Читать книгу The Last Summer - Chan Howell - Страница 9

Earthquake

It was a scene I remember like it was yesterday. He walked in the classroom and the ground seemed to shake and the lights to flicker. He was a new student. He had a Fresh Prince-like swagger the moment he walked into my math class. His introduction was full of the confidence I lacked. My sister even flinched. He said, “My name is Wyatt Hartley, and I am going to play Major League Baseball.” His name was familiar to the teacher, and Mr. Troutman had a look of displeasure. Mr. Troutman assured the new boy, “Math comes first in my class.” His family moved around, and Swansville Middle School was his fourth school in six years.

I believe the schools he previously attended were glad he had left, and his classmates were finally able to feel the glow of first place again. He was not much bigger than anyone, but we would learn soon he was stronger and faster than us all. He was more than just a typical twelve-year-old. My sister even saw his greatness, although she acted unimpressed. Whitley’s male counterpart had arrived. He was not afraid of anything, and he would eventually seek out challengers.

No one knew it then, but he would slay our giant. Travis Harrison was a marked man, even though he did not know it yet. He was about to teach Travis a lesson everyone had dreamed of teaching him since the first grade. Red ribbons would soon hang in Travis’s locker. Travis would need to learn what it felt like not being the champion for the first time in his life, or so I believed. Wyatt moved here just before the redraft. He was given a late-sign-up waiver, and he was assigned to the expansion team. He would be a Pirate or, as everyone called them, a Castaway. He was an earthquake we had no warning of what was about to happen. We never saw him play until it was too late.

When he walked into the cafeteria for the first time, I could tell he was hated. I felt he needed a friend, but honestly, I think I needed him more. The eyes of the entire sixth grade followed him to the seat across from me. Wyatt seemed to enjoy the attention. I knew lunch that day would be interesting. I was not made for the spotlight, and he was bringing it my way. He and I were opposites. He walked up and asked me, “What are you reading?” but before I could answer, “Fun Facts about Greece,” he started talking. He did not stop. I listened while he spoke, and this would be our dynamic the rest of our lives. He told me outlandish stories, and I knew instantly we would be friends.

He told me he moved due to his father’s job but his mother decided to return to Swansville after his father’s death. He did not elaborate about his father other than calling his death a tragedy. His father was well-known for all the wrong reasons. I suspect he left to find a place where his name was not associated with nefarious things. Wyatt and his mother moved in with his father’s younger brother, Jacob Hartley.

Wyatt’s uncle Jacob was the reluctant local legend. Jacob played baseball for two years at North Carolina State University and was drafted in the fourth round by the New York Yankees. Jacob’s arm detoured his stardom. He blew out his elbow when he was twenty-two years old, and he lost his fastball. He crashed back down to earth violently, and the pieces of his life were the scattered wreckage. He was still trying to pick up the pieces nearly a decade later. Jacob ran a car-towing and auto body shop. He lived in his mother’s run-down old house. He was angry and complained about something or someone all the time. Just driving his tow truck to and from the interstate had to intensify his anger as he passed the once bright-green welcome sign to Swansville, “Home of the 1980 High School State Champion Baseball Team.” Jacob wanted everyone to forget what he had been, but over time, his legend had only grown.

My parents, along with everyone else’s parents, warned us to stay away from the new boy. His last name alone evoked painful memories for our parents because most of them had heard wild stories of the Hartley brothers. Jacob and Jamie lived a reckless lifestyle back when their names were on the marquee. Their glory days ended far faster than they wanted, and Jacob claimed he was stuck in this boring town. Jamie Hartley was a local troublemaker, but also a great baseball player. The trophy case at the high school had removed his record-breaking home run ball. The school tried to wipe Jamie Hartley from its records as best as it could. He lived in exile after he and Patti eloped one year after the two graduated. Patti was from a rival school about forty miles away, and her upper-middle-class family disapproved of the boy from the Brown Water. Patti and Jamie became outcasts of two separate places.

Patti was a CNA and worked unpredictable hours. Patti Hartley was rarely at our games, and her eyes seemed tired all the time. Patti was the beauty of her town, but she chose to leave and never return. She eventually assimilated to being from the Brown Water, and it seemed like she was originally from Swansville. She moved in with her brother-in-law Jacob for a male role model for Wyatt and for someone to try to tame her wild preteen. It did little good.

Every team was put on notice after Wyatt’s first practice. The rumors from the Castaways of what he could do on a baseball field were only surpassed by the truth. Only Ogre, the league’s biggest and best hitter, was able to hit a ball in the tennis courts behind the center field fence. Wyatt would clear the courts with an effortless swing. His dark eyes were always squinted, and he seemed to need glasses, but when he stepped in the batter box, they opened wide. He played catcher and was far more superior than anyone our age behind the plate.

Wyatt was a nuisance to all our teachers, but he also might have been a misunderstood genius. I was more shocked than our teachers were at the fact he knew the answers to most their questions. He stayed in detention, and when he was free to roam the halls, trouble seemed to find him quickly. The attention that followed his punishment was his fuel. He bragged about his pink detention slips rather than hide them. He was not scared of detention, and he often bragged that the weather was nicer. He even called the detention teacher Charlie instead of Mr. Younts. It became increasingly clear each week I would go back to dining alone with a book while he sat at the silent lunch table. He inspired my next reading selections as I began to choose biographies on Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and Julius Caesar. The days he was not in detention, he ate lunch in silence at what he called his private table. The silent lunch table was a gathering place for all the troublemakers that were not in detention. It was an intimidating place. When he did eat with me, it was as an old friend who had come back from battle. He told me extraordinary stories of why he was always in trouble and the insanity of detention, a place I had never seen.

When Duckworth watched Wyatt take batting practice, it was the first time he was ever speechless. He did not have a clever line to describe what Wyatt could do to a baseball; he just shook his head in disbelief. The league was about to be turned upside down. Wyatt would rival our giant Travis Harrison’s trash talk and surpass Drake’s and Ogre’s abilities at the plate. Wyatt began to call Travis Ruby after he watched Travis dominate against one of the lesser teams. No one knew why. Wyatt would only say, “I’ll tell you one day.”