The Yips Pt. 02

"Baseball is 90 per cent mental. The other half is physical." -Yogi Berra

"Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in." -Casey Stengel

"They gave each other a smile with a future in it." -Ring Lardner

"All acts of sex in the following fantasy are performed by and on persons over the age of 18 who should have known better." -Hunter S. Thompson

**********

The Yips

Part 2

**********

Baseball demands that you keep your emotions in hand until the last strike of the last out of the last inning. Bryan had been in many games where his team was leading by five or more runs late in the game. When he was younger, it was understandable that his inexperience led him into the relaxed belief that the game was over. And to be fair, most of the time it was.

But there were the times that the other team refused to lie down and lose. They scratched a hit, stole a base, rattled your reliever -- not your ace closer, who was relaxing and thinking about what he was going to have to eat later, because the game was all but over -- and chased him off the mound. You finally sent in your stud bullpen guy to put out the blaze, but it was too late. The other team had the mo. They now believed in themselves like they hadn't for eight innings. And your teammates began to doubt.

Bryan had faced these character-hardening tests in Little League, in high school, in the several levels of competition open to talented teens, then college, then in the minor leagues. Now he was a professional playing at the highest level, and he was able to disconnect his emotions and see the situation as it was. Not as he wished it to be.

And what it was: His darling wife, the woman he had chosen to spend his life with, the one he counted on to back him up, support and love him without reservation -- this woman had betrayed his trust. Abandoned him. Spread her legs for another man. Given an outsider access to that most private possession which she had promised to Bryan alone. Her heart.

Friends didn't do this to each other.

Mere women did this to mere men.

That was the saddest part of the whole situation to Bryan. It was obvious to him now that he and Lauren were not special. They were just as flawed as all the other humans who had ever lived. Mere fallible humans. He had foolishly hoped for better.

Bryan had one other trait that armored him against this sudden blow. He had started studying the classics in high school. He signed up for Mrs. Reichel's Latin class because Megan was taking it. Over the summer, one of her friends had showed her the dirty parts of the movie Caligula and that had given Megan the notion that Latin made her horny. Even though the movie was in English. And the parts that Megan had watched over and over had virtually no dialog anyway. Bryan missed Megan. Latin really had made her horny. They would study together, but it was a tedious process that proceeded in literal spurts. After Bryan read aloud a few paragraphs from the day's assignment, Megan would pounce him and they ended up naked and fucking like Romans. Luckily, Bryan recalled with a smile, Megan had the bedroom over the family garage with a sturdy door that locked from the inside.

They continued their classical and erotic education until that summer afternoon when Megan's Latin adventure came to a sudden end.

Megan's death did not still the passion Bryan had developed for ancient languages. He kept up with Latin and started to take Greek at the junior college. He signed up for online courses in Aramaic. He read and read. Herodotus, Euripides, Plato, lyric poetry, history, plays, philosophy.

He often wished that Megan could be there beside him still, her lust inflamed by words long discarded, her cunt dripping from the parsing of sentences no modern eavesdropper would understand.

He became a modern man who looked at the world through eyes sharpened by the experiences of millennia. His wife left for another man? Helen of Troy and countless others had done it before and the world went on.

Sometimes it comforted him to be able to take the long view. Sometimes it worried him that he might eventually come to think the passions he thought to be his alone were common and thus somehow lessened.

But he did see his life through the lens of that long view, so when he realized that Lauren had really left him, he mourned the loss of her for a time shorter that it might have otherwise been before mentally moving on to the next inning.

His ability had not prevented him from sobbing like a wounded child. He cried for himself, for all the lovers over the centuries, for every man and woman who had ever had this feeling called a broken heart. Most of all, he cried for Lauren. He had vowed to protect and comfort her and could not. Now she was alone to face the monsters.

When in Texas, Bryan often visited the small cemetery in Hondo. He would sit under the ash tree near Megan's grave, wondering why the hell things happened the way they did. If he looked up, he could see the rectangle of wood he had lettered and nailed there a week after the graveyard workers had filled in her grave.

AD MUNDUM, MEA HIC SINE VITA JACET. MIHI VIVA MANEBIT IN AETERNUM.

His lips moved silently as he read his youthful imperfect translation:

TO THE WORLD, MY LOVE LIES HERE WITHOUT LIFE. TO ME SHE WILL REMAIN ALIVE FOREVER.

**********

So what? The Globe didn't care. The local stations didn't care. ESPN didn't care. The fans didn't care. Nobody cared that Bryan Monnic was sleeping alone in his big empty house and the garden in the back of it was brown and rotting.

They only cared that the Yankees were gaining ground.

**********

And just like that, Bryan returned. His face was fifty feet tall in full pixelated color on the Fenway centerfield scoreboard the night he set foot on his patch of dirt again. The sold-out crowd of 37,651 fans stood when he was introduced and joined in a vocalization of approval that filled the park and spilled out over the Green Monster, saturated Lansdowne, and crashed in gusts onto the Mass Pike to buffet passing tractor trailers.

He was home. He stood and doffed his cap. Damn, it felt good to engage in that ancient tradition. This was his center. He belonged here. He dug his cleats into the reddish dirt, knowing that the groundskeeping crew was giving him the evil eye.

He looked calm, prepared, in control. The truth was he was jumpy. His stomach felt like it was the reservoir for hot liquid shit that would come jetting from his ass with the slightest movement. It was pregame nerves, and it was the same before every game. Tonight it was intensified by his fear that his traitorous ankle would swell, that his balky hip would come apart. He rocked on the balls of his feet, watching the pitcher look in for the first sign.

When the ball was on its flight to the plate, Bryan's attention sharpened to that moving white sphere and all other distractions vanished.

The Tigers went quietly in the top of the first. Bryan ran to the dugout and pulled on his batting gloves. The batboy held out Bryan's new and favorite stick, a 33 1/2 inch perfect piece of birch weighing 31 ounces. Bryan swung it experimentally. Although he had already felt it, caressed it, hit ten dozen balls with it, his hands longed to get reacquainted with it each time.

It was still for him.

The leadoff batter worked a walk. It wasn't much work -- the Tiger's starter was having problems locating his pitches. Four of five went up and in, not even close enough to entice an offer. Bryan stepped into the box, waggled his bat, bent his knees, and began his mental prep.

He went with the odds. The pitcher did not want to get behind another batter. He would take something off his fastball to find the zone. The book said that when this guy did not bear down the ball was left an inch or so higher than his target.

The pitcher rocked. Bryan began his system. He imagined his brain as a high-speed camera, one of those that can take thousands of frames per second, and he turned it on just as the pitcher's arm came from behind his body. The ball approached the plate and his brain camera imaged it, slowed it down, gave his hips, shoulders, arms, hands time to find the volume of space where the processing center of his brain predicted that the swift sphere in its linear path would intersect with the arc described by the cylinder of his bat's barrel.

Should batters decide to swing in reaction to the trajectory of the pitch, or do they decide in advance to commit to a swing and adjust the bat's path to meet the ball? It is an age-old debate. Bryan found that for pitches that were at or above 96 mph, he needed to commit in advance to have a better chance to make the kind of solid contact needed to drive the ball. Below that velocity, or if the pitch moved, he waited that microsecond to allow his instincts to drive his muscles.

If a pitcher threw faster than 96 with movement, then he just fucking guessed.

This pitch was coming in a bit slow and a tad high. Outside, but it would catch the edge of the zone.

The Boston staff resolved to be aggressive in this situation. The third base coach had signaled for a run and hit. The runner took off with the pitch but not so fast that he could not put on the brakes and make it safely back to first. This signal gave Bryan the option to swing or not.

He swung.

The Detroit first baseman moved to his right, but not enough. Bryan drove the ball just behind the runner and down the line. The right fielder had been positioned too far to center, and Bryan's drive shaved turf into the bizarre angles of the right field foul line, careened off the wall inches in fair territory, and ricocheted past the Tiger's inexperienced outfielder. This unfortunate youth ran after where he thought the ball would be, which is a deadly mistake in the confounding angles of Fenway Park.

By the time the centerfielder sprinted over, grabbed the rolling ball, and pegged it to the cutoff man, the Red Sox leadoff man was crossing the plate and Bryan was sliding headfirst into third.

The crowd went off like a bomb, pummeling the air in the tiny stadium with a sustained barrage of excited decibels. Bryan held a hand to get time, jumped up, and brushed away the sandy layer his uniform had accreted during his belly landing.

His hip felt great. He felt great. He was back.

**********

Well, in the end they lost to the Tigers. The Red Sox starter lasted four innings, then gave up three walks and a double. The bullpen got lit up, and the final was 8 to 3. Bryan was unhappy with the L, but quietly ecstatic at his own performance. He had gone 2 for 4 with two RBIs and handled every fielding chance cleanly. He got a massage and heat treatment post game and felt no pain in any of his insulted joints.

Long after the game was over, he sat in front of his locker holding his new bat and thinking. He was in no rush to return to the desolate house that only reminded him of Lauren. If this were the Cape, he would have wandered into the crowd of persistent tailgaters and looked for a female fan who desired some personal instruction. Hell, he thought. Maybe he would hit the Boston nightlife. Within a quarter mile of the park were nightclubs, bowling alleys, pool halls, all with possible temporary companions.

But he couldn't get himself to move. That was a kid's game. That's how your face ends up on social media, and no good could come of that.

Instead, he dug a sharpie out of his locker and wrote on the barrel of his bat: KERAUNOS. The thunderbolt of Zeus. Antipodal to that he wrote: MEGAN.

He thought about that for a second and then added a heart after her name. He felt somewhat like a 12-year-old girl doing that, but fuck it.

Tonight's loss had been part of the swoon, the skid, the slump. El Foldo. It could be felt in the clubhouse, like the humidity and falling barometric pressure of a storm approaching. The team tried invoking all the old superstitions and invented some new ones, but they continued to invent new ways to lose the kind of games they had found ways to win just weeks before.

Bryan walked through the deserted player's parking lot, got alone into his Jeep, and drove slowly back to the empty house he had once thought of as home.

**********

The team took a short road trip to Baltimore and Tampa Bay and continued to play like they were under a Biblical curse. They dropped two of three to the Orioles and repeated the debacle against the Rays. In any other year they would have been dead meat, road kill with a trident stuck in them, but the Yankees mysteriously failed to take advantage. The Pinstripes got swept in a two game homestand by the A's and lost two of four to the Royals.

No matter that. Bryan and his teammates deplaned at Logan in a foul mood.

**********

The Yankees were three games back.

*********

On the off-day after travel, Bryan drove to Cambridgeport and squeezed his Jeep into a space in front of a big rambling house near the MIT campus. Before he could even touch the button on the highly complex box which he assumed was the front door bell, Brie shot out onto the porch and enveloped him in a breath-stopping embrace.

"It's so good to see you, bro!" She dragged him inside and began to introduce him to the young men and women of her living group. Bryan could tell that they were somewhat starstruck, but they did not know it was really he who was amazed by them. He knew what kind of hard work and smarts it took to get to where they were, attributes he regarded as much more desirable and useful than the ability to hit a baseball.

He left with Brie and her friend Camila, a tall Eurasian girl with wild curly dark hair and a gap between her two front teeth that made her look sexy as hell.

"Camila is my girlfriend," Brie said as they were buckling in.

"I sensed that." Bryan said. "As I am a warlock. Is she a witch? Camila, are you a witch?"

Camila giggled like a ten-year-old. A ten-year-old genius. "No, I'm premed."

He took them to the Museum of Fine Art where they spent an hour poking around the general collection and another hour in a Turner exhibition, then they went to lunch at a deli in Brookline.

He dropped them off. Camila thanked him, kissed him on the cheek, and disappeared into the house. Brie took his hand.

"How are you coping?" She asked, suddenly very concerned.

"I'm doing okay," he said. "I miss her."

Brie put her arms around him and kissed him full on the lips. "After the season we need to have a long talk. Witch to warlock."

He looked down and met her eyes. "Are all--"

"Witches lesbians? No, I am bi."

"So--"

She let him go, laughing. "So, no, that's not the reason why we -- you and me -- were never... whatever." She tilted her head. "It's... something else. Something very else.... Love you!" And she ran inside.

Bryan stood on the porch for a minute, summoning all of his warlock powers, trying to make sense of that. Then he decided that even the most powerful warlocks of all time, the Hall of Fame warlocks, would not have a clue about what made women work. Or witches.

**********

When Bryan got back to his house, he felt rejuvenated. He called a landscaper and arranged to have the neglected garden in the back replanted. He made a shopping list and ordered groceries. He called his parents to catch up on family news. He talked to both of his brothers and they each told him the same obscene joke.

Then he composed his mind and called his in-laws. He told them that he and Lauren had separated. Her mother took it very badly and burst into tears, apologizing over and over. Bryan though it interesting that she assumed the break was Lauren's fault. Mr. Esposito was calmer but still obviously shaken. He asked what had happened, but Bryan told him that Lauren would have to tell them about it herself.

Bryan promised to visit them the next time he was in Texas, then disconnected. He felt a great loss. The Espositos were good and honest people. He would have been happy to stay related to them.

That chore done, he picked up the phone again. It felt like it had gained mass and now weighed ten pounds. He punched up his agent and told him the whole sorry tale.

"Gawd damnit!" Parker said, his Brooklyn accent still thick. Bryan was always amused to hear Parker Brannan's voice. The guy had a degree from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard and still sounded like he was selling pizza out of a small store on Flatbush Avenue.

"She gone for good?"

"I'm afraid so," Bryan said.

"No hope?"

Bryan thought hard about that but a convincing answer would not come to him. "Probably not."

Parker sighed. "Gawd damnit! Okay -- I'm messaging you the name of the lawyer who takes care of these things. I'll get you a meeting...." He went faint and muttered to himself over the sound of a clacking keyboard, then came back loud. "Ten tomorrow. Their offices are down by the Common. You'll have plenty of time to get to batting practice after."

"Thanks, Parker."

"No problem. I'll see you day after tomorrow. I'm coming to Boston for a couple of weeks. We can go drinking. Chase some tail."

"You are reprehensible. What would Fiona say if she heard you talking like that?"

Parker laughed. "Chasing and catching are two very different things, boyo. Good luck."

**********

The Yankees were two games back.

**********

Juliette Martin's office was on the tenth floor of a Milk Street office building built of dark amber stone that looked like it had been coated with high-gloss varnish inside and out. Bryan stood in the lobby admiring the art deco finishes to the interior and thinking that here was another perk of being a professional baseball player. A normal person would have to wait weeks for an appointment with anyone who had digs in a pricey coop like this. He had gotten a slot in less than 24 hours. It was the legal equivalent of not having to carry your own luggage.

The receptionist showed him into an office that was the square footage of many suburban homes. The early fall sun poured through ceiling-high windows. Bryan wished he had worn his flip-down sunglasses. In one of the shafts of light a woman sat on sofa reading a document. She rose and extended her hand. Maybe 50 years old, tall and elegant with dark hair to her shoulders, just a hint of grey. Even in the brightness her eyes shone out, polished brown and hard. They matched the stone of the building.

"Mr. Monnic, I'm Juliette Martin. Please call me Julie." She smiled. Then she let go his hand and indicated a space behind him. "And my associate who will be working with us--"

Bryan turned his head and saw a figure. Another woman.

"--Ms. Lowell."

Melody shook his hand. "You can call me Mel."

"Why?" Bryan said, a bit peevishly. "I never did before."

Julie glanced back and forth between them. "Mel told me you knew each other. Is that going to be a problem, Mr. Monnic?"

"Brian." Bryan said without taking his eyes off of Melody. "Not a problem for me."

"Good," Julie said. "Then let's get down to it."

Bryan sat in an armchair across from the two lawyers and retold the events that had led him to need a lawyer in the first place as they scribbled notes.

"Any prenuptial agreements?" Julie asked when he was done.

Bryan shook his head. "When we got married, I had what was left of my signing bonus in a money market account. Not much."

"Lauren can claim that."

"She can have it," he said. "She's going to need it. She has a degree in early childhood education but she's never worked."

"She will want alimony, then. Unless she marries this...." Julie consulted her notes. "Owen Archer. Is that likely?"

"Don't know. Don't really care to know. I haven't spoken to her."