He took a ball. He took another ball. He fouled one off, short and hard, into the dugout, and Rene Paquette had to duck. Two and two. The left-hander was holding his elbow. He came set. Garrick, on third, watched Shug's hands, and they did not go up. They stayed down by his back shoulder, quiet, like the hands of a man waiting for a bus.
The pitch came in. Shug swung.
It was not a home run. It was a line drive, hard, right up the middle, and it went past the left-hander's ear so fast he did not even get his glove up, and it skipped over second base and into center field, and Garrick walked home from third, actually walked the last few steps, because he wanted to watch, and it was five to five.
Keokuk won it in the eighth, on a passed ball, which was nobody's idea of a heroic ending. Rene Paquette scored from third on it and jumped on home plate with both feet like it was a trampoline. The bench emptied. There was a lot of yelling and somebody dumped the water cooler on Coach Amundsen, who stood there dripping with his hands on his hips and said, "Well, that was unnecessary," and was very clearly happier than he had been in years.
Garrick found Shug in the crowd at home plate. They did not hug. They were not hugging kind of boys. Shug put his hand out and Garrick shook it, and Shug held on a second longer than he needed to, and said, "Your hands thing. From third. That was."
"Yeah."
"Yeah," Shug said.
It was afterward, out in the gravel lot behind the backstop, that Garrick did the hardest thing he did that spring, harder than the dugout, harder than the triple. He was carrying his bat and his glove out to where his mother was waiting by the Chevette, and he saw the red Ford pickup three rows over, and Vern Kettleman standing next to it with the green notebook open on the hood. Shug was standing in front of him with his head down. Berniece was in the passenger seat. Vern was talking. Low and steady. Garrick could not hear the words. He did not need to. He had seen that shape through a kitchen window before.
He stopped walking.
He thought about his promise to his mother. Never again. You don't ever hold your tongue on my account.
He walked over.