Never Blame the Umpire by Gene Fehler Page B

say.
    “Like it matters,” he says.
    “Well, what about Grandma Chambers?” I say. She’s not completely deaf, but she’s close to it. We all have to shout really loud for her to hear anything we say. It’s hard on her, but it’s hard on us, too, because we can’t really carry on a conversation with her. “Do you want to end up like her?”
    “I’m not playing it that loud,” he says.
    I figure this isn’t the best time to argue with him about his music. “It’s time for the movie. Mama’s doing popcorn and Dad has the movie all ready to go.”
    Ken shakes his head.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “I can’t watch it.”
    “It’s Friday night. We all watch it. Mama and Dad are waiting. You can’t disappoint Mama.”
    “I don’t want to disappoint her. But I can’t watch a movie. I can’t even watch any television.”
    I start to ask why, but I suddenly realize I haven’t seen him watching TV at all in the past week. The last time was when he walked out of the room before the movie was over a week ago.
    “But you love movies,” I say. “You love television.”
    “That was before,” he says. “I can’t watch anymore.”
    “Before what?”
    “You know.”
    “Okay. Things are different,” I say. “You don’t think I know that?”
    He just shrugs.
    “Are you just going to stay here and make me go out and tell Mama you don’t want to be with her?”
    “Tell her I’m sick.”
    “But you’re not,” I say.
    “I will be,” he says, “if I go out there and somebody dies in whatever movie we’ll be watching. Like they did in the last one.”
    Now I remember. It starts to make sense. Last week’s movie had been a funny one, but there was a scene, just a little one, not important really, where a kid who was invited to a party couldn’t go becausehis grandmother had just died. I mean, we hadn’t even met his grandmother in the movie. It’s not like it was any big, sad thing. I remember that Ken walked out right after that.
    “Every time I watch something on TV,” Ken says, “somebody dies. I never noticed before. I mean, I did, but it didn’t seem to matter. A dozen guys could get shot in just one hour and I didn’t care. Just so long as the story was exciting, that’s all I cared about. But now I know it does matter. One second a person is breathing and has his whole life ahead of him. The next minute he isn’t. It scares me too much. It’s too sad.”
    “But…” That’s as far as I get because he interrupts.
    “And I know it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen to Mama.”
    “Hurry up in there!” It’s Dad, calling from the TV room.
    “Okay!” I call back.
    “How about this?” I say. “I’ll go out and find out what we’re going to watch. If it’s something where nobody dies, will you watch? Mama needs you, now more than ever.”
    “I don’t know if I can. What if I have to walk out in the middle of the movie? You can’t be sure nobody will die.”
    “I know,” I say. “But Mama’s alive. Tonight sheis. That’s all that’s important now.”
    “I don’t know if I can.”
    “For Mama,” I say. “You have to.”
    Ken shakes his head. He takes a deep breath. Then he gets up from the bed and clicks off his music. He rubs the back of his hand across his eyes.
    The thing is, I know how Ken feels. It’s how my thoughts about the orphans in the play Annie changed after Mama got sick.
    “It better be a funny movie,” he says. “It had just better.”

Twenty-one
standing in the bleachers
    Dad’s been coming to all our baseball games. Sometimes Mama’s been too sick to come. They argue about it. Not really argue. Disagree. Dad always says he’s going to stay home with her. She needs him, he says. Mama always tells him to go to the game. She says she’ll be okay for a couple of hours.
    Mama always wins. I’m glad. I love for Dad to be at our games. I just hate it that Mama can’t come.
    Mama’s feeling better today, so she is at the