Confession

This story is by Michael L Polzin and was part of our 2024 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

C O N F E S S I O N

 

 

 

I am unable to recall, at my advanced age, exactly when I met Antonio.  My first memory of him is an afternoon when my father and I sat in the cool bleachers along the third base line, where a solitary oak generously donated the only available shade for at least half a mile in any direction.  I was maybe ten years old, and I remember my father wore denim coveralls that day with a tank top underneath.  We came to watch my twelve-year-old brother pitch for the second time, though it was already late in the season.  The heads of several older girls and a few young mothers seemed to swivel in our direction, less interested in baseball than in my father, a tall, broad-shouldered building contractor.

I am at a loss to explain how I can still remember these details, but not many other things.  I suppose it was an eventful afternoon.  In the bottom of the first inning my brother was already in trouble.  Jordan gave up a double down the third base line, followed by two walks.  The bases were loaded when Antonio, a stout lefty, stepped into the batter’s box.  My brother’s first pitch sent him sprawling, Antonio’s plastic helmet echoing through the bleachers as it bounced off the hard clay.

“A little chin music.  No biggie.  He can still get out of this,” my father whispered.

Antonio showed some agility for a bigger kid.  He bounced up, dusted himself off, and picked up his helmet.  He said something inaudible to the umpire and our catcher popped up, into Antonio’s face, and shoved a finger into his chest.  Antonio dropped his bat and with both hands pushed back, knocking our catcher to the ground.  Both benches emptied.

The lone umpire never had a chance to gain control.  My brother charged and was among the first to reach home plate.  Antonio had picked up the wood bat again and swung wildly at him.  From the bleachers we all heard the thud as he connected with Jordan’s right arm and rib cage.  Antonio himself went down soon afterwards, disappearing under a dog pile of white uniforms.  Irrepressible screaming and dust arose from the home plate area for what seemed like an eternity.  The only four adults on the field – the umpire and three coaches – belatedly tried to pull bodies off the pile.

“The Orioles are getting a little rowdy,” the public address announcer said with a chuckle.  “Everyone please remain in the stands…  until the umpire sorts this out.”

Most everyone in the bleachers rose to their feet with a few gasps and jeers, but ultimately heeded the announcer’s admonition.  With a few tattered and soiled uniforms and tear-streaked faces, the boys settled down and order was eventually restored.  Jordan limped toward the dugout in front of us, uniform and hair disheveled, holding his right side.  Both our catcher and Antonio, the lefty, exhibiting disheveled jerseys and bloodied noses, were ejected from the game.

My father asked me to stay put while he went to check on Jordan.  A coach met him at the far end of the dugout, and I could see them talking through a chain link fence.  A few moments later Jordan emerged still holding his right side.  He was finished for the day.

In the emergency room at our local hospital Jordan was diagnosed with contusions to his arm and rib cage but nothing was broken.  His arm was placed in a sling and ice and rest were prescribed.  During the drive home I asked if he had intentionally thrown at that lefty.

“No, not intentionally.  This was only my second time pitching.  My control isn’t that good.”

I remember seeing Antonio near campus when school began in the fall.  His younger sister Marianna was my age and he used to walk her home after his own classes had ended at the junior high school a few blocks away.  One day I sat down next to Marianna in the cafeteria at lunch, introduced myself, and told her about our brothers’ confrontation on the baseball field the previous summer.  She was not present that day but said she had attended many games.  I asked her what Antonio had said to the umpire after Jordan’s wild pitch, but she had no idea.

The last time I saw Antonio alive, at a homecoming party after his release from military prison, I reminded him of that baseball game and pointedly asked what words had passed between him and the umpire.  Thinner than we remembered him, and with an occasional hollow look to his eyes, Antonio’s face suddenly erupted with a broad smile.

“I asked if he was going to throw this fucking rubber-armed joke of a pitcher out of the game.”

I laughed hysterically.  I went on to tell Antonio how proud of him I was for standing up to power the way he had.  I mentioned our letter writing campaign on his behalf directed toward every politician we could think of, about how protections for whistleblowers were critically important in a supposedly free and open society, and about how unfair prosecutions under the hundred-year-old Espionage Act seemed.  A rare, unrestrained rant on my part.  Antonio teared up a little, turned away from me at the party that night, and stepped outside.

You ask if I have any regrets, chaplain.  I can only say that when you live as long as I have, you will have a few.  When Antonio turned away that night, I almost followed him outside, onto Marianna’s beautiful redwood deck.  I should have followed my instinct.  I wish now I had left my conniving, philandering joke of a first husband for Antonio that very night.  I did leave the joke about six months later but, by that time, Antonio was long gone.

Marianna later told me Antonio decided to contact an international aid organization shortly after that party.  Years later his body was discovered near a battlefield in Syria.  No one has ever been able to discover how or why he died.  Marianna and I supported a failed attempt to rename a city park for Antonio.  Fifty years later, we were still angry about that vote.

Marianna insisted upon naming her youngest child after brother Antonio.  Her husband was supportive, having read her scrap book of media reports concerning Antonio’s disclosures, prosecution and incarceration.  The media spotlight moved away from Antonio’s case rather quickly, however, when the Pentagon Papers were published a few months later.

Antonio once testified before a congressional committee considering whistleblower protections.  Marianna had a video of those proceedings.  I could not watch without shedding a few tears.

My second husband Franklin, an aspiring writer, loosely based his second novel upon Antonio’s life and it made a little splash in the literary world.  Franklin’s work finally hit the bestseller lists with his fourth and fifth novels.  A few people went back and read Franklin’s earlier works which briefly revived Antonio’s story.  Marianna was interviewed on a local public interest news program around that time.  I sat in the small studio audience that day and, according to my husband, beamed with pride watching Marianna eloquently revive Antonio’s causes.

This is more talking, chaplain, than I have done in quite some time.

I loved Marianna’s kids as they grew up, and still do.  They call me Aunt Jenny, though I was never related to them by blood.  The wedding of eighteen-year-old Lupe, Marianna’s daughter, was one of the happiest days of our lives.  She was so lovely.

Marianna died of cancer a few years ago.  Her family, Franklin and I were with her at the end.  She lived well into her eighties, but it was still heartbreaking to watch her go.  Lupe still calls from time to time and brings her own children around.  Her boys are already very handsome and just now starting to play baseball too.

It is sad to watch loved ones pass.  We buried my beloved Franklin about two years later when pancreatic cancer took him quickly.  Two of his novels are still selling.  A few professors have included them in the curriculum.  Franklin’s work might be remembered for years to come.  I am humbled to have known, supported and loved him.

With Marianna and Franklin gone, and my brother Jordan taken by the pandemic, I suppose I am ready to depart too.  Thank you for looking in on me, chaplain, but I have never been much of a church goer.  I guess I did not appreciate being told I was born a sinner.  It is quite possible that an omnipotent god awaits, but I suspect that upon my death I will simply cease to exist.  With all these aches and pains, I am fine with that.

I left my dog Rosie at a shelter across town.  If I never leave this hospital, please find a good home for her, will you chaplain?