Force Out Read Free Page B

short, hard breaths, gulping air into his lungs, needing more oxygen to pump the dream from his system. It was awful. It was his dream, his baseball dream. It happened to him on a regular basis. He didn’t tell anyone about it, but from what he could gather on the internet about these kinds of things, it was born out of anxiety, the distress he stored up inside his mind about the need to succeed on the baseball diamond.
    The dream was a release valve for all the horror he kept tucked away in the back drawers of his mind. The horror of life without baseball, life after baseball, the day it would all come to an end. He never wanted it to end. Joey wanted to go on and on, high school, college, the pros, maybe even one of those senior leagues. He couldn’t imagine life without playing baseball, but in the dark shadows that specter lurked, and so . . . the dream.
    He lay for a long time in the dark, the dinosaurs still glowing, until finally, he turned on the light and cracked his book The Shortstop Who Knew Too Much . He yawned, then read until he found himself going over and over the same sentence. The fifth time, he shut off the light and fell back to sleep.
    When his clock alarm went off at eight o’clock, it ripped him from a deep slumber. He forced his heavy limbs out of the bed and yawned. Exhaustion weighed him down, and he was miserable at the feeling and dreading the effect it might have on his performance.
    He removed his phone from its charger and powered it up, knowing that by now, the field trip either was going on as planned or not and that Zach surely would have texted him. The phone glowed and the screen changed and beeped.
    He had a new message and he opened it.

7
    u did it!!!! ☺
    u shldv seen Mr K’s face
    when he finally got there
    train was PULLIN OUT
    lol!!! c u at the game!
    Joey did laugh out loud, and some of his weariness fell away. He texted Zach back.
    v for victory!
    He brushed his teeth and changed into his uniform. Downstairs, his mother sat at the kitchen table reading the paper while his father made omelets. Even the scent of eggs, onions, ham, and butter cooking in the pan couldn’t overcome the permanent smell of glass cleaner and the floor cleaner his mom used to make their kitchen eternally spotless.
    â€œHam and cheese?” His father pointed at Joey with the spatula. “You look tired.”
    â€œJust no onions, please. Couldn’t sleep.” Joey slumped down at the table and sipped the glass of orange juice waiting for him.
    Pork Chop, the orange cat, shrieked in the next room and blazed through the kitchen on his way to hide in the laundry room near the stairs. Martin, unseen, giggled uncontrollably.
    Joey’s mom looked out over the edge of her paper. “No, no, Marty. Leave kitty alone. I’m not gonna tell you again, sweetie pie. Hello, Joey. Ready for the big game?”
    Before he could answer, she was back behind the paper.
    â€œWhy do you keep telling him you won’t tell him again, but you always do? I hope Pork Chop bites him.”
    The paper snapped down. “Good things happen to good people, Joey.”
    Joey hated when she said that. It made him think about sneaking out of the house and Mr. Kratz’s clamped fuel line. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now he wondered if he might have committed some kind of a crime. As a police officer, his mother would know, but he wasn’t going there. Two years ago, he asked her about a “friend” who had some firecrackers and whether or not setting them off at the bus stop was a crime, and she marched him right up to his room and made him cough them up. She was too smart and too suspicious.
    â€œGuilty conscience?” His mother was staring at him.
    Joey forced a laugh and dodged her eyes. “For what?”
    â€œWhat were you doing last night wandering around?”
    â€œI couldn’t sleep. I told you.”
    His mother made a noise, nodded