Angels Walking

  Marcus paced a few steps one way and then back again. His stomach was in cramps, tight and uneasy—like his heart. Thinking about Baldy and heaven and hell made him wish for the early days. Back when he first went to Oregon State. The campus life and the year in the minors. Back when there was still something to strive for. When life wasn’t so serious.

  Marcus grabbed his water bottle from the first step and downed half of it.

  “Okay.” He lifted his eyes to the sky again. He was still catching his breath. “If You’re there . . . show me. Give me a reason to believe.” He thought about his desire to invest in people, to make a difference. “If You’re real . . . give me meaning. How’s that?”

  The breeze swirled around him again, but this time it didn’t stir up the dirt. A chill ran down his arms. The field at Dodger Stadium was one of the finest in the MLB. The dirt never did that. The groundskeeper saw to it. So what was this?

  Be still, My son, and know that I am God . . .

  Marcus felt his knees go weak. He sat down on the nearest step and held tight to the metal edge. “Who’s there?” He asked the question out loud, and even as he did he felt like a crazy person. This was ridiculous. He glanced behind him and around the stadium walls. It was only seven in the morning. No one else was here. The voice had to have come from his imagination. He stood, collected his water and workout bag, and jogged up the steps to the concourse level.

  Five minutes later he was in his car, ready for the next stage of his conditioning—weight training on the other side of the stadium. The voice haunted him. He was uneasy, that’s all. Baldy’s death had done this. He was overthinking his teammate’s death. That’s all.

  Marcus thought about what he’d asked God. He still wanted a sign. A purpose for his life. If God existed, the matter was up to Him now. Still, as he headed into the weight room one question consumed him. If he died today, and if there really was something beyond the living and dying, beyond the winning and losing of life, where would Marcus Dillinger wind up?

  Heaven or hell?

  17

  ON THE FIRST DAY of October—while MLB players were heading into the second round of playoffs—Tyler woke up in his new room surrounded by his new life with one realization: the Oxycodone was becoming a problem.

  With his first paycheck Tyler had gone to the local urgent care and gotten another prescription, but the doctor gave him a warning. He couldn’t prescribe more unless Tyler saw an orthopedic specialist. “Pain meds are not a solution. They are a bridge, to get you from injury to recovery. If you’re not working on the recovery, I can’t prescribe more pain medication.”

  Tyler wanted to ask what he was supposed to do if recovery wasn’t in sight. He had even called a hotline number for a national insurance program. But after an hour on hold he had received an explanation why his surgery couldn’t be covered.

  “We help people who are sick,” the woman told him. “Sports-related injuries are something else—a risk you take when you play the game.”

  Nice, Tyler thought as he hung up. Now he was down to a final dose of pain pills. Two white tablets. He had been on the medication far too long.

  The reason he knew he had a problem was this: an hour before his dose wore off, his body started shaking. His legs and arms and torso would tremble, almost like winter had landed on him all at once, and then sweat would break out across his forehead and back. Every day the shaking and sweating grew worse.

  Tyler rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. It was just after eight in the morning. He didn’t need to start work until nine. So what was he supposed to do with his time? He’d already cleaned his apartment. He was good at working with one hand now—even when his pain was at its worst.

  But after a few weeks of living like this he was beginning to feel stuck. Tyler was glad for the job, grateful for the pay. The job didn’t come with benefits, so at $50 a day at an hourly wage, it would take two years to save enough for his surgery. That was if he saved almost every penny.

  By then his shoulder would be permanently ruined. Even now he wondered whether it was healing incorrectly. He needed a second job, another way to make money—even if that meant working through the night. In the meantime, he needed to train. He hadn’t been back to the YMCA since the day he was hired at Merrill Place. His legs weren’t damaged. What excuse did he have for not working them out at least? He hadn’t done cardio exercise or squats or anything other than wash floors.

  How could he expect to pitch for the majors one day if he didn’t start his comeback now? Today? All his life he’d been putting the important things on hold. First his parents. Then Sami. Now this, his chance at a comeback. Determination grew and swelled inside him. He wasn’t going to let anything stop him this time.

  He looked at the clock again. His next dose of pain medication was due in ten minutes. If he didn’t take it, by nine the meltdown would kick in. Signs that he needed the drug—and not just for the aching, burning pain in his shoulder. He needed it the way he needed food and water. Oxycodone had become part of his survival.

  Calm down, Tyler told himself. Relax. His mouth was dry, his breathing fast and erratic. Here they were—the symptoms that came around every three hours. Sweat broke out on his brow. He held his good hand in front of him and watched the shakes kick in. He felt sick to his stomach. The symptoms came like clockwork.

  He slowed his breathing, willed peace into his heart and soul. If he was going to begin his comeback, the first thing he had to do was get off the pain pills. No matter what his body said about the consequences. He thought about the two lone pills sitting in the bottle by his bed. He would wait and take them tonight—since sleeping through the pain was the hardest part. And that would be that. No more trips to urgent care. No plotting for another bottle of pills.

  Two more and he’d be done. For good.

  The shakes and sweats and nausea would stop after a day or so, right? His forehead would eventually be dry again and he could move on. As he climbed out of bed that day, Tyler believed it with all his heart. He stretched his left arm over his head and winced at the pain even that caused in his opposite shoulder.

  He had learned to make eggs with one hand, but he still wasn’t good at pouring a bowl of cereal and covering it with milk. Especially with his trembling fingers. He took the bowl to the small table and opened the laptop. It had been in the room, and when Tyler asked Mr. Myers about it, the man told him to use it.

  “We have protected Wi-Fi through the building,” his manager told him. “Keep it clean.”

  The man didn’t need to worry. Tyler had dabbled in the dark side of internet life. But he felt disgusted with himself and swore off it more than two years ago. Now he took his bowl of cereal and moved to the end of the table where the computer sat open and ready.

  He signed on and went to MLB.com. Ten minutes of reading about the playoffs and the home-run leaders, the best pitchers and the fastest pitches, and Tyler was ready to throw the computer across the room. Everyone was getting ahead of him. That’s how the website made him feel. If he was going to make a comeback, he had to stop looking in at the majors. But before he moved on he looked up Marcus Dillinger. What he saw made him smile. His boyhood friend was killing it with the Dodgers.

  Just as he went to change websites, something caught his eye. A headline about a service for Baldy Williams. Tyler leaned closer to the screen. The air in the room felt instantly thinner. Baldy Williams had died? How come he hadn’t seen that? He clicked the story and raced through it. Apparently the pitcher had been found in his home. Overdosed on heroin.

  Back in high school, Tyler looked up to only a handful of pitchers. Guys with speed and finesse and longevity. Baldy Williams had been one of those. Tyler stared at the story, baffled. When had the guy started taking drugs? He read further down and the answer hit him in the face like an errant baseball.

  Williams became addicted to pain medication after a hip injury last year. Friends say he turned to heroin a few months
later. When the pills stopped working.

  Nausea slammed Tyler around until he felt like he might fall from the chair. Pain medication? Tyler knew lots of guys who existed on a pain pill now and then. A few of them had to take a season off to get clean. But heroin? Could an addiction to Oxycodone really lead to heroin?

  His hands shook as he closed out of the site. Too bad about Baldy, really. But the news couldn’t have come at a better time. If Tyler wanted a clean start, if he really was finished with taking pain pills, then this was the day. Sweat dripped down his back beneath his T-shirt. Today, before his need for them got any stronger. His teeth chattered, his body trembling head to foot. Today, before he might even consider something as deadly as heroin. Every muscle in his body ached. He was dying for a couple pills.

  But he wouldn’t touch them. He couldn’t.

  He took a few bites of his cereal, but the nausea was too much. Think about something else, he told himself. You gotta get past this. He coursed through ESPN. But even as he surfed through one page and then another, his mind wandered to the only real distraction that could take the edge off his pain.

  Sami Dawson.

  Hers would’ve been the second phone call—right after his parents. He had promised her he’d make it in the Bigs, promised he’d prove everyone wrong. She had certainly forgotten those promises years ago. But where was she now? Still in Los Angeles? Still living with her grandparents?

  Funny, both Sami and he had grown up with absolutes. She absolutely had to be perfect at life. And he absolutely had to be perfect at baseball. So had she found her perfection? With the internet at his fingers, Tyler suddenly had to know. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and started with Facebook. They’d been friends since high school. But Tyler hadn’t checked her page in years.

  He signed in and watched his old page come up. No one had shut it down, even though he hadn’t upgraded to the new format or signed in over the last couple years. His last post was dated more than two years ago. A few weeks before he moved to Pensacola.

  The comments didn’t interest him. Instead, he typed “Samantha Dawson” in the search line. Her page came up, and like that, he had all the information he wanted. She lived in Los Angeles, worked at a big marketing firm, shared an apartment with a roommate, and she was in a relationship with some lawyer named Arnie Bell.

  There was only one thing Tyler couldn’t tell—whether Sami remembered him. The time on the computer read 8:25. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. He wiped it with his forearm. He took three quick bites of his cereal and noticed his fingers. They were trembling so badly he looked like he was having a seizure. His legs were the same way, his knees knocking together. He needed the pills. His body wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Tyler clenched his teeth. He wasn’t giving in. Not this time.

  Sami. He needed to focus on her.

  He absently massaged his injured shoulder as he stared at her profile pic. She still looked like Keira Knightley. Beautiful eyes, striking cheekbones. But there was something different about her this many years later. She looked more . . . serious, maybe. More like a Samantha. He studied her, trying to see past the smile to her eyes. Her real eyes. Who was she today, the girl he used to know?

  Now she was working a serious job, dating a lawyer, and living on her own. None of that reminded him of the girl clutching his arm on her grandparents’ roof that summer in San Francisco. He felt his heart respond. What happened to you, Sami? Where’s the girl who wanted adventure? Did they catch you and change you? Are you like them now?

  Tyler breathed in sharp through his nose. There was only one way to find out. He had nothing to offer her, less than before he left Simi Valley. That wasn’t the point. She was apparently happy in her relationship. He only wanted to see how she was. Sami had been his friend back then as he had been hers. Wasn’t that the point of Facebook? Connecting with friends?

  He opened a private message screen and stared at it. The only reason to write her was so he could know. Had she changed—the way it looked like she had? Or was the Sami he had known and loved still living somewhere in her heart? He poised one hand over the keyboard and began plucking away at the letters.

  Hey Sami, this is Tyler. It’s been a long time.

  His shoulder was killing him. He paused long enough to massage his aching arm. His hands shook as he returned to the task. His fingers barely stayed on the keys.

  I haven’t been on Facebook for a few years, but I found you here this morning and I wanted to say hello. Looks like you’re doing well.

  He read the words over again. How was he supposed to end a letter like this? The last time they talked they’d been fighting over the phone, over his drunken arrest.

  He took a few more bites of his cereal and started typing again.

  I’m still in Pensacola. Still working toward the Big Leagues. Oh, and I got sober a few years back. Thought you’d like to know. Anyway, I think about you now and then. Just wanted to stop by. If you have a minute, let me know how you are. Take care. Tyler.

  He thought about the sober line. It wasn’t really true. He couldn’t get through a single hour without the pain pills. He dismissed the thought and sent the message before he could change his mind, and regretted it a moment later. Sami would probably see his name and hit delete before reading it. They hadn’t exactly ended things on good terms. The last time he tried to call her she never answered. So . . . yeah, she probably wouldn’t be interested in anything he had to say now. But he had to try.

  He closed the computer and took a shower. The whole time he wondered if he was going to lose his breakfast. He felt weak and unsteady. His breathing was uneven and he couldn’t stop the sweat on his forehead and back. Three times he took steps toward the remaining pain pills, but each time he stopped himself.

  By the time he had washed up, brushed his teeth, and dressed—all with his left hand—his body had taken him from freezing blizzard lows to scalding desert heat. Either way he shook. His shirt stuck to his body and he kept the towel close by so he could keep wiping his face. All told, he was a mess.

  Mr. Myers would send him back to bed if he reported for work like this. Frustration churned up the cereal in his stomach a little more. Maybe if he did some cardio. He could report half an hour late. His boss only cared that he finished the work. Tyler opened the dishwasher, but bending forward did something to his damaged shoulder—even with the brace.

  He cried out and turned around, falling back against the counter. He closed his eyes and breathed in short bursts, working his way through the slicing pain. After fifteen seconds the searing sensation dimmed just enough that he could open his eyes and think again. How was he going to get through the day like this? He needed to get off the medication, of course. But there had to be a better way.

  Without hesitating, he took a full cup of water, went to his bedside, grabbed the last pills in the bottle, and washed them down. There. He could at least work now. The pills worked eight hours at a time. Stronger than the ones he’d used right after his injury.

  Fifteen minutes later he felt the haze settle in. The sweating stopped, the shakes eased as the Oxycodone dimmed the edges of his existence, giving him permission to breathe and smile and clean the floors at Merrill Place. The pills brought so much relief, Tyler wondered if he was wrong. Maybe this was not the time to give them up. He could always quit them later.

  At the end of the day, as always, he stopped by Virginia’s room. She was asleep when he walked in, so he cleaned her floor first. His shoulder still hurt with every movement, but he could work past it, talk past it. The pills were that good.

  Everything was possible as long as he had the Oxycodone.

  He finished her floor just as she woke up. Virginia blinked a few times and then squinted through the sun-filled room. “Ben? Is that you?”

  “Hi.” He leaned the mop against the closed door. Again he tucked his name badge through the buttons of his work shirt. “How are you?”

  ?
??Happy.” Virginia slid up in bed and smoothed out her hair. “I’m always happy when you’re here. You never should’ve moved away.” She raised hopeful eyebrows. “Can you stay and chat? Just for a few minutes?”

  “Definitely.” He hugged his sore arm to his body as he moved to the familiar chair. He looked over his shoulder at the window. “Beautiful day.”

  “You were born on a day like this. Every time God paints a sky this blue I think about the gift you’ve been to us.”

  The compliment worked its way to Tyler’s heart. The dear woman might have him confused for someone else. But Tyler sometimes wondered if he maybe needed these visits as much as she did. He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Remember that”—Virginia winked at him—“when you’re out and about and see a blue sky. Remember that you’re a gift, Ben. You always will be.”

  “You, too.” He still hadn’t called her Mom or Mother. Doing so definitely didn’t feel right. She didn’t seem to notice. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” She reached out, the way she always did.

  Tyler took her fingers in his. “Can you . . . pray for me? My shoulder?”

  “You know I saw that bike accident coming. I was on the front porch watching you and Cheryl, and I knew . . . I just knew you were riding too fast.”

  “True.” He thought about his final pitch. “Much too fast.”

  “And there was poor Cheryl.” Virginia shook her head, clearly seeing an afternoon from decades ago. “My, how that girl adored you. Soon as you were on the ground she was at your side.”

  Tyler had figured out that Cheryl was Ben’s sister. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “Glad I did. I grabbed the medical box and ran down the street. Cleaned up your elbow right there on the side of the road. Then me and Cheryl helped you home.” Virginia’s smile was as kind as he imagined it had been that day. “Your father was proud of me. I’m not usually very good with blood.”