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i.
your first love––before the band, before the game––was the smell of flour on your hands. the memories it gave you: kneading dough on friday mornings with your mother, her calloused fingers showing you how to braid it into perfect loaves for shabbos dinner. the bakery you worked at all the way through college, and after you dropped out too, the reflection of your tired face in the bus window headed there before dawn, and the cane you left folded in your coat for the rainy walks home afterwards. the open mics–
sometimes you think you should have just stayed there.
ii.
everyone always thinks you meet jaylen first, but that's not true. no, it's ollie, studying you from across the counter. you cringe at it, like you can see the calculations behind his eyes.
a nod towards the makeshift stage by the window. “you play?”
“how’d you know?”
one towards your hands this time. “the calluses.”
“oh.”
“ever wanted to be in a band?”
“you haven't even heard me play.”
“you fit the look we're going for.”
your boss is looking. you hand him his coffee and get a business card in return.
“think about it.”
and then he's gone.
iii.
they outfit you in more flannel than you've ever worn, replace your sneakers with shiny dlocs. you stop the line at taking off your glasses, but let the stylists buzz your hair even though it itches.
ollie asks if you've ever played blaseball, and quickly it's clear this is bigger than some band.
(you think of middle school, knees stalling when you tried to run even though you were a mean slugger. you say as much.)
“we need a pitcher.”
“we?”
“the label.”
“...what?”
“the city needs a team. you're not going to chicken out now, are you?”
no, you're not.
iv.
you have to quit the bakery. the league starts up. you lose, jaylen wins, jaylen dies.
(to say you were friends might be pushing it, but there was a camaraderie between the two extremes, which is the most you’d gotten from anyone else, really.)
there’s shaq and derrick and between the two you have something approaching friendship. neither of them have shit to say about how bad you pitch, and that has to be enough, because you’re not getting more than that.
shaq dies and so does derrick. los angeles implodes into infinity, peanuts rain, and discipline reigns.
v.
the first time you hear the song, it's 2am and you're in the grocery store. it comes on over the radio and you're too shocked to do anything but throw your hood up and hope your skirt is enough to not get you recognized.
after that, it's everywhere. it tops the charts and games and gigs sell out for the rest of the season– not that you're invited to the latter.
(you've been dwelling on it, why they wanted you in the first place, why you caught ollie's eye. best you can come up with is that they need someone to blame.)
vi.
now, you’re a credit to the team. that’s what they’re saying, at least.
(credit; noun: an arrangement for deferred payment of a loan or purchase.
are you the arrangement? or is it your job to pay the debt?)
you bake before every game. the kitchen in the garage smells like flour, and cinnamon, and saffron when you can get your hands on it. the silence as folks shuffle and grab food through is awkward and tense, but you’ll take it. the garage hums, and you hum with it, a song in the wake of a life you don’t know anymore.
vii.
the whispers start in canada, a slow steady hum building to a crescendo by midseason.
you can’t say you’re a fan.
(the dead should stay dead, you believe this like a truth in your bones. but you’ve seen glimmers—in the pies that sit in philly, in the bloodstained harbors of baltimore—that make you think jaylen may not be as dead as she seems.)
end of the season, ollie sits next to you in the dugout.
“we need someone to go get her,” leans in, whispers, “plus, what a story, right?”
you don’t know if you have a choice.
viii.
the darkness of the shadows swallow you whole, cloak you in nothing, prepare to devour you–
jaylen, when you find her, is dead-eyed, blue-lunged and barely responsive; if you hadn't already thought this was a bad idea, now you know it.
(this is just another story, really, one they can take and turn platinum. they're writing songs about you as you speak, and you don't even know if you'll see the light of day to hear them. it doesn’t matter. it never did.)
a hand reaches for yours, bitingly cold against your already cold skin. all you can say is:
“i’m sorry.”
ix.
you walk. and you walk. and you walk– it’s like an endless maze.
you should have brought your fucking cane.
and then, you wait.
when you feel yourself coming to on the floor of the big garage, it's three years later, your hair is past your shoulders, and jaylen’s killed twelve people.
there's a whole album about you now. you didn't write a single word. you won't listen to it, you can't– you're too busy thinking about the blood left on your hands. it's stained down to the bone, this crimson guilt, and you'll just have to live with it.
x.
the stylists want to shave your head again, but you refuse, wrangling your curls into braided buns before every game. even though you've been losing some from stress, it's your line in the sand, as feeble as it may be.
you're just tired, mostly. drawn out, worn thin. what performance you did have is leaking out of you, day by day.
(they say kill all gods but you're leaning on yours more every day. you find your grandfather's tallit, shove it under your flannel– maybe, finally, the faith outweighs the cost.
they either deify or crucify you. you want neither.)
xi.
a decade long, you've been a pawn. you'll continue to be one, probably, but you wrap leather round your fingers to your elbow, clinging to the phylacteries like a tether, clinging to routine like it can save you.
you do shave your head–the bottom half, at least–and have lenny bleach a dozen streaks as light as she can get it. another tattoo on your arm, front and center– it's rejuvenation, a reclamation of sorts. your body is no story, it is blissfully, brokenly, beautifully yours.
if they put you back in the shadows you will go. but you won't be quiet, anymore.
xii.
end of the season, it's you and ollie– a bad omen if you've ever seen one.
“you want a break, townsend?”
“why?” bitterness drips from your mouth like blood from a split lip. “so you can write another song about it?”
“you've gotta put on a show, mikey. the only one you're performing is a sob story.”
“malkiel.”
“pardon?”
“it's malkiel, ollie. not mike, not mikey. not that it matters” you stand up, knee popping as you do. “do what you're going to, ollie. g-d knows i can't stop you, can i.”
he says nothing. you walk.