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Juicers (1)
May. 2nd, 2005 03:11 pmThey never proved I threw those games. They tried hard; they had two witnesses and a grainy tape-recording and a hand-written note I'd stupidly left in my glove compartment. I had a good lawyer, though, and that goes a long way.
Two lousy games, that's all, and out of thirty-two starts I still won over twenty. Yeah, I threw those games for a lousy half a million dollars. Who cares? We weren't going to the playoffs. We weren't going anywhere. I was the only bright spot on that no-good team, and if I was going to have to play for them until judgement day, I was damned well going to get my paycheck.
The fans didn't see it that way. It didn't matter that the jury dead-locked and couldn't find me guilty. It didn't matter that I walked out of that courtroom with my name cleared. I was spat on fifty, maybe sixty times that day. All the papers made like I was worse than OJ. All the radio creeps were calling for my head.
I was benched. Then I was sent down to triple-A. Then I was released. Nobody wanted to see me play. None of the teams would pick me up -- they told my agent Barry that I was poison. My team paid off the big contract that locked me up for years, so I finally got what I'd dreamed of: a ticket out of that hellhole. The trouble was, nobody else would take me in.
I had money, but money wasn't what I wanted. Christ, it wasn't ever really about the money. It was about playing the game, and trying hard, and going for the win. It was about doing something really, really well, and being respected for it. I've always needed baseball because I was crummy at everything else. Now I was just crummy.
I kicked around that way for two years. I got thick in the middle, played golf with guys who liked being close to notoriety, thought about suicide more and more. Finally Barry came up with something.
*************************************
"Say it again?"
Barry squinted at the paper. "The North American Ultimate Baseball League." He looked up and smirked. "NAUBL, rhymes with 'bobble'."
"Never heard of 'em."
Barry shrugged. "They're brand new, Jasper. Eight cities in two conferences, maybe more to come. Decent money behind it, probably trying to tap the minor league crowds."
I picked at something on the arm of my chair. "Think they'd sign me?"
"I know they'd sign you. The Eureka City franchise wrote me about you specifically."
That sounded funny to me. "Barry, I hate to break this to you, but you can still buy Jasper Fixx pinatas at Wal-Mart."
Barry grinned. "I know, and pennies come out of 'em. This is different, Jasper. My understanding is that NAUBL has, well, a harder edge to it."
Uh-oh. "Barry, tell me this isn't like Professional Wrestling."
"No no no! That's not it." Barry was out of his chair. "It's legit baseball. Lots of old-timers are coming back, a few young prospects. Standard rules, maybe a designated hitter, but it's all straight up. You're a natural fit."
Barry was hiding something. "Barry, suck it up and tell me the catch."
Barry sucked it up. He told me.
*************************************
I showed up at the Eureka City Furies' training camp about thirty pounds lighter and ready to play some ball. I was expecting the place to be a dump, or at least a little cheap. Instead I found a big ballpark outside Messina, well-lit and kept, and the facilities were first rate. Somebody really was throwing some money at this league. It was reassuring.
In contrast, the locker room scared me. I opened the door and was confronted by a monster. I dropped my bag.
"Hey hey hey!" the monster said in a familiar voice. "The Fixx is in da house!"
I squinted at the figure in front of me. He was under six feet tall but must have weighed three hundred pounds. His arms bulged like a black sack of watermelons, and his neck was a simple 45-degree taper from his shoulders to his ears. His eyes bulged like his brain was under pressure, but there was a familiar look to them, and the tiny gold crucifix earring rang a bell.
"Luis?" I asked. "Luis Coronado?"
"Front and center baby!" crowed Luis, giving me a huge hug. Luis caught for me for half a season. At the time he weighed 185. A year later he was in jail for breaking a bottle over his father-in-law's head.
"Luis, what the hell happened to you?" I was gobsmacked. I had never seen anybody so completely and artificially transformed -- not Bonds, not McGuire. Those guys were incredible. Luis was just sick.
He didn't seem to think so. "You like, baby?" He did a little dance, turning 360 so I could check him out. His calves were like tree stumps. "It's the Juice, man! The Juice is the straight-up shit!" Luis whistled. "Hey everybody, the Fixx is IN!"
There were various whoops, and more monsters converged on us. They were all very friendly, all very glad to have a good pitcher come along, and all inflated to cartoonish proportions. I took it all in nice and easy, found my locker, and tried my best not to stare.
Barry told me this was coming; I just hadn't been prepared for the reality. Other professional sports leagues cared about stopping performance enhancement. NAUBL didn't give a rat's ass. Not only didn't they mind about performance enhancement, they institutionalized it. If you wanted to play for the Furies, you needed to be a juicer, and you needed to juice well enough to keep up or you'd be out on your ass.
No pressure or anything.
****************************************
"Penthazolamine-1,4."
"Whatty what?"
The technician repeated it, spacing between the syllables. He puttered around at his instrument cart while I sat on the edge of the patient bed, stripped to the waist. There were about ten million little leads attached to my skin.
"It's not a steroid," the technician explained patiently. "It's actually more of a vector carrier. It's very targeted -- goes right where we want it to go, no nasty side effects." He smiled at me encouragingly. "Lie down."
I lay down. "So how long does it take for the Juice to...."
"Please don't call it that." The new voice was icy cold. "It's not Juice. You may call it Enhancer if you like. Strap him down."
The technician worked with velcro bands at my wrists as the newcomer loomed behind him. I saw an old man with incredibly thick glasses -- so thick you couldn't really see the eyes behind them -- and a long hook nose. He consulted my chart and arched one eyebrow.
"I'm Doctor Vogel, Mister Fixx," he said, a slight European accent to his voice. He smiled without warmth. "I'm the team's medical specialist, and we'll be helping you out today. I see that you are in generally excellent health, is that correct? no hidden conditions that may have slipped your mind, even minor ones?"
"Nothing. I'm fine. Why's he strapping down my legs?"
"Relax, Mister Fixx." Vogel's bedside manner didn't promote relaxation. "We have to immobilize you for the first treatment. You'll be fine, I assure you -- more than fine, in fact. Oh, I see that your bloodwork turned out very well." He nodded thoughtfully. "Very, very well. I think today we'll use an Eight." The technician's eyes widened, and he left the room.
"What's that mean? Who cares about my damn blood?"
"I care a great deal, Jasper," replied Vogel, still riffling my charts. "Any idiot who receives treatments can derive the usual benefits -- the increased strength, the speed, certain other annoyances...."
"I thought you said there weren't any side effects!"
Vogel waved this away. "Nothing of consequence, nothing of consequence. What's of real interest are the random factors, the hidden and rare enhancements that make certain subjects more valuable than others. And everything here looks quite promising, Mister Fixx. Exhale, please."
A heavy strap went over my shoulders and another secured my waist. Vogel busied himself at the instrument counter. A collection of monitors around the room displayed jagged lines that, I suppose, told somebody something about how my guts were doing. "I can't really breathe," I complained.
"That's a good thing, in a way," replied Vogel, his back to me. "The vector only has a very brief time to do its work. Decreased respiration means increased blood flow, making quick deliveries to every part of the body, la la la, like that. We need your heart pumping like crazy, I'm afraid. It's why we can't do this with anaesthesia -- counter-productive, you know." He turned around holding a needle that looked more like an awl.
"You've gotta be kidding."
Vogel tsked. "That would be cruel," he said, his highly reflective glasses glittering. Then he stabbed down at my chest. I could just see the top of the enormous hypo sticking out of my body, and I'm pretty sure what caused me to black out was the realization that Vogel had just speared my heart.
I slept for a long time.
******************************
TBC
Two lousy games, that's all, and out of thirty-two starts I still won over twenty. Yeah, I threw those games for a lousy half a million dollars. Who cares? We weren't going to the playoffs. We weren't going anywhere. I was the only bright spot on that no-good team, and if I was going to have to play for them until judgement day, I was damned well going to get my paycheck.
The fans didn't see it that way. It didn't matter that the jury dead-locked and couldn't find me guilty. It didn't matter that I walked out of that courtroom with my name cleared. I was spat on fifty, maybe sixty times that day. All the papers made like I was worse than OJ. All the radio creeps were calling for my head.
I was benched. Then I was sent down to triple-A. Then I was released. Nobody wanted to see me play. None of the teams would pick me up -- they told my agent Barry that I was poison. My team paid off the big contract that locked me up for years, so I finally got what I'd dreamed of: a ticket out of that hellhole. The trouble was, nobody else would take me in.
I had money, but money wasn't what I wanted. Christ, it wasn't ever really about the money. It was about playing the game, and trying hard, and going for the win. It was about doing something really, really well, and being respected for it. I've always needed baseball because I was crummy at everything else. Now I was just crummy.
I kicked around that way for two years. I got thick in the middle, played golf with guys who liked being close to notoriety, thought about suicide more and more. Finally Barry came up with something.
*************************************
"Say it again?"
Barry squinted at the paper. "The North American Ultimate Baseball League." He looked up and smirked. "NAUBL, rhymes with 'bobble'."
"Never heard of 'em."
Barry shrugged. "They're brand new, Jasper. Eight cities in two conferences, maybe more to come. Decent money behind it, probably trying to tap the minor league crowds."
I picked at something on the arm of my chair. "Think they'd sign me?"
"I know they'd sign you. The Eureka City franchise wrote me about you specifically."
That sounded funny to me. "Barry, I hate to break this to you, but you can still buy Jasper Fixx pinatas at Wal-Mart."
Barry grinned. "I know, and pennies come out of 'em. This is different, Jasper. My understanding is that NAUBL has, well, a harder edge to it."
Uh-oh. "Barry, tell me this isn't like Professional Wrestling."
"No no no! That's not it." Barry was out of his chair. "It's legit baseball. Lots of old-timers are coming back, a few young prospects. Standard rules, maybe a designated hitter, but it's all straight up. You're a natural fit."
Barry was hiding something. "Barry, suck it up and tell me the catch."
Barry sucked it up. He told me.
*************************************
I showed up at the Eureka City Furies' training camp about thirty pounds lighter and ready to play some ball. I was expecting the place to be a dump, or at least a little cheap. Instead I found a big ballpark outside Messina, well-lit and kept, and the facilities were first rate. Somebody really was throwing some money at this league. It was reassuring.
In contrast, the locker room scared me. I opened the door and was confronted by a monster. I dropped my bag.
"Hey hey hey!" the monster said in a familiar voice. "The Fixx is in da house!"
I squinted at the figure in front of me. He was under six feet tall but must have weighed three hundred pounds. His arms bulged like a black sack of watermelons, and his neck was a simple 45-degree taper from his shoulders to his ears. His eyes bulged like his brain was under pressure, but there was a familiar look to them, and the tiny gold crucifix earring rang a bell.
"Luis?" I asked. "Luis Coronado?"
"Front and center baby!" crowed Luis, giving me a huge hug. Luis caught for me for half a season. At the time he weighed 185. A year later he was in jail for breaking a bottle over his father-in-law's head.
"Luis, what the hell happened to you?" I was gobsmacked. I had never seen anybody so completely and artificially transformed -- not Bonds, not McGuire. Those guys were incredible. Luis was just sick.
He didn't seem to think so. "You like, baby?" He did a little dance, turning 360 so I could check him out. His calves were like tree stumps. "It's the Juice, man! The Juice is the straight-up shit!" Luis whistled. "Hey everybody, the Fixx is IN!"
There were various whoops, and more monsters converged on us. They were all very friendly, all very glad to have a good pitcher come along, and all inflated to cartoonish proportions. I took it all in nice and easy, found my locker, and tried my best not to stare.
Barry told me this was coming; I just hadn't been prepared for the reality. Other professional sports leagues cared about stopping performance enhancement. NAUBL didn't give a rat's ass. Not only didn't they mind about performance enhancement, they institutionalized it. If you wanted to play for the Furies, you needed to be a juicer, and you needed to juice well enough to keep up or you'd be out on your ass.
No pressure or anything.
****************************************
"Penthazolamine-1,4."
"Whatty what?"
The technician repeated it, spacing between the syllables. He puttered around at his instrument cart while I sat on the edge of the patient bed, stripped to the waist. There were about ten million little leads attached to my skin.
"It's not a steroid," the technician explained patiently. "It's actually more of a vector carrier. It's very targeted -- goes right where we want it to go, no nasty side effects." He smiled at me encouragingly. "Lie down."
I lay down. "So how long does it take for the Juice to...."
"Please don't call it that." The new voice was icy cold. "It's not Juice. You may call it Enhancer if you like. Strap him down."
The technician worked with velcro bands at my wrists as the newcomer loomed behind him. I saw an old man with incredibly thick glasses -- so thick you couldn't really see the eyes behind them -- and a long hook nose. He consulted my chart and arched one eyebrow.
"I'm Doctor Vogel, Mister Fixx," he said, a slight European accent to his voice. He smiled without warmth. "I'm the team's medical specialist, and we'll be helping you out today. I see that you are in generally excellent health, is that correct? no hidden conditions that may have slipped your mind, even minor ones?"
"Nothing. I'm fine. Why's he strapping down my legs?"
"Relax, Mister Fixx." Vogel's bedside manner didn't promote relaxation. "We have to immobilize you for the first treatment. You'll be fine, I assure you -- more than fine, in fact. Oh, I see that your bloodwork turned out very well." He nodded thoughtfully. "Very, very well. I think today we'll use an Eight." The technician's eyes widened, and he left the room.
"What's that mean? Who cares about my damn blood?"
"I care a great deal, Jasper," replied Vogel, still riffling my charts. "Any idiot who receives treatments can derive the usual benefits -- the increased strength, the speed, certain other annoyances...."
"I thought you said there weren't any side effects!"
Vogel waved this away. "Nothing of consequence, nothing of consequence. What's of real interest are the random factors, the hidden and rare enhancements that make certain subjects more valuable than others. And everything here looks quite promising, Mister Fixx. Exhale, please."
A heavy strap went over my shoulders and another secured my waist. Vogel busied himself at the instrument counter. A collection of monitors around the room displayed jagged lines that, I suppose, told somebody something about how my guts were doing. "I can't really breathe," I complained.
"That's a good thing, in a way," replied Vogel, his back to me. "The vector only has a very brief time to do its work. Decreased respiration means increased blood flow, making quick deliveries to every part of the body, la la la, like that. We need your heart pumping like crazy, I'm afraid. It's why we can't do this with anaesthesia -- counter-productive, you know." He turned around holding a needle that looked more like an awl.
"You've gotta be kidding."
Vogel tsked. "That would be cruel," he said, his highly reflective glasses glittering. Then he stabbed down at my chest. I could just see the top of the enormous hypo sticking out of my body, and I'm pretty sure what caused me to black out was the realization that Vogel had just speared my heart.
I slept for a long time.
******************************
TBC
