I hear what they say.  It's a power I have, that I can hear everything--- 
voices across a field, whispers, everything.  I’m not talking about stupid things, the regular talk about nothing that goes on.  I mean, when it’s about me. 
    I’ll be out there, maybe reaching for the rosin bag, maybe just moving into my windup, totally focused, and then I hear it--- "he hits you on purpose”---like that, popping out of the noise.  The shortstop, some kid I don’t even know, said that.  Sitting in his dugout, and he didn't say it loud, but I could hear it clear as anything, like he was miked.  Or moms, who are the worst for this type of thing, all the time something like, “he frightens them."  Or Mr. Lewis saying that he didn't want his boy to bat when I was pitching.  He said, "Ty Bauer should not be out here with these kids.”   
    You get used to it.  Part of the deal.  You shake it off.  Losers.  And now I’m up here again, and I'm hearing the same shit, and all I want is a decent ball that's dry that I can hold on to.  And meanwhile we just hang around, waiting.  So I do what I can to wipe the damp off the ball while everyone watches little Brian try on every single helmet in the sack.    
    A lady says, "watch, the boys are afraid of him,"  and my dad hears it.  Probably a lot of people hear it.  He doesn't look, but the jaw muscle is working, and I know he's thinking about it, wanting to jump right into it, cause he really hates that shit.  He went at Mr. Deschamps last year, really knocked him around, and I know it was about me, because that's the only time he loses it, when people come at me about something.  But he’ll let it go---I mean, what’s he going to do, fight this lady?  He gives me a look, spits, claps---quick, dry palms like boards, two claps---says, "alright, Ty, let's go, this kid’s got nothing," and yells at Bobby to look alive.  We're the same, like that: hearing, and not showing. 
    So, we're ahead by about twenty runs, like usual.  Jeff Post is pissing me off.  It's not such a big deal to be catcher.  You catch the ball and throw it back to the pitcher.  He won't do it.  Throws it halfway, and I have to get it.  My brother is the same way.  They screw up and they think it's funny.  Mom tells Dad not to yell at Bobby, but she doesn't understand that Dad is only trying to help him.  No one wants a kid who's a jerk-off.  I heard Mr. Lewis say that Dad always takes my side against Bobby.  Fuckin'-a.  It's because I care, and I gotta play with such losers.  But now Brian finally got his helmet on.  I gotta get him out, because everybody pissed me off so much I walked three guys.  They don't even try and swing.  Just try and get walks.  And midgets like this Brian, the coaches even tell them not to swing, just to stand there, and then get their big cheers from all the moms when they walk.  I mean, shit. 
    I throw a strike, and Brian jumps back about fifty feet, and the ball was never even near him.  "Ball one." 
    Unbelievable.  Jeff throws the ball back and it lands halfway to the mound.  I look hard at the kid who's umping as I walk to the ball.  He gives me this little smile, and I know he’s just messing me up on purpose. 
    "Good eye, Brian!"   That's about all the Tri-County parents ever say, because it's all their kids do, try to get walked.  Their eyes got nothing to do with it.  I gotta wipe the mud off the ball again.  Fuckin’ Jeff. 
    Dad yelling, "Ty!  Focus!  This is your man." 
    So now I throw a ball that's really a ball.  Behind Brian and over his head.  What do they expect?   Mom jumps in with her usual pointless advice, "take a breath, Ty."  Like I'm going to stop breathing.  Dad looks at her, and I know what he’s thinking.  
    Now I throw a strike, and Brian swings, way low, with the ball already bouncing off Jeff's mitt.  Pathetic.  A lady on Brian’s bench is making her poor-Brian groan, and “that was a good cut, Bri.”  God.  My dad yells, "Get pumped, guys," yells it clapping, watching everything.  Now Jeff is fooling around with his shin guard.  Take your time, dickhead.  And this kid Brian, what an idiot, in a stance with his bat ready, staring with his blinking eyes like I'm about to pitch. 
    "One more, Ty.  One more."  I know he’s watching, watching but with his eyes out on the sky or on a tree, or looking down at his hand, working the heel with a thumb. “Let’s go, Ty.  Bear down.” 
    Jeff can’t get his shin guard fixed, and he slips back in behind the plate, anyway, the thing just hanging loose.  He tries to flash an inside fastball, but can’t get it right.  So of course I throw the slider, supposed to be down and away, but it’s still my worst pitch, and sure enough it hits Brian in the foot which he is too fucking stupid to move out of the way. 
    He falls down, and here come all the parents running. Everybody saying, "Is he all right?"  And here it comes, the whining, the stuff about me.  A lady says, "every game, he hits one or two of the boys.  He's going to hurt one of these children."  My dad goes over there, and they're all hanging around Brian, waiting for him to finish crying, and Mrs. Landry and some others are talking to my dad.  He says, "What do you want, Eleanor?  Do you want me to tell him he can't play?"  
    They're helping Brian up, like he's wounded, and after a couple of minutes he walks to first, doing this little limp.  Idiot.  Guy on third walks home, so they have a run.  Giving him high-fives, unbelievable.  It’s twenty-five to one or something, like they even had a chance.  My dad goes over to Brian on first, asks is he ok? 
    "It kinda hurts," Brian says. 
    "Way to be, Brian," he says.   
    He comes over and says to me, quiet, "The fuck you doin'?  You in this or not?"  He says it close, not looking at me, looking away.  I start to tell him I'm o.k., and he turns away, claps, says, "focus buddy.  Get your head together.  Let's go."   
    Voices, and people watching. Shit.  My dad walking away.  The ball has a slimy feel.  My eyes are messed up again.   
    Some kid waiting with his bat up, and a stupid open stance.  Aaron something.  I remember him, from last year: he hit off me, the only one.  Same stupid grin.  I wish I had a real catcher.  I throw the fastball outside, and he somehow whacks it good, past first, foul. Tri-County goes crazy, like the kid just did something, then the ohh-groaning, and the runners go back. Dad looks at me, the sarcastic look, his palms up and fingers spread.  
Brian's not limping anymore: faker.  Mr. Lewis, who is coaching first, ends up with the ball and tosses it back towards me, but, sure enough, it goes way over my head.  I look at him, waiting for some little "sorry," or something, but he’s not even looking, just talking to a guy who shouldn’t be so close to the baseline anyway. 
    "C'mon, Ty!  Get your head in the game."  My dad is getting pissed.  And it's because these jerk-offs can't do anything right.  Like the Garden Center game. What was I supposed to do?  And Bobby making like I was crying.   So at last they manage to get the ball back to me and of course it's wet, and after I get it wiped off I see the Aaron kid is busy giggling at this other kid on the benches who is making some kind of noise.  He’s in his stupid stance, and he’s looking at me, and he’s trying not to look at the kid who’s making him laugh.  This is the shit that pisses me off.  Him, I gotta strike out.  Jeff is screwing around with his shin-guard again.  I want another ball, but I'm too pissed off to ask and my dad is pissed, too, because this is taking forever.
    "For chrissakes, Jeff, let's go," says my dad.  "Pitch the ball, Ty." 
    I can hear my breath, and I can hear how quiet everyone is.  Easy.  Holding still, holding the ball in my glove, low, under my belt.  Looking at Aaron, looking at Jeff’s glove.  Check the runners: even Brian actually watching the game, watching me.  Ok, easy. Everything is cool, now.  Jeff doing alright, nice steady target, knee-high, inside.  I promised my dad, no sidearm to these guys, but it just happens: it's how I throw hardest.  
    So here I am, really whipping it, everything is so clear, and slow, like snapshots, and even before my leg comes down, I can feel things getting weird.  There’s a kind of heat, and everything gets stretched out, and nothing sounds right.  The pitch sits in front of Aaron's face like in slow motion, and he still has this smile, I can actually see that.  It's like he just doesn't even see that I pitched.  He isn't going to do anything.  I see the ball is going to hit him, and then it hits his face and there is this definite sound. 
    Nothing happens.  Nobody is saying anything.  Then everybody is saying oh shit, or Jesus, or god-damn, but saying it quiet.  Some kid says, “bingo.”  Mr. Lewis says, "Jesus."  Aaron is falling now, and everybody moves, everybody is pouring into where he is falling on home plate, and everybody is saying something.  I can't believe that someone said, "bingo."  It seems like a terrible thing to say, but I want to laugh.  I keep thinking about this voice saying that.  My dad is looking at me, other people are looking at me.  I want to think about what I should do, and how to say that I didn't mean to hurt him, but all I can think about is the kid saying bingo, and thinking, what should I look like when there is a hurt kid?  Everybody is moving, like they had already figured out exactly where to go when he falls, except I don't know where to go.  Some voices are popping out of all the sound now.  I hear everything all at once.  Everybody is either talking about Aaron or about me.  I hear Bill Archer saying, "Like-he-didn't-mean-to."   People are saying things about my dad.  Mrs. Landry is screaming at him, really screaming.  My mom runs over there now too, and now Mrs. Landry is yelling at her about my dad, saying that he's an animal, and that I'm an animal.   
    Mr. Lewis is yelling at my dad, they're both yelling, Mr. Lewis saying, "Is this what you wanted?  Is this enough?" and my dad is yelling, "What are you telling me, pal?" 
    And now somebody else is really screaming, but not mad like Mrs. Landry, just this loud crying, like you were pretending to be a baby.  Then I see it's Aaron's mother.  I don't know where she was before, but now she's holding him, and crying and saying, "Aaron, Aaron." 
    Some people are running across the big field next to the diamond, to the parking lot, where there is a pay phone.  A man is yelling, "I got them here, I got them on the cell phone, they're on their way."  A kid walks past me, someone I don't know, and he says, "Way to go, Ty," like he knew me.  I know where that pay phone is, but I have to call somewhere, remember who you call, the people you call when there's emergencies.  When Bobby broke his hand, I was alone there with him, and I called Grandma.  I keep hearing the kid, what he said, bingo like that, and how quiet it was, and Aaron didn't move at all.  I know that if listen I’ll hear what to do, but there are too many things all at once and I can’t hear anything.  It’s loud but not in a way I can hear.  Somebody has to do something, and nothing is happening.  They're carrying Aaron, so I'd better get going, and I run toward the plate, where my dad is with the other parents, he's yelling about what the other parents want him to do.  Then I realize I'm being stupid, and I stop, because you can't run in an emergency.  I don't feel good, but I'm telling my dad that's it's ok, I'm going for help.  My dad is talking, he's not listening to me, but he won't take my mitt, but Mr. Lewis is looking at me and he's saying, "Jesus, Bauer, look at him."  I'm trying to tell them both it's ok, I don't need my mitt so I make Dad take it.  He says, "Ty," and I say I will come back with help, and now it is the time you should run, and my dad is standing with Mr. Lewis and saying my name.  But I’m off---a shot, past where they're laying Aaron on the grass, straight out across the field, past the kids and the parents and the quick turning heads, past the phones, onto the road and it’s all up to me now, because I know what to do, and it’s better this way: wind, ache, breathing and blood, and, like a song for a crib, cleats on the gravel road.