Despite its name, the Grand American Ball Park is one of the smaller ballparks. It overlooks the Ohio River, white columns supporting its bleachers, a concrete fiasco of highways at its back. Zach can see it from where his car is parked on the narrow shoulder of the road, traffic passing close enough to make his seat rumble.
See it but not get there.
They’ve draped the ballpark in banners proclaiming tonight’s game, and it sits, open and roofless, nothing like the domed monstrosity of Swordfish Park or the Elephants’ decaying Coliseum, which has character in the form of plumbing problems.
He flew in that morning, an early flight out of Miami he was too keyed up to sleep through, and went through the rituals of getting his luggage, of picking up his rental car, of finding his hotel. His agent sent champagne, and his parents sent a text message saying congrats and that they were proud of him. But not so proud they could miss work to come.
Now he’s thirty minutes into what his phone says should be a ten-minute drive, having made four wrong turns and a desperation stop at a service station for coffee that tastes like reheated gasoline. The cup rattles in the cup holder of his tiny rental car every time a vehicle whizzes by.
His phone is a mess of notifications. He plays whack-a-mole, muting text messages, Twitter alerts, tagged Insta posts from Swordfish social media, all congratulating him on his first selection to play in the All-Star Classic. Which would feel like more of a congratulations if he wasn’t the default option on a team mostly made up of marginal players and washed-up veterans like him.
Clearing the alerts, he reads and rereads the directions, which look threateningly easy. But a construction zone is blocking the exit he’s supposed to take. Workers stand around in orange reflective vests and hardhats, a couple of whom are looking at Zach, probably because he’s been sitting there. For a while. Folded up in a car the size and color of a blueberry, his chin pointing at his knees, his thigh pressed against the center console, his excitement rapidly decaying into nervousness.
His phone flashes an alert telling him the directions have recalculated, but it displays the same ones as before, a directive to drive through a clearly closed exit. Three quick turns would put him at the entrance to the stadium parking structure, if not for the machinery clogging his path.
Another vehicle screams by—a truck with a loud horn, wailing into the hearing aid in Zach’s left ear. He shakes his head as if to dislodge the sound.
He rifles through his bag, looking for the printout of his schedule, which has a map of the area. And he pulls out rolls of athletic tape, his catcher’s wristband, fraying at the edges, his wallet, and a stack of hotel room keys, only two of which belong to the actual suite he’s staying in. But no schedule.
Because it’s sitting on his kitchen counter in Miami, along with an envelope of cash for his housekeeper to water his plants while he’s gone, though half of them are dying in the perpetual South Florida air conditioning, having never adjusted to the move from Oakland.
A text message comes in, the LED light on his phone flashing. He must really be late if league handlers are asking him if he’s in need of any assistance.
Send someone to come get me so I don’t miss the game, he doesn’t write back. Not that most people would really notice if he wasn’t there.
Be there in a minute, he writes instead, and then adds that to the endless string of muted text threads.
Eventually he gives up and pulls his car back out onto the road, following the dense line of vehicles to the next exit and praying that he’s going in the right direction.
A clubhouse attendant greets Zach when he finally arrives at the ballpark, sweaty, out of breath, worried that he’ll be penalized for being late, even if the game doesn’t start for hours. The clubbie hands him a printout of the schedule and reads it to him like Zach can’t do that himself. He’s also offering...something. The guy’s half a foot shorter than he is and is talking with his face buried in his clipboard.
“Could you—” Zach interrupts, gesturing to his ear where his hearing aid is sitting, and lifting a loose curl of his hair to further make his point. “Speak up?”
“Right.” The guy says something else, face back in his clipboard.
And normally Zach would stick around and ask the guy again. But he’s been up since early that morning, and all he wants is another shower, a therapeutic beer, and to not embarrass himself playing on national television.
“I’ll figure it out.” Zach folds the schedule, then stuffs it into the zippered pocket of his joggers.
There are a lot of signs on the concourse to the clubhouse entrance, because no one expects ballplayers to be especially bright. He’s vaguely grateful that they’re treating everyone like they’re equally inept, not just him. He follows the signs, pausing a few times to offer other players the standard back-slapping hugs, issuing a few congratulations he more or less means, absorbing a few aimed his way.
“Well, even Miami had to send someone,” he says. Even if he practically crowed when his manager told him that he was selected as the team’s sole representative. Something that became vastly less exciting when he realized he would be here alone.
If other players hear any of that in his reaction, they don’t do more than punch his arm or slap his ass in response. Standard baseball stuff, like this is any other game, and not the high point in his otherwise unspectacular career.
They’ve stuck all the position players in the visitors’ clubhouse. He’s been in it enough times to know that they’ve done some serious improvements: adding more stalls to accommodate all of them, ripping out the nasty old carpet. It smells like bleach and like food, a catering setup warming in chafing dishes sitting next to a fully stocked bar. It’s also stocked with a bartender with an enticing Kentucky twang and an explanation of all the various bourbons, who tells Zach that if he needs anything, well, he’s just gotta ask for it.
Zach doesn’t ask for bourbon, just sips his beer and talks with various other players, trying to discern what they’re saying in the haze of noise. Around him, it could be a regular game, except for the volume of alcohol out and the fact that there are two teams’ worth of players in here. Some look like they’ve just come from the weight room or from running around the perimeter of the park in the midday heat. Another cluster is dancing to music blaring from the clubhouse sound-system.
A few are sitting, playing cards. John Gordon, who Zach played with in Oakland, is there holding court, attended by a former league MVP and a two-time Cy Young finalist. Zach gives them a faint wave of recognition. And Gordon either doesn’t see him or the game is only open to perennial all-stars, because he offers Zach nothing more than the set of his shoulders as he turns his back.
It’s hard to hear in the din. Zach finds one of the padded leather rolling chairs ubiquitous in clubhouses, setting his beer on the floor next to it and digging the schedule out of his pocket. Apparently, the only thing planned for the next little while is to wait to be summoned by the social media people. Which is big-league-speak for sit and hope they don’t call his name, so he doesn’t have to be awkward on camera.
He leans down to pick up his beer, not looking at who is actually sitting in the chair he set it beside. Later, when he recalls the moment, it’ll play in slow motion, like something from Jaws, the first time a shark fin pokes its way above the placid ocean water.
Because when he looks up, there’s Eugenio, sitting there, looking at him with a flat, unreadable expression. Which, fuck. Fuck.