Me, Mop, and the Moondance Kid

  “And eating junk food,” Moondance said.

  You're not supposed to get mad at Family Discussions, but Dad went into the living room and started reading the paper. That was about the same as getting mad, if you know Dad. Mom was trying to explain to us how eating good food when you're young helps to keep you healthy when you're older. When she finished, she asked if we had any questions.

  Moondance wanted to add that he had left off groups of pies from his list. I don't think she wanted to answer him.

  wo bad things happened the next day. I hate it when two bad things happen on the same day. The first thing that happened was that Mop found out that Taffy, the llama at the Academy, had to be shipped to a zoo or back to the llama farm it had come from.

  Hey, did I tell you about Taffy?

  Somebody had donated some money to the Academy about a year ago. Some of the money was used to replace a stained-glass pane that had been broken for years. With the rest of the money Sister Carmelita, Sister Felicia, and Sister Belinda were allowed to go to California to visit a school out there. They came back with lots of pictures. One of them was taken on a ranch where they raised llamas. Sister Carmelita had really liked the llamas, and talked about how cute and friendly they were.

  Then one day a crate arrived at the Academy with a small llama in it. We called it Taffy, because it was taffy-colored. Taffy arrived at Dominican just three days before Moondance and me left to live with the Williams family.

  ‘I love Taffy more than anything in the whole world except you and Moondance,” Mop said. “And maybe Sister Carmelita. I just can't stand her being put in a zoo. It's like she's got to go to jail and didn't even do anything. She won't get a trial or nothing.”

  “What zoo's she going to?” I asked.

  “They don't even know,” Mop said. “Sister Marianne said they were going to try to find a zoo around here but if they can't they might have to send her all the way out to San Diego, California!”

  That was bad, but then another bad thing happened. Mr. Treaster, the coach of the Eagles, showed up. This is one guy I didn't like. He had a big head and these light-colored sneaky-looking eyes and a way of smiling when he talked, like he was laughing at you or something.

  “You got a bunch of real athletes here,” he said to Maria.

  Maria looked at him and gave him a quick little smile.

  “Okay, team, infield practice!”

  Jim worked during the day. Maria was a teacher and she usually ran practice except on weekends.

  I was on first base and the first ball that came to me went right over my glove. I thought I had it, but it hopped funny at the last minute.

  “Come on, T.J.,” Maria called out to me. “You have to watch the ball.”

  She hit the next ball to me and I really watched it good. I didn't catch it, but I watched it good. What happened was that I was watching it so hard that I didn't move my glove fast enough and it hit the side of the glove and went over toward where Mop was standing.

  “T.J., you stink!” Mop yelled.

  “Mop!” Maria called out to her. “On this team we encourage each other, okay?”

  Mop didn't say anything.

  Now Maria hit the next ball to me too. I don't know why she did that. I didn't catch the first two balls. The way I figured it, if I was doing good, I could practice that. But if I was doing bad, I shouldn't practice because I was just practicing to be bad.

  The next ball went through my legs.

  “Get the glove down, T.J.!”

  The next time I got my glove down, but the ball bounced high and I missed it. I didn't feel bad about that one because Maria had told me to get my glove down, so it was her fault.

  Treaster was sitting on the bench and he was laughing. Maria hit a ball toward Mop and she got it and threw it to Mike, who was covering first.

  “Good play, Mop!” Maria called out.

  Mop was the only one that really looked good. Every time we'd make a mistake, Mr. Treaster would smile and shake his head. After a while as soon as somebody missed a ball or threw it wrong, we'd look over at him to see what he was doing. Maria looked at him a lot, too, and I could tell she wasn't happy with him sitting there watching us.

  Maria called us all in and said that the regular practice was over. Then she asked who wanted to practice pitching. Moondance said that he wanted to practice pitching and Mop said that she would catch.

  “You can't catch!” Evans said.

  “Evans Shmevans, shut up!” Jennifer made a face.

  Mop put on the catching gear and Maria and I stood behind the fence. Mr. Treaster came over and stood near us.

  “You have to be a lot tougher with these kids,” he said. “You have to handle them¡ That's what coaching's all about!”

  “We'll be okay,” Maria said.

  Moondance started pitching. The first pitch went right over Mop's glove and went bang¡ into the fence. Maria and I jumped back.

  “You think you'll win a game this year?” Mr. Treaster asked.

  Maria turned to him, but he had already started walking away.

  I watched Moondance pitch five more balls to Mop and they all went over her head.

  “I told you she can't catch!” Evans called out.

  “He throws too high,” Brian said.

  That was right. Moondance was throwing the ball too high, but he was throwing it just about as fast as the pitcher on the Lions. One time he threw it in the dirt and it bounced up and hit Mop in the mask. Maria ran around the backstop to see if Mop was okay.

  “Don't sweat it, Coach,” Mop said. “I'm cool.”

  We got home and ate and then Dad came home. Moondance and I were lying on the floor watching television with our gloves on.

  “You guys want to go out and throw the ball around a little?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Big mistake.

  I told you Dad used to play baseball in the pros. Mom said he only played for three years because he hurt his knee, but one of those years he was in the major leagues. I figured he probably didn't do that good, though, because they never made a baseball card with his picture on it or anything.

  We went over to the ballpark and he started throwing the ball to us. Only he threw hard. I mean he threw it harder than Brian ever dreamed of throwing it and Brian can throw hard. But you know what happened? Moon-dance could catch it. Moondance thought it was funny that Dad should throw so hard.

  “You throw harder than anybody on the team!” Moon-dance said.

  “You have to know how to handle the ball,” Dad said, throwing the ball to me. “Let's see your arm.”

  I knew what he meant. He meant for me to throw the ball to him hard. I wound up and threw it and it didn't reach him. He started to tell me how to stand and stuff. Which leg to put in front of the other, that kind ofthing. I did it a little, but it didn't help too much.

  Then he threw the ball to Moondance and Moondance caught it and threw it back hard. Dad had to jump to get it, but it smacked into his glove and he said something about Moondance having a real arm.

  I didn't feel terrible. Not super terrible anyway. Maybe just a little terrible. When I was at the Academy, I used to dream about being adopted and having a father who would take me out to play baseball. Now I had one and maybe I wasn't that good. Or then, maybe I was. Maybe I was just having a bad day.

  But what was a surprise was how Moondance could throw the ball so hard and how most of the time he caught the ball when Dad threw it to him. Moondance had hardly ever played ball at the Academy, so I don't know where he got all his practice from. Maybe what I was thinking before was right. Maybe I was getting too much practice being bad.

  When we got back to the house, Mom started talking about how Dad had read this interesting article on nutrition.

  “Why don't you tell the boys about it?” Mom said.

  But he didn't want to talk about nutrition. What he wanted to talk about was playing ball. He started telling us stories about how
he had played ball when he was our age. He made it sound like a lot of fun.

  I figured out why Mr. Treaster had come to our practice. Our next game was with the Eagles, the team he coached.

  “We have to change our hitting angle for this game,” Jim said. He had his slide rule out. “The Eagles have better infielders than outfielders, so we're going to try to hit the ball over their infields at a … twenty-degree upward angle. Everybody got that?”

  We all had it after he showed us how the bat was supposed to look when we swung. Too bad he didn't tell the Eagles that.

  The Eagles were all just like Mr. Treaster. They yelled at us when we made a mistake and they yelled at each other. Sometimes they even swore. When they swore, I looked over at Mr. Treaster to see if he was going to say anything, but he didn't.

  The first inning wasn't too bad. We didn't get any hits but Brian got a walk. Then they got up and they only got two runs. Frank was pitching for us and he looked pretty good.

  The second inning was bad. We got out one-two-three and the Eagles were laughing it up. They had this one guy, they called him Rocky, who would stand on first base and yell, “Swing!” every time one of us got up. Maria went over to the umpire and told him to make the guy stop. The umpire made him stop, but then their whole team would make believe they were swinging bats.

  Rocky was the first guy up in the bottom of the second.

  “He swings and hits a long drive into deep left field …” Mike was announcing the game again. “… It's going, it's going, it's goneV

  They scored eleven more runs before we got up again.

  I played okay. I didn't get any hits or anything but I only made two errors in the field. The first ball was a hard smash that bounced right off my leg and went against the fence near the Eagles’ dugout. Talk about hurt. Everybody was yelling for me to go get the ball but I was sitting on third base rubbing my ankle.

  Mop went and got the ball. Then Maria and Jim came over and looked at my leg. I guess it was okay. I looked over at the seats where the parents were and I saw Mom standing and looking toward me. Dad had his arms folded and was looking the other way.

  The next ball that came my way was a slow roller. I was glad to see that ball coming so slowly. I ran in after it, but my foot got to the ball before the glove did and I kicked it. The first thing I did was to look at Dad. He was shaking his head.

  We lost against the Eagles, right? So guess what happened? Sister Marianne was there and she's just like happy all over. I think she loves losing better than winning. After the game she even went with a bunch of us to Jerry's Pizza Den.

  “Well, well, well!” she said. She kind of puffed herself up so that she looked like a pigeon. “Now didn't the Lord give us a great day today!”

  “Yes, Sister Marianne,” Mop said. She was talking to Sister Marianne but was still giving me dirty looks.

  “I think this great day deserves a special pizza,” Sister Marianne said.

  She always did that. When you lost something or hurt yourself, she always thought you should celebrate it with a pizza or a soda or something. Then when you won something, you were supposed to sit around and not think it was so hot.

  “Sometimes,” she said as we settled down around two tables they had pushed together, “the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  “That's right,” Mom said. She was patting me on the hand because she knew I felt bad about losing.

  “Did you know, Mrs. Williams,” Sister Marianne went on, “that Saint Sebastian suffered the pain of arrows and humiliation?”

  “Oh,” Mom said, “did he?”

  “Why, yes, he did,” Sister Marianne said. “And we all know that those real pains from those very real arrows were more severe than the loss of a mere baseball game.”

  “That's true,” Mom said.

  “Who was he fighting, Indians?” Brian asked.

  “Infidels!” Sister Marianne said. “He was fighting against the godless infidels!”

  Jerry came over and we ordered sausage pizza as usual. Brian wanted onions on his, but Jerry said he couldn't have them unless everyone had them. I think Brian just wanted onions to show that he was grown or something.

  “I really wanted to beat those guys,” Brian said. “Especially that Rocky, he's such a bigmouth.”

  “It's only your second game,” Mom said. “You'll get better.”

  “If we got any worser, we'd have to lose two games at a time.” Mop folded a napkin and then stuck her finger in it to make it look like a wedding doll.

  “What do you think Saint Sebastian would think if he lost one game like this?” Sister Marianne asked.

  “I think he would have been pissed off!” Brian said. “Especially after he got shot by the arrows and everything.”

  “I don't think that's the kind of language you should be using, young man.” Sister Marianne raised both her eyebrows the way she did sometimes. “And Saint Sebastian took his pain and his ordeal gladly because he did it for God.”

  “He got stuck with arrows and he liked it?” Brian asked.

  “So, when is your next practice?” Sister Marianne turned toward me.

  “Tomorrow, I think,” I answered.

  Just then I saw Maria coming into the pizza shop. I didn't want to see her. I thought she was just going to say I stunk like Mop did.

  “Hi, Mrs. Williams, Sister.” She sat down with us. “Mind if I join you?”

  “We played lousy, right?” Brian said.

  “You could have played better,” Maria said. “That's what practices are for.”

  The pizza came and everybody took a piece. Mop dropped hers, sauce side down, right on her lap. Moon-dance was the first to laugh and then I started laughing and then Maria laughed. Mop got mad, stood up, and went into the bathroom.

  “I hope she isn't upset,” Mom said.

  “She's usually the first to laugh at herself,” Sister Marianne said. “I think they're taking the losing too hard. I was just telling them about the ordeals of Sebastian …”

  “Who?” Maria was looking at the menu as she talked to Sister Marianne.

  “He's this guy she knows who likes to get stuck with arrows,” Brian said.

  “Oh, Saint Sebastian!” Maria said.

  “You know him too?” Brian asked.

  “Saint Sebastian lived many, many years ago,” Sister Marianne said. “But his lesson of sacrifice stays with us even today. Sometimes those who lose a great deal and still keep their chins up are rewarded beyond their greatest expectations. In Sebastian's case he became a saint.”

  “The Mets almost became saints once,” Maria said.

  Sister Marianne's eyes went up toward the ceiling and she took a sip of water.

  Mop still hadn't come out of the bathroom, so Maria went in to see if she was okay. Then Brian started talking about what team we could beat.

  “Most teams can take us easy,” he said. “But we'll get the Eagles before the end of the season.”

  “We should have it so the winner plays the Red Sox or somebody like that,” Moondance said.

  “You gotta be crazy,” Brian said. “The Red Sox would wipe us out and they wouldn't even notice it. Maybe we could take the Padres if TJ. would catch the ball sometime.”

  “I caught the ball,” I said.

  I don't know why I said that because I never caught the ball once in the game.

  “You what?” Brian's whole face twisted.

  “I think he means he stopped it from going into the outfield once,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, he stopped it from going into the outfield all right,” Brian said. “Only he kicked it right off the field!”

  I was going to say something dumb. I don't know what I was going to say, but I knew it was going to be something dumb because I always said something dumb when I felt dumb. Lucky for me, just then Maria and Mop came out of the bathroom. I took one look at Mop and knew she had been crying. I looked at Maria and it looked as if she had been crying too.

  ??
?Is everything all right?” Mom asked.

  Maria kind of smiled and shook her head.

  We didn't talk much after that, except for Brian asking Sister Marianne if she was a coach.

  “No, I'm a Sister of Charity. That's a nun.”

  “You don't look like a nun,” Brian said. “Aren't you supposed to be wearing a uniform or something?”

  “You're not supposed to be asking a nun what she wears, stupid!” Mop said.

  “How'd you like your face broke in more pieces than it is now?” Brian pushed Mop's elbow off the table.

  Whack¡

  Mop gave him a shot in the head and then they started wrestling and fell on the floor.

  Jerry came over and separated them and we all left.

  You know what I didn't want to do? I didn't want to go home and see Dad. I felt a little bit like Mop did about doing good on the Elks. About having my parents think I was good and all. Funny thing was, I didn't even know I felt like that until I was going in the front door.

  “Hi, Dad, we lost.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” he said.

  “Did you lose a lot of games when you were my age?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  I watched the news while Mom made dinner. We were having leftovers and there was a choice of what we could have. I had beef stew and Moondance and Dad had chicken. Mom said she wasn't hungry.

  “You know, T.J., even if the ball did hit you, it wouldn't hurt that much,” Dad said, looking up from his plate.

  “It'd hurt some,” I said.

  “Are you afraid of the ball?”

  “No.”

  “I think you must be,” he said.

  “He said he's not afraid of the ball,” Mom said.

  “Hmm!” Dad's jaw tightened a little.

  “You ever hear of a guy who liked to get shot with arrows?” Moondance asked. “He was a saint.”

  “Sister Marianne from the Academy was telling the boys about Saint Sebastian,” Mom said. “And how winning or losing a game of Little League baseball isn't all that important really.”