Jim Hughes

Can of Corn

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

I arrive for a slow-pitch, twenty-somethings, city-league softball game. Our manager, Frederick the Great, advances on me and yells about my chronic tardiness, which he regards as my fatal flaw. Indeed, he appears about to throttle me.

“But the game hasn’t started,” I object.

“Two more minutes, Riley. Two more minutes and we would have had to forfeit.”

“The rulebook says you can play with just two outfielders.”

“You’ve said that before. I haven’t looked over the rulebook, but I think you made that up so we can get by with eight players until it’s convenient for you to show up.”

“I’m here,” I snap. “That makes nine. Let’s play ball.”

“Ever hear of warming up?”

“I’m warmed up. Your obsession with punctuality even makes me hot.”

“Riley, you live across the street.”

“You going to bench him for this game, like you threatened last week?” asks the umpire, who’s just walked up but is familiar with our chronic conflict. “You can play with two outfielders.”

Fred goes quiet, as if daring me to say I told you so. Or maybe he’s gathering his thoughts. He’s not as quick of mind as people in their twenties. Why, he must be forty something.

“Much as I’d like to sit him,” Fred says to the umpire, “we wouldn’t have a chance with only eight players. I’d rather forfeit.”

“It’s not whether you win or lose,” I pipe up, “it’s the thump of the ball, the crack of the bat, the jeers of the crowd, the sinus attacks, the—”

“Riley, go play right field,” Fred mutters, waving me off.

Usually, I play shortstop. By assigning me right field, Fred is relegating me to a boring position, because few balls are hit out there. And that’s because, though left handers tend to hit to right field, there are usually way fewer left handers on a team than right handers.

In short, Fred is sending me into exile.

But I could use a rest. Things haven’t been going well between me and Chili Pepper. Her real name is Emma. I call her Chili Pepper because of her red hair, but nobody thinks the color is natural. “Too bright, almost neon,” they say. “She could change the color tomorrow. Then the name wouldn’t make sense.” I’ve made a close study of all the hair on her body and can vouch the color is natural.

Last night, Chili Pepper and I argued into the early hours of the morning. She thinks I ought to pay at least half of our household expenses, and because I don’t pay my share, she considers me a deadbeat or a loser. I know I’m not a deadbeat, and the things I’ve failed at haven’t been important to me. It’s too early, I tell her, to call me a loser because I haven’t even figured out what big thing, such as a vocation, I’m going to fail at.

Speaking of failure, I have the wrong softball glove for catching fly balls, should any come in my direction. It’s an infield glove (first baseman’s excepted), which is smaller and hasn’t the big pocket of an outfield glove. How humiliating if I drop fly balls, especially easy ones, those called “cans of corn.” I had an outfield glove until I lost it, but I still have access to one. It belongs to Chili Pepper, who’s a center fielder for her women’s team. But the glove is across the street.

I tell Chili Pepper I’d pay my share if I had the money. She asks me why I don’t have the money. I hate it when she asks me these same questions in the same order, questions she already has answers for. “I can’t hold down a job,” I mumble. I always mumble until I get my footing. “And why can’t you hold down a job?” she asks. “Because I’m unreliable,” I answer, my enunciation improving. I don’t wait for the next question. “I’m unreliable,” I intone, “because I’m usually late.” She motions for me to continue, but here I’ve learned to balk because I don’t know why I’m usually late and I’m not sure I want to know.

The game. I must pay attention to the game, no matter how little there is for me to do out here. I try not to look bored. Blowing dandelion seeds and hunting snakes and gophers are sure signs. I look longingly at the gate at the right corner of the ball field through which I could slip away. No, even if there’s little action, they’ll notice I’m not here. I turn around. “Good pitch!” I shout. “Way to hang it in there!”

Moti, our center fielder, yells at me that our pitcher is only warming up.

“Me, too!” I shout back.

Actually, I can’t see much of anything because the late afternoon sun is in my eyes. Damn, I don’t have my sunglasses. I wouldn’t need them if I were playing shortstop, because balls hit to me would be mostly on the ground. Besides, on this field the shortstop faces southwest. Here in right field, I’m facing directly west.

I squint, trying to make out who our pitcher is. He’s not Roger, our regular. He must be a substitute. I’ll introduce myself when we get off the field and into the dugout, provided we get three outs before they score ten runs and mercifully invoke the “slaughter rule” to end the game. Not that it happens often, but with our team it’s not once in a blue moon either.

I tug the brim of my hat down over my eyes, but now I can see only the grass around my feet. I push the brim back up.

“Moti, help me out if I lose the ball in the sun,” I call out.

“I’ll give you the ball’s coordinates, trajectory, and speed,” he calls back. “And I’ll let you know if it’s about to hit you on the head. Hey, we’ve got a batter up.”

“Is he a lefty?”

“A righty,” Moti answers.

The ball shouldn’t be coming my way, but you never know, especially with lead-off hitters, who tend to be sneaky. I know because I’m one of them. They’ll do anything to get on base—bunt, walk, get hit by a pitch… No, scratch that one. The ball is pitched very slowly. Get hit by a pitch, and the umpire will laugh at you and call it a strike, as if you were a bowling pin. Sometimes a right hander will swing “inside-out,” chipping the ball over the first baseman’s head into right field. If I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t hustle in, the hitter could reach second base. Imagine how Fred would feel about that.

I hear a solid crack of the bat, then a pop that sounds like someone’s opened a bottle of champagne, but I can’t locate the ball. I look over at Moti to see if I can get a clue where the ball has been hit by how he’s reacting. He’s racing in, so I run after him, thinking the ball has been hit in his direction, and if it gets by him, I’ll be there to back him up. From here, the sun doesn’t blind me, and I’m surprised to see that everybody on our team is racing in and the other team’s dugout is clearing. Are we having a brawl? No, everyone is quiet. They’ve mingled, forming a circle around the pitcher’s mound. Our pitcher, I now see, is flat on his back, his hands covering his face, blood streaming through his fingers and down both cheeks. He’s moaning. “That ball hit him square in the face,” I hear someone say. “Rocket speed.” The umpire and the two managers kneel around him, telling us to stay back.

But a player on the other team steps forward. “I’m a medical student,” he explains.

“Shouldn’t we call 911?” someone asks.

“Let’s let the doc have a look at him first,” says Fred.

I realize this is my chance to get Chili Pepper’s outfield glove and my dark glasses. It will only take a few minutes.

I creep away, using the exit near the backstop. Once outside the ball field, I bolt into the street. A bicycle rider veers to avoid me but loses control. He and his bike crash onto the pavement. I’d stay and commiserate with him, but I haven’t time, and he looks so put out, it occurs to me that he may blame me, rather than the sun’s glare, for his accident. “Devil of a sun,” I say to him, then hurry across the street and up to my apartment.

When I open the door, Chili Pepper is standing before me with her coat on. Startled, we each put our hands to our hearts.

“Why aren’t you at the hospital?” I ask. Chili Pepper is a nursing trainee and currently works as a nurse’s aide, a CPR instructor, and a phlebotomist, the last allowing her, I tease, to shoot people and suck their blood. These jobs pay the rent and household expenses and put me to shame.

“Aren’t you playing a game?” she asks.

“I am,” I answer. Distracted by what she’s holding, I ask, “Why the suitcase?”

“Sally called to say she and Gilbert had a huge fight. Now he says he needs a few days away to figure things out. I’m going to stay with her while she does a bit of figuring herself. I left you a note on the kitchen counter. You don’t have to read it. I told you the same thing I wrote.”

I’m not fond of Sally, nor is Sally fond of me. She puts ideas into Chili Pepper’s head that make her suspicious of me. In turn, I try to put ideas into Chili Pepper’s head that make her suspicious of Sally. But Sally is much better at it, and I come out on the losing end. Maybe not always. Chili Pepper has a good head on her shoulders. She can tell the difference between truth and bullshit.

“Care to elaborate?” I ask.

“I don’t know much,” says Chili Pepper. “Just that a more or less happy couple can have ‘irreconcilable differences,’ as Sally put it.”

This might be a ruse. Gilbert wouldn’t break up with Sally, a divorce lawyer, because she’d take him to the cleaners. Is Sally organizing another retreat for unhappy wives, drumming up business? Chili Pepper is not an unhappy wife, but at times she is an unhappy partner. Maybe Sally includes would-be wives on these retreats—partners, fiancés, lovers. But Chili Pepper and I aren’t irreconcilable. We reconcile most every night with lovemaking.

Chili Pepper snaps her fingers. “You’re doing that comatose thing again,” she says.

“I was thinking.”

“Aren’t you concerned about the game?”

The game! I’ve got to get back to the game. “Our pitcher got hit in the face by a line drive.”

“Roger?”

“No. You don’t know him. I don’t know him. I’m not sure Fred knows him.”

“I should go over there and lend a hand,” she says.

“No need. A medical student from the other team is checking him out.”

“Did Fred call 911?”

I shake my head. “He wouldn’t want paramedics taking over for him. They might cart the guy away. Fred will do whatever it takes to keep him in the game. He doesn’t want to forfeit.”

“You can play with two outfielders,” says Chili Pepper.

I can’t help but smile. Word has gotten around, umpires and now women’s teams citing the rule. Might it really exist? No one reads the rulebook. “Fred thinks we’ll lose if we play with eight players,” I explain.

“Oh, Frederick! There are worse things than losing.”

“Later, will you write down what they are?” I ask. “I can use them when we get into our next argument about me being a loser.”

She looks at me with a hint of compassion, way more than she gave me last night. “I got a little carried away,” she concedes.

“I’m not a deadbeat,” I say emphatically.

“No, you just don’t contribute your share of our expenses. What would you call such a person—a bum, a freeloader, a leech?”

I mumble that those are Sally’s labels.

“What?”

“Those names are sinister,” I enunciate. “I’m not a bad guy, just unemployed, which makes me a pauper. That’s what I am: a pauper. But I’m not a devotee of pauperism. I want a job. More than that, I want to hold onto a job so I can pay you the money I owe; a freeloader doesn’t want to do that.”

“How are you going to hold down a job?” Chili Pepper asks.

“By changing my ways.”

Her head tilts and her eyes squint.

I persevere, even in the face of her blatant skepticism. “Instead of unreliable, I’ll be someone you can count on. I just have to want to change. For starters, I’ll stop being late. I’ll be on time or even early. It’ll be easy.”

“‘Easy,’ you say?”

“Can of corn. How hard can it be to set an alarm clock?”

Her jaw drops and her eyes widen. She appears…flabbergasted.

“I’m serious,” I say. “I won’t have the sort of alarm you can sleep through. I’ll be shocked awake by the radio commentary of a right-wing newscaster. Speaking of alarms, I have to go. I shouldn’t be late for the game. It would be a poor beginning of my new way of being.”

“Why are you here, Riley?”

“I need to borrow your glove. I’m in exile again, courtesy of Frederick the Great.”

Shaking her head, Chili Pepper gives an almost imperceptible smile. “You’re going to develop into a fine right fielder.”

My eyes shift to her suitcase.

“I don’t have a game until next week,” she says. “The glove’s still in the closet. Just don’t lose it.”

She didn’t have to say that last part, but she does every time she lends me her glove. I don’t need reminders that I lost my outfielder’s glove, an example, she says, of my losing ways, my unreliability. I don’t retort. Instead, I head for the closet. Better to drop the subject. It would be even better, I guess, if I bought an outfield glove for myself. But they’re expensive. Maybe a secondhand glove…

“Bye, Riley,” she calls out.

I rush back and give her a kiss. Her lips are amicable but not inviting, even as I try to tunnel in. “Oh, one thing,” I say. “There may be an injured bicyclist in the street. If so, don’t give him my name.”

“Riley! What have you done?”

“It wasn’t my fault! The sun was in his eyes. It blinded him and made him crash. He nearly hit me! But I got the feeling he may blame me for his accident. I didn’t have time to put things right with him.” She nods. But it’s not a sympathetic nod; it’s a critical nod, one of assessment. “He wasn’t badly hurt,” I say in my defense, then mumble, “far as I could tell.”

“I’ll check,” she says, as she goes out, shutting the door behind her.

I stare at the door. There’s something ominous about it. It holds my gaze, as if it’s staring back. Does it represent something? Has Chili Pepper shut the door on our relationship? At least, she didn’t slam it shut. Don’t get crazy, I caution myself. All she did was shut the door, a fact, not a metaphor.

But I hurry out to catch up with her and clarify what the hell the door is. Oops, I forgot her softball glove. I run to the closet, grab it, and dash after her. I’ll ask outright: Are you coming back? Idiot, that’s not the question! Of course, she’s coming back. She pays the rent. This is her place. I’ll ask instead: Are you coming back to me? Oh, shit! Am I about to be evicted?

Outside, I’m surprised at how dark it’s gotten. The sun has set, and the ball field is lit. No need for the dark glasses that, in any case, had slipped my mind. Uh-oh, the game has restarted. Chili Pepper is gone. The bicyclist, too. There’s nothing to hold me back. Except Fred. Probably he’s already booted me off the team.

Looking both ways, I dart across the street and up to the wire fence along the first-base line. Fred has done some shuffling. Antonio, who was playing third base, is the new pitcher. Earl, who was catching, is now playing third, and the catcher… Is that the battered pitcher? Unbelievable! Chili Pepper wouldn’t approve; she’d have taken him to emergency. At least now he’s wearing a mask to protect his face.

Look at this! We’re playing with two outfielders. Zeke, the left fielder, has moved to left-center, and Moti is now in right-center. But didn’t Fred say he’d rather forfeit than lose by playing with eight? Forfeiting is losing, but the game hasn’t been played, so it hasn’t been lost, except in a technical sense. Maybe he figured I’d be back—late, as usual—and could join in. No,

that would mean he counted on me, which he never would.

I hurry up the street. At the gate that opens onto the corner of the ballpark in right field, I slink inside, careful not to clang metal against metal. I creep down the right-field foul line until I’m across from Moti. Cupping my mouth, I call out his name. He turns, spots me, and grins, then motions for me to join him. I become shy. No, embarrassed. I’m not proud of being late, especially when I have to demonstrate it publicly. I wish I were invisible, so I could just appear where I should have been, as if I’d been no place else. I pull the brim of my cap down to conceal my face, the instinctive action of a shady character or an ostrich burying its head in sand. At that moment, a ball is grounded to third base, drawing attention in that direction. I sprint toward Moti, expecting at any moment a shout from Frederick the Great.

None comes.

“What’s happening?” I ask, short of breath, as I pull up behind Moti.

“Earl just juggled the ball; everyone’s safe. So…first inning, two outs, based loaded, but they haven’t scored.” He turns his head. “Why are you back there?”

“Hiding.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Riley!” My name fills the ballpark. “We don’t need two outfielders in the same spot!” Fred yells.

Moti jogs over to his position in center field. Once more, I’m in exile, but not kicked off the team—at least, for the next half-inning. Maybe I’ll do something spectacular, like I did in fourth grade when I caught a ball over my shoulder that was hit by a sixth-grader. What a charge that gave me! Especially when the hitter came running out to me in left field, slapped me on the back, and made sure everyone knew what a great fielder I was.

“He’s left-handed,” Moti calls out. “Don’t lose the ball in the lights.”

The batter makes solid contact, sending the ball high into the air. I take a step back, then a step forward and three or four steps to my right.

“You got it?” shouts Moti, who is racing to get under the ball if I yell for him to take it.

“It’s my ball,” I say. “Can of corn.”

❧❧❧

Jim Hughes was a columnist for Essential Teacher, an international quarterly published by TESOL. In his column, “Home Room,” he wrote narratives about life in a multicultural elementary school. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His novel, Strange is a Hazard Here, is being published by Precocity Press and will be launched in the spring of 2026. He lives in Berkeley, California.