The Glove

By Peter Bowden


The boy sat on the back steps with the afternoon leaning warm against his shoulders. His glove lay in his lap, open like a small brown animal that trusted him. He worked the oil into the leather slowly, the way he had seen older boys do it, pressing his thumb deep into the pocket as if shaping the future with his hands. Somewhere down the block a ball struck a bat with a sound that traveled straight through his chest. He imagined the neighborhood team calling his name. He imagined the way the other boys would nod when he walked up, the way his glove would snap shut around a hard line drive and everyone would see that he belonged.

In his mind the games were large things. Crowds gathered on the edge of the field. Dust rose in golden clouds when he slid into second. The boys on the team laughed and slapped his back like brothers who had always been there. He pictured himself walking home afterward, the glove hanging loose from his fingers, girls noticing him from porches and bicycles slowing to watch him pass. It seemed simple enough. First the glove, then the team, then the world would know his name.

But the team he dreamed about was not much of a team at all. They lost most Saturdays and sometimes forgot the score before the last inning ended. Their uniforms were a mixture of old shirts and borrowed caps, and the field sloped just enough that a ground ball could change its mind halfway to first base. When he finally joined them, he learned the quiet truth of things. Popularity did not come marching across the diamond. What came instead were long afternoons, missed catches, laughter that rose easily even after another loss, and the strange, steady comfort of boys who kept showing up anyway.

Years later he would remember the smell of the glove more than the games themselves; the oil, the leather, the small work of his hands. He would understand that the dream had been right in one way after all. The glove had made him part of something. Not the kind that makes you famous, but the kind that teaches a boy how to stay. 

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