Jeff Hirsch - The Eleventh Plague

“I imagine they’re getting a game started over there. I’m surprised you didn’t join them.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Violet was sitting in a chair just behind me. She had grabbed an old ball cap off a nearby table and had pulled it down over her hair. The book lay open in her lap.

“It is the national sport, you know.”

“It was the national sport,” I said. “I don’t understand why you people talk about America like it still exists. My grandfather would say it was” — I searched for the phrase. I had heard it a thousand times growing up, generally whenever one of us suggested a slightly shorter hike or a little more sleep — “like square dancing on the Titanic.”

Violet’s book closed softly behind me. I didn’t move. My eyelids felt heavy watching Dad’s shallow breathing rise and fall.

Outside, the remaining leaves of fall swayed in the fading sun. Two kids, a boy and a girl with wide, bright faces, were playing out in the park. I looked away and my eye fell on Violet’s cabinet, the cabinet that only I knew was lighter a few bottles.

“Why are you people helping us?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“You don’t know us,” I said, surprised at the wave of disgust rising in me. “You’re giving us medicine, food, your home, and you’re just getting in trouble for it. It’s stupid.”

“You’re what was put in front of us,” she said.

“That’s not an answer.”

Violet crossed her arms and looked out the window over my shoulder. “Because there was a time when people helped each other,” she said. “And that made the world a little bit better. Not perfect, but better. We’d like to think we can have that time back.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” I asked.

Violet shrugged. “Maybe we are on the deck of the Titanic,” she said. “Maybe the Collapse isn’t over and this will all be gone tomorrow. I don’t know. What I do know is what it’s like out there, we all do, and even if I can only have a little break from it, if I can be the kind of person I was before all this happened, then I’m going to take it. Even if it’s just for a day.”

Violet tossed the baseball cap into my lap.

“You know what I mean?”

She left without another word, entering the kitchen and leaving me alone.

I shifted in my chair. Outside, leaves swayed across the blue sky. Dad lay before me, as still as ever. I turned Violet’s threadbare cap over and over in my hands.

There was a squeal of laughter and the two kids flew by the window. They were maybe six or seven years old, the girl with a long stream of golden hair. The boy was taller and thin as a sapling. They were both holding sticks that had colored streamers attached to the ends so as they went by they were a streak of red and purple and blond, like a flight of brightly colored birds. I pulled the cap down over my head and watched as they banked into the sunshine and disappeared into the park.

I skipped school the next day and spent it searching for Jenny but had no luck finding her. I ended up standing in the field east of the school, watching Jackson and the rest gather for their daily baseball game, choosing sides, lining up, swinging their bats through the crisp air.

I had never played baseball, but with how much Dad talked about it I almost felt like I had. He pitched throughout high school and was a passionate Padres fan. Sometimes to keep us entertained on the road, he’d recount major games he had seen in painstaking detail. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and let myself drift closer to the game, finally finding a spot to sit in the grass.

No harm in watching, I thought. Just for a few minutes.

Derrick and Jackson’s team was lining up for the first at bat. Martin threw a battered plastic helmet to a broad-shouldered girl, and she took a few practice swings before making her way to the plate. She hunkered down, eyeing the tall pitcher sharply, and let the bat hover over her shoulder. She was ice-cold and didn’t move an inch on his first two pitches but unloaded completely on his third and sent the ball rocketing into the blue sky. She made it to second, then stopped, cheating out toward third.

“Carrie V.”

Jackson had strayed from the game and was standing just a few feet in front of me. I half expected him to tell me to beat it, given how I’d acted after school the previous day. But he just stood there and watched the game, his hands in the pockets of a worn pair of khaki pants. Soon he eased down next to me. I set my palms in the grass, ready to get up and walk away, but for some reason I didn’t. I just sat there, watching.

“She’s one of our best. The pitcher is her boyfriend, John Carter. She knows him inside and out. Almost always gets a hit off him.” Jackson turned to face me over his shoulder. “You can play, you know. If you want.”

“I gotta get back to my dad.”

A shrimpy kid with long hair made his way nervously to home plate with the encouragement of his teammates. “Stan,” Jackson said. “Not our best player. Hey, where were you today?”

“I was out,” I said, quickly. “Just… looking around.”

“So what did it say?” Jackson asked.

“What?”

“The note. The one Jenny made me give you that got you tearing out of school.”

“Oh. Nothing. She was” — I scrambled for a lie that might sound even slightly convincing — “messing with me.”

It sounded weak. Jackson gave me a little sideways look, then returned to watching the game. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s Jenny, all right. She can’t leave well enough alone.”

It was silent for a moment as Stan took a couple practice swings. I felt another twinge of guilt. Jackson didn’t have to come over and talk to me, not after how much of a jerk I had been.

“I was looking at your books,” I said. “The other day. It’s a really good collection.”

Jackson turned back. “Thanks. I do chores for people and they give me books in return. You like to read? You can borrow them anytime if you want.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That’d be great.”

Jackson nodded and turned back as Stan took a couple practice swings, then lifted the bat over his shoulder. The ball came streaking toward him. For some reason Stan stepped closer to the base as he swung, bringing his right leg into the path of the oncoming ball. Jackson saw it just as I did.

“Oh, this is not going to be good.”

The ball slammed into Stan’s thigh and he went down cursing.

“Every other time,” Jackson said. “I swear, the kid gets hit by the ball more than he hits it. Aw, man, now we’re one man down. I better go. See ya, Steve.”

Jackson hopped up and ran to his team, stopping to check in on Stan, who was sitting on the sidelines. I stripped off my coat and lay in the grass, watching as Jackson and Derrick conferred. They seemed to be having some kind of argument. Derrick was waving his arms and refusing some request of Jackson’s, but Jackson kept at him until Derrick finally relented. He turned away and began waving to someone behind me to join the game. I looked back, but no one was there.

Oh no.

“Hey! Steve! Hey! Over here! Yoo-hoo!”

I tried to ignore him, but Derrick made it nearly impossible. Soon he was jumping up and down on his toes and calling in a high-pitched squeal. The whole team was watching now, and a rush of embarrassment hit me. I started to retreat back to the Greens’, but something made me stop and look around.

The grass, holding on despite the coming of fall, was thick and green. There was the slightest chill and the smell of wood smoke in the air. Where was I going? Back inside the tomb? To my dad, who, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t help? It was true that soon all of this would be gone and we would rejoin the trail, but I was here now. This was my world. Would it really hurt to live in it, just for a day?