Page 14 of Unwritten Rules
“It was a strike. If I’d moved my glove like I was framing, then the ump would start calling strikes balls just for showing him up.”
“They think I’m showing them up anyway.”
“Then don’t give ’em another reason to.” The pitching machine fires again, and this time, the pitch is on a low outside edge. Zach catches it, thumb tilted up in his mitt, making the movement of his glove less obvious as he pulls the pitch back into the zone.
“Was I supposed to see something?” Eugenio says.
“Exactly.” It’s a little gloating, and Eugenio doesn’t throw up his hands or tell Zach to fuck off, but he probably should.
“Talk me through it,” he says, after Zach’s caught a few more pitches. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
“Okay.” And it’s kind of strange for Zach to self-narrate. “I know the pitch will be outside, and when the machine goes off—” and there’s the sound of it firing “—I move my body in case I’m set up in the wrong place.” He drops to one knee, letting the ball skid past him. “It’s harder to see that I’m half outside if I’m not in a full squat.” His right leg is tucked under but still giving him mobility so that he can move if the pitch isn’t delivered where it’s supposed to be.
Another pitch, and Zach catches it, this time purposefully scooping his glove down before jerking it up. “See, that’s what Idon’twant to do. An ump sees that and even if it’s a strike, he’ll call it a ball.”
“Yeah, I got that. I know a hundred things I’m not supposed to be doing.”
Zach gets up and clicks off the pitching machine, even as a ball sails out of it and bounces off the chain link fence dividing the bullpen from the field. “You know, I could be doing something else.” Said in a tone that actually does come out as exasperated veteran, mostly because Eugenio is being mildly exasperating.
Eugenio goes over to one of the chairs where a pile of his stuff is sitting, and rummages through it before pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a blue plastic lighter. “It’s a bad habit,” he says, before Zach can say anything.
He lights a cigarette, cupping his hand around the end of it and taking the kind of deep sucking inhale particular to someone with the lung capacity of a professional athlete, especially one with broad shoulders. Most of the other players Zach has seen smoke—actually smoke and not just dip—are pitchers, usually relievers, who need to concentrate late in games and so go rip a cigarette during inning breaks.
Zach doesn’t sit there watching him. For one, that’d be a little weird, and Eugenio might mention that it’s weird. For another, Zach doesn’t want to notice the size of his hands or the way his mouth works around the cigarette or his long exhales of smoke or anything else. Doesn’t trust himself not to look, with Eugenio there, face pinched with frustration, shoulders hunched, actually looking upset and not the masked expression he wore in the clubhouse. So Zach turns to the outfield grass instead, concentrating on it like he might actually see it grow.
“Sorry,” Eugenio says, when he’s done. “I know you don’t have to do this, so I appreciate it.” He grinds his cigarette into the side of a metal trash can, then puts the butt into a cup still holding a little Gatorade.
And as he settles back behind the plate, D’Spara and Marti decide to roll into the bullpen.
The pitching machine shoots a ball. Eugenio moves his body, knee acting as a fulcrum as he repositions himself to field the ball, glove low and steady.
And Zach shouldn’t laugh. He shouldn’t. He’s taken pitches off his chest and back and shoulders. Being a catcher is practically a declaration of masochism, or at least, a solid reason to invest in Tiger Balm. But Eugenio is in the perfect position to field a pitch on the low outside corner, and instead takes one down the middle, thumping off his chest.
“Fuck,” Eugenio says, and it’s enough that even D’Spara gives a chuckle. The machine is on a timer, so it fires again, and Eugenio gets his glove on it this time, though he doesn’t frame it.
“How long you all been out here?” Marti asks.
“An hour, give or take,” Zach says. “It’s going—” and he doesn’t saywell, because that’s a clear lie. “It’s going.”
“D’Spara brought video.”
“Great.” And Zach reaches to unclip his chest protector.
“Don’t think I mentioned you being excused,” Marti says and laughs at Zach’s answering expression.
“Have you ever watched videos ofyourselffor an hour?” he asks Morgan later. They’re eating dinner. It’s early; the dining room is them and senior citizens, light outside barely fading. The restaurant has broad windows overlooking the scenic view of a highway, Morgan sitting with her back to them, sun highlighting the loose fly-aways in her blond hair.
“I was a pitcher, Glasser. So, yes, of course I have. And there’s no way you haven’t spent hours looking at your batting stance.”
“It’s different.”
Though he doesn’t specify how it’s different, with Eugenio sitting across from him so that Zach can watch him talk. Or how he asked questions about what Zach would do if there was a runner on second and in particular counts and with particular pitches and listened carefully to Zach’s answers. About how he leaned close into Zach’s space with that ease guys have when they’re not worried about being taken the wrong way. About how an hour went by without Zach noticing, until Eugenio mentioned having to get ready for their split-squad game later.
Morgan doesn’t press him either, though she’s clearly gearing up to say something. She’s picked her burger apart, removing the bun and then carving the patty itself into increasingly small slivers.
“Your food all right?” he asks, when she’s spent more time shifting it around in the red plastic basket it came in than actually eating it. She’s also balled up bits of her napkin and straw wrapper, which she flicks around the table.
“It tastes fine.” But she asks the server for a to-go box when she comes around again.
