Free What Hearts by Bruce Brooks Page B

brisk circles into a dinner plate with her towel. “Fun,” she said.
    Asa tried to keep it going. He said, “Dave’s teaching me a lot.”
    His mother said nothing for a moment, and he imagined she was putting the plate away. But then her arms closed around him from behind. “Maybe,” she said, her mouth pressed against his ear. “Maybe so, baby doll. But ‘fun,’ now—well, I mink my boy has just as much to teach him . And that’s what I like.”
    One day in late March, he and Dave were walking along a cinder path that wound through woods to the basketball court outsidehis school. Buds were poised everywhere, as if waiting for a cue; a sweeping glance took in the sight of a misty green below the surface of everything, but focusing on a single branch showed nothing especially verdant. Asa drew a happy sigh and announced that he wanted to play Little League baseball.
    Dave frowned. “Well,” he said. “Not much of a game.”
    Asa was ready for this; perhaps the weather made him quick, even funny. “I think baseball’s got everything,” he said with a smile, “including dullness.”
    Dave grunted. They walked on. Around them the sumac was sending up its antenna-like shoots. Dave said, “It’s complicated, baseball. Too many things to do—catch, throw, swing a bat, run bases. Two months, you can barely shoot a jump shot. Too hard for you.”
    Asa amazed himself by laughing. “Hey, but you’re a great teacher,” he said, going so far as to clap Dave on the back. “And I’m a fantastic student.”
    There wasn’t much Dave could say to that. So, reluctantly, he agreed. But from thatmoment, Asa felt their cool detachment begin to clench into some sort of grip. Starting the next day, they practiced baseball—not all those complicated parts of the game, but just the elemental art of hitting the ball. However, Dave’s instruction lost its air of indifference, took on an edge; and Asa found himself more and more determined to show his stepfather something unexpected and strong. It was still spring, and in the paths and fields fern tendrils unwound and hot new leaves splayed outward. But he and Dave turned away from the green and tightened up.
    THREE
    Somehow the great Table Talk team could not score. In the fourth inning two men reached base with no one down, but the next two hitters struck out on terrible pitches, and the third lashed a line drive that Asa outran to right center and caught one-handed over hisshoulder. In the fifth the Cool Guy on the mound walked the bases full, and as he came out of the game, his teammates looked at each other almost with relief: “Ah, this is more like it, this is where we lose.” The next hitter chopped a grounder the new pitcher scooped at and missed—but his mitt knocked it back to home, where the catcher was waiting with his foot on the plate for the force-out. Feeling better, the pitcher threw hard down the pipe to the following batter, who hit the ball on the nose right back at him. It smacked into his glove, spinning him half around; the base runners thought he was watching the ball sail in a flash into center field, so they ran. Grinning, the pitcher trotted to first and tagged the base for the easiest of double plays.
    As the innings passed, the facts began to sink in to the Cool Guys: they were not being clobbered. Hits started to fall in. In the top of the fifth they got three base runners, and only a pickoff and a double play kept them off the Scoreboard. In the top of the sixth, the last inning, Tim led off with a sharp single to center. Asa, swinging down at a low pitch, crushedit into the infield. Spraying dirt, the ball bounded over the ducking second baseman, and Tim hustled to third. Freddie struck but trying to uppercut a sacrifice fly to the outfield, but everyone hollered happily from the dugout. Asa, on first, saw three of the Table