Fast Pitch: Chapters 12–18

At the top of the fifth inning, we’re down three runs. Which isn’t insurmountable, aka “impossible to overcome,” a vocab word we learned in Mr. Bonner’s class this week.

Speaking of Mr. Bonner, he’s at this game. Watching us Firebirds get doused with crustacean-filled salt water. “Let’s go, y’all! Head in the diamond!” he shouts from the stands as we take our field positions when it’s the Crabs’ turn at bat.

“Now, I obviously don’t know the details regarding this assignment you mention, but I’m a firm believer that if it really is yours to complete, the tools and resources you need are either already at your disposal or right within your reach. You just gotta open your eyes and mind a little wider.”

Of course it makes me think of Great-Grampy JonJon and his Major League ambitions. He wouldn’t have been the first Black man in the MLB—according to my research, there were even a couple prior to Jackie Robinson. But I wonder if he could feel the fact that even receiving that fateful invitation was making history.

“Hate to put a damper on your triumph, Shenice,” he says. “But I had to take you with me because our uncle Jack...”
Oh no.

There’s a line in one—"Sees white folks can't believe I had the audacity to hope the laying of my life on the line would actually mean something”—that gets my blood boiling, but overall, it’s clear he was just recording bits of his life.

What I find myself reading over and over again, though, are five entries interspersed (gotta love those Bonner vocab words) with a bunch of other ones.

“I have a softball player at home. Shortstop. I don’t make it to many games because I spend so much time here, but her travel team had a pretty solid record this year. The Stockwood Sharks,” she says with pride, but maybe also a little bit of mockery.

“We gotta run, baby girl. Uncle Jack is being moved back to his apartment at the assisted-living facility and put in hospice. We need to make sure there are groceries and things of that nature.” Hospice. No idea what that is, but it doesn’t sound good.

“And I’ll do as you requested and put a memo in his file for all medical personnel to take note of his lucid stretches over the next twenty-four hours.”

Daddy’s preoccupied with Uncle Jack stuff, so he doesn’t question why I have him drop me off thirty minutes early.

When I was chosen—almost unanimously (I voted for Cala, and Hennessey and Khyler had made an agreement to vote for each other)—Coach had everyone tell me their reasons for choosing me.

My right shoulder hits something that causes a snap, and then there’s a searing pain in my left forearm.

“Like...my bad for hitting your hurt arm or whatever. But you’ve been acting the epitome of shady lately, and nobody’s said anything because Ms. Erica told us you have a sick uncle or something. But this is too far, and I swear, if you ever scare us like that again—”

“Practice was canceled, obviously,” Britt-Marie says with a dismissive wave.

“Well, now that we have established what Shenice Ashley Lockwood is doing here,” Britt says, “perhaps we can move on to why you were at that creepy house?” This girl is so relentless.

A few things have fallen into place—things that I hope are more divine intervention than some ancient family curse leading me into a trap that’s gonna end my batball career.

I didn’t even look around once I got inside. Just made a beeline for the door to the attic space. And once I was up there, I zeroed in on the chest.

Arms crossed, her expression just as smug as when she tricked her grandpa into buying her that expensive bat.

Except what I found was my idiot stepbro, Sebastian, engaged in an activity his father would find most unseemly were he to ever hear about it.

“This is trespassing, BM. And it’s illegal.” A patronizing male voice.

Practice over the next few days is nothing short of abysmal (definitely got that one right on this week’s vocab test). It’s so bad that halfway through day two of poor throws, missed catches, and “single-butt-cheek effort,” as Coach Nat puts it, she makes everyone toss their equipment on the pitcher’s mound and run laps around the field.

Thing is, after the robot fiasco at the old house, all this softball stuff just...doesn’t feel like it matters as much.

“Well, I’m guessing it was the same reason my daddy stopped playing. Ballplayers back then—especially Black ones—didn’t earn what the pros do now, and my presumption is that old JonJon couldn’t make a real living.”

I smack my forehead; there’s totally a charging station with retractable cords in the dugout, but even going back to charge for five minutes would add fifteen to my mission.

I plunge into the darkness...and immediately scream and drop my phone as a group of bats whirl into a frenzy near the ceiling as soon as the light shines on them.

The moment I saw light, I skedaddled.

It wasn’t until I got in Mama’s car that I removed the wrapping and revealed the shoebox-sized, smooth wooden box with a hinged lid and tarnished metal clasp.

And where it seemed like before, no one knew anything about the illustrious (thanks, Mr. Bonner) Jumpin’ JonJon Lee Lockwood, Negro Southern League legend and almost MLB player, they can certainly learn about him now: his story is officially on the internet.

And soon Hennessey and Khyler are sitting down on my left, as Britt-Marie and Laury flank my right.

I hope this isn't blasphemy (I learned that word in my language arts class. Are you impressed with me yet?), me writing in your journal. Yes, I also read it, but that's beside the point.

But suffice it to say—that's a phrase my best friend Britt-Marie uses a lot—that the sour green-with-too-much-envy white dude who tried to ruin your legacy did NOT succeed.

“There were a lot of people here in Georgia who couldn't seem to get okay with the integration of schools, but that story about Grandpa Jake and the awful thing he did to your great-grandfather made me lean in a little harder."

Most important part: guess who is being inducted into the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum after all?

I’ll stop “desecrating” this sacred book and put it back in your trunk now.