The Art of Fielding

  “How’d I do?”

  Henry coughed as he swallowed, covering his mouth so Lopez couldn’t see his expression. “Good.” He nodded. “Perfect.”

  Lopez grinned proudly. “It’s my take on a Long Island Iced Tea. Kind of nudging it toward the more masculine end of the spectrum.”

  Henry stared at the strongman competition on the huge TV behind the bar and listened to Lopez hold forth about bartending school. The shifting lights on the screen held his eye, Lopez’s voice droned softly in his ear, and his drink disappeared in thoughtless pulls at the straw. Lopez made another, set it on the coaster. It grew dark outside. Pool balls clacked together. The bar began to fill with people. Lopez dimmed the house lights until the place was sunk in a greenish nighttime glow, punctuated by the bright red and blue of electric beer signs.

  “Hey Skrim,” he said. “Would you fire up the jukebox for me?” He slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar. “Maybe err on the mellow side. It’s early.”

  Henry made his way to the jukebox, fed in the ten, pressed the buttons that turned the plastic pages. The only band name he recognized was U2—that was mellow, right? He punched in a bunch of U2 and still had twenty choices left. Flip flip flip. The only songs whose names he knew were the ones Schwartz played while they lifted weights, and those weren’t mellow at all. He gave up and headed for the bathroom.

  Pinned to a corkboard above the urinals were the sports pages of USA Today and the Westish Bugler. “Home at Last!” read the Bugler’s banner headline, above a half-page photo of the Harpooners storming Coshwale’s diamond with raised arms and mouths in midscream. Even Owen looked excited. The article, like every article about the baseball team, bore Sarah X. Pessel’s byline:

  COSHWALE, IL—They had never, in over one hundred seasons, won a conference title. Their opponents, the Coshwale Muskies, had captured twenty-nine in that same time span, including four in a row. Their star shortstop, Henry Skrimshander, was nowhere to be found.

  It didn’t matter.

  Sunday afternoon, the Harpooners put an exclamation point on a century of frustration, fishhooking the favored Muskies 2–1 and 15–0 to don their first UMSCAC crown. Senior captain Mike Schwartz spearheaded the redemption with two home runs and seven RBI, while junior pitcher–center fielder Adam Starblind, he of the blond locks and movie-star swagger, chipped in four hits and earned the save in the opening game, despite what he described after the game as severe abdominal soreness, lifting his jersey to reveal a bruised but impressively sculpted six-pack.

  Freshperson Izzy Avila filled in more than admirably for the absent Skrimshander, scoring a brace of runs and patrolling the middle of the diamond the way Crockett and Tubbs patrolled Miami in the age of early Madonna: with flair. One or two sublimely acrobatic plays even had bystanders murmuring the name of the shortstop he replaced—a man many deemed unreplaceable. “Izzy looked sharp,” intoned mustachioed skipper Ron Cox, a manly man with a nose for understatement.

  Schwartz, meanwhile, shrugged off the suggestion that Skrimshander’s apparently unexcused absence, one day after walking off the field midinning after a long battle against waning confidence, would hamper the team as they prepared for their first-ever regional tourney. “Skrimmer’ll be back tomorrow,” Schwartz growled. “You can bet your god-[CONTINUED ON 3B]

  Henry ripped down the page, tore it into thin strips like confetti, and peed on the strips. In the mirror as he washed his hands he saw how he looked in his filthy sweatshirt. He hadn’t shaved or showered in days. Lopez wasn’t just being nice—he was humoring him the way you humor a crazy person.

  His knees felt wobbly. He lingered by the bathroom doorway until Lopez made his way to the far end of the increasingly crowded bar. He slipped a twenty under his empty pint glass and hustled out the door, crossing the railroad tracks into the heart of deserted downtown, where few students had reason to go.

  Walking toward him, or trying to, was Pella Affenlight.

  She didn’t see him at first. She was struggling to move a four-legged piece of furniture down the sidewalk. She hoisted it off the ground, clutching its flat top to her chest so the legs pointed straight at Henry. Once she had it in the air she could only stagger a few steps forward and, with a flurry of soft curses, let it drop.

  When he reached her, he couldn’t not stop; they were the only two people on the street. They looked at each other across the desk.

  Pella pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her sweatshirt pocket, tapped out a cigarette and lit it. Henry reached out his hand. Pella looked at him. “You sure?” she said.

  Henry nodded. She handed him the cigarette. “Careful. They’re strong.”

  Henry didn’t know strong from unstrong. He put it between his lips.

  “This isn’t as stupid as it looks.” She nodded at the desk as she lit a second cigarette for herself. “Or actually no—it is that stupid. I knew I couldn’t carry this home. But I really wanted it.”

  The cigarette wasn’t having much effect. Henry tried to imitate Pella’s approach, really sucking on the end this time. His head exploded into dizziness, and he put his cigarette-holding hand on the desk to steady himself. He lifted the other to his mouth and coughed a little fluid into it.

  “Henry, are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  “Come on. Let’s sit you down for a minute.” Pella took him by the hand and guided him to the curb, where they sat with their feet in the street. “I got a new place,” she said, to distract him. “It’s over on Groome Street, with two juniors named Noelle and Courtney. They had a third roommate, but she left midsemester—five to one she went into rehab for her eating disorder, to judge by the general vibe of the place.

  “When I went to pawn my ring to pay the rent, I saw this writing table in the shop next door. I figured it’d be nice to have one piece of furniture that was mine. So I bought it.”

  “It’s nice.”

  “Thank you. The owner asked when I wanted to pick it up. And I said, Do you deliver? And he hemmed and hawed and said, Well, he didn’t have his truck, maybe he could bring it by on Saturday. And I said, Saturday? It’s Monday! And he said he knew what day it was. So I said, Forget it, I’ll just take it now. I carried it out of there and got a block away and nearly collapsed.”

  “I can help,” Henry said.

  “You just take it easy for a minute.”

  They sat there in silence while Pella finished her cigarette. Then she helped Henry to his feet and they began lugging the desk toward Groome Street. Henry had to walk forward to keep from getting dizzy, which meant Pella had to walk backward, and her tiny mincing steps, combined with the fact that he kept getting dizzy anyway, made for slow progress. Every half block they had to stop and rest.

  Finally they reached Groome and turned east, toward the lake. “It’s on this block,” Pella said. “I think.”

  “What’s the number?”

  Pella couldn’t remember. “Why do all these houses look alike? And don’t say because it’s dark. Oh wait—maybe this is it.” They set down the table, and she darted up onto the porch and peered in the window. “They really do all look alike,” she said.

  Henry hiccuped. The street was tilting under him. “Try your key.”

  “I forgot to get one.” She climbed the porch steps again and tried the door—it was unlocked. She peeked inside. “This is it,” she said. “Let’s be quiet.”

  They carried the table onto the porch, into the darkened living room, and then into Pella’s room. She flipped on the light to reveal an empty carpeted room with dust bunnies in the corners and a futon mattress on the floor, the contents of her wicker bag and backpack spilled out across it. On the floor beside the futon sat a fresh-from-the-box digital alarm clock, its cord still kinked as it snaked across the rug. “Voilà,” she said. “Mon château.”

  They carried the writing table to the obvious spot, kitty-corner from the futon, and worked it up tight to the wall. Pella stood back and appraised
it with folded arms, used her hip to shove it a half step closer to the window. “I think that’s it,” she said.

  Henry walked down the hall to use the bathroom. On the way back he peeked into the kitchen, where a dim light shone above the sink. On the counter stood a bottle of wine with a rubber stopper in it. He’d never tasted wine before; even in church he skipped that part. The bottle was a little more than halfway full. He pulled out the stopper and glugged it down in two long pulls. He shoved the bottle as far down in the trash as it would go.

  The kitchen table had a blue Formica top and four matching chairs, but there were only three people living there. And Pella didn’t have a chair for her new desk. Therefore he picked up one of the chairs and carried it back to Pella’s room, trying not to bang it on the hallway walls as he walked.

  “Oh,” Pella said. “I probably shouldn’t use that.”

  “What? Why?” Henry felt himself wobble a bit. “Do whatever you want.” He pushed the chair under the desk with a flourish.

  “Hm.” Pella folded her arms beneath her breasts and assessed the setup. “Maybe you’re right. It does look pretty good.”

  He turned to face her, held out his arms. “You look pretty good.”

  “Henry. Cut it out. You’re drunk.”

  He belched discreetly into his hand. “I love you.”

  “No, you do not.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You moron. How’d you get so drunk? You were drunk before, but not like this.”

  “I drank the wine.”

  “The wine? What wine?”

  “Kitchen wine.”

  “You drank kitchen wine? Okay. You drink all the kitchen wine you want. You’ve earned it. But don’t go around telling people you love them. Deal?”

  Henry nodded. Then he closed his eyes. Pella took him by the hand and led him out into the living room. When he awoke a few hours later, he awoke in darkness, the room spinning, his face pressed into the couch. A hand was shaking his shoulder. “Henry,” Pella whispered.

  He grunted.

  “It’s almost five thirty. I’m leaving for work. Go sleep in my room so my roommates don’t get mad.”

  61

  On the day before the regional tournament began, Schwartz drove out to see his orthopedist. The clinic was tucked into a redbrick strip mall between a cell phone outlet and a Christian bookstore. Schwartz parked the Buick in the handicapped spot, a little in-joke with himself. Julie, the receptionist, held up two fingers, indicating which exam room he should head to. He always scheduled the first appointment after Dr. Kellner’s lunch so he wouldn’t have to wait.

  “Mike.” Dr. Kellner gave him a strong handshake, held the grip. Orthopedists, in Schwartz’s experience, were serious alpha males; hard-charging, broad-chested guys much like himself, except better at math. “I’ve been keeping up with the team. Conference champs. Congrats.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s a banner year for Jewish ballplayers. That Braun kid for the Brew Crew is going like gangbusters.”

  “The Hebrew Hammer,” Schwartz said gamely. Dr. Kellner liked to connect with him on an ethnic level; understandable in this part of the country, where the natives were blond or German or both.

  “So what have we got today?”

  “Just here for my monthly tune-up.”

  “Well, good. Hop up on the table, Captain Crepitus.”

  Schwartz hoisted himself onto the padded exam table, lay on his back, yanked his sweatpants’ gathered elastic hems up onto his thighs. Dr. Kellner tested his range of motion, prodded each kneecap, applied valgus and varus stresses. “Where does it hurt best?” he asked, an old joke of theirs.

  Crepitus: the noise produced by rubbing irregular cartilage surfaces together, as in osteoarthritis. With each stretch Schwartz’s knees snapped and popped at increasing volume, as if trying to outbid each other. Within a minute Dr. Kellner had heard enough. He plopped down in a chair, scratched a meaty arm under his short-sleeved scrub shirt. “Nothing we don’t already know,” he said. “Normal people have cartilage, you’ve got ground beef. Every game you catch brings you that much closer to a couple TKRs.”

  “I’m almost done,” Schwartz said. “Just regionals this weekend.” And nationals too, if they won—when they won—but not much point in saying so.

  Dr. Kellner was making marks on Schwartz’s chart. “Can’t hardly wait,” he said without looking up. “We’ll get you in the OR, knock your ass out, clean you out good. Cartilage, scar tissue, the works. Get you ready for life after baseball. No more of this stopgap bullshit. How’s the back? You’ve been seeing your chiropractor?”

  “Every week.”

  “You want me to have a look?”

  Schwartz shrugged. “Not much point right now.”

  Dr. Kellner nodded. “Keep going with the anti-inflammatories. Twelve hundred milligrams three times a day is fine for a guy your size.”

  “I have been.” Schwartz paused, pretended to study the kitschy framed posters of strongman stretches that hung above the exam table. “But as long as I’m here… maybe we should go one more round with the Vicoprofen.”

  Dr. Kellner cocked his head. “We’ve talked about this, Mike.”

  “Just a dozen or so. Enough to get me through these games.”

  “We agreed that your attachment to these painkillers was borderline problematic.”

  “It’s not an attachment. I’m in pain. Pain I would like killed.”

  Dr. Kellner cocked his head further. “I believe you about the pain, Mike. Believe me, I believe you. I quit doing marathons because one of my knees looks half as bad as both of yours do, and you’re half my age. How’s that for bad math? If I gave you an MRI right now and looked at the results I’d have to shut you down for good—you and I both know that. But a person can be in legitimate, significant pain and still be attached. These are habit-forming drugs.”

  “I don’t care about the drugs per se. I just don’t want the pain to affect my play.”

  “So we’ll do another shot. Cortisone with the lido.”

  “It’s not enough,” Schwartz said. “It did shit last time.”

  Dr. Kellner leaned back in his chair, arms folded, and contemplated Schwartz. “When did you last take any pain meds?”

  Schwartz counted back the days. It was now Wednesday; he’d run out on Saturday, the day Henry walked off the field. This season had been rough, painwise; much worse than previous years, worse even than this past football season. Until recently, he’d been getting painkillers both from Dr. Kellner and from Michelle, a nurse at St. Anne’s whom he’d dated on and off since sophomore year. But Schwartz had stopped answering Michelle’s texts when he met Pella, and now—of course—Michelle wasn’t answering his. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “Have you been having trouble sleeping?”

  “Only a little,” Schwartz lied. “Because of my back.”

  “Any chills or excessive sweating?”

  “My sweating is always excessive.” Good thing he’d left his windbreaker on. Kellner couldn’t see that his T-shirt was drenched.

  “Have you been feeling unusually anxious or irritable?”

  “Me, irritable?” Schwartz joked.

  Dr. Kellner didn’t laugh. “You drink with the meds? A few beers here and there?”

  Schwartz ignored the question. “We’re not talking about habits,” he said. “We’re talking about a well-defined short-term situation. I just need to make it to Sunday. To give my team a chance to win.”

  Julie poked her blond head around the door. “Doctor K. Your two o’clock is here.”

  One of her eyes had a sleepy tic, but otherwise she was cute enough. No doubt she had a steady stream of meds at her disposal, working here. Schwartz should have laid the groundwork a long time ago; too late now. He’d asked around at school, steering clear of his teammates, who might get the wrong idea, but all anyone had was Adderall and coke, coke and Adderall.

  Dr. Kellner shooed Julie away
. Schwartz went on: “In moderation these aren’t dangerous drugs, right? They’re legitimate treatment for lots of people. People in way less pain than me. I mean, you can walk into any dentist’s office in town holding your cheek and they’ll write you a scri—”

  Dr. Kellner shook his head. “Stop right there, Mike, or I’ll call every doctor, dentist, and pharmacist in a fifty-mile radius and tell them to be on the lookout for you. Moderation means small, non-habit-forming amounts. That’s not you. You’ve got a problem with these narcotics. Period. You’re going through withdrawal, and the sooner you ride that out the better. I should ship you over to St. Anne’s to see a counselor, but I know you won’t go and I don’t have time to play babysitter. You want cortisone, I got cortisone. You want to tell me what else is going on in your life that makes a little oblivion so appealing—I’m all ears. Otherwise I’ll see you next month.”

  Doctors were the most self-righteous people on earth, Schwartz thought. Healthy and wealthy themselves, surrounded by the sick and dying—it made them feel invincible, and feeling invincible made them pricks. They thought they understood suffering because they saw it every day. They didn’t understand shit. Plus they could prescribe themselves what they knew they needed without having to listen to lectures about the meaning of moderation from people who hadn’t even read the goddamn Ethics.

  Dr. Kellner stood up, looked at his watch.

  “Fine,” Schwartz said. “Give me the goddamn shot.”

  62

  On the way back to campus, Schwartz told himself that he wouldn’t. Then he turned the Buick down Groome Street anyway, to see if what he’d heard was true. He parked on the far side of the street, one house down, in the shade of a massive maple. The curtains in the front room weren’t drawn. A TV flickered bluely, but as far as Schwartz could tell there wasn’t anyone watching it. He cut the engine. The cortisone helped; he had to admit it. He felt like horseshit, he was sweating like crazy, his heart pounded constantly, but his knees would make it through the weekend’s games. He took off his watch for no particular reason and strapped it around the uppermost segment of the steering wheel. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. If he didn’t leave now he’d be late for practice.