The Fan (18 page)

Long pause.

“Did you see the ball all the way, Bobby?”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel the feeling of hitting it on the sweet spot of the bat?”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel the feeling in every muscle, in every bone, deep in your brain?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. You will remember that feeling, in every muscle, in every bone, deep in your brain. You will remember that feeling, and you will remember that sharp image of that perfectly white baseball with its perfectly even red-stitched seams. Let us just be here in silence, building those memories.”

Silence.

“Bobby, I want you to get up now, to sit in the chair. Good. I’m going to count backward from five, and when I reach zero our session will be over. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Five, four, three, two, one, zero.”

“Philip has a vision,” Val said. They were at Fellini’s, one of those restaurants making a statement that Bobby didn’t understand. “Tell him about it, Philip.”

Philip leaned over the table. “It’s really a shared vision,” he began. “Mine and Valerie’s. Your wife has a good eye, Mr. Rayburn.”

“She does?”

“Certainly. When it comes to design.”

Food came, strange-tasting and not enough. Philip described his vision, a large vision that lasted through dessert. Bobby had stopped paying attention long before that. He didn’t want to hear about sculptured spaces and recessed cans. He wanted to hurry through the rest of the off-day, get to tomorrow, get to the ballpark, get to the plate, hit. He was going to hit: his hands, his wrists, his whole body had the feeling it always had when he was on a roll.

The bill arrived. Philip, drawing on his napkin, made no move to pick it up, so Bobby did. Under the table, Val’s foot pressed against his. “Well, Bobby,” she said, “what do you think?”

“Talk to Wald,” Bobby said, rising.

“Wait,” said Val. “We haven’t even discussed the pool enclosure.”

“Got to go,” said Bobby.

He went home, leaving Val and Philip with their coffee. Val’s mother was reclining in front of the forty-five-inch screen, her fingers in a bowl of popcorn.

“Where’s Sean?”

“Gone to bed, dear,” she said, her eyes on the young Marlon Brando.

Bobby went into Sean’s room. It was dark, except the space-station control panel, glowing in the corner. Bobby went to the bed, gazed down.

Sean was fast asleep. In the light from the space station, Bobby could see that he didn’t look at all like the other Sean, the bald, hollow-faced chemo kid from the hospital. His Sean was almost as big, but he was not yet six, and the other Sean had probably been at least ten. His Sean had thick blond hair, a broad face, broad forehead, well-knit frame. His Sean wasn’t dying. He was sleeping peacefully, recharging the batteries, his hands lying relaxed on the covers. His Sean had nothing in common with the other Sean. The other Sean wasn’t even around anymore, for Christ’s sake. Still, it was bad luck, two Seans, and no amount of rationalizing could change that.

Bobby went over to the space station. Did Sean like it? Bobby didn’t know: he’d been on a road trip almost the whole time since they’d moved in. He sat at the console. There was a message on the screen: “Captain Sean: Invasion of the Arcturian Web requires heroic action. Awaiting instructions.”

Bobby pressed a button. A menu appeared on the screen. “Choices. 1. Abandon planet. 2. Activate Weapon X. 3. Send negotiator bearing intergalactic white flag of peace.”

Bobby rubbed his rib cage. No pain at all, and he felt loose, as loose as he’d felt on the first day of spring training. Point one four seven. Just a stupid joke. In a month, two weeks even, no one would remember. No heroic action required: he just had to get up there and do what he did.

But a hero is what he had been to the other Sean.
Hit a home run for me
, and
you’re my hero
, and all that shit. Was hitting home runs on request heroic? It was luck, pure, blind, and simple. And what was luck? The residue of something—preparation?—according to some old baseball saying he’d heard from some coach along the way. Still, he could have handled the other Sean situation, the chemo Sean situation, differently, could have said that the grand slam in the opener had been for a little boy he’d met on a hospital visit in spring training. Or, better, let the facts slip out through that DCR guy, whatever his name was. Or Wald—Wald would have known the best way. A good idea—he was still learning to play the game—but too late.

Bobby selected 3. “Send negotiator bearing intergalactic white flag of peace.”

The screen went blank. A new message popped up. “Alien invasion successful. You are now a prisoner of the Arcturian Web. Awaiting instructions.”

The next day—the first hot day of the year, with the sun shining and the breeze blowing out—Bobby was on the field before anyone else. He ran for a while, feeling loose and strong, stretched, ran some more, broke a sweat. In BP the ball was a perfect white sphere with perfectly even red-stitched seams, and he punished it, sending six drives in a row over the wall in left, the last two over the lights as well. Punished it and felt good.

In the clubhouse Burrows handed him a printout, showing his lifetime stats against Pinero, the opposing pitcher. He was hitting .471, 24 for 51, with eight doubles, a triple, and six home runs.

“Just remember what I think of stats,” Burrows said.

“What’s that?”

“Half the time they’re bullshit.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“They’re bullshit the other way.”

Bobby smiled. He was starting to like Burrows.

At his stall, Bobby pressed
PLAY
, listened to a few tunes,
then put on his game shirt with number forty-one, not even seeing the digits today, for the first time not bothered by it at all. Then he took the field and went 0 for 4, lowering his average to .138. The Sox fell to last. Primo hit for the cycle.

Bobby got home after midnight, driving with a beer in his hand, and then another. So what? He wasn’t some salesman on the road late after an office party, or some other—he couldn’t think what; he was Bobby Rayburn, he was under pressure, and he had to relax, had to let go, let go, let go.

Val was in the kitchen with the ponytailed guy, drinking white wine.

“Can I see you?” Bobby said.

Val followed him into the hall.

“What the fuck’s he doing here?”

“Planning, Bobby. The kitchen. You know all about it. And I’d prefer you didn’t talk to me so rudely.”

He gave her a push, not hard. She fell against the wall, her eyes opening wide in surprise. He’d never laid a hand on her. Then she started to cry, or would have, if Philip hadn’t stuck his head around the corner.

“One little point of clarification, Valerie, if you don’t mind.”

“Some other time, Slugger,” Bobby said. “Nighty-night.”

Meaning that Philip should leave. But he just stood there and said, “Sleep well.” So Bobby went upstairs by himself: he didn’t want to do any more pushing.

He took the phone out on the balcony, called Wald. Wald answered after four or five rings, his voice grainy with sleep.

“Missed the game, Bobby. How’d it go?”

“I’ll pay what he wants,” Bobby said. A ship slid across the dark sea, far away. He could distinguish every light showing: there wasn’t anything wrong with his eyes.

“Sorry, Bobby, I don’t get you.”

“Primo. My number.”

“You’re talking about the fifty grand?”

“Right.”

“You’ll pay it?”

“That’s what I just said.” Why not? He was spending twice that or maybe more to fix a kitchen that didn’t need fixing.

“You’re the boss,” Wald said.

“I want you to do it now.”

“Now? It’s—”

“I know what time it is.”

“I’m not sure I can reach—”

“Try.”

“Whatever you say.”

Bobby stayed on the balcony watching the ship sail out of sight. The phone buzzed.

“Yes?”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I offered them fifty and they turned it down.”

“Who is they?”

“His people.”

“Did they talk to him?”

“They said they did.”

Another ship appeared, smaller than the first, but every light on it just as clear to him. “Offer them more.”

“How much more?”

“Offer them a hundred. Isn’t that what they wanted in the first place?”

“That was then.”

“So?”

“So nothing. A hundred grand’s still a lot of money, Bobby, that’s all.”

“We can always bag the goddamned kitchen.”

Wald was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know, Bobby. I kind of like Philip’s vision.”

“
I
s Primo something else this year or what?” said Jewel Stern.

“Sure is,” said Norm. “If the pitching comes through—”

“And if Rayburn can shake this terrible, terrible—”

“Then who knows what might happen? Let’s see what’s happening in Fanworld. Gil on the car phone. What’s up, Gil?”

“Hello?”

“You’re on, Gil. Go ahead.”

“Jewel?”

“Hi, Gil. What’s on your mind?”

“And better be brief, Gil. We’re getting some breakup on the line.”

“Jewel?”

“Yes, Gil.”

“I heard what you said about Primo, that’s all.”

“And?”

“And it won’t last. He’s a hot dog. Hot dogs always fold in the end.”

“Is that right, Gil? I could name you five or six so-called hot dogs in baseball right now who are going straight to the Hall of Fame.”

“Then there’s something wrong with the Hall of Fame.”

“Tell ’em, Gilly!”

“Sounds like Gil’s got a like-minded buddy in the car with him, Jewel.”

“A like-minded buddy in a very good mood, Norm,
perhaps artificially induced. Let’s go to Ruben in Malden. What’s up, Ruben?”

Way to go, Gil, thought Bobby Rayburn, parking in front of the terminal, maybe a little late. Was Primo going to fold? Was some fan, possibly drunken, onto something? Probably not: the woman was right about the Hall of Fame. Jewel. Was she the reporter who wanted to interview him? For some important magazine, Wald had said. The only important magazine Bobby knew was
SI
. He’d been on the cover three times.

Coach Cole was already outside the terminal, a white-haired, leather-skinned old guy blowing a big pink gum bubble. Coach Cole: played fifteen years in the minors, coached college for twenty more after that, including Bobby’s four years, now lived in a one-bedroom condo a few feet from a sand trap on a third-rate golf course near Tucson. Never made it, not even close. But he understood hitting; more important, understood the way Bobby hit.

“Fuckin’ ugly town,” said Coach Cole, getting in.

Bobby handed him a check for two grand, to cover the tickets and a few hours’ work. Coach Cole rolled it up tightly and stuck it behind his ear. In all those years he’d never made head coach, not even in junior college—maybe, Bobby now realized, because he was always doing things like that.

“How you been?” Bobby said.

“Fuckin’ slice is killing me. And I get up six times every night to piss. Other than that, no complaints.” Coach Cole cracked his gum.

They drove out to a college in the suburbs. A kid in sweats was waiting inside a batting cage enclosed with netting on all sides, behind the practice field.

“All warmed up?” Bobby said.

“Yes, sir.”

Bobby went inside with his bat, took his stance at the plate. The kid, behind a notched-out protective screen, reached into a basket of balls. Coach Cole stood outside, blowing pink bubbles.

The kid zipped one in. Bobby got a piece of it.

“Ease into it,” Coach Cole said to the kid. “I’m no scout or nothin’.” And in a lower voice, that only Bobby could hear, added: “And you’re no bonus baby.” How Coach Cole could tell after only one pitch, Bobby didn’t know.

The kid started pitching, and Bobby started whacking, buzzing drives all over the narrow cage, rippling the netting, making it bulge and quiver from the disturbance within.

“Little more,” Coach Cole told the kid.

The kid threw harder. Bobby hit harder.

“Now some cheese,” said Coach Cole.

The kid, sweating now, began to air it out. No movement on his ball, but good velocity, and the netting made a lousy background. Still, Bobby hit every pitch on the screws, the kid ducking out of the open notch to safety behind the screen the instant he let go.

“Turn ’em over,” said Coach Cole.

The kid threw his breaking stuff. Not much of a slider, but a sharp curve. Bobby hammered them both.

“Mix it up,” said Coach Cole.

The kid mixed it up.

Bobby hammered.

“Change speeds.”

The kid changed speeds.

Bobby hammered.

They took a break, drank water, went back in, did it all again. Sweat was dripping off the kid’s chin now, dripping off Bobby too. The kid had thrown a hundred pitches by now, maybe more. A bulldog, Bobby realized, who must have been thinking that, despite what Coach Cole had said about not being a scout, this was his chance. Too bad he didn’t have it.

The kid started to lose a few inches, a foot, two feet, from his fastball. He also got a little slower ducking behind the screen. One ball shot past his ear so close it ruffled his hair, like a blow-dryer. The kid checked the clock on a nearby steeple after that. Coach Cole made two quick clicking sounds in his mouth, the kind that tell a horse to get going.
The kid reached into the basket for another ball. Bobby kept hammering.

Finally one pinged the kid on the shoulder. Or upper arm; Bobby didn’t really see. But a glancing hit, not head-on. The kid grabbed his arm anyway, as though it were something precious, like Nolan Ryan’s. Bobby waggled his bat, waiting.

“ ’Kay,” Coach Cole said. “I’ve seen enough.”

Bobby walked over to the kid, handed him fifty bucks, although he’d said forty on the phone. “You all right?”

The kid nodded, but kept rubbing his arm. He seemed about to say something. Then he didn’t. Then he did. “I’m supposed to start on Saturday.”

Meaning I hope I haven’t pitched my goddamn arm out. Maybe the kid wasn’t a bulldog after all. “Go get ’em,” Bobby said.