Drilled and Drained

Bats distributed: four. Operational vehicles: zero. Lab protocol: with the home office.

---

"You got drilled and drained."

"Excuse me?"

The mechanic pushed out from under the wagon on a creeper, stood up, and wiped his hands on a rag that wasn't really up to it anymore. Young, dark hair, a forearm tattoo I couldn't read. The patch on his coveralls said Yariel.

"Somebody put a hole in your tank, ran a tube into it. Siphoned your gas." He pulled out a small length of clear tubing. "Whole thing's empty. Tank's done."

I crouched to look. The hole was the size of a dime. Clean-drilled. Dark at the edge.

Tate was a few feet behind me, one hand in his pocket, watching.

The day before — Sunday — we had checked out of the motel by the airport at noon. I had said goodbye to Emilio the parrot, who did not reply. We grabbed Cuban coffees at a ventanita on the way out of Little Havana and got on I-95 heading north. We hadn't even reached merging speed when the wagon missed on one cylinder, then on two, then jerked and no longer had forward power. We coasted to the shoulder. Tate looked over at the dash and said the needle was on E. I said the needle couldn't be on E because we had filled up on the way in. Tate agreed, it shouldn't be on E.

The tow truck came at two-forty. The driver knew a guy, but his shop wasn't open til Monday. He dropped the wagon at Yariel's lot and us at a motel four blocks from there.

Yariel set the rag down on a workbench. He peered through the wagon's rear window.

"What's with all the bats?"

"Sample bats. We're pitching them to teams."

"Huh."

He looked back at me. "Mira, two ways to go. I can patch it. Weld a plate over the hole, clean it up. Might hold. Depends how far you're driving. Two hours and you're out of here."

"Or."

"Or replace the tank. This old Buick? The wagon model has a different tank. Nobody local stocks it. I'd have to source it. Three to four days."

I did the math in my head. We had about a week buffer before Atlanta. Three or four days here ate up half of it.

Tate said: "What about — I know somebody in Atlanta where we're headed who could do it right. If we got it patched here, made it that far."

Yariel looked at Tate. Then at me. "If your guy in Atlanta can do it, sure. Patch will probably get you up there. But I can't guarantee it."

I almost said yes. The shop was hot. The motel four blocks away had a television without any of the channels it claimed. I wanted out of Miami today, to be on a road going somewhere.

I pictured having to call Gary from a shoulder somewhere in rural Georgia.

"Let's do it right," I said.

Yariel nodded. "I'll start sourcing the tank."

Tate shrugged.

---

We made the call to Wallop HQ from my room at noon, nine a.m. in Knockwood, Washington. Tate sat on the foot of the bed, legal pad on his knee; I had the desk chair turned around. The phone was on the dresser between us.

Gary picked up on the second ring.

"Hey, boys. How was Miami?"

"Well," I said, "we're still here. The wagon's in the shop. Someone drilled the tank, siphoned our gas. They're installing a replacement, but we're stuck for a few days."

"Jesus. When."

"Parked behind the motel. Sometime overnight, looks like. Friday or Saturday."

"How much."

"For the replacement and labor. Estimate is eight-forty."

"And how long are we dead in the water."

"Wednesday is best case, more likely Thursday. They have to source the tank. It's wagon-specific."

Gary made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Three to four days. In Miami."

"Yeah."

"Well. You boys can make an adventure out of it. Worse places to be for a few days. Better than getting stuck anywhere else in Florida, right?"

"True."

"Listen — on the lab thing. Reed's offer, what you sent over. I'm looking at it with management here. We need to think it through. You guys did the right thing kicking it up here. We're working on it. Give me a few."

Tate tapped the pen on the pad a few times. "Take your time."

"Appreciate that. So while I'm working it on this end, do me a favor on your end. How about you guys share a room for the stretch? The wagon's a hit, and the labs could be another. Save us all a little grief."

"How long are we thinking?" Tate said.

"Just for the stretch you're sitting. Part of the road."

I looked at Tate. Tate's eyes were on the phone.

"Sure thing, Gary."

"Hang in there. Eat well. Don't drink the tap water. I'll be in touch."

He hung up.

The chair was still turned around.

"He punted on the labs."

"Punted. Didn't say when he'd come back to it." Tate stood up.

"And we owe Reed an answer today."

"We do."

---

The afternoon was slow. Tate took his legal pad to a chair by the window and didn't write anything on it, tapped his pen in a rhythm on the pad's edge. Twice he stood up and looked out at the parking lot. He picked up his phone, looked at it, set it back face-down.

At four-fifty Tate stood up.

"I don't expect we'll hear back from Gary before."

"Doubtful," I said. "Want to walk through what we're going to tell Reed?"

He had agreed in the morning that we would do the Reed call together — speakerphone, the desk, like yesterday.

"I'm going to take this one myself."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Five sharp. Why don't you step out for a bit."

"You sure."

"I'm sure."

I picked up my phone. He was pacing the room when I left.

---

Outside, the sky had gone heavy. I walked east, then south, with no place in mind. The motel was on a stretch of small businesses east of the airport — a tire shop, a botanica with a saint in the window, a laundromat with its door wedged open.

I found a ventanita three blocks down, a window cut into the side of a yellow building with two stools out front. The man behind the window had a small television tuned to a Spanish sports channel over his head. The cup he handed me was very hot and very small and the cafecito inside tasted almost like syrup.

I stood at the counter outside and drank it slowly.

The sky did the Florida thing. One minute it was bright. The next it was over me. The rain came down hard and fast and I stepped under the awning. The man at the window did not move. He sold a cortadito to a woman who hadn't bothered to open her umbrella.

The coffee in my hand stayed dry. I sipped it and watched the rain hit the curb and hop.

On the TV behind the window, a replay was looping from yesterday's game. A ball over the wall. Four runners crossing home. Grand slam and walk-off injected into the Spanish.

I did not know what Tate was telling Reed.

The rain pulled off east down Le Jeune. I walked around puddles on the way back.

---

Tate was still at my desk when I came in. The legal pad was open. He had not written more than a line.

"How was Reed."

"Fine. Call was over five minutes after you left."

He closed the legal pad and stood up.

"What do you want to do about dinner."

"I saw a Peruvian place across the street."

"Yeah."

---

Tuesday morning I woke up before seven. The light around the curtain was thin. I lay in bed for a minute and picked up my phone.

Gary had texted overnight.

Still chewing on the lab thing. Will be in touch.

Below Gary's text, Hector's from Saturday.

good to see you guys last night. you guys held it down. — h

Below that, my thread with Tate. Still sitting at the top from Friday night:

Where are you?!? How are you so good ad dancing And just everything They like us right?

I closed the thread. I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower and stood under it for a long time.

---

I had Yelped a La Carreta on Calle Ocho — Valls family, Cuban institution since 1972. We Ubered over before the heat got serious. The dining room hummed at eight in the morning; a TV over the bar played the news in Spanish; the ventanita on the corner was already three deep for café cubano.

Tate ordered. A plate of ham croquetas, two pastelitos de guayaba between us, café con leche. The first sip went down so sweet I felt it in my back teeth.

"Hey. I was thinking. We've still got plenty of time before Atlanta. Reed's not in any hurry. And Gary's still chewing."

Tate did not look up from his coffee. "Yeah?"

"I've always wanted to see Savannah. Why don't we stop on the way north? Could be good for both of us after this week. Take it slow before we get to Atlanta."

Tate took a sip. Looked at his hands around the cup.

"Sure. Savannah's fine."

He took another sip.

"Though I was looking forward to getting to Atlanta."

The croquetas came hot from the kitchen. I bit into one too soon. The inside was molten. I dropped it on the plate and gulped from the glass. My eyes were watering.

When I was finally able, I said, "We've got time."

"Sure."

---

In the afternoon we walked down Calle Ocho. Tate wanted to go to Domino Park.

Máximo Gómez Park is a covered pavilion of concrete tables at the corner of Calle Ocho and Fifteenth. The tables were full — men in their seventies and eighties, mostly, the players' hands quick-flat on the tiles, watchers leaning in around them. The clack against laminate coming from six tables at once.

We found a bench at the edge.

Tate watched a table near us where one man was running the board. A woman in her sixties pushed a small cart of mango slices along the iron fence, calling out mango, tres por cinco.

"There's something Reed mentioned yesterday I didn't tell you about."

"Oh."

Tate told me what Reed had said.

Neither of us said anything.

A man at the table near us laid a six down and tap-tapped it.

My phone buzzed. Yariel.

Got the tank. Pickup Thursday morning.

I showed Tate. Tate nodded.

---

That night I moved my bag down the hall. And placed my toothbrush with the other in the glass by the sink.

— Freely