starts out all calm and nostalgic

Nov 17, 2004 22:47

arrrrrrrgh. the confusion! the html-coding! the essay i'm supposed to be writing!



Notes: Pictures courtesy bradausmus12
Extensive notes and soundtrack

For Alex, who wanted a birthday present. Sorry, kid, April was too long for me to wait.





The Rest of Your Life
By Candle Beck

Part the First: Never Been a Boy like You

(go real far)

Eric Chavez and Eric Munson first meet when they’re five years old.

Eric Chavez is playing catch with his dad at the Rancho Penasquitos T-ball field near his family’s house. He’s a tough little kid, powering across the shorn March grass in his red Velcro-strapped Keds, his Mexican-black hair neatly trimmed by his mother in the garage every two weeks, and when grown-ups see him for the first time, the thing that strikes them are those fiercely bright eyes of his, breaking the trend of his easy-going cheerfulness.

He chases down the pop flies his dad flings to him and Cesar Chavez calls, “Two hands, short guy, two hands,” and Eric claps his right hand to his glove, squeezing the ball securely through the leather.

Eric Munson is on his way to a soccer team party at the green-painted picnic tables under the trees, the rusted metal barbecue pits and the nodding pastel balloons tied to the branches.

This Eric is a natural athlete too, but with him it’s form and strength where with Eric Chavez it’s reflexes and coordination. Eric Munson is perfectly proportioned with broad shoulders and he’ll be the tallest in his class every year until high school. He runs faster than any other kid his age, and has been the best player on all his teams, even if it is just T-ball and his miniaturized soccer team on their shrunken field. He’s got a mess of brown hair and an unrepentantly boyish smile that makes everybody who sees it love him a little bit.

He’s walking across the field towards the picnic tables, his hand folded up in his father’s, and Eric’s kicking a pine cone along in front of him, seeing how many kicks he can get without breaking stride. Steve Munson tugs his hand, and Eric looks up, squinting into the late-afternoon sun.

His dad points over to the kid dashing around snagging grounders and flinging bullets back to his own father. “He looks pretty good, huh,” Steve says to his son. “You might want to play with him next year.”

Eric studies the other boy, chewing on his lip. Steve lets go of his hand to palm his head, ruffling his hair. “You wanna go say hi?”

Eric takes a moment, and the black-haired boy does a neat tumbling move to cut off a jogged liner, and that seals the deal. Eric’s face splits with his sunlight grin and he nods, skimming from under his father’s hand and running over to the other boy, Steve left standing there with his arm still out, once again startled by the quickness of his child.

He chuckles, shakes his head and walks over to the man who’d been playing with the black-haired boy. The two kids are inspecting each other, Eric Munson taller but Eric Chavez has got the baseball, so they’re probably even.

Steve offers his hand to the other man. “Hi. Steve Munson.”

The man smiles engagingly. “Cesar Chavez,” he answers, lightly accented, taking the proffered hand.

Steve blinks. “Really?”

Cesar’s smile turns into a grin. “Really. A lot to live up to, I know.” The dads share their first laugh.

Their sons, meanwhile, are still taking stock of each other. Eventually, Eric Munson points at the baseball in the other boy’s hand. “I play too.”

Eric Chavez pulls the ball back, tucking it into his glove jealously and scowling at this kid. “Not as good as me,” he says, and his dad, who’s got a dad’s sixth sense, calls over distractedly, “Be nice, Eric!”

Eric flushes ashamedly, kicks at the ground, but the other Eric is grinning again. “Hey, you’re Eric? I’m Eric!” jabbing a thumb at his own chest.

Eric Chavez looks up and this other kid is so excited, hopping around foot to foot. “Yeah?” little Chavvy asks, the corners of his mouth ticking with a smile.

“Yeah!” Munce replies, beaming. “We’re the same.”

And Eric Munson holds out his hand, says, “Lemme see, okay,” and Eric Chavez, figuring he can trust another kid named Eric, digs the baseball out of his glove, sets it down in Eric Munson’s palm, and Eric Munson flaps his hand, “Go real far, yeah, I’ll show you.”

Eric Munson’s grin is enough for Eric Chavez, and he turns his back, runs on a dead straight line halfway into the outfield, way farther than he bets this kid can throw, before spinning back around and holding up his glove to show ready.

Eric Munson curls his hand the right way around the ball, fingers across the stitches and his tongue poking his cheek out, and when he throws the ball, his arm whips past his ear, snapping wind, and the baseball fires into the clear blue air, whirring and the arched red stitches blurred. Eric Chavez backs up one step, two, his eyes tracking, and catches the throw, his favorite sound, that leather-leather smack.

Eric Chavez laughs in surprise, and he’s about to run back over, hollering, “hey you are good, really cool,” but their dads are shaking hands, in farewell this time, and Steve is walking over to his son, and then Eric Munson is waving across the distance and yelling something Eric Chavez can’t hear, and they’re walking away, towards the balloons nestled in the trees.

That’s how it starts.

*

(retaliation)

They get to be friends three years later.

Their Little League teams are playing each other, and the Erics are both pitching. They’re the best players on their respective teams, each coached by his father. It’s a sure excellent southern California day, April and the major league season is brand-new, every team’s got the same shot.

In the second inning, Eric Chavez wings a pitch that drills Eric Munson in the back, Munce twisting around and feeling the ball thump between his shoulder blades. He scowls at the little pitcher, Chavvy’s hat brim tugged down low over his eyes, a floppy tail of his shirt hanging out over his hip.

They know each other, growing up in the same neighborhood and haunting the same parks. They both kind of remember meeting a few years before, the whap of Munce’s throw into Chavvy’s glove, Chavvy handing Munce the baseball so carefully. But there are a bunch of kids on the block, roving gangs of four-foot delinquents trawling at dusk through the leafed residential streets. The two Erics have never really had much of an opportunity to run around together.

With the bruise darkening on his back, Munce faces Chavvy the next inning and without hesitation plunks him in the helmet. The hollow clocking sound of the ball hitting plastic, and Eric Chavez ducks but not too much, taking one for the team because you gotta get on base.

Eric Chavez shakes his head loosely, looks up to nod gravely at Eric Munson, Munce mirroring it back at him, both of them understanding that justice has been served.

Steve Munson, on the sideline, hollers at his son, “Eric!” He catches Cesar’s eyes on the other side of the diamond and gets a nod of approval from the other man.

Munce looks over, surprised, and his dad trots out, raising his hand to the sixteen year old volunteer umpire to call time, his face fixed authoritatively, you’re-in-big-trouble-mister. Eric Chavez is kicking the dirt around first base idly, pulling off his helmet to check for a dent.

His dad stands with his hands locked on his hips, slanting a stern look down at his son. “Did you hit him on purpose?”

Munce blinks, looks down at the ball snugged in his glove. He shrugs, not understanding. “Well . . . yeah.”

Steve’s expression hardens, and he closes his hand on the boy’s shoulder, propelling him towards first, determined to make an example. “Say you’re sorry.”

Munce freezes, tries to wriggle away. “What? No, dad, c’mon! He hit me, it’s retal-retalee . . . retaleration!” he protests, stumbling over his feet, flinging his glove through the air in consternation.

Steve shakes his head, tight-jawed. “We don’t play that way, Eric.”

The crowds of parents and sticky-faced toddler brothers and sisters are all watching, clucking their tongues and discussing this with civilized concern.

Eric Chavez, seeing them coming, double-takes, unsure what’s going on. His helmet is cradled in his hands, and he shifts his weight uncomfortably, ‘cause it looks like he might have somehow gotten himself into trouble without being aware of it.

The pair stops in front of him, and Steve gives Eric a little push on his shoulder. “Go on.”

Munce gives him a desperately pleading look, but it’s no good, his dad is set. Munce scowls, scuffs the ground with his foot and mutters, eyes down, “Sorry I hit you.”

Chavvy squints. “Why?” he asks in bewilderment.

Munce glowers at his father petulantly. “’Cause he made me,” he answers.

“Eric!”

But Chavvy’s shaking his head, confused. “I hit you first,” he points out, rolling his helmet from hand to hand. “You gotta protect.”

Munce nods emphatically, gesticulating wildly with his hands. “I know!” he exclaims, his eyes big and exaggerated. “Like Roger Clemens!”

Chavvy nods back, grinning. “Like Randy Jones.”

Munce busts out a grin of his own. “Like Mike Whitman,” now testing the other boy, getting more esoteric.

Chavvy rolls his eyes, using his helmet as a pointer, poking at Munce’s chest. “As if Mike Whitman’s got good enough control to hit anybody on purpose.”

Munson beams, shoots his dad an i-told-you-so look.

Steve just watches them, befuddled, then clears his throat. “Okay . . . uh, let’s just play, all right, boys?” He pats his son on the shoulder distractedly, and guides him back to the mound.

After the game, Munce goes over to where the other team is gathered in a loose circle, sucking on the skinny straws of CapriSuns, eating orange wedges and Kudos granola bars, and thomps Chavvy on the back.

Chavvy turns, an orange wedge filling his mouth, his smile the pebbled citrus-bright peel. His eyes gleam as he sees Munce, though, and Munce grins at him. “You wanna come over to my house sometime?” he asks, the sun going down at the edge of the park, seeping through all pink and softly gold.

Chavvy nods happily, spits out the orange peel. “Yeah! And also you can come to mine. I got a Nintendo,” he brags.

Munce’s eyes widen appealingly. “Oh, so cool.” His mom calls his name, and Munce waves at her before turning back. “’Kay, I’ll see you later, then.” He extends his hand and Chavvy slaps it cleanly, and then Munce runs towards his family’s car, Chavvy turning back to his teammates with his hair stuck to his forehead and brown dirt on his hands, beginning to feel the dragged tiredness sink into his shoulders and his back, worn out and too young to recognize that this is a perfect day.

And they become best friends.

*

(brothers of heart)

They grow up together and they grow up well.

They grow up with Chiquita banana stickers on their foreheads and gummi worms hanging out of their mouths. Living room floors and the front lawn, the park, the shore, the sidewalk, making up handshakes and secret languages, though by the time they’re ten, they don’t even really need to talk, they can tell everything with a look. They’re spies and they’re superheroes and they’re rock stars. They’re jumping on the bed and having cereal fights, Cheerios like little flying saucers in the air.

Eric Chavez’s older brother Chris, once Munce becomes a regular sight around their house, calls out “Eric!” one day and hears two answering yells. He comes in and squints at the two of them sitting among a mess of baseball cards on the living room floor, peering up at him with Kool-Aid smearing cherry-red around their mouths, and pronounces, “One of you is gonna need a nickname.”

The Erics grin at each other. Nicknames are cool; big leaguers have nicknames. They don’t so much mind calling each other by variations on their last names-big leaguers do that too-but nicknames would be even better.

They quiz through the possibilities. Munson’s middle name is Walter, that’s no good, he hates that name. Munce runs faster, he could be ‘Wheels’ or ‘Flash,’ but Chavvy nixes that because he’s sure that someday he’ll be faster than his friend, and it’s not like you can take back a nickname once it’s been bestowed. Chavvy can hit a baseball farther, but all the good slugger nicknames have been taken.

Eventually Chris, lying on the couch reading a Sports Illustrated with his legs hanging over the arm, absently following the discussion, lifts his head and says with big-brother-finality, “You can’t choose a nickname, dude, it has to just happen.”

So they stop trying, and they’re Munce and Chavvy again, except for sometimes when Chavvy is ‘Ricky,’ an old family name, but by the time they’re nine he forbids his best friend from calling him that, ‘cause it’s a little kid’s name. Munce forgets sometimes, but usually only when he’s got no other choice.

Their families get along, they have barbecues all throughout the summer and go to Disneyland together, Eric Munson, who is addicted to Space Mountain, stunned to learn that there’s another Disneyland on the other side of the country, even bigger, better, a Disneyworld that’s not surrounded by strip malls and highways like the one in Anaheim.

Eric Munson makes Chavvy swear that they’ll both do whatever and incessantly pester whomever it takes until they get to go to that dream in Orlando. Chavvy agrees willingly enough, because Munson is the brains of their operation, he always knows what to do.

Steve and Cesar become co-coaches of their sons’ Little League team the next year, remaining so until the boys are thirteen, and the two Erics proceed to terrorize the rest of the league. That first year, they go undefeated, take home matching trophies, except somehow they get mixed up in the car, so on the shelf above Munce’s bed is the trophy with Eric Chavez’s name on it, and on Chavvy’s dresser his trophy has got Eric Munson’s name. They’ve each thought a million times about switching back, but they always forget.

They learn to curse together, they learn to spit good together (it’s all in the teeth, surprisingly). They fire ballplayers’ names at each other, and respond with career batting average, ERA, wins-losses, who-played-second-for-Philly-in-1968 (Cookie Rojas, Eric, too easy). They know their game by heart; they know each other by heart.

They’re taught not to be arrogant, but around each other, they are, because what does it matter if they’re both gonna be cocky? They do crazy stuff on jungle gyms and see every part of their hometown whistling past on their bikes. They wrestle on the carpet in the Saturday-morning sunlight, and know each other’s weaknesses. Chavvy’s ticklish in his sides and Munson in the soles of his feet and the backs of his knees, and neither of them can stand to have his ears flicked.

Their families are both expressive, outgoing, affectionate. The boys are taught to laugh and to cry, to hug and smack exuberant kisses on cheeks and foreheads. They never have to doubt each other, because they hold nothing back.

They go to different elementary schools, and meet at the two-trunked elm tree in Poway Community Park at three-thirty every weekday, unless one of them gets held after for something, but that doesn’t happen too often, they’re good kids. They’re looking forward to being in the same middle school together, and for now they play baseball every afternoon, until it gets too dark to see the stitches and they’ve got to be home for dinner, most of the time showing up at the same house together, though they trade off which of their houses that’ll be.

They see the San Diego Padres play at Jack Murphy Stadium as much as possible, striking deals with their parents, rooms clean, trash taken out, dishwashing for a week, chores in exchange for bleacher seats. Chavvy’s favorite is Tony Gwynn, though Munce rags him for it being the obvious choice. Chavvy doesn’t care, ‘cause have you seen Gwynn’s swing? Thing a’ beauty. Munce likes this new kid Benito Santiago, and also Garry Templeton, because shortstops are the best.

Their rooms are plastered with posters and pennants, the grinning friar with the baseball bat, shrines of autographed baseballs, caught foul balls, and the genuine Graig Nettles Louisville Slugger that got flung into the crowd, both of them scampering down the section’s concrete stairs, skidding on their knees and digging under the seats to recover it. The bat belongs to both of them, and they have joint custody.

They’re both convinced, until they’re about eleven years old, that the last two words of the Star-Spangled Banner are “Play ball!” because they only ever hear it at ballgames, with their caps held over their hearts.

Four months after they were both hit by pitch and cemented their friendship, they’re at the beach, wandering far off from their families’ busy cluster of beach towels and coolers, and Munce picks up a jagged triangle of a seashell, turning it over and over, sand stuck to his tanned legs, thin raspy grains.

He takes Chavez’s hand in his and carefully slices open his new best friend’s palm, just a little cut and Chavvy grimaces through it wordlessly like an Indian. He gives the shell to Chavvy and Chavvy draws an identical shallow red line across the fortune on Munce’s hand. They press their palms together, and look at each other somberly.

“Major league baseball,” Chavvy promises, his voice solemn and prayerful.

Munce nods. “Major league baseball,” he echoes. Blood brothers are better than regular brothers-brothers of heart, brothers of soul. They have this vow to live up to now, but they’re good enough, they’ve always been good enough.

They wade into the ocean and wash the blood off their hands.

*

(sick day)

Eric isn’t at the park after school one day, so Chavvy rides his bike over to his friend’s house, baseball cap stuffed in his back jeans pocket and glove fit over a handlebar. They’re ten years old.

Nobody answers his knock, so he goes ‘round the back and climbs up on the windowsill to get the key hidden on top of the doorframe, a wedge of tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, flicking his head to get the hair out of his eyes. He lets himself in and calls through the quiet house, “Eric?”

There’s a raspy noise from down the hall, and Eric toes off his sneakers, raining dried flakes of mud onto the rug, carefully lining his shoes up against the wall and thumping sock-footed to his friend’s room.

Eric Munson’s in bed, his brown hair dark and shiny, matted by fever-sweat. His face is flushed and his eyes glossy. He’s got his knees pulled up under the covers and a comic book spread out on his folded legs, the skinny white stem of a Tootsie Roll Pop sticking out and his mouth stained purple. He blinks at his friend as Chavvy stumbles in.

“Aw, Munny, you’re sick!” Chavvy complains, kicking his foot on the carpet.

Eric nods, coughs. He scrubs his forearm across his nose and reaches for the Kleenex on his bedside table. “My ma says it’s twen’y-four hour bug,” he tells his friend, his voice clogged.

Chavvy goes over to flop down on the bed, Eric’s feet twitching under the covers, poking his friend’s side. Chavvy rolls his head, absently rubbing his face against the blankets. Munce leans forward over his knees, peering down at the other boy with bleary eyes, sniffling, chewing the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop.

“So you can’t come play, huh,” Eric says morosely. The other Eric shakes his head, nestling his chin on his knees and yawning.

Eric Chavez sighs melodramatically, kicking his legs off the end of the bed, drumming his heels. He fingers Munce’s discarded comic book, thumbing through it. The waffled weave of the blanket marks out a light grid on his face. Munce, bored, pokes him repeatedly in the forehead to see Chavvy flinch out of the way.

Eventually, Chavvy tosses the comic away and scowls at his friend. “What’m I supposed to do if you’re gonna be sick?”

Eric grins, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. “I didn’t have to go to school today either,” he boasts nasally.

That lights up Chavvy’s eyes, levering up on his elbows. “Hey!” he exclaims excitedly. “Get me sick! I got a test tomorrow that I’m gonna flunk for sure.”

Munce nods agreeably, seeing nothing at all wrong with that idea. “’Kay,” he replies, scooting over and pulling up the blankets. “Come in here, there’s more germs.”

Chavvy crawls up and settles in beside his friend. They draw the covers over their heads so the germs won’t escape and Munce’s skinny arm reaches out to dig under his bed, retrieving his red Spiderman flashlight. For awhile, it’s just muffled giggles and brief scuffling fights over possession of the light, looking from the outside like some many-limbed creature popping elbows and ducking heads.

Inside their blanket-cave, the cone of light bounces crazily, skewing across their faces. Chavvy tries to make shadow puppets with his hands, but he’s lousy at it, Munce booing him down. They talk for awhile, play the batting average game, but Munce is sick and his eyes are fuzzy, lids swollen and he keeps yawning until he falls asleep against Chavvy, nosing his shoulder and breathing wetly through his mouth.

Chavvy pats him abstractly on the head, Munce’s hair softened by sweat and lankly trailing through Chavvy’s fingers. He wraps his hand up in his friend’s thin T-shirt and tugs him closer, knocking their hips together, figuring he’s got a better chance of getting sick if Eric’s nudged up against him like that.

Chavvy practices whistling for awhile and messes around with the flashlight, tracing letters across the blanketed roof, Eric’s body beating heat and comfortable at his side.

Eventually he falls asleep himself, and that’s how Dora Munson finds them when she gets back from the grocery store, pulling back the covers expecting to find her dozing son and instead finding her son and his best friend with their arms flung at twined angles, their foreheads tucked together and both of them as sick as dogs.

*

(sometimes you brawl)

First time they get into a fistfight is when they’re twelve years old.

Eric Munson pedals over to his friend’s house one Saturday afternoon, and it’s quiet, no cars in the driveway, abandoned. They were supposed to go buy new batting gloves today, they’ve been saving their allowances for two months.

He wanders around the overgrown yard, confused, and hears Chavvy’s voice hailing him softly from the high branches of their climbing tree.

Munce goes over, peers up into the green. Chavvy, hidden in the leaves, swinging his leg, waves at him.

“What’re you doing up there?” Munce asks, his hands on the alligator-skin bark.

Chavvy shrugs and doesn’t answer, looking away.

Munce climbs up the ladder of branches, straddles the same thick limb Chavvy’s chosen, one leg dangling to either side. He tips his head to the side, studies his friend. Chavvy’s biting his lip, furrows across his brow.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Munce asks, picking bits of bark off and flicking them to fall to the ground.

Chavvy looks at him, anger and humiliation warring across his face. “Stupid Michael Jarrett,” he says, his voice wavering and on the edge of tears.

Michael Jarrett is two years older than them, the closest thing they’ve got to a real bully. Munson’s face hardens automatically, nudging his foot at Chavvy’s sneaker. “What’d he do?”

Chavvy sniffs, pulling his forearm across his nose, and shrugs ashamedly. “Pushed me down,” he admits. “Nothing, really. Called me some names.”

Munce taps his fingers on the branch. There are leaves brushing his forehead, his cheek. “That’s not so bad.”

Nodding disconsolately, Chavvy gnaws on his lip some more, then says, the words coming fast like a confession, “It was just that I couldn’t do nothing, you know? I couldn’t punch him, ‘cause . . . ‘cause I don’t know how to punch.” He flushes darkly, embarrassed, and looks down.

“My dad says punching is bad,” Munce tells him, trying to make him feel better.

“Yeah, but I should still know how to do it!” Chavvy answers, frustrated, his hands balled up into fists. “Sometimes . . . like, sometimes you brawl. We should know how.”

Munce thinks about that, nods in agreement. “’Kay. Let’s do it, then.”

Chavvy looks up at him, not understanding, but Munson’s already swinging down out of the tree, catching his hands and letting gravity carry him swiftly. Chavvy follows him down, and they stand in the ankle-deep grass, regarding each other.

Munce waves his hand invitingly. “Hit me,” he says to Chavez, and braces himself.

Chavvy lifts his eyebrows. “Really?”

Munson nods, this is a pretty good idea, this is something they need to know. “Yeah. And then I’ll hit you. And we’ll learn how.”

Chavvy raises his fists, but then drops them, feeling dumb. “But I don’t want to hit you. I want to hit Michael Jarrett.”

“Pretend I’m him,” Munce offers helpfully.

Chavvy snorts a laugh. “Get taller.”

Grinning, Munce rises on his tiptoes. Chavvy rolls his eyes, and Munce falls back on his heels, saying honestly, “Go ’head and hit me, Eric.”

Chavvy twists his mouth, still skeptical, but shrugs. He sets his feet, narrows his eyes in his best imitation of a mean glare, and lets fly a drifting loop of a roundhouse punch that smacks against Munson’s cheek, not that hard because Chavvy pulled it back at the last second.

“Ow!”

Chavvy’s eyes widen, hurrying to flutter his hands about Munson’s face, Munce’s eyes wrenched shut and his palm pressed to his stinging cheek. “That hurt, man!”

Chavvy steps back, points at him frantically. “You made me, Munce! You told me to do it!”

Munce straightens his shoulders, straightens up, shaking his head sharply to clear it. “My turn.”

Chavez swallows, suddenly nervous. “’Kay,” he says, and barely has time to set himself before Munce right-hooks him in the jaw, a shock of pain, but not as bad as Chavez feared. He cries out a little bit, but quickly realizes that he can deal with this, it’s nothing, and grins at his friend.

“Cool!” Chavvy exclaims, and punches Munson in the mouth.

The fight is fast and graceless, awkward coltish arms and legs flying, testing their fists on each other’s faces and ribs, blood in Chavez’s mouth, Munce’s left eye squeezed shut. They end up scrabbling on the grass, rolling around and growling, coated in dirt, grass stains on their elbows and chins, finally breaking apart and lying on their backs beside each other, panting.

Chavez tips his head to the side, catches Munson out of the corner of his eye. He smiles, spits out blood.

“Now we know how to fight,” Chavvy says happily.

Munce, rubbing his aching jaw, nods, blades of grass in his hair. “Yep,” he says, tired from the fake beating.

Chavvy squints at the sky, spearing his arm up. “That cloud looks kind of like a monkey,” he says, and Munce shifts closer to see where he’s pointing, feeling the adrenaline skim off and the bruises rise on his body.

*

(still life)

Eric Chavez’s living room floor, and the world coming to end outside.

They’re fourteen years old.

It’s a tropical storm wreaking up the coast, Mexican rains and pitchfork lightning and thunder like a sonic boom, ker-WHAP. The windows are barely holding up against it, rattling in their frames.

The Nintendo keeps breaking, they’ll stick a game cartridge in and the TV will flick to gray, bad-reception bars of white scrolling up.

“Blow on it,” Munce instructs, watching the thrash of the storm on the glass, the slender branches of the trees pulled as if by ropes, the leaves standing up like a shocked comic book character’s hair.

Chavez pulls the cartridge out and blows across the top of it, puffing out dust. Then he bends down and blows into the opening of the Nintendo too, pops the cartridge back in, and turns the machine on. The screen goes gray again, and he smacks the Nintendo, clattering the plastic and the old green circuits.

“Stupid thing. It’s busted.”

Munson isn’t really paying attention. He crawls over the window and gets up on his knees, hands on the sill, peering out and the wind, the destruction, one thin pane of glass away from him. There are silver shadows on his face, funhouse leaf-shapes on his arms.

“It’s getting pretty bad out there,” Munson says, a measure of big-storm excitement in his voice.

Chavvy joins him, leaning on his elbows, chin in his hands. The house is sealed up, but he can sense the humidity outside, the flap of the hurricane wind, the streetlights looking slightly canted, dominoes.

“Never seen it rain like this,” Chavez says.

Munson looks over at him. Chavez is wearing his old Mickey Mantle T-shirt, a row of moth-bit holes across his shoulder. His eyes are tracking and they look powder-gray from this angle, the guttering light from the rain.

“Dare you to go outside,” Munson says, nudging their elbows together.

Chavvy smiles a bit. “Darers go first,” he replies automatically.

“Chickens go second,” Munce fires back, and Chavez rolls his eyes, sits back on his heels.

A shard of lightning cracks, and Munson’s counting in his head, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, and the thunderclap falls hugely, both of them jumping.

Munson grins and pulls off his shoes and socks. Chavez quickly follows suit, and they pad to the front hallway.

Chavez opens the door, and there’s a howl down on the street, a backlash of rain splattering on the stop sign at the corner, bending it at a shallow angle. “We’re gonna get soaked,” he comments.

Munson claps him on the shoulder, his palm warm on Chavez’s skin through the dime-sized holes. “Well, man, there’s a point when you’re as wet as you can get,” Munson says philosophically. “So you might as well just stop fighting it.”

Chavez grins, and shoves him out the door. Munce latches onto his friend’s arm, pulling him into the rain with him.

They stand in the yard, bare feet on the drenched grass, and Munson lifts his face to the sky. Looking up into the rain is like traveling through time, the sheer lines of the drops streaking down. He looks over and Chavez has got his head back with his eyes screwed shut, mouth open, his tongue out.

They’re saturated completely within seconds, boxers clinging to them under their pants, shirts painted on. Munson shakes his head and water flies out in rays. Chavez suddenly breaks, sprints across the yard and goes into a second-base slide, water-planing for twenty feet. Munce laughs and chases after him.

Messing around, the sky black and apocalyptic above them, and there’s mud on Eric Munson’s face, forest green blades of grass on his hands. The clouds shudder, spit out a white icepick of lightning, and a breath, two breaths later, the thunder slams again.

“It’s getting closer!” Eric Chavez yells over the clash. “It’s almost here!”

A cold tail of fear curls in Munson’s stomach, and he looks back at the house, glowing and safe. The sky’s going to fall on them, they’re going to drown with their eyes open.

Chavez tackles him when he’s distracted and afraid, sitting on his chest and smearing handfuls of wet grass on his face. Munson struggles, writhing around with his slippery arms and legs and no grip, and Eric Chavez is laughing, rain streaming out of his hair, around his eyes and mouth, dripping off his chin and lost in the rest of it. The ground’s soft and slick under Munson’s back, and there’s a broken-glass scream from somewhere nearby, the dense flat air and the ocean smell in the clouds.

“Eric, hey, man, hey,” Munson says senselessly, wanting to say something important if the world’s going to end here and now, with them rolled-out in the yard, bucketed by water and Munson fighting to get his eyes clear.

Chavvy grabs his wrists and presses them to the ground over Munson’s head, still grinning and playing around, and that’s when the lightning cracks and the thunder roars at the same instant, and they’re in the heart of the storm.

Chavez jerks his head up and to the side, freezes with the neon catching him out. It’s a perfect moment, Munson on the ground staring up at Eric Chavez’s face in profile, tilted up, all pale neck and black hair, a young-wolf burn of alertness in the angle of his jaw, the tension of his arms holding Munson down, on the edge of everything, rain skiing off the tip of his nose, his charred eyes motionlessly scanning across the sky as the worst of the storm rails down on them.

It’s a photograph, lightning flash, still life. And then Chavvy looks back down at him, just a rain-soaked boy again, his eyes big and his mouth rounded, and his lips say, ‘wow,’ but Eric Munson can’t hear it.

(end part one)

*

Part Two

chavez/munson, mlb fic

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