The Prospect by Eliot Parker (epub ebook reader .txt) 📖

Sheaville wants me to win a championship for them, Morton Mitchell…well, he wants me gone. Mamma needs me to help her get better. Nobody seems to want me to be me.”
“Well, that may be cause you don’t really know yourself.”
Shane raised his eyebrows and stepped off the rubber pitching mound strip, then continued throwing.
“Son, your teammates believe in ya. They did before that fight and you getting put off the team and they do now. But if you don’t take time to talk to ‘em, then you don’t have the talks necessary to be a winner. And that goes for all of you. Remember, when you’re on that mound, the action revolves around you. The game doesn’t move, progresses, or finish until you deliver that ball to the plate. Yer life is the same way. Until you make a move, or several moves, things don’t happen. Just like you depend on them guys to back you up behind you in a game, you need them to back you up in life too.”
Shane cast a quick glance at Ryan, Harry, and Chaz as they were still working on fielding drills. He looked back at Walter. “So I need to talk to them and apologize, that is what you are saying?”
“Nope,” replied the manager. “You have three friends out in that field right now that want to know what’s going on in ya life. Talk to ‘em. Ask them to help ya…I don’t know…even pray for ya if you want ‘em too. But do not turn yer back on the people that’s been good to you in this game. These guys ain’t just yer teammates, you’re your family.”
“Another thing,” Walter continued, raising his index finger in a moment of pontification. “I need to be able to count on ya in the title game. I want you to start it. But I need ya to be strong in the mind, not just that body of yours.”
“I will be ready if called on,” Shane said.
“Good. Now why don’t ya go over and talk to yer teammates and tell him what has been going on in ya life. Don’t shut them out…let them help ya.”
Shame flashed a determined smile and tossed hisglove aside and leaped over the bullpen railing. Chaz, Harry, and Ryan hardly noticed Shane approaching. Once they did, Ryan and Harry stopped moving. Chaz offered his traditional high five and flashed a traditional million dollar Hispanic smile. Shane looked over the entire group.
“Guys, can we talk?”
Harry spoke first. “We thought you were never going to ask.”


XXXVII

In preparation for the Sheaville Fall Festival, Ryan Head managed to organize a party of volunteers to decorate the sawmill warehouse and put the finishing touches on the various celebratory intricacies.
The worker party included the four-member Fall Festival committee: Morton Mitchell, Frank Miller, Phil Rodney, and Ryan Head. Other recruits were forcefully asked to join. Jack Busby was selected along with Olivia Mitchell and Chaz Martinez. It was Ryan’s goal to find enough capable workers that could complete the job and not bring any personal baggage to the event, as was the case with the warehouse cleaning episode involving Shane and the mayor.
On Sunday afternoon, Harry and Chaz were the last to arrive on the sawmill property. Harry and Chaz had spent the last hour or so listening to Shane, being privy to so many emotions within one conversation and hearing profuse apologizes about his secretive nature.
Frank Miller and Jack Busby were outside of the warehouse and Frank was designing a large box with his arms and breathing deeply the West Virginia mountain air.
Frank tipped his dark sun visor in their direction, smiling and revealing a massive pile of unorganized bushy white hair as Ryan checked on them. “We are just going over the parking situation!” he proudly proclaimed.
Ryan and Chaz went inside and noticed the rest of the committee working hard. Olivia was standing on a ladder at the far right corner of the warehouse hanging brown streams and red balloons. Phil Rodney had ascertained some old white, plastic foldout chairs and tables from the basement of his department store and he and Morton were unfolding them placing them in various locations throughout the warehouse floor.
“Looks like it is coming together,” Chaz assumed.
“D…d….don’t count your c…chickens before they hatch.”
Chaz walked away from Ryan and headed for Olivia and the step ladder. He managed to play more attention to the length and tightness of Olivia’s white shorts than anything else. “Can I give a pretty lady a hand?”
Dropping her lead under her left arm, Olivia grinned at her family adopted roommate. “I could use all the help I can get.”
“Well, let’s start with you coming off of that ladder and letting me hang those decorations. You need to rest with the little one and all.” Chaz winced, realizing what he had just mentioned. Olivia did not seem to notice or care.
“Thanks Chaz!” Olivia sounded fatigued and weary, but looked fine.
Olivia and Chaz began to trade spaces and places. Before Chaz stepped onto the ladder, he noticed the engraved initials on the warehouse wall; the same marks Shane had alluded to earlier at Clark Field.
“Take a look at these,” he said, motioning for Olivia to follow his lead. They both walked up to the markings and Olivia ran over the initials with her fingers.
“I can see why Shane was so upset. It really did happen here.”
“How are you doing with all of this?” asked Chaz. Olivia looked stumped, an indication that she did not fully understand the question. “I mean, Shane has been dealing with all of this and everything else the past couple of weeks. How have you been handling it? I think that someone needs to ask you about how you are doing.”
“That is very sweet,” Olivia noted. “I am coping pretty well. I mean, Shane is a complicated guy sometimes and he certainly has a complicated life. It’s more complicated than I ever imagined. Of course, my father and I have helped add to those complications.”
“If you mean the baby, do not worry about it. It may have been a mistake, but it is one of the best mistakes two people can make, I think.”
“Really?”
“Yea,” Chaz added. “I mean, I am the youngest of three brothers. I was a mistake. My parents did not intend to have me. But my oldest brother died several years ago in a car wreck. If I had not been born, my parents would only have one son left. Sometimes mistakes have a way of working themselves out in the long run. How are things between you and your dad?”
“We aren’t speaking. It is probably better that way. Since all of the news about Shane’s dad came out at the auction, I cannot really deal with him. It’s like he lived a secret life before I came along, and yet he did not trust me enough to tell me. Especially when he knew that Shane and I knew each other.
Chaz nodded in agreement. “If there is one thing I have learned over the last few years, it is that adults get harder to figure out the older we get and the longer we know them.
“Daddy will come around,” Olivia continued. “It is just going to take some time. I mean, when my Mom died, Daddy took it really hard. I guess he feels that Shane is going to take me away from him too. I have tried to tell him that won’t be the case but…..and with me already completing a couple of weeks of classes at Marshall this week. Maybe it’s loneliness. I don’t know.”
Chaz smirked and climbed up the ladder. “ I will just spot you, if that is all right,” Olivia announced as Chaz reached the top of the ladder.
“Fine with me,” he responded.
As Olivia looked around, Harry was mopping the floor and Phil and her father were placing chairs around the tables and encasing the tables with paper tablecloths. Slowly but surely, the Sheaville Fall Festival was coming together.
“Ryan said we raised over $5,000 for the festival from the auction the other day,” Olivia stated. Chaz was standing on his tip toes taping a sagging brown steamer to one of the beam and truss leggings on the warehouse roof.
“Is that right? That is not bad, considering the police showed up.”
Olivia laughed, obviously forgetting about that little detail of the day.
“O…o…Olivia, do you h…have any m…m…more sponges?” Ryan asked, approaching the two from the far side of the wearhouse.
“Yea, in the car Ryan. I will go and get them.” Olivia walked across the floor, noticing a glaze surrounding her peripheral vision. Before taking a fifth step, Olivia collapsed onto the floor.
At first, Phil and Morton did not realize what happened and continued unfolding chairs, griping with one another over the placement of each one. Morton wanted to use a square and space counting system, while Phil did not care as long as the chairs were in close proximity to the tables.
When Olivia’s body hit the ground, Chaz skipped a couple of ladder steps and leaped onto the floor. By the time he reached Olivia, she was wallowing on the ground, trying to pull herself up.
Morton interjected, slurring his words as he came to the aid of his daughter. “Sweetheart, are you okay? My God! What happened? Speak to me, tell me something!”
“I….I…” Olivia was dazed and confused. Chaz sat her upright and motioned for her to sit Indian-style on the cold, prickly hardwood floor. Olivia obliged as the mayor began prying open Olivia’s eyelids with his thumbs.
“It’s okay darling, daddy is here, right here.”
“Whew, you took a nasty tumble,” Phil remarked, finally reaching the scene with Harry after a few enduring seconds.
“I…I feel better now,” Olivia chirped. “I was just a little dizzy there for a second.”
The mayor surveyed the crowd and made an uneducated diagnosis. “She has not been eating right or getting enough rest. She tends to forget that she has two people to take care of instead of one.”
“You would not know that!” Olivia fired back in her own defense. “Part of the reason is because you have been causing so much trouble for me and Shane that I have had little time to consider the health of this baby.”
“So now it is my fault that you fainted?”
“Q…q…quit it!” Ryan demanded. “I…I am not g…going through this again. C…C…Chaz, would you take O…Olivia home please? M…maybe take her to the diner f…f…for something to eat?”
The shortstop was happy to follow orders. “Sure…common Olivia.” He grabbed the black Honda Accord car keys from Morton’s outstretched arm.
Chaz lifted Olivia effortlessly onto her feet and then cradled her as they both left the warehouse. Everyone in the room waited until they heard Morton’s car door close before they began work.
As the car sped away, down the rolling hillside into the paved ravine road that led to town, Olivia leaned over to Chaz.
“For everyone’s sake, do not tell Shane about this.”
Chaz did not say a word. Instead, he pressed harder on the car accelerator pad.

XXXVIII

Championship Tuesday: September 8. For the final two teams left in the Appalachian Baseball Association, it was the day that was the culmination of several events.
All of the diligence and long hours spent practicing, sweating, traveling, and playing finally translated into another game. But the game was more special than any other regular season game. When this game was concluded, there would be no more long bus rides, interminable fatigue, or the promise of another start, another victory, another hit, another defeat.
The Sheaville Loggers were prepared to meet