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batter was walked. That was bad, because it meant he would be pulled into play if the next batter connected. |
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Matty heard the chant before it registered. "Bobby, Bobby, Bobby." |
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The big, lumbering twelve-year-old approached the plate. He fanned the bat and spit a few hawkers. Matty barely processed him. It could have been anybody. Bobby was big and strong, and maybe he'd smash one and end the game. |
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The first pitch was outside. The second was high and Bobby went for it without contact. Before Matty knew it, the kid on first stole second. Matty was glad nobody tried to stop him. The runner looked at him, and Matty pulled back. His breathing was now an audible rasp. |
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Matty didn't see the next pitch, but he heard the loud, metal clank of a line drive. Movement was blurry. A roar from the crowd, and the kid on second whipped past him, rounded third and was heading home before Craig DeMaris in center field winged the ball toward Matty. Miraculously, he caught it on the base line just as another roar went up to announce the tie-breaking run. |
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The next moment Matty sensed before it actually arrived. He turned just in time to see Bobby bearing down on him. The victory run had been scored and the game was over, but Bobby still plowed into him, his elbow ramming his chest and catapulting him ten feet backward onto the dirt. His head hit with a solid thud. |
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For one stunning moment Matty slipped into a black hole void of the fugue of shrieks and smells that had afflicted his brain. He closed his eyes and squeezed onto the moment, somehow knowing it would all be back with a vengeance. |
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When he opened his eyes again, his head was a rush of shrieking monkeys. But it did not distract him. The universe had been reduced to Bobby Gorawlski's chipped-tooth grin and the wad of watermelon bubble gum he worked furiously in his jaws as he glared down on him. |
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It was the one moment of shuddering clarity Matty would know that night. |
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He did not actually feel himself go through the air. It was only some vague time later that he put the pieces together. One moment |
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