“How was I supposed to know it was a sewer? I thought it was a little river,” said Serge. “It was supposed to be very symbolic. Obviously it didn’t work out that way, but at least I tried. These are the kind of people who cling. It’s not healthy.”
The judge’s face was in his hands.
He finally looked up. “Mr. Storms, this doesn’t give me any pleasure, but you leave me no choice but to commit you to the state hospital at Chattahoochee for a period of observation not less than three months.”
They dragged Serge from the courtroom, kicking and yelling.
The judge banged his gavel. “You’re out of order, Mr. Storms!”
“I’m out of order? You’re out of order! And he’s out of order! They’re out of order! This trial’s out of order! The whole courtroom’s out of order!…”
The bailiffs pulled Serge into the hall, and the double doors swung closed.
11
In the fall of 1960, five very special little girls entered the fourth grade in five different schools across Florida.
A nine-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale named Samantha told her father she wanted a baseball glove.
“You mean a softball glove.”
“What’s that?”
He was a kind father, and the next day he brought home a nice pink Spalding softball glove and a ball the size of a grapefruit.
“It’s pink,” said Samantha. She knew baseball gloves weren’t pink.
“I know,” said her father, smiling fondly. “Isn’t it pretty?”
Samantha could see her dad’s happiness, and she didn’t make a fuss about the color and hugged him.
“Thanks, Daddy.”
She stuck her little hand inside.
“I can’t move the fingers.”
“That’s because you have to break it in first.”
“How do you do that?”
“You oil it up good and put a softball in the palm and wrap twine around it and set it aside overnight. Then you have to play lots and lots of catch so the leather takes on the shape of your own hand, and pretty soon it fits like a glove.”
“But I don’t want to wait that long. I want to play right now.”
Her father laughed. “Life’s not like that.”
After dinner they oiled and wrapped the glove, and when her father came home from work the next evening, Samantha and her glove were waiting on the front porch to play catch.
“Okay, let me set my things down first.”
That was the beginning of a lot of catch. Samantha got pretty good. Soon she could even move the fingers. One afternoon, she ran outside with her glove and down the street to the park, where the boys wouldn’t let a girl play ball, pink glove or not. They were practicing for the big Little League tryouts that weekend. They all wanted to be on the Yankees.
When Samantha’s father came home that night, she told him she wanted to try out for Little League.
Her father laughed and crouched down and rubbed her yellow hair. “Honey, girls don’t play Little League.”
“But I want to.”
“Life’s not like that.”
That Saturday, her parents thought Samantha was down at the playground, but she had taken her bike and ridden to the Little League park, where she lined up with the boys waiting to take the field and catch grounders, pink ribbon in her hair and pink glove on her hand. The boys weren’t happy.
“Get out of here! You’re a girl!”
“Yeah, get out of here!”
Samantha dug in and snarled.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Yeah, girl. You don’t even know how to play baseball.”
“That’s not even a baseball glove!”
“Is so!” said Samantha.
“Is not!”
The coaches on the infield heard a commotion by the dugout. “Is that a girl?”
They came over. The boys were playing keep-away with the pink glove.
“Gimme my glove!” Samantha ran back and forth.
“Missy,” said one of the coaches, “where are your parents?”
“At home…. I said, gimme my glove!”
“What’s your name?…”
“Samantha.” Running back and forth after the glove. Why wouldn’t the grown-ups help her?
“Samantha what?”
“Samantha Bridges…. Give it!”
The coaches didn’t help retrieve her glove because the boys were within rights, provoked as they were by Samantha’s presence, which threatened to cheapen their whole ritual.
Samantha finally caught up with her glove. The coach’s son had it and they were tugging. The boy shoved her to the ground.
“All right, that’s quite enough, Missy,” said the coach. “You’ve caused your share of trouble today.”
No she hadn’t. She got up from the dirt and punched the boy in the nose, drawing tears.
The public shame of his son crying at the hands of a girl was too much, and before the coach knew it, he had grabbed Samantha by the arm and slapped her face hard enough to make any of the boys cry.
Samantha didn’t.
She kicked him in the shin.
“Ow! Shit!”
Samantha struggled for the coach to let go of her arm, and the other men had to help restrain the thrashing child. Everything else stopped. A crowd gathered. They looked up her parents’ phone number, and her father arrived in minutes.
“What are you doing to my daughter?” her dad yelled, jumping out of his car.
“She disrupted the whole tryout!”
“She’s just a little girl!” he said, walking quickly toward the group. “Let go of her right now!”
“Only if she promises not to kick me again.”
The father turned his angry glare toward Samantha. “Did you kick him?”
“After he slapped me.”
“You slapped her?” asked her father.
“She hit my boy. She was out of control—”
The tooth-loosening right cross sent the coach to the ground. Her father took Samantha by the hand, and they walked away.
The police showed up in Samantha’s driveway after they got home, and there was a big stink. But the cops talked everyone out of pressing charges and suggested Samantha stay away from the ballfield.
Dinner was pork chops and mashed potatoes and beets. Samantha asked for the beets in a separate bowl because the beet juice ran into the potatoes and made them pink.
“I just don’t understand these people,” Samantha’s father told her mother across the table. “What’s the big deal?”
“You know what you always say? Life’s not—”
“I know, but this is so petty. Why can’t they just let girls play? It’s stupid.”
Samantha wasn’t saying a word and wasn’t eating, just following the conversation back and forth with her eyes.
“You know what I should do? I should file a lawsuit!”
“Oh honey, please don’t,” said her mother, reaching across and putting a hand on her father’s arm. “Isn’t it bad enough that everyone already calls her Sam?”
There was a successful court challenge, and girls were allowed to play Little League. But the challenge didn’t come from Samantha’s father and not for another ten years, until Samantha was in college.
Samantha had a growth spurt when she was thirteen, and she would always be among the tallest in her class, either sex. By high school she found an outlet in girls’ basketball. She became what’s known as an “enforcer,” delivering retribution for rough play against her smaller teammates, fouling out of every game.