even though you tell him, there's more here than just you and me
Well, things are complicated, is what they are. All this stuff going on. I can't keep up.
I'm running scams and looking to move in with my buddy back in DC, just for five months, but right about now a mattress on the floor under the window sounds pretty good, man. For free money on New Year's, I'm buying at friend prices and reselling at street prices, and it's been a crazy few days. The year's almost over, hey. We'll go ahead and figure it all out, but not just yet.
I keep writing stuff, very in all ways weird stuff, but I know enough not to trust my state of mind right now. Nothing new gets posted till I'm two days clean, at least.
A's and Giants caps everywhere I look. It's wonderful.
Table of Contents
Pictures courtesy bradausmus12 and Jen's Baseball Page
The Rest of Your Life
By Candle Beck
Part the Ninth: Get Where You’re Going
(the new kid)
From the start, Eric Munson does not like Barry Zito.
They meet at the first USC team meeting at the end of the winter of Munce’s junior year, a little while after he gets back from Las Vegas, just a general kind of check-up to make sure everyone’s staying on track and to introduce the freshmen and transfer players.
Munson walks in, his face badly sunburned from falling asleep on the beach a couple of days ago, and there’s a tall brown-haired kid talking fast to a clutch of the infielders. Munce gets slapped on the back, greeted with hugs and hair-rustles, and during his third orbit of the room, he edges into the group around the unfamiliar guy. The second baseman is the only one who pays him any mind, grinning and clocking him on the shoulder; the others are busy snickering at a joke the new kid’s telling.
Munson waits for a break, waits for the new kid to notice him and introduce himself, but he’s too wrapped up in his own joke, and Munson stands there, feeling dumb, until the coach calls them all together.
When the coach clasps a hand on the back of the new kid’s neck and puffs his chest out importantly, Munce sneers inside his head, looking for someone to roll his eyes at, but everyone else is well-behaved and paying attention. His coach says, “And this is Barry Zito, as I guess most of you already know,” and Munson wonders where he was when the fucking Barry Zito memo went out.
And what the fuck kind of name is Barry Zito, anyway?
It turns out that USC is Zito’s third college in as many years, and that he started at UC Santa Barbara and kept getting better, polished like silverware. He was drafted in ’96 too, in the 59th round of the free agent draft by the Seattle Mariners, but chose school instead. Munson likes to think about Zito being fifty-seven rounds behind him-it puts things in perspective.
Zito blushes prettily through his introduction, but Munson’s fairly sure it’s an act. From the way Zito tips his chin up and brushes his hair back with the side of his hand, the way his eyes dart calculatingly across each of their faces, the way Zito doesn’t slouch to hide his height, the way Zito’s big left hand with the strange birthmark across his wrist twists slowly in the air as it hangs at his side, his fingers in a four-seam grip, Munson can tell that Zito’s ego is at least twice the size of his talent, Zito thinks he’s hot shit and at twenty years old, it’s not like he’s got anything to back that up.
Eric Munson takes an immediate dislike to him, which is something that’s never really happened to him before. He’s always giving people second chances, third chances, forty-sixth chances, he always thinks the best of everyone even after he’s been given a surplus of evidence to the contrary, but this kid just fucking grates, right off the bat.
But Munson’s the catcher and Zito’s the star pitcher and that means he can’t say anything about it.
Baseball America puts Eric Munson on the cover of their College Preview issue, and Collegiate Baseball names him the Preseason National Player of the Year, so it’s not like he’s really got to worry about Barry Zito or Eric Chavez or anybody, all he’s got to do is play his game, and soon enough, man, soon enough.
He handles Zito efficiently, professionally, figuring that not all the pitchers he’s gonna catch are gonna be swell guys, he’s probably just gotten lucky so far.
Zito’s so fucking in love with his own curveball, it’s sickening. Munce calls for first ball heat and Zito shakes him off, looking for two fingers and nothing else. Munson gets quickly and fantastically annoyed, because it’s not as if Zito has anything like pinpoint control of the break, and goddamn it, you set them up with strikes, set them down with balls, and the curve is the fucking out pitch.
And he’s the catcher, he’s the one who calls the goddamn game.
He holds it back though, holds it in, because Zito, the other guys just adore Zito. He’s immediately one of the most popular guys on the team, he’s there at every party, shoved in the back of every car on its way to the diner or the bar at the outskirts that doesn’t card.
Munson doesn’t understand it. Zito gets drunk and talks about the flow of positive energy, deep space travel, and his older sister’s band, and you’d think the guys would recognize a fucking nutjob when they see one, but they just nod along intelligently, ask to see pictures and whistle exaggeratedly, “Dude, she’s totally kind of hot,” making Zito screech and cover his ears, all the while a proud little grin on his face.
And then one day in March, they’re playing Washington State, up in the great northwest where the first game is snowed out, and in the opener of the double-header the next day, Munson signals for a curve, and even from behind the plate, he can see Zito’s jaw clench, even though he called for Zito’s precious little hook, what the fuck does he want.
Munce sighs, expecting the shake-off, so fucking tired of this shit, but Zito surprises him by nodding, and getting set, hands to his waist, breathing out and in a perfect profile before he starts his slow kicked delivery.
And throws a motherfucking fastball.
Munson, though he’s not as infatuated with Zito’s curve as the rest of the world apparently is, is nonetheless still fooled by it from time to time, and he waits too long for the straight pitch to break, his mitt pinned to the wrong place, and the pitch bullets at him, aimed dead-on for his cup, drills into the heel of his throwing hand, a shard of pain jagging up his arm.
Munson curses, shaking his glove off and glaring murderously out at the mound, where Zito is standing with a hand on his hip, looking impatient. Munce cradles his right hand against his chest, flexing his fingers. It hurts in the cold air, a deep ache.
The trainer comes out, pressing his fingers curiously all around the blackening mark just above Munson’s wrist. Munce lets him inspect it for a moment, then says, “I’m fine, lemme play, I’m good.”
He’s not, though. His hand gets stiffer, swelling at the heel. Zito doesn’t even come over in the dugout to say he’s sorry, just pulls his maroon warm-up jacket on backwards so that his arms are covered but his shoulders and back aren’t, and spits sunflower seeds at everybody who walks in front of him.
Munce kind of wants to go over there and punch him in the face, but after another inning, he can’t even make enough a fist to hold a bat, much less knock Zito’s teeth down his throat.
They take him to the hospital and the X-rays show a tiny fracture at the place where his wrist ends.
The son of a bitch broke his hand.
Munce is told that he’s got four weeks in a cast to look forward to, and he wishes he and Chavez were talking, because Chavvy would listen to him spew profanity without taking offense, Chavvy would understand the fine gray area of frustration and anger and pain that Munson will be living within for the next month. But they’re not talking, Chavez too busy with spring training to return Munson’s calls or write him an email or anything.
Which is probably a good thing, considering how they left off, considering that Munson still hasn’t learned anything. It’s all about time and distance.
They get back to USC and Munson’s got to be careful all the time now, not jog his hand against anything or roll over on it in the night, and he can’t play, can’t even toss a ball around like he’d be able to if Zito had broken his other hand.
Zito still doesn’t say he’s sorry. Even just from the perspective a teammate, not a friend, he should have, because having their best hitter out of the line-up for a month isn’t gonna help them get back to Omaha. But Zito’s wholly occupied by his own little world like always, and Munson’s backup never gets mad when Zito shakes off everything except the deuce, so probably Zito’s pretty happy with the whole situation, the little fucker.
They lose bad to UCLA, the fourth day Munson’s on the bench, and Munce is in an blackly awful mood.
He meets with the trainers after the game, gets saddled with a bunch of strength-training exercises to keep himself in shape during the month he’s suddenly got off, and stalks back down to the emptied locker room, picking up his glove off the bench so he can sidearm it hard into the wall, but he can’t even do that right, his stupid left arm and his glove slicing off path, barely brushing the concrete.
And Zito’s fucking laughing, leaning in the doorway. Munson snaps his eyes over when he hears the low rumble, Zito dressed in his street clothes and tilted on his shoulder and grinning sharply at him.
“For someone who bats left-handed, you’re not very coordinated from that side, are ya, Munce?” Zito says with a smirk, shaking his head back to get his hair out of his eyes.
Munson’s good hand tightens into a fist, his teeth gritting together. He won’t be, like, entirely surprised if he ends up killing Zito sometime soon.
“Fuck off.”
Zito widens his eyes exaggeratedly, looking like a parody of himself. “Kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”
Munson freezes, suddenly flung into fear so bright it knocks him down, makes him mute and motionless. He stares at Zito, desperately trying to figure out if that was a joke, a casual suck-my-dick-bitch comeback that he’s trained himself to not even flinch at.
Or maybe Zito knows. But how could Zito know? He’s from San Diego too, maybe he saw something way back then, heard something. No, Zito went to University High, the other side of town, there’s no way. Munson and Chavez aren’t even talking. And they never were boyfriends, nothing like it, and, and.
Munce swallows hard, and Zito is studying him carefully, quiet realization sneaking into his expression, and Zito’s grin resurfaces briefly, bigger this time, psychotic.
“I think I hit a nerve,” Zito murmurs, and pushes his shoulder off the wall, his hands in his pockets, just fucking sauntering over, and Munson’s still frozen, can’t move.
Zito gets close, a hair taller than Munson but it’s good enough. Munson sees the slant of Zito’s hair across his forehead, the scar on his jaw that’s no bigger than the dent of a thumbnail, the pieces of gold in his eyes and the tuck of Zito’s collar around his neck, the hippie necklace he wears, and Munson wants to get away from here so badly it’s enough to make him scream.
And Zito’s hands are out of his pockets, on Munson’s shoulders, and Munce knows exactly what’s going to happen and doesn’t do a thing to stop it, which is how he ends up kissing Barry Zito in the deserted locker room with his shoulder blades digging hard on the chilled metal and his one hand in Zito’s hair, his cast against the small of Zito’s back.
It’s the first time he’s kissed someone bigger than he is. It’s the first time he’s kissed a guy who’s not Eric Chavez.
He lets Zito open his mouth, Zito’s hand twisted in the vee of Munson’s jersey, the back of his hand on the bare skin high on Munson’s chest, and Munson kisses him fiercely, fast and hard and not just a little bit panicked. Zito tastes like Bazooka Joe and Gatorade, and he knows what he’s doing.
Munson touches Zito’s face with the palm of his left hand, feeling the scruff, and Zito breathes out into his mouth, licking at Munson’s lips and tugging Munson’s jersey out of his pants.
Zito brushes a hand across Munson’s stomach, mapping, and it feels stunningly good, warm and perfect, and Munce, bolting with fear, shoves him off.
Zito stumbles backwards, surprised and confused and a dark heady look in his eyes, and before he can say what the fuck, Munson blurts out, “You threw that pitch on purpose.”
Zito’s eyes slit dangerously. He looks debauched, huge dilated pupils and swollen mouth. “What?” he says with his voice grated.
Munson waves his cast around, frantic, willing his anger to return, begging for it. “I called for a curve and you threw a fastball.” It’s coming, oh thank god, he’s starting to hate Zito again.
Zito takes a step towards him, but stops when Munson yanks himself backwards, bangs into the locker behind him. “I missed the sign.”
Eric tries out a glare. “You missed shit. You were fucking with me like you always do, and you broke my fucking hand!”
Zito stares at him blankly, the black in his eyes shrinking even as Munson watches, almost hypnotized by it. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Zito asks, and Munson sees that his hands are trembling.
Munce shakes his head so hard something in his neck cracks like a pencil. “You did it on purpose.”
Zito whips a hand through his hair, sneers, “You’re a total jackass, you know that?” and then walks out, his back tense with anger and his legs stiff as wooden pegs.
Munson waits until he hears the outer door clang shut, echoing through the concrete tunnel, and slides down the locker easily, folding into himself on the floor and thinking, ‘fuck fuck fuck what the fuck his fault definitely his fault but what the fuck,’ and he’s suddenly unbearably glad that he and Chavez are not speaking to each other right now.
To get through the season, they never mention it again. Munson never even looks at Zito unless he absolutely has to. They’re the most businesslike battery in college baseball for the rest of that season, their focus on nothing but the game, and they’re brilliant together.
And when Zito is selected by the Oakland A’s in the first round of the June draft, Munson decides that that’s really just fucking perfect, thinking sickly that Chavez and Zito deserve each other.
*
(4,189 hits and he’ll kill you if you look at him wrong)
Before the draft, though, before he gets his cast taken off, he rides up with Ruby and Cesar and a caravan of other family and friends, to see Eric Chavez play in his first season opener as the starting third baseman for the Oakland Athletics.
He sits in the backseat with Amber Tarpy and they play Travel Scrabble (he’s convinced she’s making up words. ‘Ibex’? As if), and punch-buggy and the license plate game. Sometimes he looks up to see a horizontal bookmark of Ruby’s face smiling at them in the rearview mirror, her two adopted children.
There’s a gray sky over Oakland, a fine rain. Ruby’s eyes tear as Eric Chavez’s name is announced, and Amber Tarpy is filming the whole game on the video camera, wiping the lens clean with her shirt sleeve until the rain lifts. Eric Munson keeps his casted arm under an extra windbreaker, making sure it doesn’t get wet, and when he claps for his best friend, it’s careful and muted.
Roger Clemens is pitching for the World Champion New York Yankees, and when he throws high and tight to Chavez three pitches into his first at-bat, Eric Munson lets a laugh break free and all of Chavez’s family and friends give him dirty looks. Eric Munson thinks, ‘retaleration,’ and a little boy on first base who understood baseball retribution.
They don’t stick around long after the game, talking to Chavez for a little while over the rail, occasionally interrupted by kids looking for autographs, anybody in an A’s uniform, it’s all the same. Chavez has got exhaustion scrawled all over his face, and he kisses Amber good-bye, shakes Munson’s hand without looking him in the eye, and disappears into the clubhouse.
A couple of weeks later, back in L.A., Munson’s cast comes off and his game comes back at full-tilt. There’s a little more than a month until the draft, and every baseball publication in the country is listing him as the best college prospect in the country, first round for sure, most likely in the top five.
Eric Munson doesn’t like to think about it, because when he was eighteen he was certain he’d go first round too, but sometimes the thought skitters across his mind: ‘top five is better than number ten.’
With Chavez in Oakland, it’s easier to think straight. Just like always when Munson doesn’t have to see his best friend on a regular basis, there’s space in his lungs for oxygen again. And he can just play, top of his game and better every day, and the 2nd of June is circled so many times on his calendar that the ink seeps through into October.
He gets a call from the Detroit Tigers on the first day of June, and the scouting director tells him, unofficially, that they’ll be taking him with their first pick. Munson mumbles through his thank yous and he’s sick to his stomach. They want him as a first baseman and he’s not sure he still knows how to stand up straight on a baseball field, he’s always in his crouch or on his knees, the diamond low in his eyes and pale tan lines caged on his face from his mask.
He’s never been to Detroit before. He’s never set foot in Michigan, he’s never even changed planes there.
But it doesn’t matter, and he thinks about Ty Cobb, Jack Morris, Gehringer and Kaline, Mickey Cochrane, Slug Heilmann with his short right-handed swing in black-and-white photographs, chopping into the spit and the stopball and sending the knuckler into the street. He sees the chalk-white home uniforms and the archaic illuminated manuscript D, blue and orange and a jungle cat of dusky orange and sleek black stripes.
That night, he has a bad dream, a shipwreck, something, bats and baseballs like corks in the ocean, empty-puppet uniform jerseys drifting among the seaweed. He’s wearing his catcher’s gear and he’s sinking, dragged down. He sees Eric Chavez on the suffocating way to the bottom, his eyes rolled up white and his hair floating limply, his arms above his head. He opens his mouth to scream and the water pours into his lungs, and Ty Cobb is laughing at him from the sea floor, bubbles exploding upwards. Cobb is polishing his knifed spikes and his face is the picture from that famous medical book, what’s it called, he can’t remember, the book that defines Cobb as a sociopathic personality. Murderously insane eyes.
Eric Munson wakes up damp with sweat, his throat swollen and sore, his heart trying to escape its fittings and burst out of his chest. It’s too early, still, but he calls Eric Chavez.
“Dude,” Chavez says, sounding more awake than Munson is. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Detroit called me last night,” Munson tells him, his breath short.
Chavez pauses. “The whole city?”
Munson makes a strangled laugh. “No, the Tigers, idiot. They . . . they said they’re gonna take me with their first selection.”
There’s another pause, and Munce wants to scream at him, quit taking so long jesus fucking christ. But Chavez is working the team order over in his head, and finally he breathes out, “That’s . . . fuck, Munce, they’ve got third pick.”
Munson nods. It’s just starting to get light outside, the soft dust color of sunrise. “I know.”
“Top five,” Chavez says wonderingly. “I knew you would, but . . . but you are.” Chavez laughs, a strangely pure laugh, ringing. “Dude, I’m so pumped up for you, it’s ridiculous.”
Munce smiles a little bit. He’s suddenly very glad that there are three hundred and fifty miles between him and his best friend. That he can breathe freely now, and that Chavez can say that to him and mean it, because they’ve gotten so fucked up and he doesn’t want that to touch this day, he wants this day to be what it should have been when they were eighteen years old, perfect, just perfect.
“Yeah?”
Chavez rings out another laugh, and Munson tries to think back to the last time he heard his friend laugh like that. “Yeah, man, I couldn’t get to sleep at all, it feels like ’96 again. Except, well, you know, not as much. But close.”
There’s slow burn in Munson’s chest, Chavez kept up by nerves on his behalf, Munson didn’t know they were still that close, sympathy pains, but he should have known better, he should have known.
“Have you ever been to Detroit, Eric?” Munce asks.
“No. We’re going in a few weeks, though, the road trip at the end of the month.”
Munson pulls the covers up over his head, burrowing away with his cell phone and Eric Chavez’s voice. “It’s pretty far, huh.”
He thinks about when they were ten years old and convinced that they would both play for the San Diego Padres, the same field, the same uniforms. He thinks about the ten years of their life when they were teammates every season.
“It’s not so far,” Chavez replies gently. “It’s still the American League.”
“How . . . how many games a year?” Munson says, and thinks that he should clarify that, but Chavez knows what he means.
“Nine.”
“Jesus, that’s it?” Munson says before he can think better of it.
There’s a brief shuffle, Eric Chavez shrugging his shoulders helplessly. “Inter-league, man, it takes up three weeks. And you spend about two months just in your division, so.”
“Well,” Munce says, and then stops, takes a moment and starts again. “I guess I should start getting ready. There’s a bunch of people coming over.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Chavez hesitates himself, then says, “Call me after you know for sure, okay?”
Munce presses his face into the pillow, breathing deep. He likes it under here, where’s it’s dark and warm and Chavez is being nice to him again. “’Kay. Have a good game, dude.”
“I will,” Chavez answers, and Munson can hear him smiling.
And it happens just like it’s supposed to happen, after Josh Hamilton goes to the Devil Rays and Josh Beckett goes to the Marlins, Eric Munson goes to the Detroit Tigers, the number third pick and everyone nodding wisely, this kid is gonna do something, this kid is gonna go all the way.
His dad’s got the video camera rolling and Munson’s small cruddy college-boy house is stuffed with people, friends and teammates and family and Amber Tarpy’s aunt with her reporter’s notebook away for once, just waiting to hear like everybody else, talking with Eric’s aunt Gloria and telling Dora Munson in a low honest voice, “he’s the best college player in the country, the best I’ve seen in awhile.”
Munson gets the call and shouts out the news and they clash around him, his father whooping and his sister crying and every face broken open in a huge grin, and there’s a moment when Eric Munson is glad that he didn’t go first-round in ’96, because that wouldn’t have been as good as this, nothing could be as good as this.
The calls start to pour in and he paces up and down in the hallway, talking to people he’s forgotten he knew, and he feels a weird sense of déjà vu, not realizing for about a half an hour that he’s remembering someone else’s experience, he’s remembering Eric Chavez telling him about this part of it, the flood of calls and the whole world wanting to hear his voice.
Nostalgic for his best friend’s life, and Eric Munson goes out to sit on the front steps. It’s widely bright, a beautiful day, perfect day, and he puts on his black sunglasses. He thinks ‘major league baseball,’ and the shell cuts into his palm.
He calls Chavez but Chavez doesn’t pick up. It’s almost time for batting practice in Oakland, Chavvy’s probably already on the field. Munson looks out from his front porch, a silly grin on his face, his eyes wet behind his shades. It’s so pretty out here he almost can’t believe it’s real.
His phone hums in his hand and he doesn’t need to look to see who it is.
“Dude!” Chavez yells exuberantly, shattered over the line, and there’s a stumble in Munson’s chest, there’s a pain that feels so good and a strain of true joy that makes him want to cry.
“Dude,” he whispers, barely forcing that one word out.
“I am so fucking proud of you,” and Chavez’s voice cracks, far away in a big league clubhouse, and three years behind him, Munson can see the future. “My teammates think I’m crazy but they’re all fuckers and they don’t know shit.” There’s a hollow echo of boos and whistles in the background, and Chavez saying above it, “We did it,” and then Chavez saying over and over again, “We did it, we did it,” and Munce thinks the scar on Chavez’s palm must be aching too.
“Thanks, bro,” Munson says, finding his strength because he needs all of it now.
“I’ve actually . . . I can’t really talk. Which fucking sucks. But we’ve got to go out,” Chavez says apologetically.
Munson nods. “No, yeah. I figured.”
“So proud of you,” Chavez says again, like it’s all he’s got in him.
Munson pushes his fingers under his sunglasses, swiping at his leaking eyes. “I love you, man,” he says suddenly, and it doesn’t sound like it’s sounded since Arlington, it sounds old and familiar, like when they were just brothers and nothing more.
There’s an instant of pinning shock, a cold-water splash of realization that this is the better kind of love, this is the best kind of love and the only one they ever should have wished for, but then Chavez tells him, rumbling and deep, “I know you do, I love you too, I love you like crazy,” with his teammates howling in the background, and Chavez has taken it the wrong way, taken it in the Arlington way, and Eric Munson decides he doesn’t really care, anything to hear Eric Chavez say that to him, make him believe it.
Munson coughs his throat clear, says unevenly, “Go play baseball.”
And Eric Chavez laughs that same good pre-dawn laugh, and Eric Chavez is still laughing when Eric Munson turns his phone off, and it’s all he hears for the rest of that perfect day.
(end part nine)
*
part ten
I'm running scams and looking to move in with my buddy back in DC, just for five months, but right about now a mattress on the floor under the window sounds pretty good, man. For free money on New Year's, I'm buying at friend prices and reselling at street prices, and it's been a crazy few days. The year's almost over, hey. We'll go ahead and figure it all out, but not just yet.
I keep writing stuff, very in all ways weird stuff, but I know enough not to trust my state of mind right now. Nothing new gets posted till I'm two days clean, at least.
A's and Giants caps everywhere I look. It's wonderful.
Table of Contents
Pictures courtesy bradausmus12 and Jen's Baseball Page
The Rest of Your Life
By Candle Beck
Part the Ninth: Get Where You’re Going
(the new kid)
From the start, Eric Munson does not like Barry Zito.
They meet at the first USC team meeting at the end of the winter of Munce’s junior year, a little while after he gets back from Las Vegas, just a general kind of check-up to make sure everyone’s staying on track and to introduce the freshmen and transfer players.
Munson walks in, his face badly sunburned from falling asleep on the beach a couple of days ago, and there’s a tall brown-haired kid talking fast to a clutch of the infielders. Munce gets slapped on the back, greeted with hugs and hair-rustles, and during his third orbit of the room, he edges into the group around the unfamiliar guy. The second baseman is the only one who pays him any mind, grinning and clocking him on the shoulder; the others are busy snickering at a joke the new kid’s telling.
Munson waits for a break, waits for the new kid to notice him and introduce himself, but he’s too wrapped up in his own joke, and Munson stands there, feeling dumb, until the coach calls them all together.
When the coach clasps a hand on the back of the new kid’s neck and puffs his chest out importantly, Munce sneers inside his head, looking for someone to roll his eyes at, but everyone else is well-behaved and paying attention. His coach says, “And this is Barry Zito, as I guess most of you already know,” and Munson wonders where he was when the fucking Barry Zito memo went out.
And what the fuck kind of name is Barry Zito, anyway?
It turns out that USC is Zito’s third college in as many years, and that he started at UC Santa Barbara and kept getting better, polished like silverware. He was drafted in ’96 too, in the 59th round of the free agent draft by the Seattle Mariners, but chose school instead. Munson likes to think about Zito being fifty-seven rounds behind him-it puts things in perspective.
Zito blushes prettily through his introduction, but Munson’s fairly sure it’s an act. From the way Zito tips his chin up and brushes his hair back with the side of his hand, the way his eyes dart calculatingly across each of their faces, the way Zito doesn’t slouch to hide his height, the way Zito’s big left hand with the strange birthmark across his wrist twists slowly in the air as it hangs at his side, his fingers in a four-seam grip, Munson can tell that Zito’s ego is at least twice the size of his talent, Zito thinks he’s hot shit and at twenty years old, it’s not like he’s got anything to back that up.
Eric Munson takes an immediate dislike to him, which is something that’s never really happened to him before. He’s always giving people second chances, third chances, forty-sixth chances, he always thinks the best of everyone even after he’s been given a surplus of evidence to the contrary, but this kid just fucking grates, right off the bat.
But Munson’s the catcher and Zito’s the star pitcher and that means he can’t say anything about it.
Baseball America puts Eric Munson on the cover of their College Preview issue, and Collegiate Baseball names him the Preseason National Player of the Year, so it’s not like he’s really got to worry about Barry Zito or Eric Chavez or anybody, all he’s got to do is play his game, and soon enough, man, soon enough.
He handles Zito efficiently, professionally, figuring that not all the pitchers he’s gonna catch are gonna be swell guys, he’s probably just gotten lucky so far.
Zito’s so fucking in love with his own curveball, it’s sickening. Munce calls for first ball heat and Zito shakes him off, looking for two fingers and nothing else. Munson gets quickly and fantastically annoyed, because it’s not as if Zito has anything like pinpoint control of the break, and goddamn it, you set them up with strikes, set them down with balls, and the curve is the fucking out pitch.
And he’s the catcher, he’s the one who calls the goddamn game.
He holds it back though, holds it in, because Zito, the other guys just adore Zito. He’s immediately one of the most popular guys on the team, he’s there at every party, shoved in the back of every car on its way to the diner or the bar at the outskirts that doesn’t card.
Munson doesn’t understand it. Zito gets drunk and talks about the flow of positive energy, deep space travel, and his older sister’s band, and you’d think the guys would recognize a fucking nutjob when they see one, but they just nod along intelligently, ask to see pictures and whistle exaggeratedly, “Dude, she’s totally kind of hot,” making Zito screech and cover his ears, all the while a proud little grin on his face.
And then one day in March, they’re playing Washington State, up in the great northwest where the first game is snowed out, and in the opener of the double-header the next day, Munson signals for a curve, and even from behind the plate, he can see Zito’s jaw clench, even though he called for Zito’s precious little hook, what the fuck does he want.
Munce sighs, expecting the shake-off, so fucking tired of this shit, but Zito surprises him by nodding, and getting set, hands to his waist, breathing out and in a perfect profile before he starts his slow kicked delivery.
And throws a motherfucking fastball.
Munson, though he’s not as infatuated with Zito’s curve as the rest of the world apparently is, is nonetheless still fooled by it from time to time, and he waits too long for the straight pitch to break, his mitt pinned to the wrong place, and the pitch bullets at him, aimed dead-on for his cup, drills into the heel of his throwing hand, a shard of pain jagging up his arm.
Munson curses, shaking his glove off and glaring murderously out at the mound, where Zito is standing with a hand on his hip, looking impatient. Munce cradles his right hand against his chest, flexing his fingers. It hurts in the cold air, a deep ache.
The trainer comes out, pressing his fingers curiously all around the blackening mark just above Munson’s wrist. Munce lets him inspect it for a moment, then says, “I’m fine, lemme play, I’m good.”
He’s not, though. His hand gets stiffer, swelling at the heel. Zito doesn’t even come over in the dugout to say he’s sorry, just pulls his maroon warm-up jacket on backwards so that his arms are covered but his shoulders and back aren’t, and spits sunflower seeds at everybody who walks in front of him.
Munce kind of wants to go over there and punch him in the face, but after another inning, he can’t even make enough a fist to hold a bat, much less knock Zito’s teeth down his throat.
They take him to the hospital and the X-rays show a tiny fracture at the place where his wrist ends.
The son of a bitch broke his hand.
Munce is told that he’s got four weeks in a cast to look forward to, and he wishes he and Chavez were talking, because Chavvy would listen to him spew profanity without taking offense, Chavvy would understand the fine gray area of frustration and anger and pain that Munson will be living within for the next month. But they’re not talking, Chavez too busy with spring training to return Munson’s calls or write him an email or anything.
Which is probably a good thing, considering how they left off, considering that Munson still hasn’t learned anything. It’s all about time and distance.
They get back to USC and Munson’s got to be careful all the time now, not jog his hand against anything or roll over on it in the night, and he can’t play, can’t even toss a ball around like he’d be able to if Zito had broken his other hand.
Zito still doesn’t say he’s sorry. Even just from the perspective a teammate, not a friend, he should have, because having their best hitter out of the line-up for a month isn’t gonna help them get back to Omaha. But Zito’s wholly occupied by his own little world like always, and Munson’s backup never gets mad when Zito shakes off everything except the deuce, so probably Zito’s pretty happy with the whole situation, the little fucker.
They lose bad to UCLA, the fourth day Munson’s on the bench, and Munce is in an blackly awful mood.
He meets with the trainers after the game, gets saddled with a bunch of strength-training exercises to keep himself in shape during the month he’s suddenly got off, and stalks back down to the emptied locker room, picking up his glove off the bench so he can sidearm it hard into the wall, but he can’t even do that right, his stupid left arm and his glove slicing off path, barely brushing the concrete.
And Zito’s fucking laughing, leaning in the doorway. Munson snaps his eyes over when he hears the low rumble, Zito dressed in his street clothes and tilted on his shoulder and grinning sharply at him.
“For someone who bats left-handed, you’re not very coordinated from that side, are ya, Munce?” Zito says with a smirk, shaking his head back to get his hair out of his eyes.
Munson’s good hand tightens into a fist, his teeth gritting together. He won’t be, like, entirely surprised if he ends up killing Zito sometime soon.
“Fuck off.”
Zito widens his eyes exaggeratedly, looking like a parody of himself. “Kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”
Munson freezes, suddenly flung into fear so bright it knocks him down, makes him mute and motionless. He stares at Zito, desperately trying to figure out if that was a joke, a casual suck-my-dick-bitch comeback that he’s trained himself to not even flinch at.
Or maybe Zito knows. But how could Zito know? He’s from San Diego too, maybe he saw something way back then, heard something. No, Zito went to University High, the other side of town, there’s no way. Munson and Chavez aren’t even talking. And they never were boyfriends, nothing like it, and, and.
Munce swallows hard, and Zito is studying him carefully, quiet realization sneaking into his expression, and Zito’s grin resurfaces briefly, bigger this time, psychotic.
“I think I hit a nerve,” Zito murmurs, and pushes his shoulder off the wall, his hands in his pockets, just fucking sauntering over, and Munson’s still frozen, can’t move.
Zito gets close, a hair taller than Munson but it’s good enough. Munson sees the slant of Zito’s hair across his forehead, the scar on his jaw that’s no bigger than the dent of a thumbnail, the pieces of gold in his eyes and the tuck of Zito’s collar around his neck, the hippie necklace he wears, and Munson wants to get away from here so badly it’s enough to make him scream.
And Zito’s hands are out of his pockets, on Munson’s shoulders, and Munce knows exactly what’s going to happen and doesn’t do a thing to stop it, which is how he ends up kissing Barry Zito in the deserted locker room with his shoulder blades digging hard on the chilled metal and his one hand in Zito’s hair, his cast against the small of Zito’s back.
It’s the first time he’s kissed someone bigger than he is. It’s the first time he’s kissed a guy who’s not Eric Chavez.
He lets Zito open his mouth, Zito’s hand twisted in the vee of Munson’s jersey, the back of his hand on the bare skin high on Munson’s chest, and Munson kisses him fiercely, fast and hard and not just a little bit panicked. Zito tastes like Bazooka Joe and Gatorade, and he knows what he’s doing.
Munson touches Zito’s face with the palm of his left hand, feeling the scruff, and Zito breathes out into his mouth, licking at Munson’s lips and tugging Munson’s jersey out of his pants.
Zito brushes a hand across Munson’s stomach, mapping, and it feels stunningly good, warm and perfect, and Munce, bolting with fear, shoves him off.
Zito stumbles backwards, surprised and confused and a dark heady look in his eyes, and before he can say what the fuck, Munson blurts out, “You threw that pitch on purpose.”
Zito’s eyes slit dangerously. He looks debauched, huge dilated pupils and swollen mouth. “What?” he says with his voice grated.
Munson waves his cast around, frantic, willing his anger to return, begging for it. “I called for a curve and you threw a fastball.” It’s coming, oh thank god, he’s starting to hate Zito again.
Zito takes a step towards him, but stops when Munson yanks himself backwards, bangs into the locker behind him. “I missed the sign.”
Eric tries out a glare. “You missed shit. You were fucking with me like you always do, and you broke my fucking hand!”
Zito stares at him blankly, the black in his eyes shrinking even as Munson watches, almost hypnotized by it. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Zito asks, and Munson sees that his hands are trembling.
Munce shakes his head so hard something in his neck cracks like a pencil. “You did it on purpose.”
Zito whips a hand through his hair, sneers, “You’re a total jackass, you know that?” and then walks out, his back tense with anger and his legs stiff as wooden pegs.
Munson waits until he hears the outer door clang shut, echoing through the concrete tunnel, and slides down the locker easily, folding into himself on the floor and thinking, ‘fuck fuck fuck what the fuck his fault definitely his fault but what the fuck,’ and he’s suddenly unbearably glad that he and Chavez are not speaking to each other right now.
To get through the season, they never mention it again. Munson never even looks at Zito unless he absolutely has to. They’re the most businesslike battery in college baseball for the rest of that season, their focus on nothing but the game, and they’re brilliant together.
And when Zito is selected by the Oakland A’s in the first round of the June draft, Munson decides that that’s really just fucking perfect, thinking sickly that Chavez and Zito deserve each other.
*
(4,189 hits and he’ll kill you if you look at him wrong)
Before the draft, though, before he gets his cast taken off, he rides up with Ruby and Cesar and a caravan of other family and friends, to see Eric Chavez play in his first season opener as the starting third baseman for the Oakland Athletics.
He sits in the backseat with Amber Tarpy and they play Travel Scrabble (he’s convinced she’s making up words. ‘Ibex’? As if), and punch-buggy and the license plate game. Sometimes he looks up to see a horizontal bookmark of Ruby’s face smiling at them in the rearview mirror, her two adopted children.
There’s a gray sky over Oakland, a fine rain. Ruby’s eyes tear as Eric Chavez’s name is announced, and Amber Tarpy is filming the whole game on the video camera, wiping the lens clean with her shirt sleeve until the rain lifts. Eric Munson keeps his casted arm under an extra windbreaker, making sure it doesn’t get wet, and when he claps for his best friend, it’s careful and muted.
Roger Clemens is pitching for the World Champion New York Yankees, and when he throws high and tight to Chavez three pitches into his first at-bat, Eric Munson lets a laugh break free and all of Chavez’s family and friends give him dirty looks. Eric Munson thinks, ‘retaleration,’ and a little boy on first base who understood baseball retribution.
They don’t stick around long after the game, talking to Chavez for a little while over the rail, occasionally interrupted by kids looking for autographs, anybody in an A’s uniform, it’s all the same. Chavez has got exhaustion scrawled all over his face, and he kisses Amber good-bye, shakes Munson’s hand without looking him in the eye, and disappears into the clubhouse.
A couple of weeks later, back in L.A., Munson’s cast comes off and his game comes back at full-tilt. There’s a little more than a month until the draft, and every baseball publication in the country is listing him as the best college prospect in the country, first round for sure, most likely in the top five.
Eric Munson doesn’t like to think about it, because when he was eighteen he was certain he’d go first round too, but sometimes the thought skitters across his mind: ‘top five is better than number ten.’
With Chavez in Oakland, it’s easier to think straight. Just like always when Munson doesn’t have to see his best friend on a regular basis, there’s space in his lungs for oxygen again. And he can just play, top of his game and better every day, and the 2nd of June is circled so many times on his calendar that the ink seeps through into October.
He gets a call from the Detroit Tigers on the first day of June, and the scouting director tells him, unofficially, that they’ll be taking him with their first pick. Munson mumbles through his thank yous and he’s sick to his stomach. They want him as a first baseman and he’s not sure he still knows how to stand up straight on a baseball field, he’s always in his crouch or on his knees, the diamond low in his eyes and pale tan lines caged on his face from his mask.
He’s never been to Detroit before. He’s never set foot in Michigan, he’s never even changed planes there.
But it doesn’t matter, and he thinks about Ty Cobb, Jack Morris, Gehringer and Kaline, Mickey Cochrane, Slug Heilmann with his short right-handed swing in black-and-white photographs, chopping into the spit and the stopball and sending the knuckler into the street. He sees the chalk-white home uniforms and the archaic illuminated manuscript D, blue and orange and a jungle cat of dusky orange and sleek black stripes.
That night, he has a bad dream, a shipwreck, something, bats and baseballs like corks in the ocean, empty-puppet uniform jerseys drifting among the seaweed. He’s wearing his catcher’s gear and he’s sinking, dragged down. He sees Eric Chavez on the suffocating way to the bottom, his eyes rolled up white and his hair floating limply, his arms above his head. He opens his mouth to scream and the water pours into his lungs, and Ty Cobb is laughing at him from the sea floor, bubbles exploding upwards. Cobb is polishing his knifed spikes and his face is the picture from that famous medical book, what’s it called, he can’t remember, the book that defines Cobb as a sociopathic personality. Murderously insane eyes.
Eric Munson wakes up damp with sweat, his throat swollen and sore, his heart trying to escape its fittings and burst out of his chest. It’s too early, still, but he calls Eric Chavez.
“Dude,” Chavez says, sounding more awake than Munson is. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Detroit called me last night,” Munson tells him, his breath short.
Chavez pauses. “The whole city?”
Munson makes a strangled laugh. “No, the Tigers, idiot. They . . . they said they’re gonna take me with their first selection.”
There’s another pause, and Munce wants to scream at him, quit taking so long jesus fucking christ. But Chavez is working the team order over in his head, and finally he breathes out, “That’s . . . fuck, Munce, they’ve got third pick.”
Munson nods. It’s just starting to get light outside, the soft dust color of sunrise. “I know.”
“Top five,” Chavez says wonderingly. “I knew you would, but . . . but you are.” Chavez laughs, a strangely pure laugh, ringing. “Dude, I’m so pumped up for you, it’s ridiculous.”
Munce smiles a little bit. He’s suddenly very glad that there are three hundred and fifty miles between him and his best friend. That he can breathe freely now, and that Chavez can say that to him and mean it, because they’ve gotten so fucked up and he doesn’t want that to touch this day, he wants this day to be what it should have been when they were eighteen years old, perfect, just perfect.
“Yeah?”
Chavez rings out another laugh, and Munson tries to think back to the last time he heard his friend laugh like that. “Yeah, man, I couldn’t get to sleep at all, it feels like ’96 again. Except, well, you know, not as much. But close.”
There’s slow burn in Munson’s chest, Chavez kept up by nerves on his behalf, Munson didn’t know they were still that close, sympathy pains, but he should have known better, he should have known.
“Have you ever been to Detroit, Eric?” Munce asks.
“No. We’re going in a few weeks, though, the road trip at the end of the month.”
Munson pulls the covers up over his head, burrowing away with his cell phone and Eric Chavez’s voice. “It’s pretty far, huh.”
He thinks about when they were ten years old and convinced that they would both play for the San Diego Padres, the same field, the same uniforms. He thinks about the ten years of their life when they were teammates every season.
“It’s not so far,” Chavez replies gently. “It’s still the American League.”
“How . . . how many games a year?” Munson says, and thinks that he should clarify that, but Chavez knows what he means.
“Nine.”
“Jesus, that’s it?” Munson says before he can think better of it.
There’s a brief shuffle, Eric Chavez shrugging his shoulders helplessly. “Inter-league, man, it takes up three weeks. And you spend about two months just in your division, so.”
“Well,” Munce says, and then stops, takes a moment and starts again. “I guess I should start getting ready. There’s a bunch of people coming over.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Chavez hesitates himself, then says, “Call me after you know for sure, okay?”
Munce presses his face into the pillow, breathing deep. He likes it under here, where’s it’s dark and warm and Chavez is being nice to him again. “’Kay. Have a good game, dude.”
“I will,” Chavez answers, and Munson can hear him smiling.
And it happens just like it’s supposed to happen, after Josh Hamilton goes to the Devil Rays and Josh Beckett goes to the Marlins, Eric Munson goes to the Detroit Tigers, the number third pick and everyone nodding wisely, this kid is gonna do something, this kid is gonna go all the way.
His dad’s got the video camera rolling and Munson’s small cruddy college-boy house is stuffed with people, friends and teammates and family and Amber Tarpy’s aunt with her reporter’s notebook away for once, just waiting to hear like everybody else, talking with Eric’s aunt Gloria and telling Dora Munson in a low honest voice, “he’s the best college player in the country, the best I’ve seen in awhile.”
Munson gets the call and shouts out the news and they clash around him, his father whooping and his sister crying and every face broken open in a huge grin, and there’s a moment when Eric Munson is glad that he didn’t go first-round in ’96, because that wouldn’t have been as good as this, nothing could be as good as this.
The calls start to pour in and he paces up and down in the hallway, talking to people he’s forgotten he knew, and he feels a weird sense of déjà vu, not realizing for about a half an hour that he’s remembering someone else’s experience, he’s remembering Eric Chavez telling him about this part of it, the flood of calls and the whole world wanting to hear his voice.
Nostalgic for his best friend’s life, and Eric Munson goes out to sit on the front steps. It’s widely bright, a beautiful day, perfect day, and he puts on his black sunglasses. He thinks ‘major league baseball,’ and the shell cuts into his palm.
He calls Chavez but Chavez doesn’t pick up. It’s almost time for batting practice in Oakland, Chavvy’s probably already on the field. Munson looks out from his front porch, a silly grin on his face, his eyes wet behind his shades. It’s so pretty out here he almost can’t believe it’s real.
His phone hums in his hand and he doesn’t need to look to see who it is.
“Dude!” Chavez yells exuberantly, shattered over the line, and there’s a stumble in Munson’s chest, there’s a pain that feels so good and a strain of true joy that makes him want to cry.
“Dude,” he whispers, barely forcing that one word out.
“I am so fucking proud of you,” and Chavez’s voice cracks, far away in a big league clubhouse, and three years behind him, Munson can see the future. “My teammates think I’m crazy but they’re all fuckers and they don’t know shit.” There’s a hollow echo of boos and whistles in the background, and Chavez saying above it, “We did it,” and then Chavez saying over and over again, “We did it, we did it,” and Munce thinks the scar on Chavez’s palm must be aching too.
“Thanks, bro,” Munson says, finding his strength because he needs all of it now.
“I’ve actually . . . I can’t really talk. Which fucking sucks. But we’ve got to go out,” Chavez says apologetically.
Munson nods. “No, yeah. I figured.”
“So proud of you,” Chavez says again, like it’s all he’s got in him.
Munson pushes his fingers under his sunglasses, swiping at his leaking eyes. “I love you, man,” he says suddenly, and it doesn’t sound like it’s sounded since Arlington, it sounds old and familiar, like when they were just brothers and nothing more.
There’s an instant of pinning shock, a cold-water splash of realization that this is the better kind of love, this is the best kind of love and the only one they ever should have wished for, but then Chavez tells him, rumbling and deep, “I know you do, I love you too, I love you like crazy,” with his teammates howling in the background, and Chavez has taken it the wrong way, taken it in the Arlington way, and Eric Munson decides he doesn’t really care, anything to hear Eric Chavez say that to him, make him believe it.
Munson coughs his throat clear, says unevenly, “Go play baseball.”
And Eric Chavez laughs that same good pre-dawn laugh, and Eric Chavez is still laughing when Eric Munson turns his phone off, and it’s all he hears for the rest of that perfect day.
(end part nine)
*
part ten