so you just do what you do best
hi. have returned. again, once more, with the why did i ever choose to go to school on the east coast? wanna go back in time and smack my seventeen year old self on the head and be all, fuck expanding your horizons!
crazy week, man. weird sense of stillness in san francisco. anticipatory and foreshadows on everything. the moon was the size of a tractor wheel. there was a fire on the sidewalk in the mission, and for a second it looked like a person that was burning, but then we realized it was just old rags and stuff.
i made thanksgiving dinner for the first time, and used the electric mixer to make mashed potatoes and it was this awesome mess. watched 61* and oh my, such a fan. watched ghostbusters and stripes because young bill murray wins, but not quite as much as old bill murray. my brother put 200 songs on my ipod, mountain goats that i didn't have and desmond dekker and the old 97s and a tribe called quest and joy like this.
didn't write a thing, not a fucking word, all week, which was very strange. i did not manage to stay clean, and i won't be for awhile still. looked for the coliseum as the plane took off, but it was before dawn and i couldn't see nothing. spent three hours in the chicago airport and played so much gameboy my eyes almost started to bleed. came in to reagan and rode the subway home, my third straight day awake and my mouth hurts. washington, dc. fuck.
anyway.
Table of Contents
Pictures courtesy bradausmus12 and Jen's Baseball Page
The Rest of Your Life
By Candle Beck
Part the Third: Good at One Thing
(star of the show)
In high school, Eric Munson is insanely good, and Eric Chavez is somehow even better.
Junior year, Munce hits .517 with seven home runs and 45 runs batted in. He sees everything, he hits everything. The pitchers are starting to get really good, especially in their division, the baseball factory of southern California that produces more major leaguers than any other region in the country.
But Munson can hit the change, and he can hit the curve, and he can hit the first charming sliders he’s ever seen, and he can rack the shit out of the one kid from San Dimas who throws in triple-digits. He can read the stitches like highway signs.
The harder they throw, the better he likes it, because the harder they throw, the farther the ball goes.
That same year, Eric Chavez hits .537 with nine home runs and 35 RBIs. He’d have more ribbies, but he bats lead-off, and instead of knocking more guys in, he steals fifty bases. (The high school baseball regular season, by the way, is 26 games, which means Chavvy blows Rickey Henderson’s steals-per-game ratio out of the fucking water.)
Munson is still faster in a straight footrace, but Chavez has got pure baserunning instinct, his hands twitching as he takes his lead, looking for the break in the pitcher’s motion, the scratch of dirt under his spikes and the first baseman’s shadow on his back. Anyway, Munson’s a catcher, and catchers aren’t supposed to run.
Senior year, the year they win everything, the pitching gets even better, but Munce still bats .432 with 10 home runs, 34 RBIs, and 18 steals even on his catcher’s legs, which are toughening up nicely, his knees hardly even hurting anymore.
And Chavez, nothing making him play harder than the drive to beat out his best friend, goes .458 with 11 home runs, 24 RBIs, and 34 steals. The team’s ace graduated the year before, so he tries pitching, too, ending the season with a 6-2 record and a Gibson-like 1.11 ERA (they don’t lower the mound because of him, but then, it’s not like anybody like him would ever come along again).
Baseball America names the Mt. Carmel High School Sundevils the best high school team in the country, senior year, and the two boys named Eric are the best players they’ve got. By far.
By the time they’re done, Eric Chavez will set a California state record for hits in a high school career. The league, the California Interscholastic Federation-San Diego Section Division I, will be at his mercy as he sets records for single-season hits with 63, single-season steals with 50, ties the mark for runs scored with 49, and fully shatters the record for career steals with 115.
Mt. Carmel will move Billy Beane’s name down a slot in half a dozen places in their record books, and all the lifers at the school will be able to do is whistle low in astonishment and shake their heads, because it’s a damn good baseball school, but this kid is something else.
Eric Chavez is better, as good as the two of them are, Eric Chavez is just a little bit more.
By the last month of their senior season, their whatever has been going on for a year and a half.
Eric Munson comes to a realization, sometime in the middle of the season-ending nine-game win streak that propels them into the division championship. They’re at practice one afternoon, Munce is catching for one of their pitchers and Chavvy is supposed to be taking BP, but is really just slowly going through his warm-up cuts, his bat slashing centrifugally, grinning and flirting through the chain-link with some girls in the bleachers.
The pitching coach steps up on the mound to chat with his pitcher, molding the boy’s arm, miming the motion of the overhand curve, and Munson drops to his knees to wait the conference out, his mask pushed up on his head, absently watching his best friend.
Chavvy’s got such a pretty swing. Munson’s is short and powerful, a rough kind of poetry in it, but Chavvy, man, when he’s swinging lazily and without thought, is all languid and easy, an arc traced in the air.
Chavez twists his torso with each swing, snapping his hips open, and his hands are white-chalked on the wrapped handle. He smiles at the girls, that hero smile of his, and Munce thinks about Chavez’s undying affection for blondes, how good his dark head looks against straw-colored hair.
Munce looks down at his hands, his swelled catcher’s mitt, the dirty stripes of tape around his fingers. He’s got scars on his forearms, etched on his knuckles, the regular scars of a guy who’s played hard in everything he’s done his whole life. He hears Chavez’s high laugh from the fence, and it occurs to Munson that they’re both funny, both kind, both good-looking, both smart enough to get by. They’re both excellent baseball players and they both have a tendency to draw other people to them, lit from the inside.
They’re both the same, but Eric Chavez is, not always but sometimes, when the moment strikes right, when the light’s good, almost painfully flawless.
Sometimes, Eric Chavez is perfect, and Munson, who’s never doubted that he’s worth his best friend’s affection, worth all that Chavez has given him, is all at once blown away by the understanding that nothing this good could ever be his to keep.
*
(don’t say what’s gonna happen)
It’s the night before the draft and they go to the park. They’re eighteen years old.
Neither of them is expecting to sleep, not tonight, not until they know which team they’ll play for.
They’ve signed letters of intent to attend the University of Southern California, each of them offered an everything-and-girls-too scholarship to play baseball with the Trojans, but they’ve got this vow. They’re two of the best high school players in the nation, and scouts still look at high school players.
If they get drafted in the first round, they’ll play. They’ve got a bottom line for signing bonuses enforced upon them by history and their new agents, but it’s almost another promise, that if they go in the first round, whatever the bonuses offered, they’ll play. If they go in the second round, things might be different, college might look like the better choice.
But they’re not planning on being drafted in the second round.
They play basketball in the humid night, the scraped pulls of their breath and their hands quickly smudged and dirty. They talk about graduation, the magnificent end of their last high school season, and a little bit about college, being roommates at USC, but that’s a probably-not-gonna-happen line of conversation, not really worth their time. It’s baseball, you know, just like it’s always been.
“Where do you . . . think you’ll go?” Chavvy asks, his breath coming short, as he fades backwards with the ball, switches hands and his eyes flick from the hoop to his friend. The steady slap of the basketball on the asphalt echoes hollowly around the deserted park, and Munson shrugs.
“Dunno.”
Chavez dekes to his right, his hand on Munson’s shoulder for an instant trying to push off and go the other way, but Munson braces his feet and follows him over, so Chavvy falls back again. “You . . . wanna . . . hazard a guess . . . maybe?” Chavez entreats, weaving the ball between his legs, eyebrows hiked up.
Munson shakes his head, his hair flopping across his forehead, sweat stinging in his eyes. “Nah. Bad . . . luck.”
Chavez mugs at him, mooning his eyes and flagging a smile. “Punk.”
Munce swipes for the ball, his fingertips brushing the pebbled surface before Chavez moves it away, dribbling protectively close to his body. “What . . . about you . . . dude?” Munson says back.
Chavez hesitates, his arm moving as if to palm the ball, and Munson straightens up, thinking Chavvy will take a moment to answer that, but then Chavez breaks, rolling his shoulder off Munson’s chest and striding undefended to the basket, jumping to lay up a neat two points and dropping back down gracefully. Chavez tosses his head back and grins dazzlingly at his friend, hands on his hips and his shirt soaked with sweat. The ball bounces away onto the grass, waiting for someone to come get it.
“Bad luck, Munce.”
Munson is about to scoff a laugh and crack some sideways retort, but then Chavez lifts his chin and the metallic light rakes across his face, dropping his eyes to black and the skin of his throat is gleaming. Munson’s gaze skims helplessly down Eric’s body, the hint of tapered muscle in his chest and stomach through the damp shirt, his hip shot out cockily and his strong hands resting easily.
“C’mere,” Munce says. Chavez tips his head to the side. Munson takes a step towards him, then two, touching the tip of his tongue to his bottom lip unconsciously, and a familiar sneaky smile creeps onto Chavez’s face.
“You want something from me, Eric?” Chavez asks casually, like he doesn’t see anything, like this is new.
Munson nods, his eyes too big for his face, and closes the space between them. Chavez’s steady glint of a smile falters slightly, something darker in his expression, and Munce feels a little stab of triumph at that. He wraps a hand in Chavez’s shirt, slipping and fixing a good grip, and drags him off the court, a bit out of control, or out of his mind, or out of time, or something, definitely out of something.
They get into the singed darkness of the trees and Munson flashes back to that first time, the woods at the western edge of Mt. Carmel High School, chasing Chavez down.
Munson pushes Chavez up against a tree and kisses him, not wasting any time, swiftly turning the kiss filthy and crowding their bodies together, Chavez’s hips in his hands. He pulls back long enough to strip Chavez’s shirt up and over his head, causing Chavez to catch his wrists, breathing out unsteadily, “Whoa . . . what’ve you . . . ah, got in mind there, bud?”
Munson laughs airlessly, nibbling little bites at Chavez’s collarbone and throat. “You’re all sweaty,” he explains.
Chavez gets under Munson’s shirt, his hands moving effortlessly over the damp skin. “Not the only one,” he replies, his breath beginning to brake and stutter.
With Chavez’s shirt tied up around his arm, Munson raises his other hand to cup Chavez’s jaw and kiss him again, his thumb tucked under Chavez’s chin.
For awhile, they just make out, hands moving innocently enough through each other’s hair and over shoulders, backs, occasionally tracing a palm across a stomach, but then Munce, his mouth working on Chavez’s ear, takes advantage of his position to whisper with his voice ragged, “We’re going to the Show.”
Chavez shivers, and Munson feels him smile against his throat. “Going to the Show, man,” Munce says again, skidding his hand down Chavez’s slick chest, under the waistband of his athletic shorts. Chavez catches his breath, hums low and rumbling, pushing his hips up into Munson’s hand, his face pressed against Munson’s neck.
Munson grins wickedly, curves his free hand around the base of Chavez’s skull, Chavez’s forgotten T-shirt dangling between them over Chavez’s shoulder, and Munson gets his fingers in Chavez’s wet hair, draws his face up and kisses him hard.
They’re eighteen years old and most of the way in love with each other, and the major league draft is tomorrow and they’re going to the Show.
*
(ten and sixty-two)
Draft Day breaks open hot and dry. The ocean is scorched and out in the badlands at the edge of the city nothing moves, not the pounded rock sand or the desert creatures, everything still, unblinking.
Eric Chavez hasn’t slept a wink, and his mother Ruby comes down at five-thirty to find him sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor with his copy of the Baseball Almanac spread open in front of him, his chin propped on his hand and a bite mark on his neck that Ruby does not notice in any sort of conscious way.
“Eric,” she says, surprised to find him there.
He looks up at her, his eyes bloodshot and dizzyingly bright. He flashes his most charming grin. “Morning, Ma.”
“What’re you doing on the floor, honey?” she asks worriedly, going over to the refrigerator to pour him a glass of orange juice.
He pulls his legs up, folding them against his chest and hugging himself into an anxious ball. “It’s too hot everywhere else,” he explains unhelpfully, and she lets it slide because it’s Draft Day.
She sets his juice on the floor next to him and tousles his hair, worsening its spears and whorls. He gnaws his lower lip, patters his fingers on the linoleum. His whole body is vibrating, wrecked with energy, and all he can do is sit on the floor and wish this day was already over.
Eric’s little brother Casey, the fifteen year old baby of the family, is the next one up, all huge dark eyes and skinny hands, shuffling and snapping his fingers in rhythm, his mouth a beatbox, jamming into Chavvy until the older boy grins and throws him into a headlock.
Then Chris, fully grown and come home for this most crucial day, slippers in yawning and inarticulate, his eyes almost all the way closed, slouching on his elbow across the table with his thick hair mashed on one side, only smiling sleepily when Chavez asks with a roll of his eyes if maybe he’d like to go back to bed until the draft starts.
Their sister Brandy, of whom they are fiercely, dangerously protective, pads downstairs with her Mt. Carmel High School sweatshirt hood pulled up over her head, making her look small and even younger than she is, blinking out with her pretty fresh-scrubbed face. She blearily leans into Chavvy’s shoulder as he sits at the table, waiting until he lazily winds an arm around her waist, then says, “’Kay, I’m ready, let’s go eat.”
They go to Denny’s, wearing flipflops and pajama pants. It’s the first time Chris has been home in awhile, and the four of them are talking in a secret language and making obscure references that no one else in the world would understand, and they’re snickering, kicking each other under the table, threatening to pour syrup in each other’s hair.
Back at the house, both their parents have taken the day off work and are setting things up for the family driving down from Los Angeles. Eric gets a giant hug from his father, unexpectedly blinking back tears against his dad’s shoulder, and then is deposited on the living room couch, the first soda of many pressed into his hand, his brothers and sister scrunching in next to him.
Eric thinks, suddenly and with inexpressible force, that he and Munson should be together today, this day, because they’ve always had better luck as two than as one. His hands itch for the telephone, for the handlebars of his bike, but he pushes it down. They decided it would be better to hear separately. Their two families have claim on this day, priority.
The draft starts late. The league office has some sort of issue with their teleconference set-up, and Eric Chavez’s nails are dug into the heels of his hands, leaving little crescent-moon dents behind.
The first time the phone rings, it’s one of Ruby’s coworkers eagerly jumping the gun and asking where he’d gone. Eric Chavez’s heart is in his throat, his head stuffed with broken prayers and swear words and flashed images of the life that got him to this point. He rubs his thumb unconsciously across the threaded scar on his palm, tasting salt water in his mouth.
The second time the phone rings, Eric picks it up himself, every pair of eyes in the room wide and watching him, Chavvy onstage, under the microscope, atomized, and he turns his back to his family, stares out the window at his familiar childhood street, makes his voice strong and answers, “This is Eric Chavez.”
A brisk, roughly congratulatory man says to him, “Eric, this is Billy Beane. I’m the assistant general manager of the Oakland Athletics, and we’ve just taken you as the number tenth pick overall.”
Chavez closes his eyes, his shoulders falling slack, and breathes out, “Thank you.”
The Oakland A’s. The Oakland A’s.
They say a bit more to each other, nothing memorable, and then Eric hangs up the phone, spins back to the crowd with his face alight, beaming, and he calls out joyfully, “Oakland!”
They wash over him, hands slapping and arms pulling him into hugs and everybody whooping, hooting, Casey and Brandy jumping up and down on the couch cushions, Chris scooping Eric off his feet in a rib-crushing embrace, and his mother crying, his father’s arm around her shoulders holding her close, and a suspicious glimmer in Cesar’s eyes.
At Eric Munson’s house, the phone has not rung.
Munce is sitting on the carpet, leaning back against the couch. His sister Shelly, home from her college in Nebraska, occasionally reaches down to pet him on the head reassuringly, but as each minute passes and the phone stays quiet, Eric gets more and more irritated with her, wants to slap away her hand, jerk out of her reach.
He’s staring unseeingly at the television and the radio is rustling, tuned to the sports station that will be reporting the draft picks as they are announced. Eric Munson’s mouth is cotton-dry and his thoughts are stretched and torn, unfinished.
It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. The first round is done. And Eric clings desperately to the second round, a hot tense feeling in his chest, because he thought he was good enough to go in the first, the first for sure, and if that’s not true, then maybe he’s not good enough to be drafted at all.
The man on the radio, the guy who does the after-game show sometimes for the Pads, tells them happily, “And the tenth pick in the first round is a local boy, ladies and gentleman, Eric Chavez of Rancho Penasquitos and Mt. Carmel High School, selected by the Oakland Athletics.”
Eric Munson’s eyes quickly film with tears, his heart strangled. “Aw, Eric,” he whispers too low for anybody else to hear, his lips barely moving.
Dora and Steve watch him carefully, and they see a momentary grin of sheer happiness break across their son’s face, before the curtain falls down again. He turns to look at them, his eyes shining and his expression blank.
“Listen,” he begins, but the word cracks down the middle and he stops, clears his throat harshly, before continuing, “I’m gonna . . . I gotta, I’m just. I’m gonna head out for a bit. This is killing me.”
Steve lifts his eyebrows, exchanges a concerned look with his wife. “Are you sure?”
Eric nods, his head feeling loose on his neck. “Yeah.” He stands, whipping his hands through his hair.
Dora hedges carefully, “Do you want to call Eric first, baby?”
Eric’s jaw tenses. He shakes his head tightly, not looking at anybody, and takes off.
He goes surfing.
He picks up their buddy Steve Scogin, who takes one look at his face and doesn’t say shit to him about the draft, Munson pathetically grateful for it. Their boards rattle together in the back of Steve Munson’s truck, both windows open, wind-tunneling, and Munce pushes himself into the ocean, over and over again, swimming down and feeling the weight of the water on his shoulders, the pressure in his head. He strokes out and glides back in, quiet under the waves, quiet on top of the waves, and he lies on his back on his board, floating, staring up at the hard blue sky, and this is the worst day of his life.
He gets home and his father is trying to smile but his eyes are shrouded, telling his son that he’d been drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the second round, the sixty-second pick overall.
Eric Munson nods, taking this like a man, a dense pain in his chest, and goes to his room, brushing past Steve’s hesitantly reaching hand. He locks the door and falls into his bed, his body flushed with heat and thinking on a dumb loop, ‘Sixty-two. Sixty-two. Sixty-two,’ waiting for the words to stop making sense.
Eric Chavez, his back sore from being slapped, his form crushed by hugs, his ear aching from all the phone calls he’d taken, is going insane.
Everyone wants to talk to him, reporters and radio talk show hosts and the Oakland A’s PR staff, twice-removed family he’s never met whose lucky Spanish wishes have to be translated by his father, middle-aged friends of his parents and his high school teammates and the entire rest of the world.
He talks to their Mt. Carmel coach, who sounds unnervingly close to being emotional, and their favorite teacher, Mrs. Lamphiere-Tamayoshi, who teaches English and coaches gymnastics and responds to Chavvy’s still-incredulous explanation-“I’m gonna be an Athletic, Mrs. L-T”-by informing him laughingly, “‘Athletic’ is not a noun, Eric.” He talks to everyone who wants a piece of him, knocked askew by it all.
The party at the Chavez house has calmed, spread out through the wide rooms, and every time he steps through a doorway, the kitchen, the living room, the front porch, everyone turns and grins at him, tells him congratulations again and Chavez is feeling disconnected, thrown off, wandering through this, because it’s a dream, it’s got to be, it can’t be real.
And he hasn’t heard from Munson.
That’s the main thing. This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to him, maybe the best too, but he can’t get a grip on it, because Munson isn’t there to explain it to him. That the reality of his life should rest in his best friend’s eyes might have bothered Chavvy, but not today. Today he just needs to see his friend’s face, needs Munce to scrub a hand through Chavvy’s hair and smile that careless rolled-eyes smile of his, needs Munson, plain and simple.
But Munce wasn’t home when he first called, unsettled and weirdly irritated to learn that Eric had run off surfing with Scogin, like this was just any other day. And when he called back, a couple hours later, after the draft was over, Dora told him gently that Eric wasn’t ready to talk yet.
And Chavvy felt a whine in his throat, but it’s me, Dora, he’ll talk to me, though of course that isn’t true.
Munson was drafted in the second round and maybe that changes a lot of things, maybe changes everything.
Chavez can feel Munson’s broken heart across the space that separates them, pain as real as if it was his own, a shattered rib cage, splinters of bone in his lungs.
How could this have happened? How could Chavez be number ten and Munson number sixty-two? They’ve always been one and two, two and one, they’re the same.
Chavez smiles and laughs with his uncles, gets plastered with kisses from his aunts, plays cards with his grandfather and video games with his sister, he eats a tasteless dinner, balancing the plate on his knees because they ran out of space at the dining room table.
He wants to see his best friend.
But he knows well enough how Munson’s got to be feeling right now, or at least he imagines he does. If Chavez hadn’t been picked in the first round, maybe he would have run away too, gone out to the beach or the old mission or the tree with the rotted trunk forming a cool dry cave that’d been his hiding place when he was a kid. Maybe he wouldn’t want to talk to anybody either.
But, no, he’d still want to see Munson, he’s pretty sure of that. Squeeze into the tree and sit with their shoulders pressed together, fighting for space, their knees clocking and legs twisted. Even if he hadn’t been drafted at all, he’d still want Munce around.
Eric Chavez, the tenth pick overall in the 1996 Major League Baseball amateur draft, is blindly confident of this.
He’s just about ready to leap out of his skin, or leap on his bike, or steal Chris’s car, buzzing with agitation, when the phone rings, Chavez not even registering the high peal of it anymore, until Ruby pokes her head into the living room and says gently, “It’s Eric, mi’jo.”
Chavez is off the couch like there are springs under his feet, darting across the room. He holds his hand out for the phone, then thinks better of it, drawing back. “I’ll pick up the extension,” he says, his face tense and eager, pounding up the stairs and taking the cordless into his bedroom, clicking the lock shut behind him.
He clambers gracelessly onto the bed, sitting back against the headboard and looking down at the phone in his hand for a long moment before he hits the button and says, “Eric?”
He hears Munce breathing quietly on his end, realizes absently that he can tell the fall of Munson’s breath apart from anyone else’s.
“Hi,” Munson answers, and neither of them say anything for awhile. Chavez picks at a loose thread on his jeans, pushes his toes against the blankets, crumpling the bedding out of form. He doesn’t like it when Munson isn’t talking; it makes him nervous.
Finally, Munce blows out a staticky bristle of air against the receiver, and says with his voice hoarse and bleeding sincerity, “Congratulations, man.”
Chavvy lifts his hand, covering his face, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye socket. “Thanks,” he says by rote.
“I’m . . . I’m really proud of you,” Munce tells him, the words cracking, catching, shot down.
Chavez’s throat is choked, and he wants to protest that, something. “No, Munce,” he tries to say, but Munson cuts him off.
“I am,” he says, a fierce edge to it. “So fucking proud of you. You shoulda . . . you shoulda gone higher. Better than tenth.”
And that, Christ, that just breaks Chavez’s heart, slams him to pieces. “Eric!” he cries. “You . . . fucking shut up, man. I don’t . . . I mean, you don’t . . . Look, if you wanna. Talk. Or whatever.”
Frustrated, Chavez wrenches a hand in his hair, pulling hard, wishing he could talk good, wishing he knew how to do this.
Munson just breathes for a long time, then answers almost inaudibly, “Yeah. Yeah. I know. It’s just . . . today kind of sucked, you know?”
Chavez nods, his eyes hot, lets Munce continue.
“I was . . . sitting there. Waiting for the phone. And Shelly kept messing with my hair, and I wanted to tell her to quit it, but I couldn’t, because she was just trying to help, and, and . . . And it was eleven o’clock and we hadn’t heard shit. Then the radio . . . the first round picks . . .”
He trails off for good this time, and Chavez croaks out his name again, feeling useless.
Munson finds his wind again, unsteady. “I wanted to come get you,” he says softly. “When I heard you’d gone at tenth, I wanted to go to your house and . . . and, like, kidnap you or something.” He laughs a bit desolately. “Take you away. And never . . . never find out if I got drafted in the second round and never have to worry about if the A’s can afford what you’re worth and just . . . not be here anymore. I . . . I really didn’t like being here, today.”
“You could have,” Chavez whispers, certain of it, anything to take that awful tone out of his best friend’s voice. “I would have gone with you.”
And that’s too much, that’s way more than either of them can take, because Munson makes a snapped-wood sound halfway between a sob and a moan, and starts to cry.
“Aw, hell, man,” he barely manages. “I know you would have, I know. I just . . . I couldn’t, it was too much, and I was so . . . so proud of you, swear to god I was.”
That sets Chavvy off, bending his legs against his chest and burying his face in his knees, cradling the phone against his ear and tears leaking out the corners of his eyes, burning high on his cheeks, the first time he’s cried since the night Munson moved in him for the first time.
“Dude,” he attempts, but it doesn’t work, his tongue not working right and his throat clenched shut. He coughs, rubbing his eyes on his knees, starchy denim scuffing against the skin of his eyelids. “It’s not fair, babe,” Chavvy says. “It’s not right. They’re just fucking stupid, they don’t know anything, you’re better than all those guys, shoulda gone first round, good as any of them, I promise.”
That just makes Munson cry harder, feeling like such a punk, but beyond caring, at this point, beyond pretty much everything.
It takes them awhile, but eventually they settle, start breathing cleanly again, sniffing and clearing their throats, both of them glad this conversation isn’t happening in person, because neither of them wants the other to see or be seen, red eyes swollen and clogged noses, shaking weakly as the last of it drains away.
Chavez lowers himself to lie on the bed, curled up on his side, twilight pressing his room into sharp geometric shadows, dust-colored and slivered.
“So what are you gonna do?” he asks, his vocal cords feeling shredded. “Sign with the Braves or go to USC?”
That’s really the question, isn’t it? That’s the heart of the thing. Chavvy isn’t aware that he’s holding his breath until his chest starts to hurt, because maybe everything depends on this.
Munce takes his time, his breath evening out, becoming slow and considering.
“I don’t know,” he says, quiet enough to be a confession. “I . . . really, I just have no fucking idea, Chavvy.”
Chavez nods, his eyes sheering over again and he swipes his arm across them angrily, brushing the tears away because they’re done with that now.
“Munce,” he begins hesitantly, his hand tied up in the sheets. “Can I . . . can I come over tonight? See you?”
Feeling in some vague part of himself that if he can’t have his hands on Munson tonight, he won’t be okay, he won’t make it through.
But Munson doesn’t even take that long of a pause, this time, sighing and saying, “No, man. Not tonight.”
Chavez turns his face into the bed, screwing his eyes shut. “’Kay,” he whispers.
Munson makes a raspy sound, explains, “It’s just been a really long day, Eric.”
Chavvy nods sightlessly, the smooth cool sheet on his cheek. “No, I know. It’s cool. I’ll . . . I’ll see you tomorrow, though, right?”
“Of course.” Munson pauses. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow, okay?”
His best friend nods again, tasting linen in the corner of his mouth. “Tomorrow.”
Chavvy listens to Munce draw in a slow breath, Chavvy’s chest aching and his head on fire, and his eyes fly open as Munson spills out recklessly, almost mumbling, “I love you, man, go to sleep,” and then clatters the phone down, the dial tone sudden and slicing through like a low moan.
*
(hold me down)
Eric Munson decides to go to college.
The next day, Eric Chavez decides to go to college, too.
Munson has already turned down the final offer from the Atlanta Braves (he wanted first round money, got just short of it, and found that he no longer cared that much), and there’s no going back for him. He’ll be a Trojan and win the College World Series, it’s his new goal, his new plan. He’ll go in the first round in 1999. He’ll still get there, it’ll just take a little longer.
Cesar, Ruby, and Eric Chavez’s agent are still negotiating with the Oakland Athletics. The A’s are small-market, they have no money, and everyone keeps telling Eric that he can’t sign for less than he’s worth. The signing bonus offered by the team inches closer to what it should be, and as crazy as it is for Cesar and Ruby to know that their second son is going to be very rich, it’s even more crazy to think that they might have to turn down being very rich for three more years. Billy Beane is now intricately involved, seeing as how he’s got a historic understanding of what it’s like being a high school superstar, a Mt. Carmel alumnus, and a nationally-recognized athlete at seventeen years old.
But Chavvy’s tired of listening to it, tired of thinking about it. Now that he’s this close, getting to the majors seems harder than ever.
Eric Chavez could sign a piece of paper and be an instant millionaire, but he’s spending all his time with Munce, they’re more inseparable this summer than they’ve ever been before, and maybe if he stops lying to himself, Eric Chavez will understand that it’s more than pride that keeps him from accepting the A’s offer.
They’ll be college boys together. They’ll have a blast.
But Munson is kind of mad at him, at least as far as their whatever goes. Munce won’t say why, which makes Chavvy think it’s probably pretty obvious, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what he’s done.
Munce holds him down more, these days, and sometimes there are bruises on Chavez’s wrists, he’s got to wear long sleeves in the hundred-degree heat to hide them. Sometimes Chavez looks up in time to Munson’s eyes flaring violently, sometimes Munson’s hand in his hair pulls too hard. Sometimes Munson bites him sharply enough to draw blood.
It’s not to say anything about Chavez that he sort of . . . likes all this. Wrenches his arms in Munson’s hold so that Munce will tighten his grip. Kisses Munson deeply when Munson’s eyes are black. Tastes the blood on Munce’s lips and is overtaken by his desire.
Eric Chavez, nearing the edge of his eighteen year old August, isn’t really expecting much to make sense. The fact that he wants Munson these days more than he ever has, wants him with frantic, inexplicable force no matter what Munson does to him, power over him like gravity, like an undertow, is very low on his list of things about which to be concerned.
For Munson’s own part, he can’t explain it any better than his best friend. He feels beyond himself, out of control. It’s that they’re both full-grown now and Munson is officially taller, stronger, and it seems like a shame not to take advantage of that. It’s that Chavez twists closer to him and pants, “Faster,” wants him to go harder, go deeper, take more away, and Eric Munson has never been able to refuse him anything.
All summer long, they’re closing in on the last of something, this seems clear. Whether they end up at USC together or whether Chavez signs with the A’s, this midway part of their life will be over.
They move into their University of Southern California dorm, and they’re not really talking to each other. They haven’t been talking to each other, not since the night before, when Chavvy kissed Munson behind the bus station and told him in a hitching whisper that he was going to college, not going to sign.
Chavez felt Munson’s shock, the tensing of his body under Chavvy’s hands, what the fuck do you mean you’re not going to sign, but Munce just turned his head and nipped at Chavvy’s ear and didn’t say anything about it.
Hasn’t said much since, as a matter of fact.
They pack up their rooms together that morning, a busy silence of clothes shoved into suitcases and books crashing off shelves, moving around each other and only ever saying stuff like, “Is this your T-shirt or mine?” and “Can you fit the Graig Nettles bat in your duffel, or should I take it?”
And they drive north in Munson’s shiny new graduation-present truck, Chavez’s elbow out the window and his eyes trained on the landscape. Munson pops in road trip tape #6 but doesn’t sing along like he normally does. He keeps cheating looks over at his friend, the one-quarter view of his face, Chavvy’s ear, cheek, the corner of his mouth.
It’s not that they don’t have stuff to talk about.
They stop to get ice cream just over the Los Angeles County line, before going out to the campus, and park in a turnout by the railroad tracks, sitting on the hood of the car, the metal engine-hot and thrumming slightly. Their feet on the bumper, knees pulled up, they train-watch, messily eating their ice cream.
Munson feels like hell, today, jagged and off his game, and Chavez isn’t doing much better.
Munce’s eyes are unfocused, spacing out like sixth-period Culture Studies, when Chavez bracelets his hand loosely around Munson’s wrist and raises Munson’s hand to his mouth, licking the dripped ice cream from between Munson’s knuckles and cleaning him off. Munson watches him, Chavez’s tongue lapping calmly over his skin, the warmth of Chavez’s breath, and Munson suddenly feels like crying.
“Don’t do this because of me,” Munce says, but there’s a train going past, huge unhinged clatter of wheels and clacking boxcars, so Chavez doesn’t hear him, bites the tip of Munson’s thumb and hops off the car, moving away with his shoulders held proudly and his head up.
They go out to USC.
They’ve got a room with six other guys, all athletes, four sets of dark-wood bunk beds tucked into each corner of the rectangular room.
They stand in the doorway, their first round of luggage at their feet and weighted on their backs, taking the place in, and all Chavez says is, “Dibs on the top.”
Their roommates aren’t around yet, not for another day or two at least, all of them coming in from farther away than two hours south, so Munson and Chavez unpack in one corner of the room, Scotch-taping Polaroids and Kodak prints to the front face of their bunk, shimmying on their stomachs under the desks and beds looking for outlets, emerging with gray dust in their hair, sneezing.
Still not talking, they go out for food, eating roadside Mexican at a patio table and watching girls, and wander around the campus until the sun goes down. They’re both tired-gonna make an early night of it.
It’s weird, to be together and not be talking. It’s never been like this before. But Chavez doesn’t want to be anywhere that Munson isn’t, not right now.
They keep an eye on each other, sideways, blurred perspectives, can’t be caught staring. They trade nervous glances, follow the path of a hand, the stretch of a back, the kick of a leg skittering a crushed soda can across the asphalt.
They get back to their empty room and Chavez vanishes briefly to call his folks from the payphone down the hall. It’s a short conversation, a rundown of their room and the campus, a quick slurred question, “Did you hear anything new from the team?” that Chavvy feels guilty for even asking.
He doesn’t want to go to college. He wants to play pro ball. He doesn’t want to stop seeing his best friend every day. He doesn’t want anything this central to the course of his life to be decided by Eric Munson.
Back in their room, Munce has put a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD on, turned the volume up loud, and set himself up in the stick-backed chair by the window, winging a tennis ball against the wall and catching it smoothly, whistling along with the music and gazing out at the quad.
Chavvy doesn’t say anything to him, digs out his tattered copy of Ty Cobb’s biography and climbs into the top bunk. The thump of the tennis ball against the cinderblock wall is in perfect time with the drum beat of the music, picking up for the faster tempo songs, slowing for Anthony Kiedis to get romantic.
They spend their first night as college men like that, speechless, until midnight runs up on them and Munce kills the music, changes into his pajamas in the center of the room, aware of Chavez’s eyes slanting down on him from over the pages of his book, and Munson falls into the bottom bunk. He’s so tired, every muscle aches.
There’s movement above him, and a second later Chavez’s shirt floats down. Another rustle and Chavez’s jeans follow, his belt still looped, the buckle the first thing to hit the floor. Then it’s quiet again.
Munson stares up at the skinny wooden cross-beams on the underside of the upper bunk, the squeak of the mattress, the nearly imperceptible shifts with Chavez’s every breath. Munce thinks about a year spent down here, watching Chavez’s mattress breathe.
“You think I should sign.”
Munson starts, Chavez’s voice for the first time in hours, and Chavez isn’t asking anything, just stating a dry bookkeeper’s fact.
Munce fiddles with the drawstring tie of his pajama pants, answers honestly, “You should do what you think is right.”
Chavez exhales. “I don’t know what’s right, Munce, that’s why I’m asking you.”
He lifts his eyebrows, gives the underside of Chavez’s mattress a dubious look. “Because I know what’s right better than you do?”
Chavez mumbles, close to inaudible, “Yeah.”
Munson pulls a hand across his face. He’s got a headache, it’s getting pretty bad now. “I’m sorry, dude, but I can’t decide this for you.”
Chavvy is quickly angry. “I’m not asking you to decide it for me, I’m asking you to give me your fucking opinion.” He doesn’t wait for it, though, continuing, “I mean, if I play for what they’re offering now, how long’s it gonna take for them to realize I’m worth more? I was first round, how many other first round picks are gonna get shorted on signing bonuses like this?”
“What I wouldn’t give to have your problems for a day,” Munson mutters, and he meant for it to be under his breath, meant for it to not be heard, but it’s pin-drop quiet in their room, and the rectangle echoes more than he expected.
There’s a pause, and then Chavez’s head pokes down from the top bunk, hanging upside-down with his hands curled around the wood, the curves of his bare shoulders visible. Munce, surprised, blinks up at him. Chavez gives him an idly concerned look.
“Are you being weird about the draft?”
Munson rolls his eyes, shakes his head. “No.”
Chavvy, his face reddening slowly as the blood drains down, squints at him. “I think you are.”
Munce meets his upside-down eyes, saying firmly, “I think I’d know.”
Chavez takes a moment, then presses on earnestly, “Munce, you know you shoulda been taken higher-”
The burst of anger that rings through catches him off-guard, comes out of nowhere, and Munce says, “God! Yes, Chavez, I know, okay, I fucking know. We don’t have to keep reaffirming it.”
Chavez doesn’t catch the true harshness below the words, taking one hand off the bunk and pointing down at Munson in accusation. “See, you’re being weird.”
Munce glares at him. “I’m being annoyed.”
Chavvy considers that, shrugs, his position making it awkward. “Well, you being annoyed with me is kinda weird.”
Munson sneers. “Not as weird as you think.”
Chavez’s face tightens briefly, halfway wounded. His hair is hanging in ragged clumps of black, begging a hand to smooth it back, fight gravity. Chavvy says, keeping his voice mild, “Ouch, dude.”
Munce smiles slightly against his will. He reaches up and fingers the ends of Chavez’s hair, tells him, “You’re gonna fall and crack your head open if you keep hanging off like that.”
Chavvy’s face lights up. “You want me to come down there?”
Munson drops his hand. “No.”
The look on Chavez’s face isn’t halfway this time, and Munce bites his own tongue, tries to take it back. “I mean, yeah. Sure. Come on down.”
Chavez’s head disappears. “No, that’s okay.” He settles himself back down in the top bunk, wriggling around trying to get comfortable.
There’s a long moment in which neither of them says anything, and eventually Munce gets fed up and kicks Chavez’s mattress. “Now who’s being weird?”
Chavvy’s reply is muffled, spoken into his pillow. “Well, it’s my turn. And quit kicking.”
Munson sighs with put-upon irritation, and hoists himself out of bed, climbing into the top bunk. He crawls over Chavez, Chavez squirming to avoid his knees, and sits back against the wall, his legs bent over Chavez’s stomach. He rests his hand on Chavez’s arm, the dented crook of his elbow, looking down at him, Chavez lying there with the pillow bunched up under his head, all worried eyes and pointed chin.
“I don’t think you should play for less than you’re worth,” Munson tells him, his fingers tapping on Chavvy’s heroin veins.
Chavez pushes up on an elbow, meeting Munson’s eyes solemnly. “What about the strike?”
Munce blinks, confused. “What about the strike?”
Chavez flips his hand through the air. “Like, those signs we saw at the Jack Murph, a couple of weeks before the games stopped, those kids. ‘We’ll play for free.’ Remember?”
Munson nods, shading his gaze down, seeing where Chavez is going with this. “Yeah, I remember.”
Chavvy falls back, staring up at the ceiling. “I feel like . . .” he begins painfully. “Like asking for even one dollar more . . . I just want to play baseball, man.”
Nodding, Munson trails his fingers up the pale untouched skin on the underside of Chavez’s forearm, unobstructed. “But you know how it works, dude. You gotta make sure they know you. Know how good you are. Or else you’ll be tearing it up and making the league minimum and they’ll call you a fool.”
Chavvy sighs and nods unhappily, pulling the pillow out from under his head and covering his face with it. Munce’s hand moves off his arm onto his chest, walking his fingers across Chavez’s ribs, tracing his thumb down the line of Chavez’s sternum. Under his palm, Chavez’s stomach is warm, the sparse trail of hair below his belly button soft.
“I would play for free,” Chavez says inarticulately into the pillow.
Munson takes the pillow away. “I know you would, man.”
Chavez reaches up, sliding his hand around the back of Munson’s neck, but doesn’t pull him down. “And I’d stay here with you, too,” he whispers, his eyes darting, terrified, and all Munce has to do is ask.
Munson stares at him, slowly shakes his head. Chavvy swallows and his eyelids flicker crazily, and Munson kisses him hard, so that Chavez will close his eyes, so that Munce won’t have to see him anymore.
*
(a splitter with no break)
It turns out not to matter.
Two nights later, two days before classes start (draft rules being such that if Eric Chavez attends even one class at USC, he will be ineligible until ’99), they’re at their new favorite diner and Chavez’s pager goes off, vibrating against his hip and making him jump.
“Popular guy,” Munce comments like he always does, and Chavez flashes a preoccupied smile, borrows handful of change for the payphone.
Munce waits in their booth, pushing a fry around, writing words on the plate in ketchup. He’s not hungry, has rarely been hungry recently. He yawns hugely, suddenly, surprising himself, shaking his head briskly. He’s so fucking worn out all the time. His back hurts and his head throbs almost constantly. He’d almost think he was getting sick, if he ever got sick.
He wishes they could have gotten a booth by the window, because all he’s got to look at is Chavez’s empty seat across from him, the ravaged remains of Chavez’s food.
Chavez comes back, slides in. He keeps his eyes down, and Munson kicks his shoe.
When Chavvy looks up, Munce lifts his eyebrows with exaggerated expectancy, and Chavez grins shakily.
“So . . . yeah. Can you drive me back to San Diego tonight?” Chavez asks, unconsciously flinching as the words leave his mouth.
Munson regards him, Chavez’s hand drumming on the table, Chavez’s knee juddering against Munson’s. “What’s going on, Eric?”
Chavez tries out that grin again, doesn’t have much more success with it. “My mom . . . she said . . . They offered, the A’s, they offered what we were . . . I might sign, pretty soon. It’s . . . getting close.”
“Oh.” Munce sits back. God, he’s never been this tired. He shrugs, makes a grin of his own. “Awesome, dude. We’ll leave whenever you want.”
Chavez studies him carefully, searching, and Munson meets his eyes evenly.
Chavez looks down. “’Kay,” he says softly, and pushes his plate away. “I’m ready to go, then.”
Not twenty-four hours later, Eric Chavez signs with the Oakland Athletics, and Eric Munson goes back to the University of Southern California alone.
(end part three)
*
Part Four
crazy week, man. weird sense of stillness in san francisco. anticipatory and foreshadows on everything. the moon was the size of a tractor wheel. there was a fire on the sidewalk in the mission, and for a second it looked like a person that was burning, but then we realized it was just old rags and stuff.
i made thanksgiving dinner for the first time, and used the electric mixer to make mashed potatoes and it was this awesome mess. watched 61* and oh my, such a fan. watched ghostbusters and stripes because young bill murray wins, but not quite as much as old bill murray. my brother put 200 songs on my ipod, mountain goats that i didn't have and desmond dekker and the old 97s and a tribe called quest and joy like this.
didn't write a thing, not a fucking word, all week, which was very strange. i did not manage to stay clean, and i won't be for awhile still. looked for the coliseum as the plane took off, but it was before dawn and i couldn't see nothing. spent three hours in the chicago airport and played so much gameboy my eyes almost started to bleed. came in to reagan and rode the subway home, my third straight day awake and my mouth hurts. washington, dc. fuck.
anyway.
Table of Contents
Pictures courtesy bradausmus12 and Jen's Baseball Page
The Rest of Your Life
By Candle Beck
Part the Third: Good at One Thing
(star of the show)
In high school, Eric Munson is insanely good, and Eric Chavez is somehow even better.
Junior year, Munce hits .517 with seven home runs and 45 runs batted in. He sees everything, he hits everything. The pitchers are starting to get really good, especially in their division, the baseball factory of southern California that produces more major leaguers than any other region in the country.
But Munson can hit the change, and he can hit the curve, and he can hit the first charming sliders he’s ever seen, and he can rack the shit out of the one kid from San Dimas who throws in triple-digits. He can read the stitches like highway signs.
The harder they throw, the better he likes it, because the harder they throw, the farther the ball goes.
That same year, Eric Chavez hits .537 with nine home runs and 35 RBIs. He’d have more ribbies, but he bats lead-off, and instead of knocking more guys in, he steals fifty bases. (The high school baseball regular season, by the way, is 26 games, which means Chavvy blows Rickey Henderson’s steals-per-game ratio out of the fucking water.)
Munson is still faster in a straight footrace, but Chavez has got pure baserunning instinct, his hands twitching as he takes his lead, looking for the break in the pitcher’s motion, the scratch of dirt under his spikes and the first baseman’s shadow on his back. Anyway, Munson’s a catcher, and catchers aren’t supposed to run.
Senior year, the year they win everything, the pitching gets even better, but Munce still bats .432 with 10 home runs, 34 RBIs, and 18 steals even on his catcher’s legs, which are toughening up nicely, his knees hardly even hurting anymore.
And Chavez, nothing making him play harder than the drive to beat out his best friend, goes .458 with 11 home runs, 24 RBIs, and 34 steals. The team’s ace graduated the year before, so he tries pitching, too, ending the season with a 6-2 record and a Gibson-like 1.11 ERA (they don’t lower the mound because of him, but then, it’s not like anybody like him would ever come along again).
Baseball America names the Mt. Carmel High School Sundevils the best high school team in the country, senior year, and the two boys named Eric are the best players they’ve got. By far.
By the time they’re done, Eric Chavez will set a California state record for hits in a high school career. The league, the California Interscholastic Federation-San Diego Section Division I, will be at his mercy as he sets records for single-season hits with 63, single-season steals with 50, ties the mark for runs scored with 49, and fully shatters the record for career steals with 115.
Mt. Carmel will move Billy Beane’s name down a slot in half a dozen places in their record books, and all the lifers at the school will be able to do is whistle low in astonishment and shake their heads, because it’s a damn good baseball school, but this kid is something else.
Eric Chavez is better, as good as the two of them are, Eric Chavez is just a little bit more.
By the last month of their senior season, their whatever has been going on for a year and a half.
Eric Munson comes to a realization, sometime in the middle of the season-ending nine-game win streak that propels them into the division championship. They’re at practice one afternoon, Munce is catching for one of their pitchers and Chavvy is supposed to be taking BP, but is really just slowly going through his warm-up cuts, his bat slashing centrifugally, grinning and flirting through the chain-link with some girls in the bleachers.
The pitching coach steps up on the mound to chat with his pitcher, molding the boy’s arm, miming the motion of the overhand curve, and Munson drops to his knees to wait the conference out, his mask pushed up on his head, absently watching his best friend.
Chavvy’s got such a pretty swing. Munson’s is short and powerful, a rough kind of poetry in it, but Chavvy, man, when he’s swinging lazily and without thought, is all languid and easy, an arc traced in the air.
Chavez twists his torso with each swing, snapping his hips open, and his hands are white-chalked on the wrapped handle. He smiles at the girls, that hero smile of his, and Munce thinks about Chavez’s undying affection for blondes, how good his dark head looks against straw-colored hair.
Munce looks down at his hands, his swelled catcher’s mitt, the dirty stripes of tape around his fingers. He’s got scars on his forearms, etched on his knuckles, the regular scars of a guy who’s played hard in everything he’s done his whole life. He hears Chavez’s high laugh from the fence, and it occurs to Munson that they’re both funny, both kind, both good-looking, both smart enough to get by. They’re both excellent baseball players and they both have a tendency to draw other people to them, lit from the inside.
They’re both the same, but Eric Chavez is, not always but sometimes, when the moment strikes right, when the light’s good, almost painfully flawless.
Sometimes, Eric Chavez is perfect, and Munson, who’s never doubted that he’s worth his best friend’s affection, worth all that Chavez has given him, is all at once blown away by the understanding that nothing this good could ever be his to keep.
*
(don’t say what’s gonna happen)
It’s the night before the draft and they go to the park. They’re eighteen years old.
Neither of them is expecting to sleep, not tonight, not until they know which team they’ll play for.
They’ve signed letters of intent to attend the University of Southern California, each of them offered an everything-and-girls-too scholarship to play baseball with the Trojans, but they’ve got this vow. They’re two of the best high school players in the nation, and scouts still look at high school players.
If they get drafted in the first round, they’ll play. They’ve got a bottom line for signing bonuses enforced upon them by history and their new agents, but it’s almost another promise, that if they go in the first round, whatever the bonuses offered, they’ll play. If they go in the second round, things might be different, college might look like the better choice.
But they’re not planning on being drafted in the second round.
They play basketball in the humid night, the scraped pulls of their breath and their hands quickly smudged and dirty. They talk about graduation, the magnificent end of their last high school season, and a little bit about college, being roommates at USC, but that’s a probably-not-gonna-happen line of conversation, not really worth their time. It’s baseball, you know, just like it’s always been.
“Where do you . . . think you’ll go?” Chavvy asks, his breath coming short, as he fades backwards with the ball, switches hands and his eyes flick from the hoop to his friend. The steady slap of the basketball on the asphalt echoes hollowly around the deserted park, and Munson shrugs.
“Dunno.”
Chavez dekes to his right, his hand on Munson’s shoulder for an instant trying to push off and go the other way, but Munson braces his feet and follows him over, so Chavvy falls back again. “You . . . wanna . . . hazard a guess . . . maybe?” Chavez entreats, weaving the ball between his legs, eyebrows hiked up.
Munson shakes his head, his hair flopping across his forehead, sweat stinging in his eyes. “Nah. Bad . . . luck.”
Chavez mugs at him, mooning his eyes and flagging a smile. “Punk.”
Munce swipes for the ball, his fingertips brushing the pebbled surface before Chavez moves it away, dribbling protectively close to his body. “What . . . about you . . . dude?” Munson says back.
Chavez hesitates, his arm moving as if to palm the ball, and Munson straightens up, thinking Chavvy will take a moment to answer that, but then Chavez breaks, rolling his shoulder off Munson’s chest and striding undefended to the basket, jumping to lay up a neat two points and dropping back down gracefully. Chavez tosses his head back and grins dazzlingly at his friend, hands on his hips and his shirt soaked with sweat. The ball bounces away onto the grass, waiting for someone to come get it.
“Bad luck, Munce.”
Munson is about to scoff a laugh and crack some sideways retort, but then Chavez lifts his chin and the metallic light rakes across his face, dropping his eyes to black and the skin of his throat is gleaming. Munson’s gaze skims helplessly down Eric’s body, the hint of tapered muscle in his chest and stomach through the damp shirt, his hip shot out cockily and his strong hands resting easily.
“C’mere,” Munce says. Chavez tips his head to the side. Munson takes a step towards him, then two, touching the tip of his tongue to his bottom lip unconsciously, and a familiar sneaky smile creeps onto Chavez’s face.
“You want something from me, Eric?” Chavez asks casually, like he doesn’t see anything, like this is new.
Munson nods, his eyes too big for his face, and closes the space between them. Chavez’s steady glint of a smile falters slightly, something darker in his expression, and Munce feels a little stab of triumph at that. He wraps a hand in Chavez’s shirt, slipping and fixing a good grip, and drags him off the court, a bit out of control, or out of his mind, or out of time, or something, definitely out of something.
They get into the singed darkness of the trees and Munson flashes back to that first time, the woods at the western edge of Mt. Carmel High School, chasing Chavez down.
Munson pushes Chavez up against a tree and kisses him, not wasting any time, swiftly turning the kiss filthy and crowding their bodies together, Chavez’s hips in his hands. He pulls back long enough to strip Chavez’s shirt up and over his head, causing Chavez to catch his wrists, breathing out unsteadily, “Whoa . . . what’ve you . . . ah, got in mind there, bud?”
Munson laughs airlessly, nibbling little bites at Chavez’s collarbone and throat. “You’re all sweaty,” he explains.
Chavez gets under Munson’s shirt, his hands moving effortlessly over the damp skin. “Not the only one,” he replies, his breath beginning to brake and stutter.
With Chavez’s shirt tied up around his arm, Munson raises his other hand to cup Chavez’s jaw and kiss him again, his thumb tucked under Chavez’s chin.
For awhile, they just make out, hands moving innocently enough through each other’s hair and over shoulders, backs, occasionally tracing a palm across a stomach, but then Munce, his mouth working on Chavez’s ear, takes advantage of his position to whisper with his voice ragged, “We’re going to the Show.”
Chavez shivers, and Munson feels him smile against his throat. “Going to the Show, man,” Munce says again, skidding his hand down Chavez’s slick chest, under the waistband of his athletic shorts. Chavez catches his breath, hums low and rumbling, pushing his hips up into Munson’s hand, his face pressed against Munson’s neck.
Munson grins wickedly, curves his free hand around the base of Chavez’s skull, Chavez’s forgotten T-shirt dangling between them over Chavez’s shoulder, and Munson gets his fingers in Chavez’s wet hair, draws his face up and kisses him hard.
They’re eighteen years old and most of the way in love with each other, and the major league draft is tomorrow and they’re going to the Show.
*
(ten and sixty-two)
Draft Day breaks open hot and dry. The ocean is scorched and out in the badlands at the edge of the city nothing moves, not the pounded rock sand or the desert creatures, everything still, unblinking.
Eric Chavez hasn’t slept a wink, and his mother Ruby comes down at five-thirty to find him sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor with his copy of the Baseball Almanac spread open in front of him, his chin propped on his hand and a bite mark on his neck that Ruby does not notice in any sort of conscious way.
“Eric,” she says, surprised to find him there.
He looks up at her, his eyes bloodshot and dizzyingly bright. He flashes his most charming grin. “Morning, Ma.”
“What’re you doing on the floor, honey?” she asks worriedly, going over to the refrigerator to pour him a glass of orange juice.
He pulls his legs up, folding them against his chest and hugging himself into an anxious ball. “It’s too hot everywhere else,” he explains unhelpfully, and she lets it slide because it’s Draft Day.
She sets his juice on the floor next to him and tousles his hair, worsening its spears and whorls. He gnaws his lower lip, patters his fingers on the linoleum. His whole body is vibrating, wrecked with energy, and all he can do is sit on the floor and wish this day was already over.
Eric’s little brother Casey, the fifteen year old baby of the family, is the next one up, all huge dark eyes and skinny hands, shuffling and snapping his fingers in rhythm, his mouth a beatbox, jamming into Chavvy until the older boy grins and throws him into a headlock.
Then Chris, fully grown and come home for this most crucial day, slippers in yawning and inarticulate, his eyes almost all the way closed, slouching on his elbow across the table with his thick hair mashed on one side, only smiling sleepily when Chavez asks with a roll of his eyes if maybe he’d like to go back to bed until the draft starts.
Their sister Brandy, of whom they are fiercely, dangerously protective, pads downstairs with her Mt. Carmel High School sweatshirt hood pulled up over her head, making her look small and even younger than she is, blinking out with her pretty fresh-scrubbed face. She blearily leans into Chavvy’s shoulder as he sits at the table, waiting until he lazily winds an arm around her waist, then says, “’Kay, I’m ready, let’s go eat.”
They go to Denny’s, wearing flipflops and pajama pants. It’s the first time Chris has been home in awhile, and the four of them are talking in a secret language and making obscure references that no one else in the world would understand, and they’re snickering, kicking each other under the table, threatening to pour syrup in each other’s hair.
Back at the house, both their parents have taken the day off work and are setting things up for the family driving down from Los Angeles. Eric gets a giant hug from his father, unexpectedly blinking back tears against his dad’s shoulder, and then is deposited on the living room couch, the first soda of many pressed into his hand, his brothers and sister scrunching in next to him.
Eric thinks, suddenly and with inexpressible force, that he and Munson should be together today, this day, because they’ve always had better luck as two than as one. His hands itch for the telephone, for the handlebars of his bike, but he pushes it down. They decided it would be better to hear separately. Their two families have claim on this day, priority.
The draft starts late. The league office has some sort of issue with their teleconference set-up, and Eric Chavez’s nails are dug into the heels of his hands, leaving little crescent-moon dents behind.
The first time the phone rings, it’s one of Ruby’s coworkers eagerly jumping the gun and asking where he’d gone. Eric Chavez’s heart is in his throat, his head stuffed with broken prayers and swear words and flashed images of the life that got him to this point. He rubs his thumb unconsciously across the threaded scar on his palm, tasting salt water in his mouth.
The second time the phone rings, Eric picks it up himself, every pair of eyes in the room wide and watching him, Chavvy onstage, under the microscope, atomized, and he turns his back to his family, stares out the window at his familiar childhood street, makes his voice strong and answers, “This is Eric Chavez.”
A brisk, roughly congratulatory man says to him, “Eric, this is Billy Beane. I’m the assistant general manager of the Oakland Athletics, and we’ve just taken you as the number tenth pick overall.”
Chavez closes his eyes, his shoulders falling slack, and breathes out, “Thank you.”
The Oakland A’s. The Oakland A’s.
They say a bit more to each other, nothing memorable, and then Eric hangs up the phone, spins back to the crowd with his face alight, beaming, and he calls out joyfully, “Oakland!”
They wash over him, hands slapping and arms pulling him into hugs and everybody whooping, hooting, Casey and Brandy jumping up and down on the couch cushions, Chris scooping Eric off his feet in a rib-crushing embrace, and his mother crying, his father’s arm around her shoulders holding her close, and a suspicious glimmer in Cesar’s eyes.
At Eric Munson’s house, the phone has not rung.
Munce is sitting on the carpet, leaning back against the couch. His sister Shelly, home from her college in Nebraska, occasionally reaches down to pet him on the head reassuringly, but as each minute passes and the phone stays quiet, Eric gets more and more irritated with her, wants to slap away her hand, jerk out of her reach.
He’s staring unseeingly at the television and the radio is rustling, tuned to the sports station that will be reporting the draft picks as they are announced. Eric Munson’s mouth is cotton-dry and his thoughts are stretched and torn, unfinished.
It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. The first round is done. And Eric clings desperately to the second round, a hot tense feeling in his chest, because he thought he was good enough to go in the first, the first for sure, and if that’s not true, then maybe he’s not good enough to be drafted at all.
The man on the radio, the guy who does the after-game show sometimes for the Pads, tells them happily, “And the tenth pick in the first round is a local boy, ladies and gentleman, Eric Chavez of Rancho Penasquitos and Mt. Carmel High School, selected by the Oakland Athletics.”
Eric Munson’s eyes quickly film with tears, his heart strangled. “Aw, Eric,” he whispers too low for anybody else to hear, his lips barely moving.
Dora and Steve watch him carefully, and they see a momentary grin of sheer happiness break across their son’s face, before the curtain falls down again. He turns to look at them, his eyes shining and his expression blank.
“Listen,” he begins, but the word cracks down the middle and he stops, clears his throat harshly, before continuing, “I’m gonna . . . I gotta, I’m just. I’m gonna head out for a bit. This is killing me.”
Steve lifts his eyebrows, exchanges a concerned look with his wife. “Are you sure?”
Eric nods, his head feeling loose on his neck. “Yeah.” He stands, whipping his hands through his hair.
Dora hedges carefully, “Do you want to call Eric first, baby?”
Eric’s jaw tenses. He shakes his head tightly, not looking at anybody, and takes off.
He goes surfing.
He picks up their buddy Steve Scogin, who takes one look at his face and doesn’t say shit to him about the draft, Munson pathetically grateful for it. Their boards rattle together in the back of Steve Munson’s truck, both windows open, wind-tunneling, and Munce pushes himself into the ocean, over and over again, swimming down and feeling the weight of the water on his shoulders, the pressure in his head. He strokes out and glides back in, quiet under the waves, quiet on top of the waves, and he lies on his back on his board, floating, staring up at the hard blue sky, and this is the worst day of his life.
He gets home and his father is trying to smile but his eyes are shrouded, telling his son that he’d been drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the second round, the sixty-second pick overall.
Eric Munson nods, taking this like a man, a dense pain in his chest, and goes to his room, brushing past Steve’s hesitantly reaching hand. He locks the door and falls into his bed, his body flushed with heat and thinking on a dumb loop, ‘Sixty-two. Sixty-two. Sixty-two,’ waiting for the words to stop making sense.
Eric Chavez, his back sore from being slapped, his form crushed by hugs, his ear aching from all the phone calls he’d taken, is going insane.
Everyone wants to talk to him, reporters and radio talk show hosts and the Oakland A’s PR staff, twice-removed family he’s never met whose lucky Spanish wishes have to be translated by his father, middle-aged friends of his parents and his high school teammates and the entire rest of the world.
He talks to their Mt. Carmel coach, who sounds unnervingly close to being emotional, and their favorite teacher, Mrs. Lamphiere-Tamayoshi, who teaches English and coaches gymnastics and responds to Chavvy’s still-incredulous explanation-“I’m gonna be an Athletic, Mrs. L-T”-by informing him laughingly, “‘Athletic’ is not a noun, Eric.” He talks to everyone who wants a piece of him, knocked askew by it all.
The party at the Chavez house has calmed, spread out through the wide rooms, and every time he steps through a doorway, the kitchen, the living room, the front porch, everyone turns and grins at him, tells him congratulations again and Chavez is feeling disconnected, thrown off, wandering through this, because it’s a dream, it’s got to be, it can’t be real.
And he hasn’t heard from Munson.
That’s the main thing. This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to him, maybe the best too, but he can’t get a grip on it, because Munson isn’t there to explain it to him. That the reality of his life should rest in his best friend’s eyes might have bothered Chavvy, but not today. Today he just needs to see his friend’s face, needs Munce to scrub a hand through Chavvy’s hair and smile that careless rolled-eyes smile of his, needs Munson, plain and simple.
But Munce wasn’t home when he first called, unsettled and weirdly irritated to learn that Eric had run off surfing with Scogin, like this was just any other day. And when he called back, a couple hours later, after the draft was over, Dora told him gently that Eric wasn’t ready to talk yet.
And Chavvy felt a whine in his throat, but it’s me, Dora, he’ll talk to me, though of course that isn’t true.
Munson was drafted in the second round and maybe that changes a lot of things, maybe changes everything.
Chavez can feel Munson’s broken heart across the space that separates them, pain as real as if it was his own, a shattered rib cage, splinters of bone in his lungs.
How could this have happened? How could Chavez be number ten and Munson number sixty-two? They’ve always been one and two, two and one, they’re the same.
Chavez smiles and laughs with his uncles, gets plastered with kisses from his aunts, plays cards with his grandfather and video games with his sister, he eats a tasteless dinner, balancing the plate on his knees because they ran out of space at the dining room table.
He wants to see his best friend.
But he knows well enough how Munson’s got to be feeling right now, or at least he imagines he does. If Chavez hadn’t been picked in the first round, maybe he would have run away too, gone out to the beach or the old mission or the tree with the rotted trunk forming a cool dry cave that’d been his hiding place when he was a kid. Maybe he wouldn’t want to talk to anybody either.
But, no, he’d still want to see Munson, he’s pretty sure of that. Squeeze into the tree and sit with their shoulders pressed together, fighting for space, their knees clocking and legs twisted. Even if he hadn’t been drafted at all, he’d still want Munce around.
Eric Chavez, the tenth pick overall in the 1996 Major League Baseball amateur draft, is blindly confident of this.
He’s just about ready to leap out of his skin, or leap on his bike, or steal Chris’s car, buzzing with agitation, when the phone rings, Chavez not even registering the high peal of it anymore, until Ruby pokes her head into the living room and says gently, “It’s Eric, mi’jo.”
Chavez is off the couch like there are springs under his feet, darting across the room. He holds his hand out for the phone, then thinks better of it, drawing back. “I’ll pick up the extension,” he says, his face tense and eager, pounding up the stairs and taking the cordless into his bedroom, clicking the lock shut behind him.
He clambers gracelessly onto the bed, sitting back against the headboard and looking down at the phone in his hand for a long moment before he hits the button and says, “Eric?”
He hears Munce breathing quietly on his end, realizes absently that he can tell the fall of Munson’s breath apart from anyone else’s.
“Hi,” Munson answers, and neither of them say anything for awhile. Chavez picks at a loose thread on his jeans, pushes his toes against the blankets, crumpling the bedding out of form. He doesn’t like it when Munson isn’t talking; it makes him nervous.
Finally, Munce blows out a staticky bristle of air against the receiver, and says with his voice hoarse and bleeding sincerity, “Congratulations, man.”
Chavvy lifts his hand, covering his face, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye socket. “Thanks,” he says by rote.
“I’m . . . I’m really proud of you,” Munce tells him, the words cracking, catching, shot down.
Chavez’s throat is choked, and he wants to protest that, something. “No, Munce,” he tries to say, but Munson cuts him off.
“I am,” he says, a fierce edge to it. “So fucking proud of you. You shoulda . . . you shoulda gone higher. Better than tenth.”
And that, Christ, that just breaks Chavez’s heart, slams him to pieces. “Eric!” he cries. “You . . . fucking shut up, man. I don’t . . . I mean, you don’t . . . Look, if you wanna. Talk. Or whatever.”
Frustrated, Chavez wrenches a hand in his hair, pulling hard, wishing he could talk good, wishing he knew how to do this.
Munson just breathes for a long time, then answers almost inaudibly, “Yeah. Yeah. I know. It’s just . . . today kind of sucked, you know?”
Chavez nods, his eyes hot, lets Munce continue.
“I was . . . sitting there. Waiting for the phone. And Shelly kept messing with my hair, and I wanted to tell her to quit it, but I couldn’t, because she was just trying to help, and, and . . . And it was eleven o’clock and we hadn’t heard shit. Then the radio . . . the first round picks . . .”
He trails off for good this time, and Chavez croaks out his name again, feeling useless.
Munson finds his wind again, unsteady. “I wanted to come get you,” he says softly. “When I heard you’d gone at tenth, I wanted to go to your house and . . . and, like, kidnap you or something.” He laughs a bit desolately. “Take you away. And never . . . never find out if I got drafted in the second round and never have to worry about if the A’s can afford what you’re worth and just . . . not be here anymore. I . . . I really didn’t like being here, today.”
“You could have,” Chavez whispers, certain of it, anything to take that awful tone out of his best friend’s voice. “I would have gone with you.”
And that’s too much, that’s way more than either of them can take, because Munson makes a snapped-wood sound halfway between a sob and a moan, and starts to cry.
“Aw, hell, man,” he barely manages. “I know you would have, I know. I just . . . I couldn’t, it was too much, and I was so . . . so proud of you, swear to god I was.”
That sets Chavvy off, bending his legs against his chest and burying his face in his knees, cradling the phone against his ear and tears leaking out the corners of his eyes, burning high on his cheeks, the first time he’s cried since the night Munson moved in him for the first time.
“Dude,” he attempts, but it doesn’t work, his tongue not working right and his throat clenched shut. He coughs, rubbing his eyes on his knees, starchy denim scuffing against the skin of his eyelids. “It’s not fair, babe,” Chavvy says. “It’s not right. They’re just fucking stupid, they don’t know anything, you’re better than all those guys, shoulda gone first round, good as any of them, I promise.”
That just makes Munson cry harder, feeling like such a punk, but beyond caring, at this point, beyond pretty much everything.
It takes them awhile, but eventually they settle, start breathing cleanly again, sniffing and clearing their throats, both of them glad this conversation isn’t happening in person, because neither of them wants the other to see or be seen, red eyes swollen and clogged noses, shaking weakly as the last of it drains away.
Chavez lowers himself to lie on the bed, curled up on his side, twilight pressing his room into sharp geometric shadows, dust-colored and slivered.
“So what are you gonna do?” he asks, his vocal cords feeling shredded. “Sign with the Braves or go to USC?”
That’s really the question, isn’t it? That’s the heart of the thing. Chavvy isn’t aware that he’s holding his breath until his chest starts to hurt, because maybe everything depends on this.
Munce takes his time, his breath evening out, becoming slow and considering.
“I don’t know,” he says, quiet enough to be a confession. “I . . . really, I just have no fucking idea, Chavvy.”
Chavez nods, his eyes sheering over again and he swipes his arm across them angrily, brushing the tears away because they’re done with that now.
“Munce,” he begins hesitantly, his hand tied up in the sheets. “Can I . . . can I come over tonight? See you?”
Feeling in some vague part of himself that if he can’t have his hands on Munson tonight, he won’t be okay, he won’t make it through.
But Munson doesn’t even take that long of a pause, this time, sighing and saying, “No, man. Not tonight.”
Chavez turns his face into the bed, screwing his eyes shut. “’Kay,” he whispers.
Munson makes a raspy sound, explains, “It’s just been a really long day, Eric.”
Chavvy nods sightlessly, the smooth cool sheet on his cheek. “No, I know. It’s cool. I’ll . . . I’ll see you tomorrow, though, right?”
“Of course.” Munson pauses. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow, okay?”
His best friend nods again, tasting linen in the corner of his mouth. “Tomorrow.”
Chavvy listens to Munce draw in a slow breath, Chavvy’s chest aching and his head on fire, and his eyes fly open as Munson spills out recklessly, almost mumbling, “I love you, man, go to sleep,” and then clatters the phone down, the dial tone sudden and slicing through like a low moan.
*
(hold me down)
Eric Munson decides to go to college.
The next day, Eric Chavez decides to go to college, too.
Munson has already turned down the final offer from the Atlanta Braves (he wanted first round money, got just short of it, and found that he no longer cared that much), and there’s no going back for him. He’ll be a Trojan and win the College World Series, it’s his new goal, his new plan. He’ll go in the first round in 1999. He’ll still get there, it’ll just take a little longer.
Cesar, Ruby, and Eric Chavez’s agent are still negotiating with the Oakland Athletics. The A’s are small-market, they have no money, and everyone keeps telling Eric that he can’t sign for less than he’s worth. The signing bonus offered by the team inches closer to what it should be, and as crazy as it is for Cesar and Ruby to know that their second son is going to be very rich, it’s even more crazy to think that they might have to turn down being very rich for three more years. Billy Beane is now intricately involved, seeing as how he’s got a historic understanding of what it’s like being a high school superstar, a Mt. Carmel alumnus, and a nationally-recognized athlete at seventeen years old.
But Chavvy’s tired of listening to it, tired of thinking about it. Now that he’s this close, getting to the majors seems harder than ever.
Eric Chavez could sign a piece of paper and be an instant millionaire, but he’s spending all his time with Munce, they’re more inseparable this summer than they’ve ever been before, and maybe if he stops lying to himself, Eric Chavez will understand that it’s more than pride that keeps him from accepting the A’s offer.
They’ll be college boys together. They’ll have a blast.
But Munson is kind of mad at him, at least as far as their whatever goes. Munce won’t say why, which makes Chavvy think it’s probably pretty obvious, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what he’s done.
Munce holds him down more, these days, and sometimes there are bruises on Chavez’s wrists, he’s got to wear long sleeves in the hundred-degree heat to hide them. Sometimes Chavez looks up in time to Munson’s eyes flaring violently, sometimes Munson’s hand in his hair pulls too hard. Sometimes Munson bites him sharply enough to draw blood.
It’s not to say anything about Chavez that he sort of . . . likes all this. Wrenches his arms in Munson’s hold so that Munce will tighten his grip. Kisses Munson deeply when Munson’s eyes are black. Tastes the blood on Munce’s lips and is overtaken by his desire.
Eric Chavez, nearing the edge of his eighteen year old August, isn’t really expecting much to make sense. The fact that he wants Munson these days more than he ever has, wants him with frantic, inexplicable force no matter what Munson does to him, power over him like gravity, like an undertow, is very low on his list of things about which to be concerned.
For Munson’s own part, he can’t explain it any better than his best friend. He feels beyond himself, out of control. It’s that they’re both full-grown now and Munson is officially taller, stronger, and it seems like a shame not to take advantage of that. It’s that Chavez twists closer to him and pants, “Faster,” wants him to go harder, go deeper, take more away, and Eric Munson has never been able to refuse him anything.
All summer long, they’re closing in on the last of something, this seems clear. Whether they end up at USC together or whether Chavez signs with the A’s, this midway part of their life will be over.
They move into their University of Southern California dorm, and they’re not really talking to each other. They haven’t been talking to each other, not since the night before, when Chavvy kissed Munson behind the bus station and told him in a hitching whisper that he was going to college, not going to sign.
Chavez felt Munson’s shock, the tensing of his body under Chavvy’s hands, what the fuck do you mean you’re not going to sign, but Munce just turned his head and nipped at Chavvy’s ear and didn’t say anything about it.
Hasn’t said much since, as a matter of fact.
They pack up their rooms together that morning, a busy silence of clothes shoved into suitcases and books crashing off shelves, moving around each other and only ever saying stuff like, “Is this your T-shirt or mine?” and “Can you fit the Graig Nettles bat in your duffel, or should I take it?”
And they drive north in Munson’s shiny new graduation-present truck, Chavez’s elbow out the window and his eyes trained on the landscape. Munson pops in road trip tape #6 but doesn’t sing along like he normally does. He keeps cheating looks over at his friend, the one-quarter view of his face, Chavvy’s ear, cheek, the corner of his mouth.
It’s not that they don’t have stuff to talk about.
They stop to get ice cream just over the Los Angeles County line, before going out to the campus, and park in a turnout by the railroad tracks, sitting on the hood of the car, the metal engine-hot and thrumming slightly. Their feet on the bumper, knees pulled up, they train-watch, messily eating their ice cream.
Munson feels like hell, today, jagged and off his game, and Chavez isn’t doing much better.
Munce’s eyes are unfocused, spacing out like sixth-period Culture Studies, when Chavez bracelets his hand loosely around Munson’s wrist and raises Munson’s hand to his mouth, licking the dripped ice cream from between Munson’s knuckles and cleaning him off. Munson watches him, Chavez’s tongue lapping calmly over his skin, the warmth of Chavez’s breath, and Munson suddenly feels like crying.
“Don’t do this because of me,” Munce says, but there’s a train going past, huge unhinged clatter of wheels and clacking boxcars, so Chavez doesn’t hear him, bites the tip of Munson’s thumb and hops off the car, moving away with his shoulders held proudly and his head up.
They go out to USC.
They’ve got a room with six other guys, all athletes, four sets of dark-wood bunk beds tucked into each corner of the rectangular room.
They stand in the doorway, their first round of luggage at their feet and weighted on their backs, taking the place in, and all Chavez says is, “Dibs on the top.”
Their roommates aren’t around yet, not for another day or two at least, all of them coming in from farther away than two hours south, so Munson and Chavez unpack in one corner of the room, Scotch-taping Polaroids and Kodak prints to the front face of their bunk, shimmying on their stomachs under the desks and beds looking for outlets, emerging with gray dust in their hair, sneezing.
Still not talking, they go out for food, eating roadside Mexican at a patio table and watching girls, and wander around the campus until the sun goes down. They’re both tired-gonna make an early night of it.
It’s weird, to be together and not be talking. It’s never been like this before. But Chavez doesn’t want to be anywhere that Munson isn’t, not right now.
They keep an eye on each other, sideways, blurred perspectives, can’t be caught staring. They trade nervous glances, follow the path of a hand, the stretch of a back, the kick of a leg skittering a crushed soda can across the asphalt.
They get back to their empty room and Chavez vanishes briefly to call his folks from the payphone down the hall. It’s a short conversation, a rundown of their room and the campus, a quick slurred question, “Did you hear anything new from the team?” that Chavvy feels guilty for even asking.
He doesn’t want to go to college. He wants to play pro ball. He doesn’t want to stop seeing his best friend every day. He doesn’t want anything this central to the course of his life to be decided by Eric Munson.
Back in their room, Munce has put a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD on, turned the volume up loud, and set himself up in the stick-backed chair by the window, winging a tennis ball against the wall and catching it smoothly, whistling along with the music and gazing out at the quad.
Chavvy doesn’t say anything to him, digs out his tattered copy of Ty Cobb’s biography and climbs into the top bunk. The thump of the tennis ball against the cinderblock wall is in perfect time with the drum beat of the music, picking up for the faster tempo songs, slowing for Anthony Kiedis to get romantic.
They spend their first night as college men like that, speechless, until midnight runs up on them and Munce kills the music, changes into his pajamas in the center of the room, aware of Chavez’s eyes slanting down on him from over the pages of his book, and Munson falls into the bottom bunk. He’s so tired, every muscle aches.
There’s movement above him, and a second later Chavez’s shirt floats down. Another rustle and Chavez’s jeans follow, his belt still looped, the buckle the first thing to hit the floor. Then it’s quiet again.
Munson stares up at the skinny wooden cross-beams on the underside of the upper bunk, the squeak of the mattress, the nearly imperceptible shifts with Chavez’s every breath. Munce thinks about a year spent down here, watching Chavez’s mattress breathe.
“You think I should sign.”
Munson starts, Chavez’s voice for the first time in hours, and Chavez isn’t asking anything, just stating a dry bookkeeper’s fact.
Munce fiddles with the drawstring tie of his pajama pants, answers honestly, “You should do what you think is right.”
Chavez exhales. “I don’t know what’s right, Munce, that’s why I’m asking you.”
He lifts his eyebrows, gives the underside of Chavez’s mattress a dubious look. “Because I know what’s right better than you do?”
Chavez mumbles, close to inaudible, “Yeah.”
Munson pulls a hand across his face. He’s got a headache, it’s getting pretty bad now. “I’m sorry, dude, but I can’t decide this for you.”
Chavvy is quickly angry. “I’m not asking you to decide it for me, I’m asking you to give me your fucking opinion.” He doesn’t wait for it, though, continuing, “I mean, if I play for what they’re offering now, how long’s it gonna take for them to realize I’m worth more? I was first round, how many other first round picks are gonna get shorted on signing bonuses like this?”
“What I wouldn’t give to have your problems for a day,” Munson mutters, and he meant for it to be under his breath, meant for it to not be heard, but it’s pin-drop quiet in their room, and the rectangle echoes more than he expected.
There’s a pause, and then Chavez’s head pokes down from the top bunk, hanging upside-down with his hands curled around the wood, the curves of his bare shoulders visible. Munce, surprised, blinks up at him. Chavez gives him an idly concerned look.
“Are you being weird about the draft?”
Munson rolls his eyes, shakes his head. “No.”
Chavvy, his face reddening slowly as the blood drains down, squints at him. “I think you are.”
Munce meets his upside-down eyes, saying firmly, “I think I’d know.”
Chavez takes a moment, then presses on earnestly, “Munce, you know you shoulda been taken higher-”
The burst of anger that rings through catches him off-guard, comes out of nowhere, and Munce says, “God! Yes, Chavez, I know, okay, I fucking know. We don’t have to keep reaffirming it.”
Chavez doesn’t catch the true harshness below the words, taking one hand off the bunk and pointing down at Munson in accusation. “See, you’re being weird.”
Munce glares at him. “I’m being annoyed.”
Chavvy considers that, shrugs, his position making it awkward. “Well, you being annoyed with me is kinda weird.”
Munson sneers. “Not as weird as you think.”
Chavez’s face tightens briefly, halfway wounded. His hair is hanging in ragged clumps of black, begging a hand to smooth it back, fight gravity. Chavvy says, keeping his voice mild, “Ouch, dude.”
Munce smiles slightly against his will. He reaches up and fingers the ends of Chavez’s hair, tells him, “You’re gonna fall and crack your head open if you keep hanging off like that.”
Chavvy’s face lights up. “You want me to come down there?”
Munson drops his hand. “No.”
The look on Chavez’s face isn’t halfway this time, and Munce bites his own tongue, tries to take it back. “I mean, yeah. Sure. Come on down.”
Chavez’s head disappears. “No, that’s okay.” He settles himself back down in the top bunk, wriggling around trying to get comfortable.
There’s a long moment in which neither of them says anything, and eventually Munce gets fed up and kicks Chavez’s mattress. “Now who’s being weird?”
Chavvy’s reply is muffled, spoken into his pillow. “Well, it’s my turn. And quit kicking.”
Munson sighs with put-upon irritation, and hoists himself out of bed, climbing into the top bunk. He crawls over Chavez, Chavez squirming to avoid his knees, and sits back against the wall, his legs bent over Chavez’s stomach. He rests his hand on Chavez’s arm, the dented crook of his elbow, looking down at him, Chavez lying there with the pillow bunched up under his head, all worried eyes and pointed chin.
“I don’t think you should play for less than you’re worth,” Munson tells him, his fingers tapping on Chavvy’s heroin veins.
Chavez pushes up on an elbow, meeting Munson’s eyes solemnly. “What about the strike?”
Munce blinks, confused. “What about the strike?”
Chavez flips his hand through the air. “Like, those signs we saw at the Jack Murph, a couple of weeks before the games stopped, those kids. ‘We’ll play for free.’ Remember?”
Munson nods, shading his gaze down, seeing where Chavez is going with this. “Yeah, I remember.”
Chavvy falls back, staring up at the ceiling. “I feel like . . .” he begins painfully. “Like asking for even one dollar more . . . I just want to play baseball, man.”
Nodding, Munson trails his fingers up the pale untouched skin on the underside of Chavez’s forearm, unobstructed. “But you know how it works, dude. You gotta make sure they know you. Know how good you are. Or else you’ll be tearing it up and making the league minimum and they’ll call you a fool.”
Chavvy sighs and nods unhappily, pulling the pillow out from under his head and covering his face with it. Munce’s hand moves off his arm onto his chest, walking his fingers across Chavez’s ribs, tracing his thumb down the line of Chavez’s sternum. Under his palm, Chavez’s stomach is warm, the sparse trail of hair below his belly button soft.
“I would play for free,” Chavez says inarticulately into the pillow.
Munson takes the pillow away. “I know you would, man.”
Chavez reaches up, sliding his hand around the back of Munson’s neck, but doesn’t pull him down. “And I’d stay here with you, too,” he whispers, his eyes darting, terrified, and all Munce has to do is ask.
Munson stares at him, slowly shakes his head. Chavvy swallows and his eyelids flicker crazily, and Munson kisses him hard, so that Chavez will close his eyes, so that Munce won’t have to see him anymore.
*
(a splitter with no break)
It turns out not to matter.
Two nights later, two days before classes start (draft rules being such that if Eric Chavez attends even one class at USC, he will be ineligible until ’99), they’re at their new favorite diner and Chavez’s pager goes off, vibrating against his hip and making him jump.
“Popular guy,” Munce comments like he always does, and Chavez flashes a preoccupied smile, borrows handful of change for the payphone.
Munce waits in their booth, pushing a fry around, writing words on the plate in ketchup. He’s not hungry, has rarely been hungry recently. He yawns hugely, suddenly, surprising himself, shaking his head briskly. He’s so fucking worn out all the time. His back hurts and his head throbs almost constantly. He’d almost think he was getting sick, if he ever got sick.
He wishes they could have gotten a booth by the window, because all he’s got to look at is Chavez’s empty seat across from him, the ravaged remains of Chavez’s food.
Chavez comes back, slides in. He keeps his eyes down, and Munson kicks his shoe.
When Chavvy looks up, Munce lifts his eyebrows with exaggerated expectancy, and Chavez grins shakily.
“So . . . yeah. Can you drive me back to San Diego tonight?” Chavez asks, unconsciously flinching as the words leave his mouth.
Munson regards him, Chavez’s hand drumming on the table, Chavez’s knee juddering against Munson’s. “What’s going on, Eric?”
Chavez tries out that grin again, doesn’t have much more success with it. “My mom . . . she said . . . They offered, the A’s, they offered what we were . . . I might sign, pretty soon. It’s . . . getting close.”
“Oh.” Munce sits back. God, he’s never been this tired. He shrugs, makes a grin of his own. “Awesome, dude. We’ll leave whenever you want.”
Chavez studies him carefully, searching, and Munson meets his eyes evenly.
Chavez looks down. “’Kay,” he says softly, and pushes his plate away. “I’m ready to go, then.”
Not twenty-four hours later, Eric Chavez signs with the Oakland Athletics, and Eric Munson goes back to the University of Southern California alone.
(end part three)
*
Part Four