Kill Switch

“Come on,” Jarrod whines, “I’m going to have to run a long way if he hits it over there.”

“He won’t. He can’t. He was too lazy to learn to use the whole field. He could only pull and everyone knew it and that’s why he sucked.”

I laugh out loud. Jarrod laughs out loud. The pitcher himself turns in my direction and stares me down.

“Bring it, old man,” I say.

For someone of his age and limitations, Da’s windup and delivery are sweet, as they always were. He rears back, lifts the left knee up about ten inches, extends the left elbow straight at me, comes straight over the top with his right hand, and lets go of the ball at the optimal release point. Straight it comes.

It whistles in fast, and pap, smacks me right in the ear.

“Hey,” I shout, pointing the fat red bat in his direction. “You did that deliberately.”

“Of course I did. Get back in the box.”

I get back in the box, ready to swing. He winds up, unloads one straight and meaty in the middle of the strike zone. I am so excited, by the moment and the ball and the fence, that I swing so hard I pull a chest muscle; I feel it instantly.

I make contact, though, and the ball leaves the infield.

Dribbling harmlessly along the ground, then slowed by the tall grass, right to where Jarrod is waiting for it. He doesn’t even have to move.

The pitcher laughs. The left fielder laughs.

“Bring it, old man,” I say, because it has been a long time since I taunted a pitcher, so I am short on material.

He brings it.

“Ow.” I drop the bat. “Da, that really stings. If you do that again…”

He starts walking toward me, bouncing on the balls of his feet. I may have found the cure for old age here. “Yeah? You’ll what?”

He backs me down. “Nothing. Just pitch.”

“I will. But if you whine one more time, next thing I hit you with is a rock.”

I dig in silently. He winds up with the third ball.

And smacks me in the ear again. If there was a game of ear hitting, he would be world senior champion. But we are not playing that game. We are playing a very different game.

I shut my face. He winds up with the fourth ball. He slings it.

He jams me on the hands and I hit another dribbler to Jarrod.

“Damn,” I say, digging in once more. The old man is laughing, pleased at still topping me, pleased I am no longer moaning. He winds up and throws.

I cream the ball. I murder it, and it does not go to any stupid damn left field, either. I have mashed the ball high in the air and as straight to dead center as possible, and Jarrod is making a lame attempt to get out there, but that is pointless, people, because I have gotten all of that one.

I am running the bases, shocked at how thrilled I am over this. Over the fence. I hit one out. I look as I round first toward second, to see the ball land.

It’s only about a foot beyond the fence. Jarrod is actually in position, and he reaches up, and if the ball hadn’t bounced right off his forehead, he would have caught it. I hit that with everything I had.

I am elated and defeated, all in one go.

I still do my homerun trot because at least I can taunt Da, which I do, pointing a big finger his way and hooting at him as I hit third.

But he’s not watching. He’s not listening. He’s not here.

Still looking up at some spot where the ball may or may not have crossed the sky several seconds ago, Da steps sideways off the mound, stands there looking up awkwardly, hands held out for balance. Then he looks at me, awkwardly, lost, and falls sideways, landing on his hip.

“Da,” I say, running straight across the diamond. I get to him, pick him up, and he winces.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “I am so sorry, this was a stupid idea. I am sorry. Are you all right?”

He stares at me. He stares and stares and stares.

It is a sandwich shop, about ten booths and a ten-foot counter. Smells like coffee. Smells like tomato soup. Smells like just enough Lysol to be reassuring.

Soup and sandwich times three.

“He will be fine,” I say to Jarrod, who looks uncharacteristically worried.

“He doesn’t look good, Danny.”

“He’ll be fine, once he gets his stuff.”

“That’s what we all say.”

“Food, for strength, then some medication, get his equilibrium back, then a good rest and he will be his old self.”

“His old, old, old self,” Jarrod quips.

I reach right across the table and grab his shirt, pulling him to me to make the booth seem a lot smaller. A teenage girl pushes a stroller across in front of us and stares as if we can’t see her. As if we are in a jackass aquarium or something. Don’t tap the glass, girlie.

I look at my balled fist, Jarrod’s balled shirt, the uncomfortable defenseless look on his face.

“How many times do you suppose this table has seen this scene?” I ask with what I hope is an apologetic smile.

Jarrod shrugs. “Probably, like, a lot?”

“What is even in this for you, man?” I ask him, still clinging to him.

“I don’t know,” he says.

I laugh. “You’re a good man,” I say right up close to his face.

“The bar on the opposite corner is that kind of place,” says the cook with the Marty Van Buren sideburns. It sounds like a joke but he appears unamused. He delivers the soups and sandwiches himself, separating the goings-on by plunking down food. The waitress is having her own food at the counter.

He walks away. I look to Da beside me and he looks rather drained of color.

“Eat,” I tell him, picking up half of his tuna sandwich, which is now bleeding watery mayo onto him. He takes the sandwich listlessly, dunks a corner into his tomato soup so that both sandwich and soup mingle into a look that could kill your appetite. He bites, crunches into too much celery.

I am very happy I got ham and cheese.

“What is your plan, Danny Boy?” Jarrod asks.

“My plan?” I ask. “What kind of plan could I have? I was going off to study philosophy in a few weeks, that was my plan. And even that was no kind of plan at all.”

Jarrod nods.

“It has to be getting worse by the day, man,” I say. “Worse for me and him both. There will be a lot to answer for, even criminal stuff, who knows. All I can say is, he’s in trouble down there, and I am not bringing him back into that, no way. I can’t.”

Jarrod nods.

I look over to Da to see that he’s getting along okay. Half the sandwich is gone, even the crust, and he is working at the soup. The management must have split a small bag of potato chips among the three of us because there are about five chips per plate and a slice of pickle, but nobody’s eating all that anyway. Da smiles a bit, winces, smiles, dunks his sandwich. I take this as progress.

Jarrod has eaten everything. Now he’s collecting pickles and chips that don’t belong to him, but hey.

“I’ll take him,” Jarrod says.

“What?”

“I’ll take him. He can live with me. At least for a while. He can share my boiler room, and as long as he does his quiet-old-guy thing more than his nutty-old-guy thing, we could probably get away with it.”

Stress is about to cause me to blow, to grab him again and emphasize how stupid and reckless the plan is.

Until I picture it.

“What?” he says, smiling broadly but uncertainly. “What? What’s so funny? Dan…”