7 Days at the Hot Corner Read Free

Wave’lin Avenue … Get out the rye bread and the mustard, Granny, ’cause it’s grand salami time!”
    Travis smiled and got set for the next pitch, which he also hit decently. I could tell by his expression that he was having fun.
    After a few more good hard hits, Travis started to swing even harder, until finally he took a massive cut at one, missed it, and spun a full 360 degrees, right down onto his butt.
    I managed not to laugh, but when Travis looked up, he was already laughing. Then we both noticed that his nose and mouth were covered in blood.
    â€œGeez,” he said as the batting gloves turned red, blood dripping from his nose like it was coming out of a faucet. “Sorry,” he muttered. I pressed the stop button on the pitching machine and hurried into the cage. Travis, still laughing, said “Sorry” again, holding up my batting gloves for me to see.
    â€œDon’t be an idiot,” I said. “I don’t care about my batting gloves. Are you okay?”
    â€œI got a bloody nose,” Travis answered. “How’d that happen?”
    â€œYou swung too hard,” I said. “I think the bat smacked you in the face when you fell.”
    â€œGeez,” Travis said, still laughing. “That’s impossible, isn’t it?”
    I said, “Obviously not, since you just did it. No, Trav, anything’s possible in baseball—I’ve seen guys hurt themselves in every imaginable way: I saw a guy drive a tipped foul ball right into his own nuts one time; I saw a guy knock himself out with a ricochet; I saw a guy—”
    Travis interrupted me. “Okay,” he said, tilting his head back, trying to slow down the blood still dripping from his nose. “I got it, Mr. Baseball. Am I all right?”
    â€œSorry,” I said, and without giving it a thought, I reached across to Travis’s mouth and gently lifted up his lip to see how badly he was hurt. I wanted to be sure that all his teeth were still in place. His nose was bleeding from both nostrils, and his upper lip had a tiny cut and was already getting puffy. Blood covered his mouth and chin.
    â€œAre ma teeh okay?” Travis slurred as he tried to talk around my hands.
    â€œYeah, I think so,” I said, still running my fingers across his gum line to make sure that there were no sudden gaps. “You’re okay,” I reassured him. “You’re gonna live.”
    I felt guilty; like it was my fault he’d hurt himself because I’d pressured him into the cage in the first place. “You’re a mess, though,” I said.
    Travis looked at me. “You too.”
    I looked down at my hands and there was blood all over them; I held my fingers out, all crinkled, and pointed them at Travis. “I vill drink your blood,” I said, trying to sound like Dracula.
    He laughed at that one and even more blood dripped from his nose. It took us a while longer to finally stop his bleeding.
    Dorothy, the nurse, listens quietly as I explain, nodding once in a while, but the look on her face doesn’t give anything away about her feelings.
    After I’ve told the story, she nods and smiles and then says, “It’s true that HIV is transmitted through direct blood contact—and most frequently that involves an open wound or tear in the flesh or through sharing an unclean hypodermic needle with someone who has the virus—or by an exchange of fluids through sexual contact.”
    â€œI’m not gay,” I blurt out. It’s important to me for her to know that if I have AIDS, I didn’t get it because of sex stuff—at least not gay sex.
    She says, “Okay.”
    I add, “And I don’t do any drugs at all.”
    â€œThat’s good,” Dorothy says. “Has your friend told you that he is HIV positive?”
    â€œNo …” I say. “It’s just …” I can’t think of how to put