Everyone’s Keeping Score

Twelve one-hundred word scenes about a catcher dealing with a troublesome pitcher.

1.
When he dreams, Xavier Jefferson dreams of crossing bridges, of fording rivers, of scaling mountains. When he dreams he dreams of the Monongahela and the Allegheny; he dreams of the Ohio, coursing through the valley unfettered; he dreams of rickety houses, clinging to sloped streets undeterred. When he dreams he dreams of steel like cages and rusted handrails and city steps to nowhere. When he dreams he dreams of places he no longer lingers and labyrinths he no longer walks.

When he wakes, alone somewhere in the great openness of Oregon, he feels claustrophobic with space.

But he holds on.

2.
Mount Jefferson is dormant.

From the deck, Xavier stares up at the peak through Austin’s binoculars, the snowcapped face of the volcano. It’s a clear day. You can see for miles. The sun draws gleaming highlights on his deep brown shins, blades of light through the curly hairs.

“Don’t you think it’s funny.” Austin says.

“What is?”

“The volcano. It’s got your name.”

Xavier lowers the binoculars, and squints out at the grooved horizon of the Cascades.
He’s been in Salem for two weeks and he’s already got the Triple-A pitching staff all figured out.

“Well, I don’t know about funny.”

3.
He’s an iron fist kind of guy. It’s not that he’s a mean catcher, but it’s just common sense that most pitchers don’t know what’s best for them.

They’ll wax rhapsodic about 12–6 magic and whistling heat, reaping sliders, the near-impossibility of the act of pitching, the beautiful physical abomination of it.

But a tool’s a tool. The material is material. The day he meets a smart pitcher, he’ll defer to whatever metaphysical anomaly, whatever generational Greg Maddux has landed in his care.

Until then, every lanky six-five, curve-hurling, callous-fingered, fireballing, wild-eyed human catapult that’s sent his way will yield.

4.
He grows up in Pittsburgh between the split-fingered grip of the rivers, in a tangle of hills and winding stairways. The stubborn town lies unevenly on unruly land, and he’s made in its image, a diamond in the rough with hand-me-down gear.

He gets half-told in a thousand roundabout ways that Black boys don’t catch; he doesn’t listen.
He’s all sable and gold on sandlots and jumpwalks; he hops all the fences of the City of Bridges, and he’s the very best.

From Allegheny County to the Willamette valley, he knows perfection’s his only option. In baseball, everyone’s keeping score.

5.
Saul Paz walks out of the Mojave desert one fine day like a new and improved Moses, and starts mowing down the low-A’s like a plague of locusts.

He’s a second round pick from a nowhere school and he’s the closest thing baseball has to a promise, one of those pitchers who were never born, an immaculate conception of the game.

“I hear his high school’s field was just dirt and dust.”

“I hear he grew up in a shanty shack.”

“I hear he’s a weird motherfucker.”

As often in fairytales, it turns out everything that they hear is true.

6.
The press marvels.
Saul Paz was too much for Double-A, so now he’s crashing on Austin and Xavier’s couch until further notice. The majors are five hours up the I-5 and his fastball’s topping out at ninety-nine.

In the morning, when Xavier brews a pot of coffee in the pink-gold sunrise, a curtain of thick black hair veils the face of the long figure laid down on the sofa. One slim, tan, blessed arm is hanging off, fingers grazing the profane carpet.

A backpack, a Walgreens plastic bag: that’s all he brought from the Texas League.
Xavier watches him sleep.

7.
Every pitcher’s a puzzle; trust is an equation.
Well, Xavier can work out a Rubik’s cube in under a minute, and he’s solved every arm that’s come his way yet.

Then, there’s Paz.

Paz doesn’t talk; when he does, he doesn’t say anything. All his words are empty containers; all their conversations are dead end streets. It’s like a magic trick. The more Xavier knows him, the less he understands.

Austin, in his Angelino wisdom, commiserates on the bus ride to Boise.

“Desert folk, man. They’re something else.”

The twilight falls forest-green over the Cascades, darkness an aquamarine question mark.

8.
And then Paz starts making a habit of getting lit up for five-run innings.
Xavier’s irate behind his glove; he inches circles around all 6'6 of Paz on the mound.

“Stop fucking shaking me off, and this doesn’t fucking happen.”

Inasmuch as getting any reply and insofar as getting any results it’s like talking to a brick wall and some start thinking Paz is not built for Triple-A. Then again, some start thinking maybe the catcher’s not built for Paz, and Xavier bites the leather, hard.

Sometimes he wants to be the volcano. Most times he’s just afraid he’ll explode.

9.
He’s not sure where the Paz problem starts; he’s not sure where it ends. He’s not sure of anything.

He’s not sure where Paz’s fastball is going, not sure what that breaking pitch was, not even sure English is Paz’s first language. Everything about Paz is like a mirage on the horizon, running away from him, and the closer he tries to get the less real Paz seems.

He comes back from his morning run to find Paz shirtless under his truck’s hood, all golden skin and doe eyes wide.

There’s a moment — something happens.
He’s just not sure what.

10.
The sun rolls up to its zenith in the sky above them, the peak of summer like the sword of Damocles.
The baseball season ticks by idly, rocked by the ebb-and-flow of the forty-man, leaving Xavier ashore with Paz in tow, or maybe the other way around, Xavier can’t tell.

One scorching afternoon the hills over Salem burst into flames, black billows of smoke behind the batter’s eye like a delirious omen, and Xavier grows more convinced each day that Paz is doing this on purpose.

Black eye in black eye, they stare each other down in the wildfire sunset.

11.
Austin’s away and Paz’s car is in the driveway when Xavier gets home after yet another game and slams the door open and the Walmart bags down.

“You know, it would help if you fucking TRIED.”

Teal blue dusk; neon white rectangle of driveway light.

“I don’t fucking get you. If I don’t fix you, you don’t come up, and if you don’t haul ass, I stay down here. Nobody fucking wins. It’s me and you, Paz, it’s a three-legged race.”

Paz just stares, obsidian eyes gleaming in the darkness, and the silence seems to stretch forever and ever.

12.
The air smells of ash and the rhododendrons in the backyard shiver pink and purple in the morning wind when Paz’s sweet-tasting lips kiss him, and the whole thing makes a lot of sense all of a sudden.

The chipped wooden siding is warm already against the bare skin of his back. Paz’s big hands inch at his temples for the coils of his hair, and Xavier decided a long time ago that this isn’t something he does.

But he isn’t doing anything. He lets Paz make his confession, and he doesn’t know which one of them says it.

“Oh.”