Talking Chop

Sure, here’s the first section of the first chapter.

April

Two more weeks.
Sitting in the empty clubhouse, sterile and clean, waiting to be defiled, dinged, and dirtied, only to be disinfected again, he doesn’t think about the demotion or the packing, the endless cycle of packing, or all the money he’s losing, a fortune by most standards. Instead, he thinks about the last two weeks, two more spent living the dream.
And it is a harsh dream, realized in quick, dizzying two and three week bursts, and, once, for a whole glorious month. The dream teases, transporting you to the very precipice of your wildest fantasies, then turns surly and aloof, forcing you to sit and wait, watch and rust to the point that you can’t possibly hold on to it.
If you were to add all the two and three week bursts together, even with that one whole glorious month, they wouldn’t add up to an entire season. For the last three years he’s dealt with the daily anxiousness; how can you enjoy your dream knowing it’s a matter of weeks, days, innings, outs, pitches before it’s taken away again?
He’s already begun a fourth year with nothing to look forward to but more of the same. A new team, a fresh start, and the same old sleepless nights, the same nagging doubt.
He looks into his locker, his hands automatically fingering the brim of the black hat they hold. The white jersey, the last unpacked item, hangs as both a celebration of his dream and a cruel reminder of its reality. On the back, stitched, with a human hand, is his name, his number. His name. His number. Glancing down at his suitcase, packed expertly, boiling his life down into what can be fit into a carry-on bag, he decides to do what he knew he was going to do already, steal the jersey.
It’s not stealing, technically. Once they put your name on it, it’s yours. But, he can’t help but feel like he’s stealing every time he takes a jersey from a clubhouse. He folds the jersey carefully, placing it in its perfect spot in the suitcase, and uses the knowledge that he may never have a chance to return to the scene of the crime to justify his theft.
Sitting in the cab on the way to the airport, he fingers the stitches of a baseball in his right hand, his left resting on the suitcase in the seat next to him. Switching his grip on the ball, from fastball to slider to changeup and back again, he can take solace that, at least this time, they let him pitch. Last year, during one of his five promotions from Portland to San Diego, he spent seventeen days watching, his only chance to throw during bullpen sessions in batting practice.
He got to see Atlanta, Miami, and Philadelphia, but couldn’t tell you what it feels like to play at Turner Field, Dolphin’s Stadium, or Citizen’s Bank Park.

cbwilk - December 25, 2009 reply