by Chad Harbach
Quisp was lying flat on his stomach in left field. “What’s wrong with Q?” Henry asked. Before anyone could answer, the bullpen phone rang. Henry was the nearest to it. “Hello?” he said.
“Was he out?” Arsch asked.
“Sure looked that way.”
“Shit.” Arsch’s voice sounded soft and doomed. “Loonie can’t go. He’s throwing like sixty.”
“Okay,” Henry said.
“Coach has already been to the mound this inning. If he goes again, he’ll have to change pitchers.”
“Right.” Henry dropped the phone, sprinted onto the field, and latched onto the arm of Coach Cox, who was headed toward the mound to pull Starblind from the game. “Phil can’t go,” Henry said. “Dead arm.”
They were standing halfway between home plate and the pitching rubber. Henry wondered how close you had to get to the mound before it qualified as a trip to the mound. “Then we’ll go with Quisp,” Coach Cox said.
Henry pointed toward left field. “Quisp is down too.”
“Jesus F. Christmas,” Coach Cox muttered. “What the goddamn is going on?”
Two trainers jogged out to look at Quisp, who’d put so much power into that gorgeous throw that he’d torn an abdominal muscle. Eventually he was able to stand and limp back to the bench, supported by Steve Willoughby and Coach Cox. Sooty Kim grabbed his glove and jogged out to left, goose-stepping to stretch his cold legs. Five to one, Amherst. Runner on third, nobody out, cleanup hitter at the plate. The A-M-H-E-R-T girls leaned out over the railing like purple Furies, screaming through their makeshift Pepsi-cup megaphones. Albatross, Henry thought. These guys will never forgive me.
The game had already been paused for what seemed like an eternity, but just as the batter settled into his stance, Schwartz asked for time. The umpire granted the request with obvious reluctance. Schwartz hustled out for a quick word with Starblind, who nodded once and mopped the sweat from his forehead.
Starblind stared down the runner at third, fired a four-seam fastball right at the chin of the hitter, who jerked his hands toward his face as he flung himself to the ground to get out of the way. The ball caromed off the neck of the bat and toward the Amherst dugout. The Amherst coach, who was already charging onto the field to scream at Starblind, detoured to give the spinning ball a petulant kick. The umpire could easily have ejected Starblind—and also Schwartz, who’d clearly ordered the pitch—but instead, and perhaps in compensation for missing the call at home, he simply issued a warning and sent the Amherst coach back to the dugout.
The batter dusted off his jersey and stepped gamely back into the box, but a disastrous thought had been planted in his subconscious. The next pitch, a slow curve, buckled his knees for strike two, and then Starblind threw a mediocre fastball, high and outside, which he waved at unconvincingly.
Starblind hopped off the mound, pumped his fist. He looked suddenly revived—shoulders thrown back, jaw relaxed. He jammed the next batter with his best fastball of the game, inducing a pop fly to Ajay, then struck out the Amherst first baseman, stranding the runner at third. As the Harpooners ran off the field, shouting to one another that they weren’t through yet, never say die, time to put some runs on the board, Henry marveled, not for the first time, at Schwartz’s uncanny ability to orchestrate situations. How did he know that the ump wouldn’t eject Starblind, leaving the Harpooners totally pitcherless? How did he know that that particular batter would be so readily intimidated? How did he know that one strikeout would rejuvenate Starblind, at least for the moment?
The answer, presumably, was that Schwartz didn’t know any of that. But he’d thought of a plan, something to try, and he’d been bold enough to try it.
Loondorf and Arsch returned from the bullpen. “Loonie,” Henry said, draping an arm around the freshperson’s drooping shoulders, “I need you to go coach first.”
“Okay, Henry.” Loondorf trotted out toward the A-M-H-E-R-T girls. Owen sat down beside Henry and produced a library copy of Fear and Trembling from beneath the bench. “Protect me from errant balls,” he said, tucking his bookmark under the lip of his navy cap. “I have fragile bones.”
“I thought Coach Cox wasn’t letting you read anymore.”
“He’s not. Protect me from Coach Cox too.”
Neither team threatened to score until the bottom of the eighth, when Starblind and Izzy singled, putting runners on the corners with nobody out. Owen lined out to first, a bit of bad luck on a well-hit ball, and trotted back to the dugout to resume his reading.
Henry could feel a quiet, electric idea slithering through the ballpark as Schwartzy strode to the plate and pawed at the chalk-swirled back line of the batter’s box with his size-fourteen spike. He was Westish’s all-time home-run leader, and he looked the part. The Amherst fans, except for Elizabeth Myszki, fell quiet. The tiny contingent of Westish parents stood and whistled and clapped. The other six thousand people slid a few inches forward in their seats, together producing a subtle shift in energy that was evident throughout the park. The Harpooners, except for Henry and Owen, leaned over the lip of the dugout, yelling mild profanities to distract the pitcher while inwardly they prayed, contorting their fingers and toes into whatever configurations they felt would produce the most luck. There was a lot of superstitious fidgeting and shifting—nobody wanted to move around too much, which was itself unlucky, but nobody wanted to get stuck in an unlucky pose.
Henry too, as he sat two steps behind his antsy teammates, inches from Owen’s elbow, tried to find a pose that would help. Deep down, he thought, we all believe we’re God. We secretly believe that the outcome of the game depends on us, even when we’re only watching—on the way we breathe in, the way we breathe out, the T-shirt we wear, whether we close our eyes as the pitch leaves the pitcher’s hand and heads toward Schwartz.
Swing and a miss, strike one.
Each of us, deep down, believes that the whole world issues from his own precious body, like images projected from a tiny slide onto an earth-sized screen. And then, deeper down, each of us knows he’s wrong.
Swing and a miss, strike two.
“Rally caps!” yelled Rick O’Shea from the on-deck circle. Everyone—except for Owen, who continued to bury his nose in his book—flipped his hat inside out so the skeletal white underfabric showed. Henry followed suit.
But it wasn’t to be. Schwartz took a third massive swing, glared angrily at the untouched barrel of his bat, and stalked back to the dugout, head down. The Amherst fans roared. Two outs.
Rick O’Shea strode to the plate to try to redeem Schwartz, settled into his left-handed stance. Come on, Henry thought. One time. Izzy, who’d gotten a sneaky lead at first, took off. The pitch was a fastball down and in, right where Rick liked it. One time. Rick dropped his hands and torqued his hips mightily, his pinstriped belly trailing behind. The pitch was ankle-high, but Rick’s looping swing caught it square on the fat part of the bat. The clear loud peal cut through the crowd’s noise. The ball described a parabolic arc through the dark Carolinian air, climbing and climbing still higher, high above the light stanchions, so high it could only come straight down, and would either clear the fence or be caught. The right fielder drifted back, back, until his back was pressed against the wall. He flexed his knees, intent as a cat, and leaped, hooking his free arm over the top of the wall as he stretched his glove toward the plummeting ball…
“Yes!” Owen, who’d seemed not even to be watching, flung his book aside and vaulted the dugout stairs. “Yes yes yes yes yes!” The ball landed in the Amherst bullpen, a yard past the wall. Owen, the first to arrive at home plate, beat madly on Rick’s helmet with both hands, leapfrogged onto his shoulders as the whole team, Henry included, danced around. “Yes!”
The Harpooners trailed by only one. When Boddington followed with a sharp single to right, the Amherst coach finally signaled to the bullpen for a fresh pitcher. The righty who jogged to the mound looked more like an accountant than a star pitcher—he was He
nry’s height, pale-haired and sunken-chinned, with slouched and flimsy shoulders. “Name’s Dougal,” Arsch told Henry. “Pitched a two-hitter against West Texas the other day. He is filthy.”
Henry nodded. The ability to throw a baseball was an alchemical thing, a superhero’s secret power. You could never quite tell who possessed it.
Sooty Kim stepped to the plate. Dougal checked the runner at first, slide-stepped expertly off the mound, and drilled Sooty in the shoulder with a ninety-plus fastball. Sooty dropped to the ground and writhed there for a while. He climbed to his feet and walked down to first, wincing as he kneaded his upper arm.
“Did he do that on purpose?” Arsch wondered aloud, not without a whisper of admiration in his voice, as the now thoroughly disgruntled umpire warned both benches.
Henry shrugged. It certainly looked purposeful. It looked like Dougal was exacting revenge for the brushback pitch Starblind had thrown three innings before—a reckless, almost crazy thing to do in such a close game. You want to throw at my guy? Fine. I’ll put the go-ahead run on base, and then I’ll get out of it. Which is just what he did, striking out Sal Phlox on four pitches. “Filthy,” Arsch reiterated. “Just plain filthy.”
Top of the ninth. As Starblind warmed up, Coach Cox kept scanning the length of the dugout, frowning all the while, the way a hungry person keeps opening an empty refrigerator on the off chance he might have overlooked something. He needed a pitcher, but he didn’t have one. Starblind was finished, was basically lobbing the ball to home plate, but he was going to have to do that for one more inning.
The leadoff hitter smoked a double into the gap between Sal and Sooty Kim. The next batter yanked a long drive down the left-field line, bringing the Amherst players surging happily out of their dugout, but it curled just foul. Starblind’s whole body looked limp, spent. Schwartz lifted up his mask and looked beseechingly toward the dugout. Even me, his eyes said. Even I might throw better than this.
Maybe I should volunteer, Henry thought. I can throw as hard as Starblind. Harder, even. Get in there, fire a few fastballs over the plate, stop the bleeding. We come back and win it in the bottom of the inning. Storybook ending. So what if I haven’t eaten in a while?
Before he could indulge the fantasy any further, Starblind threw another wobbly pitch. The hitter lined a head-high shot up the middle. The Amherst players surged toward the field again, ready to celebrate another score. Izzy came flying in from nowhere, stretched full-out in midair. The ball vanished into his glove. He landed on his stomach and reached out with his right hand to touch second base, doubling off the stunned runner. Two outs. Starblind, somehow, induced a fly ball to end the inning. The Harpooners sprinted off the field, shouting nonsense. Down by one, one last chance.
“Arsch,” barked Coach Cox. “Get a bat. You’re hitting for Ajay.”
Arsch nodded resolutely, bat already in hand. “Filthy?” he muttered to himself, staring out toward the mound. “I’ll show him filthy.”
The bullpen phone rang. Coach Cox reached down into the dugout and grabbed the receiver. “Mike?” he said. “Mike’s pretty goddamn busy right now.” He moved to hang up the phone, then brought it back to his ear. “Hey. Whoa. Just calm down a sec.” Pause. “Hang on. Hang on. I’ll get him.”
Henry kept one eye on Arsch as the big man stepped in against meek-looking Dougal, and one on Schwartz, who pressed the phone to one ear and a grimy hand to the other to muffle his teammates’ chatter. Schwartz was watching the field too, initially—Arsch took a called strike—but his eyes quickly fell to the concrete floor. “Are you sure?” he said quietly.
Ball one. Schwartz sank down on the bench, ten feet away from Henry.
“Baby. Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”
His grimy hand made a slow pass over his widow’s peak, fell helplessly into his lap. He was wearing all of his gear except for his mask. He spoke a few more words into the phone, too softly for Henry to hear, and handed the receiver to Jensen to hang up.
Meat struck out swinging. Two outs left in the season. Owen shut his book and stood, stretched his arms over his head, fingers woven together, and hummed a little ditty; he would bat if Starblind or Izzy reached base. Henry looked at Schwartz, who stared down at the squashed paper cones that littered the floor.
Owen pulled his batting gloves from his back pockets, slapped them decisively against his thighs, and headed for the bat rack. “Buddha,” Schwartz said softly. Owen turned around.
Schwartz was wearing a look of indecision that Henry had never seen on him before. “Buddha,” he repeated, even more softly. “That was Pella. It’s about her dad. Mrs. McCallister found him this morning. He’s…” Schwartz’s voice caught. Deep furrows ran through the dirt on his forehead. Henry already knew—felt like he’d known all day—what he was going to say. “He’s dead.”
Owen froze. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
They stared at each other, Owen’s smoke-gray eyes against Schwartz’s big amber ones, for what felt like forever. Starblind’s bat made a loud promising ping. Henry glanced up to see the Amherst third baseman wrap his glove around a hard line drive. Two outs. Starblind yelped in anguish and pounded his bat into home plate. Owen, his face expressionless, lowered his eyes and nodded, as if to say, Okay. I believe you.
“I’m sorry,” Schwartz said.
“Why? Did you kill him?” Owen swam blankly past Schwartz and sank down on the bench. Schwartz sat down beside him. Henry slid nearer, so that the three of them were in a row, Owen bent forward in the center. “You’re on deck,” Henry said.
“So?”
“So…” Henry looked to Schwartz for help, but Schwartz either didn’t notice or wouldn’t meet his eye. Henry wanted to tell Owen to go get a hit for President Affenlight, that that was all he could do right now, that they would work through the rest later, but the words were absurd and they dried on his lips. He patted Owen weakly on the back. “I’ll tell Coach Cox.”
Izzy had one foot in the batter’s box and was performing his usual pre-at-bat ritual—five signs of the cross at maximum speed. “Izzy!” Henry yelled from the dugout steps. “Step out!” His voice dissolved into the crowd’s roar. “Izzy! Step out!”
Izzy, confused, complied. Henry ran out to Coach Cox and tried to explain that President Affenlight was dead and therefore Owen couldn’t bat. Coach Cox stroked his mustache, annoyed and uncomprehending.
“Owen can’t bat,” Henry said. “He just can’t.”
“Why the goddamn not?”
“Believe me,” Henry pleaded. “He just can’t.”
Coach Cox looked up and down the dugout. The only guys left on the bench were the guys who rarely played—guys who had zero chance against a dealer of filth like Dougal. “Grab a bat.”
“Me?” Henry said. “But Coach… I’m not even wearing a cup.”
“You want mine? Grab a bat and get a goddamn hit, Skrimshander.”
Oh Jesus, Henry thought. He didn’t know what to wish for. If he didn’t get to hit, it would be because Izzy made an out and the game was over. If he did get to hit, he was toast. He hurried to the bat rack to find a bat—he chose a lighter one than usual, to match his diminished strength—and took a few tentative swipes at the evening air. The bat felt like lead in his hands.
Dougal rocked and fired. The pitch was a fastball, low and outside. Izzy, overmatched, stuck out the bat. The ball looped torpidly over the second baseman’s head and dropped in shallow right-center for a single. Oh boy.
Coach Cox pulled his crumpled lineup card from his back pocket and waved at the plate umpire. Dougal stomped pissily around the back of the mound, flipping the rosin bag with the backs of his fingers. Henry squeezed into a batting helmet and slowly made his way toward home plate. He dipped one foot inside the batter’s box, as if testing the temperature of a pool.
“Let’s go, son,” growled the umpire. “Season can’t last forever.”
Henry stepped into the box, tapped the Harpooner
on his chest three times. He felt less muscle than he’d grown to expect beneath the starchy fabric. Dougal peered in, agreed to a sign. The Amherst crowd started a chant. The first pitch, an absolutely filthy slider, darted by for a strike.
Henry knew that he was toast. Dougal could throw that filthy pitch twice more, and he wouldn’t come close to hitting it. It was a pro-quality slider, had broken a foot or more while moving outlandishly fast. The timing required to hit a pitch like that was a matter not just of skill but of constant practice. A day off made it tough; a month off made it impossible. Schwartzy might someday have forgiven him for what he’d done with Pella, but now he’d never know—because Schwartz, standing there in the on-deck circle with two weighted bats on his shoulder, would never forgive him for this.
He decided in advance to swing at the second pitch, if only to give Dougal something to think about. Dougal wiped the sweat from his forehead, checked Izzy at first. The pitch was another slider, identical to the first. Henry swung and missed. Two strikes.
Still, he must have done something to catch Dougal’s eye, because Dougal shook off one sign, and then another, and then beckoned for the catcher, who called time and jogged out to confer. The Amherst fans were going crazy. Dougal lifted his glove to his face and spoke through the latticed weave of the webbing, to keep Henry from reading his lips. A burst of affectionate sympathy surged through Henry; somehow all of a sudden, and maybe because he felt so light-headed, it occurred to him that he and Dougal were brothers, members of a tribe of unassuming, live-armed guys, guys who looked like nobodies but carried their force on the inside and were determined to beat you, would do anything to beat you, would kill themselves to beat you, and he knew where Dougal disagreed with his catcher. The catcher figured Henry was an easy mark—wanted to finish him off right away, with another slider down the pipe. The catcher was probably right. But Dougal saw something else in Henry, smelled a whiff of danger (We are brothers, Dougal, brothers… ), and felt a need to set him up for the kill—to show the fastball high and tight, before finishing with the slider low and away. It was flattering, in a way, that a pitcher like Dougal would go to such trouble to strike him out. And it was foolish, in a way, for Dougal to be so crafty, to insist on the pride of his craft, to try to orchestrate things, instead of simply letting Henry beat himself.