loving people together like the last time we were all together.”
Michael turned me to him and wrapped his arms around me. Squeezing me tight, he whispered.
“How could I forget how great it is to be with you? What a good person you are.”
Michael took his chair for the catch to the other side of the porch. We sat facing each other and before Michael said his honors he requested that I take it easy on him because he hadn’t played for awhile and that it might take some time before his muscle memory kicked in.
I took ‘Hebly’ from my pocket. ‘Hebly’ was one of many ‘catch objects’ that I’d designed. Hebly was special because it carried two faces, Michael’s cartoon face and my cartoon face. The little character sported Michael’s big feet in the form of little dangling things from the bottom of the air-fill miniature body and manicured hands represented me. I believe it was the cutest object in existence. There was no shame in the fact that I carried it with me every moment since Michael called. That object still gave me a tiny touch of the reconnect while kissing its little faces. I was reluctant to use it in a ‘catch’ because I didn’t want it to be away from me, ever. But Michael having ‘Hebly’ was ok.
After tossing the precious ‘Hebly’ into the air a few times to remind my muscles what to do with it, I lobbed it over to Michael.
Michael slowly examined ‘Hebly’ like he was seeing the object for the first time – odd, because there was only one other ‘Hebly’ created – the one I made for and gave to Michael. The original ‘two-headed’ object that carried our cartoon faces was named ‘Arec’, pronounced Eric which stood for ‘a reconnect’. I created it for Lu so that she could reconnect when we were not around to give her the real thing. Michael wanted it so I made him one of his own but I named it ‘Hebly’ – a combination of the names of our customized catch objects. His is named ‘Bubbly’ and mine is named ‘Hellie’.
Michael gave honor to me as the ‘Greater Player’ and praised my ability at the catch before he made the initial pitch. Little ‘Hebly’ came to me in sort of a lob that wobbled as it slowly reached me. Impatient, I grabbed it out of the air and sent it back to him in a fast side-arm wanting to pick up the pace. He trapped ‘Hebly’ in a ‘bread-basket’ catch and sent the object back to me without much speed. Again, I impatiently grabbed ‘Hebly’ from the air and returned it to Michael with some real pepper and spin using the side-arm again. Michael caught it but not without drama and barely held on by one of Hebly’s Michael feet, in other words, by barely a hair. Michael’s return was embarrassing with how ‘girlie’ it was. I was no longer impatient; I was beginning to get irritated.
Sending the object back to him with ‘attitude’ and more speed, I tried to engage his competitive nature and entice him into playing the way I knew he could, or at the very least make him angry. When he sent it to me again in a child-like throw, I nearly lost it and decided to try a little teasing.
“You must be Michael’s little sister because, you are for sure an imposter. The Michael I know and love knows how to play my kind of catch. Who the fuck are you?”
Michael caught the fast over-hand that I’d sent but held on to the object while he spoke.
“You scare me woman, slow down and give me a chance to get up to speed.”
Then he sent ‘Hebly’ to me in another girlie throw that worried me.
Slowing down was not in the plan and to prove it I sent little ‘Hebly’ end over end, feet and hands flying to him at a speed greater than any so far. Actually my plan was to gradually increase the velocity of my pitches until Michael got ‘up to speed’, as he put it. Again he caught the object with drama, the actions were so far from what I knew Michael to be capable of that I suddenly thought that Michael could be using that child-like behavior as a distraction building to eventually unseating me as ‘The Greater Player’. Could he be that devious? I continued with the plan to increase the speed and type of pitches for him to catch.
As I used speed and change ups to challenge him I could see him improving and creating less drama with his catches. His pitches were worse than terrible and I watched, caught the terrible pitch and returned it to him with a greater challenge than the catch before. That, lack-luster catch went on for maybe 15 minutes before I could take it no more for want of the old Michael.
“Michael I’m going to do something drastic if you don’t put your good pitches into this catch. Please challenge me, baby.”
To mirror what I wanted him to do seemed right so I pitched him an over-head fast pitch that was, even by my standards, very fast. He caught that fast pitch by accident or because I aimed for his bread-basket – I still wanted him to catch it. The object came back to me by way of a bobbled nothing pitch, I sighed deeply again for want of the old Michael, the challenging Michael, the fun Michael, then I whipped ‘Hebly’ to him in a near blur. As I let go of the object I caught the ‘tell’ in Michael’s eyes and my heart jumped for joy. He caught the blur and sent it back to me via his sweet round-house pitch that used the speed of the object to help propel it into an even faster return pitch.
I whooped for joy as I caught Michael’s lightning round-house and returned it via a spinning side-arm. Catching that pitch wasn’t easy as it rolled around in his lap until he corralled it and sent it back to me in a straight on, over-head fast pitch. The speed was impressive and I told him so but I still challenged him, that time with a slow slider to the mid-section. His return wasn’t very controlled and I had to leap to my feet to save it from hitting the opposite wall and ending the catch, God forbid. From then on I had fun like we used too. We played the catch the way the game was supposed to be played, fast and challenging.
Michael relaxed into it and began to have some fun himself. When he started adding his commentary to the pitches I knew that he was back. There was no one in the world who could make me laugh like Michael besides my sister. When Michael laughed I felt it in every fiber of my being, it was like a coddle to my soul. I wanted to go on hearing him laugh for as long as possible. We played until a bathroom break was necessary. The catch ended like so many, without fanfare or any fabulous touch just a stubbed finger and the catch was over.
The ‘jump and stand move’ was called for and before I could make the move, Michael was on his feet to claim the floor. I’d seen Michael make that move before and in doing it, he always made me laugh. I smiled anticipating what he would come up with.
“I make the ‘jump and stand’ move because I have an urgent need, a bathroom break, that qualifies, do you accept this move?”
Michael asked in his funny official voice.
“I accept.” I said, short and sweet.
As Michael got close to me I could see that he was sweating as profusely as I and also had not gotten control of his breathing. He took my hand and pulled me to my feet for a full body reconnect. Oh holy sweet reconnect, that was so good. I retrieved ‘Hebly’ and put it in my pocket; we joined hands and headed inside. Michael went to the guest room and I went into my bathroom.
“Holy-moly woman,” I said as I looked into the mirror at a woman glowing with happiness but quite tussled. After brushing my teeth and combing my hair and in general freshening up I took another look in the mirror to see what I would be presenting for Michael to look at. Once I saw Michael’s eyes still looking back at me, I decided that that was me; Michael would see me.
When I left the bathroom, Michael was standing at the door waiting for me. I wasn’t surprised to see him there as the fingers of the reconnect seem to be signaling me at a much greater distance
