Banning is a hick town (comparatively speaking of course)

David couldn’t stand living in a small city and Banning was a small city. Founded as a stagecoach stop in the 1800’s, it had managed to keep much of its secluded charm. It was one of the few cities in Southern California that actually embraced its western history and held tight to it.

Like most teenagers, David Gray couldn’t stand living in such a backwards place, when 30 minutes away was the glamour of Palm Springs (the retreat of the rich and famous) or San Bernardino or Riverside. Anywhere seemed cooler than Banning, even though the welcome sign to the city read: “cool mountain air” most of the time it was DRY desert air – though the hills did save them from smog most days.

The WORST part of it all was having a father whom many of his friends had already rightfully pegged as a ‘loveable letch.’ If there was any attractive woman in the city that his father Lawrence Gray hadn’t kissed, David really couldn’t think who they were – unless they were new. No one else in the family seemed to mind, but it was hard for David to get past the fact his father slobbered over every pretty woman of every age in the city before he even got a chance to get to know them.

His mother seemed to hate her husband. She hardly even spent time with them because she hated seeing Larry kissing and hugging every woman in the city. Denise Gray made herself scarce whenever there was a public event – thus making it easier for Larry to kiss and hug all the women in town. Larry called her an ice queen – and if she would only show a little more affection, maybe he wouldn’t be kissing on other women. Denise called him a letch and said everyone was laughing at both of them. They were both right.

His older brother Dennis seemed to use his father’s reputation as a starting point for all his relationships. “So you kissed my father… Where’s my kiss?” The crazy thing is it worked more often than not. Dennis was well on his way to being a loveable letch. David hated catching Dennis with his girl of the month. He knew everything he needed to know about sex from watching Dennis. He knew everything not to do in a relationship by watching his break ups.

All in all, David thought his family sucked. Except Diana – his little sister. She was quiet and shy, a little round, but always there with a small smile for him. She listened, she understood. He adored her.

The annual “humiliate my family in front of the whole town” was the Fourth of July celebration where Larry would always MC. Larry had got the gig because he was the only one in town with the equipment – even the high school didn’t have a proper announcement system yet. Now it was tradition: Horrible humiliating tradition. Why he came every year to be embarrassed, David would never understand, but there he was, trying to get lost in the crowd, find some sympathetic friends…

It wasn’t all that often that new people came into town, and generally the newcomers were either ethnic minorities or poor white trash. The year the Hamilton’s came to the annual Gray family humiliation event, David was 13. He remembered every detail of it like some film he had watched over and over. From the charismatic Thomas A. Hamilton, former city councilman of Bakersfield, to his obviously pregnant but hauntingly beautiful wife Rebecca Hamilton, the Hamilton’s stuck out like a blooming bush among tumbleweeds.

None of them stuck out quite as much as their oldest. She had chestnut brown hair that glowed with red highlights in the overly bright stadium lighting. It wasn’t really her hair that caught David’s eye. It wasn’t the pretty little black ruffled dress with the huge polka dots. It was her. She glowed. From the gleam in her hazel green eyes to the million watt smile to the fearless way she walked, there was something about Elaine Hamilton that just… glowed.

David couldn’t help that his eyes kept wandering toward her. She looked more like her father than her mother. She didn’t look Hispanic at all, in fact David found himself wondering if Rebecca was really her mother. She had the same athletic build as her father, but the more he looked, the more he noticed she had her mother’s grace.

As he watched her, David could tell that she had no idea how pretty she was. It was either that she didn’t know or she didn’t care and he couldn’t imagine it being that she didn’t care. All girls wanted to be noticed, as far as David could tell, all except his sister Diana who seemed to want to melt into scenery.

But Elaine screamed several adjective without ever opening her mouth. Survivor, achiever, good. Watching her the entire evening, she never once acted coy or flirted, even if she spoke vivaciously and smiled constantly. Her smile was dazzling, even from 10 feet away.

He thought about her once or twice after the fireworks, but didn’t see her again until Summer Baseball League met for opening day. She was in the blue Rangers uniform, the logo stretched across her chest. David chuckled and laughed with the other guys, because she didn’t look like your typical tomboy. She didn’t look like a girl trying to be a guy – she looked like a girl trying to play baseball. She was pretty and even had lip-gloss on. She was on her fathers’ team and it was clear to everyone not on the rangers that she was just a daddy’s girl.

That perception of Elaine didn’t change watching her hustle around the field. She didn’t throw all that hard, though you could hardly say she threw ‘like a girl.’ She ran like a girl trying to run like a boy. Her father seemed to treat her like an adult. He was convinced she was just a daddy’s girl until she came up to bat. She was lead off hitter. It was odd to David, who ate, breathed, slept and lived baseball because it was going to be his ticket out of this hick town. He knew a lead off batter generally, statistically, got on base more often than anyone else. Either her father must be counting on a sympathy walk from either the umpire or the pitcher for the little girl surrounded by young men 13-16, all towering over her, probably outweighing her by 20 pounds. Everyone on the opposing team seemed to be smirking, but she didn’t even let the first pitch go by – she smashed a line drive to middle center and by the time the team recovered from their shock of the hit, she was on second base.

She played first base and no ball got past her no matter how badly it was thrown or how hard it was hit. She may not have been the best in the league, she was damn impressive for a tomboy, even more impressive for a pretty girl, which she was.

That year marked the year he blew any chance he thought he had with her. Her father and his had become fairly close. They jointly coached the All Stars, which Elaine had made, easily, though she rode the bench – David couldn’t figure out why, she was the best first baseman they had – but her father was a politician, even when it came to baseball.

They were in the dug out and she looked a little wan.

“You okay?” asked Roman – he seemed to be the most interested in her, though she was still oblivious.

“I have a headache,” she said with a hand over her eyes.

“Well your face is killing me,” David replied, thinking it was funny and something that may have gotten a laugh from another boy, but Elaine was most definitely not a boy and she threw him a look that made him want to crawl under a rock. It was that look that very pretty girls gave to geeks who even deigned to talk to them. That one that said “You have NO chance with me – don’t talk to me again” so he didn’t, not for a very long time.

Oh Elaine was still vivacious and friendly – she still smiled and waved at her friends. Sometimes she even said hello to him. It would have been simple to stay away from her and just let her live her life if her father and his hadn’t been so close. They coached every year together – they had the best team in the league every year and every year she was on the team with him. They had to endure barbecues, family outings, together – never really ever speaking to each other. And David had to watch his brother back Elaine against the wall, threatening to kiss her – while she always laughed and dismissed it like a game. David wanted to play that game.

Each year she got prettier and every year it was harder to endure. David did his best to throw himself into baseball. It would save him – take him away, from her, from the small city, from his family, from all of it.




Quasi autobiographical but purely fiction. Feel free to comment - i have no idea what i will do with it.