The Fan (7 page)

Nice car. He had nicer ones, but Bobby liked riding up high, liked the sound system, liked the power and heft. He drove along happily for a while, testing the features. Then, just before the turnoff to Soxtown, Bobby realized he was bored with it. He’d give it to Val, get something else for himself after she came. He parked in his reserved place by the palm tree. The odometer read 000018.

Stook met him in the clubhouse. “What’s it gonna be?” he said. The three shirts—thirty-three, forty-one, fifty-one—were hanging in his stall. Thirty-three was out—wasn’t that Jesus’s age when he died? Bobby tested the divisibility of the remaining numbers. Three went into fifty-one, but nothing went into forty-one. He saw Primo watching from across the room.

“Hey, Primo,” he called. “You’d know this.”

“Know what?”

“If forty-one’s a prime number.”

Primo frowned. “I don’t get it.”

Bobby laughed. He took forty-one.

Bobby dressed: sleeves, jock, sanitaries, stirrups, pants, cleats, shirt. He had fried chicken and iced tea from the buffet, then went outside for BP. The pitching coach was throwing, harder than Burrows and with more stuff, but the ball was still out of a coffee-table book, even bigger, slower, clearer then yesterday. Bobby banged it around the yard, then shagged flies until the Tigers came on.

He returned to the clubhouse, drank more iced tea, checked his mail. The usual: requests for autographed pictures, most from preteen boys and slightly older girls; phone numbers from girls a little older than that, some accompanied by bathing-suit pictures of the writers; a letter from a man who wanted to know why Bobby never bunted; and
a four-leaf clover in a plastic locket on a chain, sent by a granny in Texas. Bobby hung the locket around his neck.

Burrows came in, lit a cigarette, and took out the lineup card. Bobby, who had hit third since freshman year in high school, bent down and retied his shoelaces; casual.

“Primo at short, bats one,” read Burrows. “Lanz in left, bats two. Rayburn in center, bats three. Washington at first, bats—” Bobby slipped on his headphones, pressed
PLAY
.

A few minutes later, they took the field. Boyle started. He struck out the first two batters, walked the next. The runner stole second; Odell’s throw was perfect, but Primo dropped the ball.

“Tut-tut,” Bobby said, quietly, all by himself in center field.

Twenty or thirty feet behind him a voice spoke: “You said it.”

Bobby glanced around and saw a sunburned old man sitting in a wheelchair just beyond the chain-link fence, binoculars hanging on his white-haired chest.

“He’s such a fucking showboat,” the old man said. “They’re all like that, the spics.”

Bobby turned back to the field, saying nothing.

Boyle walked another batter. When the next one came up, Burrows motioned Bobby toward right. Bobby changed his position. Then Odell flashed the sign: curve. Bobby was astonished: he’d never been able to read the catcher’s sign from center field, not even as a kid.

“Jesus,” he said. I’m going to fucking hit .400 this year
.

“Tell me about it,” said the old man with binoculars, as Boyle went into his motion and threw. “Burrows. Shit. Moves you over and then calls for the deuce. They shoulda fired him years—”

The batter swung, connected. A screamer, into the gap in left between Bobby and Lanz. Bobby took off. He might have had a play if Burrows hadn’t shifted him. That thought was obliterated by the realization that he just might have a play anyway. Bobby dove, weightless for a long moment,
fully stretched out in the air. First the ball was a hissing white blur; then it disappeared and went silent, leaving its sting on the palm of his glove hand. Bobby fell hard on his chest, rolled over, stayed down.

Lanz was kneeling beside him. “You okay?”

Bobby struggled for breath. “Ball in my glove?”

“Hell of a catch,” Lanz said. “But let’s not get crazy in spring training.”

Bobby heard a boat whistle, far away; smelled the grass; felt a tiny insect walking across the back of his neck. “Three outs?”

“Yeah.”

Bobby rose just as the trainer jogged up, breathing hard.

“You okay?”

Lightheaded, then fine. “Yeah.”

“Rib cage?”

“No problem.”

Bobby ran off. Cheers from the little crowd. He sat down in the dugout, drank water. Something tickled his chest. Had he landed on an ant hill? Bobby peered down his shirt. No ants. He’d smashed the plastic locket. The four-leaf clover was gone.

Burrows was standing over him, his cigarette cupped in his hand in case a camera was pointed his way. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s that rib cage?”

“Fine.”

“Wanna come out?”

“No.” Bobby didn’t want to sit. He’d been sitting all winter. He wanted to play.

Burrows went back to his seat in the corner, took a deep drag. “Bibbity bobbity,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

First pitch. Slider; Bobby could tell from the dugout, before the ball was halfway to the plate. It came in just above the belt, and Primo slapped it over second base.

“Bibbity bobbity,” Burrows said.

“Knock off that bibbity-bobbity shit,” someone said.

“I can say what I like,” Burrows said. “Even the poor got rights in this country.”

Bobby pulled his bat from the rack and walked to the on-deck circle. “What’d he hit last year?” he asked Lanz.

“Primo? I don’t know. Two-fifty, two-sixty?”

Bobby nodded. He himself had hit .319.

Lanz stepped in. Bobby slid the donut down the barrel. Sky blue, sun warm, his body loose and strong. He timed the pitcher’s first pitch to Lanz, swinging as it crossed the plate. Fastball, low and away. Lanz swung and missed. Now comes that chickenshit slider. Just wait on it and unload. But Lanz couldn’t make himself wait long enough. He topped the ball, sending a slow roller to the shortstop, who threw to second, forcing Primo.

Bobby went to the plate. The catcher, who’d been with him in California five or six years before, said, “Welcome to the bullshit league.”

“You can say that again,” the umpire said.

“Don’t spoil it for me,” Bobby said.

The pitcher stared down for the sign. Bobby waited in his stance, completely still, but loose, all the way to his fingertips. Show me that chickenshit slider, you asshole.

It came. Fat, clear, spinning sideways. Bobby got it all, hitting it so squarely he didn’t even feel the impact. It cleared the fence still rising, and disappeared. Foul by fifteen feet.

“Ooo-wee,” said the catcher.

Bobby took a few swings, stepped back in, looked for the fastball inside, and got it: fat, clear, spinning backwards. Bobby hit it as far as the first one, maybe farther, and not quite as foul.

“Oh and two,” said the ump.

Bobby took a few more swings, resumed his stance. Now would come the slider, but down and away, out of the strike zone. The pitcher checked Lanz, kicked. Bobby heard a voice from the stands: “Straighten it out, Bobby Rayburn, straighten it out.” He recognized that voice: the skinny little community-relations guy. He’d forgotten all about him,
forgotten about the boy, forgotten all that home-run shit. John? Sean.

Pitch on the way. Fat and clear, but not the slider; back-spinning, but not the fastball: a change-up. An 0-and-2 change-up, so slow Bobby thought he could see the diagonal pattern of the stitches on the ball. He watched it all the way.

“Strike three.”

“Lucky son of a bitch,” said the catcher. He snapped a throw down to first, in case Lanz was napping.

A perfect afternoon for baseball. Bright sun, no wind, eighty degrees. Bobby struck out in the fourth, struck out in the seventh. Burrows substituted for everyone after that. Bobby walked to the end of the bench. “I’d like to stay in,” he said.

“Yeah?” said Burrows.

“Yeah.”

“Thought you got a little shook up making that catch. Outstanding.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Burrows rose and scratched the name of some rookie off the lineup card taped to the dugout wall and inked Bobby back in.

Bobby batted again in the bottom of the ninth, two out, no one on, thunderheads rolling in now, maybe a hundred people left in the stands, game meaningless. He heard the community-relations guy calling, “Come on, Bobby Rayburn.” He had one of those high, carrying voices that separated itself from the crowd noise.

“Shut the fuck up,” Bobby said.

“I didn’t say shit,” the catcher said.

Bobby struck out on three pitches. A cold raindrop landed on his nose as he went back to the dugout.

Bobby showered and changed. The community-relations guy approached his stall, talking on a cellular phone. He handed it to Bobby. “Call for you.”

“Yeah?” Bobby said.

“Mr. Rayburn?” said a woman. “I just want to thank you so much.”

“For what?”

“For trying.”

“Who’s this?” Bobby asked.

The woman spoke her name. It meant nothing to Bobby. “Sean’s mother,” she explained.

“Oh, yeah,” said Bobby. “Don’t worry. I’ll get hold of one for him, sooner or later.”

The woman made a strange sound, high-pitched, ragged. “He passed away, Mr. Rayburn. I’m sorry.”

“Passed away?”

“Right after the game. The doctor said by all rights he should have died last night. He just willed himself to stay alive. Because of you. Thank you for that extra day, Mr. Rayburn.” Her voice broke. The line went dead.

Bobby handed the phone back to the community-relations guy. “Screen my calls from now on,” he said.

Bobby took a taxi to a restaurant, remembering his new car only when he got there. The restaurant was dark inside, which suited him fine. Bobby sat by himself at a back table, watching the thunderheads through the window, waiting for the rain to fall. It never did. Just that one stupid drop. At sunset the sky cleared and then went dark. The moon came out. Bobby had a few beers, then a New York cut with salad and baked potato, then a few more beers. He called home on his way out. No answer.

Bobby took a cab back to Soxtown, stopping to buy a flashlight on the way. The complex was dark, Bobby’s car alone in the parking lot. Bobby walked all the way around, until he stood outside the center-field fence of the game field. He climbed over.

Beaming the flashlight a few feet ahead, Bobby moved back and forth across the grass in left center. After a while he got down on his hands and knees, combed the grass with his fingers. He found a divot, lifted by the impact of his diving catch, found the bared spot it had come from, even found a tiny plastic chip from the locket, buried in the skid mark. But he didn’t find the four-leaf clover.

Bobby drove back to the Flamingo Bay Motor Inn and
Spa, let himself into his room, switched on the light. A woman was in his bed, sleeping on her stomach.

“Christ,” Bobby said.

The woman rolled over. “Disappointed?” she said. It was his wife.

“You said you were going to call.”

“I’m sure you meant that to sound more welcoming.”

Bobby saw she hadn’t been sleeping at all; she still wore lipstick, eye shadow, earrings. “Where’s Sean?” he asked.

“At my mother’s.”

“You should have brought him.”

Val looked at him in surprise.

His ribs hurt. And he’d stopped seeing the ball.

“
E
dge geometry,” Gil’s father would say. “That’s what it’s all about.” He’d tap the steel with the tuning hammer, indicating the spot. Gil would strike with the twelve-pounder. Tap, strike, tap, strike: the steel cherry-red from the forge; the anvil live and quiet; Gil still a boy, but big and strong; his father the master.

They lived in the trailer. The forge was out back, in the barn.
RENARD STEEL FORGE
, read the sign over the door. Winters were best, when the coke in the forge glowed hot, and the wind whined and moaned through cracks in the old walls. In airless summers, nothing came through the wide-open door but black flies, and Gil’s sweat ran down his bare arms, down the twelve-pounder, sizzling on the steel with every stroke. He got stronger and stronger, became the finest striker his
father had ever had. But by then it was an anachronism. Every smith who could afford one had a power hammer; and Gil never mastered edge geometry, or any of the other precision skills. He just liked to swing the big hammer.

Gil awoke from a forge dream in sheets damp with sweat. Edge geometry; precision skills: none of it mattered anyway. His father got sick, and soon after the moneymen came and took their name away. Gil’s eyes went to the picture of Richie; his father had been called Richie too. There was no resemblance. Gil turned on the radio.

“—may have reinjured those ribs making a sensational diving catch in the first inning. Certainly there was a lot of comment in the press box about Burrows leaving him in.”

“Why take chances with the big-ticket guys, Jewel, especially in the month of March?”

“That’s it exactly, Norm. And the thing is he didn’t look like himself up there at the plate yesterday. Sid Burrows may have a lot to answer for.”

“Thanks, Jewel. See you at the top of the hour. We’ll go to the phones after this brief—”

In a bad mood now, Gil put on his robe, picked up his toilet kit, and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Lenore had already been there. The mirror was steamed, except for a cleared circle in the center where his own face now appeared, sniffing. He smelled her perfume, a dense, rich smell of tropical flowers, a smell that gave him a headache, or made him aware of the headache he already had. Gil shaved, showered, went back to his room.

“—Ron in Brighton. What’ve you got for us, Ron?”

“Can we talk hockey for a sec?”

“Anything you want.”

Gil dressed: white shirt, blue suit, yellow tie. He had five or six yellow ties, left over from the days when they were in. This one, with a pattern of tiny mauve discs, was his lucky tie, worn the day he earned his highest single commission, $3,740, from a sporting-goods chain that went bankrupt not
long after. Gil was knotting his lucky tie when someone knocked on his door.

“It’s open.”