Untouchable by Scott O'Connor Page B

winter, one or two games a night when Darby’s pager didn’t buzz with a work call. Neither of them were sleeping much. The Kid got better at it, faster, keeping up with the games in real time, no longer needing to rewind and re-examine a play. The Kid took pride in his scorecards, getting the details right. Darby could see that he liked having a permanent record of the thing at the end of a game, a narrative in secret code. Darby asked questions during the commercial breaks instead of fast-forwarding, questions about the players, the teams, the division standings, the league leaders in various categories, and The Kid began answering in his notebook, true to form, always a show-off when he’d learned something new. He answered with numbers he’d copied down from on-screen graphics, batting averages and slugging percentages, runs allowed against left-handed batters, right-handed batters, the statistical inner engine of the game, the hard facts that represented the intangibles, the simplest, most difficult thing. Hitting a ball with a bat. And this was how The Kid learned to communicate again, game by game, tape by tape, sitting with Darby on the living room couch, answering questions about a prerecorded baseball season while the night deepened around them.
    The school said that as long as The Kid got his work done, as long as he wasn’t a distraction to the other students, he could communicate in the notebook until he was ready to speak. This was fine, they said. This was okay for a while.
    One notebook turned to two. Two turned to three. Three turned to the shelf Darby put up in The Kid’s bedroom, now ten notebooks long.
    Darby finished his burger, wadded up the wrapper, stuffed it into the empty food bag. The Kid turned back to the pages he’d been using that morning. Darby could see a drawing of what looked like city buildings, a woman towering over them, arms spread wide.
    Why didn’t you answer the cell phone? The Kid wrote.
    “It’s been temporarily misplaced.”
    It’s lost?
    “It’s been misplaced. I’ll find it, Kid. Don’t worry.”
    He should have done more. He knew this. He should have pushed harder, should have taken The Kid to a doctor, someone other than the school therapist. His inaction had only added to the problem, had made permanent what might just have been temporary at the time. The notebooks only solidified The Kid’s silence, reinforced his resolve. He should have done more. The silence was so deep now, so entrenched, that Darby didn’t have a clue what else he could do about it.
    He collected The Kid’s burger wrapper, his empty soda cup, stuffed it all into the food bag. Leaned out the window, tossed the bag into a nearby garbage can.
    “If you give me the kids’ names,” Darby said, “I can stop this from happening.”
    The Kid shook his head, kept his eyes on the scorecard. Darby started the pickup, put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot toward home.
    They crouched behind the large plastic garbage bins in the Crump’s backyard, listening for approaching footsteps, scanning the area for signs of trouble. When they were sure the coast was clear, Matthew counted to three and The Kid helped him lift one of the bins and move it over half a foot on the grass.
    It was getting dark, would be time for dinner soon. A light switched on in the kitchen window at the back of the house, just a few feet away. The Kid could see Mrs. Crump passing back and forth as she set the table. They waited for her to pass again, then moved the garbage bin over another half-foot.
    “I was supposed to throw them away,” Matthew whispered, “but I couldn’t do it. If they’re just going to be destroyed then I’d rather you had them.”
    There was a small stack of comic books set into the mud where the plastic bin had been. Five issues of Captain America , the numbers on the covers all in order. An entire storyline hidden under the garbage.
    “My parents asked me where Captain America