The Art of Corporate Baseball

Marcus sat in the leather booth at Morton's, watching the baseball game flicker silently on the television above the bar. The Yankees were down by three in the eighth, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd cared about anything as much as those anonymous men cared about hitting a ball with a stick.

"You're not eating your spinach," Elena said, pushing her salad toward him. She was twenty-eight, brilliant, and still believed that eating your vegetables meant you were a good person.

"Not hungry," Marcus said, though he'd spent forty dollars on the wedge of wilted, bitter greens now wilting further on his plate. He was forty-five, and he'd spent the last decade swallowing things that tasted far worse.

The CEO, Richard—everyone called him "Dick," though never to his face—was holding court at the next table. Marcus watched him work the room, watched how Dick's eyes never quite settled on anyone, how his hands chopped the air like he was conducting an orchestra that only he could hear. Dick was selling them all on the latest merger, another vertical integration play that would make them all richer and hollowed-out, like clay pots fired too long.

"That's such bullshit," Elena whispered, following his gaze. "He's going to tank the stock options. My brother works in audit—the numbers don't add up."

Marcus took a drink of his scotch. "That's the thing about bull, El. It fertilizes as much as it tramples."

She looked at him strangely, and he realized she didn't understand yet. She was still young enough to believe that people who lied couldn't also love their children, that villains twirled mustaches instead of playing golf on Sundays. She'd learn. The job would teach her, or the divorce she was probably heading toward would.

On the television, the Yankees' batter swung and missed. Strike three. The crowd groaned. Marcus felt something tightening in his chest—a grief he couldn't name, for the version of himself who'd once stood at home plate, waiting for a pitch he could actually hit. Instead, he'd spent twenty years watching from the dugout, congratulating himself for not striking out while forgetting that the only thing worse than failing was never really playing at all.

"I'm going back to the hotel," he said, standing up. "Tell Dick I had a family emergency."

"Marcus—"

"Just do it, El. Please."

He left the spinach untouched, left the bull still shoveling, left the baseball game still playing out its predictable tragedy. Outside, the Chicago wind hit his face like something alive, and for the first time in years, Marcus felt hungry.