Chapter 3 Mason - Educated Humans
MASON Educated Humans
I looked down at the issue of Inside Pitch on my desk.
There it was again, after all these years: my face, only with some wrinkles now.
And, this time, the story was about my return to the field, about how I’d taken a struggling program and made it extraordinary in just a few years.
It made me proud. This was my moment, I decided.
I ripped it out, the pages making a satisfying hiss.
I couldn’t quite bear to cover up the article in the center of the board.
But I used one of those old pushpins to hang it in the corner.
I had gotten some good press lately, which was flattering and a little shocking.
But Inside Pitch was my favorite magazine. This one warranted a spot on the board.
I looked out the window at the boys gathering their things after practice.
They were the reason for this article. They had brought me back to the field.
They had really put in the work today. I was taking them deep-sea fishing in the morning, a team-building exercise, but also a fun day out on the water. I turned at a light tap at my door.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, getting up, taking a large box from my small mother’s arms. The one and only Olivia Thaysden. Southern mother extraordinaire with the patience of a saint. She lifted up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek as I looked down at the box.
“It’s an air purifier,” she said, as if that explained anything.
“Okay. Thanks?”
“It’s pollen season, and you know how your allergies act up.” She gestured around the office. “Plus, it always smells a little musty in here.”
I laughed. I didn’t say that it smelled musty because not only was the building sixty years old, but my office was also adjacent to the weight room. “Musty” was generous.
“You missed family dinner on Sunday,” she said. Ah. So that was why she was here.
“Robbie and Trina will be there this Sunday.”
Robbie was my best friend, and Trina was his wife, so my best friend by marriage. I laughed. “If that is your way of asking if I’ll be at family dinner on Sunday, I will try.”
She put her hands up like that wasn’t at all what she was asking, even though it was, but she didn’t press me further.
My mom had always had this hands-off approach to my brother Parker and me.
She let us make our own decisions. But we worshipped her, so we usually made the decision she wanted. I would probably be at that dinner.
Drew Christianson, a junior and my star pitcher, walked in.
Drew was almost as good as, well, I had been.
I’ll admit that the first few games he had been compared to me, in a greatest-pitcher-since-Mason-Thaysden kind of way, had stung.
But now, it was kind of nice to have a protégé.
I was leaning into being the one who got to help develop that incredible talent of his. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Thaysden,” he said.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said.
“Coach, I can come back.”
“No, sweetie. I was just leaving.”
“Thanks for the air purifier, Mom,” I said, thumping the box.
“It doesn’t work unless you plug it in.”
“I’ll make sure he gets it up and running, Mrs. Thaysden,” Drew said, beaming at my mom as she waved goodbye.
Drew sat in one of the pleather chairs across from my desk.
I remembered being that kid sitting in the chair across from Coach, as he reminded me to stay on the straight and narrow, encouraged me that I could be a game-changing player, just like I did now with Drew.
That had all been true, I think. What had also been true was that I had a game-changing injury.
“Need a ride home?”
He shook his head. “Just wanted to know if there was anything else you wanted to work on before Central next week.”
Work ethic was part of what made Drew great. Part was raw talent. Part was, well, a coach like me, who poured every ounce of himself into his players. Maybe it was cocky to admit that, but it was true.
It was also true that coming back into this office, being around these kids, had saved me, brought me back to life, rehabilitated me in a way that years of therapy—physical and mental—never could.
Which made me feel guilty about the feelings I’d been having lately that maybe I was stuck here, that maybe by staying in Cape Carolina, I was still holding on to a past that was never coming back for me.
I was trying to change. Wanted to change.
Drink less. Date age-appropriate women. Be an adult, not the boy wonder.
But lately I had started to feel like being here was making that impossible.
It’s hard to evolve in a place that wants you to be who you always have been.
But the two college programs I had applied to—both at D3 schools—had rejected me. Maybe I would apply for other jobs. Maybe I had peaked in high school. Plus, I really did love this place and these kids.
I leaned forward, the springs in my rolling chair squeaking. “Between our five a.m. workout and practice today, your shoulder has had enough. I want you to ice it for ten minutes, do the stretches I gave you, and wear your sleeve for a few hours tonight.” I paused. “Have you liked the KT Tape?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, I think so. Can’t hurt.”
I nodded. “I’ll tape you up before the game.” The KT Tape was supposed to support ligaments, muscles, and tendons. It took away some of my lingering pain. When I had been Drew’s age, I thought I was invincible. Now I knew better. And I wanted to save him from that.
I stood up. “I just want you to rest and get some sleep tonight, so we can hook a big one in the morning.” I grinned.
“You know some of these guys have never been offshore?” Drew asked, incredulous.
It was remarkable to think that you could live on the water your whole life and never have the opportunity to experience one of its greatest sports, but, yeah, I believed it.
“Maybe remind them all to take a half Dramamine before bed and a half before we leave in the morning,” I said, getting up. “I’ll see you bright and early, but, for now, I’m going to go take the cardboard from the new gear to the recycling.”
“Heroes don’t haul cardboard!” Drew protested, making me laugh. Standing up too, he followed me out of the office and onto the side of the field, where the pile was waiting.
“Heroes haul their own cardboard in underfunded public schools.”
He nodded. “Well, maybe one day I’ll come back and be your assistant coach, Coach.”
I smiled at him and clapped him on the shoulder.
“No way. You’re the real deal. Big-time.
” I hated how it still stung, all these years later, when I said that.
Was I still harboring the resentment for what happened so long ago—something that was, yeah, just a little bit my fault—because I was still here, in Cape Carolina?
I didn’t love thoughts like these. I liked simple.
I liked to chill out and be happy. So I took a deep breath as Drew scooped up the remaining cardboard and followed me toward the woods.
“Hey, Coach?”
“Yeah?”
“Do these woods ever creep you out?”
“These woods for sure creep me out.” Combined with the scent of never-dry, always-decaying earth under the thick canopy of trees and the constant threat of snakes, rats, or other unwelcome wildlife, it wasn’t my favorite place to be.
Even still, I, like many, many kids before and after me, had done my fair share of making out in these woods behind the gym when I was in high school despite the fact that it stank of dumpster and wet cardboard.
High school boy hormones can overcome a lot of obstacles.
“So you aren’t doing a lot of hooking up behind the dumpster?” I joked.
He laughed. “Nah. My parents would kill me. My dad says I can’t have a girlfriend, says I have to stay focused on baseball until I get that full ride to college.”
“Good advice,” I said. “Unrealistic. But good advice.”
As we got closer to the dumpster, I heard a sound it took me a minute to recognize. A soft, low mewling. “Damn it,” I said under my breath.
“What is that?” Drew asked.
“Sounds like a kitten,” I said. “Idiots are always dumping them back here.”
Maybe “always” was an exaggeration, but this would be the third time I’d fished one or more kittens out of here, gotten them fixed, and taken them to the peninsula where my family’s house and our neighbors and best family friends’, the Saxtons, houses were.
Mr. Saxton was a farmer, and he loved a barn cat.
There was plenty of room for the cats to roam, plenty of shelter, and they kept varmints away from the crops. Plus, I loved a good kitten.
As we got closer, I could hear that the noise was at least coming from the recycling, not the garbage. So that was a bonus.
“Want me to climb in there?” Drew asked.
I shook my head. “Nah. We have to protect that cannon.” The top of the bin was open, which annoyed me to no end.
If people could just close the freaking top, animals couldn’t fall in here accidentally and get trapped.
Rain wouldn’t get in the cardboard and make that smell.
Sometimes I wondered about all these supposedly educated humans I was sharing a school with.
I dropped the stack of cardboard and put my foot on the ledge, hoisting myself up high enough to see inside the recycling dumpster. Maybe I’d get lucky, and I wouldn’t have to climb all the way in.
At first glance, I’m pretty sure my brain didn’t register what I was seeing. But it must have kicked in enough that my “Holy hell!” was pretty dramatic. Because Drew dropped his cardboard and climbed up beside me.
“Oh my God!” he nearly yelled. “Coach, what do we do?”
For most of my life, I haven’t been what you would consider good in a crisis.
This was the moment that all changed.