Love is a Wounded Soldier Read Free Page B

over-stimulated
brain was sending minute, premature impulses to my muscles.
    Billy reared back slowly, lifted his leg in
a high kick, and drove it forward as his hand whipped over his shoulder. The
ball snaked toward me. It seemed to dart away just after I decided to swing. I
swung, trying to put every ounce of my strength and weight into it. I missed
completely.
    “Strike one!” “Honest Amos” McCall umpired
from behind the plate.
    I moved away from the plate and tried to
settle myself down. I told myself I just needed to relax and be patient. My
heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my neck.
    Moving back to the plate, I was still
unable to loosen up much. Another slow motion windup, snap of the forearm, and
the ball hurtled toward me again, looking like a carbon copy of the first
pitch. I let it go.
    “Ball one!”
    After another failed attempt to relieve
myself of anxiety and tension, I was back at the plate, throttling the bat so
vigorously it wouldn’t surprise me if my fingerprints are still on that bat.
    The giant on the mound gathered himself up
and uncoiled like a spring as he fired his third salvo toward me. It looked
pretty good, and I took a half swing before deciding it looked a little low, so
I held off. There was a brief silence. I held my breath, waiting for the call.
    “Ball two, two and one,” Honest Amos made
the call.
    I let a long breath funnel through pursed
lips and rolled my shoulders back. I had to get a hit. A big hit. I didn’t want
to walk.
    Settling back into the batter’s box, I
suddenly felt strong, confident. I was focused, and the bat in my hand felt
like an extension of me, another appendage. I no longer used it as a tool. I
was the bat.
    Billy’s arm cocked back behind his head and
he brought it forward like a catapult. It was fast. It was straight. It was
gone! I swung harder and cleaner than I’d ever swung before. It was that
powerful, effortless type of swing that rockets a ball into the sky. I lost the
ball in the sun, and it was only as I was about to round first base that I
looked out toward center field and saw the ball arcing downward toward Mr.
Richard Carr. He backpedaled madly and I could see him flail his glove wildly,
almost as though he were trying to throw his entire arm at the ball as he
backed into the field of corn behind the ball field and fell over backwards.
Home run!
    My sprint became a trot as I calmly rounded
the bases, doing my best to look like the hit was all in a day’s work. I could
hardly wait to reach third base and see Moses’ reaction. Maybe he’d be on his
feet, staring marvelously at the place where the cornfield had swallowed up my
bat’s blast, or paying respect to the hit with a wide smile and a nice slow
clap. Perhaps I would cross home plate and coolly make my way to the sidelines,
and he’d walk over and say, “I didn’t know you could hit like that!” At the
very least, he’d probably say something on the way home to my mother, like
“Liza, you shoulda seen the home run Bobby hit into the cornfield this
afternoon. That was somethin’ else!”
    I cornered third base and raised my head a
little to take an inconspicuous peek at Moses under the brim of my cap. He
wasn’t sitting where I’d seen him last. I raised my head higher and scanned the
sidelines to see where he’d moved to. I was so preoccupied with locating Moses I
almost missed stepping on the plate.
    My team swarmed me and pats on the back
commenced. Their plaudits floated meaninglessly around my head. I didn’t hear
acclaim, all I heard was noise that rang hollowly off my eardrum and dissipated
unacknowledged.
    The scrum subsided and I walked stiffly off
the field, only now able to feel the burning in my legs and the tightness in my
chest.
    I scoured the area with my eyes again,
hoping that maybe I’d just missed him, maybe he’d seen my hit from afar. Ma and
Mrs. Schnell were still talking, now with a few other women I couldn’t identify
from that