thirty-two
Dash
Hey, bat boy
Janice texted a few hours after I got in. I was barely at the hotel when she tapped me. She understood me. She followed all the rules. She knew what happened when the rules were broken.
But the next line. The one I had to text…
Hello, ball girl
And that was it. There would be no more communication until the next day. First day of spring training. I went to the practice field with Youder and a couple of the guys. It was a full-size field with bleachers and dugouts that hadn’t been dug. The locker room smelled of feet and asshole, and we snapped towels and joked around.
I didn’t think about Vivian.
There’s only one ball girl.
Not once.
That was over.
Vivian. She was the ball girl. A real one.
I was back to normal. So there was no reason to think of her or regret my decision.
At all.
This is going to be weird.
Right?
Day one was the usual clown show. Pitchers and catchers had been there a week and were a little better organized, but the rest of us were just a bunch of fat assholes who had forgotten how to think. We played like Little League for the morning, and in the afternoon, we signed balls for fans at the bottom of the bleachers. A few dozen diehards and locals, and at the end of the line, a pretty woman with dark hair and brown eyes.
I took her ball. “Hi, ball girl.”
Yeah. That’s not going to work anymore.
What was I supposed to replace it with? And could I replace it?
“Hey, number nineteen. I got us at the Westin.”
I signed the ball. It was the right hotel. Was the hotel or the girl the thing that kept me out of the slumps? Maybe. I hoped so. “Our room?”
She winked. “Yep.”
I handed her the ball, signed. She beamed every time. I liked that.
“See you at seven. Be ready.”
Her eyes twinkled. Ready meant one thing. Naked. One time she’d been clothed, and that had been my worst opening. It had taken a month to fix it. Not until I fucked Rose in New York did I start playing like I should have.
“You coming to dinner tonight, Wallace?” asked Randy. He was already after-shaved and clean-pressed.
I was still in a towel. I felt slow. “Nah, got someplace to be.”
“That girl?” He raised an eyebrow. “The one you brought to Westlake’s place?”
The locker room was loud and boisterous. I barely heard him.
“Nope,” I said.
“She was fuckhot.”
“Shut up, Randy.”
“She going to be your Los Angeles fuck or what?”
“Stop talking.”
“Because if not, I love to tap fans. They’re—”
I wasn’t as slow as I’d thought. Not with my hand completely bypassing my brain and grabbing his throat or my arm getting in on the action and slamming him against the lockers.
“Fuck—?” he choked out. He grabbed my arm, clutching, fingernails digging.
I didn’t even feel it. “I said to stop talking.”
A little gack escaped him, and he swung at me. The upbeat noise of the locker room was shut off as if it had a switch. I wanted to choke the fucking life out of him, and I squeezed.
I didn’t squeeze. My hand had a life of its own. Dashiell Wallace didn’t choke people.
I’d warned him.
Little fuck.
“Dash!”
A voice behind me. An older, wiser voice. Youder.
“Let go before I clock you.”
I glanced at him. He had a bat over his shoulder. The entire team stood behind him.
What the hell was I doing?
I let the little fuck drop. He pushed me. Ran at me. Forty guys rushed in to keep us apart.
Part of me wanted to kill him. Part of me wondered what had just happened. I was still wrestling with wanting to wring out that little bitch, and I was watching myself act like a fucking animal.
I was pulled into the showers. Dropped on a wood bench.
“All right, all right!” Youder shouted, arms out, body between me and the guys who had dragged me off that asshole. “Everyone out!”
Grumbling. Hand-slapping.
Randy’s a dick.
First day. Always fucked up.
See you out there.
When it was just him and me, Youder sat next to me.
“I lost control,” I said. “I’ll write him a fucking note.”
“He’s a moron.”
“I’m going to get fined.”
“Yup. And you’ll pay it.”
“Do my penance.”
“You got a real control problem, Shortie.”
I faced him. I was in a towel, and he looked spit-shined.
“Winnie was born in March,” he continued, mentioning his daughter. “I had this adjustment period. A full fucking season with my head in my ass.”
“That was three years ago.”
“Yeah.”
“Man, I practically had to play the bag for you.”
“I know. And fuck you. Because we cover for each other. I had a new baby, shithead. I wasn’t sleeping. Dana wasn’t taking care of her usual because she had the baby. I wasn’t eating what I usually did. Wasn’t working out at the regular time. I wasn’t doing any shit I was supposed to. Worst batting average in my career. And the errors? Well, you know about those.”
Every word he said wound me up. My heart was inside a wire coil, and he was twisting it.
“I’m not changing anything, all right?” I said.
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Everything is the same.” I wasn’t shouting, but my voice couldn’t have been more definite. He had to believe me. Had to. “I’m not doing anything different than any good year I’ve had.”
“How long can you keep that up?”
I stood. This was the shittiest day on record. “Forever, all right? Until I retire. Whichever comes first.”
I went out to the dressing room, snapping off my towel.
Fuck him and his shitty story.
Fuck Randy and his mouth.
Fuck Vivian’s sweet cunt and that laugh and her goddamned kindness.
I wrestled myself into my clothes. I had a date tonight. The same date I always had. And I had to replace the girls I’d lost in Oakland and New York because change was an error. It was a swing and a miss. It was a failure of effort.
I didn’t have room to fail.