The Natural

by Bernard Malamud

  Sam lay very still on his back, looking as if the breath of life had departed from him except that it was audible in the ripe snore that could be chased without waking him, Roy had discovered, if you hissed scat. His lean head was held up by a folded pillow and his scrawny legs, shoeless, hung limp over the arm of the double seat he had managed to acquire, for he had started out with a seat partner. He was an expert conniver where his comfort was concerned, and since that revolved mostly around the filled flat bottle his ability to raise them up was this side of amazing. He often said he would not die of thirst though he never failed to add, in Roy’s presence, that he wished for nobody the drunkard’s death. He seemed now to be dreaming, and his sharp nose was pointed in the direction of a scent that led perhaps to the perfumed presence of Dame Fortune, long past due in his bed. With dry lips puckered, he smiled in expectation of a spectacular kiss though he looked less like a lover than an old scarecrow with his comical, seamed face sprouting prickly stubble in the dark glow of the expiring bulb overhead. A trainman passed who, seeing Sam sniff in his sleep, pretended it was at his own reek and humorously held his nose. Roy frowned, but Sam, who had a moment before been getting in good licks against fate, saw in his sleep, and his expression changed. A tear broke from his eye and slowly slid down his cheek. Roy concluded not to wake Sam and left.

  He returned to the vacant club car and sat there with a magazine on his knee, worrying whether the trip wasn’t a mistake, when a puzzled Eddie came into the car and handed him a pair of red dice.

  “Mate them,” he said. “I can’t believe my eyes.”

  Roy paired the dice. “They mate.”

  “Now roll them.”

  He rolled past his shoe. “Snake eyes.”

  “Try again,” said Eddie, interested.

  Roy rattled the red cubes. “Snake eyes once more.”

  “Amazing. Again, please.”

  Again he rolled on the rug. Roy whistled. “Holy cow, three in a row.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Did they do the same for you?”

  “No, for me they did sevens.”

  “Are they loaded?”

  “Bewitched,” Eddie muttered. “I found them in the washroom and I’m gonna get rid of them pronto.”

  “Why?—if you could win all the time?”

  “I don’t crave any outside assistance in games of chance.”

  The train had begun to slow down.

  “Oh oh, duty.” Eddie hurried out.

  Watching through the double-paned glass, Roy saw the porter swing himself off the train and jog along with it a few paces as it pulled to a stop. The morning was high and bright but the desolate station—wherever they were—gave up a single passenger, a girl in a dressy black dress, who despite the morning chill waited with a coat over her arm, and two suitcases and a zippered golf bag at her feet. Hatless, too, her hair a froth of dark curls, she held by a loose cord a shiny black hat box which she wouldn’t let Eddie touch when he gathered up her things. Her face was striking, a little drawn and pale, and when she stepped up into the train her nyloned legs made Roy’s pulses dance. When he could no longer see her, he watched Eddie set down her bags, take the red dice out of his pocket, spit on them and fling them over the depot roof. He hurriedly grabbed the bags and hopped on the moving train.

  The girl entered the club car and directed Eddie to carry her suitcases to her compartment and she would stay and have a cigarette. He mentioned the hat box again but she giggled nervously and said no.

  “Never lost a female hat yet,” Eddie muttered.

  “Thank you but I’ll carry it myself.”

  He shrugged and left.

  She had dropped a flower. Roy thought it was a gardenia but it turned out to be a white rose she had worn pinned to her dress.

  When he handed it to her, her eyes widened with fascination, as if she had recognized him from somewhere, but when she found she hadn’t, to his horror her expression changed instantly to one of boredom. Sitting across the aisle from him she fished out of her purse a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit up, and crossing her heartbreaking legs, began to flip through a copy of Life.

  He figured she was his own age, maybe a year or so older. She looked to him like one of those high-class college girls, only with more zip than most of them, and dressed for 6 A.M. as the girls back home never would. He was marvelously interested in her, so much had her first glance into his eyes meant to him, and already felt a great longing in his life. Anxious to get acquainted, he was flabbergasted how to begin. If she hadn’t yet eaten breakfast and he could work up the nerve, he could talk to her in the diner—only he didn’t dare.

  People were sitting around now and the steward came out and said first call for breakfast.

  She snubbed out her cigarette with a wriggling motion of the wrist—her bracelets tinkled—picked up the hat box and went into the diner. Her crumpled white rose lay in the ashtray. He took it out and quickly stuck it in his pants pocket. Though his hunger bit sharp he waited till everyone was maybe served, and then he entered.

  Although he had tried to avoid it, for fear she would see how unsure he was of these things, he was put at the same table with her and her black hat box, which now occupied a seat of its own. She glanced up furtively when he sat down but went wordlessly back to her coffee. When the waiter handed Roy the pad, he absently printed his name and date of birth but the waiter imperceptibly nudged him (hey, hayseed) and indicated it was for ordering. He pointed on the menu with his yellow pencil (this is the buck breakfast) but the blushing ballplayer, squinting through the blur, could only think he was sitting on the lone four-bit piece he had in his back pocket. He tried to squelch the impulse but something forced him to look up at her as he attempted to pour water into his ice-filled (this’ll kill the fever) glass, spilling some on the tablecloth (whose diapers you wetting, boy?), then all thumbs and butter fingers, the pitcher thumped the pitcher down, fished the fifty cents out of his pants, and after scratching out the vital statistics on the pad, plunked the coin down on the table.

  “That’s for you,” he told the (what did I do to deserve this?) waiter, and though the silver-eyed mermaid was about to speak, he did not stay to listen but beat it fast out of the accursed car.

  Tramping highways and byways, wandering everywhere bird dogging the sandlots for months without spotting so much as a fifth-rater he could telegraph about to the head scout of the Cubs, and maybe pick up a hundred bucks in the mail as a token of their appreciation, with also a word of thanks for his good bird dogging and maybe they would sometime again employ him as a scout on the regular payroll—well, after a disheartening long time in which he was not able to roust up a single specimen worthy to be called by the name of ballplayer, Sam had one day lost his way along a dusty country road and when he finally found out where he was, too weary to turn back, he crossed over to an old, dry barn and sat against the haypile in front, to drown his sorrows with a swig. On the verge of dozing he heard these shouts and opened his eyes, shielding them from the hot sun, and as he lived, a game of ball was being played in a pasture by twelve blond-bearded players, six on each side, and even from where Sam sat he could tell they were terrific the way they smacked the pill—one blow banging it so far out the fielder had to run a mile before he could jump high and snag it smack in his bare hand. Sam’s mouth popped open, he got up whoozy and watched, finding it hard to believe his eyes, as the teams changed sides and the first hitter that batted the ball did so for a far-reaching distance before it was caught, and the same with the second, a wicked clout, but then the third came up, the one who had made the bare-handed catch, and he really laid on and powdered the pellet a thundering crack so that even the one who ran for it, his beard parted in the wind, before long looked like a pygmy chasing it and quit running, seeing the thing was a speck on the horizon.

  Sweating and shivering by turns, Sam muttered if I could ketch the whole twelve of them—and staggered out on the field to cry out the good
news but when they saw him they gathered bats and balls and ran in a dozen directions, and though Sam was smart enough to hang on to the fellow who had banged the sphere out to the horizon, frantically shouting to him, “Whoa—whoa,” his lungs bursting with the effort to call a giant—he wouldn’t stop so Sam never caught him.

  He woke with a sob in his throat but swallowed before he could sound it, for by then Roy had come to mind and he mumbled, “Got someone just as good,” so that for once waking was better than dreaming.

  He yawned. His mouth felt unholy dry and his underclothes were crawling. Reaching down his battered valise from the rack, he pulled out a used bath towel and cake of white soap, and to the surprise of those who saw him go out that way, went through the baggage cars to the car between them and the tender. Once inside there, he peeled to the skin and stepped into the shower stall, where he enjoyed himself for ten minutes, soaping and resoaping his bony body under warm water. But then a trainman happened to come through and after sniffing around Sam’s clothes yelled in to him, “Hey, bud, come outa there.”

  Sam stopped off the shower and poked out his head.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said come outa there, that’s only for the train crew.”

  “Excuse me,” Sam said, and he began quickly to rub himself dry.

  “You don’t have to hurry. Just wanted you to know you made a mistake.”

  “Thought it went with the ticket.”

  “Not in the coaches it don’t.”

  Sam sat on a metal stool and laced up his high brown shoes. Pointing to the cracked mirror on the wall, he said, “Mind if I use your glass?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He parted his sandy hair, combed behind the ears, and managed to work in a shave and brushing of his yellow teeth before he apologized again to the trainman and left.

  Going up a few cars to the lounge, he ordered a cup of hot coffee and a sandwich, ate quickly, and made for the club car. It was semi-officially out of bounds for coach travelers but Sam had told the passenger agent last night that he had a nephew riding on a sleeper, and the passenger agent had mentioned to the conductor not to bother him.

  When he entered the club car, after making sure Roy was elsewhere Sam headed for the bar, already in a fluid state for the train was moving through wet territory, but then he changed his mind and sat down to size up the congregation over a newspaper and spot who looked particularly amiable. The headlines caught his eye at the same time as they did this short, somewhat popeyed gent’s sitting next to him, who had just been greedily questioning the husky, massive-shouldered man on his right, who was wearing sun glasses. Popeyes nudged the big one and they all three stared at Sam’s paper.

  WEST COAST OLYMPIC ATHLETE SHOT

  FOLLOWS 24 HOURS AFTER SLAYING OF

  ALL-AMERICAN FOOTBALL ACE

  The article went on to relate that both of these men had been shot under mysterious circumstances with silver bullets from a .22 caliber pistol by an unknown woman that police were on the hunt for.

  “That makes the second sucker,” the short man said.

  “But why with silver bullets, Max?”

  “Beats me. Maybe she set out after a ghost but couldn’t find him.”

  The other fingered his tie knot. “Why do you suppose she goes around pickin’ on atheletes for?”

  “Not only athletes but also the cream of the crop. She’s knocked off a crack football boy, and now an Olympic runner. Better watch out, Whammer, she may be heading for a baseball player for the third victim.” Max chuckled.

  Sam looked up and almost hopped out of his seat as he recognized them both.

  Hiding his hesitation, he touched the short one on the arm. “Excuse me, mister, but ain’t you Max Mercy, the sportswriter? I know your face from your photo in the articles you write.”

  But the sportswriter, who wore a comical mustache and dressed in stripes that crisscrossed three ways—suit, shirt, and tie—a nervous man with voracious eyes, also had a sharp sense of smell and despite Sam’s shower and toothbrushing nosed out an alcoholic fragrance that slowed his usual speedy response in acknowledging the spread of his fame.

  “That’s right,” he finally said.

  “Well, I’m happy to have the chance to say a few words to you. You’re maybe a little after my time, but I am Sam Simpson—Bub Simpson, that is—who played for the St. Louis Browns in the seasons of 1919 to 1921.”

  Sam spoke with a grin though his insides were afry at the mention of his professional baseball career.

  “Believe I’ve heard the name,” Mercy said nervously. After a minute he nodded toward the man Sam knew all along as the leading hitter of the American League, three times winner of the Most Valuable Player award, and announced, “This is Walter (the Whammer) Wambold.” It had been in the papers that he was a holdout for $75,000 and was coming East to squeeze it out of his boss.

  “Howdy,” Sam said. “You sure look different in street clothes.”

  The Whammer, whose yellow hair was slicked flat, with tie and socks to match, grunted.

  Sam’s ears reddened. He laughed embarrassedly and then remarked sideways to Mercy that he was traveling with a slam-bang young pitcher who’d soon be laying them low in the big leagues. “Spoke to you because I thought you might want to know about him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Roy Hobbs.”

  “Where’d he play?”

  “Well, he’s not exactly been in organized baseball.”

  “Where’d he learn to pitch?”

  “His daddy taught him years ago—he was once a semipro—and I have been polishin’ him up.”

  “Where’s he been pitching?”

  “Well, like I said, he’s young, but he certainly mowed them down in the Northwest High School League last year. Thought you might of heard of his eight no-hitters.”

  “Class D is as far down as I go,” Mercy laughed. He lit one of the cigars Sam had been looking at in his breast pocket.

  “I’m personally taking him to Clarence Mulligan of the Cubs for a tryout. They will probably pay me a few grand for uncovering the coming pitcher of the century but the condition is—and Roy is backing me on this because he is more devoted to me than a son—that I am to go back as a regular scout, like I was in 1925.”

  Roy popped his head into the car and searched around for the girl with the black hat box (Miss Harriet Bird, Eddie had gratuitously told him, making a black fluttering of wings), and seeing her seated near the card tables restlessly thumbing through a magazine, popped out.

  “That’s him,” said Sam. “Wait’ll I bring him back.” He got up and chased after Roy.

  “Who’s the gabber?” said the Whammer.

  “Guy named Simpson who once caught for the Brownies. Funny thing, last night I was doing a Sunday piece on drunks in baseball and I had occasion to look up his record. He was in the game three years, batted .340, .260, and .198, but his catching was terrific—not one error listed.”

  “Get rid of him, he jaws too much.”

  “Sh, here he comes.”

  Sam returned with Roy in tow, gazing uncomfortably ahead.

  “Max,” said Sam, “this is Roy Hobbs that I mentioned to you. Say hello to Max Mercy, the syndicated sportswriter, kiddo.”

  “Hello,” Roy nodded.

  “This is the Whammer,” Max said.

  Roy extended his hand but the Whammer looked through him with no expression whatsoever. Seeing he had his eye hooked on Harriet, Roy conceived a strong dislike for the guy.

  The Whammer got up. “Come on, Max, I wanna play cards.”

  Max rose. “Well, hang onto the water wagon, Bub,” he said to Sam.

  Sam turned red.

  Roy shot the sportswriter a dirty look.

  “Keep up with the no-hitters, kid,” Max laughed.

  Roy didn’t answer. He took the Whammer’s chair and Sam sat where he was, brooding.

  “What’ll it be?” they heard Mercy ask as he
shuffled the cards. They had joined two men at one of the card tables.

  The Whammer, who looked to Sam like an overgrown side of beef wrapped in gabardine, said, “Hearts.” He stared at Harriet until she looked up from her magazine, and after a moment of doubt, smiled.

  The Whammer fingered his necktie knot. As he scooped up the cards his diamond ring glinted in the sunlight.

  “Goddamned millionaire,” Sam thought.

  “The hell with her,” thought Roy.

  “I dealt rummy,” Max said, and though no one had called him, Sam promptly looked around.

  Toward late afternoon the Whammer, droning on about his deeds on the playing field, got very chummy with Harriet Bird and before long had slipped his fat fingers around the back of her chair so Roy left the club car and sat in the sleeper, looking out of the window, across the aisle from where Eddie slept sitting up. Gosh, the size of the forest. He thought they had left it for good yesterday and here it still was. As he watched, the trees flowed together and so did the hills and clouds. He felt a kind of sadness, because he had lost the feeling of a particular place. Yesterday he had come from somewhere, a place he knew was there, but today it had thinned away in space—how vast he could not have guessed —and he felt like he would never see it again.

  The forest stayed with them, climbing hills like an army, shooting down like waterfalls. As the train skirted close in, the trees leveled out and he could see within the woodland the only place he had been truly intimate with in his wanderings, a green world shot through with weird light and strange bird cries, muffled in silence that made the privacy so complete his inmost self had no shame of anything he thought there, and it eased the body-shaking beat of his ambitions. Then he thought of here and now and for the thousandth time wondered why they had come so far and for what. Did Sam really know what he was doing? Sometimes Roy had his doubts. Sometimes he wanted to turn around and go back home, where he could at least predict what tomorrow would be like. Remembering the white rose in his pants pocket, he decided to get rid of it. But then the pine trees flowed away from the train and slowly swerved behind blue hills; all at once there was this beaten gold, snow-capped mountain in the distance, and on the plain several miles from its base lay a small city gleaming in the rays of the declining sun. Approaching it, the long train slowly pulled to a stop.