The Baseball Card & Other Short Stories

The Baseball Card

Her math class was dull in its usual sense. Nothing to do but listen to Captain Monotone and sketch a few things. She sketched as she "listened" to her Algebra teacher, glimpsing occasionally at her, hoping that it passed off as paying a moderate amount of attention to what she was saying. She, of course, was not, but the teacher didn't know that. To ensure that she never did notice, she copied the notes like a dutiful and responsible pupil.

God, she wondered unhappily. When will she shut up?

After another twenty or so minutes, the short Algebra teacher finally finished her seemingly eternal daily lecture, and told the students to do an online question for her for the last eight minutes of class. She grabbed her computer like a "good little student" and sat at her table, pretending, yet again, to know what she was talking about.

Significant digits are important because they tell you what digits matter in a measurement and how precise the person who measured was, she typed the half-hearted response. She was sure, however, the teacher expected nothing more of anyone in the class than that kind of answer. So she decided she was content with it and tucked the computer back in its proper spot.

When she returned to her table, she realized there was still about seven minutes of class (thanks to her gloriously fast typing skills). Of course, the only thing that came to her mind for something to do was to draw, so, for what seemed like the millionth time that day, she produced a pencil from her pencil case and began to draw again. Because she had very few friends in that class, and the few she had were talking to people she had not been acquainted with yet, she decided just to sit, draw, and listen to the "fascinating" conversations of her classmates.

Suddenly, a baseball card flew past her ear and landed about five feet from her chair.

"You take it."  A kid she knew to be named Owen insisted. "I asked my bro and he said he don't want it, so you can have it." For a moment, she believed he was talking to her, but then she remembered that there was someone else sitting by her to her right. She did not like that boy any more than she liked Owen. 

The boy beside her rose from his chair to find the baseball card. He picked it up, glanced at it, and looked back at Own.

"Gee, how kind of you." The boy said sarcastically. "How much you charging for it?" The girl didn't hear a response from Owen, but there was laughter from them both, and the card flew past her again, this time landing a foot from her chair to the left.

The bell, at long last, gave a shrill toll, and the class packed and left. The teacher looked quite relieved. 

The young lady stood up, and as she was walking out the door, the memory of the card pulled at her, until she turned around and looked for it. The baseball card was still there. Cautiously, as though it was a fragile artifact of some kind, she picked it up, and tucked it safely in the pocket of her jeans before continuing on to her next class. 

* * * * * 

That day, when she got home, her mother was waiting for her, with a present sitting on the kitchen table. For a brief moment, the girl thought it was hers. Then she remembered that today was her brother's birthday. 

"I have a gift for Matthew." The girl said, giving a weak smile. Her mother returned the smile, but with a little more strength.

"Let's go visit him then." Her mother replied, still smiling. She grabbed the keys to her old blue Saturn and the girl followed quietly, fingering the card in her pocket.

* * * * *

The ride to the place her brother was seemed to take forever, but was no more than an hour. It was a dull, boring ride, and all you had to look at on the way there was farms and forests. The whole path was one incredibly lengthy dirt road, with cars being as rare as spiders in the Arctic. She just sat in silence, ignoring the radio playing old 80s music, watching the plains roll past the car window.

Her brother's place was small and cramped, with no room for furniture. It was always pitch black can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face kind of dark (the place contained no windows), and his bed lacked a mattress. It always smelled like dirt and something decaying inside his place. She didn't really like it there: it was overcrowded and eerily quiet, despite the number of residents, and was as gloomy and depressing as going to a funeral when it's dark and cloudy and rainy with black clothes and umbrellas.

* * * * *

After an hour's worth of driving, she arrived at her brother's place. Her mother opened the trunk and retrieved the pristine, perfectly wrapped present, with a black bow (Matthew had always hated bows, so it was tradition, to poke fun at him, to put a bow on all his presents) and red wrapping paper (red was his favorite color). They walked as a pair to his small place, and looked down at the gray stone that marked his "house".

"Happy birthday, Matthew." She said, tears springing into her eyes. Her mother put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze, and placed the gift in front of the gray stone. She wiped her eyes dry with a sweatshirt sleeve, and then carefully removed the baseball card from her pocket. She lifted her mother's beautifully tied bow and slid the card beneath it, letting the bow go after she was satisfied the card was secure. The bow snapped right back into place, resilient to her force. It was just as beautiful as it was before she had disturbed it. She and her mother stood there a while longer, then walked back to the Saturn, hand-in-hand. Her mother sat in the driver's seat, only now letting the tears fall. She put the keys in the ignition and revved it up, listening to the engine sputter to life. She sat beside her mother, shotgun, watching the endless gray stones roll past their car.

She and her mother drove out of the gates to the cemetery and began on their way home, leaving the present and baseball card for their dearest departed Matthew to open when he noticed they were there.