It had been a hard won game, but they'd won it.
The Sixxers had had their first taste of victory after weeks of training, and Coach Reynolds couldn't be more pleased with them, or himself. Now relaxing in the pizza parlor, watching kids eat with their parents and teammates while others ran around and played the arcade games, Reynolds couldn't help but feel like perhaps he really was suited for this line of work. He'd taken a team that didn't exist, made them work together, and now they were winning games. Turns out he was right after all when he'd first been hired...working with snobby LA talent and whiny children really wasn't all that different. Reynolds picked up his beer and drank a little, leaning back and looking at Hawley who was seating herself next to him. He smirked at her and nudged her with his elbow. She smiled back, her hair covering one of her eyes. "Cheer up! We won!" he said brightly, "We actually managed to prove ourselves worthy." "We won against a team that was 2 years younger than us," Hawley said, "That's like beating up children at a Karate dojo when you're an adult." "Yeah well, if they didn't wanna get beaten they shouldn't have been so soft and squishy," Reynolds said, shrugging while looking around and adding, "...did your father not come to the game?" "He doesn't really like sports," Hawley said, "Or at least Baseball, he says it's boring. He likes other games. But no, he works a lot at night." "He's not right, Baseball is boring. It's like someone took math and made it into a physical activity, and not plain math like addition and subtraction, no, bad math, boring math, fractions and shit. They combined the two worst things in the world; numbers and exerting physical energy. I hate it myself." "Then why are you coaching?" "You see me qualified to do anything else, Hawl? Yeah, didn't think so. This is about as good as it gets for someone who's been banished from the realm of stardom," Reynolds said, clearing his throat and leaning back in his seat, continuing with, "still...I guess I can't complain. Could be worse. I could be her." He said this while jerking his thumb to the seat beside him, where Janice was sitting. She turned and looked at him, nodding while chewing a mozzerella stick, cheese hanging from her lips as she pushed her glasses up her face. "It's true, you could be!" she said, making him chuckle. Hawley laughed as well. She appreciated having some adults around that she didn't mind being with. In fact, she was glad that her father wasn't there. He'd just make things awkward, and the last thing she wanted in the world was for her Baseball coach and her dad to fight one another. She looked at her nails and then looked at Reynolds, who finished his beer and put it down while burping. "Come on, come with me," Reynolds said, standing up and heading to the nearby arcade machines, Hawley in tow; they stopped by a nearby change machine and he fed a few dollar bills into it to get coins, saying, "the thing about coaching is that it isn't all that different from parenting. You gotta instill the right values, but not believe they're the best values, and let your kids figure things out for themselves. What works for one kid doesn't work for another." "Kinda like how Tyler told me I throw like a girl cause his dad told him that to make him a better pitcher?" Hawley asked as they walked to the nearby zombie lightgun game, each one taking a plastic gun in hand as Reynolds pumped quarters into the machine. "Exactly, what worked for him doesn't work for you, and there's no shame in that," Reynolds said, "you need to figure out what exactly works for you, so that you can give your best to the team." "I'm pretty good at shooting zombies," Hawley said. "You're not kidding," Reynolds replied, as the two fired at the screen together. *** A while after this, when Hawley and Gorey were playing skeeball, Reynolds found himself back at the table, simply doing the maze and puzzles on the back of the paper placemats when another man sat down beside him. Hawley looked at the man and nodded, and the man nodded back, each one recognizing the others presence as men often do. "You havin' trouble with a junior jumble?" the man asked. "Ya know, it's amazing to me that I can figure out how to program a VCR and use the internet, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to unscramble a word most often found on a 3rd graders spelling list," Reynolds said, tossing his crayon down on the table, making the man chuckle; Reynolds folded his arms and asked, "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name?" "Martin Aventi. Tyler Aventi's father," Martin said. "Right, okay," Reynolds said, "well he's a hell of a player, Marty. In fact, I'd wager to say that he's the best player we've got, and I try not to play favorites but as far as star players go it's hard not to consider him the favorite. He's got the best arm for throwing, he's a powerhouse with the bat, he's got long legs for running. Quite an athlete." "Well, it's about all he's good at," Martin said, shrugging, which surprised Reynolds; he added, "I don't wanna insult my own child but...he's not the brightest kid and sports are about all he's good at it, so I really hope he's able to do it professionally because I can't see him doing much of anything else. His grades are a mess." "Well, some kids blossom later in life," Reynolds said, "Shit, my sister and I weren't exactly honor roll students ourselves but I wouldn't say we were candidates for special ed or anything." "I'm just glad he's got a coach who can see what he's worth, cause the last few places he's tried playing...they never saw it," Martin said, "he always had to fight to be put in the game, and even then was criticized heavily even when he was obviously the best player there." "Well," Reynolds said, "I'm happy to have him on the team. Lord knows we need strong players. Not everyone here is great. In fact, I'd wager most of these kids are poor athletes." He stopped and looked around the table as all the kids and parents stared at him. "Prove me wrong, kids," Reynolds said, making them laugh, "but athleticism ain't everything. Kids are kids. They're good kids and they try their best and that's really all I care about. Winning is secondary, which is why I made a big deal out of this one." "Not for Tyler," Martin said, "For Tyler, he needs to win. He needs to be the best. Otherwise he could wind up as nothing." Reynolds wanted to respond, but he could see Martin was saying this not from a place of judgement but a place of worry. He seem genuinely concerned that his son would wind up doing nothing with his life if he didn't make it as a professional athlete, and as a parent himelf, that was something Reynolds could understand. He'd make a note to put Tyler in more positions from here on out. *** The noise was getting to him, and Reynolds needed a break. He strolled outside and stood on the large porch that surrounded the front of the building, reaching into his coat and pulling out a carton of cigarettes. He pulled one from the box and lit it up, just as the door opened behind him and Gorey walked out beside him. "Man," Reynolds said, "I don't know if it's just a side effect of living in suburbia or what but parents out here are nasty mean even when they don't intend to be." "Yeah, well," Gorey said, "a lot of them I think don't wanna see their children give up the way they have and fall into the same traps they've fallen into. They want their kids to go to college, not get married young or at all and have a good life instead of having a family and a mortgage they can't afford and feeling like they're stuck because of bad decisions they made decades ago." "Well you're a bundle of sunshine," Reynolds said. "...Hawley just told me that her dad threatens to hit her," Gorey said. "Yeah...I'm aware," Reynolds said. "And you're not gonna do something?" "What can I do, Jan? I mean, fuck, I'm just her coach, I'm not even related to her. I'm not saying it's okay or anything but there's very little I can do, especially if all that's happening right now are threats. Threats aren't taken seriously until action happens. Ask any woman who's been stalked and then attacked. Unfortunately for the law to intervene, people often have to die first, otherwise they'd risk taking resources away from far more important projects like arresting teenagers smoking pot or something." "Wow, bitter much?" Gorey asked. "I'm just sayin' there isn't much one can do until something happens. It's gross, but it's the way it is. But if that day ever comes, where she comes to me and tells me he's hurt her, then yeah, I'll do something," Reynolds said. "You're just gonna wait for her to get hurt?" "Any interference on my part could be considered sketchy," Reynolds said, "and I've already got enough bad publicity when it comes to young women." This statement made Gorey raise an eyebrow, confused as to what it meant, but she didn't push it. Instead she sighed and sat down on the bench near the door, nodding. "You're right, and I know you're right, I'm just annoyed that you're right," she said. "At least her dad didn't show up tonight, and at least she has us to fall back on for other things," Reynolds said, seating himself next to her, "...you know, nobody says it but...you did just as much good for the team as the players. Couldn't have been a decent coach without my help." Gorey smiled and blushed, which made Reynolds laugh. He enjoyed teasing her. After a few more drags of his cigarette, he put it out and stuffed the remains in his shirt pocket for later, then headed back inside. As he grabbed the door handle and tugged it open, he stopped and looked at her. She glanced upwards at him, and for a moment they just stared at one another, neither one saying a thing. "Yeah?" she finally asked. "You coming back inside?" "In a minute," she said, and with that he left her to her thoughts. *** That night Reynolds couldn't sleep. All he could think about was his own daughter, and how, when she was 7, he'd insisted she take up a sport of some kind, so she picked horseback riding. She got into dressage, and into competitions, and by the time she was 10, she was an extremely talented and somewhat well known rider in the local area. But Reynolds always wondered...did she actually like it, or did she simply continue doing it to please him because he'd insisted she pick up an outdoor hobby of some kind. As he groaned, climbing out of bed and heading to the kitchen, all he could think about was the pizza dinner that night. All these parents pushing their children to participate in something that, frankly, most of them weren't interested in being a part of. Sure, Reynolds did his best to make it engaging and fun, but in the end, you couldn't create a hobby when the interest simply wasn't there and for a good portion of the students involved, it wasn't. He sat down in his recliner and he flicked on the television, but all that was on were infomercials. He sat and watched that, drinking a big glass of chocolate milk, until his phone suddenly rang. He reached down to answer it, surprised at someone calling him at this hour of the night. "Hello?" he asked as he lifted the phone to his face. "Dad?" Clarissa asked, and he broke out in a smile. "Hi baby!" he said, sitting upright now, "How are you?" "I'm okay," she replied, "Just been very busy and haven't had a lot of time to make phone calls. How are you? Are you doing alright out there?" Reynolds thought about this for a minute, and then nodded. "Yeah," he said, "I actually am." And for the first time in a while, it wasn't a lie. *** Hawley laid in bed that night, tossing their baseball up and down as they tried to think about what Coach Reynolds had said that evening at the pizza arcade. Reynolds was right. She shouldn't try so hard to do things that clearly weren't for her. She wasn't a strong pitcher, she wasn't a strong hitter, and she shouldn't be pretending to live as a boy anymore. She needed to find her strong spot and stick with it. Her bedroom door opened and her father peered in. "How'd it go?" he asked. "We had pizza," she said, "Ya know, for winning." "Right. I'm sorry. I actually did mean to come, but someone came in at the last minute with an emergency and I-" "It's fine, you wouldn't have liked it anyway," she replied. "...I'm gonna go to bed now. I'll cook breakfast, okay?" he asked, and she nodded as he slowly exited the bedroom, closing the door tightly behind him. Hawley laid on her back, still tossing the ball up and down and sighing. She didn't want her father there anymore. She didn't want to get him and Reynolds involved in one anothers lives. The last thing she needed was her home life and her school becoming even remotely entwined. No. Better to keep everything separate. Avoidance at all costs was for the best, she figured. Hey, it'd worked for her mom, she thought.
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GRAVE INNINGS is about A funeral home that has sponsored a local little league, the coach who is a disgraced reality show host, a young transgirl and the odd family they create for one another. Archives
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