She took a sip from the glass, blinked rapidly. “It was a big game—the local team, sponsored by the Rajhasan Landless Coop, was taking on a champion team from Saidpur, which is a big town. Landowners from Saidpur used to control all the local khas land, which is supposed to belong to the government. There’s some resentment here still, so it’s kind of a rivalry.
“The champions arrived, and they were big women, and they had uniforms. You know how unie teams always look like they really know how to play. I saw some of the local team looking at them and getting worried, and all in all it was a classic underdog-overdog situation.
“The locals were actually pretty good—they looked ragged, but they could play. And the unies could play too, they weren’t just show. They had a big fat catcher who was what I would call neurotic, she would yell at the pitcher for anything. But even she could play ball.
“So they played the first few innings, and it was clear the unies had a lot of firepower. But the local team turned some great defensive plays. Their third baseman nabbed a couple of shots down the line, and she had a good arm, although she was so pumped up she kept almost throwing them away. But they got the outs. Their defense was keeping them in the game. They gave up a few runs, sure, but they got some, too—their center fielder came up with two women on base, and powdered a line drive that shot under the bench in right center, it scattered the spectators like a bomb!” She laughed. “Home run.”
Another slug from the glass. “So that made it four to three in favor of the unies. A tight game, and it stayed that way right to the end. You know how it gets tense at the end of a close game. The crowd was going wild, and both teams were pumped up.
“So.” She paused to take another sip. “Scotch,” she said, shivering. “So it got to the bottom of the ninth, and the locals had their last chance. The first batter flew out, the second batter grounded out. And up to bat came that third baseman. Everyone was yelling at her, and I could see the whites of her eyes all the way around. But she stepped into the box and got set, and the pitcher threw a strike and that third baseman clobbered it! She hit a drive over the left fielder’s head and out into the trees, it was beautiful. Everyone was screaming, and the third baseman rounded the bases as fast as she could, but the unies’ left fielder ran around out there in the forest and located the ball faster than I would have thought possible, and threw between trees to the shortstop, who turned and fired a bullet over the catcher’s head into the backstop, just as the third basemen crossed the plate!”
She stared into the screen, rolled her eyes. “However! In her excitement, the third baseman had run across the old home plate, the permanent one! Everyone there saw it, and as she ran toward her teammates they all rushed out at her, waving their arms and screaming no, wrong base, go back, and the crowd was screaming too, and it was so loud that she couldn’t hear what they were saying, I guess—she knew something was wrong, but she didn’t know what. Saidpur’s big boss catcher was running around the backstop chasing down the ball, and when the third baseman saw that she knew the play was still going, so she just flew through the air back toward the plate, and slid on her face right back onto the old home plate again. And that big old catcher snatched up the ball and fell right on her.”
Jill took a deep breath, had a drink of Scotch.
“So I called her out. I mean I had to, right? She never touched the home base we were playing with!
“So her whole team ran out and started yelling at me, and the crowd was yelling too, and I was pretty upset myself, but what could I do? All I could do was wander around shouting ‘She’s out! She didn’t touch the God-damned home plate that we’re playing with! Game’s over! She’s out! It’s not my fault!’ And they were all crying and screaming, and the poor coach was pleading with me, an old guy who used to live in Oakland who had taught them everything, ‘It was a home run and you know it was a home run, ump, you saw it, those home plates are the same,’ and so on and so forth, and all I could do was say nope, she’s out, those are the rules, there’s only one home base on the diamond and she didn’t touch it, I’m sorry! We must have argued for twenty minutes, you can see I’m still hoarse. And all that time the unies were running around congratulating themselves as if they had really won the game, it was enough to make you sick. They really were sickening. But there was nothing I could do.
“Finally it was just me and the coach, standing out there near the pitcher’s mound. I felt horrible, but what could I do? His team was sitting on the bench, crying. And that third baseman was long gone, she was nowhere to be seen. The coach shook his head and said that broke her heart. That broke her heart—”
And Kevin snapped off the TV and rushed out of the house into the night, shaking hard, crying and feeling stupid about it—but that drunken look of anguish on his sister’s face! That third baseman! He was a third baseman too. That broke her heart. To step in the box under that kind of pressure, and make that kind of hit, something you could be proud of always, and then to have it change like that—Night, the rustle of eucalyptus leaves. When our accomplishments rebound on us, when the good and the bad are so tightly bound together—It wasn’t fair, who could help but feel it? That broke her heart. That broke her heart.
And Kevin felt it.
9
Night in the dormitory, in the heat and the dark. Sounds of breathing, hacking cough, nightmare whimpers, insomniac fear. Smell of sweat, faint reek, that they could do this to us. There’s noise at the far end of the room, someone’s got a fever. One of the signs. Bleeding gums, vomiting, high fever, lassitude, disorientation. All signs. Trying to be quiet. They’re trying to talk him into calling the meds, going into the hospital. He doesn’t want to go of course, who would? They don’t come back. That there’s a place makes people want to stay here. Smell of fear. He’s really sick. They turn on the light in the bathroom to get a glow, and try to stay quiet and yet every man in the dorm is wide awake in his bed, listening. Meds are here. Kill all of them. Whispered conversation. Shifting him onto a stretcher, the sick man is crying, carried between beds and everyone is silent, no one knows what to say, then one shape rises up—“See you over there, Steve.” Several people say this, and he’s gone.
He took off into the hills. Up the faint track switchbacking up Rattlesnake Hill. Late sun pierced breaking clouds, pencil shafts of light fanned down over the treetopped plain. The eucalyptus grove on the lower south knob of the hill looked like a bedraggled park, the trees well-spaced, the ground beneath clear, as if goats were pastured there. Nothing but packed wet dirt and eucalyptus leaves. There were chemicals in those leaves that killed plants. Clever downunder trick. Stepping on soft green acorns and matted leaves. There are people like those trees, harmful to everything smaller around them, creating their own fine space. America. Alfredo. Tall, handsome, strong. But shallow roots. And fungicidal. Everything on this hill killed, so his space would be secure. So he would be a hundred. Where would he send his directable overhundred? Defense, no doubt. Create more business for his medtech. Business development, sure.