David Shapiro's Pick:
"This story was gritty and real in its detail, a brilliantly drawn portrait of a girl, a place and a way of life."
Dolorita, full of sorrows, could throw the ball as hard as any boy. Her hair tucked up under her soiled Cubs cap, wearing her oversized Sammy Sosa jersey, torn and stained from when it belonged to her older brother Raul (who now lived off island), the spinning bouncing ball heading her direction, moving almost in slow motion once she had her eyes on it. She would dive to her right at second, and, on her knees in the playground's sandy infield dirt, throw out a boy running to first. The boys would look at her with hard, angry looks passed down from their fathers. Playing with a girl. They could not deny, though, that she was good, and it was always hard to field enough players, and she was there every day.
Tourists — americanos — would sometimes walk by, and, knowing of the tales of baseball prowess, would stop and watch. The boys, wearing tattered clothes and shoes breaking at the seams, would dive, throw, swing, run a bit harder, in case the tourists were scouts. But they never were. You will know when they are, said the older boys, world wise at 22. The scouts were sharks, patrolling the perimeters of the fields and lots, taking pictures, taking notes, typing on their laptops. Legend has it that once, they walked up, watched for a few minutes then signed a 14-year-old shortstop who ran like a jaguar and whose name nobody can seem to remember. The older boys — those whose dreams had fizzled in the frying egg sun — were full of stories. They grew up, let their bodies go, gave up, spent their lives recounting how they once played pickup with Tony Fernandez, Alfonso Soriano, or Sammy Sosa, until one day they died drinking the rum they helped make.
A screaming shot to her left. Dolorita dove, hit the ground, heard the ball sizzle by into the outfield. Her weakness: going left. Her lip and tongue full of sand, but no ball in the glove. She stood, bit her lip, threw down her glove, kicking up a small storm of dust. They played a few more innings before rains came. Two solid singles to left. Three more groundballs, three more putouts. A running, over the shoulder catch of a flyball. Dolorita was full of gems, but she obsessed over the one she missed.
At dinner, her father sat at the head of the table, a king surveying his subjects; her mother, his queen demure in his presence, at his right. Her younger brother Pedro sat to his left. He asked Pedro, as he always did, how he did playing baseball. Just nine, Pedro was already determined to be a catcher, his face pudgy like catcher's mitt padding.
Her father didn't ask Dolorita. He never did. Baseball, her mother told her when she was seven, was for men. Simple, defeatist terms — this was how she heard her mother. Several months before, on her twelfth birthday, her mother told her, you are almost a woman, her tone indicating her gender was a curse.
At night, Dolorita was full of waking dreams. Standing on the fields of Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium. Cheering crowds, sizzling grounders, flyballs hit into the clouds. Racial barriers had been broken — why not gender? Some nights, she would lie awake, thinking about getting a hit off Pedro Martinez, hitting the home run that wins the World Series.
When she was eight, her mother told her about her name. The world, for women, has always been full of sorrows. You will be lucky if you find a kind man who loves you, if you don't die birthing children, if you have respectful children who will someday care for themselves. Beyond that, the world was not yours. It spits on you. It makes you its mule. This is something you need to know. Once you bleed, grow breasts, become a woman, you will know. You will know your mama was right.
Her mother's defeatism made her play harder. Run a touch faster, the burn in her knees hotter. Throw a notch harder, the pinch in her elbow squeezing harder. Swing a bit stronger, the weakness at the end of her biceps rising to the surface.
When a hurricane came, Dolorita was full of fear. She'd heard the tales of past storms wiping out hundreds, even thousands, of her fellow islanders. How many fastball pitchers, acrobat shortstops, five-tool outfielders were swept away in the winds. She imagined the eye swirling above Hispaniola, a random laser beam picking off people. The winds swelled, the rains battered the house. Dolorita kneeled and prayed that God would be merciful.
When she was fifteen, she had her first boyfriend, Roberto. She still played ball, though only when there weren't enough players, and ended up in right field. She grew lazy out there fielding only the occasional popup, squatting down like a catcher, watching the rest of the game happen before her. One day, Roberto walked onto the field, grabbed her by the elbow forcing her to leave. She pulled away. He grabbed her again. She slapped him, then he slapped her harder, knocking her to the ground. Dolorita, full of pain, walked away without looking at anyone.
One day, Dolorita no longer wanted to play ball. She spent her time working a grocery checkout, sleeping in her boyfriend's bed, wearing the fading Sammy Sosa jersey at night. She watched her brother sign with the Dodgers when he was sixteen, then crush both of his legs in a dirt bike accident two days later. At his bedside, she heard her mother say, this is the way of the world, Pedrito, as she glanced at Dolorita, who was full of anger, clenching her fists staring into those eyes, and whose stomach unbeknownst to her contained a pinpoint of life.
The world, her mother said, is full of sorrows.
Christian Bell lives near Baltimore, Maryland. His fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, JMWW Quarterly, Pindeldyboz, Skive Magazine, Tattoo Highway, Why Vandalism?, flashquake, and Wigleaf.