The Art of Fielding: A Novel (60 page)

“Look at this huge bag.” Henry wearily slapped the Westish logo. The bag really did feel huge, a burden, today. “Would I carry this around if I wasn’t on the team?”

“Don’t know.”

“Look at it. It’s a baseball player’s bag. This part’s extra long so you can fit your bat.”

“I don’t see any bat.”

“I don’t
have
a bat,” Henry said.

“Don’t see why not.” The usher waved Henry aside so that he could rip the tickets and pat the heads of two young girls in flower-dotted dresses. Then he pulled a program out of his back pocket and unrolled it. “Which team do you play for?”

“Westish. Look, there’s my n—”

The usher jerked the program away. “Who’s first on the roster?” he demanded. “And how much does he weigh? I’ll give you five pounds leeway. Either side.”

Henry scrolled alphabetically through the squad in his mind. “Israel Avila. Shortstop, number one. Chicago, Illinois. Weighs… I don’t know what he weighs. One-fifty.”

“Sorry, kid. It’s Demetrius Arsch. Two-sixty.” The usher rolled up the program and waved it toward the parking lot. “Go find another sucker.”

Not until Henry unshouldered and unzipped his bag, dug around inside, and produced his rumpled jersey top did the old man wave him through, grumbling as if the whole exchange had been Henry’s fault. Henry stepped uncertainly through the pavilion’s milling crowds, bag flopping against his back. This was a brand-new, top-of-the-line minor-league ballpark—the kind of park he’d seemed, just a few weeks ago, to be destined to be playing in soon. His uniform still in hand, he waved it at a second usher and emerged into the first-base stands.

The teams had finished infield practice and were gathered in front of their respective dugouts while the head coaches conferred with the umpires. The wide number 44 on Schwartz’s back faced Henry. He had one arm around Arsch and the other around Izzy, his head turning slowly from side to side as he delivered the speech he’d been waiting all his life to deliver.

Henry sat down in an empty aisle seat. There was no way he was getting any closer to the team than this. He was already wondering why he’d come this close. He didn’t want to be the bad-luck charm, the albatross that doomed the Harpooners’ streak. They’d lost the last two games he played in and won the last twelve he didn’t. Those kinds of numbers spoke for themselves.

“Pardon me, young man.” A rotund man in a coat and tie tapped Henry importantly on the arm. “I believe you’re in our seats.”

A woman with dyed-blond hair and a gauzy shawl thrown over her shoulders was standing behind the man, her hands wrapped helplessly in the shawl, as if the weather were cold. She towered over his balding head.

“Sorry,” Henry said, and squeezed his bag back out into the aisle. As he rose, the Harpooners’ huddle broke. Owen caught Henry’s eye and waved, smiling broadly. Several other guys turned to look. Owen was beckoning him with his glove. So was Rick. So was Izzy. If there’d been an empty seat nearby, he might have been able to wave and stay put, but there wasn’t, he was stranded, standing, and finally there seemed to be nothing to do but descend the stairs to the front row and clamber onto the concrete top of the Amherst dugout, on which was painted the navy-and-lime-green logo of the NCAA World Series. He tossed his bag down first, then, light-headed, lowered his sneaker-clad feet to that beautiful, beautiful field.

The Harpooners, having won the coin toss, would be the home team and bat last. The PA announcer boomingly introduced the Harpooner starters, who jogged to their positions as the crowd cheered amiably. Amherst fans far outnumbered Westish ones, but the bulk of the crowd was unattached—locals, or fans of one of the six already eliminated teams.

Henry, having hopped down into foul territory, froze. Coach Cox had spotted him too, was waving him over, but to reach the Westish dugout he would have to go right past Schwartz, who crouched behind home plate catching Starblind’s last warm-up throws. Henry stalled there, feeling more exposed and roachlike than he ever had in Pella’s kitchen, an ESPN cameraman two steps away and what felt like ten thousand eyes upon him. Finally Schwartz, without turning around, lifted his right hand and gestured toward the Westish dugout.
Come on, come on.

Henry scuttled by. Obviously he hadn’t thought this through. If the Harpooners lost they would blame him, rightly blame him, blame him forever, for dragging himself halfway across the country to jinx them. What had he been thinking, coming here? What had President Affenlight been thinking? He couldn’t blame President Affenlight, it was his own bad decision, but President Affenlight had proposed it and when the president of your school proposed something it was awfully easy to comply. Albatross, he thought. Crap, crap, crap.

Coach Cox greeted him at the mouth of the dugout with a happy, bone-crushing handshake. “Go get dressed,” he growled.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Henry said. “That wouldn’t be—”

“I need you to coach first base. Get your damn uniform on.”

Henry headed into the dark corridor that led to the locker room to change. His gear was dirty and a little gamy, unwashed since the Coshwale game, but he dressed with his usual slow solemnity, or at least in imitation of it, in an effort to appease the gods of fate. Coaching first wouldn’t be bad—it would give him a way to contribute, however minimally, and it meant that when the Harpooners were batting and Schwartz was in the dugout, Henry’d be out on the field.

Starblind had already gotten two quick outs when Henry entered the dugout. The reserves were perched on the narrow upright back of the bench, glaring out at the field. No one had shaved since regionals began, though with Loondorf and Sooty Kim you could barely tell. They all wore the same expression, as fierce as if they were pitching. Henry made his way down to the distant end, where anyone who didn’t want to see him wouldn’t have to, and took a seat on the far side of Meat.

“Adam better throw a doggone shutout.” Arsch flipped sunflower seeds toward his mouth. “We’ve got no pitchers.”

“Who’s left?” Henry asked.

“Sal went eight yesterday, so he’s finished. Quisp’s been throwing a ton too. Even Rick had to pitch a few innings—can’t believe we survived
that
shitstorm. So for relievers it’s Loonie…” Arsch scanned the dugout. “… and Loonie, basically.”

“My wing’s pretty sore,” Loondorf reminded him. “I’ve got nothing.”

“Loonie’s got nothing,” Arsch repeated, shaking his head sadly.

Starblind struck out Amherst’s number-three hitter and stalked toward the dugout with a steely fist pump. Henry stepped onto the field beneath the high-banked lights and made his way toward the first-base coaching box. His knees wobbled; he had to concentrate. Coaching first base wasn’t hard, but you could certainly screw it up.

Starblind lined a first-pitch single to left. Izzy laid down a perfect sacrifice to move him to second, headed back to the dugout to receive his long line of congratulations. So far, so good. Owen settled into the batter’s box, politely stifled a yawn with the back of a batting-gloved hand. On the fourth pitch he chopped a single back through the middle. Starblind wheeled around third at sprinter’s speed and slid home as the throw veered off target. One–nothing, Westish.

“You’re the man!” Henry told Owen.

“I’m the man!” Owen squinted up into the stands. “Have you seen Guert?”

“Something came up,” Henry said. “He couldn’t make it.” He was lying without really knowing why. When his alarm went off this morning, he’d grabbed his bag from under his bed, unsure whether he’d hallucinated his entire encounter with President Affenlight the night before. In a way, it was that uncertainty that propelled him; he’d gone downstairs more to see whether Affenlight’s visit had been a dream than because he was sure he wanted to fly to South Carolina.

President Affenlight hadn’t been by the Melville statue, where he’d said he’d be, but a black town car lurked in the service bay of the dining hall. The driver rolled down the window. “Skrimshander?”

“Yes.”

The driver popped the trunk. Henry told him he was waiting for someone. The driver said,
You’re Skrimshander, right?
The chapel bells tolled once, lugubriously, to indicate that it was six fifteen; President Affenlight had said six. Maybe Henry had misunderstood; maybe Affenlight hadn’t intended to join him. It only took a moment to lift his bag into the trunk and climb into the backseat. Once the driver shut the heavy, sound-muffling door behind him, there was no turning back.

“He told me to wish you luck,” Henry said to Owen.

“Luck? I require no luck. That’s unfortunate, though, that Guert couldn’t come.”

The Harpooners’ lead held until the third inning, when Amherst pieced together a hit batsman, a single, and a sacrifice fly to tie the game. It could have been worse for Westish, but with runners on the corners and two down, Izzy made a diving grab of a shot up the middle and, while lying flat on his belly on the outfield grass, flicked the ball to Ajay for the force.

“He’s no Henry Skrimshander,” Arsch said. “But he’s pretty damned good.”

Izzy came sprinting toward the dugout, thumping his fist into the web of his glove and yelling, the way you do when a great play gets your blood up. As Henry trotted out to first base, he slapped Izzy on the rump. “Good play,” he said.

Izzy beamed. “Thanks, Henry.”

Behind the Amherst dugout stood a row of six female students, purple decals painted on their cheeks, wearing oversize purple T-shirts that spelled out A-M-H-E-R-T in white letters. Four of the girls were stout and blocky and more or less butch. The fifth—letter
E—
stood six-foot-something and swayed in the wind, hair pulled back in a dark ponytail. The sixth—letter
A—
was petite and blond, with her own ponytail slipped through the slot at the back of her purple baseball cap. Henry could tell they were Amherst softball players who’d road-tripped south to support their male counterparts. Their missing
S
was probably back at the motel, passed out after a too-hard day of partying.

A,
despite being half the size of her teammates, was the ringleader; she started the foot-stamping cheers, and she was drinking the most impressive quantity of the pink liquid being distributed by letters
M
and
R,
with eroding secrecy, from smuggled-in plastic bottles into stadium-issue Pepsi cups. She strained forward over the railing, her face bright red from booze and yelling. She’d caught Henry’s attention right away. Then in the fourth inning, to Henry’s dismay, he caught hers.

“Hey, Henry!”

This startled him, but he couldn’t turn around or in any way acknowledge it.

“Hey, Henry! Why won’t they let you play?”

He felt quite certain that the voice, shrill and demanding, with an undercurrent of malicious playfulness, belonged to
A.
His heart sank a long way. A second voice, deeper but less assured, chimed in:

“Maybe he’s a choker.”

“A choker?” asked
A,
feigning surprise. “Henry’s a choker?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Why does Henry choke?”
A
demanded.

“Maybe he can’t take the presha,” someone suggested, in a strong Boston accent.

“The pressure?! Henry can’t take the pressure?”
A
sounded utterly flummoxed, as if she’d known Henry a long time and had never in her wildest dreams believed it would come to this.

Henry stared intently at the vivid white square of first base, pretending to ignore them while straining to hear every word. Schwartzy walked to lead off the inning. He tossed his bat aside, removed his forearm guard, and ran hard to first. Henry clapped once, kept his eyes on the bag.

A
had found Henry’s four-line bio—the longest on the team—in the glossy tournament program. “Henry Skrimshander,” she announced. “Junior. Lankton, South Dakota. Five-foot-ten. One hundred and fifty-five pounds. As a sophomore, was named Conference Player of the Year. Batted .448 this year, with nine home runs and nineteen stolen bases. Shares the NCAA shortstop record for consecutive errorless games with Hall of Famer Aparicio Rodriguez.”

Henry was painfully impressed by the flawless, fiber-optic clarity with which she delivered this information to a significant portion of the ballpark. The first-base stands had fallen quiet; they were listening to her.

“Hey, Jen, don’t those sound like pretty good stats for a first-base coach?”

“I’d say so,” replied Jen.

“Maybe Henry’s too
good
to play for this sorry team. Do you agree, Jen?”

“I do.”

“Maybe
Henry
would rather stand there and waggle his little butt in our faces.”

“Yes!” yelped Jen, her voice fracturing into shards of laughter. Henry mentally checked his butt cheeks to make sure they were perfectly still.

“Tough crowd,” said Schwartz, not to Henry but to the first baseman.

The first baseman shrugged. “That’s Miz.”

“Miz?”

“Elizabeth Myszki. Second baseman for the softball team.”

“She’s a charmer,” Schwartz said.

The first baseman shrugged again. “She’s got a thing for middle infielders.”

Rick O’Shea laced a one-hopper to the Amherst third baseman, who set in motion an easy double play. Boddington flied out to center for the third out. Henry, not wishing to seem too eager, paused a quarter beat before sprinting back to the dugout. Once safely inside, he could finally turn around and have a long look, albeit from afar, at the very pretty, incredibly unpleasant Elizabeth Myszki.

Top of the fifth. The scoreboard read 1-3-0, runs-hits-errors, for each team. The field was a sapphire storybook dream. Starblind walked the first batter on four pitches, none of them near the strike zone.

“Uh-oh,” said Arsch. “Here we go.”

Starblind walked the next batter too. He was taking a long time between pitches, muttering to himself, laboriously wiping sweat from his golden forehead. Schwartz called time and trudged out to the mound for a heart-to-heart. Coach Cox stroked his mustache and looked up and down the dugout. “Loonie,” he said. “How’s the wing?”