Chapter 15
Friday, April 30, 1999
"Wake up, Ethan," I had a dream.
Ethan turned his head and saw Brian Sun Easlon holding a catchers mitt and a baseball in the lit hallway.
"Huh?" asked Ethan, half-asleep in an empty bed.
"Eat a quick breakfast and let's go!"
Ethan did as he was ordered. Brian drank coffee impatiently as Ethan gulped down three eggs and two biscuits.
When they were in the meadow behind Momma Easlon's house, soft tossing the ball, Brian spoke, "I heard how angry you were about everything out there in suburbia, and I realized how we can get your ass to be the number one pitcher."
"How's that?"
"Well if memory serves," the ball's constant relay did nothing to break up the conversation. "You were the number one clutch pitcher, always got the tight spots because of your focus."
"Yeah, my focus is intense."
"Cool, well let me know when you're warm."
After a half-hour of soft tossing and ten minutes of long tossing, Ethan said he was ready to start pitching.
Brian walked over to Ethan.
"Sit down, cross-legged."
Ethan did as he was told.
"Now imagine that the source of all your problems is one man. Close your eyes. One man, he's the reason everything is beyond your fucking control. Do you see him?"
After a few minutes, Atwood saw the dark and sinister face of Leroy Governs, a black, crack dealer Ethan had killed in a botched heist. He saw the man pull his gun on Ethan as he walked down Washington, saw the tint of the street light off the black man's shiny automatic, pistol, saw Leroy Governs head explode and felt the rush of his own feet as he ran away. Then, the scene dissolved and Steven Carter's little porcelain, fragile face stared Ethan straight down his mind's eye. The little blond man had a rifle in his right hand and a smile on his face.
"I see him," said Ethan.
"Great, now see him in my mitt."
Ethan threw pretty hard for his first day of throwing in a little less than seven months. He saw Carter's face and nailed it every time. His curve ball became a bomb dropped on Steven's head; his fastball was a laser beam shooting through Steven Carter's face and his change up was a hand grenade, taking the legs out of the weak bastard. Ethan didn't dare try his slider this early in practice (he had trouble controlling it).
They practiced until lunch, when Ethan went in and ate with the family.
"How you feeling?" asked Momma Easlon after they ate and smoked a large joint.
"Like I'm ready to go back to that damn county and conquer the world," Ethan said.
"Took a lot less time than you thought, huh Bright?" asked Momma Easlon as Star ran upstairs to hide her tears.
"This place just saves my soul," Ethan said. "And thanks to Brian's dream, I'm pretty sure there won't be one person throwing harder than me in all of Legion ball this summer."
"What dream?" asked Momma Easlon.
"I had a dream that Ethan hit some crazy murderer in the head with a baseball," Brian shrugged. "The dude's head split open like a melon hit with a five pound sledge and I just figured, you know, damn, all he has to do is visualize."
"Well, Ethan," come back soon, and bring that girlfriend of yours you never talked about."
"How did you-"
"Wise old women know," she hugged him. "Don't worry about Star, now, she was just another part of your healing process. She's wanted you for years. That girlfriend back home, though, you must miss her a lot."
"How could you tell?"
"Oh, us hippies and our aura searching. Your aura looks, well, incomplete."
"I love you all," Ethan said and hugged Momma Easlon before running up the stairs.
"Star," he said when he found her room. "Mary."
She was face down on her bed, sobbing into her pillow.
"I want to thank you. I want to tell you-"
"Don't want, Ethan, just do" she yelled as she rose quickly, swinging her legs to sit up and face her departing guest. "You got your cure. You got me. I got you. We did it and we did it quickly, so be happy."
She walked over and embraced him.
"I'm happy for you," she said softly.
"I love you, Sister. I love you all."
"I know," she said. "I know."
Brian dropped Ethan off at LSD High School's senior parking lot.
"Don't worry about these people, Man," said Brian, waving his hand at the school and, Ethan thought, probably the entire county. "They're just all going through a phase."
Ethan hugged Brian, thanked him then walked back into school.
"Remember," Brian yelled as he pulled away. "You're an Easlon by association and you are free."
Deborah Van Klein was happy it was Friday. School would end for seniors in two more weeks and it was Friday. And that, she thought, is all I really have going for me.
After the bell rang, she gathered her belongings, put them in her book bag, then bumped right into the chest of Ethan Lee.
"Ethan!"
"Baby."
They embraced and felt complete.