Excerpt from Fire Season

Except from Fire Season

By KD Casey

There’s one out in the bottom of the seventh inning when Martinez calls his name. “Giordano, get loose for the eighth.”

Reid’s half tempted to glance over his shoulder. Because he’s only been in Oakland for a week, and this is a game against Houston. A one-run game against Houston, the Elephants clinging to a lead by their fingernails.

He does a few obligatory cycles on the stationary bike they have parked on a sideline, though he doesn’t need much to get his heart rate going.

Another relief pitcher, McCormick, has been hovering near him all game. He comes over, hopping on the exercise bike next to Reid. Even though it’s cool out, McCormick somehow looks perpetually wet, a slick of hair mashed under his hat. “Wow, good luck out there, man.”

“Thanks.”

“Wouldn’t want that to be me.” McCormick cycles his legs a little faster, and Reid shifts to match his pace. “You see the odds before the game?”

“Uh, no.” Because Reid stays off the internet if he can help it, which is still not as much as he should. Some people would criticize the moon for being made of moon rocks and not cheese, his therapist likes to say. You don’t need to look for it. Though the temptation is always there, the throbbing call to see just how poorly the world thinks of him.

“The odds aren’t great.” McCormick hops off the bike and begins flicking a towel to get his arm loose. “But you know, if it comes to that, I’ll be ready just in case.” He smiles. Or, possibly, shows Reid his teeth.

The umpire declares the previous inning over, then there’s the boom of the stadium announcer, exaggerating the syllables of Reid’s last name. At least they don’t call him “Michael.” The familiar strains of “I’m on Fire” fill the ballpark; the drum section rumbles its agreement. There’s silence after, leaving Reid all alone on the mound.

There are tense games and there are tense games. But no game is tenser than a one-run game against a division rival with the heart of the order due to bat. Reid’s heart announces itself in his chest. Sweat traces its way between his shoulder blades, a drip of it at odds with the cool night air.

Glasser puts down a perfunctory sign for a high fastball. It’s not as if Reid really throws anything else. He could prolong this—tic, fidget, all the little motions pitchers do to get into the right mental state to actually play. Put off his inevitable failure if only for a handful of seconds.

A bad brain kind of thought, one his therapist tells him to thank and let float away, like he can cure self-doubt by releasing a mental balloon. He can’t, though, no more than he can let go of the nervous beat of his heart under his ribs.

He winds up and fires. It’s an eternity before the ball arrives at the hitter’s bat. The hitter swings, making contact. A crack different from if he got it on the sweet spot of the bat. A fly ball. A one-pitch out.

It’s easy, deceptively easy. Reid re-rosins his hands to ground himself. To stop his brain from dumping whatever feel-good chemicals accompany baseball when everything’s going right—the kind he’s learned not to trust.

Another Houston batter comes to the plate. This one tests him, bringing the count full. But he makes soft contact, resulting in a quick, careless-feeling out.

At another time, in the distant universe when Reid still could throw triple digits, when his shoulder didn’t flare in the mornings, he might have ridden that feeling through another out, then after the game, into all the pleasures baseball offered off the field. Now the only things waiting for him are curt texts from his mom acknowledging he’s in Oakland, and a midrange hotel room that smells like carpet cleaner.

The next Houston hitter—their tiny fireplug of a shortstop, with a strike zone like the edge of a piece of paper—fouls off the first pitch Reid throws. Then another. Two quick strikes.

Glasser puts down a sign for a fastball. The same as Reid’s tossed this entire inning. A pitch the Houston batter must know is coming, but swings at anyway, missing.

And that’s the third strike: a one-two-three inning.

Reid’s heart hasn’t calmed down by the time he gets to the dugout. A few guys slap him on his chest and back. Braxton reaches to tap him by his ear, where his hair meets his ball cap, fingers cautious against the skin of his hairline, though he gives a slight smile when Reid doesn’t brush him off. “Some throwing,” Braxton says, then amends to, “some pitching.”

“Stop, you’re making me blush.” Though Reid is glowing from exertion and success.

Glasser’s there too, sitting on the bench, slugging back a cup of Gatorade, his mask tipped up on his forehead.

“You ever gonna call for anything but my fastball?” Reid jokes.

“Well, you only got the one pitch,” Glasser counters, “so it’s kinda limiting my options.”

“Yeah, but it’s a good one.”

Glasser shrugs, the kind of I guess shrug that’s a necessary pin in Reid’s mood, a reminder that baseball feels good right up until it doesn’t.

He goes back into the clubhouse, retrieving an ice pack for his arm, his bracelet for his wrist, and a couple bottles of Gatorade. He’s still keyed-up, adrenaline-drunk. Another feeling his therapist tells him to name and release. That too high is more dangerous than too low, especially alone, with the cases of beer they buy players for after the game.

He toggles the glass beads around his wrist, then removes himself back to the dugout, nudging Braxton in the arm with a blue Gatorade. Braxton takes it, thanking him, and shifts over enough to give Reid space to stand next to him. Up close, he’s somehow impossibly larger than his listed height, the kind of size that could be intimidating but on him works. His hands wrap around the skinny railing, tensing and relaxing as he watches the game. He’s still not wearing a ring. He does the same thumb-against-finger rub he did before, like he hasn’t just forgotten a ring at home but is practicing not wearing it.

“Damn,” Reid says, after Houston’s reliever throws a particularly nasty slider. “Making the rest of us look bad.”

“You ever throw much breaking stuff?” Braxton asks.

“I used to have a hell of a curveball back in the day. Nothing like yours, but I could hold my own.”

“What happened?” And Braxton asks it like he doesn’t know, like maybe he forgot whatever fleeting interest he had in Reid’s pitching and didn’t bother to google him. Something both liberating and slightly insulting.

Guys linger around the dugout, the coaching staff, their manager. None of whom Reid particularly wants to discuss his now-lifeless curveball in front of. “You know, things change. People change.”

Braxton opens his mouth like he’s about to ask; Reid prepares excuses. Obfuscations. Or worse, the truth, and that’ll probably be the end of their easy comradery.

None of which he gets to say, because Braxton just nods and shifts where he’s standing so he’s closer to Reid. It’s warm compared to the evening air, an atmosphere gathering between them. Braxton smells like spray sunscreen, chewing gum, the particular odor of ballpark dirt. Like baseball and all the things Reid missed during his year not playing.

Oakland’s pitcher makes a particularly nice toss. Reid taps his hip against Braxton’s in acknowledgment. “Feels good to be on a winning team.”

Braxton gives him a slight tilt of a smile, one that’s as much of a victory as those three outs against Houston—one that makes Reid want to press his already tenuous luck.

KD Casey‘s latest book, Fire Season, is available here. You can read a short story of hers here or an interview with her here.