The Natural

by Бернард Маламуд

  “Go to hell.”

  The beggar was hurt. “You’ll get yours,” he said. “You’ll get yours,” said Max. “I’ll call a cop.” “You’ll get yours,” the beggar said. “You too,” he said to Roy and spat on the sidewalk.

  “Friend of yours?” Roy asked as they went down the stairs into the nightspot.

  Max’s face was inflamed. “I can’t get rid of that scurvy bastard. Picks this place to hang around and they can’t flush him outa here.”

  Inside the club the audience was in an uproar. The show was on and some screaming, half-naked girls were being chased by masked devils with tin pitchforks. Then the lights went Out and the devils ran around poking at the customers. Roy was jabbed in the rear end. He grabbed at the devil but missed, then he heard a giggle and realized it was a girl. He grabbed for her again but the devil jabbed him and ran. When the lights went on all the girls and devils were gone. The customers guffawed and applauded.

  “Come on,” Max said.

  The captain had recognized him and was beckoning them to a ringside table. Roy sat down. Max looked around and bounced up.

  “See a party I know. Be right back.”

  The band struck up a number and the chorus wriggled out amid weaving spotlights for the finale. They were wearing red spangled briefs and brassieres and looked so pretty that Roy felt lonely.

  Max was back.

  “We’re changing tables. Gus Sands wants us with him.”

  “Who’s he?”

  Max looked to see if Roy was kidding.

  “You don’t know Gus Sands?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “What d’ye read, the Podunk Pipsqueak? They call him the Supreme Bookie, he nets at least ten million a year. Awfully nice guy and he will give you the silk shirt off his back. Also somebody you know is with him.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Memo Paris.”

  Roy got up. What’s she doing here? He followed Max across the floor to Gus Sands’s table. Memo was sitting there alone in a black strapless gown and wearing her hair up. The sight of her, so beautiful, hit him hard. He had been picturing her alone in her room nights. She said hello evasively. At first he thought she was still sore at him, but then he heard voices coming from the floor at the other side of the table and understood that was where she was looking.

  A surprising semi-bald dome rose up above the table and Roy found himself staring into a pair of strange eyes, a mournful blue one and the other glowing weirdly golden. His scalp prickled as the bookie, a long stretch of bone, rose to his full height. The angle at which the spotlight had caught his glass eye, lighting it like a Christmas tree, changed, and the eye became just a ball of ice.

  “S’matter, Gus?” Mercy said.

  “Memo lost two bits.” His voice was sugar soft. “Find it yet?” he asked the waiter, still down on all fours.

  “Not yet, sir.” He got up. “No, sir.”

  “Forget it.” Sands flicked a deft flyer into the man’s loose fist.

  He shook hands with Roy. “Glad to meet you, slugger. Whyn’t you sit down?”

  “Tough luck, babyface,” he said, giving Memo a smile. Roy sat down facing her but she barely glanced at him. Though dressed up, she was not entirely herself. The blue eye shadow she had on could not hide the dark circles around her eyes and she looked tired. Her chair was close to Gus’s. Once he chucked her under the chin and she giggled. It sickened Roy because it didn’t make sense.

  The busboy cleaned up the remains of two lobsters. Gus slipped him a flyer.

  “Nice kid,” he said softly. Reaching for the menu, he handed it to Roy.

  Roy read it and although he was hungry couldn’t concentrate on food. What did this glass-eye bookie, a good fifty years if not more, mean to a lively girl like Memo, a girl who was, after all, just out of mourning for a young fellow like Bump? Over the top of the menu he noticed Gus’s soft-boned hands and the thick, yellow-nailed fingers. He had pouches under both the good and fake eyes, and though he smiled a lot, his expression was melancholy. Roy disliked him right off. There was something wormy about him. He belonged in the dark with the Judge. Let them both haunt themselves there.

  “Order, guys,” Gus said.

  Roy did just to have something to do.

  The captain came over and asked was everything all right. “Check and double check.” Gus pressed two folded fives into his palm. Roy didn’t like the way he threw out the bucks. He thought of the raise he didn’t get and felt bad about it.

  “Lemme buy you a drink, slugger,” Gus said, pointing to his own Scotch.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Clean living, eh?”

  “The eyes,” Roy said, pointing to his. “Got to keep ‘em clear.”

  Gus smiled. “Nice goin’, slugger.”

  “He needs a drink,” Max said. “The Judge gave him nix on a raise.”

  Roy could have bopped him for telling it in front of Memo.

  Gus was interested.

  “Y’mean he didn’t pull out his pouch and shake you out some rusty two-dollar gold pieces?”

  Everybody laughed but Roy.

  “I see you met him,” Max said.

  Gus winked the glass eye. “We had some dealings.”

  “How’d you make out?”

  “No evidence. We were acquitted.” He chuckled softly.

  Max made a note in his book.

  “Don’t write that, Max,” said Gus.

  Max quickly tore out the page. “Whatever you say, Gus.”

  Gus beamed. He turned to Roy. “How’d it go today, slugger?”

  “Fine,” Roy said.

  “He got five for five in the first, and four hits in the nightcap,” Max explained.

  “Say, what d’ye know?” Gus whistled softly. “That’ll cost me a pretty penny.” He focused his good eye on Roy. “I was betting against you today, slugger.”

  “You mean the Knights?”

  “No, just you.”

  “Didn’t know you bet on any special player.”

  “On anybody or anything. We bet on strikes, balls, hits, runs, innings, and full games. If a good team plays a lousy team we will bet on the spread of runs. We cover anything anyone wants to bet on. Once in a Series game I bet a hundred grand on three pitched balls.”

  “How’d you make out on that?”

  “Guess.”

  “I guess you didn’t.”

  “Right, I didn’t.” Gus chuckled. “But it don’t matter. The next week I ruined the guy in a different deal. Sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t but the percentage is for us. Today we lost on you, some other time we will clean up double.”

  “How’Il you do that?”

  “When you are not hitting so good.”

  “How’ll you know when to bet on that?”

  Gus pointed to his glass eye. “The Magic Eye,” he said. “It sees everything and tells me.”

  The steaks came and Roy cut into his.

  “Wanna see how it works, slugger? Let’s you and I bet on something.”

  “I got nothing I want to bet on,” Roy said, his mouth full of meat and potatoes.

  “Bet on any old thing and I will come up with the opposite even though your luck is running high now.”

  “It’s a helluva lot more than luck.”

  “I will bet anyway.”

  Memo looked interested. Roy decided to take a chance.

  “How about that I will get four hits in tomorrow’s game?” Gus paused. “Don’t bet on baseball now,” he said. “Bet on something we can settle here.”

  “Well, you pick it and I’ll bet against you.”

  “Done,” said Gus. “Tell you what, see the bar over by the entrance?”

  Roy nodded.

  “We will bet on the next order. You see Harry there, don’t you? He’s just resting now. In a minute somebody’s gonna order drinks and Harry will make them. We’ll wait till a waiter goes over and gives him an order — any one of them in the joint any
time you say, so nobody thinks it’s rigged. Then I will name you one of the drinks that will go on the waiter’s tray, before Harry makes them. If there is only one drink there I will have to name it exactly — for a grand.”

  Roy hesitated. “Make it a hundred.”

  Max tittered.

  “A ‘C’ it is,” Gus said. “Say when.”

  “Now.”

  Gus shut his eyes and rubbed his brow with his left hand. “One of the drinks on the tray will be a Pink Lady.”

  The way they were seated everybody but Mercy could see the bar, so he turned his chair around to watch.

  “Your steak might get cold, Max.”

  “This I got to see.”

  Memo looked on, amused.

  They waited a minute, then a waiter went over to the bar and said something to the bartender. Harry nodded and turned around for a bottle, but they couldn’t see what he was mixing because a customer was standing in front of him. When he left, Roy saw a tall pink drink standing on the counter. He felt sick but then he thought maybe it’s a sloe gin fizz. Harry poured a Scotch and soda for the same tray and the waiter came for it.

  As he passed by, Gus called him over to the table.

  “What is that red drink that you have got there?”

  “This one?” said the waiter. “A Pink Lady, Mr. Sands.”

  Gus slipped him a flyer.

  Everybody laughed.

  “Nothing to it,” said Gus.

  “It never fails.” Max had turned his chair and was eating. “Nice work, Gus.”

  Gus beamed. Memo patted his hand. Roy felt annoyed.

  “That’s a hundred,” he said.

  “It was a freak win,” Gus said, “so we will write it off.”

  “No, I owe it to you but give me a chance to win it back.” He thought Memo was mocking him and it made him stubborn.

  “Anything you say,” Gus shrugged.

  “You can say it,” said Roy. “I’ll cover you for two hundred.” Gus concentrated a minute. Everybody watched him, Roy tensely. It wasn’t the money he was afraid of. He wanted to win in front of Memo.

  “Let’s play on some kind of a number,” Gus said.

  “What kind?”

  “Of the amount of bills you are carrying on you.”

  A slow flush crept up Roy’s cheeks.

  “I will bet I can guess by one buck either way how much you have got on you now,” Gus said.

  “You’re on.” Roy’s voice was husky.

  Gus covered his good eye and pretended he was a mind reader trying to fathom the number. His glass eye stared unblinking.

  “Ten bucks,” he announced.

  Roy’s throat went dry. He drew his wallet out of his pants pocket. Max took it from him and loudly counted up a five and four single dollar bills. “Nine.” He slapped the table and guffawed.

  “Wonderful,” Memo murmured. “Three hundred I owe to you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “It was a bet. Will you take my IOU?”

  “Wanna try again?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ll lose your panties,” Max warned.

  “On what?” Gus asked.

  Roy thought. “What about another number?”

  “Righto. What kind?”

  “I’ll pick out a number from one to ten. You tell me what it is.”

  Gus considered. “For the three hundred?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to write the number?”

  “Keep it in your head.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Got the number?”

  “I have it.”

  Again Gus eclipsed his good eye and took a slow breath. He made it seem like a kind of magic he was doing. Memo was fascinated.

  “Deuce,” Gus quickly announced.

  Roy felt as if he had been struck on the conk. He considered lying but knew they could tell if he did.

  “That’s right, how’d you do it?” He felt foolish.

  Gus winked.

  Max was all but coming apart with laughter. Memo looked away.

  Gus swallowed his Scotch. “Two is a magic number,” he crooned at Memo. “Two makes the world go around.” She smiled slightly, watching Roy.

  He tried to eat but felt numbed.

  Max just couldn’t stop cackling. Roy felt like busting him one in the snoot.

  Gus put his long arm around Memo’s bare shoulders. “I have lots of luck, don’t I, babyface?”

  She nodded and sipped her drink.

  The lights went on. The m.c. bobbed up from a table he had been sitting at and went into his routine.

  “Six hundred I owe to you,” Roy said, throwing Max into another whoop of laughter.

  “Forget it, slugger. Maybe some day you might be able to do me a favor.”

  They were all suddenly silent.

  “What kind of favor?” Roy asked.

  “When I am down and out you can buy me a cup o’ coffee.”

  They laughed, except Roy.

  “I’ll pay you now.” He left the table and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned with a white tablecloth over his arm.

  Roy flapped out the cloth and one of the spotlights happened to catch it in the air. It turned red, then gold.

  “What’s going on?” Max said.

  Roy whisked the cloth over Gus’s head.

  “The first installment.”

  He grabbed the bookie’s nose and yanked. A stream of silver dollars clattered into his plate.

  Gus stared at the money. Memo looked at Roy in intense surprise.

  People at the nearby tables turned to see what was going on. Those in the rear craned and got up. The m.c. gave up his jokes and waved both spots to Roy.

  “For Pete’s sake, sit down,” Max hissed.

  Roy rippled the green cloth in front of Max’s face and dragged out of his astonished mouth a dead herring.

  Everybody in the place applauded.

  From Memo’s bosom, he plucked a duck egg.

  Gus got red in the face. Roy grabbed his beak again and twisted — it shed more cartwheels.

  “Second installment.”

  “What the hell is this?” Gus sputtered.

  The color wheels spun. Roy turned purple, red, and yellow. From the glum Mercy’s pocket he extracted a long salami.

  Gus’s ears ran a third installment of silver. A whirl of the cloth and a white bunny hopped out of Memo’s purse. From Max’s size sixteen shirt collar, he teased out a pig’s tail. As the customers howled, Max pulled out his black book and furiously scribbled in it. Gus’s blue, depressed eye hunted around for a way out but his glass one gleamed like a lamp in a graveyard. And Memo laughed and laughed till the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  4

  Maybe I might break my back while I am at it,” Roy spoke into the microphone at home plate before a hushed sellout crowd jampacked into Knights Field, “but I will do my best — the best I am able — to be the greatest there ever was in the game.

  “I thank you.” He finished with a gulp that echoed like an electric hiccup through the loudspeakers and sat down, not quite happy with himself despite the celebration, because when called on to speak he had meant to begin with a joke, then thank them for their favor and say what a good team the Knights were and how he enjoyed working for Pop Fisher, but it had come out this other way. On the other hand, so what the hell if they knew what was on his mind?

  It was “Roy Hobbs Day,” that had been in the making since two weeks ago, when Max Mercy printed in his column: “Roy Hobbs, El Swatto, has been ixnayed on a pay raise. Trying to kill the bird that lays the golden baseball, Judge?” A grass roots movement developed among the loyal fans to put the Judge to shame (if possible) and they had quickly arranged a Day for Roy, which was held after the Knights had bounced into third place, following a night game win over the Phils, who now led them by only four games, themselves two behind the first-place Pirates.

&nb
sp; The whole thing was kept a surprise, and after batting practice was over on this particular Saturday afternoon in early August, the right field gate had swung open and a whole caravan of cars, led by a limousine full of officials and American Legionnaires, and followed by a gorgeous, underslung white Mercedes-Benz and a lumbering warehouse van loaded with stuff, drove in and slowly circled the field to the music of a band playing “Yankee Doodle,” while the crowd cheered shrilly. Someone then tapped Roy and said it was all for him.

  “Who, me?” he said, rising…

  When he had made his speech and retired to the dugout, after a quick, unbelieving glance at the mountain of gifts they were unpacking for him, the fans sat back in frozen silence, some quickly crossing their fingers, some spitting over their left shoulders, onto the steps so they wouldn’t get anyone wet, almost all hoping he had not jinxed himself forever by saying what he had said. “The best there ever was in the game” might tempt the wrath of.some mighty powerful ghosts. But they quickly recovered from the shock of his audacity and clapped up a thick thunder of applause.

  It was everyman’s party and they were determined to enjoy it. No one knew exactly who had supplied the big dough, but the loyal everyday fans had contributed all sorts of small change and single bucks to buy enough merchandise to furnish a fair-sized general store. When everything was unloaded from the van, Roy posed in front of it, fiddling with a gadget or two for the benefit of the photographers, though he later tipped off Dizzy to sell whatever he could to whoever had the cash. Mercy himself counted two television sets, a baby tractor, five hundred feet of pink plastic garden hose, a nanny goat, lifetime pass to the Paramount, one dozen hand-painted neckties offering different views of the Grand Canyon, six aluminum traveling cases, and a credit for seventy-five taxi rides in Philadelphia. Also three hundred pounds of a New Jersey brand Swiss cheese, a set of andirons and tongs, forty gallons of pistachio ice cream, six crates of lemons, a frozen side of hog, hunting knife, bearskin rug, snowshoes, four burner electric range, deed to a lot in Florida, twelve pairs of monogrammed blue shorts, movie camera and projector, a Chris-Craft motor boat — and, because everybody thought the Judge (unashamedly looking on from his window in the tower) was too cheap to live — a certified check for thirty-six hundred dollars. Although the committee had tried to keep out all oddball contributions, a few slipped in, including a smelly package of Limburger cheese, one human skull, bundle of comic books, can of rat exterminator, and a package of dull razor blades, this last with a card attached in the crabbed handwriting of Otto Zipp: “Here, cut your throat,” but Roy did not take it to heart.