The Art of Fielding: A Novel (22 page)

Henry stuck a batting-gloved hand into the center of the huddle, palm down. Everybody else followed suit. “Owen on three,” he said. “One-two-three—”

“Buddha.”

S
TARBLIND WALKED
, Sooty Kim bunted him to second, Henry roped a single past the pitcher’s ear. Schwartz crushed a moonshot into left-center field. Opentoe’s park had no outfield wall in the usual sense—just a faraway chain-link fence to separate it from the soccer field. A faster or better-medicated man would have made it to third or even scored, but Schwartz could only trot to second, press both hands to the small of his back, and stand there wincing while Rick and Boddington made outs. Two–nothing, Westish.

Meat was right. Starblind was popping his pitches like Schwartz had never seen. The only balls put into play were weak pop-ups or squibblers back to the pitcher. Schwartz heard a couple of Holy Poets cursing under their breath as they swung and missed. The curses were different from his own, but the currents that ran beneath their
shucks
and
biscuit
and
featherhead
were equally dark. Then their cheery looks returned, whether because a world of deeds and miracles surrounded them even when they lost, or because they were playing Westish and were therefore bound to win.

Between pitches Schwartz snuck glances at the crowd of scouts sitting three-deep behind the backstop, their wraparound shades disguising their thoughts. If there wasn’t one from every major-league team, it was damned close. He almost wished that Starblind wouldn’t pitch so well, so the Poets would put more balls in play, so the Skrimmer could show off his defense.

In the bottom of the fourth, finally, an Opentoe batter laced a low shot into the hole between short and third. Henry broke toward it with typical quickness, snapped it up cleanly on the backhand side. As he set his feet to throw, though, the ball seemed to get stuck in his glove. He had to rush the throw, which flew low and wide of the bag. Rick O’Shea stretched to his full length and scooped it out of the dirt, lifted his glove to show the ump he had the ball.

“Safe!”

“What?” Rick, enraged, jumped like he was hornet-stung. “I scooped it!” he yelled, waving the ball. “I scooped it clean!”

The ump shook his head. “Foot came off the bag.”

“No way!”

Schwartz couldn’t say for sure whether Rick’s foot had stayed on the bag or not. Normally he might not have argued, but Rick seemed adamant—and if the runner was safe, the play would be ruled an error. Henry’s streak would be over, Aparicio’s record unbroken. He turned to the plate umpire. “D’you see that, Stan?”

“Not my call.”

“You’re in charge out here.”

Stan shook his head.

“I’ll be right back.” As Schwartz walked toward him, the field ump resumed his crouch, hands on thighs, peering in toward home plate as if the next pitch were about to be thrown. This was his way of saying,
Don’t approach me.
Schwartz approached. “Close play.”

The ump kept his hands planted on his thighs, humorlessly ignoring Schwartz. “Stan said I could come out here,” Schwartz told him.

“Good for Stan.”

Schwartz glanced at Henry, who was earnestly smoothing the dirt with his cleat, head bowed. “The throw had him,” he said.

The ump stayed in his crouch and stared straight ahead.

“Stand up and talk to me like a man,” Schwartz said.

“Watch yourself.”

“You watch yourself. You blew the call and you know it.”

“I don’t know who you think you are, kid, but you’ve got till the count of one to get out of my face.”

“Kid?”
Schwartz repeated. He lowered his chin to stare down into the watery eyes of this pathetic, ineffectual man.

Whether the umpire did it on purpose, or was fumbling his words because it unnerved him to have two hundred thirty pounds of Schwartz looming over him, or simply because such things were inevitable when you put two faces so close together, a fleck of spittle flew out of his mouth and struck Schwartz on the cheek. A red cloud descended over Schwartz. He never should have told Henry about law school. “You little pissant,” he hissed. “Your real job sucks, your wife doesn’t, so you come out here and boss around a bunch of college kids every weekend, to make you feel like a man, a big fucking man, a big fucking little man, and now you’re going to
spit
on me? Do you have
any idea
who you’re fucking with? I’ll tear you apart. I’ll tear you up and eat your godda—”

The next thing he knew Coach Cox had him around the waist and was leading him off the field, calmly chomping his gum while Schwartz twisted halfway around so he could keep screaming at the umpire. The ump fiddled with his ball-strike counter and pretended not to listen. Schwartz stopped midsentence. The red cloud behind his eyes began to lift, and he wondered what all he’d said. Of course he’d been ejected. He glanced back toward Henry, who offered a tiny lift of his shoulders. Schwartz never should have told him, not right before a game.

Schwartz shifted his gaze to the scoreboard in right field. There it was, plain as day, that green light winking in the distance beneath the letter
E.
Somebody said a few words over the loudspeaker, announcing the end of Henry’s streak. The whole crowd, including the scouts and the players from both teams, rose as one and began to applaud.

22

A
ffenlight slipped out of his office, a slim volume of Whitman tucked into his inside jacket pocket like a concealed weapon. He headed toward his car, staying close to the bleached-stone walls of Scull Hall so he couldn’t be seen from the windows above. Scull Hall, though similar in size and design to the other buildings on the Small Quad, was supposed to look slightly more distinguished, housing as it did the president’s office and quarters, and to that end the narrow strip of earth between the foundation and the sidewalk had already been churned and fertilized and planted with spring bulbs. The damp soil, sprinkled with tiny white nutritional pellets, sent up a pleasingly dense black odor. He’d told Pella he needed to work until four, whereupon they’d drive to Door County to buy her some new clothes.

He drove fast and parked the Audi. The glass doors of St. Anne’s parted to grant him entrance. Affenlight dropped his cigarette butt into a trash can and thought of Pella’s mother, who’d spent her life—or at least the part during which he’d known her—among the sick and dying, but never seemed to suffer a moment of physical or psychological weakness. Perhaps she was blessed with a hardy constitution, or perhaps she couldn’t afford to complain or feel pain when she had so many fragile bodies to tend to. When Affenlight caught the flu or fell into one of his grim moods, she would frown and ignore him. He’d dismissed this as a lack of sympathy, and even perhaps a form of stupidity, but maybe it was wisdom instead. Had he learned—would he ever learn—to discard the thoughts he could not use? It remained an open question, how much sympathy love could stand.

When he walked into Owen’s room, Owen was sitting up in bed, and a very composed-looking African-American woman in a tailored suit was sitting in his—in Affenlight’s—chair, though she’d dragged it closer to the bed than Affenlight would ever have dared. “President Affenlight,” Owen said, his voice improved since yesterday. “What a nice surprise.”

The woman rose and extended her hand. “Genevieve Wister.” Her tone and smile suggested some sort of ownership of the room. A doctor, then, or a physical therapist—they probably dispensed with uniforms on the weekend. Her skirt was cut just above the knee. Her heels, though low, made it virtually impossible not to notice the long sleek muscles of her calves.

“Guert Affenlight.”

She continued to clasp his hand, several beats past what Affenlight had anticipated. “A personal visit from the school president,” she said, her tone occupying some hard-to-identify spot between wry and impressed, “after a bump on the head. I’ve always known that Owen was in good hands here at Westish, but this surpasses everything.”

Always known? Affenlight looked from Genevieve Wister to Owen Dunne, and back and again. Owen nodded, as if in response to an audible question. “My mother,” he explained.

“Ah.” It occurred to Affenlight that if someone aimed a gun at his chest right now, Whitman would take the bullet. The little green-clad book rested against his heart like a hidden ridiculous earnestness. What had he been thinking, bringing poems, poems about sturdy lads, supple lads, lads who lay athwart your hips? It wasn’t just ridiculous; it was criminal.

Even as he thought this, his spirits dipped at the loss of the chance to read to Owen. He’d been dreaming of it all morning. But Whitman! What was he thinking? Reading aloud was already borderline intimate, one voice, two pairs of ears, well-shaped words—you didn’t need to press your luck. He should have brought Tocqueville. Or William James. Or Plato. No, not Plato.

He released Genevieve Wister’s hand and bathed her in the most charming, mother-schmoozing smile he could muster. Still, he felt jittery, as if addressing an authority-wielding elder rather than someone twelve or fifteen years younger than he. “The surname threw me,” he said apologetically.

“When I divorced Owen’s father, I decided that ‘Owen Wister’ wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Ah,” Affenlight said again dumbly. What a strange thing love was! You met an excruciatingly beautiful creature, one who seemed too well formed to have sprung from sperm and egg and that whole imperfect error-prone process—and then you met his mother.

“Good news,” Owen said. “They’re setting me free today.”

“You won’t have to travel so far to visit, President Affenlight,” Genevieve joked.

“Wonderful,” Affenlight said. “That’s wonderful.” The longer he looked, the more attuned he became to the resemblances between mother and son. At first the differences in their skin color had fooled him. Owen’s—apart from his parti-colored, metallically bright bruises—was close in hue to Affenlight’s own, though ashen where Affenlight’s was ruddy. Genevieve, on the other hand, was extremely darkly complected in a West African way. Owen’s black, Affenlight thought. He’d known this, of course, but seeing his mother made it plain.

Genevieve’s features were sharper, more forceful than Owen’s, but their dark eyes were nearly identical, and the true similarities were in their bodies: the same modest, gently sloping shoulders, the same soft limbs and long graceful fingers. The way she sat down on the edge of the bed, gesturing Affenlight toward the vacated chair with a slight, lively movement of her palm, might have been something she’d learned from countless hours of observing her son. Or, of course, the other way around.

“I really can’t stay,” Affenlight said. “I just dropped by to ensure Owen was being well cared for. Clearly”—he offered Genevieve a solicitous smile—“he is.”

“Well, you’re very kind to take such an interest,” Genevieve said.

“My pleasure.” Affenlight took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow. He hadn’t felt this awkward in a social situation since—well, since last night with Henry, in Owen’s room. But before that it had been a long time.

“Perhaps you’d let me make a small show of thanks? Owen and I would love it if you could join us later for dinner.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Affenlight said quickly, but maybe that bordered on rudeness. “That is, I’d love to, and you’re extremely kind to offer, but unfortunately—well, not unfortunately, of course—my daughter’s just arrived from San Francisco. In fact”—he glanced at his watch—“I’m late to meet her ri—”

“Your daughter?” Genevieve said. “How perfect! I thought you were going to claim a business engagement. The four of us can dine together. My treat.”

Why, why hadn’t he claimed a business engagement? Affenlight appealed silently to Owen, but Owen, propped against his pillows, looked as amused and detached as if he were watching a movie. “It’s not every day my mother comes to town,” he pointed out.

Genevieve nodded. “I’m allergic to the Midwest.”

“So’s my daughter,” Affenlight allowed, and something in his tone—he heard it as readily as Owen and Genevieve did—marked this as an acceptance of the invitation. “There’s a French place near the campus,” he said. “Maison Robert. It’s a little down at the heel, but the food is good.”

“That sounds perfect,” Genevieve said.

As Affenlight inched toward the door, she stood up and extended her arms in a pre-embrace posture. Affenlight tried to minimize the contact and make it more of an air-hug, but she wrapped him up familiarly. Their chests sandwiched the Whitman. “What’s that?” Genevieve asked, releasing him and tapping the book’s cover through Affenlight’s jacket fabric.

“Nothing,” said Affenlight hastily. “Just a little reading material.”

“May I?” Genevieve clearly was one of those people who didn’t mind touching other people. Before Affenlight could twist away, she reached behind his lapel and extracted the book. “Owen, look—Walt Whitman. Your favorite.”

“Whitman’s not my favorite,” Owen said. “Too gay.”