The Art of Fielding: A Novel (42 page)
Pella flicked her eyes toward Gary. “Good luck to yours.” Several people sitting nearby guffawed. Nothing like some casual homophobia to win over a crowd.
As she turned around she glimpsed through the fence, over on the Westish side, that oh-so-familiar head of silver-flecked hair. He was so extravagantly busy all the time, holed up in his office from four a.m. till evening every day, too busy to show up to dinner last night—and yet he had an awful lot of time to spend watching baseball. He’d been out later than Pella, and then up and out the door before she awoke—unless he hadn’t come home at all. Who knew what his personal life was like these days? He never spoke of it, and even her gentlest teasings about Genevieve Wister had been met by a colorless silence.
He was sitting in the front row of bleachers behind the home dugout, flanked by a big Nordic guy in a leather jacket and a slender Latino man who, like her father, was dressed in a jacket and tie. Her dad looked dashing as always, he ruled the school, but among their trio it was the Latino man who seemed somehow to be the leader. He had the graceful, upright posture of a monk, shoulders back, hands folded placidly in his lap. When he spoke, the two taller men leaned toward him, straining to hear, and nodded eagerly. Pella imagined him divulging great truths with extreme modesty, and at extremely low volume.
After a few minutes her father excused himself. He stood and stretched and walked along the chain-link fence, shaking hands with parents and students, exchanging pleasantries, in full baby-kissing mode, until he reached the spot where the fence abutted the far end of the dugout. There, leaned against the inside of the fence as if waiting for him, stood Owen Dunne.
Pella felt intensely compelled by whatever was about to occur. Her father slowed his steps, paused, said something. Owen, his eyes on the field, index finger preserving a spot in his book, replied from the side of his mouth. Her dad declined his head and smiled a smile that threatened to bloom into laughter but didn’t, quite. They stood and looked out at the field together.
Something happened in the game—a cheer shot through the Westish bleachers while the beet-red people around Pella groaned. Owen broke the tableau with a single sidelong word and disappeared down the dugout steps. Her dad lingered at the fence, as if savoring the spot where Owen once stood, the look on his face a pensive one of puppy-dog love.
Could it be?
At first she tried to dismiss the thought—it seemed less an intuition than a flash of insanity. But it wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t just the look on his face, though that look said all that could be said. It wasn’t just the way he and Owen had stood there at the fence, communicating so subtly, alone among a thousand people. It was her dad clambering into the ambulance to accompany Owen to the hospital; his obvious jitters when Owen and Genevieve came for drinks; his obvious indifference to Genevieve thereafter; his emergence from that dormitory last night, with Owen moments behind; the fact that he hadn’t been home when she awoke this morning. If you swapped out just one premise—the premise that her dad was straight—it was just too obvious. Of course, that was literally the premise on which her life was based.
A woman in a Westish sweatshirt approached her dad and tapped his elbow. Absently, reluctantly, he left off thinking about Owen and turned to engage the woman. Pella, watching him there on the other side of the diamond, two lengths of fence between them, was awash in anger and fear. Her dad had lied to her, had lied and lied, had caused everything to change. But he was also in danger—he’d forgotten himself, made himself too vulnerable, or else he wouldn’t be taking these foolish risks, talking to Owen in public, falling in love. She felt exhausted. She wanted to curl up on the bleachers and go to sleep, but there wasn’t any room.
Gary stuck his face over her shoulder, his breath reeking of shrimp and Tabasco. “You lucked out on that one,” he said.
T
he throw was high and fluttering higher. Henry wanted it back as soon as it left his hand; even as he finished his follow-through his fingertips grasped after the ball, as if he could bring it back.
Motherfucker.
It seemed destined to sail over the fence and into the bleachers until Rick O’Shea somehow detached his two-hundred-plus beer-bellied pounds from the earth—it was impressive, how much air that leap put beneath his spikes—and snow-coned the ball with the fringe of his extralong mitt. Rick landed, spun, and slapped a tag on the hustling runner. One out.
Henry lifted two fingers in sheepish gratitude. Rick nodded and winked—
No sweat, little buddy—
and whipped the ball back to Henry to begin the around-the-horn.
Henry spun the ball in his throwing hand. It felt cold and slick and alien. He tucked his glove under his arm and worked the ball over with both hands, trying to knead some life into it. Technically illegal, only pitchers could do that, but the umps weren’t going to stop him. A minute ago he’d felt fine, or thought he felt fine, but now the possibility of failure had entered his mind, and the difference between possible failure and inevitable failure felt razor slight. His lungs clenched like he was standing in the lake to his armpits.
Relax, let it go. He’d had one bad throw in him and he’d gotten it out of his system. Rick had saved his butt. They were ahead 2 to 0. He pushed the bad throw aside, steadied his breathing, tossed the ball to Ajay. Turned around and flashed an index finger at Quisp in left: one out. He could see without seeing Aparicio in the stands, his sister, his parents, Coach Hinterberg in the bright-green cap of Lankton High, a private bit of rooting amid all the red and blue. Owen’s voice came floating out over the grass: “Henry, you are skilled! We exhort you!”
He pummeled his glove with his fist, dropped into his shallow crouch. Starblind threw a backdoor curve that looked like it caught the corner. The ump called it a ball. “Lookedgoodlookedgoodlooked
real
good!” cheered Henry. Stay up, stay vocal. Don’t wither, don’t withdraw. “That’s your spot, Adam, that’s your spot. Won’t get robbed again.”
The more guys Starblind strikes out, the fewer ground balls get hit to me.
Henry caught himself thinking this and chastised himself, caught himself chastising himself and tried to quiet his mind.
The next hitter rapped a single to center.
At least if it’s hit to me now I won’t have to throw to first, I can flip to Ajay for the force. If it’s hit to Ajay I cover and make the turn. I haven’t had trouble making the turn.
Quiet quiet quiet.
The Coshwale fans were standing, whistling, stomping their feet. Ready to rally. Sweat poured down Starblind’s temples as he took the sign from Schwartz. He checked the runner and fired a wicked two-seam fastball that was tailing in. The batter’s front foot lifted and Henry knew where the ball was headed before the swing was half finished, a sharp grounder three steps to his left, ideal for a double play. He was there waiting when the ball arrived. Ajay darted over to cover second. Henry, still low in his crouch, pivoted and whipped his arm sidelong across his body, just as he’d practiced so many thousands of times, but at the last moment he sensed the throw would be too hard for Ajay to handle, so he tried to decelerate slightly, but no, that was wrong too, but it was too late, the ball left his hand and began sliding rightward, out into the path of the charging runner, and Ajay, all five-foot-five of him, tried to stretch to make the catch, but the ball caught the tip of his glove and scooted into short right field as the hard-sliding runner took out his legs and sent him flying ass over teakettle. By the time Sooty Kim chased down the ball the runners were coasting into second and third. Ajay lay flat on his back in the dust, groaning. A voice rang out from the Coshwale dugout: “Thanks, Henry!”
G
ARY STUCK HIS FACE OVER
Pella’s shoulder again. “We won’t count that one.”
Her dad had returned to his seat between the blond guy and the self-possessed Latino man. “How could we count it?” Pella said angrily. “It didn’t go in the stands.”
“Plenty of time for that. It’s only the third inning.”
A
JAY POPPED TO HIS FEET
and waved off the trainer. Schwartz called time and moseyed out to the mound, his leisurely pace meant to convey and instill a sense of calm. He motioned for the infielders to join him. “Play back,” he instructed. “We’ll give up that one run.”
Starblind gave a curt caustic chuckle, stared a hole in Henry. “We’ll give up more than that, we don’t get our shit together.”
“Just keep throwing like you’re throwing,” Schwartz said mildly. “We’ll make the plays.”
Starblind spat on the ground between them. “Aye aye, Captain.”
The next batter struck out. Two down.
Let’s just get out of this inning,
Henry thought.
Get back to the dugout, regroup.
First pitch, fastball. Henry saw, with his usual prescience, where the ball was headed: right at him. Easiest play in the world. He charged and fielded it at sternum height, just at the lip of the infield grass. Rick stretched toward him, offering his huge mitt as a target. The batter was barely a third of the way down the line. Plenty of time. Henry slide-stepped, pumped his arm.
He pumped his arm again, gripped and regripped the ball. By now he was well within the infield grass, not far from the mound. Rick’s mitt looked near enough to touch. Still time.
The batter crossed first base. The runner from third crossed home and bent to pick up the jettisoned bat. The runner from second reached third and stopped. Henry turned his palm up and looked at the ball emptily, his mind finally quiet.
He walked toward Starblind, who was standing in front of the mound. Starblind was yelling, his mouth moving, white teeth visible, but Henry couldn’t hear him. He handed him the ball. As he walked toward the dugout he kept his gaze angled up at the blue of the sky.
P
ELLA HAD NEVER HEARD
so much silence from so many people. A tear ran down her cheek, pushed forward by the one behind it, and the one behind that, and who knew how many more. She turned and glared at Gary. “You owe me a hundred bucks,” she said.
T
he Harpooners in the dugout—Arsch, Loondorf, Jensen, and on down the line—lowered their eyes as he came down the steps. It was eerie, the calm he exuded. The fans had fallen silent. The players on the field stood frozen, dumbfounded, staring into the dugout. The umpires stared too. Coach Cox’s jaw worked at his wad of gum. No one knew what to do. It wasn’t clear that they could continue without him; it wasn’t clear what the other options were.
Henry stopped in front of Izzy, laid a hand on the freshperson’s shoulder, waited for Izzy to look up and meet his eyes. “Get loose,” he said. “You’re going in.”
Izzy looked at Coach Cox. Coach Cox, remembering himself, yanked his lineup card from the back pocket of his uniform pants. “Avila!” he barked. “Hustle up, goddamnit!”
Izzy grabbed his glove and trotted up onto the field, blinking at the sunlight.
Henry walked to the far end of the bench, sat down beside Owen. Owen closed his book and laid it in his lap, but he couldn’t find anything to say. Henry pried off his left cleat and then his right, knotted the laces lightly together, looped them around the strap of his bag. He slid his plastic sandals on over his sanitary socks.
Coach Cox conferred with the umpires while Izzy bounced around, windmilling his arms, trying to get loose. The way he shimmied his shoulders; the erect, almost princely carriage of his head and shoulders—it was uncanny. It seemed like some kind of tribute. Rick tossed him a warm-up grounder that he gobbled up with lazy grace.
Henry unbuttoned his jersey and folded it neatly into quarters, so that the Harpooner on the left breast faced upward. As always, he was wearing his faded-to-pink Cardinals T-shirt underneath. He laid the jersey in his bag, placed his glove gingerly on top, zipped the bag, and pushed it underneath the bench between his feet. He sat back, hands on his thighs, and looked out at the field. The game resumed.