Folly by Maureen Brady

Author:Maureen Brady
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781558614154
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2016-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

Late afternoon Shirley started organizing a softball game. “Who wants to be a captain?” she went around asking. She came up with Arlaine, a Black woman who was pro-union, and Nina, a white woman who was anti. Jesse muttered to Folly that he didn’t want to see this union contest take place on the softball field. Folly shrugged and moved closer to the cluster of those who wanted to play. The captains chose: Arlaine chose the Black women and Nina chose the white. “No sense worrying,” Folly said to Jesse as she went off to cover third base when Nina lost the toss.

Mabel had stout arms and a stance that was more remarkable for staying still than for moving, and didn’t look at all like an athlete until she took up the bat, and with two women on, smacked the first home run into the picnic area beyond left field. Her teammates hooted her around the bases. This was the beginning of a trend. Two outs and the Black women hit one good grounder after another, stacking up the runs. Ten to nothing and the other side hadn’t even been up yet. “This is it,” Nina kept saying. “We’re gonna get the next one at first.”

“What you say?” Arlaine called. “We can’t hear you. Ain’t that right,” she said to her team. “We gonna stay here, batter up, all day.” Emily socked the ball straight past Gilda, the shortstop.

“Hey, come on, y’all gotta goof up sometime,” Gilda hollered with frustration. “Give us a break. Where’d y’all learn to hit so good?”

Arlaine put her hands on her hips. “Right back down there at the colored school with your cracked bats, hand-me-downs from the white school. Now you see why they never let us play against y’all? They figured, turn us loose with equal stuff, no telling when we’d ever let up on you.” Others on the Black team joined Arlaine in the heckling, including Freena.

Beth countered from the pitcher’s mound. “Hey, just a minute, Freena. Remember me? We went to the same school together.” Beth was hot and tired of pitching and sorry they didn’t have an umpire to call strikes. They had asked Jesse to be one, but he had refused and now sat under a shade tree within hearing distance. She was also disappointed and embarrassed at the ineptitude of some of her teammates, the way they laughed as the ball scooted right by them.

“Wait a minute,” Mabel said. “Just ’cause you used the same bats don’t always put you in the same ballpark.” “Yeah, okay,” Beth said, feeling her face flush red and hot. “Let’s play ball.” She gave Freena a fast pitch and Freena hit a long drive over the heads of the fielders. Freena loped around the bases, free and proud, and lifted by the cheers of her team. Finally, the next woman hit a foul pop-up and Nina got under it. The whites were up for five minutes, then back on the field. About the fourth inning, the tension broke.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.