Page 46 of Breakaway
"That's a good score, though."
"That is a very good score, Marchetti. Accept it."
Hájek asks about my wing sauce spreadsheet.
"A ranking matrix. Every wing sauce I've encountered this season, scored across five categories. Heat, complexity, viscosity, aftertaste, and what I call 'return factor.'"
"Viscosity," Thompson repeats.
"It matters. A sauce that slides off the wing is a sauce that has not committed to the wing. I don't reward that."
"He has a viscosity category," Marchetti says to Brooks.
"The jurisdiction is mine," I say. "The spreadsheet is a public service."
The table laughs. The room is warm and the beer is cold and I am here, inside the noise, filling it. My phone is face-down on the table next to my glass. It buzzes against the wood and I pick it up. The screen lights. Blue water, white railing, palms. The wallpaper holds for half a second before the notification slidesdown. ESPN. The Tempest won tonight. A line underneath the score: W. Mercer, 1 G, 1 A, 24:32 TOI.
Twenty-eight points. The best season of his career and every week the number climbs. The slope changed in September. The day I left for Atlanta.
I put the phone face-down. The notification is gone but the number stays and I order another drink.
Marchetti tells the story of Parker's war with the bathroom sink. The table laughs. Hájek is delighted. Thompson disputes a detail. I am watching the dark liquid swirl around the glass.
"Berger." Brooks. Easy, careful. "You good?"
"Good."
The next drink I order without saying anything. The room gets louder and further away at the same time. Marchetti is telling another story and the table is moving around it and I am not inside the noise anymore. I am next to the noise. The glass is wet and the coaster is soft and my jaw is tight and has been tight for longer than I can track and the tightness is holding something behind my teeth that is not a sentence I can give to anyone at this table.
Twenty-eight. The number is still there. He is in Miami tonight and the building went up for him and someone clapped his shoulder and he went home to the apartment with the balcony and the ocean and he is fine. Every number on that line is the distance working.
The check comes. Then the lobby is bright. Too bright. Mueller and Hájek toward the elevator. Thompson looks at me and I can feel the judgment landing but I cannot argue with it because I cannot argue with anything right now.
"You got him?"
"We got him." Marchetti. His hand on my arm. Brooks on the other side. Thompson goes.
The elevator. The polished doors. My reflection is in them.
"I want Mercy."
Marchetti's arm tightens. "I know, man. You feel like shit. We'll get you water and you'll feel better."
The doors are closing. The elevator is moving. I can feel it in my stomach or maybe the feeling in my stomach is not the elevator. The floor I am on is not fourteen. The floor I am on is lower than fourteen. The floor I am on is the distance between here and the balcony and the ocean and his hands on my face in the morning when neither of us had anywhere to be.
"I want Mercy." Quieter. My head drops against Marchetti's shoulder because he is warm and he is solid and the elevator is moving.
The hallway. The thick carpet. My room key. Inside, they lower me onto the bed. Someone angles me on my side.
"Berger. Where are we?"
Brooks. His face above me.
"Who am I?"
"Brooks." The words are slow. "The one who won't rank the restaurants."
A light in my eyes. A hand on my chin. Water against my mouth. Some runs down my chin and a hand catches it.
