Brannigan was sitting on the crapper when the phone rang. No door on the manager’s office, so anyone walking past got the full show. Players in jocks drifted by, snapping towels at each other, not even glancing his way. Why would they? He was furniture. Less than furniture—furniture you could lean on.

The whirlpool was going full tilt in the training room, making the whole clubhouse shake like a paint mixer at the Sherwin-Williams where he’d worked a couple winters back. He could tell it was Sandoval in there by the amount of water sloshing over the sides. The kid weighed 240 and treated the whirlpool like a personal hot tub.

Gotta fix that thing someday, Brannigan thought.
After I fix the juice machine.
After I fix the dugout toilet.
After I fix my life.

The phone kept ringing.

“You gonna get that?” Dinky asked from the folding chair in the corner. He didn’t look up from his racing form. Dinky was supposed to be his bullpen coach, but mainly he was company—someone who remembered when Brannigan had been a prospect himself, back when the Expos still existed.

“Nah,” Brannigan said. “Not unless it’s the big club.”

“Could be the big club.”

“It’s never the big club.”

“Maybe it’s a girl.”

But he was already reaching for it, stretching from his perch, pants around his ankles, because what if it was the club? What if some scout had been in the stands last night when Ramirez threw a no-hitter through six before falling apart? What if someone in Double-A had gotten fired and they needed a replacement right now—tonight—someone who knew the organization?

Or maybe it was some dame. Why not?

“Yo,” he said into the receiver. “Brannigan.”

“I’m trying to reach ticket sales.”

A guy. Definitely a guy. Not the gravelly voice of Hal Thompson, the farm director. Not even close.

Brannigan felt something deflate in his chest, like a tire going flat in slow motion.

“Ticket sales is probably taking a shit,” he said. “Actually, I know he’s not, because I’m taking a shit and there’s only one bathroom. So I picked up. Who knows—maybe I just got promoted to head of ticket sales.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Okay… who am I talking to?”

“Billy Brannigan. Manager and general manager of the Stockton Ports, Single-A affiliate of the Oakland A’s. Also groundskeeper since they called up Rodriguez and sent him to Albuquerque without sending a replacement. Also trainer since Martinez quit to go back to pharmacy school. And now, apparently, ticket sales.” He was picking up steam now, couldn’t help himself. “You need someone to work the PA system? I can do that too. Played a little organ as a kid. Can’t promise anything good, but I can promise loud.”

Dinky snorted from his corner.

“I just need to know if you have tickets for tonight,” the guy said.

“Tickets?” Brannigan laughed, and it came out bitter. “Do we got tickets? How many you want—two hundred, three hundred, five hundred? I’ll cut you a deal if you want a thousand. Hell, I’ll give you a skybox. We got three of them and I’ve never seen anyone in one except the time I went up there to see if the heat worked. It didn’t.”

Last night they’d had maybe three hundred people in a stadium that held 5,200. He’d counted during the seventh-inning stretch while “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” played at half-volume to save electricity. Ramirez had been pitching a no-hitter and there were three hundred people. The hot dog guy had left after the fifth because he’d only sold four.

“What time does the game start?” the guy asked.

“What time can you get here,” he barked, slamming the receiver down.

Brannigan looked at Dinky. Dinky was watching him now, racing form lowered, something tired and knowing in his eyes. They both knew what this was. Another Tuesday in August in Single-A ball. Another phone call that wasn’t the call. Another night of watching kids who might make it someday while he definitely wouldn’t.

But then Brannigan thought about the gas station—the Shell on Highway 99 where he’d worked last winter. The clean bathroom with a door that locked. The Coke machine that worked perfectly, dispensing ice-cold cans with satisfying mechanical precision. The simple dignity of being good at something small, and being appreciated for it.

His manager there, Pete, had called him reliable.

When was the last time someone in the system had called him reliable?

Pete had told him to come back anytime. Said he’d always have a spot for him. Brannigan had laughed it off then—he was a baseball man, not a gas station attendant. But lately he’d been thinking about it. Thinking about it a lot.

Brannigan pulled himself back. He looked at the lineup card waiting on his desk, names penciled in and erased so many times the paper was worn thin. He looked at Dinky with his racing form and his tired eyes. He looked at the doorway where his players walked past without seeing him.

Dinky went back to his racing form. The whirlpool kept shaking the walls. Someone laughed in the clubhouse, young and careless. Brannigan sat there on the crapper, pants still around his ankles, and stared at the phone.

It never rang twice in one day. But maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow Pete would call from the Shell station and tell him they needed someone for the night shift. Or maybe the farm director would call with news about Double-A.

Or maybe—and this seemed most likely—nobody would call at all, and he’d be back here tomorrow, waiting in the same spot, hoping for something different while knowing it would be exactly the same.

The whirlpool stopped. In the sudden silence, Brannigan could hear his own breathing.

“You okay, Skip?” Dinky asked quietly.

Brannigan pulled up his pants and stood. Game time in three hours. Lineup card to post. Grounds to check. Same as always.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”

But he was already thinking about that Shell station—the hum of the fluorescent lights, the smell of fresh coffee, the bathroom door that locked with a solid, certain click.

He’d call Pete tomorrow. Just to see. Just to keep his options open.

The phone sat silent on his desk, waiting.

***

Dale Scherfling is a full-time writer/poet, former newspaper sportswriter retired U.S. Navy photojournalist. His work has been accepted by The Monterey Poetry Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Chiron Review, Mangrove Review, Letters Journal, The Blotter Magazine, 25:05 Magazine, Discretionary Love, Writing Teacher, Third Act Magazine, Yellow Mama, Close to the Bone, Flash Phantom, Dispatches Magazine, Five on the Fifth and Oddball Magazine.