I should have known better. I had gotten too involved. Too close. I was a cop, and that was not part of my job. But he had watched me take his mother away. I didn’t just take his mother away. His dad had died a few years back from a drug overdose. Everyone in town knew it. She was all he had left.
While I clasped the metal handcuffs around her wrists and guided her head into my car, he stood silently crying in the front yard with a scuffed-up baseball bat hanging from his hand. By the time I had her secured in my car, his tears had stopped, and his bat had fallen out of his hands.
I knew it was not my fault. She had left him alone for three days during a drug binge. But I was the one taking his mother away.
I thought about him every day. I couldn’t get him out of my head. He wasn’t the first kid that I came across in a bad situation, but it was the way he looked at me.
A month later, I checked the file. His name was Andrew, and he had been placed in foster care. I had done this job long enough to know foster care could place a roof over a kid’s head but did not always offer a life of luxury. I found the address, made up a reason to stop by, and told myself it was just follow-up.
He stared at me with those big golden-brown eyes and a baseball glove in hand.
“What’s your name?”
“Andrew.” It was so soft, it was almost a whisper.
“Do you like baseball?”
He looked down, not speaking.
Mrs. Sue, Andrew’s foster mom, answered for him. “He does, but we can’t afford to put him in a league.”
I felt guilty for asking. I should have known.
“Right.” I rubbed my chin. “Thank you for talking with me, Mrs. Sue. I’ll stop by another day.”
A few days later, I was working on a cold murder case. I noticed something new. I needed to visit an old friend, Joe. I thought Joe was hiding something.
After I showed Joe the evidence, he couldn’t deny it or even try. I had known Joe since high school. He knew he could never fool me. He might have seemed like a nice guy, but I knew who he really was.
He didn’t deny it, but he didn’t say anything. He was silent for a moment. Before I knew it, he tossed five hundred dollars on the table.
“Alex.” The tone of his voice shifted my gaze from the money to his eyes. “I want that case to be closed—now.”
I didn’t know if Joe thought we were in a mafia movie, but this was real life.
“Joe, this is murder we’re talking about. A life had been taken. You couldn’t just throw five hundred dollars at me and have the case disappear.”
Joe placed another five hundred dollars on the table. He leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, lifted his chin, and tapped one finger against the wood. “Alex,” he said, “that’s one thousand dollars.”
He paused.
Fingers tapping.
“I bet you could use a thousand every month.”
I stood. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking? Is this a bribe to look the other way?”
He stood and faced me. “Call it what you want.”
For a moment, we stared at each other. How could he ask me this? I knew the kind of person he was, but he also knew the kind of person I was. I would never take a bribe. I would never look away from a crime.
As I glared at Joe, Andrew came to mind. Handcuffs. Baseball bat. Glove. The league. I could help him. For a split second, my eyes tore away from Joe and went to the money. I could feel his smile. Not a smile. A grin. Joe was grinning as though he won. I guess he did. I grabbed the money and shoved past Joe as I left.
I closed the case after that. I signed the paperwork, buried the questions, and told myself the money was not for me. It was for Andrew. For a glove, a league fee, a season that might give him something good to hold on to.
I arrived at Mrs. Sue’s with the local baseball league’s schedule in hand. Andrew wasn’t sure about coming with me, but he knew he would get to pick out a new baseball bat, ball, and glove for the new season coming up. The car ride was silent.
He tried out a few bats, giving them a good swing. He kept looking at the prices. When I told him not to worry about the price, he shot me a stunned look and then smiled. I felt like Santa Claus, but I was sure Santa Claus didn’t do favors for criminals. Maybe I was more like Robin Hood.
On the way back to Sue’s house, he was already trying to break the glove in.
“Mr. Alex?” he asked quietly.
My heart melted. He was finally warming up to me. I kept my eyes on the road. “Yes, Andrew?”
“I don’t have anyone to practice with.”
“That’s okay. I can find time to practice with you.” I thought for a moment. “And when you start the league, you’ll probably make a lot of friends to practice with. You probably won’t even want to practice with this old man.”
That made him laugh.
When I dropped him off, Andrew stood beside the car with the glove pressed against his chest. “Can we practice tomorrow?” he asked. I looked toward the porch, where Mrs. Sue was watching us, and called out, “Would that be all right?”
“That’s fine. Y’all can practice in the park,” she said.
I waved goodbye, and Andrew waved back with the glove still on his hand.
The next day, an alert came across the radio. I did not want to make the call, but I did. I called Joe.
“There’s been a shooting at the park,” I said. The words felt wrong coming out of my mouth. “Tell me your guys had nothing to do with it.”
“You talkin’ about the kid?” Joe asked.
“Joe, what do you mean… a kid?”
“It’s okay, Alex. We looked into it. It’s fine.”
My heart started pounding.
“It was an accident. Tony lost control and shot at a guy, but he missed. The stray bullet hit a boy in the park.”
“What did you say?”
“It’s okay. As I said, we looked into it. No one is going to be looking for him. It’s just some kid in foster care.
His mom is a drug addict and in jail. No one cared about him.”
“What was his name, Joe?” I shouted, gripping the phone.
“I don’t remember…Andrew something.”
Andrew was shot in the park.
His bat was in his hand, and his ball was only a few feet away.
I picked up his bat first, then the ball. The glove I had bought him was still on his hand.
He never even had a chance to break the glove in.
A Pocketful of Stories 