Returning to Normal (Locked Out)

  Text copyright © 2015 by Patrick Jones

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  The images in this book are used with the permission of: © iStockphoto.com/Imagesbybarbara (young man); © iStockphoto.com/DaydreamsGirl (stone); © Maxriesgo/Dreamstime.com (prison wall) © Clearviewstock/Dreamstime.com, (prison cell).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5.

  Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jones, Patrick, 1961–

  Returning to normal / by Patrick Jones.

  pages cm. — (Locked out)

  Summary: When Xavier’s father returns to Boston after serving ten years in federal prison, tensions quickly mount and Xavier’s anger explodes on the baseball field, making it less likely that he will achieve his dream of playing in the major leagues than that he will follow his father’s path.

  ISBN 978–1–4677–5799–7 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–6183–3 (eBook)

  [1. Anger—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Baseball—Fiction. 4. Conduct of life—Fiction. 5. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J7242Ret 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014018199

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/14

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-6183-3 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-7700-1 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-7699-8 (mobi)

  To Jessica Snow and the youth outreach team at Boston Public Library, and students at Judge John J. Connelly Youth Center

  —P.J.

  1.

  SATURDAY, MAY 4 / AFTERNOON CHARLESTOWN HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL FIELD / BOSTON, MA

  “Xavier, great way to close out the game, son.” Coach Baldwin gives a pat across the numbers on my back. The casual slap doesn’t hurt at all, but what he says almost knocks the wind out of me. It’s been a long time—almost ten years—since a man’s called me son.

  “Thanks, Coach!” I slam my fist into my glove in a sideways victory punch. A few of the other guys punch my arms in congrats as they walk by.

  Coach Baldwin waits til they pass. “You’ve earned the role of closer.”

  “Thanks for trusting me not to blow it.”

  “You got to earn trust on the field and off it. Know what I mean?” Coach gives me a look.

  I nod, glancing at my uniform. Red and white for the Charlestown High Townies. It’s an ugly uniform, but not the ugliest I’ve ever worn. The blue and gray one at Eliot Juvenile Detention Center was definitely worse.

  Coach Baldwin and my counselor, Mr. Big, are about the only ones who still believe in me since I got in trouble. Mom doesn’t trust me, and Dad, well, I don’t know a thing about him anymore.

  “Great game, X-man,” Marcus says, bumping my fist. He watches games from the bench.

  “We’ll celebrate after,” I whisper. Coach has his rules, but we’ve got our own set.

  Marcus starts laughing, which always cracks me up. He’s making jokes the entire time we walk from the field to the cramped locker room. As soon as I get to my locker, I pull out my phone and text Jennie, hoping we can hook up later tonight. It’ll be like winning a double header.

  As I peel off my uniform and head for the shower, the fog of steam coming from the shower room makes it seem like I’m in a dream. I stand naked for a second and I think it can’t get any better than this. And I know I’m right because come Tuesday, everything’s going to change. Just like a closer comes into a game late to make the save, on Tuesday, Dad’s coming home in time for my last few years of school. I just wonder if he’ll make the save or blow it.

  2.

  MONDAY, MAY 5 / MORNING CHARLESTOWN APARTMENTS / BOSTON, MA

  “Xavier, you were screaming in your sleep again last night,” Mom says softly.

  I’m dressed sharp for school, gulping the hot black coffee in front of me while my mom sips cold tea. I wonder if the night screams were as loud as the wailing sirens and roaring voices of my nightmares.

  “More bad dreams?”

  “No.” I fix her with a hard stare; she blinks, all scared, and looks away, but won’t shut up.

  As mom rambles on, I scroll through messages, check scores on ESPN, and text Jennie. She’s a girl from St. Agnes I hooked up with for the first time last month, during spring break. I like that she isn’t getting clingy. I got no time for attachments. “Xavier, do you want to talk? I know you’re under a lot of pressure with your—”

  “I said, no.”

  She looks away and inspects her chewed-down nails. A text from Jennie flashes on my phone. I reply with words she won’t be hearing at her Catholic high school today. Mom’s questions feel like a hammer against my sleep-deprived skull. But when Marcus picks me up, we’ll blunt that pain before school.

  “Xavier, I’m scared too.” Mom bites down on the bottom of her chapped lip until it bleeds.

  I finish the coffee in two swallows, and then balance the white cup in my right hand. It doesn’t weigh much more than the baseball I’ll pitch at practice later today. “I’m not scared.”

  “Like I said—” Mom goes on. I wish I had a mute button for her mouth.

  I close my eyes and imagine I’m on the mound. I cock my left arm and hurl the cup from the tiny kitchen against the apartment’s heavy front door. The cup hits and breaks right below the ugly “Welcome Home” sign mom bought at Dollar Tree. Dad’s coming home tomorrow to this mess he created and then left behind ten years ago: a frightened wife and an angry son.

  3.

  MONDAY, MAY 5 / AFTERNOON CHARLESTOWN HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM

  “Xavier, wake-up!” Marcus hisses and kicks me under my desk. English 10 equals nap-time, especially since I rarely get much sleep at home, thanks to the nightmares.

  “Marcus, shut up.” I kick him back, harder than I should for my best friend.

  “Is there a problem?” Miss Williams asks like she doesn’t know. I’m always the problem.

  “No. Zero. Zip. Nothing,” I answer, which cracks Marcus up. Miss Williams, not at all.

  She does this little head shake thing and then goes back to talking about nothing I care about in the least, which could be most any of my classes. I’m borderline in all of them, lucky that Coach Baldwin is also Mr. Baldwin, my history teacher. We have an understanding that my grades in his class reflect my earned run average. If I’m pitching well, I get A’s. Not, then D’s.

  “You wanna hit the club tomorrow, X-man?” Marcus asks. The club is what Marcus calls the basement room at his crib. He lives with his grams. She lives upstairs and isn’t always aware, so he comes and goes, drinks and smokes whatever as he pleases.

  “No. Big day, remember?” I remind him yet again of the countdown clock in my head.

  “That’s right, your dad’s coming home.” He fakes a smile. He knows that I won’t hang with him as much once Dad’s home. “What’s the homecoming celebration, strippers and such?”

  I burst out laughing, earning another nasty stare from Miss Williams. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then w
hat?” If there was a party, I wouldn’t need to tell Marcus. He sniffs ‘em out.

  I don’t answer, and not because I’m getting the Williams evil-eye routine. I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I’ve imagined how the conversation should go. I’ve thought about the moment so often—when I’ll see Dad in person for the first time in over ten years—that it’s almost like it’s already happened. Like when the memory of a dream feels real. Tomorrow we’ll see if it’s really a dream coming true.

  4.

  MONDAY, MAY 5 / LATE AFTERNOON CHARLESTOWN HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL FIELD

  As practice ends, I jog over to Coach. He’s wearing the same old red Charlestown High School windbreaker he wears every day. They’ll bury him in that thing.

  “Xavier, what do you need?” Mr. Baldwin asks.

  “I have something going on at home tomorrow,” I start, looking at the ground in front of me. “I was wondering if I could miss practice. Just this once.”

  He pauses, and I’m dying a little with each second of silence. I don’t want to let him down. He saw something in me, letting me pitch varsity as a ninth grader. With one hand patting me on the back and one foot kicking me in the butt, Mr. Baldwin almost always knows the right thing to say to bring out the best in me. “Get your throwing in at lunch,” he finally says. “I’ll find my catcher’s mitt. Although, with your control so far this season, I might need a lion tamer’s net.”

  I break out a phony laugh. “Good one, skip.”

  As I head toward the locker room, I jog slowly past the bleachers. Not many people come to see our games—hardly any students, fewer parents, almost zero dads. Lots of guys on the team don’t have a dad at home. They’re either dead or took off. I guess my dad’s somewhere in the middle.

  Ten years ago, my dad got locked up. It wasn’t his first time. I’d visited him when he was in county jail, before, or so he said in one of his letters. I don’t remember it. But then he got busted on fed drug trafficking charges, and that’s ten years mandatory. He ended up in a federal pen in the middle of nowhere, Texas, while we’re here in Boston with no way to visit. Not that he wanted me to “see him that way,” whatever that means. We wrote letters at first, but I ran out stuff to say, and he did too. It’s too expensive to call, so he’s been as good as dead for six years. But tomorrow I’ll see him and we’ll start making up for lost time. I got a list of a thousand things to tell him, a hundred things to show him, fifty of my friends I want him to meet, and one thing he’s got to witness: me on the mound, throwing smoke, saving the game.

  5.

  TUESDAY, MAY 6 / AFTERNOON CHARLESTOWN APARTMENTS

  “Xavier, just be patient,” Mom says. What she’s really thinking is “you’ve waited ten years, you can wait one more hour.” Except Dad should’ve been home by now. Where is he?

  Dad told Mom he didn’t want us to wait at the station. He figured the bus would be late coming in. He’d taken the bus from Dallas to Kansas City to Chicago to NYC. I look it up on my phone and see the bus pulled into the Boston station two hours ago, but he hasn’t called. I wonder if he even remembers our number or how to use a phone.

  “I’m sure he’ll call any minute,” Mom says, trying to convince herself. It’s a sad little welcome home party. Half the people Dad used to know are inside. The other half are outside, but like Dad, they’re felons, and Mom says that means they can’t hang together. Same for relatives—it would be a felon family reunion. My two older half-brothers, Leroy and Gus, from Dad’s first marriage, got popped the same time as Dad. Except they fought back. The gun charges, along with the drug rap, kicked their mandatory sentences to thirty years. Gus is in Ohio, while Leroy’s down south someplace. I lost track and lost touch. And I just don’t care about them much.

  “Maybe something happened to the bus?” I suggest. I don’t tell Mom the bus arrived on time.

  “Maybe.” She gives a reassuring smile that I see right through.

  “Maybe it’s best not to know everything,” I say, what we should’ve said long ago. The edge of Mom’s mouth twitches like she’s trying not to react. “Like me getting locked up at Eliot. Like you and Uncle Jake.” I use finger quotes when I say “uncle.” He’s a family friend, but since Dad’s been gone, he was more than a friend to Mom. I saw his wrinkled, naked butt too many mornings.

  “I think it’s best we just try to start over,” Mom says. “The past is the past. I’m sure your Dad feels the same way. It’s time for a fresh start as a family. A fresh start that—”

  “That is ten years and two hours too late,” I say as I rip down the welcome home banner.

  6.

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 7 / MORNING CHARLESTOWN APARTMENTS

  “Xavier, it’s time for school.” Mom yells from outside my locked door. My eyes ache in the May morning sunlight. After midnight passed with no sign of Dad, I texted Marcus. He swiped his grandma’s ride and we drove around for a while. When I snuck in around three, I saw an empty wine bottle in the trash and Mom’s door closed. There was noise, but not snoring.

  “Let me sleep,” I shout back way too loud, making my head hurt. “Leave me alone.”

  “Don’t you have a game today?” Mom asks. Coach’s rule is you can’t play if you don’t go to class. Since I’m his stopper, I better get myself together. I’ll sleepwalk through school.

  I stand up and almost lose my balance when the realization hits me: Dad’s home, at last. “Is Dad awake?” I ask. Mom doesn’t answer, and she’s gone from my door when I open it. As I head into the bathroom, I see that Mom’s door is still closed, and there are tiny hairs in the sink. Dad’s. I take a quick shower to shock my system, throw on new threads, and head for the kitchen. The smell of coffee fills the air, but mainly it’s the big smile on Mom’s face that fills the small room.

  “He said he’s sorry,” Mom says as she hands me a cup of hot, black coffee.

  “What happened?” I blow on the coffee to cool it, and I remember Dad doing the same.

  She starts telling me a story about Dad seeing an old friend. Lie. He’s got none around here. The more she talks, it’s like the less she believes it. Her smile fades with each word. I interrupt to remind her about my game. “How about Dad? Do you think you two—”

  “I’ll ask him,” Mom says. “I’m sure he’ll be there if he can, but your father has lots of important things to do right away. Make appointments, find a job … You understand, right?”

  I say yes, following up her lie with my own. I gulp my coffee to keep me from talking and asking more dumb questions with dumber answers.

  7.

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 7 / LATE MORNING CHARLESTOWN HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELING OFFICE

  “Xavier, sit down please,” says the school counselor, Mr. Big. His real name is Mr. Bigatoni, but since he’s five foot four, he’s Mr. Big. Other people make fun of him, but he’s always been square with me. Especially after I got out of Eliot.

  “Yes, sir.” I sit in a chair older than I am; that’s most of Charlestown High’s furniture.

  “Miss Williams says you were sleeping in class on Monday.” He’s got his glasses resting on his shiny bald head as he reads from a paper in his hand. “She says it’s not the first time.”

  “It ain’t my fault she’s so boring,” I crack, but I get no reaction from Mr. Big.

  “You can’t sleep in class.” We should change his nickname to Mr. Obvious. “Besides, if it was just her class, then maybe you’d have a point. But other teachers, other times. What’s wrong?”

  I don’t tell him that I have nightmares at home, but when I sleep at school, everything’s calm.

  “My dad’s home.” I don’t need to tell him from where. Everybody knows. I don’t brag about my dad doing time, like some guys do, but I don’t deny it either. And I know it’s in my file someplace.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that.” Mr. Big puts down the paper. “Maybe now you can get serious about school. If you want to play pro ball, you’ll need to graduate from high school.”r />
  I smile. “’cause I’ll need to know math to count up all my millions.”

  I can tell he’s trying to stay serious. “I hope all your dreams come true. So, what are you going to do differently?”

  “Start drinking more coffee.”

  He cracks a smile. “If there’s anything I can do, you let me know, but you need to stay awake. Okay?”

  “I feel you, Mr. Big.” We do an awkward fist bump and I start heading to Miss Snitch’s class. Nobody likes a snitch, which is why I know the story about Dad meeting a friend last night is a lie. Snitches got no friends.

  8.

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 7 / AFTERNOON CHARLESTOWN HIGH SCHOOL PARKING LOT

  “Xavier, you look like a fire hydrant!’ Tio Hudson yells at me as I walk toward the team bus with Marcus. Tio’s buddies crack up, but we just keep walking. He’s right: the Townie road baseball uniforms got way too much red, even for my skinny self.

  He walks over toward me and I feel myself tense up. He’s smaller but harder than me.

  “You been back to Eliot?” Tio asks. I’m not sure why he’s talking to me.

  “No, you?”

  Tio looks me over as he considers his answer. Unlike Tio, who’s been in and out of Eliot many times, I only spent a few days. All my stuff was things that shouldn’t even be crimes, like staying out too late, smoking weed, and other garbage that don’t hurt nobody but me.

  The way Tio talks to me, acting all tough ’cause he got popped, makes me feel like I’m a fire hydrant and he’s a dog. “What’s the next uniform you wearing? Burger King?” Tio laughs. He and his friends tease everybody who went to this summer job fair in March.

  “Maybe,” I mumble.

  “If you want to make some real money, you come see me,” Tio says.

  “Everything okay? Xavier, Marcus?” Coach Baldwin just stepped off the bus. He’s got this angry tone that suggests he’s not happy with us talking to Tio. “Get on the bus. Mr. Hudson, you get stepping.”