The Autograph Man (5 page)

THE NEXT MORNING
, he begins to consider his options. As the poor patient he recalls the words of the good doctor, identical to those that he himself, also a good doctor, has given to other poor patients in his time. But his own insider information means that the words come now with the ugly twist of footnotes, each appendix framed with a
but.
He could submit to six months of radiotherapy,
but.
He could undergo an operation to remove the tumor,
but.
Li-Jin has read the case histories. He knows that in the wrestling match between
possibly
and
probably
that takes place inside every pineoblastoma, the
probably
wins nine times out of ten. It is possible, after sitting dormant for so long, that the tumor will not develop any further. But Li-Jin is good enough a doctor to know that it will most probably kill him.
Time bomb. Ticking clock. Russian roulette.
All the phrases he discourages his own patients from using come back to him with the full force of a vengeful cliché. But still he finds it almost impossible to believe. On one occasion he finds himself rooted to the pavement on a bustling street, awed and dumbstruck, in the old-fashioned sense. He is going to die, and it is not going to make any sense but it is still going to happen. He is so young! How can this be?

Years ago, Sarah had referred to her only pregnancy as
an unstoppable train,
a feeling in one’s body that only women can know. But here it comes, his death, persistent in its forward motion, chugging on despite the human beings standing on the tracks. Arriving. Inevitable, inconceivable, so near, so far—is this what they mean when they talk about its dominion? Li-Jin finds that his death has a dual character: it seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He is going to die, and yet when Alex asks him to lift the wardrobe to recapture a fugitive marble, he does it easily, without strain. He is going to die, yet when the chairmanship of the local Neighborhood Watch comes up for grabs, he wants the job desperately and campaigns vigorously to get it. Though his death is always there, waiting for him, he can only feel it sometimes, and then incongruously. Not detecting it during the movies
Love Story
or
The Champ,
for example. But in the middle of a tea commercial. He has to push Alex off his lap and rush to the laundry room, where he sobs and breathes in and out of a brown paper bag until he is calm. His death is like the soft down on the back of your hand, passing unnoticed in the firmest of handshakes, though the slightest breeze makes every damn one of the tiny hairs stand on end.

YHWH

The bell rings! Here we go! And the first thing that happens is that everyone in attendance realizes that the betting has been pointless. As a wise guy once said, wrestling isn’t a sport, it’s a spectacle, and you can’t bet on it any more than you can bet on the outcome of a performance of
Oedipus Rex.
Of course Big Daddy will win! How could it be otherwise? Look at him! He wears a red onesie, he is ruddy-faced, he is white-haired, he is more
famous.
Not that Giant Haystacks will lose—he will win, too, just by playing his part to its fullest. The more of a bastard he is, the more the audience loves it. When he pursues Big Daddy to the ropes in illegal revenge for a successful hold, when he delivers a forearm smash after the whistle and behind the referee’s back (though in full view of half the audience), they will jeer him with glee. When he lifts up his arms, roars and throws back his head like a beast—the International Gesture for
You stupid fools, did you expect me to play fair?
—the whole of the Albert Hall rocks and shakes. In every way that he is vicious and sneaky and underhand, Big Daddy is honest and firm and suffering unduly. When Big Daddy is helped to his feet by the referee and shakes his head and puts his arms out towards the front row, imploring them to take note of the outrageous injustice of having one’s head stamped on, Giant Haystacks stalks up to this same front row and shakes his fist at them:
Justice! You talk of Justice? I am simply the mirror of the world and the fact is, the world is mean! People are cruel and death comes to all! You do not like to look at me because I am ugly, but I am the awful TRUTH!
All this in a shaken fist. Every movement is excessive. Big Daddy does not just thump, he
thwacks;
Giant Haystacks does not simply fall to his knees, he
collapses.
This is not boxing and there is no heroism in hiding your suffering.
Look at me! Look how I suffer!
says Giant Haystacks with his upper body.
Can it be that Good will win out despite my Evil power?
Big Daddy trips him and holds him, and the tiny ref in the dapper white suit skips to the scene to begin the count . . . but it is not quite time for the triumph of Good over Evil, not yet. Everybody’s paid their four pounds ninety-nine and a half pence, after all.

So they waddle back to their corners, slap their bellies, and then slowly begin to circle each other. This is an excursus to the main event, giving the opportunity for the audience to consider them once more as separate lumps of flesh rather than as the one mountain. You notice immediately that though both are obscenely fat, they are fat in different ways. Big Daddy is fat like an inflated ball, with no body hair and no sagging or visible genitals. He is fat like a bouncing, jovial Zeus, skimming the clouds, a circular god. But Giant Haystacks is fat like your average really fat man, covered in raw meat that undulates and shakes and no doubt smells, and he has dark hair and a shaggy beard and is dressed ignobly, in blue dungarees and a red checked shirt, like the madman who lives in the woods at the end of your town. By contrast, B.D.’s onesie–romper suit–underwear combo is somehow
elemental,
like he is so pure and unadorned a man that if he could, he would fight naked, but in the interests of decency he threw this little number together. Oh, also, it says
BIG DADDY
on the back in big letters. Giant Haystacks got none of that.

ALL OF A SUDDEN
they run at each other once more and if you have a better phrase than
like thundering elephants
insert it here [ ]. Giant Haystacks wallops Big Daddy across his flank, trips him, and then stamps on his face
with his feet, both of them
(“See!” say Rubinfine and Alex to each other at exactly the same time), in response to which Big Daddy waits for the count to reach two, and then
picks himself up off the floor
(and it’s these
fundamental
clichés that wrestling is made for), stands up and shakes his head around like he’s just drunk something that made him a bit woozy. As if to say:
Cor, that was a heavy one.

And of course it’s ridiculous, but the thing is, they are not here to express genuine feelings, or to fake them and dress them up
natural
like on TV; they are here to demonstrate
actions.
And all the kids
know
that. Any fool can tell a story—can’t they?—but how many can
demonstrate
one, e.g.,
This is what a story
is,
mate, when it’s stripped of all its sentiment.
This afternoon, these two hulking men are here to demonstrate Justice. The kind Mr. Gerry Bowen (Block M, Seat 117) can’t get from the courts in compensation for his son’s accident; the kind Jake (Block T, Seat 59) won’t get from school whether he chooses to squeal on those bastards or not; the kind Finn (Block B, Seat 10) can’t seem to get from girls no matter what changes he makes to his wardrobe or record collection or personal hygiene; the kind Li-Jin (Block K, Seat 75) can’t get from God.

AND THEN, WHEN
sufficient time has elapsed, Justice is served and Big Daddy wins, and it was inevitable, but no one begrudges him this small victory over life’s unfairness, least of all Li-Jin as he hands out those three pound notes and writes on an extra one for Joseph, just to be fair.

Herman Klein’s brother is Big Daddy’s sister’s husband’s accountant. On this premise he intends to go backstage and
secure an introduction.
Mr. Tandem and his three children may accompany him, if they like. Joseph has an envelope of Big Daddy twelve-by-sixteen-inch glossy color photographs in his bag which he means to get signed, but he has more than he needs, really, and he thinks the other three can have one each, if they like.

“Honest?” asks Alex-Li. “Seriously?”

Li-Jin, a little embarrassed by Alex’s enthusiasm given his own cool relations with Klein thus far, voices the mandatory parental admonishments about
imposing
and
presuming,
but he hopes very much that Klein will ignore them. Backstage! Autographs! And Klein does ignore them, not with an
Oh don’t be absurd
or a
It’s really no trouble
but by way of a loud grunt and a gesture indicating that all of them should follow him through this scrum. Like an officer signaling his troops that it’s time to go over the top. The boys jump to it right away, and Li-Jin is the one who has to muddle under the seats retrieving scarves and gloves and Rubinfine’s camera and calling at them all to wait for him.

IT’S CHAOS. TO STAY
together they have to make a snake behind Klein. Alex and Joseph are at the front, chatting away like old friends; then Adam, clutching to his chest the photograph Joseph gave him; then Rubinfine stepping on the backs of Adam’s shoes; and then Li-Jin. They are pressed in on all sides by hundreds of people at whom Klein is bellowing to get out of his way, and Li-Jin is apologizing as he collides with fathers and sons.
Why don’t we move a bit slower?
he shouts towards the front of their snake, but Klein doesn’t hear him and probably wouldn’t give up the pace if he did. For a big man he’s agile, strong and pushy like a boar and with the same tiny little feet.
Hurry up, slow coach,
says Alex, and Li-Jin realizes that his headache is so bad he can hardly hear, or that he is hearing in a delayed way, because Alex’s voice is sadly out of sync with the movement of his lips, as in the artificially slowed piece of action in a movie when something tragic is about to occur.
Hurry up, Dad!
He’s coming, he’s coming, Dad’s coming as best he can and with a sore head but also an opening out of his chest, a kind of release like a body blush, because he’s a young dad and he’s only got one kid and it has just struck him again for the forty millionth time how beautiful that boy is.
I’m coming!
But will they be there soon? How far can it possibly be from Block K to the stage and then behind it? And then, just as they seem about to approach, there is a huge crowd swell pushing backwards as if someone has just shot a gun on the stage. Actually it is the effect of fame: Big Daddy has become visible, appearing at the mouth of one of the stage doors, kingly in his cape, signing autographs. Klein is shouting something ridiculous that Li-Jin cannot work out—probably something like
Personal Friends! Let us through, Personal Friends!
—but whatever it is, it appears to be working, because the six parts of their snake are wriggling towards the star with a little more ease than before. But every time they inch three feet forwards, the gap is filled up again behind Li-Jin, people pressing him, holding on to him to steady themselves, cross-hall traffic barging by.

KLEIN IS THE
first to get to Him, then Rubinfine by pushing, and then Joseph and Alex—Li-Jin can’t see where Adam is—and then the route closes up like the Red Sea in front of him and Li-Jin can get no further. He tells himself not to panic about Adam and concentrates instead on reaching up on tiptoe; he is in time to see Him ruffle Alex-Li’s hair, punch him playfully on the shoulder, and take his picture for signing. As soon as the name’s across it, Alex whips round, delighted, and jumps up looking for Li-Jin so he can show it to him, and Li-Jin jumps up too and tries to wave, but he is too small to get above a crowd like this and Alex’s creased forehead is the last thing Li-Jin sees before his knees crumple beneath him and his head hits the floor. Once on his back, though, his eyes open for a few seconds. He sees the hall squidge, and then squadge. Sounds gloop. The light shrinks. He sees people. Many, many people. Nobody famous, though. No one familiar or friendly. No one to help. No one he knows.