Forever, in Pieces

by Fawver, Kurt

  Six months ago Derrick had no idea what a mitochondrial necrocyte was. He didn’t even know the word “revenant” existed. Six months ago, he was just a minor league outfielder with a sweet swing and a quick step. Six months ago, on this very night, he was going three-for-four with two doubles and three runs batted in. It was the same night his manager, a granite-jawed, speech-slurring septuagenarian named Rich Dukes, called him aside in the bottom of the eighth inning and told him to pack his bags. Derrick had just jogged in from right field and was clearing space for himself on the bench when Dukes sidled up beside him and rested a beefy hand on his shoulder.

  “McCoy,” Dukes spat. The old man seemed to find names—or really any level of address beyond “you” or “kid”—generally unpalatable. “GM in Flor’da called. Rays need ya. Get in the locker room, pack yer crap, an’ get down there. They got a plane comin’ for ya tonight. Go give ‘em hell, kid.”

  One quick, hesitant pat on the back and the wizened manager turned and hobbled away, yelling something about bunting to the batter in the on-deck circle.

  Buried under a sudden avalanche of elation, Derrick stood motionless, breathless, thoughtless. His heart skipped several beats. He was never more alive.

  Since he was six years old, he knew he had a gift. He could hit the ball farther and more frequently than anyone else on his tee ball team. He outran most of them, too. He continued outhitting and outrunning all the way through high school. He won golden statuettes and sparkling crystal trophies. Local sports writers called him a “wunderkind.” His coaches called him a “phenom.” His teammates simply called him “Bolt,” because they said they’d never seen anyone generate as much bat speed. And, indeed, his swing was quick and explosive as lightning; it was the primary factor that led the Tampa Bay Rays to select him in the second round of the amateur draft. Two years later—at only 20—Derrick was mashing at Double A Montgomery and on the fast track to a job as the Rays everyday right fielder. He was on the verge of national recognition, of hacking and slashing his way into the consciousnesses of millions of fans. But, then again, he’d been led to believe that he was on the verge of entering some holy land and accomplishing some otherworldly task ever since he’d pulverized his first tee ball.

  By some standards, Derrick had already achieved success. His name had been printed in Sports Illustrated six times in the past three years. He was frequently listed as one of the top twenty prospects in all of baseball. He was already living a life most athletes could only dream about. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the outer limit of what Derrick knew he could do, what he knew he was supposed to do. The blueprints for greatness were encoded within his DNA, and he intended to follow their instructions.

  This call-up to the majors was one of the final steps in building toward that greatness. It was the lower summit of a mountain he had been expected to climb for the past fourteen years. It was his germinal immortality.

  Derrick had no vocabulary for the occasion. Had someone asked him how he felt, he could have only answered through smiles and dances, handstands and high-flying jumps. He was reduced to little more than a nebulous haze of pride, elation, and body language. He was so close now. So close to the je ne sais quoi that was celebrity.

  His feet began to move, and he began to drift toward the dugout’s exit, propelled by either the winds of fate or his own subconscious. It didn’t matter which, as long as he was heading in the direction of fame, fortune, and glory.

  As he slowly descended the stairs that led to the locker room, a series of firetrucks, ambulances, and police cars blew past the stadium, sirens blaring and lights flashing. It was the fifth time in two hours that such a parade of emergency vehicles had briefly interrupted the game. However, riding high atop his endorphin cloud, Derrick didn’t notice this last intrusion. Even if the ground had split asunder and the devil had risen from its flame-spouting fissures, Derrick wouldn’t have flinched, so consuming was his self-congratulatory inebriation.

  The following hour and a half was entirely missing from his memory, dulled into nonexistence by virtue of being filled with comparative minutiae. At various points he must have changed into street clothes, driven to his hotel room, packed a suitcase, called his family, and driven to the airport because, at midnight, he found himself reclining comfortably in a densely cushioned seat aboard a privately chartered flight from Montgomery to St. Petersburg. Across the aisle, a squat middle-aged man in a bulging Tampa Bay Rays polo shirt and khaki pants flipped through a packet of papers, many of which displayed little more than columns and rows of numbers.

  The man glanced at Derrick.

  “So, from what I can tell, you’ll probably make the lineup in two days. Tomorrow night I think we’ll just keep you on the bench and give you some time to adjust, to get used to the atmosphere and let the thrill settle a bit. Then the next night, you’ll get a start in right. Sound good?”

  Derrick nodded.

  This portly man—probably an assistant something-or-other to someone with administrative power—clearly held the keys to the mansion in which Derrick had been yearning to reside his entire life. He could hear promise jingling in the man’s pockets.

  Minutes passed in relative silence. The man in the polo shirt continued riffling through his papers.

  “What do you think about these riots?” he asked, never glancing up. “Crazy stuff, huh? Hope we don’t have to cancel any games because of them.”

  “Riots?” Derrick asked, shifting in seat, concerned about anything that might impact his debut or his playing time.

  “Yeah. Riots. That’s what the news is calling them. Started this morning, apparently. They’re everywhere. Across the U.S., in Canada, Mexico, and a couple in Europe, too. In St. Petersburg, there were six or seven of them reported before I left to meet you.”

  “What are people rioting about? Something political?”

  The man dropped the sheets of statistics onto his lap and met Derrick’s eyes.

  “Well, that’s the question,” he said. “It’s weird, because, from what I understand, people aren’t really rioting. They’re sort of grouping together and attacking other people—bystanders, police, old women, little kids, anybody. The news said a couple people were killed and a bunch were injured. And, like I said, this is happening everywhere. Scary stuff.”

  “Terrorism?” Derrick offered, hiding behind the comfort of the zeitgeist.

  The stout man shrugged.

  “Who knows? If it’s terrorism, it’s the most well-organized, most widespread, and most random act of terrorism ever conceived. But, I’m sure it will all be under control when we get back. It’s just crazy shit.”

  Derrick slouched back in his seat, needles in his stomach. Riots were not good. Riots meant fear, fear meant self-imposed isolation, and self-imposed isolation meant low attendance at baseball games. Derrick could only hope that the riots—or whatever they were—didn’t interfere with attendance. Without the fans, the game had no meaning, no resonance beyond the perimeter of the diamond. All the home runs or stolen bases in the world were meaningless unless people—as many people as possible—witnessed their spectacle and assigned to them some sort of significance. Without the fans, Derrick was as good as mired in anonymity’s crowded, shit-washed gutter.

  He turned to the window and stared out into a dark void of undifferentiated, unlit, uncaring sky, land, and sea; it was everything that the searingly angelic brightness of a stadium in its full electrified finery was not.

  Derrick stands along the first base line, signing a baseball for an expectant fan, a spectral boy of nine or ten. He scribbles “To Jonathan—Keep swinging for the moon! Derrick McCoy” then flips the ball at a vacant blue seat in the first row. It bounces off the seat’s hard plastic back and disappears behind the wall that separates the field from the stands, the player from the spectator, the remembered from the forgotten. Derrick can’t see the ball’s final resting spot, but he’s sure it’s in the hands of a deserving young admirer. He turn
s and trots into the dugout, ready to snatch up his helmet and bat and step to the plate once again. The missing crowd is rocking the dome apart tonight, and rightfully so. Derrick had already sent three pitches deep and the Rays are leading nine to four.

  A long-dead announcer calls out “Right fielder, number two, Derrick McCoy!” The silence of his name rings from the P.A. system.

  Beaming, Derrick pulls on his batting gloves and strides toward the last stage on earth.

  Behind the first base wall, the ball Derrick just signed rests amongst a vast pile of other baseballs, both new and old, crisp white and dusty eggshell. All of them are variously inscribed with first names and motivational phrases and the jagged signature “Derrick McCoy.” All of them are cherished treasures dedicated to nobody.

  Derrick couldn’t sleep, not with only a weak lock and chain separating himself from the gunshot pops and distant screams that occasionally scratched at the walls of his hotel room. Sirens spread their screeching wings in his brain; what seemed like blue and red fireworks flashed against the drawn curtains. The world was falling apart. He was supposed to be a star in ascendancy to the heavens, a freshly minted idol for the city, but here, on this night, he felt no brighter or more awe-inspiring than a thirty-watt bulb in the lamp of a funeral parlor. For the first time in his life, he was frightened of something other than failure.

  On the ride from the airport to the hotel, Derrick and his stoic driver—a slight Latino man who didn’t utter a syllable or peel his vision from the road for even a second—had passed crashed cars, burning houses, police barricades, and impromptu militias standing on street corners, rifles and handguns at the ready. At one stoplight, a bloodied homeless man approached the car and repeatedly smashed his face against the passenger’s side window, gnashing his teeth as if he was trying to chew his way through the glass. At another light, two middle-aged women in tattered evening dresses crouched over a third woman lying prone and unmoving at the edge of the crosswalk; Derrick couldn’t tell whether they were trying to resuscitate a downed friend with CPR or pounding on a stranger’s chest in blind fury.

  Clearly, the riot situation had not yet been resolved.

  Derrick lay propped up in bed, watching TV with the sound muted. Every station was carrying live coverage of what newscasters could only refer to as “mass panic” and “widespread violence.” In New York, Times Square was littered with corpses, gastric fruits erupting from the blossoms of their torn abdomens; in Boston, Fenway Park was ablaze, the Green Monster a crackling wall of Dis; in Washington, D.C., the polished steps of the Capitol Building were streaked with dark tones of crimson; and in St. Petersburg—which didn’t even make the national news roundup—Derrick had only to stumble to the window and stare six flights downward, to the sidewalk below, to see a man feverishly clawing at the face of another man who was very much unconscious and, potentially, already dead.

  Derrick didn’t know much about civil disobedience, but this omnivorous barbarity—the face-ripping, entrail-exposing, landmark-burning and all—seemed to him an extreme and unlikely manifestation of political or social upheaval. The back of his head tingled with the sense that something wasn’t right in a way he could never begin to articulate. He sunk lower into the bed and contemplated calling his parents or one of his friends.

  What if this night doesn’t end? he wondered. What happens if civilization crumbles? What do I do? Who wants a hero like a pro athlete or a movie star when you and the people around you become the heroes of your own lives?

  On some base, unconscious level, Derrick understood he had no cache in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Though he couldn’t articulate the sentiment in words, he realized that in all the movies about the end of the world, the only heroes are the people who save other people or stop the world from ending. There is no such thing as fame in those movies. There is no glory. Just survival. The survivors are the heroes, but no one’s left to call them that.

  As he was twisting his mind in tight knots over these issues, the phone rang.

  He sat up and glanced at the clock. It was 3:39 AM. Any call made at 3:39 in the morning was bound to be drenched in tears or alcohol. In either case, it probably wouldn’t help relieve his anxiety.

  Derrick picked up the receiver and cleared his throat.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  “Hello,” a starchy female voice responded. “Is this Derrick McCoy?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Mr. McCoy, I’m calling on behalf of the Tampa Bay Rays organization. As part of our excellent group of players and staff, you need to be notified of the following announcement by the commissioner of Major League Baseball, sent out to all affiliated teams early this morning. The statement reads: ‘In light of the recent violence in many major metropolitan areas, the risk of holding major sporting events has been deemed too dangerous. Any injury or loss of life to spectators, players, crew, or staff would be entirely unacceptable. Therefore, in order to negate any potential harm to all those involved with Major League Baseball and its operations, all regular season games will be suspended until further notice.’ ”

  Derrick’s chest collapsed. He felt shorter somehow, a man with a retractable spine and a telescopic soul.

  “Now, I’ve been given a memo saying that you were just called up to the team . . . ah . . . hmmm . . . last night? Is that correct?” the woman asked.

  Derrick mumbled something he thought sounded like “yes.” The woman on the phone must have thought so, too, because she continued almost without pause.

  “Okay then. You don’t have to report to the stadium until someone from the team calls you again. We’ll let you know when we’re going to hold a practice. In the meantime, your hotel and any room services you order will be fully comped. Any questions, Mr. McCoy?”

  There were dozens of questions to be asked. Was he supposed to remain sequestered in a hotel room indefinitely? Was there any way he could fly home until games resumed? Was he still guaranteed a roster spot when the season restarted? The only question that spurted from Derrick’s mouth, however, was “Why are you calling me at almost four in the morning to tell me this?”

  “Because some members of the grounds crew and stadium security were due to report for work at five o’clock,” the woman replied. “The executive decision was made to inform all staff, crew, and players at once, before anyone left the safety of their homes. If you have any further questions, you can call . . .”

  The name and number of the person Derrick might have been able to contact for support were cut off by his setting the phone receiver back in its cradle. He didn’t want to hear any more. He didn’t want to talk any more, either. He was so close to the prize, so close to playing in front of tens of thousands of fans and hearing their tremendous roar, the sound of humanity rising to rage against the prison of its own mediocrity, that he could smell the tang of mustard-drenched hot dogs, taste the dry savoriness of infield dust, and feel the vibration of applause against his skin. He was so close he didn’t want to breathe again, for fear of setting in motion a chain of events that might rob him of, quite literally, major league opportunity.

  He stumbled from the bed to the window and looked outside. From his eighth story room, he imagined he could almost see the top of the Trop’s dome. It was just over the horizon, just beyond the rise of the next gently sloped hill. So tantalizingly close. But so tantalizingly close was where it might lie forever.

  Derrick crept back to bed, threw the sheets over his head, and waited for exhaustion to sweep him closer to his dreams.

  Crouching several feet off second base, calves tensed, Derrick has nothing to lose. His team is up by seven, there are no outs, and it’s a one-and-one count on the batter. He might as well try to take third. The pitcher on the mound, a tall, spider-like figment, never even checks to see how much of a lead Derrick’s taken to the base. As the pitcher lowers his hands and begins to draw back his arm in an exaggerated windup, Derrick pounces. Terrified of his speed and his des
ire, the ground beneath his feet flees from his path. He is wind in a jar, fire on the ocean floor.

  By the time the pitcher’s lazy curveball finally snaps into the catcher’s glove in Derrick’s mind, he’s already sliding, head-first, into third base; there’s no possibility of a throw down the line.

  Derrick stands and nods to the invisible crowd. A weak stream of obligatory handclapping trickles down to the field. The fans never get pumped by stolen bases. It doesn’t matter. Hits, long balls: those are for the fans. Steals are for the team, for his brothers-at-arms. As if on cue, twelve disembodied smiles appear, Cheshire cat-like, from the shadowed dugout. The batter—Derrick can’t decide if he’s a burly, pull-hitting, strikeout-prone first baseman or a wiry, spray-hitting, speed demon of a center fielder—rests his bat against his thigh and points both incorporeal index fingers at Derrick, signaling his respect. With a casual, practiced dignity, Derrick points back and laughs.

  This is true camaraderie. This is true friendship. This is what being part of a team is all about.

  Back in the dugout, a helmet falls from the bench and clatters against the cement floor. Derrick’s eyes dart across the diamond. No revenants. Just echoes. Always nothing but echoes.

  One day passed. Alone in his hotel room, Derrick watched TV and ordered two meals from room service—both pancakes and eggs. The violence grew more intense, more gruesome, and more bizarre. Reporters claimed that rioters, apparently losing their higher mental faculties, had begun to exhibit primitive cannibalistic behavior. In most major metro areas, death tolls were already speculated as reaching into the thousands.

  The president addressed the nation in the evening and assured the public that the situation would be controlled, that Army, Marine, and National Guard units were being deployed to the most populous cities in every state and top scientists were investigating the potential causes of the violent eruptions.