Page 48 of Unwritten Rules
“If it helps,” Zach replied, “it also has possums.”
It should be a relatively easy drive from Zach’s condo in West Oakland to the ballpark. But he’s learned there’s no such thing as an easy drive in the Bay Area, especially not at nine in the morning. He’s been sitting in traffic for the better part of an hour, his GPS calculating and recalculating his arrival time. And there’s nothing to do but tap his fingers on the steering wheel and wait for an opening in the endless line of cars so he can start moving. At least baseball taught him how to be idle.
He took the days off between spring training and their first exhibition games to air out his condo, set up all the delivery and cleaning services he needs for the season: Premade meals that won’t spoil in his fridge during a long road trip. A housekeeper who won’t judge him for piles of increasingly ripe laundry. A gym he can work out at other than the one at the stadium, one that will actively discourage its patrons from taking pictures of him when he’s gassed on the treadmill.
He also looked up the nearby coffee shops with the highest ratings on Yelp and tried a couple before settling on one that doesn’t charge him five bucks for toast, even if the breakfast sandwich was mostly tasteless and needed hot sauce. He jogged in his neighborhood, got takeout from the place he missed, and Skyped with his parents.
“You look good, Zach,” his mom told him, midway through a call, when he glanced away from his computer at a text that just flashed on his phone. “You’re smiling.”
They asked him about his expected playing time for the season. “I think it’ll be mostly a tandem. Eugenio—that’s Morales, the other catcher—he’s better against lefties than I am. But I’m better at framing, so I think we’ll split it pretty much equally.”
His mother printed out their playing schedule, and she talked through each of the series they’ll play in Baltimore against the Oysters, about when he’ll be in town and which relatives or members of their shul to expect at dinner.
“I was thinking of bringing someone to the fundraiser,” he said, adding, “no, it’s not like that,” when his mother looked hopeful.
“Why is it not ‘like that’?”
“Well, she’s married.” And then quickly clarified, “No, it’s definitely not like that,” when she looked horrified. And they all laughed about it afterward and his parents said that Zach’s friends were always welcome, and he wondered how far that invitation extended.
Now, he’s sitting on the freeway, drumming his hands on the dashboard, listening to music from his phone Bluetoothed into his speakers.
Almost there,he texts Eugenio.Like three or four more hours maxand gets a laughing-crying emoji in response.
Eugenio spent the brief gap in their schedule moving his stuff from where it was stored in Las Vegas, driving from Phoenix to Vegas, and then Vegas to Oakland, insisting he didn’t mind the distance or the time. “I grew up in the country. You get used to it.”
He divided the drive unevenly, going from Vegas to Carson City in a day, and sending Zach pictures of the Nevada highway, buttes and scrub brush and faraway mountains. He also sent a few pictures that Zach saved to a hidden album on his phone, co-opted from saving pics from random hookups.
They haven’t seen each other since the last night of spring training, or more accurately, about six the next morning, when Zach crept out of Eugenio’s apartment and drove back to his rental place in order to throw all his stuff in boxes and vacate by noon.
But there’s a hickey on his hip, though it’s mostly faded to the point where it looks like it could have come from an encounter with the pitching machine. A reminder that this isn’t something he’s imagining.
Whatever has been clogging the freeway starts moving. Zach makes it to the ballpark a few minutes before they’re supposed to officially report. It’s a high clear day, good baseball weather—warm enough to play in, cool enough that every fly ball won’t be a home run. They’ve got an intra-squad game that day, just to shake off the rust from a couple days’ rest, Zach catching for one team and Eugenio for the other.
He finds Eugenio standing by his stall. Each of them has an open wooden locker, partitioned by shelving to hold their uniforms and equipment, all the various piles of junk necessary to play the game. Eugenio is staring at his jerseys, each stitched withMoralescurving around the numbers; a row of baseball cleats tucked below; pants, belts, gloves, tape; the mitt he favors and the one he doesn’t like as much, like it’s all going to disappear if he stops looking.
Zach hands him his now-cold cup of coffee. “Sorry traffic was a nightmare. I should get a thermos or something.”
And they’ve seen each other on FaceTime, but it’s different, here, in their real clubhouse about to go play a game on the actual diamond, even if it’s just a scrimmage.
Eugenio’s been to the barber, hair cropped closer than it was in spring training, and Zach gets the slightly absurd urge to kiss him in greeting. “You look good,” he says instead, and then amends to, “nice haircut.”
“Thanks.” Eugenio glances around at the clubhouse. “This all feels like a dream.”
“Just wait until the plumbing breaks, or a possum chews through some of the wiring.”
Eugenio laughs that big laugh of his. And clubhouses don’t usually echo, especially when they have twenty-five players there along with all the staff and trainers. But it sounds big to Zach, like it fills every space and cubby in the room.
“Where’s everyone else?” Zach asks.
“We’re meeting on the field in a couple minutes. I think most guys are eating.”
“Oh, yeah, about that, where’s my breakfast, rook?”
And Eugenio laughs again, but he rummages in his stall for something, careful not to disturb the jerseys, like moving them will somehow dislodge the letters of his name from their backs. “I got you this.” He hands Zach a box. “It’s not a big deal.”
Inside, there’s a tiny succulent with spiked leaves, a pot, a little bag of soil. A miniature sign that says Arizona.
“You said you didn’t have any plants,” Eugenio says, though Zach doesn’t remember saying that to him, “so, I figured I’d start with something small. Relatively hard to kill.”
