Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 154

could make a ball dance. Brown didn’t explain. He just threw, slow at first, then with a little more bite. The kid blinked when the ball dipped late.

“Still got it,” the boy said.

“Some days,” Brown answered.

They threw until Brown felt the dull ache in his shoulder that meant he should stop. He didn’t push it. Not anymore. He sat on the bench and watched the kid run sprints in the outfield, full of the kind of energy Brown remembered like a story someone else had told him.

Around noon, a few townspeople wandered in; no tickets, no formality, just folks looking for something normal. A father and daughter sat in the wooden bleachers, eating sandwiches from a paper bag. Brown tipped his cap to them. The girl waved back shyly.

The manager ambled over. “If the league holds together another week, you might get a start,” he said. “Hard to say.”

“Hard to say about anything. Things are tough all over,” Brown replied.