Before Your Eyes
A Short Story
by Montanna F. Wilber III
What’s
the setting? Well, everything around me feels black, but I know it’s
mid-afternoon on a cloudless Tuesday. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s Tuesday,
but I don’t think that matters. Currently I’m staring down the barrel of a .38
Special waiting for Death to swing his scythe. I suppose that seems like the
conflict, braving death and all, but it’s not. Conflict involves a protagonist
and I guess that’s me. In my story it is, anyway. And so, the conflict is not
facing death, but rather braving the question of who I am as I stand on the
edge of the cliff before it crumbles into the abyss.
My life flashes before my eyes…
I
I
used to play baseball. It was everything you might imagine it would be. Tee-ballers,
coach pitch, little league, pony league—all waiting to win their games on their
respective diamonds of differing size and population, waiting to get their turn
to bat or to catch the next fly ball so their parents can applaud their
success, and waiting to eat corndogs, hotdogs, hamburgers, and french fries
while they watch their friends play the next game. Such was the atmosphere of
my county’s youth baseball outings.
We mimicked Major League Baseball teams for name and jersey color.
My team wore green and sported yellow A’s on out caps for Oakland Athletics,
and we were playing the Baltimore Orioles. I was the catcher for our no-win
little league team. We always lost, and tonight we knew we would lose. It was
upsetting and some kids took losses harder than others, not to mention the
perfectionist parents who would scold their children for not being good enough,
or, even worse in my opinion, the parents who would tell their kids that loss
teaches them values in life. You won’t hear parents telling the same things to
cancer kids.
I guess these are things I thought about as I sat on my haunches in
front of the umpire as the next-to-bat approached. Kids around the field
chanted “here batter, batter” trying to throw the skinny boy off his game. And
that was the plan, to catch him off guard. For the two previous batters I
signaled our pitcher to throw curve balls, high balls, and low balls. So that
is what Number Six was expecting now. I signaled three fast balls in a row to
which this expert player struck out.
This was a tactic we recently discovered and employed. We would
throw curveballs and the likes to the bad hitters and straight, fast balls
unexpectedly to the good ones. It seemed to be working. At the current third
inning the Orioles were leading five to one. We managed to slow their lead. Unfortunately,
we did not have any good batters on our team. We had a mix of poor hand-eye
coordination, fly balls, and slow runners that didn’t know how to lead or play
pickle. I had bad hand-eye coordination myself.
We went up to bat and I wasn’t one of the three leadoffs, which was
all the Orioles needed to bring in the next inning, so I didn’t get to bat, but
I would sometime in the fifth inning if everything went as it had been. By that
time the Orioles scored another run and we were still stuck at one. I was
second to bat and watched the kid who scored our first and only run strike out
within four pitches. I was next.
My heart raced as per usual as I got into step behind the plate. I
scraped my feet across the ground like I saw the pros do and tapped home plate
two times with my bat. I pulled the bat over my shoulder and stared the pitcher
down. I noticed him looking at whatever sign the catcher was giving him. I
didn’t know what to expect. Here was where my hand-eye coordination came into
play. And… throw: low ball, no swing.
“Ball,” the umpire said.
I relaxed and raised the bat over my shoulder as the catcher tossed
the ball back to the pitcher, and waited for the next throw: fast ball through
the middle, no swing.
“Stee-rike one.”
Relax.
Throw: fast ball, swing, miss.
“Stee-rike two.”
I sighed but kept my head and eyes level. My heart was racing and I
tried to keep my breathing steady to no avail. Two fast balls in a row meant he
was trying to throw me off, but I swung, so he probably thought three fast
balls would be way out of the park. He was right.
Throw: fast ball, swing, hit. Way out of the park.
This was the part I forgot to tell you before. I was a terrible
batter, but I was a great runner. I ran like the wind, cowboy. It was kind of
pointless really, since it was an obvious homerun, but I heard everyone
chanting my name. Adrenaline was pouring into every part of my body for so many
reasons—the crowd, the running, the excitement of my accomplishment. It was a
small win, but a win nonetheless.
My team was telling me what a great job I had done, and at the top
of seventh inning we were tied six to six. In the end we did lose nine to
eight, but you couldn’t tell. My team’s parents crowded around their children
praising us for our comeback and how we almost beat our opposition. We lost by
a hair, but that game became the most memorable comeback of the season. It was
the most runs we’d ever had in our streak of losses. We may have lost, but it
was a victory nonetheless.
II
Before
we got married, Sarah was my high school sweetheart. She was the first and only
girl I ever went all-the-way with. I’m sort of proud of that. She’d been around
the block before and was worried I’d want to see other girls, but the way I
figured it was you don’t fix things that aren’t broken and if there’s something
better out there it doesn’t matter unless you know there is or if what you have
is bad or mediocre. That was the other thing. Sarah and I had many a good time,
but she would freak out when things settled down or got locked into patterns of
monotony.
I was only seventeen and didn’t play baseball anymore, though I
still watched it religiously. Sarah wasn’t as into the sport as I was, but she
would pick a random team to root for. When my friends and I talked sports, I
would ask her what her team of the day was and she would say White Sox, and I’d
get mad. The next day I’d ask again, and she’d say Yankees, and I’d get really
pissed. To be fair, I loved the entire sport with all its teams and every player.
But when it came to my Boston Red Sox, well there is no other Sox team and the
Yankees can go to hell.
Every once in a while, a player would come out having used drugs or
steroids, and Sarah would say, “See. This is why I don’t like baseball. It’s
full of grown men playing games like boys, bragging like men, and trying to
manlier by doing drugs and hulking out.” I would just be upset that another
good player got caught. And they were all good players, even if they weren’t
all good people.
Sarah and I didn’t fight often, and when we did it really wasn’t
all that bad. However, there was this one time when we really got into it. We
were watching a Red Sox game at my house when she got bored and decided to
strike up conversation. I didn’t mind that she did, but I didn’t respond well
to her joke.
She said, “I’m thinking about getting a Yankees tattoo on my left
breast.”
I responded with a joking intent, but was actually serious at the
same time, so maybe she saw through that. I said, “You’re not getting a tattoo
anywhere.”
She replied in anger, “I’ll get a tattoo wherever I damn well
please.”
“I didn’t mean it like tha—”
“No, don’t lie to me. You meant it whether you meant to say it or
not.”
“You know I don’t like tattoos. They are just as wonderful as any
other piece of art, but they—”
“Detract from a person’s natural beauty, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How about I stop shaving my legs? That’s natural beauty for you.”
“It’s not the same.”
“And why not?”
“Well, for one, you’re removing something rather than adding,” I
said, which was not the best wording, and I probably should have started with
my second point.
“So I should go get a breast reduction?”
“Not. The. Same.”
“Why. Not?”
“Because your hair will grow back!” I said, which didn’t help.
“You’re missing the point,” she said.
“Yeah. You’re right. What are we fighting about again?”
“You! You trying to say what I can and can’t do with my body. Just
because you love me doesn’t mean you own me.”
“I do love you,” I said.
“Don’t do that, dammit.”
“Look. Listen. I hate tattoos…”
“I know,” she started.
“Hold on,” I said. She sighed in return, but I ignored it. “I hate
tattoos. I really, really, really don’t want you to get any, but you can do
whatever you want with your body. I might not like it, but you can and I will
love you all the same.”
“I don’t want a tattoo,” she said quietly.
“I know,” I said.
“I hate you,” she said.
“No, you don’t.”
“No. I don’t.”
III
Sarah
and I did break up once, but we got married three years after that argument.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been the first thing we did out of college, but we had
a hard-enough time waiting until then. I went on to become a sports journalist
and she decided to kill eight years of her life becoming a doctor. I suppose it
was worth it since she brought home a significant amount more income than I
did.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job.
I got free tickets to games. I covered baseball, soccer, and hockey; I was
never able to get into the football culture, however. On the side, I coached a
county baseball team that won championships and had kids that made it onto
all-star teams. In my love of sports, I found a love for writing in journalism
and a love for leadership in youth athletics. As much as I loved everything
sports-related I did at the time, I applied for a job at the county high school
to be a coach and teach English. I was still waiting for an interview.
Tonight, though, I was relaxed. I
was laying in bed next to my lovely wife Sarah who was reading a book in dim
light. I was warm and comfortable as she caressed my bare back and ran her
finger through my hair, pausing only turn a page. I was almost asleep when I
heard a subtle noise come from downstairs. We had no children and no pets.
I saw up.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“Stay here,” I said. Her hand slid
from my back as I stood to go investigate.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Shhh.” All of my love for baseball and I didn’t even have a bat
lying around for defense. Not in this room, at least.
I tiptoed down the stairs and though maybe it was nothing. Maybe it
was just the motor in refrigerator kicking on. It wasn’t the air conditioning;
it was already running. Perhaps it was a dream I was falling into and just imagined
the sound. I kept going though, because, why not? I reached the bottom of the
stairs and before I could turn the corner, the silhouette of a man appeared
standing in the hallway to the kitchen. I was fairly sure there was a gun in my
face.
“Don’t speak,” said the silhouette.
I felt my eyes wide with fear and my lips unseal as if to cry, but
I made no noise. What could be done? This wasn’t a game of baseball that could
simply be won or lost. It wasn’t an argument where both contenders could come
to an agreement. This was a gun in my face. I didn’t know self-defense. Though
the thought crossed my mind, I couldn’t just swat the gun out of his hands. I
was frozen in time, and while my body screamed for me to react, I couldn’t.
Both hands. He was holding the gun with both hands. Did that mean
something? It looked like defensive. He had the advantage, but held a fearful posture.
But I was the man at the barrel’s end. Whatever hope lied in copes showing up
as my poorly introduced deus ex machina, and my wife not coming downstairs… Oh,
god, she’s going to come downstairs. My whole life behind the barrel of a
gun, in the shaking hands of a young man left to the dogs.
I said, “What kind of gun is that?”
“What?”
“Looks like a revolver.”
“Motherfucker, shut up,” he seemed to whisper. “Do you wanna get
shot? This a .38 special. From this range it will blow your fuckin’ head off.”
“Is it loaded?”
“What the fuck is wrong wi—”
“You won’t do it, kid.” These words revealed the struggle within,
pulling me apart. Act, don’t act, run. Speak, don’t speak. Yet, I spoke, “I can
tell you don’t want to do it. And I don’t want to die.”
The kid didn’t want to do it, but he was building up to it. He was
working up the nerve. I had to stop him, but his decision could be made in the
blink of an eye. A blink, and my life before my eyes. The baseball game when I
was a kid. Sarah. The moment I almost fell asleep.
Soft footsteps, life rain on a sunny day. She whispered my name
like a storm rolling in. And thunder.
BANG.
Before Your Eyes
To be brief, baseball was a huge part of my life, but I never got to
play. I enjoyed catch with my dad whenever I could manage. I watched the Red
Sox religiously and idolized every pitcher/catcher pair. I collected baseball
cards of any brand and committed all my favorite players’ RBIs to memory. But my
dad didn’t take me to baseball games because I didn’t have baseball games. And
because he and my mom were always crying too much to have fun.
I wish I got to go. I wish I got to play.
I never had a girlfriend because I’m only fourteen and bald. I won’t
have the chance to get married, have sex, or even a first kiss.
I wish I knew love. The way parents do.
And right now, I’m staring down the proverbial .38 Special, Cancer
brand, and I will die any day now. Of course, life flashing before your eyes is
just something people say. It’s the idea of reliving each decision and
experience before you go. Or maybe it’s a fight-or-flight trigger that shows you
that you have lived and still have something to live for. I’m not sure that it
happens though. Sometimes people die in an instant from a brain aneurism or a
bullet from a literal gun. I am dying from a slow and painful cancer whose name
you don’t know and whose diagnosis you don’t understand. God has been holding
me hostage to the world for their faith and prayers and now it’s time for me to
go.
There hasn’t been much of a life for me to flash back to, so I hope
this ending doesn’t upset you, but it’s the only ending I have. This has been
the fantasy I’ve dreamed throughout my plague. Perhaps this is how I would have
lived my life. I don’t really have a story to tell, so I made one up for you.
None of this was real, but I wish it was, and I hope that’s enough.
