Call Me by My Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

up and located the ball in flight. It had already climbed higher than all the other blasts I’d hit that summer, and it was still climbing when it connected with a light tower on the other side of the fence. I heard a report like a rifle shot, and then the ball ricocheted back into the field.
    All Tater and I had to do now was touch each base and home plate and the game was over, but as he cleared third I saw something flying toward him from the direction of the pitcher’s mound. It was Curly’s glove. Tater stopped to avoid being hit, but then Curly charged and knocked him to the ground. The two of them tumbled in the grass between the field and our dugout. I left the base path and ran over to help, even though by now Coach Doucet had grabbed Curly and pulled him away.
    Curly was kicking his legs and swinging his arms and making sounds like an animal in a fight with another animal when it understands that to lose is to die. I helped Tater to his feet and saw a trail of blood at his nose. Then Curly’s father moved past us in a blur of ear hoops and jailhouse tattoos. I thought he’d come to defend his son, but instead he reared back with one of his biker boots and nailed Curly in the stomach, knocking him on his back. Until now I’d always thought I had it bad with Pops. He’d beaten me before with belts from his closet and switches from the ligustrum hedge, but I couldn’t recall ever taking a boot in the gut.
    â€œCan Rodney and me cross home plate now?” Tater asked.
    â€œGo on,” Coach Doucet said, then waved us on like a traffic cop.
    We made it across, but the thrill of what we’d done was gone. Most of our teammates, afraid to get close to Curly’s father, had already returned to the dugout, and a different excitement had come over the field. The umpires were meeting on the mound with parents of some of the Steers, and then Coach Doucet joined them. If I was hearing right, he was arguing for justice, a word I’d never heard mentioned at a baseball game before. Finally the ump broke from the group and walked over to where Tater was sitting.
    â€œYou’re suspended for the rest of the summer for fighting,” he said.
    â€œThat was Curly fighting,” Tater said.
    â€œYou’re telling me you weren’t fighting?”
    â€œThat wasn’t fighting. I was trying to get him off of me.”
    â€œYou also showboated on your way to second. They might abide that kind of behavior on the north end but not here. Get your things together and go home. That’s an order.”
    Tater turned to Coach Doucet. “But I just jumped a little when Rodney hit it.”
    â€œLet’s go,” the ump said.
    â€œFor the rest of the summer?”
    â€œOne other thing. You never brought a release from your parents when you signed up to play. Without that release you don’t qualify.” The ump worked himself out of his chest protector and removed his shin guards. Clouds of sweat soaked his black shirt, and you could smell his body odor from ten feet away. “We got rules on this side of town, and if you expect to participate, you have got to respect them,” he said. “I should’ve sent you packing weeks ago.” And now he pointed to what must’ve been an imaginary door out of the park.
    â€œWhat about Curly Trussell?” came a voice from the other side of the backstop. I didn’t have to look to know it was Mama.
    â€œCurly was provoked,” the ump said.
    â€œHe was not provoked. He started it.”
    â€œHe’s suspended for one game, and if he curses or throws his glove again, he’s done, just like this one.”
    â€œWell, you should be ashamed,” Angie said in the loudest voice yet.
    â€œI didn’t make the rules,” the ump said, “I just enforce them.” And with that he gathered up his equipment and left the field.
    The ump’s other job was working the register at a