None of it means anything, until she touches your arm. You have just pushed the sleeve back up, again, and her fingertips feel cool and wet there. You stop walking.
“I can do stuff,” you say, a little desperately. “People just think because of the way I look that I’m supposed to play ball. But I can do stuff. I can do lots of other stuff. I’m not a loser, you know. Pm not a geek.”
“Nobody said you were,” she says.
“You want to see? I have a lot of stuff, back at my house. I’d love to show you. I have a ball signed by Bill Russell, did you know that? I shook his hand. He hates this whole city, and he shook my hand. I paid the money and he signed the ball and shook my hand and laughed that spooky cackle laugh even though I didn’t say anything at all to the guy. You want to see it?”
She nods, impressed. “I’d like to see that, sure.”
It seems like no one is home when you bring her in through the front door. “Mom,” you call out tentatively. You get the no-answer you hope for.
“You have a very nice place,” she says. “It’s so clean and airy. Really nice.”
“My mom,” you say, leading her up the stairs. “My mom is wild for cleaning and straightening. This is nothing, though. Wait’ll you see my room.”
It was something you hadn’t thought much about, something you just took for granted after so long. You smile at her as you stand for a second before your door, which is almost entirely taken up by a life-sized poster of Evander Holyfield, who is perfect and sculpted and smiling and a half foot shorter than you. The poster is signed. You own Evander Holyfield.
But as soon as you swing the door open and look at her astonished face, you remember. You feel yourself go flush as she beams.
“This is unbelievable,” she says, scanning the brilliance of the room. “It’s like opening a door on the Academy Awards show.”
“Oh, never mind that,” you say, but it is too late. She rushes to the tall chest of drawers, covered with trophies. She careens over to the dresser, blinding with the trophies themselves and their reflections off the mirror behind them. The nightstands on either side of the bed, covered. Small brass loinclothed men standing atop pedestals, arms raised triumphant, at attention all along the baseboard of four walls.
“Hey, let me show you that ball,” you say, even your voice sweaty now. You make for the closet.
“Track.” She points at one modest third-place plaque hanging on the wall. “Tennis?” She points at a trophy, the player bent over backward in midserve. “Football, boxing, hockey. Sailing? Who are you?” Her voice, momentarily filled with awe, changes as soon as she gets up close and begins reading. You are buried in the closet, but you can tell. You take your time.
“Wait a minute. Oh, I know who you are. You’re Sven Lundquist. Oh no, you’re Eamonn O’Rourke. Wait, wait, you’re Jamaal Abdoul.”
When she starts laughing hysterically, you come out of the closet.
“This is soooo cute,” she says, delighted. “You’re a funny guy.”
“No it isn’t,” you answer coolly. “And no I’m not.”
“Come on now, you’re kidding me, right?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, then, what? It’s a hobby, right? It’s a cool idea, I think. You’ll probably wind up with an unbelievable collection, the way you’re going. A real conversation starter, to say the least.”
“No, they’re mine.”
“They’re yours. You won them? All?”
You nod.
“Stop pulling my leg. Okay, so you won, ah”—she browses—“the American Legion baseball championship in 1990? You also won… the New England regional Golden Gloves middleweight title in… oooh, you were a busy boy in 1990, huh?”
“They’re mine,” you say.
“Sure they’re yours, because you bought them, or swiped them, but not because you earned them.”
“Please. I earned them. I did, I earned them. Can we not talk about them anymore? Look, here’s the Russell ball.”
“Just, okay, for my peace of mind, before we move on, just can I hear you tell me you know these are somebody else’s awards?”
You know the stakes, you know the true facts. You know you don’t want her to leave, and you know the appropriate answer. You open your mouth, and some words come out.
“They are mine. Really. They belong to me.”
She backs toward the door, talking calmly, sadly. Pity again. “Being a geek is okay, you know. Being a psychopath is not. You can be a lovable geek….”
“They really are mine,” you say, almost following her. She’s on her way down the stairs. You get to the threshold of your bedroom but you don’t cross it, unable to go out even though you’d like to bring her back.
You hear your mother say hello as they pass each other at the front door. The response is a polite but rushed hi as she speeds out.
When your mother reaches your room you are rapidly tearing open all your remaining 1994 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice packs. You are certain that the prizewinner is in there, the ticket that puts you on Griffey’s card for the millions of hobbyists and girls to see next year. As each pack comes up a loser, you drop it to the floor. Your mother looks at your face and she knows the story. You can see your fractured heart in hers.
“Son, I told you. I told you you shouldn’t let anyone in here.” She stands in the doorway holding a crinkled brown shopping bag. She pulls out a small but different-looking prize, the figurine on top made of white marble instead of metal. “This was at the thrift shop today. I thought you’d like it, thought you could make room for it. You don’t already have anything from soccer, do you?”
When you don’t respond, she comes on in. Even with her standing up, you have to sit on the bed for her to cradle your head in her arms.
Chris Lynch
The holder of a master’s degree from the writing program at Emerson College in Boston, Chris Lynch is the author of several highly acclaimed novels about teenagers, beginning with Shadow Boxer, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. With humor and sensitivity, Shadow Boxer explores the rocky relationship between two brothers whose father died from injuries received during his boxing career. The older brother, George, is determined that twelve-year-old Monty will not follow in their father’s footsteps.
Family relationships also figure prominently in Iceman and Gypsy Davey. In Iceman, Eric’s father lives vicariously through his son’s violent hockey games, and Eric’s only close friend is a man who works at the local funeral home. Eric’s violence on the ice brings his team victories, but to him they become increasingly meaningless. In Gypsy Davey, the title character grows up in a tattered household whose members are too busy to love one another because they are desperately trying to escape the misery of their own lives. So Davey sets out to find love elsewhere.
Mr. Lynch’s most recent novel, Slot Machine, grew out of the same issue that inspired “The Hobbyist”: the attitude that American males are somehow inferior if they are not neck-deep in sports. The novel is about three friends who go to a camp run by their new high school. The camp’s leaders try to slot the campers into manageable, comfortable, stifling categories, but not everyone is willing to be shaped into the expected roles. Like all Mr. Lynch’s novels, this one focuses on identity and self-worth.
When he himself was a teenager, Chris Lynch participated in all kinds of sports, with special interests in baseball, street hockey, soccer, and football, until he grew distant from the “organized” part of organized sports. Understandably, his current athletic passion is running. Alone.
Published by
Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 1995 by Donald R. Gallo
“Joyriding” Copyright © 1995 by Jim Naughton
“Fury” Copyright © 1995 by T. Er
nesto Bethancourt
“Superboy” Copyright © 1995 by Chris Crutcher
“If You Can’t Be Lucky…” Copyright © 1995 by Carl Deuker
“Stealing for Girls” Copyright © 1995 by Will Weaver
“Shark Bait” Copyright © 1995 by Graham Salisbury
“Cutthroat” Copyright © 1995 by Norma Fox Mazer
“The Assault on the Record” Copyright © 1995 by Stephen Hoffius
“The Defender” Copyright © 1995 by Robert Lipsyte
“Just Once” Copyright © 1995 by Thomas J. Dygard
“Brownian Motion” Copyright © 1995 by Virginia Euwer Wolff
“Bones” Copyright © 1995 by Todd Strasser
“Sea Changes” Copyright © 1995 by Tessa Duder
“The Gospel According to Krenzwinkle” Copyright © 1995 by David Klass
“Falling off the Empire State Building” Copyright © 1995 by Harry Mazer
“The Hobbyist” Copyright © 1995 by Chris Lynch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-56843-4
RL:6.5
November 1997
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