Troy

“What a bitch,” muttered Troy Mattis, looking at his email for the last time that day as he parked his Silverado pickup at the ball field.

He hated communicating over these tiny little anger boxes, as he called them. He hopped out of the truck and stuffed the phone into his back pocket of his vintage button-fly Levis, shaking his head. He was quickly finding out that around 30 percent of coaching middle school-age kids was managing a bunch of twitchy parents. Especially this one.

What was her name?

He reached into the pickup bed and hoisted out the bag of bats and balls. As he trudged to the dugout, he grudgingly took his phone out of his back pocket again. He looked at the name on the email. Remy Dawson. Sounds fancy. Sounds pretty stuck up.

However, he had to take into consideration she was the mom of Elliot Dawson, whose pitching last year went all the way to the youth league’s national championships and had gotten him the attention of high school coaches. That emailing shrew must be doing one thing right, even if she had a bitchy attitude.

She probably just needed to get laid, he mused.

Troy plopped the bag over the fence, then returned to the truck to get batting helmets and spare mitts for anyone who might not be able to supply one for themselves.

Remy Dawson evidently was not a fan of Troy’s first mass email, informing everyone of practice and game times, rules, and the new plan to rotate all the players around the infield. Troy did not like kids this age sticking with one job to do all season. Her first response to that plan was enough to get his blood pressure rising. She had told him in no uncertain terms that Elliot was the pitcher.

Troy had then politely responded to explain that wasn’t his style of coaching.

And then this Remy woman had the nerve to reply with a threat: “Elliot will be pitching whether it is for you or for someone else.”

Troy dumped off the bag of helmets and fumed as he walked the ball diamond, reverently wiping off the bases with a small broom. He didn’t know if keeping the bases clean was a part of a coach’s job, but he made it so.

He pondered whether that Remy woman meant she would yank Elliot off his team, or if she was implying that she could get Troy fired.

Good luck with the latter, because there isn’t anyone else around who wants a volunteer side gig following in the footsteps of a championship coach.

That previous coach had sold his car dealership in Middleburg and moved to Florida. So when Troy moved to town to teach English and had put out his feelers to coach baseball, the state’s youth league snapped him up. Troy had the feeling that the speed with which he was placed with a team had a little something to do with his past. But that was OK with him, as long as nobody made a big deal out of it. “It” was something he didn’t like to talk about; he just wanted to play. If he could not play, he just wanted to coach.

As Troy watched the trail of SUVs and minivans arriving for the season’s first practice, he wished he had been prepped by that previous coach/car salesman on the ins and outs of all the players and their high-maintenance parents. He was tempted to call him up and chew him out for not warning him.

But the truth was, any warnings about the parents would not have deterred him. Troy would be on the field, for better or for worse, every second he wasn’t busy teaching English at Middleburg High School. As a single outsider who had been recruited from a much lower-wage teaching job from out of state, there wasn’t much else for Troy to do in Iowa for fun.

Troy would just have to overlook all the ridiculous adults and stay focused on the kids.

Nobody, especially not some snooty mom named Remy Dawson, was going to get into his head.

He kept his eyes focused on the kids who approached the field, introduced himself and he checked their names on the roster. He assigned each kid a fielding position as they arrived, instructing them to practice their base-throwing.

Troy largely fended off the parents by giving them a polite nod as they each introduced themselves. He did not want parents hanging around practices, and thankfully most of them took the hint and left.

Then the man himself, Elliot Dawson, arrived and Troy could not help but smile as the kid ran over and extended his hand. “Elliot? Coach Troy. I saw your pitching stats from year, congratulations. Today we’re going to start with fielding, so I want to start you at short stop and see how everybody does in all the positions.”

Elliot smiled back at him and thanked him. He quickly donned his mitt and hopped over to short stop.

Well, that was easy.

A little too easy. Because, of course, Troy could sense a presence in the bleachers. Some parent had chosen to stay to watch practice and hover like a helicopter.

Troy didn’t have to use too many brain cells to figure out it was Remy Dawson, she of the witchy emails.

He ignored the presence on that other side of the fence and went to home plate with his favorite, broken-in Louisville Slugger. He started with a few grounders to get the kids warmed up, then moved on to flies to see how they got underneath the ball and if they called it.

Still, there was that person in the stands, and he could feel her eyes boring into his back.