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else, but he knew better than to point that out. He’d brought along a copy of the training camp’s prospects report—a detailed scouting write-up about each player—and a book called The Celestine Prophecy. It was one of the biggest hits of the ’90s, prominently displayed everywhere—particularly the airport. He was a fast reader and it was a short book, so he finished it between periods of simply staring out the window.
The guy in The Celestine Prophecy was on the trail of some kind of ancient manuscript, and he kept having these spiritual insights, like discovering it was divine to be a vegetarian and that a guy needed to know his own personal mission. It wasn’t much of a book, but Bo saw a handful of other people on the plane reading it, so he kept plugging away, waiting for it to get more interesting. Mostly, though, he kept watching out the window. It looked like a dreamland out there. Sometimes all he could see was an eternity of cotton-candy clouds. This was what heaven looked like in every movie he’d ever seen about heaven. The weather cleared at certain points and he found himself looking down at the world. The green landscape was veined by the silvery twists of rivers and streams, and crisscrossed by roads. Everything looked so tiny and neat, it was surreal, almost. Like flying over a map of the world.
The guy next to Bo was a been-there-done-that kind of businessman. However, when the flight attendants came with a cart laden with meal trays, Bo couldn’t contain himself. He’d been dying of hunger and here they were, bringing him hot food. It was a meal fit for a king—a piece of meat molded into the shape of a football, with gravy on a bed of rice, chunks of green beans on the side. A little salad in its own container with an even tinier container of salad dressing. A dinner roll and a chocolate brownie. Bo looked out the window again. This was heaven.
He all but inhaled the tray of food and downed a carton of milk. The businessman next to him glanced over. “Would you like my entrée?” he asked. “I haven’t touched it.”
“Sure, that’d be great,” Bo said. “Thanks.”
The guy handed over his foil-wrapped mystery meat and the dinner roll, too. That seemed to break the ice, because the guy asked, “Is this your first trip to New York?”
Bo nodded. “First trip to anywhere, now that you mention it.” Other than team trips for games, the farthest he’d been from home was New Orleans. Last summer, he and Stoney had driven half the night to the Big Easy, because they wanted to get laid. The evening hadn’t really worked out, though, because Stoney—never known for his smarts—couldn’t manage to convince anyone they were over twenty-one. When they finally found a club with a bouncer who looked the other way, it turned out that the phenomenally gorgeous, sexy pole dancers in skintight sequined costumes were guys. Bo still got the willies, remembering that night. They couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“Where are you staying?” the guy asked.
Bo handed him the brochure about the all-star program. It was a glossy pamphlet with pictures of lakes and forests that stayed cool even at the height of summer’s fury. “The program’s invitation only,” he told the businessman, “run by a guy who has connections to the Yankees organization.”
“You don’t say.” The guy sipped his coffee. “You must be pretty good.”
“I guess I’ll find out this summer.” At that moment, Bo had considered himself the luckiest guy in the world. He still remembered the heady feeling that anything was possible. It was the feeling he got every time he stood on the mound, his fingertips playing over the laces of the ball. Baseball had always been his passion and his salvation, even when injuries, bad timing and bad luck ruined his chances in the draft, year after year. He never gave up, though, never stopped trying, even when he was over thirty and had earned a nickname in the league—“Bad Luck Crutch.” When some brutish rookie asked him why he kept showing up, Bo had learned to grin and say, “I figure I need to be here when my luck comes around.”
And indeed, a decade late, that was exactly what had happened. Last fall, his luck had come back, triggered by a phone call from Gus Carlisle, a sports agent. There was a spot on the Yankees’ pitching staff. They were interested in pre-contract talks. Bo had been invited to the Rookie Development program this winter, and if things progressed, he’d be included in spring training and exhibition games.
Suddenly, Bo felt very close to that boy on fire. “You a baseball fan?” he asked AJ. Maybe the kid was ready to talk.
“Not really.”
Great. “Not even the Astros?”
“I don’t really follow them. Or any team. Or any player, either.”
“Well, hell.” Bo drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “What do you like to do?” He fiddled with the radio dial. “How about music? You like music? I play in a band in Avalon. We’re not that good but we have quite a time together. One of us is good—a guy named Eddie Haven.”
Bo was no virtuoso, but ever since high school, he’d played in a variety of garage bands. In the movies, a band was like a second family, but in real life, that was never the case. Every band he’d played in was as dysfunctional as his own family, if not more. Except the group he was with now, which was more about drinking beer and male bonding than about making music. The group consisted of Bo on bass and his best friend, Noah, on drums, and a local cop named Rayburn Tolley on keyboards. The real talent of the group was Eddie, on lead guitar and vocals.
A long silence stretched out. It was always a surprise to Bo when he met someone who wasn’t a baseball fan. More surprising when they didn’t have a favorite band—or song. He glanced over at AJ, then did a double take. The weak, cold light of winter flowed over his face. He held one curled fist tucked up under his chin, and he appeared to be fast asleep.
“Oh, you are scintillating, Crutch, that’s what you are,” Bo murmured. “Purely scintillating.”
Bo had to remind himself to watch the road. It was irresistible, sneaking glances at that sleeping face. Was there a resemblance? Some indelible stamp that branded this boy his? Bo couldn’t tell. He drove the rest of the way to Avalon listening to Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius on the Z4’s state-of-the-art MP3 player.
For Bo, music was never just background noise. It was a place he went in his head, like a sanctuary. Home base, where he was safe. This was something he’d invented when he was a kid, left alone in a noisy trailer park in Texas City. The air smelled of burning petroleum products from the refineries, and the sky was always a dull amber color, even at night, because the refinery never slept. Bo’s mother and brother were gone most of the time, and he’d found that music was a way to fill the dark corners of the house and drown out the sounds of the neighbors fighting, dogs barking, trucks and motorcycles coming and going.
When he was about twelve years old, Stoney gave him an electric bass and an amp. The instrument was hot, of course; everything of value Stoney brought home was hot. Bo hadn’t objected, though. Sure, stealing was wrong, but Stoney was good at it, and he only ripped off people who owed him money.
Bo had taught himself to play by ear.
Bo glanced over at AJ, wondering if the kid liked music. Hell, he wondered if AJ liked anything. This boy, who carried around half of Bo’s DNA, was a complete stranger to him. Bo harbored no romantic notion that just because they were blood relations, they were going to find some deep connection and form a meaningful, lifelong bond.
Bo’s own father had disabused him of that notion. Wiley Crutcher had married Bo’s mother, Trudy, and stuck with her only long enough to give her a name that sounded like a prosthetic device, and two large, athletic boys. Wiley had left when Bo was a baby. Bo’s only memory of the man came from an encounter that occurred when Bo was in grade school. Wiley had shown up for a Little League game; Bo had no idea why. Bo’s mother had introduced them before the game.
“This him?” Wiley had asked.
“Yes. This is Bo. Bo, this here’s your daddy.”
Bo remembered feeling those eyes, checking him out. Wiley Crutcher had taken a sip from a bottle in a bag; he’d