Internal Fixation

Fiction by ​​​Gabriel Matthew Granillo 

I didn’t mean to hurt Lucy. But it’s part of the game. I’ve told her a thousand times, you
can’t block home plate. And if you’re going to stand there, between me and home plate,
between me and state championship, I don’t care who you are, I’m going right the fuck
through you. Whether you’re some dumb bitch I don’t know or my best friend since third
grade. Oh god, Lucy. Why did you have to be blocking home plate like that? I didn’t
mean to hurt you. I promise.

Hard to remember the exact details, only some. Only the important ones. Tie
game. Two outs. Full count. Runners on first and second. I’m on second, the winning
run, taking a cavalier lead, daring the pitcher to fucking try me. Her eyes underneath the
ballcap watching me, watching her. Her leg goes up and she’s into her wind up. My
cleats dig into the dirt and off I go. Crack. Line drive. Center field. The crowd is on their
feet. Mouths moving, hands clapping, but I hear only the sound of my breath
underneath my helmet. I don’t look back. I can’t. I look up instead, at Coach Rooney.
He’s giving me the signal. He’s pointing at home with his right hand, making furious
circles with his left. He’s saying something but I can’t hear him, doesn’t matter.
Rounding third I tag the base, feel that soft pillow underneath my cleat. Follow the line,
Jenna. You’re almost home now. The chalk leads me right to Lucy in her catcher’s gear.
Yellow chest pad and shin guards against her green jersey. Helmet off, frazzled bronze
hair barely staying in its ponytail, glowing in the sun. Eyes toward centerfield, glove
open, waiting. Lucy’s feet placed on either side of the foul ball line, her body in front of
home plate. You can’t do that, Lucy. How many times. But this is state championship.

Dial in. Head down. Pump the gas. My legs feel like they’re on fire. My heart is going to
burst through my chest. Boom. A car crash. I see objects flying. My helmet. Lucy’s
glove. The optic yellow ball rolls past us and disappears in a cloud of dirt and dust. My
hand touches the smooth white plate, home. I’m safe, I’m safe. I know I’m safe. The
umpire emerges from the dust, towering over our bodies like a monolith, glistening with
sweat on his bald head. He makes the call. His arms spread out and go wide. Safe.
Head throbbing, unbelievable pressure, squeezing and squeezing. Lucy is unmoving,
curled up on the ground. I see the back of her jersey. The yellow letters of her last
name, Diamond. The yellow numbers underneath, 04. Before I can reach out to touch
her back, I am picked up and thrown onto the shoulders of my teammates. They chant
my name.

Jenna, Jenna, Jenna.

And the crowd cheers. Some people gasp. Or maybe they’re yelling. At me. At
what I’ve done. Lucy is still on the ground but she’s finally moving, holding her shoulder,
gritting her teeth as coaches and players and medical staff surround her. In between
their bodies, I can see her hazel eyes. She’s crying.

Jenna, Jenna, Jenna.

Bell rings. Footsteps underneath the fluorescent lights. I think of ants marching toward
an apple that is rotting from the inside out. The voices swirl around me as I stand before
the glass trophy case in the school’s main hall. A carousel of faces drift by in the
reflection of the glass. Inside, trophies and medals, newspaper clippings and photos,
from 1952 to now. I approach the latest addition, ours, the 2005 girls’ softball state
champion. Behind the gleaming golden trophy of an open glove with a softball inside, is
our team photo. All smiles, save for me. Next to the photograph is my red jersey,
unwashed and scuffed up from my game-winning slide.

In the photo, my right hand is wrapped in a bandage, and I’m trying to remember
why.

I remember a quote Coach Castelo shared with us days before the shoot, some
baseball player named Brooks Robinson. If you're not practicing, somebody else is, he
said, and she'll be ready to take your job.

I remember Lucy’s voice on the phone the night before the shoot, her giddy glee,
wailing into the phone with news of her scholarship to Arizona State. Bloody knuckles
from punching the brick wall in the alley that night. Bubbling flesh as I douse my raw
hand in alcohol. I make a promise to myself, to my pain, as I wrap my hand in gauze, to
never feel this way again.

I remember the photographer. On the count of three, say Joe DiMaggio, he says. Flash.

I remember Coach Rooney’s arms waving me home. His wet lips, his crooked
graying teeth, spit flying from his mouth as he yells something at me. This I can’t
remember. Only empty. Sounds.

I remember perfect Lucy, standing in the sun, in front of home plate. Closer and
closer. Head down. Coach gave me the signal. Go home. Lucy was in the way. No other
option. She gets a full-ride scholarship and I get my jersey in the trophy case at
Hamilton High. Evens out, I suppose.

Thoughts interrupted by a janitor with dark eyes and sickly thin arms. He tapes a
flyer to the glass. There is to be a ceremony celebrating our state championship in the
gymnasium. All students required to be there unless instructed otherwise. The man
recognizes me and reaches his hand out. Gotta shake the hand of the young lady who
brought us home the gold, he says, noticing my black eye. He smiles, hate to see the
other girl. I place my hand into his, calloused and dry. Takes his stack of flyers and rolls
his cart of cleaning supplies down the hallway. Hums a tune to himself, life is a ball
game, he sings, until I can no longer hear him, until it is just me staring at my reflection
in the glass.

Eating fries and ketchup at Mama’s Burgers. Hadn’t realized how hungry I was
until I smelled fried potatoes and beef. Only crumbs at the bottom of the red tray basket,
oily paper on the tips of my fingers as I reach for nothing. I watch the cars on Graham
Boulevard, in the same booth Lucy and I used to sit before she moved towns. New
school. Better. Private. I feel the tear in the vinyl seating, finger the dirty cotton
underneath, rub the jagged edge of the vinyl against my index. I kick at Lucy’s shins
with the tips of my shoes, the way I used to, the way we used to play, but they are not
there. She is not there.

Cars streaming beyond the window, whispering secrets to one another, gossip,
accusations.

Dream last night. It begins moments after I collided into Lucy, except this time it’s night.
Hard to tell between the flurry of dust, but it feels like night, like midnight gloom,
underneath the white field lights. I am on the ground, my hand touching home plate. I’m
safe, I’m safe. I repeat this over and over. Emerging from the dust, I see the umpire,
helmet still on, his cold face behind the steel cage. He brings his hand to the mask and
removes it, wipes the sweat from his forehead with the red sweatband on his arm. With
his other hand he brandishes a gun, a pistol, the color of burnt coal. He aims the pistol
at my head and clicks his teeth. You’re out, honey, he says.

Bang. Pain shooting from my temple to my toes. Swirling stars colliding in a
universe of red and orange. Eternal flames. Unfathomable pain.

Suddenly. I am face down on an operating table, looking at the feet around me.
Doctors and nurses. Asking for tools, sharing their plans for the weekend. Think I’ll grill
and watch the Diamondbacks, someone says. The doctors mumble in agreement. I feel
them pulling hair from the back of my head, digging at the bullet inside of my skull.
Blood trickles down my temples and into my mouth. I try to speak but can only whimper.
I call out to my mother, my father. Lucy. I’m sorry, I say.

Blood pools into my eyes, until all I see is velvet red.

There’s a sea of static between each hollow ring. I hold the receiver up to my ear and
bite my lip. Waiting on my bed, I reread the headline of the newspaper between my
crossed legs. Lake Jabas Senior Catcher in Recovery After State Championship Injury.

A voice on the phone finally answers. Hello?

Hi, Mr. D. Can you please put Lucy on the phone.

He sighs. Jenna, he says. Let me see if she wants to talk to you.

The phone goes quiet and I bring my eyes back down to the paper, scanning
through the article, picking up only a few words here and there. Collision. Jenna
Gonzalez. Broken collar bone. Clavicle fracture. Open reduction, internal fixation. Eight-
to-ten-week recovery time, doctors say. Refused to comment.

Mr. D’s voice comes through the receiver, direct, procedural, but on the verge of
falling apart. Lucy doesn’t feel like talking at the moment, he says.

I ask him when a better time would be to call back, need to talk to Lucy, need to
let her know I didn’t mean to hurt her.

Doesn’t matter what you meant to do. You hurt my baby girl. And you won, he
says. Congrats on the big win.

Click. Dial tone in my ear.

We are each to receive a medal at the ceremony. Last in line, I watch the others saunter
up the stairs and onto the platform on center court where they are greeted by Principal
Scott, clad in a red and white letterman jacket that looks too big for her. She shakes
their hands, smiling her beaming white smile, and adorns them with their medals.
Afterward, the girls pose for photos, bringing their medals to their mouths and
pretending to take a big chomp out of them. I think of chewing metal, then glass.

Shivers, like bugs in my body. Suddenly my name is called. Hometown hero. Jenna “the
jet” Gonzalez. An eruption of sound, incomprehensible noise, a thousand wasps inside
of a steel shaft. Up the steps, Principal Scott is waiting for me. Her hand slides into
mine. She pulls me in and whispers into my ear. You’re the pride of Hamilton, she says.
She places the medal around my shoulders, its weight pulling me toward the floor, and
sends me to my place beside the other girls.

I feel a hand upon my shoulder. Coach Rooney, his bloodshot eyes looking down
at me. He smiles a crooked smile, gravestone teeth. For a girl, he says, patting my
shoulder, you’ve got some balls on you, kid. His laugh, the smell of coffee and
cigarettes.

What do you mean, I ask.

The way you went home, he says. He chews something on the inside of his
cheek and spits it out. No fear, even though I told you to stay at third.

But you waved me home. I thought you. I thought.

Trust me, kid, Coach Rooney says, Lake Jabas’s center fielder has a cannon. I
gave you the signal to slide, practically blew my voice yelling slide. But go ahead and
quote me on this one, kid. I was wrong and you were right.

Trying to remember the events before the collision. Crack. Line drive. Cleats
against dirt. Running. The taste of blood in my mouth. Look up. Coach Rooney. Is he
waving me home or telling me to stay? His arms come up. Wave me home. Please,
wave me home. Open palms on both hands. He brings them down and down and down.

Slide, he says, screams. I don’t, though. I round the bag and I follow the chalk line, Lucy
at the end of it. Oh, Lucy.

Slithered out of the gymnasium and made my way back to the trophy case, along the
way I found a helmet just too big for my head. But it should do. Standing there I can
hear the muffled sounds of the ceremony, distant cheers, microphone feedback, music,
laughter, celebration. Ten steps back, check the halls to make sure no one is watching.
Go. Converse squeaking against the floor. Don’t think, just run. Head down. Eyes
closed. Crash. Glass shatters, shimmering as the shards rain down upon the floor.
Blood trickles from my head and my arms. I grab the trophy with one hand, my jersey
with the other. Down the hallway I feel someone’s eyes. The janitor. He is standing still.
Wide dark eyes, mouth agape, little breathy noises protruding from his lips, struggling to
resemble something coherent.

I start to leave when he asks, where are you going?

I tell him I’m going home.

Sitting at home plate on the school softball field, the diamond. I draw stick figures of me
and Lucy in the dirt as I cradle the trophy, wearing my jersey. My arms are caked with
blood and dirt, feel it pulling on my skin like a clay mold.

I remember Lucy’s eighth grade birthday party. Holding hands, we slide into a pit
of multi-colored plastic balls. We laugh and do it over and over and over. The balls are
so light and colorful I want to eat them. I try a blue one. Then a green one. Then yellow.
Then red. Despite my pathetic efforts, I can’t seem to eat it. I whimper and shake the
ball. I try again. Still nothing. White teeth grinding on red plastic. I scream and chuck the
ball, hits Lucy between her eyes. Mom and Dad apologize to hers and lead me away,
Lucy’s cries growing more distant with each step.

I didn’t mean to hurt her. I promise.

Gabriel Matthew Granillo 

Gabriel Matthew Granillo's fiction and poetry have been published in both print and online journals including Flash Fiction Magazine, The Timberline Review, Superstition Review, and The Bombay Literary Magazine. His debut chapbook, The Keeper of Valuable Objects, is available through Bottlecap Press. He is a writer, editor, and photographer living in Portland, Oregon. Find him on social media: @thegoodexplainer (IG); @gabegranillo.bsky.social (BlSky).