Boys Life

his glasses up with a finger because the bridge of his nose was getting slick with sweat. “My mom won’t let me. Thays I might get hurt.”
    “You’ve never played ball on a team?”
    “Well, I’ve got a ball and glove at home. Thometimeth I practith catchin’ fly ballth. Thometimeth I thee how far I can throw. I thet up bottleth on a fence potht and knock ’em down. Thuff like that.”
    “Doesn’t your dad want you to play ball?” I asked.
    Nemo shrugged and scuffed the dust with the toe of his loafer. “He don’t have much to thay about it.”
    I was struck with wonder. Standing before me, in the shape of a skinny little runt with thick glasses and a lisp, was a natural. “Will you pitch me a few?” I asked, and he said he would. I got Johnny’s glove-which he gave up gladly from his sore hand-and I tossed the ball to Nemo. I ran to second base and planted myself. “Put it right here, Nemo!” I told him, and I extended my arm and held the mitt level with my shoulder. Nemo nodded, wound up, and let fly. I never had to move my hand. The ball smacked into the glove with a force that jangled the nerves all the way from my fingertips to my collarbone. When I threw it back, Nemo had to run forward and dart and weave to catch it. Then I backed up some more, out toward center field, where the weeds were sprouting. I lifted the mitt up over my head. “Right here, Nemo!”
    Nemo crouched down, almost on his knees. His head was bent forward, as if he were trying to squeeze himself into a tight knot. He stayed that way for a few seconds, the sunlight glinting off his glasses, and then he exploded.
    He flew up from his crouch like Superman bursting out of a phone booth. His throwing arm whipped back and then forward. If anybody’s jaw had been caught by that flashing, bony elbow they’d have been spitting out a mouthful of broken teeth. The ball left Nemo’s hand and it came at me like gangbusters.
    It was a low ball, and it almost skimmed the dust between the batter’s box and the pitcher’s mound. But it was rising as it passed over the mound, and it seemed to be picking up speed, too. It was still rising as it zipped over second base. I heard Davy yelling at me, but I don’t know what he was saying. My attention was riveted to that flying white sphere. I kept the glove up over my head, exactly where it had been when the ball was thrown, but I was prepared to duck to keep from getting plastered. The ball entered the outfield, and I could hear its hissing, full of steam and menace. I didn’t move my feet. I had time to swallow-gulp-and then the ball was upon me.
    It popped into the mitt’s pocket, its impact strong enough to make me step back a couple of paces. I closed my hand around the ball, trapping it, and I could feel its heat throbbing like a pulse through the cowhide.
    “Cory!” Davy Ray was shouting, his hands up to bracket his mouth. “Cory!”
    I didn’t know what Davy was hollering about, and I didn’t care. I was in a trance. Nemo Curliss had an unearthly arm. How much of this had been a gift and how much he had trained himself to do, I didn’t know, but one thing was clear: Nemo Curliss possessed that rare combination of arm and eye that elevated him above mere mortals. In other words, he was a humdinger.
    “Cory!” This time it was Johnny yelling. “Look out!”
    “What?” I called.
    “Behind you!” Johnny screamed.
    I heard a sound like scythes at work, slicing wheat. I turned around, and there they were.
    Gotha and Gordo Branlin, grinning astride their black bicycles, their peroxided-yellow hair aflame with sunlight. They were coming at me through the knee-high grass beyond the mowed outfield, their legs pumping the pedals. Green grasshoppers and black field crickets leaped for their lives under the grinding wheels. I wanted to run, but my legs were locked up. The Branlins stopped with me between them, Gotha on my right and Gordo on my left. Sweat glistened on their angular faces, their eyes cutting into me. I heard a crow cawing somewhere, like the devil’s laughter.
    Gotha, the oldest at fourteen, reached out and prodded the baseball mitt with his index finger. “You playin’ ball, Cory?” The way he said it, it sounded dirty.
    “He’s playin’ with his balls,” Gordo snickered. He was thirteen, and just a shade smaller than Gotha. Neither one of them were very big, but they were wiry and fast as whippets. Gordo had a little scar between his eyebrows and