Page 97 of Unwritten Rules
He doesn’t start the first game, but baseball is baseball. He stands by the railing in the dugout and watches the Toronto hitters get mystified by the Union starter’s changeup. He bullshits with his new teammates and listens to their manager talk in rapid-fire English to half the players and rapid-fire Spanish to the other. Around them, the stadium is loud, open enough to not feel hellish, closer to being in the ocean, sound lapping against his chest like water.
After, the reporters ask him about what he likes about New York.
“The fans,” he says, “and the food.”
About what makes New York different from Miami.
“It’s louder,” he says, and it’ll be taken as a dig at his former team, something ungrateful and a little snide about how quiet Swordfish Park is. “The thing about playing for a while is that no matter where I go, there’s always familiar faces.”
“Anyone here you’re excited to see in particular?” someone asks.
It’s an invitation for Zach to compliment various Union players, which he does. “I hear the ballclub on the other side of town is also having a good season,” he adds, and then wishes the reporters a good night.
Eugenio comes back to New York late on a Thursday night, texting Zach when he lands.
Can I see you tomorrow?Zach asks.
There’s a pause, one Zach’s tempted to fill as if to prove how much he’s been working, if only for the past week, but doesn’t.
Let me see how I’m feeling.He adds a set of emojis indicating jet lag but sends his address and instructions on getting into his parking garage.No promises.
The next day, Zach goes and sweats in the New York heat, knees in the expensive dirt of Union Stadium. He takes his at-bats, netting a double and a walk, the ball more visible than it was in Miami, the game less glacially paced.
Afterward, he spends most of the media scrum not thinking about his phone, which is sitting in his stall, practically glowing with an invitation for him to pick it up. He grabs it as soon as the last reporter leaves. There’s a text from Eugenio that says,I’ll be at my loft in 20 min.
Zach parks in a guest spot at Eugenio’s building and then takes the elevator to his floor. He pauses for a second in the hallway before knocking, contemplating the paint on the door, the number of visible locks. His hands—which were dry on the steering wheel of his rented truck—begin to sweat. His heart rate kicks up. The hallway shimmers a little around him, an unornamented space meant to prevent anyone from lingering.
He takes a breath, holds it, then lets it go. Knocks. And Eugenio opens the door like he was waiting for Zach on the other side, deadbolts already unbarred.
“Hi,” Zach says, once Eugenio closes and re-latches the door, “I’m in New York.”
“Hi,” Eugenio says, smiling, “you are.”
Zach is sure he sees the inside of the loft: a kitchen that looks like it could be on a cooking show. An oversized brown leather chair. A large television and larger bookshelf. He’s sure that there’s visual input from the room coming into his brain, but there’s mostly Eugenio standing there, wearing glasses, a set of sweatpants and socks, an Elephants shirt that’s long in the arms and tight across the shoulders. Zach doesn’t need to see the name across his back to know it’s there,Glasserstretched between his shoulder blades.
And Zach kisses him, without prelude, one hand cupping his jaw, the other at his side, over the empty outline tattooed there. Kisses him and doesn’t stop, until Eugenio pulls back. “I missed you,” Zach says.
“Zach,” Eugenio says, teasingly, “I saw you less than a week ago.”
“That’s not what I meant.” And he kisses him again.
August goes by in a blur. Zach starts a third of the games and rides the bench the other two. He catches, and plans, and looks at scouting reports, and goes and sleeps in a hotel that must be ungodly expensive, but Maritza just shrugs when he asks about finding a place before October.
He takes at-bats against Boston’s cobbled-together rotation and Toronto’s elite one and Tampa’s endless flock of relievers. He works with the Union hitting coach, simplifying his swing, reminiscent of his approach at the plate back in Oakland, something that feels awkward for the first few at-bats but then becomes more and more natural. And the game goes no faster or slower than it did in Miami, but he finds himself anticipating each one’s conclusion not to get it over with but because he has something to look forward to after.
Eugenio’s loft is big for New York, with a kitchen he cooks in when he has time, a bed where Zach sometimes sleeps, and they part ways in the mornings, Eugenio driving into Queens and Zach north to the Bronx. Eugenio has a stack of menus from local restaurants they grab from randomly to determine where to eat. Most people leave them alone or ask Eugenio to sign something while looking appropriately unimpressed by Zach.
Zach gets him a plant from a greenmarket nearby, a small, fussy thing. They spend an hour trying to identify it in order to find care instructions, before Eugenio gives up, putting it in half-shade near a window and saying, “It’s a plant. I’ll water it if it looks sad.”
Zach talks to Henry twice a week, and they run through conversation after conversation, the same way he learned how to hit—a conscious action transforming into something automatic.
“I’m gay,” he tells Eugenio one night, yawning, tired from a frustrating three-game set against Boston, the unrelenting heat of late summer in New York, their food, which came late and got his order wrong.
“I know, baby. You’ve said.” And he laughs when Zach half tackles him and kisses him in front of their uncurtained window.
Womack texts him one day in August. The Swordfish have sunk even further, at the bottom of the division and digging southward. Zach’s gotten a handful of texts aimed at him on the group chat, mostly ribbing him for getting the hell out of there and asking about his life in New York. He sent back pictures of food, of his stall at Union Stadium, then muted his notifications against the inevitable roasting.
It’s before a night game, Zach sitting at his stall, the clubhouse milling around him. A few of his teammates are playing Casino, some discussing the pitcher they’re about to go face.
