The Whore's Child

started to hand him the ball, he refused to take it. Instead he turned the boy around so they faced the outfield, their backs to the stands. “Look here, Hugo,” Mr. Christie said quietly. “I’ll take you out if you want, but I think you can get this man out.”
    â€œI hate him,” Lin heard Hugo Wentz say. “I
hate
him!” And with that he threw the ball down onto the mound so hard that it ricocheted all the way to first base in the air.
    Mr. Christie called for the ball, and the first baseman tossed it back. Then the coach handed it back to Hugo. “I want you to throw it just like that,” he said, “except at the catcher’s mitt.”
    Hugo accepted the ball reluctantly. “We’ll just lose,” he said.
    â€œThat wouldn’t be so bad,” Mr. Christie said. “We’ve lost other games. But if you throw it just like that, like you’re real, real mad, we’ll win. Can you throw it like you’re mad?”
    â€œChrist on a crutch, Hugo, play ball!” his father yelled. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
    â€œOkay,” Hugo said, taking Lin by surprise. “I can do that.”
    Hugo’s next pitch shocked both teams and everyone in the bleachers by bisecting the plate and popping into the catcher’s mitt. The umpire was so dumbfounded that he called it a ball, before correcting himself, and Lin could almost see his brain telling him to actually watch the pitches now, which up to this point hadn’t been necessary. The next pitch was in the exact same spot, and the batter, now with two strikes, stepped out of the box and stared at his coach, who almost imperceptibly shook his head. When the umpire called strike three in an amazed tone of voice, the batter threw his bat in disgust, and to make matters worse, the runner on third, thoroughly disoriented, came trotting home as if the batter had been walked and then was easily tagged out. This rendered the Stop & Shop coach apoplectic, perhaps because he’d just stood there watching and never shouted for the kid to get back to the bag. Just that quickly there were two outs, and Elm Photo’s infield was suddenly full of chatter. “Way to throw strikes, Hugo! One more now! Just like that!”
    When he realized that he was the only one on the team not offering encouragement, even Lin joined in, though he was deeply ambivalent about Hugo’s sudden, inexplicable discovery of the strike zone. Of course he hoped Elm Photo would win this last game, but would have been just as content if Hugo came in and lost it singlehandedly. At least in this scenario, Lin himself couldn’t lose the game for his team, which was his greatest fear. Whereas now, if a ball was hit in his direction and he failed to catch it, the winning run might score on
his
error. No one would remember the five batters Hugo had walked, only that Lin Hart had let an easy out skitter between his legs. Worse, it would end the season, giving him no chance of redeeming himself. That the team should rally so excitedly around Hugo Wentz seemed monstrously unfair.
    Yet when he heard Hugo Wentz say “I hate him!” Lin felt a sudden kinship he wanted desperately to deny. Though he didn’t hate his father—or anybody, really—the other boy’s enmity registered powerfully, like something rancid on the back of his tongue. Because there were things, Lin realized, that
he
hated, hated so deeply, in fact, that he’d never found the courage to utter them even to himself. Despite never having seen it, he hated his father’s apartment over the barbershop. He hated the fact that adults couldn’t agree on how to do simple things, like keeping the windows open on hot days. He hated his mother playing Jo Stafford over and over, and that dreamy, faraway look in her eye that suggested she’d like nothing better than to follow the wayward wind and leave her whole life, including him, behind. Lately, now that he thought about it, he hated almost everything, even things he’d loved the most, one of which was baseball.
    Tasting all this on the back of his tongue, he also realized that he was jealous—could such a thing be possible?—of the pathetic Hugo Wentz, not just because he’d struck a batter out, but because he’d somehow found the courage to acknowledge and express his hatred, and as a direct result had a completely different look about him.