unit was holed up in, hoping they are still there. The village has become a zone of intense battle, by the look of it. They pass three buildings in a row on fire, not a person in sight. The air is searing hot as they pass, but they cannot get away from it, only hurry through.
Then they are back at the building, and the men are still inside, and the man on guard, Pat Lincoln, stands up from his crouch and stares at them. What? Reeter says. What? Hedis says. Lincoln approaches and begins to pick at their skin. Reeter feels something breaking off and Lincoln holds it up for him to see. The flour had mixed with theirsweat as they lay. When they walked by the fire, the heat baked it: thin lines of bread, right there on their skin.
But Samuel isnât even really listening anymore. The boys in the bleachers after practice look about half-impressed, half in wonder, except for Samuel. Big Hilton Hedis looks so happy he might cry. Reeter wonât look anyone in the face.
â¢
On the mound I remember Samuelâs great unthinking. Thereâs lots of space on a baseball diamond, and even with his cleats sinking into the potting-soil mound I could see there was a sort of rapture in the lonely field. Around about four innings in it would suddenly feel like he was a great distance away from the other players, Brother Reeter leaning back into the shadows of the dugout, the handful of curious Bible counselors or little kids in the stands fading into an unfocused blend of color and light, and he wouldâthere was no other way of saying itâmore or less forget what he was doing out there. He still threw, sending the ball hissing through the air where he knew no batter from St. Pius X or Veritas Academy could hit it, and he still felt the ball appear back in the smooth leather of his glove after Hiltonâs mindless throws, but he thought a lot about the desert, what it must look like to the insurgents, perched high in his imagination on rock outcroppings, as they watched a speeding convoy pass, kicking up a dust cloud below, as they whispered into a handheld radio.
He cycled his pitches, gripping the seams, letting the ball slide off his fingers as necessary; the other team would eventually figure out what was coming, but it didnât matter. He always finished on his curve, what Hilton called his cliff ball for the way it dropped, seeing as the ball left his hand what the terrorists must be seeing: the convoy stopped below,his father getting out of the lead vehicle, the unseen man crouched above, raising his rifle just as the pitch, which had first appeared to the frightened batter to be coming right at his face, dropped into Hiltonâs glove in the center of the strike zone, the innocent kid looking up into the umpâs growling face as if hurt by the idea of a world where a projectile could change so quickly. Then the inning would be over and Samuel would be blinking as Hilton flipped the ump the ball and jogged toward the dugout, laughing his big loon laugh, saying, âWOE BE TO HIM WHO CALLS A STRIKE A BALL AND A BALL A STRIKE.â
Iâm imagining this, of course, how it was for him. He certainly never talked about it, then or later, and so there is now a kind of truth to what I think it mustâve been like, as I seem to be the only person who still thinks about that season at all. It really was something to behold, him up there on the mound, which had begun to look like a dark wound on the dirt. Is there anything more full of the bumbling divine grace, anything further from what life will make of a person, than a fifteen-year-old boy in summer?
That is how the days more or less passed, anyway, Samuel pitching in his trance until he couldnât anymore, then us losing as I watched from the bleachers, the late afternoon quiet ringing in my ears. But then, on the seventh Saturday of the summer, Hilton Hedisâs father stepped on an improvised explosive device wired to three pounds of plastic
Then they are back at the building, and the men are still inside, and the man on guard, Pat Lincoln, stands up from his crouch and stares at them. What? Reeter says. What? Hedis says. Lincoln approaches and begins to pick at their skin. Reeter feels something breaking off and Lincoln holds it up for him to see. The flour had mixed with theirsweat as they lay. When they walked by the fire, the heat baked it: thin lines of bread, right there on their skin.
But Samuel isnât even really listening anymore. The boys in the bleachers after practice look about half-impressed, half in wonder, except for Samuel. Big Hilton Hedis looks so happy he might cry. Reeter wonât look anyone in the face.
â¢
On the mound I remember Samuelâs great unthinking. Thereâs lots of space on a baseball diamond, and even with his cleats sinking into the potting-soil mound I could see there was a sort of rapture in the lonely field. Around about four innings in it would suddenly feel like he was a great distance away from the other players, Brother Reeter leaning back into the shadows of the dugout, the handful of curious Bible counselors or little kids in the stands fading into an unfocused blend of color and light, and he wouldâthere was no other way of saying itâmore or less forget what he was doing out there. He still threw, sending the ball hissing through the air where he knew no batter from St. Pius X or Veritas Academy could hit it, and he still felt the ball appear back in the smooth leather of his glove after Hiltonâs mindless throws, but he thought a lot about the desert, what it must look like to the insurgents, perched high in his imagination on rock outcroppings, as they watched a speeding convoy pass, kicking up a dust cloud below, as they whispered into a handheld radio.
He cycled his pitches, gripping the seams, letting the ball slide off his fingers as necessary; the other team would eventually figure out what was coming, but it didnât matter. He always finished on his curve, what Hilton called his cliff ball for the way it dropped, seeing as the ball left his hand what the terrorists must be seeing: the convoy stopped below,his father getting out of the lead vehicle, the unseen man crouched above, raising his rifle just as the pitch, which had first appeared to the frightened batter to be coming right at his face, dropped into Hiltonâs glove in the center of the strike zone, the innocent kid looking up into the umpâs growling face as if hurt by the idea of a world where a projectile could change so quickly. Then the inning would be over and Samuel would be blinking as Hilton flipped the ump the ball and jogged toward the dugout, laughing his big loon laugh, saying, âWOE BE TO HIM WHO CALLS A STRIKE A BALL AND A BALL A STRIKE.â
Iâm imagining this, of course, how it was for him. He certainly never talked about it, then or later, and so there is now a kind of truth to what I think it mustâve been like, as I seem to be the only person who still thinks about that season at all. It really was something to behold, him up there on the mound, which had begun to look like a dark wound on the dirt. Is there anything more full of the bumbling divine grace, anything further from what life will make of a person, than a fifteen-year-old boy in summer?
That is how the days more or less passed, anyway, Samuel pitching in his trance until he couldnât anymore, then us losing as I watched from the bleachers, the late afternoon quiet ringing in my ears. But then, on the seventh Saturday of the summer, Hilton Hedisâs father stepped on an improvised explosive device wired to three pounds of plastic
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