The Bradbury Report (36 page)

The stands were half full. We had good seats, on the first base line, fifth row back, behind the home dugout. We might well have got a foul ball in our vicinity, had we made it through the game. Near to us the fans were: men my age and older, sitting singly or in pairs (some of these, likely, scouts); families—Dad, Mom, and kids—or fathers with their sons; relations and friends of the Red Sox players; and, for Alan, most agitating, a pack of girls, a dozen of them college and/or high school age, noisy, immodestly dressed, and almost uniformly pretty, who were, no doubt in various ways, attached, or hoping to attach themselves, to one or more of the players. Alan spent most of his time—we stayed through three innings—watching these girls make themselves conspicuous. (He didn't say anything about them, as if he thought I might not notice.)

Before the game, there was a brief ceremony on the field, during which the new players on the Red Sox roster were introduced to the home fans. This was a showcase league, wood bat, the players all college kids, most of them from Saskatchewan. Two were small-college players from L.A., one from Puerto Rico, and one, the centerfielder, from a bible college in Oklahoma, his last name Mantle (spelled Mantel). By the time the first pitch was thrown, Alan was restless and hungry.

The game moved slowly, both pitchers, at the start of the season, having trouble finding the plate, the only real action coming when Mantel misplayed a fly to left center that went for a triple. At the end of the third inning, the score was 4-2 Millionaires. I tried to explain to Alan what he was seeing on the field, to give him some sense of the game's intricacy, but he did not even pretend to be interested.

Between innings, the girls, as one, headed for the concession stand just inside the gate behind home plate. Alan watched them go.
So not to embarrass him, I waited several minutes—hard to watch him struggle—then said, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes. I am hungry.”

“Shall we go get you something to eat?”

“I will go,” he said. “Give me some money. I will go.”

“I'll go with you,” I said. “I'm hungry, too.”

“I will buy you something.”

“I want to see what they have.”

“I will see what they have,” he said. “I will buy you something. I want to go.”

“By yourself.”

“Yes,” he said. I could see the conversation was upsetting him, but I didn't feel easy about his going on his own.

“Why don't we go together? Maybe we can find you a souvenir.”

“I don't want a souvenir,” he said. “I'm hungry. I want to go by myself.”

“I can't let you do that,” I said.

“Why can't you?”

“I just can't. It's not a good idea.”

“Anna would let me.”

“Anna would not let you,” I said.

He covered his eyes with his hands. He made no sound.

“What's wrong, Alan?”

He took his hands away. Maybe he was hoping I'd be gone.

“Why am I with you, Ray?”

“Here, you mean? Why are you with me here?”

He did not answer.

“Would you want me to leave? Would you want to be here by yourself?”

Though, as I would see, my question was off the point, he answered it. “No. I would not want to be here by myself. I would like to go by myself.”

“I'll tell you what,” I said. “What if I give you money, we go part of the way together, then you go the rest of the way by yourself?”

“Because you will watch me?”

“I won't be too close,” I said. “I'll just be around if you need me.”

“You won't be close?”

“Not too close. Do you want to do that?”

“Yes. I want to do that.”

“Let's go then,” I said.

We went together, or nearly so, Alan walking a couple of paces ahead, until we were, say, thirty yards from the concession stand, the girls there, lolling about, obscuring whoever it was working behind the counter—they were in no hurry to get back to the game—at which point I said to Alan, who was nervous and self-conscious, visibly torn, “Okay. You're on you're own. If you want to go.”

“I do want to go,” he said.

“Then scoot.”

“Will you watch?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I don't want you to,” he said.

“I won't then. Go on.”

Alan walked towards the stand, optimistic, needful—a hapless combination—oblivious to the risk. I couldn't help but watch. He stopped several feet short of the girls, the ruck of them, and stood, waiting his turn. As I've said, he is a good-looking boy, nothing anomalous about his appearance, and a few of the girls took notice. A leggy, dark-haired girl wearing a halter top and, insistently (even from a distance), no brassiere, smiled at Alan and said something to him. I could not tell whether or not he responded to her, but he looked back at me. He saw me watching and shook his head. I turned away. After a minute or so, I heard the girls explode in laughter, which I could feel, somehow, was not affectionate. I looked back. They were all looking at Alan, who stood looking at them. The dark-haired girl said something I couldn't hear, but I could see Alan recoil as if he'd been kicked. There was another blast of laughter, unmistakably derisive. Alan jerked himself around, nearly stumbling, and came towards me. He walked fast, looking down at his feet, his arms stiff at his sides.

When he got close, he said, without looking up, “What do I do, Ray?”

“Come here,” I said.

“I am here,” he said. “I don't know what to do. You tell me.”

“Come here to me.” I looked to see if he was crying. I had not seen him cry. He was not crying, but his face was flushed and contorted. Over his shoulder I could see the girls watching us, making sport. I put my arm around him and, with some difficulty, drew him to me. I'd not been this close to him before. We were briefly—he would permit it for a space of seconds only—and literally, cheek by jowl, my arms around him, my hands on his back. He was substantial, rock-like, though the skin on his face against mine was smooth, boyish. He had no smell. His breath was shallow. Against my chest, I could feel his heart beat fast. He broke free, shook me off.

“Don't, Ray,” he said.

“Sorry. Are you okay?”

“I didn't know what to do.”

“That's all right,” I said. “Shall we go home? Do you want to go home?”

“Do you want to go home?”

“I think I do,” I said. “I've seen enough.”

“I've seen enough,” he said.

“Why don't we go home?”

“Okay,” he said.

We did not speak again until we were in the car and pulling away from the field.

“I don't like baseball,” he said. “Do you like it?”

“I do like it. But it's fine you don't.”

“I don't know what to do there,” he said.

“I don't know what to do either,” I said. “We're even.”

“What did you say?”

“We're alike. Neither of us knows what to do.”

“Are you a retardo, too, Ray?”

“What's a retardo?”

“I don't know what it is,” he said. “Do you know what it is?”

“I don't. Where did you hear it?”

“I heard it from the girl,” he said.

“It's a silly thing to say. A silly word.”

“She was beautiful.”

“You're right,” I said. “She was.”

“You saw her?”

“I did,” I said.

He sat with that information for a while, then said, “Are all the beautiful girls mean?”

“Some are,” I said. “Not all. It's hard to be beautiful.”

“Are they all mean to me?”

“No.”

“Was your wife a beautiful girl?”

“She was.”

“She wasn't mean.”

“No,” I said. “She wasn't mean.”

“She's dead.”

“Yes.”

“Did a girl ever say you were a retardo, Ray?”

“I'm sure they did.”

“They said it?”

“Lots of times.”

“They said it to you?”

“Yes.”

“How did you feel when a girl said it?”

“How do you feel?” I said.

“I feel bad. I feel sad.” He put his hand on his stomach. “In my belly I feel sore.”

“That's just how I felt,” I said.

“That's just how you felt?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't know that,” he said.

“Now you do.”

“Know,” he said. “Now I do know. Don't tell Anna what she said, Ray. I don't want her to know I'm a retardo.”

“You're not a retardo,” I said. “She knows you're not.”

“She knows I'm not a retardo?”

“Of course she does. She loves you.”

“Don't tell her what she said.”

I parked the Redux on the street two blocks from the town house. Alan made no move to get out.

“What's up?” I said.

He did not answer. He was crying now. He was surprised by it and confused. (I had never seen myself cry. It was disconcerting. Alan's face was utterly changed, ugly, doughy and squashed, as if it had not yet been shaped.)

“Why don't we sit a minute?” I said.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. (I don't know if this was something I did; I hadn't cried in forty years.)

“I am crying,” he said.

“I can see you are.”

“Don't see me.”

“No,” I said. “I'm glad to see you cry.”

“You are glad to see me cry?”

“I have never seen you cry. I'm glad to see it.”

“I have never cried,” he said, with which declaration he stopped crying.

“It's good to cry. You cry, then you feel better.”

“I don't feel better.”

“Are you sad about the girl?”

“I am sad about the girl,” he said.

“That's understandable.”

He looked at me.

“I understand,” I said.

“I did not cry about the girl.”

“What did you cry about?”

“Why am I with you, Ray?”

I thought I understood this time.

“You don't mean here and now,” I said. “You mean, why are you with me always.”

“Why am I with you?” he said. “Why am I with Anna?”

“You are with us so we can take care of you. So we can show you, teach you, what to do.”

“So you can watch me?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why don't I know what to do? AmIababy?”

“No. No. Of course not. You're a young man. You're a remarkable young man. You've made remarkable progress.”

“I have made remarkable progress?”

“You have,” I said. “Anna thinks so, too.”

“Why don't I know what to do?”

“You do know. Most of the time you know. There are times when you don't. And we show you. That's why you're with us.”

He shook his head.

“Why am I with
you
, Ray?” he said. “Why am I with
Anna
?”

“Oh,” I said. “That's a complicated question.”

“It's a complicated question?”

“It is,” I said. “I think it's one Anna should answer.”

“Do you know the answer?”

“I do. I do know the answer. Just not as well as Anna.”

“Will Anna answer the question?”

“She will,” I said. “She will.”

“When will she answer the question?”

“I don't know when,” I said. “When she thinks the time is right.”

“When she thinks the time is right?”

“Yes.”

“When is the time right, Ray?”

“I don't know.”

“I don't know either.” Alan opened his door. “I am a tragedy,” he said.

Two nights later, Alan asked us a different question, which, finally, amounted to the same question. He'd been watching television, some half-hour show he looked at regularly after dinner, a lame-brained, desperately unfunny comedy—you may know it—about a family made up of three detestable children, and two young, libidinous, rather caustic working mothers, one black, one white. (I have, as I've acknowledged, no sense of humor. This is true, too, of Alan, though in a much more literal way. He lacked any concept of humor. He didn't understand that this show, and all the others like it, were meant to be funny. “Who is laughing?” he asked once when the laugh track kicked in. “Why are they laughing?”) Despite the alternative model that seemed to precipitate it, Alan, in framing his question, held faithfully, longingly, to the conventional understanding of the family he'd acquired since coming free of the Clearances. “Who is my mother?” was the way he posed it. “Who is my father?” There's no telling how long he'd been thinking about this question before he asked it. He did not ask
what
he was. He did not know nearly enough about what was possible in the world for that question to occur to him. However he would ultimately put it, it was a question we'd known was coming. We'd given it, and our response, a great deal of thought. This was a less collaborative process than I'm suggesting: it was Anna who'd tell him, and she decided we'd tell him the truth, as simply and as clearly as we could.