The Cactus League: A Novel

by Emily Nemens

  Just give me a few days, Jason begs the man on the other end of the phone. After all these decades of hard work, of being the best player in T-ball and in Little League and in high school and in college, after leading the major leagues and then leading them again, his future in the sport has boiled down to a few days’ scramble, to coming up with half a million in cash. The hole is actually much bigger than that, but that’s what he needs to produce now. The man makes an unhappy noise on the other end of the phone.

  Just give me a few days, Jason begs again. For the longest time it was just playing cards after the game, a few hands of Hold’em to blow off some steam before bed. For years it was seven-card to pass the time between home stands, two-day tourneys to get his kicks when nothing else short of the season starting up again would deliver that thrill. He was playing with Monopoly money; between salary and endorsements he was bringing in more than he could ever imagine spending. It was just about the competition, the adrenaline that came with putting it all on the line. All in. But then the thrill, his forever rabbit around the greyhound track, is suddenly gone from his view. Is it too far ahead? Behind him somewhere? Or chomped and lifeless on the dirt? Jason senses it out there, but doesn’t remember last seeing it, doesn’t know how to find it, doesn’t have the time to search for it, not now. Now that man on the other end of the line has the capacity to break his hand or shatter his career. Ruin him, one way or another.

  A few more days, Jason asks again. Please.

  And, remarkably, the man agrees. Friday, he grumbles before hanging up.

  THE CYCLE

  There has never been an E-flat in “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” at least not when it’s played in its standard key of C. Lester Morrow knows this, but he hits the note anyway. The song lurches; the crowd stutters in their stretch. The Mariners’ shortstop, tossing warm-up with the third baseman, drops the ball into the dirt.

  Nothing to do but keep on keeping on, so Lester plays out the line, half humming, half muttering to himself the familiar refrain: “One, two, three strikes you’re out at the ooooold baaaaall gaaaaaame!” He runs his fingers over the keyboard in an upward arpeggio, two hands racing at once. Like a flourish at the end will save him. With the last note he winces at the creak in his left hand, but he keeps the keys pressed down for a full two measures. One, two, three; one, two, three—and release. Outside his open window, the organ reverberates through the ballpark and loosens into the spring air.

  As the song ends, the crowd settles back into their seats. The Mariners, dressed in gray, toss their practice balls toward the dugout and take their positions, doing what they can to preserve their energy in the Arizona heat. Lester twists to watch the action, resting his left elbow on the ledge of the keyboard and cupping his chin in his palm. William Goslin, Los Angeles’s top draft pick and great-grand-something of Goose, leads off the bottom of the seventh for the Lions. He takes a few last triple-bat whiffs in the on-deck circle, then drops two of the sticks, taps his spikes, and steps up to the plate. In the next booth over, Lester’s colleague announces, “Number nineteen, William Goslin, first base.” The sound carries from the mic to the stadium’s PA and back to Lester’s booth on a flutter of wind.

  Lester scrutinizes the rookie. The team has high hopes—Goslin was their first rounder, eighth overall, in last June’s amateur draft—but he’s had a tough spring, batting all of .185. He’ll be going down to Double-A, if he’s lucky. From Lester’s vantage, it’s unclear if, in keeping him around into the third week of March, management is giving him good experience or letting him writhe a bit. Fair response, either way.

  The boy points the tip of his bat to first, second, and third base, then settles into his knock-kneed stance. The pitcher rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck; the second basemen arranges the dirt in front of him with a pointed toe. All of a sudden a sharp, chromatic bleat tumbles out of Lester’s machine. The batter and the pitcher both look instinctively to the sky. A flock of amplified geese?

  “Christ,” Lester mumbles. He reaches for the power button, a tiny red beacon on the machine’s upper left corner. On the way, his finger traces over the Marimba, Xylophone, and Tuba options, but also Pack of Dogs–Large, Pack of Dogs–Small, and Elephant. He’ll never get the hang of this newfangled thing. Give him a couple of woodblocks and an air horn any day. He depresses the red button. Off. “Phew.”

  The kid is down in the count, having watched one trail outside and then taken two bad-miss swings, when Joe Templeton bursts into the booth. “Lester, what the fuck?”

  “Hi, Joe.” Lester glances toward the open window, worried the profanity will drift into the crowd. “Sorry, Joe.”

  “Sorry my ass! You playing with your toes or something?”

  Lester shakes his head no.

  Joe Templeton, director of stadium operations for Salt River Fields, starts pacing, heaving his short frame across the small booth in three strides, pivoting, heaving back. Since the season’s gotten under way, the man’s year-round tan has deepened to a strange, dark reddish-orange, almost the color of a tawny port. “Just don’t fuck up again, okay? Nowadays they got computers to do what you do. Just one touch and…” Joe shoulders up to the keyboard, forcing Lester toward the higher octaves. He checks that the machine is off, then concentrates on the many buttons and keys and decides to press a big white one: C, an octave below middle. He holds it down with a fat finger. Lester notices his boss’s cuticles are a mess. “Dun-nuh-nuh-na, duh-na!” Joe sings and lifts his index. “One button.”

  “Charge,” Lester says, sounding deflated. Below, the kid hits a soft groundball to second. It’s an easy out.

  “Exactly.” Joe crosses the room and reaches for the doorknob. “I know you’ve done this since the Jurassic, Lester, but you’re in my stadium now, and I want it to be right. I’m watching you.”

  A quick one-two, the door slamming shut and the ball cracking against a bat, and Lester whips his head back to the field. Jimmy Cardozo has made a solid connection with his first pitch. The ball sails over the shortstop’s head, drops shallow of the left fielder, and starts a slow roll across the diamond-cut grass. The catcher accelerates around first and slides into second, just under the baseman’s tag.

  Lester rushes for the On button and places his hands on the keys. He plays fanfare, the rising chords familiar under his fingers. “Dun-nuh-nuh-na, duh-na!” he sings along. Only as the last chord resonates over the field does he realize that the song was performed by a chorus of cats.

  * * *

  “Nice work today, Goose.” Tomás Monterrey pulls his damp towel taut and flicks the rookie in the ass. William Goslin, already bent over to untie his cleats, bites his lip but continues to loosen the laces.

  Jason Goodyear, a few lockers down, turns to the pair. “Hey, Tomás. Don’t call him that, he doesn’t like it.”

  Monterrey scowls at the left fielder. With Townsend gone, Monterrey is now starting in center—something neither man is used to, nor particularly likes. Corey Matthews, the second-round draftee who looks like he might actually make the team without the way station of the minors, does his best to hide in his locker.

  Monterrey continues. “What do I care if he fucking likes it or not? I care if he hits the ball and drives in runs. I care if he covers first like he knows what the fuck he’s doing. Giving his grandpa a bad name playing like that. Mierda.”

  “Calm down, dude.” Goodyear unbuttons his dirt-stained jersey and drops it on the bench, then peels off a damp T-shirt. William glances over to the left fielder, almost expecting to see a big red S on his chest. Superman! Not a lot of East Coast kids follow West Coast teams—half the time the games don’t start until ten—but William has always loved Jason Goodyear, from his first cover shoot with Sports Illustrated for Kids. He’d never admit it here, but he still has a Goodyear poster hanging in his bedroom. The left fielder’s chest is just sporting a strange tattoo of a playing card over his heart, sweat, and a couple of damp hairs in the cleft between his c
hiseled pecs. “Come on. You remember being a rookie.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t no first rounder. I had to fucking claw my way up from fucking Kansas.” William didn’t even know they had a team in Kansas—he thought it was Oklahoma, maybe Nebraska. Somewhere with corn. “Did you hear about Tampa’s first rounder?”

  “That kid who hit for the cycle?” Jimmy Cardozo comes out of the shower, still dripping, a too-small towel wrapped around his thick waist. “Tough break, fuckface,” he says in William’s ear, and his tone sounds almost sincere. Jimmy isn’t exactly a friend, but sometimes he buys William beer and he offered him a lift to the last split-squad game. The catcher drops his towel in front of his locker. He’s got a tattoo of a catcher’s mitt cupping his left butt cheek.

  “Yeah, that one,” Monterrey says. “I’ll tell you what he’s doing: running fucking circles around his teammates, like a first rounder should. Do you see any circles here?” The outfielder spins his finger around a tight, invisible ball. “I mean, besides your big fucking goose eggs.”

  A few lockers down, Goodyear steps out of his shorts, shaking his head. William, still in his sweat-stained undershirt and boxers, peeks, as discreetly as he can. He’d been hitting the gym every day, eating more calories than Michael Phelps, and he has only eight pounds to show for it. Eight! Now, in a room with fortyish half-naked men, trunk-legged power hitters and pitchers with shoulders like sawhorses, he feels, rightfully, like a pipsqueak. Glancing at Goodyear’s package doesn’t bring any relief. He’d heard Goody’s small dick was why his wife left him, but he looks pretty well hung to William. If that is small—he glances over again, and back—where does it leave William? His penis shrinks just thinking about it.

  “And Seattle got that pitcher, man. He already threw a shutout. And us? Do you know how much we paid for this kid’s signing bonus? Sometimes I think the bossmen are fucking loco.” Monterrey throws his towel down in disgust.

  “Great-great-uncle,” William says, so quiet it’s barely audible over the hiss of showers and clank of lockers.

  “What’s that? You finally got something to say for yourself, chico?” Monterrey turns, his eyes narrowed into slits.

  “Goose Goslin was my great-great-uncle. And they called him Goose because of the way he flapped his arms when he was catching a ball, not because of the Goslin part.”

  “Well, I guess you’d have to flap-flap-catch some balls for us to call you Goose then, hmm?” The outfielder steps out of his pants, his legs darkly hairy in the span between his briefs and sanitary socks. “Thank you for the history lesson, chico.”

  “Give it a rest, Tom,” someone says from the next row over. A damp hand towel flies over the lockers and lands on Monterrey’s head.

  “What fucking gives?” He holds out his hands, palms up. “I’m not the one with sixteen errors!”

  Just then, Paine blows out of his office and into the locker room, announcing his presence with two sonorous claps. Striding forward, he assesses the bodies in various stages of undress, so many dogs at a kennel show. The players shift uncomfortably; he’s been known to pinch when the spirit moves him. “Good game, everyone! Well”—he glances at William and his face drops slightly—“mostly everyone.” That gets some chuckles, but he’s already across the room, and he does an about-face at the media room door. “I think we just about got ourselves a ball club!” he shouts. “And you know what they say, gentlemen: a team that showers together, stays together. So have a good scrub and I’ll see you jackals in the morning.”

  He strides out, only to pop his head back in. “Don’t forget, tomorrow is payday!” The team hoots with excitement.

  “Or cut day,” Monterrey says into William’s ear as he passes.

  * * *

  Lester played organ for the Phoenix Firebirds—the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A team—for thirty-two years, nearly the whole history of the franchise. Now that was a good organ, a customized Hammond B-3, electric but still with knobs and stoppers enough to make things interesting. He was a one-man effects studio: he had half a dozen whistles, a cowbell for home runs, woodblocks for clapping cheers … even a foot-wide spring to boing for foul balls. When the expansion team came to Phoenix—the Diamondbacks showed up in 1998—they scooted the Firebirds down to Tucson. Tucson’d offered him a job similar to what he’d had at Phoenix Municipal, but he’d declined. Not an awful city, but it was ninety minutes away, and if he keeps his hands on the steering wheel that long, the knuckles of his left were liable to start aching worse than normal, which is to say, hurting bad. And there’s no chance he’d’ve moved to Tucson, not without his Steinway. He can’t remember exactly how they’d gotten the grand piano into his third-floor walkup—they’d removed a banister and mashed the tread of three stairs, he recalls that much—and there was no way short of demolition to get it back out. He was stuck on the old side of Old Town Scottsdale until the wrecking ball or the undertaker came—whoever rang first.

  The new Diamondbacks stadium had all the late-nineties flashiness you’d expect from a boomtown in the middle of going boom. A retractable roof, air-conditioning, a swimming pool and hot tub, right in the stadium! They could’ve built a primo organist’s booth, they had the money, but instead they bought some big computer loaded with all sorts of sounds and prerecorded crap. Lester heard they hired some “computers” major from ASU to press keys at the appropriate times, typing up fanfares and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” like a secretary at her Underwood. Where’s the music in that? They didn’t even play the national anthem, just cued up a recording. A recording. Lester’d refused to set foot in the stadium when he heard that.

  So Lester squeaked by on weddings and funerals, filling in for Cactus League games when somebody got sick. They all knew one another, the church-on-Sunday, ball-games-through-the-spring, we-also-do-bar-mitzvahs keyboardists around town, though most of them had families to keep them occupied when they weren’t at the keys. Lester’s closest remaining relative was a second cousin in Omaha, and he’d been unlucky in love for decades now. He was left with the Arizona Republic delivered to his doorstep, his daily trip to the diner, his Steinway, and his Stoli.

  Even though social security kicked in a couple of years back, without the Firebirds gig, things were lean, the measly Lutheran church checks spent in a day’s time. When the casino opened last year he landed a gig playing in the cocktail lounge. Not the busy nights—and not because of his hand (no one around here had an ear sophisticated enough to pick out the augmented ninths he couldn’t hit, the half-diminished chords he occasionally flubbed), but because he wasn’t as nice on the eyes as he used to be. He knew that to be true and didn’t mind; the girl they had playing Fridays and Saturdays was real cute and could even sort of sing. The Sunday-to-Thursday pay was decent, plus he got a comped dinner and a couple of big pours from Eric.

  Lester saw the new sports complex going up next door, watched it coming together week after week. When they started hiring, boy, did he jump. For the money, but also because following in the paper, listening on the radio, isn’t like being there. He missed it.

  The Salt River Fields folks were interested—how could they not be, with his résumé of Newport Jazz, the Copacabana, all the places he’d played before he was even twenty-one, to say nothing of his thirty-plus years with the Firebirds. But when he tried to negotiate a fee per game, Joe, the tightfisted midget, insisted it was a flat fee for the season or nada. So Lester, with some gripes, took the three grand and a parking pass.

  * * *

  William leaves the stadium in a funk. He’d known it would be weird, being the youngest guy on the team, the rookie straight out of high school. Objectively, he knew he’d get cut, too—it was unheard of for a recruit, even a spectacular one, to jump straight to the majors—but through those months of psyching himself up for his big fucking debut, he’d hoped that he would be the exception. Look at Matthews, he thinks now—two home runs last week! There is talk of him staying with the club, not even stopping at
Salt Lake. Meanwhile, William has been batting like shit—even after two hundred hours with that cranky geezer batting coach—and can hardly hang on to the ball at first. Every Thursday this spring has felt like his head is in a guillotine, waiting for the Friday cut he knows is coming. Instead, Paine calls him in and gives him his envelope of meal money—with hardly more than a nod and the line, “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  The parking lot is emptying out, a few TV trucks packing up in the press section. William weaves through a pair of rented Mustangs and goes past Jason Goodyear’s beat-up Jeep. He recognizes Stephen Smith, one of the owners of the team, as his Audi A8 glides by, and lifts a hand to wave. The man at the wheel does not acknowledge him. He’s probably feeling pretty bad about his investment right now. William sidles up to a 2011 Porsche, custom-painted Lions gold with black pinstripes. His baby, borne of his signing bonus. His parents sat William down months before the draft to talk to him about financial planning and long-term savings but they had allowed him this, and how he loves it. He drove it the twenty-four hundred miles from Bay Head, New Jersey, to Scottsdale, Arizona—an act of rebellion that had made Sheila Goslin, a hoverer even among helicopter parents, crazy—but he was only a couple of speeding tickets worse for wear. And even a week’s worth of road food (the wrappers wadded up in the foot well of the passenger seat) hadn’t gained him any weight.

  An ancient Olds that must belong to a janitor or something is parked alongside his Porsche. Whoever parked there clearly can’t read: a sign posted above the cars says PLAYERS ONLY.

  William’s car starts up with a satisfying purr. He looks over his shoulder for traffic, sets the car in reverse, and crunch. He sees the end of the Olds through his rearview mirror.