quietly to the east
For bats_and_balls. The prompt was from cutfastball, who gave me "Send out your skeletons; sing as their bones come marching in - again." (Foo Fighters)
Joe Girardi/Bill Mueller, Joe Girardi/Kyle Farnsworth
PG-13
3549 words
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
quietly to the east
In Chicago, there's nothing to hide. No dirty little secrets, nothing worse than keeping one casual girl from knowing about the next. He has no more serious truth to withhold than the steal signs and pitch signals. Which is good, because he wouldn't even begin to know how to keep a big secret hidden if he had to do it.
The days are long, games played under a Cubbie blue sky. Kyle is living his whole life in the open. All of his emotions are out on his sleeve, all the time; he doesn't really know any other way to wear them. Joe Girardi tells him to slow down and just think every so often. Gary Matthews talks to him about filters sometimes, usually right after he's punched something, but that doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot to Kyle. He's not a fucking coffee pot.
He is actually on the younger end of this team, even though he's already 25, which seems plenty old to him. It's the oldest he's ever been, after all. The only regular pitcher younger is Kerry Wood, and he's younger than all the regular batters, except for Corey Patterson, who's just a bench guy anyways. The other Cubs talk about keeping things under wraps, making sure something doesn't get out, but it's nothing to do with Kyle. His favorite bars are public groupie knowledge. His post-game habits and preferences are known. Hell, he's young, he's in the best shape of his life, he's a professional baseball player in a world-class city: he isn't doing anything he's ashamed of, so what's there to hide? Maybe management feels otherwise. But what do they know about this stuff?
---
(Plenty, it turns out; management knows a thing or two about public relations, the manipulation of the public image, and if they don't directly know it, they can pay someone else to figure it out. Baseball management understands that openness is not always the best policy, might in fact be an impossible policy. And they know how to get by without ever quite lying. They know how to obfuscate and confuse, how to muddy up something clear. They're very good at taking the space where a truth goes and filling it up with hot, distracting air.
But Kyle does not appreciate this yet. This is still Chicago.)
---
They're in Cincinnati, which is, oh, just terrible. He hates Ohio. The nightlife is no good at all, a real sad offering when compared to Chicago. St. Louis is better-- even Pittsburgh is better. Driving to the hotel is always depressing, and he can already tell that tonight, after the game, is going to suck.
But here they are, playing the Reds in the awful, perfectly circular Cinergy Field. The name makes him cringe. It's embarrassing, it's sad, nothing like Wrigley, and how the Reds can stand it is beyond him. Of course he'll always be a Cub, but if he did ever get traded, if it was to Cincinnati he'd probably retire. Just tell them thanks but no fuckin' thanks, pack up his glove, go do something else with his life. Open up a mink farm or some shit.
This is what Kyle thinks, testing the astroturf with his cleat. He can smell the river from here. Not in a good way.
The Reds scored three runs in the first inning, but the Cubs scored four runs in the third, so it's a near-even amount of pitching suck out there. Kyle comes in when Julian Tavarez gives up a two-run double with two outs in the sixth. Tavarez has thrown 98 pitches and he leaves the game with his eyes focused on something nobody else can see. He's starting to mutter to himself, never a good sign with him.
Kyle likes being the first man out of the bullpen. When the starting pitcher goes by, pulled because he's starting to lose it, feeling real bad about himself, that's when Kyle gets to saunter on past, take that mound back for the Cubs.
He strikes out Brandon Larson to end the inning. One ball, a little bit outside, then three burner strikes, bam bam bam. Joe Girardi is catching at this point, and he shakes his hand when the last one comes in. Well, he should. Kyle makes a big show of not looking at the radar readout on the scoreboard behind him, but he knows when he's broken triple digits, the crowd always lets him know, voices rising happily in Chicago, dropping in dismay everywhere else. These Cincinnati fans haven't seen anything like it, he'd bet, not this year.
He goes another full inning, three men up, three men down, three swinging strikes. The fastball is perfect, it's doing exactly what he wants it to do right now, it's the right speed and going to all the right spots. It's the kind of fastball that makes pitchers in the opposing dugout sit up and take notice; makes them sick with jealousy, he believes that. Wouldn't they like to throw this baby, even just once. Just to feel it come out of their hands.
Baylor chooses to pinch hit for him in the next inning. Nothing personal, it's just a close game and it makes sense to put in someone who's held a bat more than a few times this year. He gets it. They aren't taking him out because he's stopped pitching well.
"Sighin' in relief over there," he says, to nobody in particular, looking out at the Reds all lined up on their dugout rail. "Not havin' to face me again."
"You so full'a shit," Rondell White says, close enough to throw a little elbow. But he's smiling, so Kyle knows to not take it to heart. Rondell's ok. He isn't 30 yet, which makes him more on Kyle's side than most of the other bats. They've hit some clubs together, done just fine as mutual wingmen. Rondell likes them a little chunkier, Kyle likes them a little skinnier, it tends to work out well.
They go ahead by one in the 8th, and Cincinnati ties it up in the 9th. Tom Gordon blows the save, which is just not normal. Kyle pitched a lot better than him tonight, even though Gordon is the closer and Kyle is only a general reliever-- he's better. He knows he is. It's just a matter of time before the Cubs realize it too.
Now it's extra innings, and that makes him jumpy. He's got too much energy and nothing to do with it, nothing constructive, anyways. He can't get back into the game, but he can't leave, go hide in the clubhouse where you can freak out and flip shit over and nobody with a camera can see you; you don't leave a tied game going to extras. That's bad team karma.
Girardi flies out to lead off the 11th. He comes back to the dugout flexing his hand again, his glove hand. He closes it around the bat handle, winces, puts the bat away. He spreads his fingers out. Kyle goes over to look at it as Girardi peels off his batting gloves. There's definitely a bruise there, coming up purple on the fleshy part of Girardi's palm.
"Sorry," Kyle says.
"Hundred'n'one," Girardi mumbles. "Guess it's a wonder it ain't broke."
"That's how I throw, wasn't tryin' to sting you. But I do feel bad, so." Even though he doesn't.
Girardi just shakes his head, dropping his hand down by his side, fingers twitching almost spasmodically. Billy Mueller comes over and sees this. He picks up Girardi's hand with both of his own.
"Hold it up," he says. "You want the blood to run out, not down into it."
"Oh. Yeah."
Girardi looks at Mueller, and Mueller looks at Girardi. Kyle is standing there off to the side, like, hello, Fastball of Ultimate Death over here, but then the stupid Reds pitcher hits his second batter of the inning, nailing Ricky Gutierrez right in the stomach, and Kyle has to go up to the rail to see if they're going to brawl, because a brawl would be one of the only things that could improve Cincinnati.
They don't brawl. They do win. Girardi scores the go-ahead run in the top of the 13th, and the batters behind him tack on two more runs for good measure. Everyone lines up behind the pitcher's mound and throws high fives. The crowd is grumbly and upset, the Reds are slinking off the field; everyone feels good. Except for Gutierrez, who's still feeling that pitch to the guts, and maybe Girardi's hand. But Kyle doesn't feel bad about that.
He takes his time in the locker room after the game, lingering extra long in the shower, trying to scrub off the invisibly thin layer of slime that seems to settle on his skin every time he's in this damn stadium, getting misted by toxic river water all night long. If he's not careful he'll mutate. Extra eyeballs and green skin and maybe he'll grow a second dick. This is what Kyle thinks about. If Cincinnati river water can make him grow a second mutant dick, and if that dick would work like the normal one, or what.
Most of the team is gone by the time he gets out of the showers. He's steamed right through, like limp broccoli, skin squeaking when he drags the towel wrong. Normally he wants to get out of the ballpark fast-- places to go, drinks to drink, women to fuck-- but the best thing waiting for him tonight is probably the hotel bar, if Baylor isn't hanging around the lobby, if Sosa is already in bed. Sosa is the team snitch. Common knowledge.
He's thinking about that, and also a little bit about the river water effects still, when he rounds a corner in the clubhouse and stumbles over his own feet. It's not that he's clumsy, it's just that Joe Girardi has Billy Mueller pinned up against the wall, two hands holding his wrists in place. Girardi's head is real close to Mueller's, although Kyle looks away too fast to see if they're kissing or, or, or-- or whatever. He doesn't look long enough to see. He doesn't want to see.
He hides out in the showers for another hour, waiting for them to leave, not wanting to risk coming out and finding them still at it. Or at worse things. He watches the drains suck up the last puddles on the tiled floor; he watches the scummed piles of soap bubbles slowly deflate.
When he finally makes it back to the hotel, he tracks down Rondell and drags him into the bar, Baylor and Sosa be damned. He tells Rondell what he saw.
"Yeah, so?" Rondell says.
"So? So??"
Rondell shrugs, eyes sweeping up and down the bar, left, right. "So it happens. Just don't spread it around."
Kyle stares at him. It just happens, and he's supposed to, what? Accept that? It's certainly the first time he has seen anything like this go down-- or, no, go down is not the phrase he wants there, it really really isn't, because now he's picturing Girardi on his knees in front of Mueller, pink lips stretched, thick forearms standing out as he braces himself on the wall, hands on either side of Billy's pale hips--
"Jesus fuck," Kyle moans. He shoots his beer back and signals for another. If he's gonna have a headache anyways, he may as well have one for a good reason.
---
So Kyle learns a thing or two about hiding. He gets to understand that some things can't be out in the open. There are steps and missteps; it's all a process. He says some things he maybe shouldn't say in Detroit, and finds himself in Atlanta. Shit happens. Life goes on.
---
Hilarious: when he signs in New York, he is ostensibly replacing Tom Gordon, who has been moonlighting as a set-up man. So he is both better and worse than Gordon, at the same time; better than Gordon now, as a washed-up middle reliever, but still not as good as Gordon-the-once-upon-a-time-closer.
He's the one with the job, though. That's what counts.
---
He slogs through two years in New York. Not his best years, although not his worst either. He has some issues with his fastball. He has some issues with Jorge Posada. The city itself is-- well. He misses Chicago, that's all.
Going into his third season with the Yankees, they fire the manager, Joe Torre. They hire Joe Girardi.
---
He looks the same, that's the freaky part. His hair is maybe a little bit grayer, but his face looks exactly the same as it did when he was a Cub. Which is not too weird: it was only seven years ago. But it seems to Kyle that there ought to be some sort of physical change in there, going from a player to a manager. It shouldn't be allowed, looking the same both ways.
Girardi treats him just the same as everyone else, friendly with a thin current of stern running underneath, good at listening but not afraid to cut a guy off, tell him to shut up when he needs to be shut up. It's a catcher thing, pitcher-control, and it translates well to team-control. Girardi can do this for a long time if he wants. That's Kyle's opinion.
New York is all up in Girardi's business, but he does not seem fazed, at least not where Kyle can see it. Of course, he is aware that Girardi knows how to be discreet. And maybe he's settled down now that he's a manager. Billy Mueller has been out of baseball for a couple of years now; last Kyle heard, he was doing some very minor coaching thing for the Dodgers out west. Not very close to New York City.
---
They go to Boston, with all the fanfare and hysteria that entails. The newspapers lose their headlined minds, the reporters at the ballpark increase by an order of ten. Security ratchets up and the coaches remind them all to take only team-approved cabs, go only to the team-approved restaurants, don't go slumming at the far reaches of the subway lines, if something happens nobody will be there to stop it. They get jeered in the streets, become the subject of rude gestures. Jason Giambi walks out from the hotel to get a coffee, and almost gets hit in the head with a flying beer bottle.
It was a big deal his first year with the team, but Kyle is bored with it by now. All this rivalry means is that his post-game fun is severely cramped, because he can't go out drinking without expecting to encounter drunk Red Sox fans. He can't go to a club without expecting to get in a fight, and he goes to clubs to fuck, not to fight.
He gets into the third game of the series, which doesn't go too well. He gives up a run in the bottom of the 8th, a cheap little sac fly of a run. There are a couple of stolen bases in the inning. That's because Posada is catching, and Posada has some irrational hate for Kyle, he calls everything wrong and he's slow with his throws when Kyle's on the mound. Slower than he is for Pettitte or Mussina, or Mo or Joba. Slower than he is for Jose fucking Veras. Kyle knows. He's timed it.
They're already down 7-5 when he gives up the run, so it's not as bad as it could be. He isn't really responsible for any of the game's results. Only his personal results suffer.
Girardi calls him into the manager's office after. It is not a real office, this isn't home, it's just a sort of storage closet that the Red Sox have slapped a new sign on, to make it look right.
"That wasn't your best outing," Girardi says.
No shit, Kyle thinks, but he nods instead of saying it out loud.
"Feel ok?"
"I'm fuckin' fine," he snaps, annoyed in a way that this has to come up now. The first month of the season isn't even over yet, Christ.
Girardi smirks at him, a hint of the real smile underneath. "OK, tough guy." He stands, comes around the absurdly tiny desk. The room is so small, Kyle has nowhere to go, nothing to do but back into the closed door behind him.
"Just checking," Girardi says. He is very close to Kyle now, his nose almost level with Kyle's chin-- Kyle is a good handful of inches taller. "It's my job," he adds.
"I got that," Kyle says, although the words are tough to come by. His throat is getting dry. For some reason.
Girardi puts a hand on Kyle's waist. He just rests it there, like a catcher would. Kyle wants to look down at it, but he can't, Girardi's head is in the way.
This could be a catcher thing, or it could be a Billy Mueller thing. It might be hard to tell. But the door is closed, and Kyle hasn't gotten this far without learning what that generally means.
The hand at his waist twitches, slides around to the small of his back. It edges under his shirt, fingertips spreading out across his skin. He shivers hard, just at the way it feels. Girardi snickers softly, then opens his mouth on the spot where Kyle's t-shirt collar meets his bare neck.
"Oh," Kyle says, like he's surprised. Even though he's not.
"Mmmmhm," Girardi says. He slides his hand lower, down to Kyle's jeans.
Kyle reaches up, puts a hand on the back of Girardi's head, palm down. Girardi's hair is cropped very close, it's prickly to touch, short and stiff. "So this is. What?" he asks.
Girardi slowly pushes him back against the door, using his whole body to press up against various parts of Kyle; a chest against his, a leg sliding between his thighs. Kyle thinks that he could probably still stop it, right now, if he wanted. He could tell Girardi to get the fuck away from him and Girardi would listen.
"Pretty obvious what this is," Girardi says. He's flush with Kyle now, bodies aligned and slotted into place like a puzzle. His body is putting out a lot of heat, or at least that's what it feels like.
"Didn't give no hints you wanted this in Chicago," Kyle says. Which is true. There were no hints towards him. He definitely would have remembered that.
"When I knew you in Chicago, you were still. Too new." Girardi noses at his neck, uses his leg to push Kyle's legs farther apart. "Hadn't had the polish knocked off yet."
"And now I do? Think I'm offended," Kyle mutters, but who is he kidding. He wears glasses on the mound these days.
Girardi doesn't answer him in words anyways. He just shifts his leg up, thigh pressing into Kyle until it feels too good to ignore. So Kyle doesn't ignore it: he rocks his pelvis forward, back, forward again, deliberate and inexorable. He has good muscle control there. He has pretty damn good muscle control everywhere.
"Jesus fuck," Girardi groans. Kyle grins, mostly to himself.
---
He does not notice Girardi treating him any differently, after. Maybe he catches Girardi watching him a little too attentively when he comes out of the shower after the game. Maybe he asks the clubhouse guys to tailor his pants down, so they fit tighter across the upper quad, to give Girardi something to watch during boring games. But he doesn't get pitched more often, he doesn't get left in to work out his own mistakes, he's pulled just as quickly as ever when he starts to suck, and nobody seems to know.
There's nothing about it in the papers, of course. They both know how to keep something under wraps, layer upon layer of bubblewrap and packing peanuts and clear packing tape.
Girardi's lips look just like he'd pictured, all those seasons ago, spit-wet and stretched.
Kyle is learning an awful lot, late in his career. It feels like forever since he last played under that wide open wind-swept Chicago sky. It's all closed-in, here in New York. Everyone has something to keep to themselves; even the skyscrapers seem to lean in farther, claustrophobic.
Which is fine. Kyle would rather go quietly into the east, holding himself in and apart, than stay wild and open in the midwest, if it means he can win.
Joe Girardi/Bill Mueller, Joe Girardi/Kyle Farnsworth
PG-13
3549 words
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
quietly to the east
In Chicago, there's nothing to hide. No dirty little secrets, nothing worse than keeping one casual girl from knowing about the next. He has no more serious truth to withhold than the steal signs and pitch signals. Which is good, because he wouldn't even begin to know how to keep a big secret hidden if he had to do it.
The days are long, games played under a Cubbie blue sky. Kyle is living his whole life in the open. All of his emotions are out on his sleeve, all the time; he doesn't really know any other way to wear them. Joe Girardi tells him to slow down and just think every so often. Gary Matthews talks to him about filters sometimes, usually right after he's punched something, but that doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot to Kyle. He's not a fucking coffee pot.
He is actually on the younger end of this team, even though he's already 25, which seems plenty old to him. It's the oldest he's ever been, after all. The only regular pitcher younger is Kerry Wood, and he's younger than all the regular batters, except for Corey Patterson, who's just a bench guy anyways. The other Cubs talk about keeping things under wraps, making sure something doesn't get out, but it's nothing to do with Kyle. His favorite bars are public groupie knowledge. His post-game habits and preferences are known. Hell, he's young, he's in the best shape of his life, he's a professional baseball player in a world-class city: he isn't doing anything he's ashamed of, so what's there to hide? Maybe management feels otherwise. But what do they know about this stuff?
---
(Plenty, it turns out; management knows a thing or two about public relations, the manipulation of the public image, and if they don't directly know it, they can pay someone else to figure it out. Baseball management understands that openness is not always the best policy, might in fact be an impossible policy. And they know how to get by without ever quite lying. They know how to obfuscate and confuse, how to muddy up something clear. They're very good at taking the space where a truth goes and filling it up with hot, distracting air.
But Kyle does not appreciate this yet. This is still Chicago.)
---
They're in Cincinnati, which is, oh, just terrible. He hates Ohio. The nightlife is no good at all, a real sad offering when compared to Chicago. St. Louis is better-- even Pittsburgh is better. Driving to the hotel is always depressing, and he can already tell that tonight, after the game, is going to suck.
But here they are, playing the Reds in the awful, perfectly circular Cinergy Field. The name makes him cringe. It's embarrassing, it's sad, nothing like Wrigley, and how the Reds can stand it is beyond him. Of course he'll always be a Cub, but if he did ever get traded, if it was to Cincinnati he'd probably retire. Just tell them thanks but no fuckin' thanks, pack up his glove, go do something else with his life. Open up a mink farm or some shit.
This is what Kyle thinks, testing the astroturf with his cleat. He can smell the river from here. Not in a good way.
The Reds scored three runs in the first inning, but the Cubs scored four runs in the third, so it's a near-even amount of pitching suck out there. Kyle comes in when Julian Tavarez gives up a two-run double with two outs in the sixth. Tavarez has thrown 98 pitches and he leaves the game with his eyes focused on something nobody else can see. He's starting to mutter to himself, never a good sign with him.
Kyle likes being the first man out of the bullpen. When the starting pitcher goes by, pulled because he's starting to lose it, feeling real bad about himself, that's when Kyle gets to saunter on past, take that mound back for the Cubs.
He strikes out Brandon Larson to end the inning. One ball, a little bit outside, then three burner strikes, bam bam bam. Joe Girardi is catching at this point, and he shakes his hand when the last one comes in. Well, he should. Kyle makes a big show of not looking at the radar readout on the scoreboard behind him, but he knows when he's broken triple digits, the crowd always lets him know, voices rising happily in Chicago, dropping in dismay everywhere else. These Cincinnati fans haven't seen anything like it, he'd bet, not this year.
He goes another full inning, three men up, three men down, three swinging strikes. The fastball is perfect, it's doing exactly what he wants it to do right now, it's the right speed and going to all the right spots. It's the kind of fastball that makes pitchers in the opposing dugout sit up and take notice; makes them sick with jealousy, he believes that. Wouldn't they like to throw this baby, even just once. Just to feel it come out of their hands.
Baylor chooses to pinch hit for him in the next inning. Nothing personal, it's just a close game and it makes sense to put in someone who's held a bat more than a few times this year. He gets it. They aren't taking him out because he's stopped pitching well.
"Sighin' in relief over there," he says, to nobody in particular, looking out at the Reds all lined up on their dugout rail. "Not havin' to face me again."
"You so full'a shit," Rondell White says, close enough to throw a little elbow. But he's smiling, so Kyle knows to not take it to heart. Rondell's ok. He isn't 30 yet, which makes him more on Kyle's side than most of the other bats. They've hit some clubs together, done just fine as mutual wingmen. Rondell likes them a little chunkier, Kyle likes them a little skinnier, it tends to work out well.
They go ahead by one in the 8th, and Cincinnati ties it up in the 9th. Tom Gordon blows the save, which is just not normal. Kyle pitched a lot better than him tonight, even though Gordon is the closer and Kyle is only a general reliever-- he's better. He knows he is. It's just a matter of time before the Cubs realize it too.
Now it's extra innings, and that makes him jumpy. He's got too much energy and nothing to do with it, nothing constructive, anyways. He can't get back into the game, but he can't leave, go hide in the clubhouse where you can freak out and flip shit over and nobody with a camera can see you; you don't leave a tied game going to extras. That's bad team karma.
Girardi flies out to lead off the 11th. He comes back to the dugout flexing his hand again, his glove hand. He closes it around the bat handle, winces, puts the bat away. He spreads his fingers out. Kyle goes over to look at it as Girardi peels off his batting gloves. There's definitely a bruise there, coming up purple on the fleshy part of Girardi's palm.
"Sorry," Kyle says.
"Hundred'n'one," Girardi mumbles. "Guess it's a wonder it ain't broke."
"That's how I throw, wasn't tryin' to sting you. But I do feel bad, so." Even though he doesn't.
Girardi just shakes his head, dropping his hand down by his side, fingers twitching almost spasmodically. Billy Mueller comes over and sees this. He picks up Girardi's hand with both of his own.
"Hold it up," he says. "You want the blood to run out, not down into it."
"Oh. Yeah."
Girardi looks at Mueller, and Mueller looks at Girardi. Kyle is standing there off to the side, like, hello, Fastball of Ultimate Death over here, but then the stupid Reds pitcher hits his second batter of the inning, nailing Ricky Gutierrez right in the stomach, and Kyle has to go up to the rail to see if they're going to brawl, because a brawl would be one of the only things that could improve Cincinnati.
They don't brawl. They do win. Girardi scores the go-ahead run in the top of the 13th, and the batters behind him tack on two more runs for good measure. Everyone lines up behind the pitcher's mound and throws high fives. The crowd is grumbly and upset, the Reds are slinking off the field; everyone feels good. Except for Gutierrez, who's still feeling that pitch to the guts, and maybe Girardi's hand. But Kyle doesn't feel bad about that.
He takes his time in the locker room after the game, lingering extra long in the shower, trying to scrub off the invisibly thin layer of slime that seems to settle on his skin every time he's in this damn stadium, getting misted by toxic river water all night long. If he's not careful he'll mutate. Extra eyeballs and green skin and maybe he'll grow a second dick. This is what Kyle thinks about. If Cincinnati river water can make him grow a second mutant dick, and if that dick would work like the normal one, or what.
Most of the team is gone by the time he gets out of the showers. He's steamed right through, like limp broccoli, skin squeaking when he drags the towel wrong. Normally he wants to get out of the ballpark fast-- places to go, drinks to drink, women to fuck-- but the best thing waiting for him tonight is probably the hotel bar, if Baylor isn't hanging around the lobby, if Sosa is already in bed. Sosa is the team snitch. Common knowledge.
He's thinking about that, and also a little bit about the river water effects still, when he rounds a corner in the clubhouse and stumbles over his own feet. It's not that he's clumsy, it's just that Joe Girardi has Billy Mueller pinned up against the wall, two hands holding his wrists in place. Girardi's head is real close to Mueller's, although Kyle looks away too fast to see if they're kissing or, or, or-- or whatever. He doesn't look long enough to see. He doesn't want to see.
He hides out in the showers for another hour, waiting for them to leave, not wanting to risk coming out and finding them still at it. Or at worse things. He watches the drains suck up the last puddles on the tiled floor; he watches the scummed piles of soap bubbles slowly deflate.
When he finally makes it back to the hotel, he tracks down Rondell and drags him into the bar, Baylor and Sosa be damned. He tells Rondell what he saw.
"Yeah, so?" Rondell says.
"So? So??"
Rondell shrugs, eyes sweeping up and down the bar, left, right. "So it happens. Just don't spread it around."
Kyle stares at him. It just happens, and he's supposed to, what? Accept that? It's certainly the first time he has seen anything like this go down-- or, no, go down is not the phrase he wants there, it really really isn't, because now he's picturing Girardi on his knees in front of Mueller, pink lips stretched, thick forearms standing out as he braces himself on the wall, hands on either side of Billy's pale hips--
"Jesus fuck," Kyle moans. He shoots his beer back and signals for another. If he's gonna have a headache anyways, he may as well have one for a good reason.
---
So Kyle learns a thing or two about hiding. He gets to understand that some things can't be out in the open. There are steps and missteps; it's all a process. He says some things he maybe shouldn't say in Detroit, and finds himself in Atlanta. Shit happens. Life goes on.
---
Hilarious: when he signs in New York, he is ostensibly replacing Tom Gordon, who has been moonlighting as a set-up man. So he is both better and worse than Gordon, at the same time; better than Gordon now, as a washed-up middle reliever, but still not as good as Gordon-the-once-upon-a-time-closer.
He's the one with the job, though. That's what counts.
---
He slogs through two years in New York. Not his best years, although not his worst either. He has some issues with his fastball. He has some issues with Jorge Posada. The city itself is-- well. He misses Chicago, that's all.
Going into his third season with the Yankees, they fire the manager, Joe Torre. They hire Joe Girardi.
---
He looks the same, that's the freaky part. His hair is maybe a little bit grayer, but his face looks exactly the same as it did when he was a Cub. Which is not too weird: it was only seven years ago. But it seems to Kyle that there ought to be some sort of physical change in there, going from a player to a manager. It shouldn't be allowed, looking the same both ways.
Girardi treats him just the same as everyone else, friendly with a thin current of stern running underneath, good at listening but not afraid to cut a guy off, tell him to shut up when he needs to be shut up. It's a catcher thing, pitcher-control, and it translates well to team-control. Girardi can do this for a long time if he wants. That's Kyle's opinion.
New York is all up in Girardi's business, but he does not seem fazed, at least not where Kyle can see it. Of course, he is aware that Girardi knows how to be discreet. And maybe he's settled down now that he's a manager. Billy Mueller has been out of baseball for a couple of years now; last Kyle heard, he was doing some very minor coaching thing for the Dodgers out west. Not very close to New York City.
---
They go to Boston, with all the fanfare and hysteria that entails. The newspapers lose their headlined minds, the reporters at the ballpark increase by an order of ten. Security ratchets up and the coaches remind them all to take only team-approved cabs, go only to the team-approved restaurants, don't go slumming at the far reaches of the subway lines, if something happens nobody will be there to stop it. They get jeered in the streets, become the subject of rude gestures. Jason Giambi walks out from the hotel to get a coffee, and almost gets hit in the head with a flying beer bottle.
It was a big deal his first year with the team, but Kyle is bored with it by now. All this rivalry means is that his post-game fun is severely cramped, because he can't go out drinking without expecting to encounter drunk Red Sox fans. He can't go to a club without expecting to get in a fight, and he goes to clubs to fuck, not to fight.
He gets into the third game of the series, which doesn't go too well. He gives up a run in the bottom of the 8th, a cheap little sac fly of a run. There are a couple of stolen bases in the inning. That's because Posada is catching, and Posada has some irrational hate for Kyle, he calls everything wrong and he's slow with his throws when Kyle's on the mound. Slower than he is for Pettitte or Mussina, or Mo or Joba. Slower than he is for Jose fucking Veras. Kyle knows. He's timed it.
They're already down 7-5 when he gives up the run, so it's not as bad as it could be. He isn't really responsible for any of the game's results. Only his personal results suffer.
Girardi calls him into the manager's office after. It is not a real office, this isn't home, it's just a sort of storage closet that the Red Sox have slapped a new sign on, to make it look right.
"That wasn't your best outing," Girardi says.
No shit, Kyle thinks, but he nods instead of saying it out loud.
"Feel ok?"
"I'm fuckin' fine," he snaps, annoyed in a way that this has to come up now. The first month of the season isn't even over yet, Christ.
Girardi smirks at him, a hint of the real smile underneath. "OK, tough guy." He stands, comes around the absurdly tiny desk. The room is so small, Kyle has nowhere to go, nothing to do but back into the closed door behind him.
"Just checking," Girardi says. He is very close to Kyle now, his nose almost level with Kyle's chin-- Kyle is a good handful of inches taller. "It's my job," he adds.
"I got that," Kyle says, although the words are tough to come by. His throat is getting dry. For some reason.
Girardi puts a hand on Kyle's waist. He just rests it there, like a catcher would. Kyle wants to look down at it, but he can't, Girardi's head is in the way.
This could be a catcher thing, or it could be a Billy Mueller thing. It might be hard to tell. But the door is closed, and Kyle hasn't gotten this far without learning what that generally means.
The hand at his waist twitches, slides around to the small of his back. It edges under his shirt, fingertips spreading out across his skin. He shivers hard, just at the way it feels. Girardi snickers softly, then opens his mouth on the spot where Kyle's t-shirt collar meets his bare neck.
"Oh," Kyle says, like he's surprised. Even though he's not.
"Mmmmhm," Girardi says. He slides his hand lower, down to Kyle's jeans.
Kyle reaches up, puts a hand on the back of Girardi's head, palm down. Girardi's hair is cropped very close, it's prickly to touch, short and stiff. "So this is. What?" he asks.
Girardi slowly pushes him back against the door, using his whole body to press up against various parts of Kyle; a chest against his, a leg sliding between his thighs. Kyle thinks that he could probably still stop it, right now, if he wanted. He could tell Girardi to get the fuck away from him and Girardi would listen.
"Pretty obvious what this is," Girardi says. He's flush with Kyle now, bodies aligned and slotted into place like a puzzle. His body is putting out a lot of heat, or at least that's what it feels like.
"Didn't give no hints you wanted this in Chicago," Kyle says. Which is true. There were no hints towards him. He definitely would have remembered that.
"When I knew you in Chicago, you were still. Too new." Girardi noses at his neck, uses his leg to push Kyle's legs farther apart. "Hadn't had the polish knocked off yet."
"And now I do? Think I'm offended," Kyle mutters, but who is he kidding. He wears glasses on the mound these days.
Girardi doesn't answer him in words anyways. He just shifts his leg up, thigh pressing into Kyle until it feels too good to ignore. So Kyle doesn't ignore it: he rocks his pelvis forward, back, forward again, deliberate and inexorable. He has good muscle control there. He has pretty damn good muscle control everywhere.
"Jesus fuck," Girardi groans. Kyle grins, mostly to himself.
---
He does not notice Girardi treating him any differently, after. Maybe he catches Girardi watching him a little too attentively when he comes out of the shower after the game. Maybe he asks the clubhouse guys to tailor his pants down, so they fit tighter across the upper quad, to give Girardi something to watch during boring games. But he doesn't get pitched more often, he doesn't get left in to work out his own mistakes, he's pulled just as quickly as ever when he starts to suck, and nobody seems to know.
There's nothing about it in the papers, of course. They both know how to keep something under wraps, layer upon layer of bubblewrap and packing peanuts and clear packing tape.
Girardi's lips look just like he'd pictured, all those seasons ago, spit-wet and stretched.
Kyle is learning an awful lot, late in his career. It feels like forever since he last played under that wide open wind-swept Chicago sky. It's all closed-in, here in New York. Everyone has something to keep to themselves; even the skyscrapers seem to lean in farther, claustrophobic.
Which is fine. Kyle would rather go quietly into the east, holding himself in and apart, than stay wild and open in the midwest, if it means he can win.