Page 19 of Unwritten Rules
Zach’s tempted to tell him to go ask the bartender for an entire bottle of bourbon, or possibly a swimming pool full of it. “No, I’m good, thanks.”
Eugenio goes over to the bar, where the bartender looks like he’s giving him the same spiel about bourbon he gave Zach, except this time it ends with him handing Eugenio another beer and a napkin on which something is obviously scrawled.
Eugenio comes back holding his beer, napkin wrapped around it, condensation making the ink feather. But he sets his beer down and then wads the napkin up, making a dead-on throw into the nearest trashcan with the accuracy of someone who’s caught more base stealers than Zach has this season. “How’ve you been?” he asks, sitting down in the chair next to Zach, like they’re just two former teammates catching up.
“You know.” Because what else is there to say about living in a half-decorated apartment in Miami playing for a half-good team?
“Not really, Zach.”
“First All-Star Classic.” He shrugs, like there’s not more to it than that.
“You’re not excited?”
“I might not even get to play.” Zach’s probably the fourth or fifth catcher down on whatever endless depth chart governs the game. Certainly below wherever they have Eugenio, who’s having a career-best year. Not that Zach has been following it. Or checking his stats. Or watching his interviews.
“Thought you’d be good with that,” Eugenio says. “All of the good parts, none of the effort.”
It hangs there for a second. For a long second. And it’s gotta be a joke—hasto be—considering they’re sitting around drinking, surrounded by other ballplayers, in a clubhouse that for once doesn’t stink, about to go play on national television. Talking to each other like that’s just something they do.
“Fuck,” Eugenio says, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, no worries.” Zach waves his hand like he’s brushing it off. He fumbles around for what to say next, cuing up the stuff ballplayers talk about when they get together—the season, the weather, the pitching matchups—before casting each one away. As if there’s something that will soothe the bruised feeling of what Eugenio said, a feeling like taking a thumping pitch off his chest.
Next to him, Eugenio is drinking his beer. Zach doesn’t study his face, the angle of his nose or the possibility of his lips, not in a clubhouse filled with fifty other players. Not when it’s been almost two years since they had a real conversation. Not with how that conversation ended. “Do we need to game-plan with the pitchers?” Zach says, finally.
“I think we just need to be sober enough to know which way the mound is, though—” Eugenio nods over to where a player for the Millers is already swaying to the music with the confidence of someone not quite sober “—maybe not.”
“You haven’t been planning with anybody?”
“If it’s like the last time I was here, no one really expects us to take this seriously.” A reminder that, unlike Zach, this isn’t Eugenio’s first time as an all-star. That his career really took off when he left Oakland for New York. That this is ordinary for him.
“You mean, you’ve already game-planned with the Gothams pitchers,” Zach says, and Eugenio rewards him with the flash of a grin, a slight shrug of confirmation.
Zach fumbles in his pocket for the schedule again, but it doesn’t say anything different from when he looked at it before. Sit and wait and wonder when he can go back to Miami where he doesn’t have to deal with Eugenio’s over-preparation or the way his beer bottle wets his mouth. Or that he’s looking at Zach like he wants him to say something, though every word feels slippery, just beyond his grasp.
“We could go look around.” Eugenio gestures to the tunnel leading from the clubhouse to the dugout.
And Zach needs to get out of the dim clubhouse lighting, the din, the airlessness in his lungs. If they’re going to have a conversation, or an argument, it would be better to do it away from a clubhouse full of the all-star players, most of whom are also all-star gossips.
Outside, it’s a nice day, sunlight picking out the glints of red and blond in Eugenio’s hair. He has another tattoo, one Zach can just see the edge of through the long armhole of the sleeveless T-shirt he’s wearing, an outline of something. And Zach wonders what else has changed since they last talked to one another with anything more than a passing grunt during a game. Wonders who else has seen that tattoo and in what context.
If they’re why Eugenio looks so well-rested or why Zach gets occasional text messages from him asking when they’re going to meet up for dinner, always immediately followed by aSorry, wrong person. Texts he can’t bring himself to delete, even if he should.
They walk around the perimeter of the field. It really is a little bandbox of a place, every long fly ball a home run. It’s smaller than the cavern of Swordfish Park, and if Zach played at a place like this, he might actually have twenty homers to his name at this point in the season the way Eugenio does.
“Glad I don’t have to call games here,” Eugenio says, like he can tell what Zach is thinking.
“Glad I don’t have to call ’em in New York.” Because Gothams Stadium is loud and raucous and full of people from Queens.
“It’s not so bad. But, yeah, the noise can be a little much.”
There’s a pause, a long enough one that Zach’s half-tempted to try to make an escape, though that would mean retreating back into the relative darkness of the clubhouse, away from watching Eugenio drink his beer in the sunlight. “Listen—” Zach says, right as Eugenio says, “I was wondering—”
“Uh, you first.” Zach waves his hand, relieved when Eugenio continues.
“I was wondering, a bunch of us are going out after the game. If you want to come.”
“Really?” Zach asks, before he can stop himself. He glances around, like Eugenio might have asked him out of some misplaced sense of politeness. A “hey, we got room for one more” instinct that led him to continually update reservations back in Oakland.
