It was nearly time to get to the park. I was a little tired from lack of sleep. I met Donny Campbell at the apartment he shared with three other guys on the team. I expected a mess. It was more Spartan than anything. Each of the guys shared a room with two twin beds. The common living room had two couches with mismatched cushions, a small screen television, several ottomans, and cases of beer stacked next to the kitchen doorway.
Campbell thumped a bed in one room. “This is mine.” He pointed to another. “We’ve got room for you right here.”
I said, “If I check out of my place, I’ll keep that in mind.”
He beamed. I didn’t mention Czobel. I had no responsibility to Donny. Yet.
I said, “I heard that Skeen and McDaniels didn’t get along, that McDaniels got thrown out of one of the parties.”
He frowned. “Skeen could be kind of a prima donna. A few guys had minor run-ins with him. Nothing was ever serious. Guys get on each other’s nerves all the time. Little dust-ups aren’t odd. Jamie never said anything to me about being thrown out.”
He gave me the names of the ones who did have run-ins. I would talk with them later.
I said, “You know anything about Deborah, the waitress at Millie’s? Supposedly Skeen was interested in her.”
“All the guys are interested in her. Lot of good it does them. She’s beautiful, stacked, and off limits. Nobody touches her. She’s the daughter of the chief of police. Skeen might have been interested, but even he isn’t that stupid. If she says no, and I heard she did, then it was no.”
“She’s the police chief’s daughter? She doesn’t have the same last name.”
“Married and divorced. She hates her dad, been estranged for years is what I heard. Still, everybody knows who she is and keeps away.”
We arrived at the park at three thirty for the evening game. The workout area Donny had mentioned was well-appointed with machines that gleamed with newness. He had kind of an astonished look on his face when he realized I could press more weights and lift more pounds than he.
I wore baggy sweat pants and a loose T-shirt. His tight, red spandex shorts outlined his dick and balls. An attempt to display his interest in me? Hoping to be noticed for a stud by anyone and everyone? There seemed to be a great deal to flaunt. He didn’t seem concerned about the display. The other players may or may not have noticed, and none of them made any comment. I ignored him and made sure there were no lingering inadvertent touches.
Among the crowd using the room were women, teenagers, and older men from the community.
After we finished the workout, I picked up my uniform. Putting one on again felt nostalgic and studly. Being in a locker room with hot young athletes was fantastic. Nobody, including me, made up-close and intimate examinations, but I enjoyed seeing them in their jeans and khaki shorts, T-shirts, boxers and briefs, and then naked and changing into their knitted baseball underwear, and cups, and tight pants, and the easy conversation among naked and nearly naked studs.
Even at this level of playing, you may not be a big star, but you were accorded status. And if you weren’t currently a star, you’d been a star, an object of affection and adulation in your home town. You might not have achieved your ultimate dream, the major leagues, but there was plenty of past glory to assuage the fact that you weren’t at the top now.
In the locker room, away from the public in the gym, the guys razzed Donny about his spandex-enhanced display.
One called, “Donny’s bragging again.”
“Who’s he trying to sell it to?” another shouted.
Donny said, “I haven’t had any complaints.”
Donny Campbell was as hot naked as he was clothed. He had tight muscles all over. When he took off his shorts, he noticed my look and turned and gave me a full frontal show and a big grin. I turned away before I embarrassed myself.
More than the sexual eye-candy, being among them felt great. On the field the warm ups, wind sprints, and batting practice were easy. These last were the usual fat lobs that I plastered around the park. One even got to the left field wall on one bounce. Just being on the grass that was as green as childhood was as familiar and exotic as that first time when I was a kid. The grass so green you’d think it was perpetually spring in this one spot. The stands, the show, the smell of hot dogs, and yes, the guys in tight uniforms brought back the memories from not that long ago.
I took a long look around the stadium checking spectators and hangers-on. No sign of Czobel. I wondered where he’d been all day. I hadn’t seen him around town. He didn’t need to check in with me, but his leaving so abruptly was odd. Wouldn’t have been the first time that happened to me, but it was odd.
While waiting near the batting cage, I turned and nearly got brained with a baseball bat. Earlier I’d seen the guy practically bouncing around the field. I had assumed he was on something. He was smiling, energetic, about six feet tall and might have weighed one hundred forty pounds if he was carrying a full equipment bag. He stuck out his hand and smiled, “Brandon Saldovi. Welcome to the team. Sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
A few minutes later at the batting cage, when no one was around for a moment, I asked Campbell, “What’s with Saldovi?”
“He’s the youngest guy here. I think he dropped out of high school to play. I don’t know what lie he told to convince Knecht to let him be here. He is always “up,” always goofy, silly. He’s kind of the pet around here.”
“Is he on something?”
Campbell looked to where Saldovi was running sprints in the outfield. “I think that’s just the way he is. He’s hit a lot of home runs in the past few weeks.”
“Since Skeen was here?”
Campbell thought. “I guess.”
“Maybe he gets his energy from something he got from him.”
“He was that energetic before. Some claim he’s just on a hot streak and been lucky. It happens. A few are suspicious that it could be performance enhancing drugs. I got no proof on any of that.”
I finally caught Jamie McDaniels alone in the cinder block runway to the locker room. I said, “I was told you had a run-in with Skeen.”
“Me and half the team. Skeen could be a shit. Then he’d switch from asshole to best friend in like the blink of an eye. It was weeks ago. I didn’t mention it earlier because it wasn’t a big deal.”
“How’d it start?”
“Jeez, I don’t know.” He thought a couple seconds. “I guess he made some crack about minor league pitchers. If anybody ever made a comment back to his witticisms, he’d get all huffy. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Did it have something to do with him getting fat pitches from other teams?”
McDaniels frowned and thought a moment. “I didn’t think so at the time. Maybe he thought I knew something.” He shook his head. “I didn’t make the connection then. I didn’t make an accusation. I don’t know that he was getting fat pitches.”
“Who’d he have problems with recently?”
“There weren’t any fist fights or shouting matches, but I guess he bugged a couple guys.”
“Who?”
“I don’t want to give names. I don’t want them under suspicion. I’m loyal.”
“Conner Knecht said everybody liked Tyler Skeen.”
“That’s because Connor Knecht is an asshole. He believes in being cheap, squeezing every bit of cash out of us, and ignoring any real problems.”
They assembled all of us in the locker room before the game. Knecht gave a speech about Skeen, and life and death, and forging bravely on. None of their games were going to be canceled. The wake and funeral were going to be held in Helena, Montana, Skeen’s hometown.
“We heard he was murdered,” said one of the guys whose name I didn’t remember.
“That’s an ugly rumor,” Knecht said. I couldn’t figure out what the percentage would be in hiding the news of it being murder. That news would be made official eventually.
“If it’s true, are we safe?” the same guy asked.
“If we need extra security, we’ll have it,” Knecht said.
I leaned over to Donny Campbell and asked who the questioner was. He whispered back, “Malcolm Dowley, a player to be named later, and resident pain in the ass. He lives in the same motel you do.”
I sat on the bench for the game. Campbell sat next to me when the team wasn’t on the field. His leg and knee kept contact with mine. A few guys asked where I’d played before. I told them the story I’d worked out with Trader Smith—that he’d seen me in a men’s league and wanted to give me a tryout, that I’d played in college.
Nobody made threats. Nobody got suspiciously friendly. Nobody keeled over and died, which was a step in the right direction. I cheered at appropriate moments, said encouraging words when guys made good plays, but didn’t make a show of myself. We won. Saldovi hit two home runs. Guy named Clem Vickers pitched a shutout for our side.
When I got back to my locker, I found a note in my jeans pocket. It said, “Get the hell out before you die.”