Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (7 page)

“Then I can call her—”

“You call her anything but ‘Tanny’ an’ I will put you through that locker. You got that?” Again, the finger stabbed at him. Again, Sol wished for a big red elk to stand behind him and protect him.

“I—”

“You. Got. That.” Taric took a step forward.

“Yeah.” Sol hated backing down, hated it. You’ll make it up on the field, he told himself.

But Taric wasn’t moving away. He took another step forward, making Sol take a step back. The coyote might be lighter, but he had his shirt off and his wiry body seemed carved of lean muscle. “Damn right you got that. And lemme tell you somethin’ else. I catch you eyein’ me in the shower, I’m gonna rip your boner off.”

At that, Sol could do nothing but nod, and that seemed to satisfy the coyote. “And if you turn around and look at me while I’m changing, I’ll rip your ears off. Got it?”

Sol bit back the tears. He had to face his locker anyway to get his uniform on, so it wasn’t a big deal, not a big deal at all. He stared at the gold shirt and maroon pants swinging from the hanger in his locker, the maroon writing on the shirt that said “Giants” on the front, with his name and the number 75 on the back. On the sleeve, in machine-like cursive, the sponsor “Joliette’s Auto Body” and a phone number swung back and forth. Behind him, the locker room activity slowly faded away. He sighed and reached for the shirt.

The locker room was empty when he turned around, save for two other bench-warmers. He trotted out to the field and stood up beside Mr. Zerling, watching the infielders take ground balls hit by the batting coach. Mr. Zerling, a muscular wolf with more grey than brown in his fur and a scar along his nose, was taking notes on a clipboard, looking frequently back up at the players, making it hard for Sol to figure out how to interrupt him to ask his question.

He looked out at the players, too. He wasn’t one of the starters any more, but he hadn’t been one of the backups before, either. Neither group seemed particularly interested in his status, but the wolves in the starting lineup went out of their way to include Taric in their calls to each other, as much a part of practice as the actual physical moves. “Nice hustle there, ’yote,” they’d call, or “Shake that ratty tail, look alive.” None of them even spared a look for Sol, who two days ago had been out there with them. They’d never really called to him that way even when he had been. And Taric called back, too. “I got yer back, fluffbutt,” he’d say, or “Comin’ at ya,” when he threw to first. Sol had lost that this year, had retreated into himself, and then the shower incident had just made it worse. Watching Taric slip so easily into his role made his chest burn with envy. If he had another chance, if they let him back out there…he could do it. He could be part of the team again.

To one side of the field, the cheerleaders practiced their routines. The breeze dug cold claws under his fur as he watched them. One of them, a deer, pranced through her moves with clockwork precision. It wasn’t hard to imagine her in a red and gold bustier, the sun glinting off the metal stands like electric lights. Sol could almost hear a rhythmic xylophone in his head.

He realized that he’d been staring at the cheerleaders for a full minute or more. It wasn’t such a bad thing for him to do, though, was it? If he were interested in them, how long would he stare? If they were boys, showing off tight abdomens, dancing in costumes… He jerked his head to the side. That’s what he’d been thinking about in the shower, last December. That image, too, had gotten pretty real.

He pushed those thoughts away and stared toward the stands. A smattering of students sat, several boys watching the cheerleaders, and a red fox and mink sitting apart from them. A steady breeze ruffled his fur, holding the last chill of winter and the moist promise of spring, as he watched the team practice again.

After a moment, the coach tapped him on the shoulder. “Go on out and take your practice, Wrightson.”

“Mr. Zerling,” Sol said. “What would it take to get the starting spot back?”

The coach’s ears dipped. He shook his head. “Wrightson—”

“If I work really hard,” Sol persisted. “If I clean up my fielding. I know I have to work on my decision-making.” The coaches had used those words,
clean up
and
decision-making
, over and over for much of the off-season.

“Work on your plate discipline, too.”

“Yeah, sure.” In his mind, Sol pushed away the agony of countless hours spent with a bat, waiting for the machine to hurl the ball toward him. “Like, over the next month? For the Lakeside game?”

“I won’t make no promises.” Mr. Zerling watched Taric dive for a grounder and throw it to first, the kind of throw that Sol had heard announcers in the majors call a “frozen rope.” He didn’t think he’d ever thrown anything more than a slightly chilled rope. “And I’m tellin’ ya, it probably won’t happen. That ’yote’s pretty good. Reminds me of Carquinez.”

“Thanks, Mr. Zerling.” Staying longer would probably reveal that he had no idea who Carquinez was, so Sol trotted out to the field. He took up a spot on the opposite side of the field from Taric, between another wolf and a deer. He fielded for half an hour, then went to the batting cages for half an hour after that.

The exercises, far from inspiring him, left him mostly frustrated. The drive to oust Taric carried him only so far without the support of the team around him. Earlier this year, when he’d first started drifting apart, he’d supplanted his real teammates with daydreams and stories. Now, when he was really trying to pay attention to practice by himself, it was horribly dull. His mind kept wandering back to Jean and Thierry and the Moulin Rouge, but he pushed the gold and red patterns away, until it occurred to him that if only the other guys could see him daydreaming about a
female
dancer, all the “fag” talk would go away. Then he snorted a laugh and swung hard at the next ball, and missed it by a mile.

He stayed on the field until everyone else had gone inside, as much to get the extra swings in as to make sure everyone else was out of the shower by the time he went in. Problem was, Taric was taking extra batting practice, too. Sol stopped to watch him.

The coyote really did have a great swing. All the things Sol’s coaches had given up trying to teach him in the past year were made physical and real in Taric. He planted on his back foot—Sol could see the shift in weight—and his muzzle stayed pointed straight at the pitching machine. He never took his eye from the ball, and he turned his whole torso into the swing. And he followed through, sometimes sending the bat all the way to the back of the cage. Sol had watched his coaches demonstrate this, but he’d never felt the fire in his gut to get it right; he’d been good enough to have fun, and better than any other second baseman for years. His swing had always been adequate, enough to get him at least one hit a game. But he wasn’t going to be better than Taric anytime soon.

Taric turned, unexpectedly. Yellow eyes bored into Sol’s. “If you’re gonna stare at my ass, I’ll come over there and take batting practice on your skull.”

You used to watch me take batting practice.
But Sol just ducked his head and triggered the pitching machine again, missing three balls in a row before he hit a weak dribbler back out to the machine. He wanted to outlast Taric, but the coyote showed no signs of stopping, nor even slowing down. Sol kept count of the hits from a certain arbitrary point. He got four, Taric five. Then he hit three in a row and briefly tied the ’yote’s total, until Taric unleashed a powerful swing and launched a pitch into the stands. It would’ve been foul, but then, so were some of Sol’s, so the wolf counted it.

The hour dragged on, and though Sol did reasonably well, Taric’s score kept climbing. When it reached twenty to thirteen in the ’yote’s favor, Sol stopped counting. Taric was better than he was; he knew that. But he could at least stay as long as Taric did. They’d both reloaded their machines twice so far, and this last load of pitches would have to be the last one. Orange was blossoming in the sky, pink glowing on the bottom of the clouds, and Sol’s arms were tiring. He started missing more and more of the pitches. Coach had said that when you got too tired, practice didn’t do you good any more, but Sol just had to finish the pitches in his machine. Taric’s was going to run out first, and the ’yote would head in then.

Only he didn’t. His machine buzzed, but rather than carrying the bat into the locker room, the ’yote dropped the bat in the cage and trotted out, as though practice had just started, to collect balls from the fence.

Sol dropped his bat. Only then did the fatigue in his shoulders make itself felt, so much so that it was an effort for him to reach down and retrieve the bat from the ground. As he left the batting cages, he caught Taric’s eye, and had to turn away from the ’yote’s triumphant smile. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he’d stay longer. He’d done well to stay as long as he had today.

It was easier for Taric; he lived walking distance from the school, or at least not the ten miles Sol did, so Sol had to call his mother to pick him up. She told him his father would be leaving the office in ten minutes and would swing by the school to get him, which was not was Sol wanted to hear. “I don’t want to bother Dad,” he said, still panting from the workout. “Can’t you come get me?”

His mother sighed. “Your father’s not angry still.”

Sol very much doubted that, but he didn’t argue. “What’s for dinner?”

“Spaghetti.”

He waited. “And…?”

“Green beans.”

“Thanks, Mom.” It didn’t erase the sting of his failure, the ache that came from knowing that Taric was still, somehow, out there smacking baseballs across the field. But it helped a little, enough to give his tail a little life, his step a little spring.

His fur was dirty and grassy, and he felt pretty warm even after gulping down about half a gallon of water. The showers were empty, so he washed himself off. By the time he was out, Taric still hadn’t come in from working out. Sol had the fleeting image of the coyote as a Terminator-like machine, gleaming metal parts under a veneer of fur and muscle, standing in batting cages unleashing the same deadly swing again and again, a relentless hitting machine.

That led to thoughts about what the coyote might look like in nothing but his fur, and that led to dangerous thoughts to be having in the shower, even with nobody else there. So Sol got out, toweled himself as dry as he could, then pulled his pants on and walked out to the sidewalk.

While waiting for his father, he texted Carcy to tell him he’d be trying absinthe tonight. He ran a paw through his damp, chilly fur, turning his bare chest to face the breeze, and closed his eyes, damp tail wagging again. He didn’t expect a quick response, but his phone buzzed a minute later:
It’s stronger than beer. Don’t get fucked up.

I’ll be with Meg
, Sol replied, and then stretched his arms over his head. If there were anyone watching, he would stop, but the baseball field was around back, and most of the school had left for the day.
I’m outside the school without a shirt
, he texted Carcy.
Feels nice.

Another quick reply:
Wish I was there!
Carcy must be bored at work.

The breeze and the ruffling had not completely dried out his fur when he saw his father’s car swing around the corner. He pulled his shirt on hastily, put the phone away, and picked up his bag.

“I was staying late to finish up practice,” Sol said before his father could say anything.

The older wolf just nodded. “Did you stay later than Taric?”

“Uh.” Lie. Just lie. “No. But everyone else…”

The slow sigh, the flick of the black-tipped ears: Sol knew those signs well. He slumped back into the seat, stretching the seatbelt across himself. His tail hung limp behind him.

His father pulled out, onto the street. “I thought at least for today, you’d take this seriously.”

“I stayed longer than everybody else!”

“You don’t have to be better than everybody else. You gotta be better than that coyote.”

Sol picked at the fur on his arm again, rubbing out the dampness and parting the fur. Why had he even bothered to try placating his father? “It’s not gonna happen overnight.”

“It won’t happen at all if you don’t apply yourself.”

I’m trying, he wanted to say. I’m going to. At worst, he would gain his starting spot back in some other position, though he had no idea what that would be. Second base had been his last refuge, the middle ground between the demanding fielding positions on the other side of the infield and the demanding hitting positions at first and in the outfield. He wasn’t strong enough for football, he wasn’t tall enough for basketball, and he didn’t have enough stamina for soccer.

“Listen,” his father said. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be better than a coyote at baseball. They might be a little faster, sure, but baseball’s a team sport and you’re part of a pack. No reason you shouldn’t be better.”

Sol squirmed in his seat. It wasn’t fair. He’d made it through eleven and three-quarters years of school doing well enough to play. Why couldn’t coach have waited just two months before demoting him? Even if it had happened after his birthday, he’d have the car. He could run away to Millenport with Meg as soon as he graduated. Just having that to look forward to would make the tension in these evenings tolerable. He tried to think back to when he’d been able to have a relaxing time with his father, and the last time he could remember had been when they’d gone to Natty’s last football game.