Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories Page 6

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  Bottom of the Seventh

  I wrote this short story in 1974 when I was in high school and edited it 2000 when I published it at my website. In this story presented in 7 parts, love helps win a high school baseball game in the BOTTOM OF THE SEVENTH.

  Now

  MY NAME IS Tyler Lake. I’m a junior at Ridgewood High School. Today is the first Thursday in June and the last day of school. It is also the last regulation Varsity baseball game of the season.

  It’s the bottom of the seventh inning, the last chance my team has of scoring two runs and winning this game. Coach Walker is reminding us of that as I peek into the bleachers behind our dugout. The pretty blonde-haired girl, Julie Sommers, sits in the third row. The evening sun seems to spark her hair and I see a halo of white around her from the dress she wears. I avoid making eye contact.

  “Do you really see her?” my friend Derek Hampton says next to me in the dugout as I twist and crane my head to get a better look at her.

  “I do,” I tell him, thankful he isn’t questioning my sanity.

  I look away and try to focus on the game. Coach Walker’s pep talk is over and Danny Richards now watches the coach give him signals from the third base coach’s box. Coach Walker is a short, heavy man who always has a pipe clamped between his teeth. He smokes his cherry tobacco only when our games are over. Never before and certainly never during our games. He’s superstitious that way.

  I steal another glance at Julie and shiver while Danny approaches the batter’s box at home plate.