Page 7 of The Battery

Cody

T he ceiling fan above my bed spun lethargically, as if it had better things to do than provide its primary function.

Kinda like me , I thought sardonically, then snorted out a pathetic laugh.

The sun had only just risen, and I barely got any sleep.

Freddie wanted to get in early to the stadium and asked if I wanted to join him.

The team would be heading out tonight to Ottawa for a three-game series against the Diamonds, then on to Harrisburg for another three-game series, this one against the Stags.

I was staying home for all six games. Not that they were cutting me, but there was a certain rotation for relief pitchers, especially rookies, and I wasn’t needed.

I had until our next game against the Libertines on the twenty-fifth.

Eight days. Of… freedom?

Practice, you moron. Three other rookie relievers would be staying. Two of them were part of the Assholes. The thought started a fire in me as I recalled Leo’s demands to slough off whatever they threw at me.

Leo.

I had been on my way to the utility room. The humdrum, unmodulated noise of the stadium’s machinery beat negative thoughts into submission, as if the sound were an unstoppable force. Without my headphones to sink into, I needed the solace of the room. Which was when I had run into him .

I rolled in my bed to look out the window at a burning sky alight with shades of crimson and pink.

I snaked out a hand and slapped the machine on my nightstand.

The white noise cut off and invited in the warbling song of spring fledglings.

I tried to focus on their coos, the lilting way they sang up and down the scale.

What kind of birds were they? What did they look like?

What did Leo look like without clothes? What kind of lover was he under the sheet?

Aggressive, probably. And everyone had a good idea of what he looked like without clothes. He had enough ad campaigns for designer underwear or fancy perfume that required him to be glistening in moody lighting. All I had to do was google it.

Fuck it.

I brought up one such ad on my phone.

Fade in from black. Enough smoke to fill a battlefield.

In black-and-white, Leo’s face flashed on the screen from distant lightning.

When the thunder rolled, he walked slowly through a half inch of what appeared to be thick, black oil.

More thunder and lightning, more brief tableaus of Leo rubbing the oil on his mostly naked body.

The final shot was him standing sideways, turning and emphasizing every possible muscle in his body like he was at a competition.

Vallée , splashed on the screen in bold print.

The luxury name brand. Then the men’s perfume, Sève , in flowing cursive.

That hulking mass was pressed against me yesterday was all I could think while I watched it. Morning wood stood at full mast.

He had just… forced . No asking. But in a courteous way?

I had never experienced that before, but knew I liked it.

I had absolute certainty that if I had told him to stop, he would have without question.

Damn but if I didn’t want more of it. To present myself to him and say, “Hey, whatever you want. Go for it, man.”

I rolled back over and stared at the ceiling fan.

Down the hall, I heard Freddie head downstairs to get the day started.

I threw back the covers and waited a few minutes for things to calm down before heading downstairs.

Felt like my body was on a hair trigger.

One errant thought about Leo would set me off.

It’s gonna be a long day.

*

He sat next to me and it felt like everyone knew exactly what had happened the day before. Leo draped his tattooed arm on the armrest of the leather recliner. For a moment, I thought he made a little motion with his right index finger. I clamped down on the urge to blush.

The team meeting room had stadium seating, with chairs that swallowed you whole and promised the best snooze of your life.

Most of the team had congregated there for a strategy meeting.

Romo stood near the projector screen with the managers while they pointed at various statistics.

The Assholes were lined up in front of me.

Cliques forming together where appropriate.

As ever, the cheese (me) stood alone, and Leo found one of the few open spots to sit next to me.

He sat with his legs wide, like he needed plenty of room for things downstairs to breathe.

He wore compression leggings beneath shorts, feet wedged into sandals.

I tried to keep my head forward while I rolled my eyes as far as the optical muscles allowed. I had yet to find the opportunity to study his tattoos. They were a mishmash of symbols like skulls, roses, vines, words, patterns… it was art, truly. I wanted to know what each one meant.

A manager prattled on about late-inning scenarios with the Diamonds, a well-known comeback team.

I half listened. It was pertinent to me, but not for the upcoming series, since I wouldn’t be there.

My gaze had been fixated on Leo’s arm, as if I could divine his secrets through the artwork on his skin, like reading tea leaves in a cup.

Subtly, Leo’s right knee snapped out and bumped into mine. He pointed toward the front of the room as if to tell me to pay attention. I cleared my throat quietly and rejected the desire to continue my study of him. He was right. Of course.

The meeting finished up after about an hour. As everyone stood to go about their day, Leo stayed seated.

“What are you up to right now?” he asked me.

I was halfway out of the seat when I sat back down. “Flat ground drills,” I said. “Rex is staying behind.” One of the assistant pitching coaches. He’d been pushing me to work on mechanics.

“Get your stuff and meet me in the outfield. I’ll talk to Rex.” He stood and jogged down the stairs without waiting for me to even agree.

Who was I to argue?

The Assholes watched the exchange, too. Good.

In ten minutes, I was jogging up from the dugout, through the infield, and to the outfield where Leo was already waiting. He carried only his catching glove and none of his other gear. He had on a backward Riders cap that he kept adjusting while pacing in slow circles around a bucket of balls.

“I thought you guys were leaving soon?” I said as I came nearer.

He looked up from the ground and gave me one of those looks. “Piss off,” it always indicated. Instead, he said, “Yeah, you’re right. Never mind about this.” Which was kind of the same thing.

“Sorry, sorry. Just… my opening gambit, I guess.”

“Stop apologizing,” he commanded. “Let’s start at forty-five feet. Rex is right—we need to work on mechanics. Yours was shit at the last game. Hit me with some fastballs.”

I let out a sigh. All right. So we weren’t talking about, well, y’know. I walked roughly sixty feet away from him. By the time I spun around, he was squatting and ready, clapping his mitt at me like Pac-Man wanting dots.

For five quiet minutes, only the sound of my grunting and the smack of the ball hitting the glove filled the space of the outfield.

Leo stayed silent as he observed me. Studying, I supposed.

The sexual tension I thought might be there was nowhere to be found.

Replaced by, what, a mentor? Someone who genuinely wanted me to be better?

After ten fastballs he called for me to halt. “From my point of view,” Leo said, “your release point keeps changing between pitches.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” I snapped.

Leo stared flatly at me. “So why haven’t you done anything about it?”

“That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it?”

Leo squatted back down. “All hellfire and brimstone today, I see. All right. Sliders. Let’s go.”

Another five minutes and ten sliders. I expected a second critique afterward and was rewarded appropriately. Leo stood back up and stretched his legs. “Shoulder plane isn’t level.”

“Yeah? What else? My pinky didn’t extend out far enough?”

Leo threw down his glove. “The fuck is with the attitude, Hill?” The venom in his voice snapped me out of whatever juvenile tantrum burbled up from my belly.

I held up both my hands, an apology on my lips, but remembered his earlier direction. “You’re right. You’re right. Shoulder plane. Got it. What next?”

Leo picked up his glove and lowered himself. “Fastballs. Let’s do sixty feet now. And remember—”

“Shoulder plane. Yep.”

More drills and critiques for the next twenty minutes. My anger rose and fell like swells in the ocean. Leo didn’t budge from his “fuck you” attitude that I was starting to get comfortable with, in a strange way. By the end of those twenty minutes my arm fatigued, and Leo noticed.

“All right, last one. I gotta get going. Give me one more,” he hollered to me.

“Fastball?” I asked as I fished a ball out of the bucket.

“Anything you want.”

I turned out my lower lip. “Really? Anything?”

“Hey, Hill?”

“Yeah?”

“I really hate repeating myself.”

All right, jerk. I felt a sudden ballooning of pride. All I had done since joining the Riders was the usual pitches. Steady, reliable. Expected. Leo wanted anything, so why not give him something different?

I danced my fingers across the ball to find the right seams. Gripped it in a funny way by using the tips of my fingers instead of the flat of the pad.

I wound up, extended my leg, and put the last of my waning energy into the throw.

It zipped toward Leo’s glove with zero spin.

It fluttered on the whim of the air currents, unguided by any spin.

In the lightning flash of the throw, I made out Leo’s hesitant movement of the glove, unsure of its direction.

Just as the ball neared him it broke wide and Leo reached to catch it, missing entirely.

The thing sailed onward where it arced to the grass and then slammed into the sidewall.

He stood and pulled his cap off. “You never said you could throw a nasty knuckleball.”

His face showed genuine surprise. I played it off as nothing, but inside, I felt a thrill of delight.

Knuckleballs weren’t used as much as they had been in the past, mainly because all of the greats were dead and gone.

That, and the unpredictability paired with the divination of magic numbers to predict outcomes, didn’t pair well.

“Where did you learn that?” Leo asked. His voice had lightened. Gone was his guttural grunt, replaced by a smooth tenor.

“Been practicing for years. Even threw them in the minors. Anyway, good luck on the road, Spartan.”

I left him there on the outfield. I smiled the entire way back to the dugout.