Read Online Casey's Home by Jessica Minier - Free Book Online Page A

multiple awards would have been far more informative than a few
hours of debate, he simply nodded. Of course they did.
    “And
they want to open Bill’s position up to other candidates.”
    Ah,
the ax slipped down and paused a hair’s breadth from the back of his neck,
hovering there and shuddering with its own weight.
    “I
understand,” he said. And he did. You don’t go from Billy Wells, the most
respected and glorious coach in the entire collegiate system, to that nobody,
Ben McDunnough, without making sure first that’s all you’ve got. And of course,
with the school as big as it was, as popular as it was, as successful and
wealthy as it was... they would be booting him out within the week – as soon as
a new coach could be found and courted and toasted and given a car.
    “You
know that if it were up to me...” she said suddenly and then stopped, because
they both knew if it were up to her, he’d have been out long ago. Sandy Miller
needed to attract big name talent. That was her job.
    “That’s
all right,” he told her gently. “This isn’t exactly unexpected.”
    “No,”
she agreed, smoothing out some imaginary wrinkle in her chinos, “I imagine it’s
not. For now, Ben, we’d all like you to consider acting as interim coach, for
the sake of the team. The boys need to know there’s continuity, you understand.
And you know, that if it does come down to it, you can count on a sterling
reference from the school.”
    “Thanks,”
he said and rose to shake her hand, which was being offered as if it were a
consolation prize. How anyone whose entire job was hiring and firing people
could be so uncomfortable with the whole thing, he didn’t know.
    “We’ll let you know,”
she told him, and left him alone again. He looked around the small office, now
missing a few posters, Bill’s coffee cup, the bowling trophies he had won with
Edie when she was still alive. Nothing much had changed, really, in the last
three days, nor would it change much when he had gone. Picking up the cactus
and tucking it into the corner of the window sill, he gathered his coat and
turned out the light.

Deliverance
    1972
     
    There was only one time in Ben’s
youth where Billy had made anything beyond a cursory attempt to treat Ben like
the proverbial son he’d never had. They had both agreed, somehow, early on,
that this was a friendship, maybe even a mentorship. Neither ever said a word
about his father, but Ben knew that this was not going to be a case of
assistant parenting, and he was happy enough with that. His experience with a
man in the role of father never seemed worth the effort required on his part,
anyway.
    In late September, after the
Atlantics had been eliminated from the Pennant race, Billy had driven out to
the house to ask Ben’s mother if Ben could drive up with him to Chicago and see
Dick Allen and his White Sox play ball. At that point, Ben had never even been
on a real road trip, much less to see the Sox play at Comiskey. His mother was
no match for the quiet intensity of his desire and gave in before Billy had
even made it down the drive. Ben chased after the silver Corvette and barely
caught it, thumping his knuckles against the trunk as Billy was about to turn
onto the road. The older man rolled down his window and leaned out, grinning as
Ben caught his breath in the sweltering heat.
    Billy was going through one of
his periodic mustache jags, and looked a bit like Burt Reynolds in
“Deliverance,” which Ben’s mother had expressly forbidden him to see, though he
and a few buddies had snuck out one night and seen it anyway at the drive-in.
One of them had brought along a few beers and a half-smoked joint stolen from a
parent’s nightstand, and Ben had viewed the entire movie through a weakened
haze of alcohol and second-hand pot. He’d had nightmares afterward, but would
never have admitted his mistake.
    “She says it’s okay, but only for
a couple days,” he panted.
    “It’s baseball,”