Boys Life

could make it fishtail an instant before it smacked into your glove. Too bad we were strikeout kings, each and every one. Well, there was always next season.
    We’d been there maybe forty minutes or so, working up a sweat, when Davy Ray said, “Hey, look who’s comin’!” We all looked. Walking through the weeds toward us was Nemo Curliss, his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his jeans. He was still a beanpole, his skin still buttermilk white. His mother ruled that roost, for sure.
    “Hi!” I said to him. “Hey, Nemo!” Davy Ray called. “Come on and throw us a few!”
    “Oh, great!” Johnny said, recalling his blistered hand. “Uh… why don’t you throw some to Ben instead?”
    Nemo shook his head, his face downcast. He continued walking across the field, passing Johnny and Ben, and he approached me at home plate. When he stopped and lifted his face, I saw he’d been crying. His eyes behind the thick glasses were red and swollen, the tear tracks glistening on his cheeks.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Somebody been beatin’ up on you?”
    “No,” he said. “I… I…”
    Davy Ray came up, holding the baseball. “What is it? Nemo, you been cryin’?”
    “I…” He squeezed out a small sob. He was trying to get control of himself, but it was more than he could manage. “I’ve gotta go,” he said.
    “Gotta go?” I frowned. “Go where, Nemo?”
    “Away. Jutht…” He made a gesture with a skinny arm. “Jutht away.”
    Ben and Johnny arrived at home plate. We stood in a circle around Nemo as he sobbed and wiped his runny nose. Ben couldn’t bear the sight, and he walked off a few paces and kicked a stone around. “I… went to your houth, to tell you, and your mom told me you were here,” Nemo explained. “I wanted to let you know.”
    “Well, where do you have to go? Are you gonna go visit somebody?” I asked.
    “No.” Fresh tears ran down his face. It was a terrible sight to behold. “We’ve gotta move, Cory.”
    “Move? To where?”
    “I don’t know. Thomeblathe a long way from here.”
    “Gosh,” Johnny said. “You hardly lived in Zephyr a whole summer!”
    “We were hopin’ you could play on our team next year!” Davy told him.
    “Yeah,” I said. “And we thought you were gonna go to our school.”
    “No.” Nemo kept shaking his head, his puffy eyes full of torment. “No. No. I can’t. We’ve gotta move. Gotta move tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow? How come so fast?”
    “Mom thez. Gotta move. Tho Dad can thell thome shirts.”
    The shirts. Ah yes, the shirts. Nobody wore tailored white shirts in Zephyr. I doubted that anybody wore tailored white shirts in any of the towns Mr. Curliss took his wife and son and his fabric swatches to. I doubted if anybody ever would.
    “I can’t…” Nemo stared at me, and the pain of his gaze made my heart hurt. “I can’t… ever make no friendth,” he said. “‘Cauthe… we’ve alwath gotta move.”
    “I’m sorry, Nemo,” I said. “Really I am. I wish you didn’t have to move.” On an impulse, I took the baseball out of my glove and held it out to him. “Here you go. You keep this, so you can remember your buddies here in Zephyr. Okay?”
    Nemo hesitated. Then he reached out and wrapped the skinny fingers of his miracle pitching hand around the ball, and he accepted it. Here Johnny showed his true class; the baseball belonged to him, but he never said a word.
    Nemo turned the baseball over and over between both hands, and I saw the red-stitched seam reflected in his glasses. He stared at that baseball as if into the depths of a magic crystal. “I want to thtay here,” he said softly. His nose was running, and he sniffled. “I want to thtay here, and go to thcool and have friendth.” He looked at me. “I jutht want to be like everybody elth. I want to thtay here so bad.”
    “Maybe you can come back sometime,” Johnny offered, but it was a measly crumb. “Maybe you can-”
    “No,” Nemo interrupted. “I’ll never come back. Never. Never even for a thingle day.” He turned his head, facing the house they would soon be leaving. A tear crawled down his face and hung quivering from his chin. “Mom thez Dadth gotta thell thirts tho we can have money. At night thometimeth thee hollerth at him and callth him lathee, and thee thez thee never thouda married him. And he thez, ‘It’ll be the nextht town. The nextht town, that’ll be the lucky break.’” Nemo’s face swung back to mine. It had