The Sandlot // Benny Rodriguez

18.

After mine and Benny's close call with the cops, everyone around town started to talk about it. How they found out was beyond me, but from that day on, everyone called Benny, Benny 'The Jet' Rodriquez and none of us realized at the time, but that nickname would stick with him for the rest of his life.

The summer was quickly coming to an end and to say we were sad about it was an understatement. The fact that school was just around the corner made all ten of us extremely disappointed and none of us, even Benny put in much effort at the sandlot. It was quite a sad sight, to be perfectly honest. All of the boys could barely catch any of the balls that Benny or I sent their way and when they weren't caught, they were slowly picked up and thrown back to DeNunez, who's pitches were anything, but perfect. Just the sight of them put me in a depressed mood. None of us talked, but kept to ourselves in thought. After a full hour of this, I couldn't take it anymore.

"Okay," I said, setting the bat down. "This is so pathetic. Summer's not over yet, guys! We need to make the best of the time we still have."

"How?" Timmy asked.

"Yeah, how?" Tommy repeated.

At this point, all of the attention was on me and I had to come up with something, so they still had hope. "We can go swimming," I said, pulling something random out of my thoughts.

"But we're banned from the pool," Squints said. Benny and I shared an amused smile.

"Well, isn't there a lake around here?" Scotty asked, defending my idea.

"A few miles from here." Bertram answered.

"Well, there you go!" I said. "We can even camp out. We'll tell our parents we're sleeping in the treehouse and Timmy and Tommy can tell their parents they're staying with Benny."

I was met with devious smiles all around me and I felt my heart warm. "I'll bring the tent," Ham said.

"Yeah, yeah and I'll bring the food." Yeah Yeah added. We all met in the middle of the field and high-fived each other before finishing our baseball for the day.

When Benny decided we'd put in enough work for the day, we went over the plan again, then went our separate ways, Benny, Ham, Scotty, and I were together as usual. We walked down the street, Scotty and Ham walking side-by-side a few feet in front of us, deep in conversation about a game that happened a few days prior. Benny held my hand in his as we walked in silence.

"This is gonna be so fun," Benny said to me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Can I be honest with you?" I asked, looking up at him. He nodded, concern written all over his face. "I honestly just said the first thing that came to mind. I'm glad Scotty had my back with that one." Benny laughed at this and I couldn't help but smile.

"Coulda fooled me," he answered. "You seemed pretty sure of yourself."

Soon, we were on our street and we went our separate ways for the short period of time it took us to grab our things. Scotty and I entered the house, my mom and Bill both looking up when they heard the door open.

After a few minutes of convincing them to let us 'stay in the treehouse', they both caved and Scotty and I shared a triumphant look before bolting up the stairs to grab our things. I grabbed everything I needed and shoved it all into a duffle bag before meeting Scotty back downstairs. We said goodbye to our mom and Bill and were on our way out of the door, but not before our mom could call, "remember, home at eight!"

Then, we were out, running back to the sandlot as fast as we could. All of the boys were there already and we began our journey to the lake, a couple miles away. None of us were really sure how long it was going to take us to get there, but after about forty-five long minutes of Timmy and Tommy taking turns, asking if we were there yet and Ham complaining about his feet hurting, we stepped onto the sand. My sadness about summer ending disappeared as I watched the boys run towards the water in their swimsuits. There were people all around us, splashing around in the water or sitting in chairs, talking and laughing while they ate hamburgers or hotdogs. I looked over at Benny, who looked like he was struggling to put up the tent in the camping grounds a few feet away in the grass. I shook my head with a smile and walked over to him.