Nine Bucks a Pound by James Bailey

Author:James Bailey [Bailey, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: baseball, baseball novels, Minor League Baseball, major league baseball, PEDs, Performance-enhancing drugs, steroids, Minnesota Twins, Sports stories, Sports novels
Publisher: James Bailey
Published: 2014-02-22T05:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

Fingers curled under the buckle of his safety belt, Del gazed out the 767’s tiny window upon the tarmac, illuminated by stands of lights much like those that towered over the diamonds on which he played. Motioning with a pair of glowing orange wands, a man in a neon vest guided them into their gate. The chime in the overhead panel triggered a volley of exploding lap belts, passengers springing into the aisles like basketball players battling for position in the paint. As he rose, Del patted the empty front pocket of his slacks, a reflexive pang racing to his gut as it had any number of times since he’d jettisoned his phone seven days earlier. It still felt a bit like he’d chopped off a hand, though he’d grown to miss it less and less each day as he embraced the isolation of island life. When he confessed to Dana, she shared several fantasies of how she would have disposed of it. In one she stuffed it into a boar’s mouth as it turned on the luau spit. Another had her tossing it out of a sightseeing helicopter into a volcano.

He missed it now, back on the mainland. As he ducked his head and stepped off the plane, Del imagined himself walking into an ambush, dozens of reporters waiting in the terminal, just beyond the security checkpoint. One quick call to Milo could dispel his fears—or allow him to seek an alternate exit.

As they started down the jetway he reached for Dana’s hand. Holding hands had been so natural in high school, when Del would swing well out of his way for the opportunity to escort her to class. Even at Central they’d often walked across campus fingers intertwined, she caressing the callus on the inside of his thumb with the baby-soft skin of her own. Somewhere along the line they had outgrown it. When she took his trembling hands in hers up in front of the church, 200 guests melted into the background, no more threatening than the bouquets of Oriental lilies adorning the ends of the pews. Like jumper cables reinvigorating a lifeless battery, her calm, dry hands in his nervous, clammy ones completed a circuit, juicing his voice just enough to reach the tiny microphone clipped to the minister’s lapel.

I, Delton, take you, Dana, to be my lawfully wedded wife, my constant friend, my faithful partner, and my love from this day forward.

Even bowed as he was, Del was conspicuous among the parade of returning honeymooners, sprouting up out of his tennis shoes like a Hawaiian-shirted gray birch. To no real purpose he wore his RayBan sunglasses perched atop his head, as he’d grown accustomed to sporting them in Hanalei. His lone concession to the drastic change in climate was his long pants, wrinkled from sitting in the bottom drawer of his bamboo dresser all week.

In the presence of God, our family, and friends, I vow to love you and care for you as I know you will love and care for me.

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