would get the dirt out now.

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