The Ninth Inning

Marcus stood before the bathroom mirror at 3 AM, his reflection already wearing that slack-jawed expression that meant he'd been staring at spreadsheets too long. He looked like a corporate zombie, something drained of everything but the will to keep moving forward, keep the machine fed. He pulled on his father's old baseball cap, the one with the faded Cubs logo that smelled like sweat and summer and things that used to matter.

The hat was his only rebellion against the relentless gray of his life at McKinley & Associates. He was senior counsel now, the title he'd killed himself for, but somehow it felt less like achievement and more like surrender. Every morning was the same: into the elevator, up to the thirty-fifth floor, dissolve into a chair and disappear into emails and conference calls until he forgot who he was.

"You're burning out, Marcus," Sarah had told him two nights ago, sitting across from him at that bistro where they'd had their first date. She'd reached for his hand across the table, something she never did at work. "You're not even you anymore."

He'd almost told her then. Almost said that the only time he felt real was when he was wearing this ridiculous baseball cap, driving to nowhere with the windows down and some song from college playing. That he still kept his glove in the closet, that sometimes he drove past the diamond at the park and remembered how perfectly the ball could fit in your hand, how completely the world made sense when you were standing at the plate, two strikes, everything depending on what happened next.

But he'd just smiled and said something about being fine, and she'd nodded like she knew he was lying, and they'd finished their wine in silence.

Now his phone buzzed on the counter. Sarah. Three missed calls.

Marcus thought about the package on his desk, the one his boss had asked him to review tomorrow morning—the contract that would dismantle the union at the manufacturing plant outside town. He thought about the workers there, people who probably had baseball gloves in their closets and lucky hats and things they believed in. He thought about Sarah, who was probably lying awake right now waiting for him to tell her something true.

He took off the hat and set it on the counter. Then he picked up his phone and dialed.