Derek didn’t get depressed often. He was more of a see the goal - reach the goal -silently applaud himself kind of guy. He remembered getting depressed a few times in childhood: brief funks where he shunned his friends and parents, slept twelve hours a day, and cried more than was acceptable for an adolescent boy. But the periods passed soon enough, and he chalked it up to hormones.

Until one day during a game against the Red Sox when he caught a ground ball, threw it to first, and it sailed about six feet to the left of Craig Wilson. Craig couldn’t even recover fast enough to chase it down. He just stared at the ball as it flew away, looked back at Derek, and pointed to his chest, as if to say, “Were you throwing that to me?”

Bobby recovered the ball and threw it to Robinson fast enough to hold the runner to a double, but Derek felt miserable ever since. He hit 0 for 2 for the rest of the game, and even though they won, he skipped a shower, ignored the media, stormed back to the hotel, and went straight to bed.

It didn’t take long for someone to realize he was missing. Joe was at his door after about an hour, and then Joe was inside his room, despite not having a key, making him wonder exactly how much power Joe secretly wielded.

Joe gestured over Derek’s prone form with one lazy wave of his hand. “What is this about?”

Derek pulled the pillow over his head. “I’m a failure.”

A second voice chimed in. “Are you a failure because of that throw or because you have a pillow on your head?”

Derek lifted the pillow enough to see that Alex was moving into the room as well. “I’m not playing baseball anymore.” He buried his face again. “I’m not leaving this room. Go away. I hate you.”

He heard Joe sigh roughly, like he had a throat full of phlegm and Derek was only making him more congested. “Derek, don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Everyone knows you and Alex are soul mates.”

The bed dipped as Alex sat down next to him. “You can make some errors and still do well. I mean, look at me.”

“I’d rather not look at you,” came Derek’s muffled response. “You’re funny-looking and you have a disproportionately fat ass.”

“Now I know he’s crazy,” Alex faux-whispered to Joe.

“You’re not crazy,” Joe said. “You’re stressed out, you’re lonely, and you’re having sex with too many of your teammates. I’m giving you a game off to recover. I want you to rest, clear your head, meet with a doctor I’m sending here in the morning, take a Xanax, and take a break from doing Alex.”

“And Melky,” Alex added.

“Sure,” Joe said. “And Melky.”

“And Moose.”

Joe sighed. “And Moose.”

There was a long pause.

“Manny Ramir-”

“That’s enough,” Joe interrupted. “Goodnight, boys, and let’s never have this conversation again.”

The door closed, and Derek let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. But when he took the pillow off his head, he was greeted by a smiling Alex, still sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Go away.”

“I’m supposed to watch over you and give you pills,” Alex said with a grin. Naturally one of his rare good moods would be paired with one of Derek’s unusually bad days.

There was a knock on the door, and Derek grabbed one edge of the blanket, trying to roll himself up so he could disappear. “Don’t open it unless it’s Joe.”

Alex walked to the door. “Is it Joe?” he called out.

“Sí,” came the response.

Alex opened the door and let Melky and Robinson into the room.

“Brilliant,” Derek said to Alex. “Really. When the aliens invade, I’m coming to stay in your bomb shelter.”

Melky lay down on the opposite side of the bed, falling onto his back roughly. “Hizo él me llama un alien?” he asked Robbie, who was making himself comfortable on top of the dresser.

Robbie shook his head. “It’s cool.”

Melky tilted his head backward, look at Derek, and smiled. “It’s cool, cocksucker.”

When he’d first joined the team, Melky spoke virtually no English, and had relied on friendships with bilingual players such as Robbie, Mo, and Bernie. But after an incident at a restaurant where Melky nearly started a fight by saying the word “bunt” too loudly, Joe instructed the others to teach him some more practical English. Robbie decided to have some fun. Though Melky later swore he had no idea what he was saying, he was grinning a bit too widely during a White Sox game when he walked past Ozzie Guillen and shouted, “Good morning, motherfucker!”

Both Robbie and Melky were suspended for a game (though Don Mattingly later bought them dinner). And while Robbie did begin working on Melky’s actual English skills, Melky still enjoyed frequently swearing at his teammates, and then, once caught, laying his big, pretty eyes on them and saying “Yo no sé ingles”.

“So we heard you have depression,” Robbie said. “You know what might help? Going out to a bar.”

“Sluts,” Melky said. “At the bars you can touch slut women and men all at the same time with all of your hands.” All eyes turned toward him, and he shrugged. “It sounds better in Spanish.”

Robbie reached out and nudged the bottom of the bed. “Come on. No one’ll bring out the hoes like Derek Jeter.”

“I thought you found Jesus,” Derek said.

“Hoes need love too.”

“He tells them about God,” Melky explained. “Él no tiene el sexo. Robbie finds a wife soon.”

Robbie nodded. “I’m looking for that one, special ho.”

Beside Derek, Melky had his arms stretched out over his head, and the hem of his shirt was creeping over the waist of his pants, revealing a perfect circle of skin. Derek turned his head away. “I’m miserable and I don’t want to hang out with any hoes.”

Robbie jumped off the dresser. “You’re pathetic.”

“Pa - thetic,” Melky said, as if trying out the sound of a new word. “In my country we would call you amante de vampiro cabra, which means he who has the sex with el Chupacabra.”

Derek rolled over to face him. “That doesn’t even make sense. The Chupacabra’s not from your country. It’s from Mexico.”

Melky pushed himself up on the bed and turned so that he was on his stomach. “And how would you know such things about el Chupacabra?” he asked. “If you were not having the sex with it?”

Derek couldn’t help but smile. “Go minister to your hoes.”

“It's a joke,” Melky said. "We only watch TV so I learn English. I’ll be here tomorrow after the game."

Derek shook his head. “I’m supposed to rest. Seriously, Joe’ll have my ass.”

“Vayamos,” Robbie said, and he headed toward the door.

Melky inched closer on the bed. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“No you won’t,” Derek said firmly.

Melky reached over and kissed him quickly on the chin. “Yo no sé ingles,” he said with a big smile on his face, and he hurried to follow Robbie out of the room.

Alex’s first order of business was instructing him to swallow a small blue pill. He then insisted Derek shower, saying he smelled like “warm, sticky death”. Derek spent too long in the shower, watching the water drain at his feet and trying to will himself into a better mindset. Usually he was able to change his mood easily through positive thought alone. On a bad day he might need some music or to make a phone call to a close friend. But today he was just numb. This would’ve been troubling enough, except there was panic right below it.

He could imagine himself getting out of the shower, drying off, and then punching the wall as hard as he could, breaking right through, breaking his hand. He’d be on the DL for weeks. Everyone would be furious at him. He could see it all happening right in front of him. And he wanted to do it so badly, because it would hurt so much less than truly falling apart.

There was something uncomfortable, something frightening, just below his skin.

When he walked out into the bedroom Alex was lying on the bed with his shirt off and the TV remote in his hand, the room lit only by the glow of the muted television. Derek lay down near him, close enough so that their shoulders were directly next to each others’, but not close enough that they were technically touching. It was a position they fell into often when they were together, in some silent agreement that they wanted to be close to each other, but they couldn’t risk being seen in a compromising position.

Alex was switching channels rapidly, barely pausing to see what was playing before moving on. The hotel had digital cable, over a thousand channels. They could waste hours this way.

“You know when we stopped talking for a while there?” Alex asked. “That’s when I, you know, fell love with you.”

Derek wasn’t sure why Alex was sharing this information, whether it was for some specific purpose, or if he was worried that Derek might hurl himself off the balcony soon, and this was his last opportunity to confess. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to reciprocate or apologize. Or hurl himself off the balcony. Not to mention that Derek couldn't count the individual times he and Alex had stopped talking and then reconciled with sex, so he couldn't tell what incident Alex was referring to.

“And you know,” Alex continued. “What do you do in a situation like that? I figured we weren’t about to buy a cabin in Massachusetts and adopt Somalian babies together. So what else do you do?”

Derek looked up at the ceiling, where the light from the television reflected white, blue, and then back to white. He could almost imagine he was underwater.

“It’s funny how it’s been with us,” Derek said. “Well, not ha-ha funny.” On the TV in front of him, five channels went by in rapid succession, each playing the same Geico commercial. “Take-some-more-Xanax funny. Punch-the-bathroom-wall funny.” He saw ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, and a channel where young Asian women played darts above Swedish subtitles. “It’s like, first we’re pitted against each other without even knowing why. Then we’re allies. Then friends. We get closer. We make some stupid decisions and say things we can’t take back. We get angry at each other and have really intense sex. And now we’re just sitting comfortably, like we’ll be next to each other watching TV together fifty years from now in the nursing home.”

“Wow,” Alex said. “We are exactly like Spike and Buffy.”

Derek put his hand over his face and pursed his lips together, trying to will away a sudden wave of sadness.

Alex seemed to sense it, and he put his hand on Derek’s shoulder, their first contact of the evening. “You can be Spike,” he said softly, an offering.

“Promise me.” Derek said. He cleared his throat. “Promise me that when you're being hailed as the greatest baseball player ever, when you have five hundred grandchildren and everyone loves you and has forgotten about me, that you’ll come visit me in the nursing home.”

“Shut up.” Alex pulled a pillow up against his shoulder and nudged Derek until he was leaning against it. “For the rest of your life, wherever you walk will be baseball Mecca. People will follow you around weeping and sacrificing goats in your path.”

Derek sniffed. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

Alex stopped the channel on Australian-rules football and set the remote down on the night table. “Go to sleep.” His voice was suddenly tired.

On the ceiling, the electronic ocean turned to waves of red and green.

“I would’ve bought a cabin in Massachusetts with you,” Derek said.

Alex took a deep breath before responding. “I would’ve hated the winters.”

Derek closed his eyes. The hotel was unnaturally quiet, the kind of quiet where you can hear all the electrical hardware humming even when it’s turned off. Everything was synthetic, even the air, which seemed to seep in from hidden vents, never creating a breeze. It was a beautiful suite, and probably cost a fortune, but if he thought about it hard enough, he knew it would start feeling like a tomb.

“You’ll still visit me in the nursing home?” Derek asked.

Even with his eyes closed, he could feel Alex smiling. “I will hold your burning hand in the mouth of hell.”

Derek didn’t know what that meant, but the drugs kicked in hard, and he fell asleep before he could ask.

#

“What I’m saying is that no one ever died from having a solid pair of calves. You know what I’m saying, kid?”

Derek recognized the voice immediately as Jason’s, and decided he’d rather pretend to still be asleep than join this particular conversation.

“But some guys, they see solid legs, they just want to cry about HGH. You don’t need HGH to build up a strong lower body. You just need discipline. You need nutrition. What do you eat?”

“Pizza,” came Melky’s reponse. “Only pizza, green beans, and red-flavor Gatorade.”

This got Jason quiet for a moment. “You’re a strange kid.”

“I like your solid pair of calves,” Melky said. “You are a great man. In my country they would call you hombre mojado muscular, which means he who is covered in strength and also sweat.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. “All I’m saying is that hitting is as much about lower body strength as it is about upper body strength. Anyone who watches enough tape is gonna see that. Do you watch enough tape, kid?”

“I think we have batting practice soon.”

“I’m sitting out,” Jason said. “Pulled my groin.”

“I only like you as a friend.”

“What?”

Derek heard Melky stand up. “You pull your groin when I’m not here, okay?” He patted Jason on the shoulder. “Because you are my friend.”

“You want to watch some tape of me hitting?” Jason asked.

“Tell Derek I’ll come back later.”

“Come on,” Jason said. “You have time. Seriously, I got a DVD with me -”

“Yo no sé ingles,” Melky said.

“Huh? I thought you learned some English.”

“Nope,” Melky said. “I don’t know any English at all. See you later!”

“Later!”

Derek tried to go back to sleep, but true to his word, Jason put in a training DVD and set the volume so loud it seemed he intended to wake Derek up. He opened his eyes. Jason was sitting at the foot of the bed, watching TV, with a foot-long Subway sandwich open on the dresser next to him.

“Hey,” Derek said as he pushed himself up on his elbows.

Jason turned around. “Morning, tough guy.”

“What are you doing here?”

Jason snapped his fingers and pointed forward. “Taking care of the boss, boss.”

Derek leaned back against the headboard and arranged the blankets to cover as much of him as possible. He decided that was enough movement for the time being. “I take it I’m the boss?”

“That’s right, tough guy.” Jason lifted his sandwich and took a big bite.

Derek rubbed his face and sighed. “What are you doing, Jason?”

Jason paused to finish chewing, then smiled. “I’m increasing your self-esteem through positive reinforcement. My father used to do this with me and it made me a better player. You want some turkey sandwich?”

“No offense, but I don’t want to be you.”

“No offense,” Jason said. “But I don’t see why not.”

Derek got up to go to the bathroom. When he returned, the television was off, and Jason was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, attacking his sandwich and reading a newspaper. Derek went back to the bed and lay down again, wondering if it was too soon to go back to sleep.

“You know what always makes me feel better?” Jason said.

Derek arranged the blankets and sheets in a series of complex wraps, so that, even if he wanted to, it would take him a while to escape from the bedding. “Pillaging a small town on horseback?”

“See, the way you said that?” Jason paused to take a gulp of a liter-size soda. “It sounds like the town is on horseback. That’s what we call ‘poor sentence structure’.”

“Are you sure you’re not pinch hitting?”

Jason turned all the way around in the chair and crossed one leg, resting his ankle on his knee. “You want to hear my theory on you?”

“If you would not tell me your theories on anything, I would give you…” He paused to calculate. “Eight million dollars.”

“You,” Jason said, pointing his finger to emphasize. “Are a good guy. You’re everybody’s best friend. A born leader. A nice person.”

Derek drew his knees up to his chest. “I only like you as a friend.”

“You’re such a nice guy,” Jason continued. “That sometimes I want to punch you in the face.” He picked up his sandwich. “There’s your problem right there.” Jason took a big bite of his sandwich and leaned back in his chair to chew.

“Why don’t you go offer to pinch hit today. Actually, I insist.” Derek forced himself to climb out of the bed and stand up, trying to look as imposing as one can look while wrapped up in hotel sheets. “I’m pulling rank on you.”

“You have rank?” Jason asked with his mouth full.

“If this was the military, then yes, I do.” Derek adjusted one of the sheet edges that was threatening to slip down his torso.

Jason shoved the last handful of his sandwich into his mouth and said something unintelligible that ended with him patting Derek’s ass.

Derek jumped a little. “Friends!”

Jason gave him a thumbs up. “That’s right, tough guy,” he said, and he left the room.

#

Not long after Jason left, the doctor arrived. He stayed only briefly, said little, and left behind a small bag of antidepressant samples, which Derek kicked under the bed and immediately forgot.

By then the afternoon game was already starting, and he couldn’t work up the energy to get dressed, much less go to the stadium, so he watched the game on TV. He couldn’t remember the last time he watched a baseball game in such silence. He was amazed when Jorge hit a home run and there wasn’t an immediate roar of sound around him.

“Yay,” he whispered to the empty room. “Go Jorge.” It sounded ridiculous, but for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, he was smiling, so he kept it up. “Nice catch, Johnny,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Good play, Robbie.”

Canizaro was at shortstop, and what should’ve been a train wreck was actually…pretty good. Every throw he made to first connected, every catch was perfect, he hit 2 for 4, and they won the game 7-3. As Derek watched Canizaro slap hands with Alex he stared at the screen amazed. It was like a world without him in it. And everyone was still okay.

Not that he was going to off himself; he wasn’t nearly that far gone. But he did walk out to the balcony and look out over the skyline. The sun was low, and from as high as he was, the city seemed silent, lonely. He stood motionless and watched as the sky turned from a clear blue to a sleepy sunset.

He heard a sound and looked behind him. Compared to the soft orange sky outside, the inside of the room was a caustic yellow-white, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust and see Melky standing just inside the sliding glass door, smiling like he knew some secret. He had changed to street clothes, but he was still wearing his baseball cap, and he smelled like dirt and chewing gum.

“Salte,” he said. He bounced once on his toes and then pointed to the railing.

Derek raised his eyebrows. “Are you telling me to jump?”

Melky took his hat off, placed it on the small balcony table, crossed to the railing, and pointed down. “Youkilis se para allí. I don’t like him.” He took a step closer to Derek and whispered conspiratorially. “Jump and we will crush his giant head.”

Derek chuckled.

Melky put his hand on Derek’s arm. “Se siente mejor ahora?” he asked. “Not sad anymore?”

“It’s not that simple.”

Melky moved his hands to Derek's hips and rubbed his thumbs in small circles.

"Sex won't solve anything," Derek said.

Melky put his chin down and turned his eyes up, smiling deviously. "Let's try anyway."

Derek smiled, closed his eyes, and let the scent of summertime move his body closer to Melky's, until he ended up with his head bowed, the sides of their faces resting together.

"I just don't understand," he said. "I know I’ll get through this, I’ll be fine in a few days, but I don’t understand why it happened. And what’s to stop it from happening again? It just makes me feel so powerless.” He sighed. "You don't understand what I’m saying anyway."

"Here." Melky pulled back, took Derek's hands, and led him to one of the small metal chairs near the balcony railing. "Se sienta."

Derek sat in the chair, and Melky stood behind him with his hands on his shoulders.

"Close your eyes," Melky said.

"Please don't push me on top of Kevin Youkillis."

"Sea callado," Melky said. "Close your eyes."

Derek closed his eyes. With this sense turned off, he became more aware of the slight, warm breeze, the smell of the night air, and the way Melky's fingers curled around his shoulders and caressed him almost unnoticeably.

"Pretend you have no skin," Melky said.

Derek opened his eyes. "What?"

Melky put one hand in front of Derek's face, holding it there until he closed his eyes again. "Pretend you have no skin," he repeated.

"Fine," Derek said. "I have no skin. My internal organs are lying on the ground. My blood is spurting everywhere. Very helpful, Melky."

Melky sighed. "The English is wrong," he said. "You close your eyes, and pretend you have...no body. Not in your body."

"Out of my body?" Derek asked.

"Yeah," Melky said. "Go out of your body." He took a deep breath, and placed his hand on Derek’s chest, encouraging him to breathe steadily as well. “Deseos buenos. Make good wishes. First, happiness for yourself. Think about all happiness you will have. It is de dentro de, from within, so you make it yourself, and give it to yourself.

“Now irradie. Send your good wishes to other people. First to people close to you. Mother, father, and family. Wish them happiness. Then send your wishes out again, to people you care about and your friends. Now wish happiness to people you don’t know well. Now to people you don’t like. Even to your enemies, send them wishes for happiness.” Melky paused, and there was a smile in his voice. “Even Youkillis. Wish his fat head filled with joy.

“Spread your thoughts to extranjeros,” Melky continued. “People you don’t know at all. Wish happiness to all living things in all directions. El este, del sur, del norte, al oeste. Out to infinity. May they all find true happiness forever.

“Now think of este momento. Only what is happening right now. You have a mind. You have a breath.” He leaned down, his lips brushing against the back of Derek’s ear. “You have a crazy Dominican whispering at you.”

Derek smiled. “What exactly is this supposed to accomplish?”

“Think about your breath,” Melky continued without acknowledging him. “Esté enterado del aliento. Breath goes in, breath goes out. Breath goes in, breath goes out.” He stopped for a moment, his hands on Derek’s shoulders as they rose and fell with his breathing. Then he removed his hands and stepped backward.

“Now imagine a light inside you,” he said. “En el centro, near your heart. Think about the light as you breathe. The light makes you relaxed. Wherever it touches you, it heals you, como magia. Feel the light relax your skin, your muscles, way down to your bones. Now feel the light move down to your stomach and up to your chest. Your body is being covered by this light. It moves over your hips and thighs. It covers your shoulders and cradles your neck. It is like being held, like being loved. The light goes over your arms and legs, covering your body with healing. Everything bad is pushed out the ends of your toes and the tips of your fingers. Then it touches your face, and makes loose all the tension in your jaw, the back of your neck, around your eyes.”

Melky’s voice was so low Derek felt like his steady breathing might drown it out.

“Now your whole body is a light,” Melky continued. “And it spreads out, like the light from a candle sitting in the middle of a room. But you can still feel where it started, that place near your heart. With every breath, feel the luminiscencia of the center of your being, and feel how it spreads out to touch every corner of the universe. There’s nothing else you have to think about right now. There’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just imagine your light, feel your breath, and go outside your skin.”

Derek took a deep breath in, and on the exhale the world slipped away from him. The sound of the traffic below, people talking on nearby balconies, and even the wind going past his ears, it all sounded like it was wrapped in cotton, and traveling away from him fast, like a silent train. Behind his eyes there was nothing, just cool darkness and the feeling of floating, like swimming in a black ocean on a starless night. He stretched out his arms and tilted his head back, and he could feel the warm water cascading over his forearms and lapping at his scalp. He lowered his head completely underneath the water, still breathing, taking in the light, and spreading it back out to others. When he rose to the surface of the water, he saw Melky. “Abra sus ojos,” Melky said.

Derek opened his eyes. He was sitting on the balcony. Melky was leaning against the balcony railing opposite him and smiling like he had all the stars in the universe captured in his bright eyes.

“That was…” Derek wasn’t sure exactly what words to use. “Nice.” He looked down at his hands in his lap, half expecting them to be moist and glowing. "It's weird how I feel guilty for feeling bad, like I have no right to complain. Like nothing should be so hard that I can't deal with it."

Melky lowered his eyes, suddenly modest, but looked up quickly. “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it,” he said.

“Where did you hear that?”

Melky smiled. “TV. You need to be alone?”

Derek nodded. “Actually, I think I do.”

Melky pushed off from the railing and started walking toward the sliding glass doors.

“But tomorrow - ” Derek held out his hand, and Melky stopped instantly, as if he’d created an invisible shield. “We’re off tomorrow.”

Melky took a step closer, and though they were near enough to touch, he made no move to do so.

“If you’re not busy with all your friends, your TV, your hoes…” Derek smiled, feeling suddenly like an insecure teenager asking someone out on a date.

Melky leaned forward. "You are my favorite ho," he whispered, and he kissed him.

When the broke apart, their faces remained close, and Derek could feel Melky's steady breath on his cheek. He thought about the electronic ocean on the ceiling of his hotel room, all the people he'd slept with in his life, and the houses in Massachusetts that he'd never bought with any them. "Don't fall in love with me," Derek whispered.

Melky took a step backward and smiled. “Yo no sé ingles," he said, and he disappeared through the sliding glass doors.