Fire season unwritten ru.., p.26
Fire Season (Unwritten Rules), page 26
“They’re saying you’re using a foreign substance on the ball,” Glasser says.
“I have sunscreen on my neck.”
Glasser looks up at the roof sealing them away from the Houston night. “I don’t think that’s gonna work as an argument.”
“I’ll just wipe it off. We can use a new ball. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“They want you ejected.”
“Oh for—” Charlie throws up his hands, saying a few things that he’s happy the stadium noise conceals from his parents. He jostles his shoulders trying to see if he can dissolve some of the sunscreen into the neck of his jersey. “Everyone does it.”
“I know,” Glasser says, “but it was pretty noticeable when you did. Even the ump said something.”
The managers are still arguing, the umpires attempting to intercede. And the Elephants manager is in his seventies, a former player who always seems fragile to Charlie, like his bones are held together by habit and temper. He’s yelling something at Houston’s manager—who’s about thirty years younger, with dark hair and a trim waist that Charlie should absolutely not be looking at right now, especially when the guy is calling for him to be tossed from the game for what his own pitcher is doing too.
The Elephants manager makes glancing contact with an ump. It’s enough to get him run, the umpire shouting his ejection with the wave of his arm. That could be the end of it, except the umpire crew chief jogs out to the mound, demanding the ball from Charlie that’s still sticky with the sunscreen he dabbed it with.
“My parents are here,” Charlie says, like that makes any kind of difference.
“The rules are the rules.” He at least has the sense to look apologetic about it as he indicates that Charlie’s out of the game.
The dugout is fired up when he gets there, Gordon going between throwing things and yelling at Houston’s lineup, a few other bench players hanging over the railing, adding to the chorus of boos. Their bench coach, who’s now the acting manager, tells him to hit the showers.
So Charlie walks slowly from the thunderous stadium to the silent clubhouse, leaving their postseason chances in the hands of their bullpen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Reid
After that, it’s a bullpen game.
Relief pitchers scramble to get warmed up, some on the bikes, others starting their soft tosses. Martinez comes around, telling guys which inning to be ready for. Reid rises, mostly because he’s too nervous to sit still.
“Not you, Giordano,” Martinez says. “Save it for the later innings.”
He sits, watching a series of relievers go in, each knowing they’ll have to eat up as many outs as possible if they’re going to clinch tonight. That if beats in his head. Because there are rolls of plastic sheeting hanging over their stalls, sets of goggles in Elephants green to protect them from the spray of champagne. Victory, theirs to lose. His to lose.
There’s nothing to do but wait. Gordon hits a double that drives in two runs, giving them the lead. He pulls into second base with a grin like an insult.
They hold their lead going into the seventh inning, a one-run game, the kind where any swing could tie it.
Reid expects Martinez to call his name. But instead he calls for McCormick, who grumbles as he gets up, knowing he’s being denied the privilege of the later innings. “Giordano, be ready to close it out,” Martinez adds.
They ride the exercise bikes next to one another, McCormick pedaling a little too fast like it’s a competition. Even under the shadowed brim of his hat, he looks like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while.
Around them, Houston fans bay for their defeat. A few call down to them, taunts about Oakland’s postseason record. They must know who Reid is, because one yells that Reid’s gonna need a drink after Houston gets done with them.
“Good luck out there,” Reid says.
Which makes McCormick narrow his eyes.
“Just meant that it’s on all of us.”
“You mean ‘Don’t fuck it up.’” McCormick dismounts from the bike and goes to a stack of towels they use to warm up their arms. Most guys ball them up and toss them to get back into their throwing motion. McCormick worries the terry cloth between his hands. He looks rough, rough in a way Reid recognizes. The kind that says whatever worries he came to the ballpark with are heavier than having to go out and pitch in front of forty thousand screaming people.
Reid pedals, wondering what he could say that McCormick won’t shrug off, even if McCormick’s been like a grain of sand in his back teeth all season.
“Hey,” Reid calls.
McCormick snaps his gaze up, an accusatory furl to his lip.
“If anyone fucks this game up, it should be me.”
McCormick looks like he misheard him, before wadding the towel and tossing it, without malice, at Reid, who catches it and laughs.
McCormick doesn’t fuck it up, so it’s still a one-run game when they put Reid in for the eighth. Despite being late September, it’s hot enough that sweat sticks his hair to his head when he takes off his hat. He studies the sign card in the band. Next to it, his sobriety birthday Sharpie’d in. And another date, one he added on impulse that morning. The day of his call up to Oakland.
Glasser puts down a series of signs, ones Reid doesn’t really need to see to know what to throw—a mid-90s fastball delivered high in the zone. But it works. The Houston hitter swings, making contact and flying out.
An easy out, easy in a way Reid doesn’t trust. He wants to laugh hysterically or throw up. He does neither, re-rosining his hands and clapping them off, then tossing a pitch to the next hitter. The batter doesn’t bother to offer at it. Not that it matters when it drops in for a strike.
He tosses high fastball after high fastball. Houston’s stymied by them in a way they weren’t with previous relievers, able to predict them but unable to lay off. The second batter strikes out. The third hits a long fly ball that the Elephants’ center fielder makes an easy grab of. An inning down, another to go.
The Elephants go one-two-three in the top of the ninth, barely enough time for Reid to get a cup of Gatorade in the dugout. Guys give him a wide, respectful berth, only Glasser coming over to confirm their game plan. Because they’re about to face the heart of Houston’s lineup.
Reid jogs out to the mound again. The stadium around him is quiet, a collectively held breath. He takes off his hat, looking at the twin dates. The day he got his life back and the one when baseball acknowledged it. It’ll be three years soon. Three years, a lifetime, all for this.
Sixty feet away, Houston’s right fielder strides into the box, bat resting on his shoulder like he’s ready to hit the ball into orbit. Reid pitches—a fastball that the Houston hitter sends into the plain of the middle outfield for a bloop single.
Reid’s pulse kicks up. If, somehow, Houston holds on in this game, and the next and the next; if the Elephants don’t clinch and their season ends, then his stay will as well. His stuff will go back in suitcases, his suitcases into his truck, and he’ll go wherever the game takes him, the future uncertain and unguaranteed. Out of his control.
Houston’s next hitter strikes out, taking the kind of last-ditch hacks that say he’s as desperate to extend their season as Reid is to shorten it. And like that, one down. Two more. A refrain of it. Two more, two more, two more.
Reid rosins and re-rosins his hands, calling Glasser out to the mound for a visit, gloves shielding their faces from prying base coaches. “I can get him to ground out on a curveball,” Reid says.
Glasser eyes the runner standing on first base. “You sure?” He sets a soothing hand on Reid’s shoulder.
How many times has he been unsure? Of himself, his pitching, of if he even belongs here at all? The false burning confidence of a high feels nothing like this, this bedrock certainty that this is as made for him as he is for it. So he just says, “I am.”
He expects an argument. A frowning disapproval. A reminder of the last time this happened. Instead Glasser nods. “Okay.”
The umpires begin encroaching, the meeting declared over. Glasser jogs back behind the plate, squatting down and punching his mitt a few times. A sweep of his glove calling for a low, hittable strike meant to induce weak contact.
Reid throws. A good pitch. A great one, a graceful arc of a curve dropping as if from twelve to six on an imaginary clockface.
The hitter swings and makes contact, sending the ball into the shallow middle infield, where it’s scooped up by the Elephants shortstop. He tosses it to their second baseman, who tosses it to first—a bang-bang double play. Two outs, and the game is over, the Elephants winning and Houston’s dreams denied.
A groan erupts from the stadium, the collective effort of thousands of people gathering their things to leave. And Reid doesn’t remember how he gets from the mound to the dugout, but he finds himself there, in the sweaty, ecstatic press of teammates. Music blasts, a few guys dancing, a few more yelling and throwing their bodies at one another in the approximation of a hug.
Gordon comes over. He’s already got a cigar stuck between his teeth, though it’s unlit, and he thumps Reid’s back as he hugs him. “How about that, you Houston motherfuckers!” he yells, and Reid laughs and laughs.
Guys start calling his name, motioning for him to go talk with the team sideline reporter, who introduces him to their viewing audience and asks how it feels to clinch the division.
“Is it cheating to say ‘indescribable’?” He gives a longer answer, mouth moving without the conscious input of his brain, rote answers taking on new meaning.
The reporter asks about what this journey has been for him, his comeback to the major leagues and everything after.
“I don’t—” His eyes go damp; a lump constricts his throat. He scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know if I even have the words for it. Truly. I’m grateful to everyone who’s supported me. My family. My teammates.”
Charlie, he doesn’t say. That night on the patio, telling him to throw when even he thought he couldn’t.
A few guys grab the Gatorade cooler and try to douse him, interrupting the interview. He dodges to the side; they get the reporter, who’s already wearing a rain poncho in anticipation of the postgame celebration. She thanks him for the interview, declaring it over and clapping him on the arm in congratulations.
“Hey!” Charlie’s standing on the top step of the dugout, face lit in a smile. “That was some throwing.”
“Some pitching, you mean.” Reid jogs over, pulling Charlie into the kind of hug the rest of the players are sharing. Except he whispers, “We fucking did it, baby,” as he does.
“You did it.” Charlie’s breath is warm in his ear.
“Nah. Didn’t you see that last pitch? They got a Charlie Braxton curveball whether they wanted one or not.”
Around them, guys shuck their game jerseys and put on the themed postseason T-shirts the team is distributing.
“Here.” Charlie snags two from the pile. He peels off his own jersey, discarding it somewhere.
And Reid cannot look at him, not surrounded by their entire roster and the coaching staff. But he can’t look away either, everything bubbling close to the surface. “Is it always like this?”
“Is what?”
“Winning the division. I’ve never done it before. Never been to the postseason, either.”
“The next part is even better.”
Most of the team has already gone inside to shake champagne and dump beer on each other’s heads. To dance and laugh and cause a ruckus before they have to pretend to give serious interviews to the media.
“You coming?” Charlie asks.
But Reid shakes his head. “I’m good out here.”
“I, uh, made sure they got some sparkling cider for you.”
One of those things he just did. Details. “Even if it’s not the real stuff, that doesn’t play well on TV. I’ll see if Gordon’ll give me one of those cigars or something. Go celebrate.” He pats Charlie on his waistband, an attaboy and a dismissal, though Charlie doesn’t move.
“I could get the bottle. We could have our own celebration.”
“Just you and me and the Houston grounds crew? For real, I’ll be okay. I thought I was gonna pass out in the ninth. I could use the time to catch my breath.”
“You shouldn’t have to miss out.”
“Charlie”—Reid sneaks a hand between them, fingers hooking under the hem of Charlie’s shirt—“I’m not missing anything. I’m finally in it, and on my own terms. Now go dump a beer on Glasser’s head and tell him it’s from me.”
“I’ll see you after?” Said sweetly enough that Reid wants to kiss him.
Maybe their teammates and the media and the lingering fans and the whole world would think it’s just the exuberance of celebration. Doubtful, though something within him wants to say fuck it and try. He settles for another hug, a glancing contact of his mouth against the edge of Charlie’s beard, for the warm grip of Charlie’s hand on the back of his shirt. “Sure, we can celebrate after.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Charlie
Inside the clubhouse, players stand around laundry carts filled with bottles of beer and champagne. There’s music playing, a few people dancing, but mostly guys are continuing what they did outside—changing, chomping cigars, giving back-thumping hugs.
“Hey, Charlie’s here,” someone yells, and Charlie takes the bottle of champagne they hand him, shaking it.
“Everyone accounted for?” Gordon attempts a futile head count with guys swirling around. “Where’s Giordano?”
“We should go ahead,” Charlie says, low enough that he hopes he isn’t overheard in the din. “He’s gonna hang out until after...” He holds up his bottle.
Gordon nods, then raises his voice. “All right, boys. We worked all year for this. Now we took the division, and we took it from Houston in their own fucking house.” A cheer throughout the room, one punctuated by profanity and suggestions as to what Houston could go do. “We got almost a week ’til the postseason, so if anyone’s on the field tomorrow not hungover, you’re gonna have to answer to me.”
He shakes his bottle, motioning for others to do the same. The camera crews pull back to a safe distance, reporters standing in ponchos and shower caps, a few wearing swim goggles of their own. A chant starts going, a countdown from five. At zero, forty corks pop from their respective champagne bottles and the world is a blur of bubbles and laughter and guys dumping beer on one another.
Charlie’s tall enough that most of the beer goes down the back of his T-shirt, though McCormick comes over and tugs at his waistband, pouring a beer between his uniform pants and sliding shorts and laughing as Charlie howls in mostly mock indignation.
A reporter shoves a microphone at Glasser, who’s standing next to Charlie equally drenched, and asks how Glasser felt during tonight’s game, having prepared with Charlie, then being forced to handle the bullpen. She’s short, at least a foot shorter than both of them, and wearing a poncho that obscures her mouth.
“What?” Glasser lifts his hair up to show the absence of his hearing aid, probably to keep it from getting sticky from champagne and beer.
“She’s asking about preparation,” Charlie repeats.
Glasser starts talking about working with the bullpen, reciting the usual postgame baseball clichés above the music. Charlie grabs a beer from one of the laundry bins, shaking it, then pouring it into Glasser’s hair, which darkens to black as it soaks. “Giordano said this was on him.”
“Thanks,” Glasser says, when the reporter leaves. “I couldn’t understand what she was saying.”
“If you wanna escape, I might head back out to the field.”
“That where Giordano is?”
Charlie nods rather than trying to yell over the noise.
“I’m probably good here. But thanks.”
The noise level increases even further when the clubhouse attendants open the doors, admitting a flood of various families who traveled with the team knowing they might clinch the division. Gordon’s kids swarm him. He scoops up two of them, carrying them around and pretending to toss them into discarded piles of jerseys.
Charlie’s parents make their way across the sea of people: his mother, who’s short with Charlie’s broad build, parting them, his father trailing slightly behind. Charlie greets them, bending to hug his mother, whose hair is unchallenged by the humidity, though she’s waving a ballpark program like a church fan.
They offer their congratulations, his mother her best Georgia compliments/criticisms of the entire Houston lineup—“Well, they sure tried”—and their manager’s nerve at getting Charlie tossed.
She talks, a soothing stream of words, the kind that flow over him without any need for his input.
“We were sorry Christine couldn’t make it,” his father says, eventually.
Charlie doesn’t want to talk about it, not now, covered in beer foam, not surrounded by teammates and reporters. Not when it comes with a tinge of blaming Chris for what’s both their faults and neither’s. “She’s staying with me. At least until fire season passes.”
His father gives a thoughtful nod. “It’s good you’re working on things. Repair can take time.”
“It’s not—” Charlie pauses when they’re interrupted by the sound of his teammates’ laughter. “It’s not like that. We’re better as friends.”
His father doesn’t say anything for a minute, leaving Charlie to realize how much the clubhouse now smells like a brewery, including his own shirt, which is sodden.
