Like the searchlights
Like the searchlights
2011 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Excellent defense/terrible defense. That is, Bourjos/Mathis.
Notes: I drafted this in a meeting in July 2011, when the Angels were good: hooray for the season? Hooray for Opening Day. Title et cet. from the Mountain Goats' "Old College Try." Edited by faded-lilac who said, "Holy COW do you love a metaphor," and other helpful things: thanks girl!
Warnings: allusions to death (2009 Angels) and hack artistry.
Mathis stretches on the floor, in front his locker: fingers gently interlaced behind his right knee, trying hard to keep his left shoulder square to his body. Challenging, he thinks, and breathes through it, trying reasonably hard not to fold inwards, to bend with the force of his own body. That's the strictest instruction, to not collapse and rest on his knee. He has been told this by the physical therapist, Kristen, who is broadly attractive in a blonde, Northern European way, except that she enjoys bullying anyone who's incautious enough to cross her path. It must be some quasi-historical thing: Swedes like giving orders and prodding at tender joints.
"Oh, hey, that's pretty impressive. You're like, folded up there." Bourjos smiles down at him, gawkily but with apparent pleasure. He's stopped in the doorway, cap tilted absurdly, and waves one cleat, while shaking a socked foot. "Laces broke," he explains, and remains, standing still. Not that he needed to explain: the team's out practicing footwork. They're running drills for some reason, even though it's high summer, long past training. At least catchers weren't invited, like a yard of momentum will do anything when he's got forty-three inches of safe space. He's only inside to stretch, since he sure won't do it when he gets home.
Briefly, Mathis pulls out of the stretch, enough to look at Bourjos, rather than at his knees. Or at least, do it comfortably: he doesn't need to strain anything, that's what this is all meant to prevent. "Yeah, next roadtrip I'm thinking I'll just fold up inside a suitcase." This is met by a stare, and then, just as Mathis is thinking that the joke totally blew, totally why did he even try, Bourjos smiles. "Yeah, no. But thanks, I've been working on it. Gotta stay healthy." He drums his unoccupied heel on the floor, for emphasis.
"Yeah, oh sure. That's important, but. Cool." Bourjos closes his eyes, a quick and friendly blink, before cutting shallowly across the room, and leaving to find another shoe-lace. He had been so near it was almost a touch, close enough for cousins, and Mathis thinks about this. The sound of one cleat, and Bourjos' uneven steps rattle down the hallway. Lifting his lower back first, and keeping his spine aligned is harder than it looks, it is, so Mathis leans back against the lip of the bench.
It doesn't really make any sense, why Bourjos is hustling back up. He's got the best footwork in the outfield, probably anywhere on the team, whatever drill they're running is not going to do him anything. He looks good out there, their starting center-fielder most days. At least, if Trumbo isn't hitting at the same time as Branyan, and Wells' knees are decaying than the usual rate, and Hunter doesn't feel troublesome. It is better than that, Mathis thinks, this is not yet a lost season, but the hustle is a little inexplicable.
Bourjos is shy, behind the shimmering gold on his shirt, and his accomplishments. He is just recently here, and looks around with something like wonder in the clubhouse, sharp 'A' with its odd halfway-down points: on the walls and on everyone's left, emblazoned on the caps, wedged in the corners of each locker at the dovetail in tiny plastic triangles.
Once, Hunter had popped several of them out and built a tiny pyramid. He had, carefully like dominoes, built it up, the angles stacking higher, sitting at his locker stall. It had gotten taller until Hunter had run out of blocks and patience at roughly the same time, and tripped carelessly over it, leaving them scattered.
Still, Bourjos had smiled, like he was excited even at stupid things like this. He has not been up very long at all, and when Hunter nods at him, sure and easy, Bourjos does not, like anyone else would, shrug and look browbeaten. They stand up together and Hunter talks as they go off towards the warning track. At least this is what they must be doing: something odd and...outfield-y. Mathis pulls out of his right-ward stretch, and stands, rolling his neck. He won't wait or anything like that, but he can think about it.
"Hey, you're going to come out tonight, yeah?" Bourjos returns, both feet in cleats.
"What? Yeah." Mathis tilts his head, and then bobs it affirmatively. "Yeah, you think? Where're we gonna go, you know?"
Bourjos shrugs, drawing his shoulders back. The high-performance fabric, ready for power through sweat, rain, blood or demolition, snags. It's only summer, and not even summer like in north Florida, and the shirt has caught on Bourjos' sweat, his shoulders. They're rounded in the shrug, his shoulders, and when he responds, "I guess the usual coupla places. I haven't been out in a while; Weaver says that sneezing isn't a way to reel in the ladies." There is a hook to Mathis, in the way the shirt has caught over Bourjos' skin.
"Like he'd know. Yeah, though, that'll be cool."
"Alright. I'll catch you then, okay?" Bourjos rolls his shoulders again. Mathis thinks, I might be a fish. All this about Bourjos, but he can't stop thinking it. Like there aren't other pairs of shoulders, another pair of gentle eyes and dimples. These things are simple, and he is being stupid about them. But clever fish might know about lures - Mathis isn't sure, he's never been a good sport-fisher, only caught one fourteen-incher - they still get caught. He is hooked pretty good, and Bourjos isn't trying. "See you!" In the stretch, Mathis misses Bourjos' departure.
They play, the sun slow to set over the gentle sweep of the stadium, the whites and greys washed over, like the shoreline, under the dazzling orange and purple of the sky.
Wilson is catching this evening, and Chatwood starts, or at least Mathis thinks he does. There is a pitching change in the fifth, and then it tumbles through the relievers: Downs, Takahashi like whiskey on the rocks. None of them stop the game, or even do much of anything impressive, although Downs strikes out one of the A's, who, Abreu tells him, is batting three-twenty. That's as good as stopping something, and Mathis rolls his eyes, to express that Abreu's fascination with other hitters' averages is exceptionally weird, and tries not to focus on the math behind it, a full ninety-five points above his own.
Walden closes out the game, a good weekday two-run win and then they go out. They go like a pack of alcoholic wolves, first to a bar, then to a another bar with highlights of the game where Chatwood tells a girl -- that's me on the screen -- and she won't believe him so they all laugh, and then to another bar, and another, hunting for the right side of drunk enough.
"Hey, Mathy. Mathis, look at this." Bourjos punches him the shoulder, and Mathis turns to look at the game of table-top football Bourjos, Pineiro, and Trumbo have going. "I'm winning."
"Nah, you're going down. You messed with," Trumbo grapples for the word, loosely shaking his head. "California."
Mathis corrects him. "No, I think that's only Texas."
Bourjos smiles, and adds, "I can't mess with it. I'm already here," which makes sense, Mathis assumes, in his little drunken brain. He needs to keep from saying that, keep it to himself. Unkindness will do nothing now.
"You totally messed with it, dude."
Mathis turns away from them, and drinks. His beer has gotten warmer, and it's not so refreshing, but he has to drive anyway. It doesn't matter. He listens to Weaver hit on the girls at the table next to theirs, leaning forward like he was once told that ladies like a giraffe neck; which they apparently do, because one of them is laughing and pressing at Weaver's non-pitching arm with her purple-painted fingernails. Mathis looks at his beer bottle, the last wash of alcohol like nothing very much. Like nothing at all. The bar is uncomfortably cool, much finer than he would have picked this late in the night, with apprehensively shined furnishings, like someone might fear not being able to view their own reflection on every surface, and could walk out into the night as punishment.
Maybe this is what he gets for moving to California. Come, play, enjoy, and feel moderately stupid about vanity. Because that's what it is. He's been considering the whole bass-lure thing from this afternoon; not during the game, obviously, but after. It's a pretty fancy metaphor, not the same way he would have thought before coming here. Not the same stuff, either, but that's why he's in southern California playing baseball, and not in northern Florida picking up shifts at Kmart.
Trumbo intrudes on Mathis' thoughts. "Hey bro, you're wasted." He's pointing at Bourjos.
"Am not. You're just bummed because you lost." Bourjos makes his own fib obvious, slurring the word until it sounds like 'last.' Which might be reasonable enough, but Bourjos smiles. Last, lost, hopeless, helpless: words that look enough alike when Bourjos runs his tongue over his smile. Dimples deepening, even under the low light.
This is kind of going to shit faster than Mathis thought. Not like he's sad about it. He's plenty experienced.
"Gee shit. Bro, you alright for getting back to your place?" Walden taps Bourjos' shoulder. He stands close, hair gelled shiny blue-black.
Like Bourjos could even drive like this.
"Look, hey, Walds. I'll look out for him. You call your girlfriend, it's cool."
Walden is briefly conflicted, but nods quickly. His girlfriend is, Mathis knows, uncomfortably gorgeous -- even in the grimy folds of the wallet photo Walden shows at a moment's questioning. He pulls out his phone as he walks away, because he's gotta make time for these things, girls and interests. That's how they do.
Mathis rolls his shoulders while Trumbo looks on. "You gonna be alright with him?" Trumbo sounds part-concerned.
"No, I'm going to shove part of the starting line-up out of my moving car. Geez, Trumbs, I'm not even sure how to do that. I'll be fine."
Bourjos pipes up, from where he's slumped over his last vodka-and-lime. "I am fine."
"No you're not." Trumbo smiles at Bourjos. He looks hard at Mathis. "You're good to drive, yeah?" This shit, this shit again.
Trumbo wasn't even up in 2009. They all do this, they all have to do this now, and Mathis swallows hard around the dislike-anger-fear that knots at the back of his mouth.
"I'm fine, don't worry." Trumbo's answering nod is serious, and he flicks Bourjos' bicep.
He's not even unhappy. This is just a feeling. "How are you for walking?" Trumbo, usefully, ignores him. Bourjos, less helpfully, doesn't give any sign of having heard. Great, Mathis thinks, this is great. He'll hustle Bourjos to his place, and think about his own swing as the sun hits the Santa Anas, and the San Bernadino Mountains sit, white like the new leather of a ball. Whatever else has happened, whenever, he's gotten good at feeling sorry for himself.
Bourjos, at least, can stand. He swishes his hands flat through the air in front of Trumbo. "I still won. Also, I'm not that drunk."
"Whatever. Go home with Mathis, I'll see you guys tomorrow afternoon." Trumbo departs, and Bourjos twists his mouth, until it looks like what a smile would be, once it had been shoved into sand.
Then, he grins unsteadily. Mathis takes nothing from this: everyone looks stupid sometimes. It might even be good that Bourjos is doing this now. It'll potentially clear his head. "Let's go, then." The walk is nothing, a few steps. They stand in the lot.
"You want a ride?" It's early, only about two, and he's unsurprised to be this good to drive. Not that he'd want to let someone else behind the wheel, or leave the car here. It was supposed to be more fun, and Mathis supposes that this is what responsibility feels like. He looks to the sky, the rest is unfair and less fun than he'd like. He means, 'get in the car.'
The sky's gone as black as it will, when Mathis pops open the lock on his Lexus, Bourjos leaning against a neighboring car. And then he opens his eyes wide; it is supposed to make him look younger, less knowledgeable, but he looks wide awake and knowing. He's not really pretty, but he's dark-eyed and it is not like Mathis has a type or anything so simple, and still, Bourjos is...enticing. Agreeable, if nothing else. "Nah."
Mathis looks at him. "You're going to walk back to the stadium? It's kinda far."
Bourjos makes a small shape with his mouth that might be mocking, after some maturation. But he ruins it by leaving heavily back on the car, stretching his arms out. It pulls the lighter streak of skin on the inside of his arm forward, and even in the low light, it leaves a hotter streak of want. "Was thinking of asking you."
Mathis can't be as stupid at Bourjos thinks he is; "yeah, now you are. Get in the freaking car, dude." Demonstrating, Mathis opens the driver's side door, and buckles his seatbelt, then turns. Bourjos has slowly opened the door, and one hand on the roof of the car, drops into the passenger seat. He rolls his neck, the tendons strong under his tan. When he reaches for the door handle, Mathis starts the car, the engine quietly growling in the evening heat.
They drive home by the freeway. The radio is still set to the rock station that Mathis listened to on the way to the ballpark that morning, and he turns the late-night mix down low. Bourjos stares out the window at the guardrails, and lets the drive pass in silence. His fingers grip the door handle. Mathis shifts into fifth, going all the way up to seventy-five. The roads aren't empty, but the cars are spaced far apart that even under the light-haze of Los Angeles, it feels truly like two in the morning. He downshifts, fourth then into third, as his exit comes up. It's a wicked turn, winding up to the old development. Bourjos either doesn't notice or doesn't bother to say anything; but it's not like Mathis would drive anywhere else.
In the garage, cut into the hill, Mathis looks at Bourjos and blinks. Because of this, of where they are, in the dark under a hundred tons of rock, foundation, and structure, he asks: "you coming up?" Bourjos unclicks his seatbelt and nods.
"Yeah." Walking across the cool garage floor, Mathis finds his hand swinging near Bourjos'. Down here, the sun never gets to anything. The varnished cement leeches the heat out, and Mathis is even cold in his short-sleeved shirt. He moves his hand to pull at the sleeve, to work the warmth back in, but Bourjos doesn't notice. By then they're at the stairway.
"Second floor," Mathis says. He urges Bourjos along, up the flight of steps. They stand in the open-air hallway of the second floor, and Bourjos leans against the stucco. Mathis pulls out his keys, and swings the screen door out: he inserts himself in the space between the two, leaning with his hips and shoulders against the metal edges of the screen to keep the spring from working. He then sets to unlocking the deadbolt. Bourjos slides further down the wall, slipping this time, more drunk that he thought he was. Mathis shoves the door open, his keys still in the lock, and steps back into the screen, leaving a nice wide space, manageable by drunken outfielders.
Bourjos steps in, and Mathis swiftly closes the door, leaving the deadbolt open. "Nice," Bourjos says, blinking and looking up. "Thanks. But this is really nice."
"You think? It's just kinda decorative." They're a touch from the previous owner, whom Mathis never met, but can make plenty of assumptions about. Like, 'weird.' Dim blue lights on silver wire follow a senseless pattern, like a snake's track along the ceiling. He's looked at them enough, it should be clear, He gets all riled when he drinks, really; it's what he's brought from home. And almost nothing else, although that's plain enough in what he's about to do.
Bourjos raises a finger, and asks, "wait, wait, let me take off my shoes." Mathis drops his hold on Bourjos' wrist. He looks at his own palm and closes it around his other hand, drifting up to his wrist. Now, his fingers touch his thumb. He hadn't realized that they didn't, when he was holding onto Bourjos. It's easy to get confused. Until now, though, he hadn't really thought about how - big is not quite the right word, casting out Mathis lets his mind hook on 'solid,' - solid Bourjos is. Mathis maybe has more muscle, slopes and arcs from his catcher's-crouch and weight-training, but Bourjos has got arms like a real five-tool player. Bourjos stands up, sneakers untied and clumsily perpendicular to the wall. "Okay. Yeah. Whatever." He shakes his head, and nods. "So this is your place."
Mathis' mind sticks on Bourjos' bare feet, his pale toes like a chime, rising and falling unconsciously. "Yeah. Um, obviously it's really grand."
"Oh, I don't mind. This room seems nice enough.."
"I can show it to you. You know, the tour." Mathis emphasizes it oddly. He's said it, of course, to other people who've never been here before, like a joke, but never to a teammate. It's strange, simply: Bourjos could plausibly be here again, and might like to know where the kitchen is. "You want some water?" Mathis turns, and blinks back at Bourjos.
"Sure."
They walk to the kitchen, and Mathis keeps the lights off. The refrigerator buffers freon lowly. He flicks on the water filter, and asks, "ice?"
"It's fine." Bourjos is standing much closer than Mathis expected. Although, what really did he expect? They're about to hook up. So he turns: in the arc, Mathis sets the two glasses on the countertop, and with his newly-free hands, touches Bourjos's hips. First reaching across his own body with his left hand; and then, matching to Bourjos, his left hand on Bourjos' right hip. Bourjos' solid presence is inarguable. He still squirmed when Mathis had touched at the concave of his hipbone.
"Yeah, that's fine?" Bourjos shoves, a little pushy, at Mathis. Standing in his kitchen, backed-up to his sink, Mathis leans forward. They are close: insole-to-outsole, kneecap-against-kneecap, hand-on-hip, chest-at-chest. Bourjos is hardly visible, he is so near. He has disintegrated into a physical push, one freckled cheekbone and a slow-blinking eye. When Bourjos swipes his tongue along the ridge of his own lower incisors, Mathis feels the press of tongue along his own jaw.
Bourjos lifts his chin. Slow breaths ghost at Mathis, and Bourjos presses ever on. Nothing can sever this, Mathis thinks, still aware that this is his kitchen and it faces out to the common hallway. They continue unchanging, Bourjos using his chin against Mathis's cheek. They were both clean-shaven this morning, and Mathis can feel the faint minty heat of Bourjos' aftershave, but there's a rasp to the motion, when Bourjos opens his mouth and pulls along. His hands are heavy on Mathis' shoulderblades, palm flat and fingers wide. It is not as though Mathis would fall without the support, and he opens his own mouth to make a crack about it.
One huff of breath at the spot where Bourjos' dimple lies, though. It's pretty, and fast, and then Bourjos shifts forward, enough that he is relying on Mathis' grip. Mathis has him. His fingers, rough from the groomed dirt and stitching on strikes, have followed the parabola of Bourjos' hipbones; from front, where they are furrows leading under his beltloops, to side, where the bone peaks like the height of a rollercoaster, to the deep turn under muscle at his back. Bourjos may be solidly-built, but Mathis' middle fingers meet over the slope of skin at his lower back. Mathis rubs at the knob of a vertebrae, and Bourjos takes a jerky breath: it's loud only from proximity, how Bourjos is hanging over Mathis.
They are, however, not going to hook up on the tiled floor of his kitchen.
"Here," Mathis grips at the deep tissue above Bourjos' spine, just to be perfectly clear. "You want a sip? We can get into the other room." Mathis shrugs his head towards the direction of his bedroom.
Bourjos reaches across Mathis, for the glass. "Sure." He sips. To do this, he leans back from Mathis, so Mathis takes the chance to get out of the front of his countertops, which are fine typically, but have been sharp against his kidneys during this nice getting-to-know-you session. Since they should continue, and more, but he'd like it to go for much longer, and not be in pain during it. Bourjos swallows at the lip of the glass, and Mathis watches his throat work. "Yeah, show me."
Mathis steps: the white of his eyes, incised by blue iris, are the only indication of where he is, in the half-dark. When he blinks, Bourjos stumbles after him. After that, even in the short hallway, Bourjos rests his hand on Mathis' spine: a loosely curled fist over the midway curve of bone-to-skin, the angle of a general 'S' yet where the vertebrae are harrowed: his upper back is wide with muscle, and his lower back wastes deep with bone.
Bourjos' hand is sure in his shirt. "Here it is." At least he snapped the sheets up, yesterday morning. The dark blue looks almost ordered, over the pine frame of his bed.
"Thanks for showing me." Bourjos collapses at Mathis, kissing him over the threshold. It's practically a swoon. Not that Mathis minds.
When Bourjos pulls back, agreeably unsteady, he's still got Mathis against the doorway. Since Mathis is not doing those physical therapy exercises for kicks, he is going to get them to bed. He is. Bourjos continues to have other ideas, and grips Mathis' upper arms very firmly.
He laughs, light and high. "Hi, I'm Pete."
"Hi Pete, I'm Jeff."
Pete does not let go. His nails are short, but this is not the point. Jeff bends his own arms, and reaches. The knob of Pete's is a half-moon under muscle.
I'll be so good for you, Jeff thinks, circling with his thumb at the inside of Pete's elbow. His thumbs catches there, on the joint, and Jeff ratchets it over, snapping over skin and tendon. Pete doesn't even bother to look wounded. He shoves at Jeff, loosening his hands only to grab at Jeff's neck, zippering his fingers over the top few cervical vertebrae, and starting a kiss anew. These things are a process with Pete, lasting and sweet.
None of which means Jeff isn't going to get them on the bed. He twists at Pete, shimmying his hips. In four steps, he's knocked Pete' calves, and his shins, against the mattress. It's easy like an out across the mound to knock Pete back, and sink into the comforter. The line of his neck is clean, and tastes like dust and chemicals meant to evoke the ocean. It's not unpleasant, and Pete moves up into the touch, against Jeff's mouth.
"Pete? You good."
"Heck yeah." He reaches to his hips and pulls the worn t-shirt over his head. Pete's arms cross in front of his face, and Jeff evaluates. He's paler than most baseball players, and his dark hair puts Jeff briefly in mind of Snow White: fair and dark at once.
His ass is round and curved like a half-moon. He likes, Jeff discovers, to be gently pinched, and stretches out under Jeff, feet lengthened, legs quivering with muscle.
The snowcaps on the San Bernadino Mountains shimmer and shift under the stars. During the day, the sun stabs at them, and the heat from hundreds and thousands and millions of voices warms the ice. Factory grit and engine exhaust smear the foothills - just like that, like that - and the smog lies snug to the lower heights.
Once the layer of smog hits an invisible layer of atmosphere, it stops and steadies. It makes an impossibly obtuse angle: linear clouds of greasy pollution to the pitted slope of each mountain, hundreds of millions of years of deep heating and acid rain enough to fracture the climb, and yet the peaks retain their snow. Not even the 405 can fill the sky.
The land hits sea, eventually, out at the Pacific Coast Highway, and drops away, shallow continental shelf under a few tens of meters of water. It is nothing impressive at all, for all the surf gathers attention: it's a busy half-mile, while the mountains rise to the sky, and draw on distance so empty it gasps, painless only for lack of subjects, forty miles to space. The Santa Anas clutter the foreground, and matter to pilots in the wind, but these lack the graceless certainty of the San Bernadinos. Los Angeles, Anaheim, the totality of southern California will be hammered by disaster both imagined and real, and Mount San Gorgonio will stand, a shade over two-and-a-quarter miles.
Bright and naked, Pete sleeps facedown next to Jeff. His elbows stick out from where he's wrapped his arms gently around the pillow, and he breathes quietly, sniffling. Jeff maybe remembers that Pete's just getting over a cold. There's not an obvious way to turn the air conditioning in the room off, not a switch or anything he can turn in the dark, so Jeff pulls a blanket over the both of them and closes his eyes until morning.
2011 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Excellent defense/terrible defense. That is, Bourjos/Mathis.
Notes: I drafted this in a meeting in July 2011, when the Angels were good: hooray for the season? Hooray for Opening Day. Title et cet. from the Mountain Goats' "Old College Try." Edited by faded-lilac who said, "Holy COW do you love a metaphor," and other helpful things: thanks girl!
Warnings: allusions to death (2009 Angels) and hack artistry.
Mathis stretches on the floor, in front his locker: fingers gently interlaced behind his right knee, trying hard to keep his left shoulder square to his body. Challenging, he thinks, and breathes through it, trying reasonably hard not to fold inwards, to bend with the force of his own body. That's the strictest instruction, to not collapse and rest on his knee. He has been told this by the physical therapist, Kristen, who is broadly attractive in a blonde, Northern European way, except that she enjoys bullying anyone who's incautious enough to cross her path. It must be some quasi-historical thing: Swedes like giving orders and prodding at tender joints.
"Oh, hey, that's pretty impressive. You're like, folded up there." Bourjos smiles down at him, gawkily but with apparent pleasure. He's stopped in the doorway, cap tilted absurdly, and waves one cleat, while shaking a socked foot. "Laces broke," he explains, and remains, standing still. Not that he needed to explain: the team's out practicing footwork. They're running drills for some reason, even though it's high summer, long past training. At least catchers weren't invited, like a yard of momentum will do anything when he's got forty-three inches of safe space. He's only inside to stretch, since he sure won't do it when he gets home.
Briefly, Mathis pulls out of the stretch, enough to look at Bourjos, rather than at his knees. Or at least, do it comfortably: he doesn't need to strain anything, that's what this is all meant to prevent. "Yeah, next roadtrip I'm thinking I'll just fold up inside a suitcase." This is met by a stare, and then, just as Mathis is thinking that the joke totally blew, totally why did he even try, Bourjos smiles. "Yeah, no. But thanks, I've been working on it. Gotta stay healthy." He drums his unoccupied heel on the floor, for emphasis.
"Yeah, oh sure. That's important, but. Cool." Bourjos closes his eyes, a quick and friendly blink, before cutting shallowly across the room, and leaving to find another shoe-lace. He had been so near it was almost a touch, close enough for cousins, and Mathis thinks about this. The sound of one cleat, and Bourjos' uneven steps rattle down the hallway. Lifting his lower back first, and keeping his spine aligned is harder than it looks, it is, so Mathis leans back against the lip of the bench.
It doesn't really make any sense, why Bourjos is hustling back up. He's got the best footwork in the outfield, probably anywhere on the team, whatever drill they're running is not going to do him anything. He looks good out there, their starting center-fielder most days. At least, if Trumbo isn't hitting at the same time as Branyan, and Wells' knees are decaying than the usual rate, and Hunter doesn't feel troublesome. It is better than that, Mathis thinks, this is not yet a lost season, but the hustle is a little inexplicable.
Bourjos is shy, behind the shimmering gold on his shirt, and his accomplishments. He is just recently here, and looks around with something like wonder in the clubhouse, sharp 'A' with its odd halfway-down points: on the walls and on everyone's left, emblazoned on the caps, wedged in the corners of each locker at the dovetail in tiny plastic triangles.
Once, Hunter had popped several of them out and built a tiny pyramid. He had, carefully like dominoes, built it up, the angles stacking higher, sitting at his locker stall. It had gotten taller until Hunter had run out of blocks and patience at roughly the same time, and tripped carelessly over it, leaving them scattered.
Still, Bourjos had smiled, like he was excited even at stupid things like this. He has not been up very long at all, and when Hunter nods at him, sure and easy, Bourjos does not, like anyone else would, shrug and look browbeaten. They stand up together and Hunter talks as they go off towards the warning track. At least this is what they must be doing: something odd and...outfield-y. Mathis pulls out of his right-ward stretch, and stands, rolling his neck. He won't wait or anything like that, but he can think about it.
"Hey, you're going to come out tonight, yeah?" Bourjos returns, both feet in cleats.
"What? Yeah." Mathis tilts his head, and then bobs it affirmatively. "Yeah, you think? Where're we gonna go, you know?"
Bourjos shrugs, drawing his shoulders back. The high-performance fabric, ready for power through sweat, rain, blood or demolition, snags. It's only summer, and not even summer like in north Florida, and the shirt has caught on Bourjos' sweat, his shoulders. They're rounded in the shrug, his shoulders, and when he responds, "I guess the usual coupla places. I haven't been out in a while; Weaver says that sneezing isn't a way to reel in the ladies." There is a hook to Mathis, in the way the shirt has caught over Bourjos' skin.
"Like he'd know. Yeah, though, that'll be cool."
"Alright. I'll catch you then, okay?" Bourjos rolls his shoulders again. Mathis thinks, I might be a fish. All this about Bourjos, but he can't stop thinking it. Like there aren't other pairs of shoulders, another pair of gentle eyes and dimples. These things are simple, and he is being stupid about them. But clever fish might know about lures - Mathis isn't sure, he's never been a good sport-fisher, only caught one fourteen-incher - they still get caught. He is hooked pretty good, and Bourjos isn't trying. "See you!" In the stretch, Mathis misses Bourjos' departure.
They play, the sun slow to set over the gentle sweep of the stadium, the whites and greys washed over, like the shoreline, under the dazzling orange and purple of the sky.
Wilson is catching this evening, and Chatwood starts, or at least Mathis thinks he does. There is a pitching change in the fifth, and then it tumbles through the relievers: Downs, Takahashi like whiskey on the rocks. None of them stop the game, or even do much of anything impressive, although Downs strikes out one of the A's, who, Abreu tells him, is batting three-twenty. That's as good as stopping something, and Mathis rolls his eyes, to express that Abreu's fascination with other hitters' averages is exceptionally weird, and tries not to focus on the math behind it, a full ninety-five points above his own.
Walden closes out the game, a good weekday two-run win and then they go out. They go like a pack of alcoholic wolves, first to a bar, then to a another bar with highlights of the game where Chatwood tells a girl -- that's me on the screen -- and she won't believe him so they all laugh, and then to another bar, and another, hunting for the right side of drunk enough.
"Hey, Mathy. Mathis, look at this." Bourjos punches him the shoulder, and Mathis turns to look at the game of table-top football Bourjos, Pineiro, and Trumbo have going. "I'm winning."
"Nah, you're going down. You messed with," Trumbo grapples for the word, loosely shaking his head. "California."
Mathis corrects him. "No, I think that's only Texas."
Bourjos smiles, and adds, "I can't mess with it. I'm already here," which makes sense, Mathis assumes, in his little drunken brain. He needs to keep from saying that, keep it to himself. Unkindness will do nothing now.
"You totally messed with it, dude."
Mathis turns away from them, and drinks. His beer has gotten warmer, and it's not so refreshing, but he has to drive anyway. It doesn't matter. He listens to Weaver hit on the girls at the table next to theirs, leaning forward like he was once told that ladies like a giraffe neck; which they apparently do, because one of them is laughing and pressing at Weaver's non-pitching arm with her purple-painted fingernails. Mathis looks at his beer bottle, the last wash of alcohol like nothing very much. Like nothing at all. The bar is uncomfortably cool, much finer than he would have picked this late in the night, with apprehensively shined furnishings, like someone might fear not being able to view their own reflection on every surface, and could walk out into the night as punishment.
Maybe this is what he gets for moving to California. Come, play, enjoy, and feel moderately stupid about vanity. Because that's what it is. He's been considering the whole bass-lure thing from this afternoon; not during the game, obviously, but after. It's a pretty fancy metaphor, not the same way he would have thought before coming here. Not the same stuff, either, but that's why he's in southern California playing baseball, and not in northern Florida picking up shifts at Kmart.
Trumbo intrudes on Mathis' thoughts. "Hey bro, you're wasted." He's pointing at Bourjos.
"Am not. You're just bummed because you lost." Bourjos makes his own fib obvious, slurring the word until it sounds like 'last.' Which might be reasonable enough, but Bourjos smiles. Last, lost, hopeless, helpless: words that look enough alike when Bourjos runs his tongue over his smile. Dimples deepening, even under the low light.
This is kind of going to shit faster than Mathis thought. Not like he's sad about it. He's plenty experienced.
"Gee shit. Bro, you alright for getting back to your place?" Walden taps Bourjos' shoulder. He stands close, hair gelled shiny blue-black.
Like Bourjos could even drive like this.
"Look, hey, Walds. I'll look out for him. You call your girlfriend, it's cool."
Walden is briefly conflicted, but nods quickly. His girlfriend is, Mathis knows, uncomfortably gorgeous -- even in the grimy folds of the wallet photo Walden shows at a moment's questioning. He pulls out his phone as he walks away, because he's gotta make time for these things, girls and interests. That's how they do.
Mathis rolls his shoulders while Trumbo looks on. "You gonna be alright with him?" Trumbo sounds part-concerned.
"No, I'm going to shove part of the starting line-up out of my moving car. Geez, Trumbs, I'm not even sure how to do that. I'll be fine."
Bourjos pipes up, from where he's slumped over his last vodka-and-lime. "I am fine."
"No you're not." Trumbo smiles at Bourjos. He looks hard at Mathis. "You're good to drive, yeah?" This shit, this shit again.
Trumbo wasn't even up in 2009. They all do this, they all have to do this now, and Mathis swallows hard around the dislike-anger-fear that knots at the back of his mouth.
"I'm fine, don't worry." Trumbo's answering nod is serious, and he flicks Bourjos' bicep.
He's not even unhappy. This is just a feeling. "How are you for walking?" Trumbo, usefully, ignores him. Bourjos, less helpfully, doesn't give any sign of having heard. Great, Mathis thinks, this is great. He'll hustle Bourjos to his place, and think about his own swing as the sun hits the Santa Anas, and the San Bernadino Mountains sit, white like the new leather of a ball. Whatever else has happened, whenever, he's gotten good at feeling sorry for himself.
Bourjos, at least, can stand. He swishes his hands flat through the air in front of Trumbo. "I still won. Also, I'm not that drunk."
"Whatever. Go home with Mathis, I'll see you guys tomorrow afternoon." Trumbo departs, and Bourjos twists his mouth, until it looks like what a smile would be, once it had been shoved into sand.
Then, he grins unsteadily. Mathis takes nothing from this: everyone looks stupid sometimes. It might even be good that Bourjos is doing this now. It'll potentially clear his head. "Let's go, then." The walk is nothing, a few steps. They stand in the lot.
"You want a ride?" It's early, only about two, and he's unsurprised to be this good to drive. Not that he'd want to let someone else behind the wheel, or leave the car here. It was supposed to be more fun, and Mathis supposes that this is what responsibility feels like. He looks to the sky, the rest is unfair and less fun than he'd like. He means, 'get in the car.'
The sky's gone as black as it will, when Mathis pops open the lock on his Lexus, Bourjos leaning against a neighboring car. And then he opens his eyes wide; it is supposed to make him look younger, less knowledgeable, but he looks wide awake and knowing. He's not really pretty, but he's dark-eyed and it is not like Mathis has a type or anything so simple, and still, Bourjos is...enticing. Agreeable, if nothing else. "Nah."
Mathis looks at him. "You're going to walk back to the stadium? It's kinda far."
Bourjos makes a small shape with his mouth that might be mocking, after some maturation. But he ruins it by leaving heavily back on the car, stretching his arms out. It pulls the lighter streak of skin on the inside of his arm forward, and even in the low light, it leaves a hotter streak of want. "Was thinking of asking you."
Mathis can't be as stupid at Bourjos thinks he is; "yeah, now you are. Get in the freaking car, dude." Demonstrating, Mathis opens the driver's side door, and buckles his seatbelt, then turns. Bourjos has slowly opened the door, and one hand on the roof of the car, drops into the passenger seat. He rolls his neck, the tendons strong under his tan. When he reaches for the door handle, Mathis starts the car, the engine quietly growling in the evening heat.
They drive home by the freeway. The radio is still set to the rock station that Mathis listened to on the way to the ballpark that morning, and he turns the late-night mix down low. Bourjos stares out the window at the guardrails, and lets the drive pass in silence. His fingers grip the door handle. Mathis shifts into fifth, going all the way up to seventy-five. The roads aren't empty, but the cars are spaced far apart that even under the light-haze of Los Angeles, it feels truly like two in the morning. He downshifts, fourth then into third, as his exit comes up. It's a wicked turn, winding up to the old development. Bourjos either doesn't notice or doesn't bother to say anything; but it's not like Mathis would drive anywhere else.
In the garage, cut into the hill, Mathis looks at Bourjos and blinks. Because of this, of where they are, in the dark under a hundred tons of rock, foundation, and structure, he asks: "you coming up?" Bourjos unclicks his seatbelt and nods.
"Yeah." Walking across the cool garage floor, Mathis finds his hand swinging near Bourjos'. Down here, the sun never gets to anything. The varnished cement leeches the heat out, and Mathis is even cold in his short-sleeved shirt. He moves his hand to pull at the sleeve, to work the warmth back in, but Bourjos doesn't notice. By then they're at the stairway.
"Second floor," Mathis says. He urges Bourjos along, up the flight of steps. They stand in the open-air hallway of the second floor, and Bourjos leans against the stucco. Mathis pulls out his keys, and swings the screen door out: he inserts himself in the space between the two, leaning with his hips and shoulders against the metal edges of the screen to keep the spring from working. He then sets to unlocking the deadbolt. Bourjos slides further down the wall, slipping this time, more drunk that he thought he was. Mathis shoves the door open, his keys still in the lock, and steps back into the screen, leaving a nice wide space, manageable by drunken outfielders.
Bourjos steps in, and Mathis swiftly closes the door, leaving the deadbolt open. "Nice," Bourjos says, blinking and looking up. "Thanks. But this is really nice."
"You think? It's just kinda decorative." They're a touch from the previous owner, whom Mathis never met, but can make plenty of assumptions about. Like, 'weird.' Dim blue lights on silver wire follow a senseless pattern, like a snake's track along the ceiling. He's looked at them enough, it should be clear, He gets all riled when he drinks, really; it's what he's brought from home. And almost nothing else, although that's plain enough in what he's about to do.
Bourjos raises a finger, and asks, "wait, wait, let me take off my shoes." Mathis drops his hold on Bourjos' wrist. He looks at his own palm and closes it around his other hand, drifting up to his wrist. Now, his fingers touch his thumb. He hadn't realized that they didn't, when he was holding onto Bourjos. It's easy to get confused. Until now, though, he hadn't really thought about how - big is not quite the right word, casting out Mathis lets his mind hook on 'solid,' - solid Bourjos is. Mathis maybe has more muscle, slopes and arcs from his catcher's-crouch and weight-training, but Bourjos has got arms like a real five-tool player. Bourjos stands up, sneakers untied and clumsily perpendicular to the wall. "Okay. Yeah. Whatever." He shakes his head, and nods. "So this is your place."
Mathis' mind sticks on Bourjos' bare feet, his pale toes like a chime, rising and falling unconsciously. "Yeah. Um, obviously it's really grand."
"Oh, I don't mind. This room seems nice enough.."
"I can show it to you. You know, the tour." Mathis emphasizes it oddly. He's said it, of course, to other people who've never been here before, like a joke, but never to a teammate. It's strange, simply: Bourjos could plausibly be here again, and might like to know where the kitchen is. "You want some water?" Mathis turns, and blinks back at Bourjos.
"Sure."
They walk to the kitchen, and Mathis keeps the lights off. The refrigerator buffers freon lowly. He flicks on the water filter, and asks, "ice?"
"It's fine." Bourjos is standing much closer than Mathis expected. Although, what really did he expect? They're about to hook up. So he turns: in the arc, Mathis sets the two glasses on the countertop, and with his newly-free hands, touches Bourjos's hips. First reaching across his own body with his left hand; and then, matching to Bourjos, his left hand on Bourjos' right hip. Bourjos' solid presence is inarguable. He still squirmed when Mathis had touched at the concave of his hipbone.
"Yeah, that's fine?" Bourjos shoves, a little pushy, at Mathis. Standing in his kitchen, backed-up to his sink, Mathis leans forward. They are close: insole-to-outsole, kneecap-against-kneecap, hand-on-hip, chest-at-chest. Bourjos is hardly visible, he is so near. He has disintegrated into a physical push, one freckled cheekbone and a slow-blinking eye. When Bourjos swipes his tongue along the ridge of his own lower incisors, Mathis feels the press of tongue along his own jaw.
Bourjos lifts his chin. Slow breaths ghost at Mathis, and Bourjos presses ever on. Nothing can sever this, Mathis thinks, still aware that this is his kitchen and it faces out to the common hallway. They continue unchanging, Bourjos using his chin against Mathis's cheek. They were both clean-shaven this morning, and Mathis can feel the faint minty heat of Bourjos' aftershave, but there's a rasp to the motion, when Bourjos opens his mouth and pulls along. His hands are heavy on Mathis' shoulderblades, palm flat and fingers wide. It is not as though Mathis would fall without the support, and he opens his own mouth to make a crack about it.
One huff of breath at the spot where Bourjos' dimple lies, though. It's pretty, and fast, and then Bourjos shifts forward, enough that he is relying on Mathis' grip. Mathis has him. His fingers, rough from the groomed dirt and stitching on strikes, have followed the parabola of Bourjos' hipbones; from front, where they are furrows leading under his beltloops, to side, where the bone peaks like the height of a rollercoaster, to the deep turn under muscle at his back. Bourjos may be solidly-built, but Mathis' middle fingers meet over the slope of skin at his lower back. Mathis rubs at the knob of a vertebrae, and Bourjos takes a jerky breath: it's loud only from proximity, how Bourjos is hanging over Mathis.
They are, however, not going to hook up on the tiled floor of his kitchen.
"Here," Mathis grips at the deep tissue above Bourjos' spine, just to be perfectly clear. "You want a sip? We can get into the other room." Mathis shrugs his head towards the direction of his bedroom.
Bourjos reaches across Mathis, for the glass. "Sure." He sips. To do this, he leans back from Mathis, so Mathis takes the chance to get out of the front of his countertops, which are fine typically, but have been sharp against his kidneys during this nice getting-to-know-you session. Since they should continue, and more, but he'd like it to go for much longer, and not be in pain during it. Bourjos swallows at the lip of the glass, and Mathis watches his throat work. "Yeah, show me."
Mathis steps: the white of his eyes, incised by blue iris, are the only indication of where he is, in the half-dark. When he blinks, Bourjos stumbles after him. After that, even in the short hallway, Bourjos rests his hand on Mathis' spine: a loosely curled fist over the midway curve of bone-to-skin, the angle of a general 'S' yet where the vertebrae are harrowed: his upper back is wide with muscle, and his lower back wastes deep with bone.
Bourjos' hand is sure in his shirt. "Here it is." At least he snapped the sheets up, yesterday morning. The dark blue looks almost ordered, over the pine frame of his bed.
"Thanks for showing me." Bourjos collapses at Mathis, kissing him over the threshold. It's practically a swoon. Not that Mathis minds.
When Bourjos pulls back, agreeably unsteady, he's still got Mathis against the doorway. Since Mathis is not doing those physical therapy exercises for kicks, he is going to get them to bed. He is. Bourjos continues to have other ideas, and grips Mathis' upper arms very firmly.
He laughs, light and high. "Hi, I'm Pete."
"Hi Pete, I'm Jeff."
Pete does not let go. His nails are short, but this is not the point. Jeff bends his own arms, and reaches. The knob of Pete's is a half-moon under muscle.
I'll be so good for you, Jeff thinks, circling with his thumb at the inside of Pete's elbow. His thumbs catches there, on the joint, and Jeff ratchets it over, snapping over skin and tendon. Pete doesn't even bother to look wounded. He shoves at Jeff, loosening his hands only to grab at Jeff's neck, zippering his fingers over the top few cervical vertebrae, and starting a kiss anew. These things are a process with Pete, lasting and sweet.
None of which means Jeff isn't going to get them on the bed. He twists at Pete, shimmying his hips. In four steps, he's knocked Pete' calves, and his shins, against the mattress. It's easy like an out across the mound to knock Pete back, and sink into the comforter. The line of his neck is clean, and tastes like dust and chemicals meant to evoke the ocean. It's not unpleasant, and Pete moves up into the touch, against Jeff's mouth.
"Pete? You good."
"Heck yeah." He reaches to his hips and pulls the worn t-shirt over his head. Pete's arms cross in front of his face, and Jeff evaluates. He's paler than most baseball players, and his dark hair puts Jeff briefly in mind of Snow White: fair and dark at once.
His ass is round and curved like a half-moon. He likes, Jeff discovers, to be gently pinched, and stretches out under Jeff, feet lengthened, legs quivering with muscle.
The snowcaps on the San Bernadino Mountains shimmer and shift under the stars. During the day, the sun stabs at them, and the heat from hundreds and thousands and millions of voices warms the ice. Factory grit and engine exhaust smear the foothills - just like that, like that - and the smog lies snug to the lower heights.
Once the layer of smog hits an invisible layer of atmosphere, it stops and steadies. It makes an impossibly obtuse angle: linear clouds of greasy pollution to the pitted slope of each mountain, hundreds of millions of years of deep heating and acid rain enough to fracture the climb, and yet the peaks retain their snow. Not even the 405 can fill the sky.
The land hits sea, eventually, out at the Pacific Coast Highway, and drops away, shallow continental shelf under a few tens of meters of water. It is nothing impressive at all, for all the surf gathers attention: it's a busy half-mile, while the mountains rise to the sky, and draw on distance so empty it gasps, painless only for lack of subjects, forty miles to space. The Santa Anas clutter the foreground, and matter to pilots in the wind, but these lack the graceless certainty of the San Bernadinos. Los Angeles, Anaheim, the totality of southern California will be hammered by disaster both imagined and real, and Mount San Gorgonio will stand, a shade over two-and-a-quarter miles.
Bright and naked, Pete sleeps facedown next to Jeff. His elbows stick out from where he's wrapped his arms gently around the pillow, and he breathes quietly, sniffling. Jeff maybe remembers that Pete's just getting over a cold. There's not an obvious way to turn the air conditioning in the room off, not a switch or anything he can turn in the dark, so Jeff pulls a blanket over the both of them and closes his eyes until morning.