Hardball

Hardball

By James Callan

The varsity squad had the bases loaded and Scott’s older brother, Zach, had a chance to prove he was a real man, the hero type who can save the day, show his merit with the swing of a wooden stick, validate his worth by making square contact with a high-velocity ball. From under the bleachers, it wasn’t all that clear to me: an intense moment late in the game glimpsed through a series of narrow, horizontal partitions with a lot of ankles and warm-weather footwear between me and the action. But really, I couldn’t care less, what with my own intense moment right there under all those rows of aluminum seating.

I cradled the back of Scott’s head, grabbed his hair from behind, and pushed him deeper between my thighs. He had a mullet, and even though the style had been creeping back into fashion for the last year, I still thought it was ugly. But it gave me something to hold onto, to guide him with, sometimes a little bit rougher than I was aware of.

Through the bleachers, bases still loaded, Zach grunts as he swings at a high pitch nowhere near the strike zone. He’s desperate to cash in on the big moment, to round the bases, to be the man. He is overeager, premature. Another bad pitch and another labored groan as Scott’s older brother swings and misses, my own groan too, and that blonde, bad haircut bobbing up and down, wet noises and hand claps, boisterous chants.

Out on the diamond, a curveball lands middle-in over home plate, Zach’s sweet spot, and the crack of a bat fills the world with the single, resounding note of a woodblock. Under the bleachers, little brother Scott finds his own magic with the bat. And just like that, the game is over. Together, we share our own “grand slam,” our private victory, from beneath the hollow echo of ecstatic, stomping feet on lengths of cheap, metal seats. I pant and smile. The crowd goes wild.

Later, Scott and I go head to head, the junior varsity teams providing the B-movie, second act. It’s my turn to bat and coach encourages me to “Go get him, Max. Get him good.” I smile and nod, thinking about below the bleachers, a hopeful encore. Zach is in the stands, the hero, wearing a long train of cheerleaders over his shoulders, across his lap. He shouts to his little brother out on the pitcher’s mound, “Eat him up, bro!” I look at Scott from the batter’s box and wink, watch him hide his smile behind his leather glove. Or is he blushing?

As he winds up, I choke up on the bat –which I’ve learned in baseball means you move your grip up the shaft of the wood. It feels right, lessens the length with which to swing, makes the motion faster. But the pitch comes quicker than anything I’m ready for. The ball sails up and in, wind brushing my cheek. The crowd winces as one. But I’m okay. I’m feeling the thrill.

I grin at Scott, who doesn’t smile back as he throws another heater, this one coming right for me, nailing my outward-facing thigh. The sting is delayed, something I only feel when I’m halfway to first base, but the sting coming from Scott’s angry eyes hurts me far more than any thrown ball. I frown at him, hold out my upturned palms, an unspoken gesture communicating “What the fuck?”

Standing at first base, I watch Scott face the next batter, watch him turn to glare at me, look at me with what, loathing? He winds up and lets loose, his fastball hitting leather with an audible slap. Between pitches, he turns to stare me down, no kindness in those cold eyes. Is he angry with me? Was I a little too rough? Too forward? Too caught up in my own pleasure while I gripped his greasy mullet and pushed myself further, deeper into the warm, wet promised land between his lips?

His hostility is unexpected, coming way out of left field. The whole thing, after all, was his idea; the under the bleachers, in-public kink that didn’t phase me but drove him wild. Besides, he seemed to enjoy himself, the way he smiled as he wiped a bit of me from off his chin, licked his fingers and giggled, sprawled out across the sand and laughed, took my hand, pointed upward at some girl’s exposed panties up in the bleachers. They had little red hearts on them, he pointed out. He seemed happy at the time…

“Get your head in the game!” Scott’s coach calls out to his ace pitcher, and with that, I am released from the fiery eyes of a basilisk. Again, the pitch. Again, the slap of leather, like a hand across my face. Up in the bleachers, big brother Zach lifts his little bro, slanders the opposing team, shouts out to, “Give it to those pussies good!” And perhaps Scott means to, winding up for another wicked pitch.

I don’t wait for the ball to release from his grip. I sprint for second base. I slide across the sand but it’s all a bit melodramatic, I am safe by a mile. No one had expected the slow kid to run for it. I got a free pass but they won’t sleep on me again.

Scott pivots, turns to look behind him, rotates his hips, ass looking super cute in those stupid baseball pants as he swivels to angle a smoldering glare at me while I lead off second base. I try to cool him with a smile but he shakes his head, spits in the dirt, turns away to blow off some steam in the form of competitive sport, of thrown objects. His volatility gets in the way of his command. The ball is thrown hard and out of control, a wild pitch veering beyond the catcher’s reach. As it bounces to collide with the backstop, I casually walk to third base.

Scott’s not happy. He’s downright livid. But hey, it’s his fuck up. I shrug from third base and tell him so. “Don’t look at me,” I say. “It’s your fuck up.” I get a little sick of that mean, downward glare resting on his angry face below that ugly, fucking mullet, so I get cute, stick out my tongue, slap my ass in his direction. I leave a big, orange handprint of clay and sand stamped over my backside and wiggle it at Scott as he goes from pale to red standing on the pitcher’s mound.

“Enough horseplay, boys!” one of the coaches warns. “Play ball!” The umpire demands. So we do as we are told. We stop playing with horses and start playing with balls.

Scott remains red, but his expression tells me his embarrassment has ebbed and anger has taken over. His pitches are all over the place; low, high, inside, outside, U.S.A. From up in the bleachers, Zach breaks off from necking the head cheerleader, shouts out to his little bro something valorous, to the opposing team, something derogatory. Scott nods, tries to recenter, shake away those cloying doubts, those nagging demons. He nearly hits another batter before he seems to find his calm, reins in that churning tempest of teenage emotions and pitches strike after strike after strike. He looks at me again, his face almost blank, depressurized, like a teakettle taken off the heat; I see the rage fizzle out of him, deflate to nothing.

Down to the final out, I decide to take matters into my own hands. Like Zach, but nothing like Zach, I aim to be the hero. I edge towards home plate, watching Scott wind up for his pitch, admiring his dance, a baseball ballet, his grace like an angel, his elegant delivery like a swan taking flight from placid waters. I witness a ball sail across a terracotta stretch of sand and I swear it trails red flame, black smoke. The batter swings to contact with air molecules. The catcher removes the ball from his glove, frees his hand, and shakes the sting from his calloused palm. The umpire belches an indecipherable, but unmistakable “Strike.”

I know how it goes. Three strikes and you’re out. But I’m not about to let that boring, old narrative play out to the end. I intend to write my own story. Zach, be damned. Fuck the home team. I’m doing this for me. He may not know it, but I’m doing this for Scott.

Again, a wicked pitch zooms across a manicured, diamond desert and I feel my legs carrying me towards home plate in a foolish attempt to race the rocketing projectile. The batter takes the strike and steps back, watches me throw away the game in a wild gesture which even I’m not sure has a purpose, proves anything. In any case, momentum has carried me forward and there is no turning back.

I face the catcher, storm the bulwark of his staunch defense, his domineering, chest-protected bulk. I throw myself at the sure-footed, wide-planted stance of Russel, the team captain, the same straight-laced, queer-fearing, all-American meathead who often calls me Maxine, sometimes sissy, or, at the utmost of his imaginative prowess, faggot. From beneath his mask, he leers. He licks his lips, wets his chops, preparing to make a meal of me.

Tucked behind Russel’s protective headgear, settling on the mound of his well-muscled shoulders, I see the ghost of a mullet, the apparition of a bad haircut. That ugly style is catching like wildfire across the nation, perhaps the world. I use it to my advantage, to fuel the resolve of my purpose. I collide with the mass of a gym-built body, a protein-guzzling, mammoth who believes the weight of what you can bench is worth its weight in gold.

By all appearances, the game is over. Zach, in the bleachers, pushes aside some Barbie Doll blonde, fist pumps in secondhand victory. Even the umpire makes his motion to call the game. But like any hero, at the very last second, I spring into action.

I reach around Russel and he recoils, mistaking my embrace for some predatory, sexual affection. I wiggle around the wide girth of his muscle and flab. I reach upward. I find stringy strands, like so many lifelines hanging greasy in the wind. I grip the cascading ends of a sweat-drenched mullet and do not hold back. I tug for dear life. I tug with abandon.

Russel cries out, high and staccato, a lovely, choir-boy, painful emission. I lean into him and push, pull back his helmeted head, and watch his grip loosen to drop the baseball to the scorched, orange earth. He wasn’t expecting that rough side I sometimes let out, the venom that every so often seeps through the cracks of a shiny veneer. He wasn’t expecting hardball from a sissy. Looking at him wallowing in the dirt, moaning on his hands and knees, I don’t think he much likes it rough.

I step over home plate to secure the win. I am regaled with applause, boos in profusion. Scott glares from the pitcher’s mound, but as I turn to face him his cold scowl slowly melts into a smile. Next time, I’ll endeavor to be gentle. I’ll treat Scott the way I should have from the start. Maybe he can get a haircut, something stylish and short. Something with less grip.

Scott and I share a warm smile as we turn deaf ears to scalding jeers from the bleachers, elated chanting from the small congregation of visiting supporters sitting among the grass. Our eyes lock, sparkle, communicate an understanding. Together, it seems, we’ve cleared all the bases.

James Callan grew up in Minnesota and currently lives on the Kāpiti Coast, New Zealand. His writing has appeared in Carte Blanche, Bridge Eight, White Wall Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. He is the author of A Transcendental Habit (Queer Space, 2023).

Jason David Córdova lives in Puerto Rico as an illustrator and painter. Some of his art can be seen on Instagram at @jasoni72. You can visit his shop on Red Bubble.

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