STORY
A curious haunting
by Kevin Clair
[Editor's Note. For the past several years, I have participated in a fantasy baseball keeper league with some of my old friends from the quiz bowl team at Carleton. Because that was somehow not dorky enough for me, and because circumstances warranted it, I decided to write a story about my team. It was initially just an attempt to inject some life into what at the time was a very boring league; gradually, though, the story gained a life of its own, and it now ranks among the finer things I have ever written.
I was hesitant to post it here, because there's so much backstory involved, but then I realized I could just link you to all my players in the story and that would explain most of it. And so, here is the story, which I thought was a good idea for some reason. This is the first of a two-part series; the conclusion will come in Issue #6. --Ed.]
Dear Diary,
It's been a long time since I've written to you, but I'm sure you know by now how crazy it gets during the baseball season. I've been through quite a lot in my four years of playing for the Catholics, but nothing quite so strange as what happened around here the last three weeks. It almost defies explanation, how one ordinary man could cause so much havoc and personal devastation just by his mere presence in a room, in the clubhouse, or on the playing field. And yet, such madness as has occurred here! I shall tell the story from the beginning.
It started around mid-April. We were off to a slow start, and were in and out of last place for most of the first couple of weeks. We were all worried, of course, based on what happened last year; we didn't want to get left behind early and never come back. The GM had to make some tough moves, dropping some kids we all thought had real potential: Homer, Kooz, you know. In their place we tried to bring in some veterans; we thought they'd ground the younger players, inspire them to new heights of achievement. Which I suppose is how Dmitri came aboard.
At first, of course, no one suspected a thing. Meat could hit, and Hamilton was going crazy out there in April. Thing was, J.J. Hardy was just ridiculous. He kept hitting home run after home run, but the whole time we'd been keeping him on the bench; we were really hoping to get something out of Dmitri, and who knew if Hardy would be able to keep that up. After all, it's J.J. I'm on his team, for God's sake. He's never done anything like this before.
After a few days we couldn't ignore it anymore, and that's when we had to slot Hardy in the utility spot ahead of Dmitri. And really, that's where the madness started. Up until then, we'd had pretty good chemistry; it was one of our secrets. We had fun-loving, prankster guys like Marcus to keep everybody loose, and Josh was of course a huge inspiration to everyone; having a guy out there who was just excited to be out on a field again, when everyone said he didn't have a chance... we all drew a lot from that. It was just a lot of fun.
But when Dmitri stopped playing... I don't know. He withdrew; he'd go whole games just sitting there, not talking to anyone, not even responding when people talked to him. Marcus and Jeff, they would always try to draw him out. One day he wasn't sitting in the corner, and we'd given him some space to work whatever this was out, and the two of them just sat on either side of him to needle at him a bit.
-- What's up with this guy? Marcus asked.
-- I don't know, man, I've never seen anything like it.
-- You think he's hungry?
-- He might be sleepy. You want a nap, Meat?
-- Naw, Frank, I think he's hungry. He might want some seeds.
-- Let's try it.
Jeff went over to the sunflower seeds and picked up the whole bucket and brought them over.
-- There you go, Meat. Dig in. A whole bucket of seeds, just for you.
Dmitri looked up suddenly. His eyes darted from one to the other and back again, like a head of cattle in the abattoir who realizes at the last second what is about to happen to him. In a flash he stood up and kicked the whole bucket over. The two of them jumped back, startled, and Dmitri assumed a warrior's stance.
-- You don't know who you trifle with, he said. I have powers beyond your reckoning. You will rue the day you crossed the likes of Dmitri Young.
Then he ran off into the clubhouse. We just stood there, dumbstruck. We'd never heard him say much of anything, let alone something that... weird. That's what it was. We couldn't explain it. At length Gorzelanny piped up.
-- It's nothing, he said. He just needs to blow off steam. It'll pass.
Things only got more bizarre from there. With every passing day, the clubhouse got more and more uncomfortable. Us pitchers were getting more touchy, for one thing. Normally we take bad outings in stride, because we know we're one of the strengths on the club and it's usually on us to pick everyone else up. But then, all of a sudden when the bad starts came along, no one wanted to talk about it.
The weirdest thing is that the staff we've put together this year is probably the most laid-back rotation we've ever had. Zito, he's a big part of that. You know Barry; all he needs is some tasty waves and a cool buzz, and he's fine. He's a big part of keeping everybody loose. But one day Gorzelanny had a real bad start against the Reds, and he was feeling pretty beat-up about it. You know how it goes; you never know if you should talk to him, or if he wants to blow off steam on his own. Barry was the one who tried to pick him up, but Tom just exploded.
-- Don't talk to me, hippie, he said. Why don't you go spend your millions of filthy dollars, you overpaid hack.
Barry was taken aback; Gorzelanny never talks like that to anyone. But he wasn't going to take that from a kid.
-- You know what? Fuck you, rookie. Have fun playing for the Pirates; I hope you manage to win even half as many games as I will.
And that was it. We were all pretty quiet for a few minutes. I looked around the locker room, gradually settling my gaze on Dmitri Young, shuffling through some of his things in his locker. I thought I saw a hint of a smile on his face.
Right around this same time, Marcus was having a bit of a hard time at the plate. He was still hitting well over .300, but he had a lot of 0-for-5 and 1-for-5 days, and at one stretch his average dropped about forty points in five days. It shouldn't have been a big deal; Marcus is pretty upbeat most of the time, and if anyone's got the mindset to stay up through a hitting slump, it's him. But this time, he was just out of his mind about the whole thing.
After one 0-fer game against the Dodgers, he just bolted into the locker room, and when we all showed up, it was a disaster in there. He'd thrown the entire contents of his locker onto the floor; he'd smashed a couple of bats; his mirror had a huge crack running down the middle of it. In the middle of this pile of detritus he'd created, he was just sitting there, silent; you could almost see the storm clouds brewing over his head. He was looking past us, at some unseen entity. We knew better than to go in, with him like that; we all hung around somewhere else in the clubhouse. It was Chad that eventually said something.
-- You know Dmitri was in there?
No one else had noticed. I asked if he was sure.
-- Oh yeah, I'm positive I saw him. He was in his corner over there, just looking over his shoulder at Marcus sitting there. I'm not even sure he saw us.
(To be continued...)