Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 62

The boy hesitated, then asked, “Is it true you can make the ball jump and dive because of your hand?”

Brown held up the damaged right hand, the fingers twisted from the childhood accident. “It’s true I throw it different. But the ball jumps and dives because I learned how to make it jump and dive. This”, he wiggled the crooked fingers, “just gave me a reason to learn how to deal with adversity.”

Calvin nodded solemnly, as if receiving instruction from a master craftsman.

“Do you get scared?” the boy asked. “When the crowds yell at you? When they throw things?”

Brown looked out the window. A farmhouse lantern flickered in the distance, then vanished behind a stand of trees.

“Sometimes,” he said. “But fear’s like a batter crowding the plate. You don’t back away. You throw inside. Back him off and make it move.”

The boy grinned. “I knew it. I knew you weren’t scared.”

Brown smiled back. “I didn’t say that. I only said that I don’t back away.”