there’s lots of things you shouldn’t be listening too.”
Maria grunted loud. Roy kicked the door.
“Keep it down, don’t you know there are children around,” he shouted. It sounded a lot like his grandmother. He turned back to the boy. “You run on upstairs and put in some earplugs or iPod headphones or whatever else it is that you kids do these days. Now get.”
Good Lord, he was becoming his grandmother. This was scary. Roy needed to go back inside in his apartment and figure out a way to get his identity back. The old Roy B. Brands who was a certain shoe-in for the Hall of Fame until he wasn’t. He was walking back to his apartment when the kid said something that stopped him cold.
“What was that, son?”
“Jose Morales, you were asking about him, right?”
“Do you know him?”
“Do I? He’s my favorite second baseman!”
Roy squinted, looking the kid up and down, making sure the squirt wasn’t putting him on. It seemed like everybody else was.
“What team does he play for?”
“The St. Louis Cardinals.”
“How many home runs does he have?”
“One hundred and three lifetime as of this morning.”
“How many this season?”
“So far he’s got seventy-five. Only three more to tie Roy Brands’ record,” the kid said, lowering his voice when he said Roy’s name as if it were dirty.
“You got a problem with Roy Brands?”
“Yea, he’s a… Hey, your name is Brands. Is he like a brother or something?”
“Or something.”
“Really?” The kid’s eyes widened.
“So you think the Jose character can break m… Roy’s record.”
“Of course he can. There’s twenty more games left in the season, and Jose’s been known to hit a couple of homers in a single game.”
“How long has this Jose been playin’?”
“Six years. Four as a starter.”
“What was his home run average before that?”
“Before when?”
“This season, punk.”
“I dunno, like five or six a year. Until the end of last year, when he started nailing them.”
“So a second baseman who doesn’t even hit ten home runs in a single season starts hitting sixty the next year and nobody thinks he’s juicing. He’s gotta be.”
“He’s not, no way.” The kid shook his head, giving a confident smile. “Says he figured out a new way to hit the ball in the off season. He even does blood tests on TV in front of everybody. He’s one hundred percent clean.”
A rage flowed through Roy. “Blood tests my ass. You know he’s using some new formula they don’t know how to test for yet.”
“No, he ain’t a cheater like your brother was.”
“Say what?”
“Roy B. Brands is the biggest cheater in baseball ever.”
“Why you…”
Roy reached for the kid, but he was too quick. He ducked under Roy’s large fingers and shot up the stairs. Roy was behind him, his breasts bouncing as his feet banged on the steps, shaking the entire apartment complex. He was going to teach that brat a thing or two about respecting your elders.
“Lolo!” the kid screamed. “Lolo!”
The boy was just inches from Roy’s grasp when an apartment door opened and the kid dove in, head first, vintage Pete Rose style. A little gray haired man, not even five foot, stood in the doorway aiming a .44 Magnum.
Somehow, Roy found it within his power to stop. Like he’d ran to second and had planned to round it, but the third base coach told him to slam on the brakes.
The man rattled off a volley of words in Tagalog or whatever language he spoke. His eyes were wide, and his arms shook fiercely under the weight of the weapon. Roy held up his hands in self defense.
“Look, man. I don’t understand a word you’re sayin’. But I’ll just walk on down the stairs. Alright?”
The man kept on berating Roy, probably calling him every insult in the Pilipino language.
“Uh-huh. Sure, right. Ok. Well, I say you keep that opinion to yourself, hear,” he said, backing up with his hands in the air.
The diatribe continued, and Roy had had it. He didn’t have time for this shit. He waved the geezer off.
“Get some rest, old man.”
Roy turned to the staircase and took the first step down when a blast exploded behind him. The air pressure shifted as a bullet flew past his right ear.
“Shiiit!” Roy cried, leaping down the stairs. He turned to see nobody standing at the door. That revolver probably knocked the old man over, but Roy wasn’t going to double check.
As he made the final step to the ground floor, Carlos swung open his door. He held a sheet around his torso, but it didn’t hide his souvenir bat that was pushing through the material. In his other hand, he held a nine-millimeter. It was pointed at Roy.
“What’s going on, mamacita?”
“The old man upstairs is shooting a gun. He’s crazy.”
“Nothing to see, honey,” Maria said from the shadows. Her polished finger nailed hands grabbed Carlos from behind, pulling him back. He pushed her away while never taking his eyes off Roy.
“Is he shooting at the kids or at you?”
“Carlos, let’s get busy again,” Maria said.
“Back off, babe.” He glared back at Roy. “I have a feeling you’re causing trouble here.”
“Really, me?” Roy said, pointing at himself like a child with crumbs all over his mouth, denying he’d ever broke into a cookie jar.
“Yeah, something isn’t right about you, man. Know what I’m saying?”
Roy shrugged.
“I don’t know what it is, but I wanna find out.”
Maria came from behind and yanked off Carlos’s bed sheet. Roy turned away before he would see something that would cause him several months’ worth of self-esteem issues.
