slot number four, which was his slot, and took his own bat, a black Easton aluminum his father had ordered from a catalog out of Chicago, and leaned it against the chain-link at the far end where Garrick's bat had been.
Like a trade. Like it was settled.
Garrick stood on first base and felt the blood go out of his face and down into his hands.
The next batter, Pinky Brockway, flied out to center, and the inning was over, and Garrick jogged back to the dugout and did not look at the rack. He got his glove and went out to right field and stood in the wet grass for three outs, and nobody hit anything to him, which was good, because he was not seeing the ball. He was seeing the bat in slot four.
When he came back in for the bottom of the fifth, Shug was sitting on the bench, and the bat was across his knees.
"Hey," Shug said. He said it the friendly way, the way he said everything. "Thiel. Buddy. I'm gonna use this next time up. Mine's got a dead spot. You don't mind, right?"
There were eleven boys in that dugout and Coach Amundsen at the far end with his clipboard, and Garrick would remember later that it got quiet. Not silent, because there is never silence in a dugout, there is always somebody spitting seeds or banging cleats against the steps. But quiet in the way a room gets quiet when a glass falls and everybody waits to see if it breaks.
Because they all knew. Not about the bat, not about where it came from, but about Garrick. They had all seen it. Shug taking his cuts, Shug taking his seat on the bus, Shug taking his glove that one time in the rain and leaving his own on the bench with the pocket full of water. And Garrick never once saying anything. Garrick just getting another glove, another seat, another turn. Some of them felt bad about it and some of them did not think about it at all, and a few of them, if they were honest, were glad it was Garrick and not them.
Garrick looked at the bat across Shug Kettleman's knees.
He had a speech. He had always had a speech. He had been writing it in his head since he was nine years old, lying in bed in the dark, revising it, polishing it, and in the speech he was eloquent and furious and sometimes very funny, and at the end of it Shug Kettleman sat there stunned and ashamed and the other boys cheered.