by Charles Bock
Each discovered reference was simultaneously chilling and calming—this guy stealing from Kenny's favorite artists, using techniques Kenny himself utilized. It was more than a little odd. But more than a lot compelling, too. So Kenny would refine his artistic ideas, playing with and expanding on themes, scribbling out a mural on the surface of a pawn shop envelope, then turning over the envelope and starting over and following a different path of possibility, choosing and then honing and then perfecting an image, preparing it for the desk, all while fading away from and returning to the matter of whoever was doing the other drawings, this strange, plunging sense of inevitability taking hold—almost as if Kenny could reach out and touch the answers, as if he possessed knowledge he did not want to admit he possessed, knowledge that was not rational, but intuitive.
With a hesitant hand—a hand that Kenny eventually had to steady—he'd finally inscribed the bandana onto that desk. He'd then wrapped this drawn bandana around the bulbous head of an extraterrestrial being, whose face he'd portrayed as twisted, concentrating on the task of turning half-pike atop his airbound, rocket-powered skateboard.
Exactly twenty-four hours later, he found, carved into the wood like a series of knife thrusts, a zombie. With a mess of hair pouring down the front of its bony skull, the zombie worked feverishly at its own sketch.
In the front of the auditorium, the jayvee track coach was announcing, from his sports page, the results of the fourth race at Santa Anita. The kid in the next seat continued using a protractor to chop out a line of blow. Kenny remained in his cage, overcome with inarticulate wonder.
Thus, amid the undefined fissures that, on a daily basis, drifted through that dilapidated school, the exiguity of a rapport had blossomed. Slowly. Tenuously. Nobody else knew. If they knew, they did not care.
A private duel between anonymous gentlemen. A hothouse tango of clandestine imaginations. Floodgates opening, riptides sweeping across the woods, even the hot piece of ass who taught Dish Drying 101 made an appearance (on all fours, barking like a hound); openings created to be filled, challenges tendered to be met, with Kenny lobbing a metaphorical softball down the pike specifically so he could admire how far into the upper deck his counterpart would knock the thing, and then with the dude responding, making an entombed reference he had to know Kenny would understand; every square inch of the kidney-shaped desk being covered, a palette of squiggles and lines that every passing day was muddled further—you'd stare and see sludge, this world of shit; at last, your eyes would zero in, focusing on a specific object, that one little jewel, the key to untold dimensions.
And then there he was: waiting to go through the school metal detector, arguing with the rental cop, insisting he should not have to put his skateboard on the conveyor belt.
Kenny joined the line. Four or five people were waiting between him and the dude. Kenny shifted his weight from one worn sneaker tread to the other. He was within earshot and heard the security guard telling the dude he'd had enough, if the dude wanted to be a little shit, two could play that way.
“You know they're against school policy,” the security guard said, nodding at the dude's skull.
A shift now. A sort of awareness. The dude tensed, as if he felt someone was watching him. Responding, he turned. His eyes, large and probing, stared right at Kenny. The dude did not betray recognition, but his irritation with the situation of the moment was no more. His face was delicate and slim, with blue veins visible from beneath his transparently pale skin. He did not have eyebrows, and this added to the penetrating effect of his gaze. A tardy bell rang and was ignored. The security guard repeated his order with exasperation. The dude's crystalline blue eyes stared directly at Kenny, and now he began following the security guard's order, unknotting his bandana, seeming detached from this action, his attention solely on Kenny, studying him, communicating with him, less reaching out to him than relating.
The bandana fell.
Call it gamesmanship. Etiquette. An instinctive understanding of engagement's rules.
Perhaps it was shock. Something as basic as freezing—choking in the moment, not knowing what to do next.
Or maybe it was as simple as fantasy's open possibilities being superior to the limitations of what is real.
But in the same way a manager refuses to acknowledge a pitcher in the late innings of a perfect game, Kenny made a concerted, pained effort. And avoided the dude's inquiring eyes. Avoided his clumps of hair, his patchy scalp.
And, for his part, the dude did not so much as acknowledge Kenny's snub.
Ignored Kenny right back, he did.
Kenny didn't show up for school the next day.
Friday either.
A long weekend was coming up, honoring some dead guy, and he passed the time without enthusiasm or focus, keeping to himself, not doing much of anything, really, seeing a few movies, driving around to a few familiar out-of-the-way desert roads.
When he returned to Vo Tech, a photocopied paper breezed out of his locker.
For the entirety of that school day Kenny wandered the hallways, searching.
The next day as well.
In the months since the dude had vanished, Kenny had picked up a few punk rock compilations. Each week, he'd checked out the underground comics that littered the pages of the weekly alternative giveaway newspaper. Eventually he'd flipped to the music listings, fighting his way through the paragraphs of small print that described the different bands scheduled to play at the old Huntridge Theater. He'd grown attuned to whispers about those bizarre concerts out in the desert, and had driven out there a few times, walking around in the darkness, listening to a whole lot of distorted noise.
The whole scene still remained too fast and violent for his taste, too enthusiastic about hopelessness. Yet like the shallowest of pencil imprints that remain tattooed on the surface of a recently cleaned desk, like the grainy cleansers that seep underneath your fingernails as you rub your hand over the surface, the experience had stayed with him, his failure itching at him, gnawing.
So his eyes scanned down the row of listless homeless kids on the Strip, seeking out a bandana, a skateboard, anything that might resemble a limp. Almost subconsciously, he started wandering down the stretch of the sidewalk, it was covered in mustard and ketchup, papered with small cards advertising strippers delivered to your hotel room. Kenny walked slowly, haphazardly, toward the far end of the group, the few faces that remained hidden there, out of view and dark.
He was still within earshot, however, and heard the first scream.
“FUCKERS!”
And the next:
“ALL RIGHT, WHO SNAKED IT?”
By the time Kenny got back to him, Newell was in the face of an overlarge mongoloid. “ASSHOLES,” he screamed. His eyes were bulging. The mongoloid was laughing, returning the boy's spleen with kissy faces. Kenny pulled him away by his sleeve. Newell swung wildly into the air. “I’M CALLING THE COPS.”
“What—”
“My phone, dude. MY FUCKING PHONE.”
Newell twisted in place and thrashed, patting his waist, checking his pockets. Punks whistled, barked.
“Could you have lost it?” Kenny asked.
“I didn't. They—”
Kenny looked toward the spot where all this had begun, as if some sort of help or answer might be found there. But all he found was the pregnant girl's blank indignation, as if this whole thing were tiring to her. “That's what happens.” Lestat laughed, clapping, his hands creating little dust clouds. “Welch on a bet, that's what happens.”
“GET OFF ME,” Newell said, when Kenny reached out for him.
“Just—”
“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.”
“Okay.” Kenny's hands went up. He stepped back.
“I FUCKING HATE BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO.”
“Okay. Just—when did you know it was gone?”
A nasal snort. “I had it. And now I don't.”
“What about the casino?”
&
nbsp; Another snort, more obnoxious.
“When you fell?”
“You're believing them?”
“I'm not believing anything, Newell. I just—”
“FUCKING BULLSHIT.”
“I'm just saying. When we ran through the casino? We were moving pretty good.”
The boy felt his pockets. His mouth opened and went slack and no sound came out. He stared through Kenny now, his eyes filling with disbelief, with refusal, with defiance. His face was round and rigid. Stares from people he did not know or care about, momentarily concerned as they walked along to their next entertainment. The vague amusement of the homeless trash. Kenny saying something to him. Every answer was not any sort of answer. Every path led down into a black hole. Dull noise lulled through his ears. His mind raced and raced and ran in place. And now Newell glanced over his shoulder, struggling for an escape hatch, some direction, a conclusion that did not end up being the obvious one, a result that left him anywhere but this place.
Chapter 4
4.1
When the Los Angeles Dodgers used their eighth-round draft pick on a switch-hitting second baseman from a public high school in western New Mexico, Lincoln Ewing certainly did not expect that, one day, his name would be announced in the starting lineup of the All-Star game. He was not counting on having his face decorate a Wheaties box. If either of these things had happened he would have taken them, of course; any boy with a mitt who passes his afternoons throwing an old tennis ball against a brick wall has such dreams. But even as a high school senior, Lincoln was uncommonly level-headed—coaches and teammates said as much—and he was realistic enough to know the difference between dreams and fantasies. It therefore came as a surprise to people around him when Lincoln turned down scholarship offers from the University of Texas at El Paso, Cal State Northridge, and Pepperdine. Although the schools had only middling athletic programs, forsaking college for a minor league contract made little sense. After all, the pros would always be there. And it wasn't hard to imagine that a year or two of being the big fish in the proverbial small pond would improve Lincoln's draft position, signing bonus, and contract terms. All he had to do was be patient.
The morning he signed with the Dodgers, Lincoln told his old man that he didn't particularly need to be a big star. All he wanted was to give it the best ride he could. To find out how he stacked up. And this indeed is what he did: an educational and boring season of rookie ball in the metropolis of Ogden, Utah; a prolonged and confusing week when his agent kept calling, telling him to sit tight; the eventual trade and relocation to San Bernardino, the next two years of single-A ball. During all of which, the biggest thing Lincoln discovered was: everything gets exposed. Which is to say that if a guy steps between the foul lines each day, players, scouts, and managers will get a sense of just what he can and cannot do, not only the bubbling possibilities that exist within that player at any given moment, but also the plowlike inevitability of how he performs on a routine basis. Lincoln, well, his verdict was packed with conditionals: he was athletic, yes, but not so gifted as to differentiate himself from the general talent pool; he had the speed to steal on a pitcher who did not keep him honest, but not the wheels that stretched a defense and wreaked havoc; his glove was dependable enough to pencil in at second or short without worry, but wasn't so dazzling as to justify a place in the lineup. If you hung a curve or served up a piece of slop, Lincoln made you pay; in important at bats he could be counted on to hang in, foul off pitches, and force a pitcher to throw his best stuff. But a pitcher's best stuff would beat Lincoln. As scrappy and disciplined as number twenty-two may have been, Ewing didn't have the wrists to turn on a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball as it snapped and tailed nastily toward the inside black rubber of the plate. Even decent sliders blew him out of the box.
The story goes that the little engine chugged up the hill by telling himself, I think I can; and, certainly, there are people in every field of professional life who can will themselves to success. But force of will alone does not necessarily get a train up the hill, create a successful business, or enable an entrance into the hall of fame. Rather, will, or an unvarnished need to succeed, usually forces a person to learn his craft, to harness the talent that will guide him, rail by painful rail, down the track toward that masterpiece. This having been said, discipline and persistence also can get a person only so far. An eighteen-year-old bonus baby from the Dominican Republic was brought up from rookie ball. He spoke pidgin English, wore his stirrups unfashionably high, and routinely compensated for unforgivable mental mistakes with a fluidity that was almost leopardlike. He took Lincoln's place in the everyday lineup and not much needed to be said about why. Lincoln tried to keep his chin up, conducting himself as professionally as would be expected of someone who was hoping to be traded to a team that would give him a chance. Nevertheless, when he did get at bats, Lincoln found himself swinging from his heels, overanticipating pitches, sometimes just plain guessing. When he managed to stay focused, work the count to his advantage, then sat on a fastball and guessed right, half the time he still ended up being overpowered. Instead of the anger that he used to feel about being hung out to dry, however, Lincoln found himself feeling something else. Returning to the dugout, he'd shove his bat back into its slot on the rack, down a cup of the official athletic drink of that particular minor league park, and accept the halfhearted low fives of teammates who are obliged to console one of their own. And as he did these things, the competitive voice inside Lincoln—that same voice that propels an athlete to believe in his abilities—would be a bit more faint than on the previous day. But it was as if something else was solidifying inside of him, too, as if a suspicion that he had long harbored was now confirmed, as if a shameful secret had just been announced, for all to hear.
He was still growing into his body and would not be at his physical peak for years; he was still figuring out the mental aspects of playing professional baseball, which was the most cerebral of sports. Even so, Lincoln had the sense he was reading a lineup card that did not have his name on it, the feeling that even if he managed to rededicate himself to a daily routine of extra batting practice and weight lifting, if he shortened and compacted his stroke as hitting instructors wanted, if he followed through on his private oaths to become more thorough in charting opposing pitchers, and grew into his body, and played the game while channeling the spirits of Ty Cobb and Sandy Koufax and Secretariat, if he did all these things, Lincoln, when he checked deep in his gut, nonetheless recognized a ceiling to his potential. And from the top of this ceiling, he saw how far it was to the Show. Lincoln had the curse of being good enough to see just how much better he needed to be. He also had the ability to ask himself if he honestly wanted to work this hard, if he really wanted to spend his twenties traveling back roads on rickety buses and sleeping in motels on the side of the interstate.
Calling his dad was not one of the easier things he'd ever done, but after some silence that Lincoln had come to know meant both disappointment and understanding, his father said that all you could ask of a man was to give it his best. His dad wondered if Lincoln could stick it out until the end of the season, and he reminded Lincoln that once you quit at one thing you quit at them all. Lincoln listened, and responded with a mournful breath of his own. He told his dad that he would think about it. He told his father he loved him, and he thanked his old man, and the next day when Lincoln took the field to warm up, the smell of freshly cut grass had been about the sweetest thing in the world, and there'd been little in his life he'd ever appreciated as much as the sounds of mitts popping all around him, the protracted ease of guys loosening their bodies with a round of catch. The batboy purchased a bag of peanuts for him on the sly. The opposing pitcher was nineteen years old, threw a hundred and two miles an hour, and couldn't get a pitch over the plate with the help of a laser guided missile system. By the sixth, the game was out of hand. In the seventh, both managers were substituting freely. Lincoln fielded all three of his chance
s at second base cleanly and without fanfare. In the bottom of the eighth he turned on a changeup, made contact squarely on the sweet spot of his bat, and felt a continuity running deep into the marrow of his arms, grooving the ball to right for a solid single. A week earlier it would have told him there was hope, he could turn things around, a hot streak was on the way.
Instead he cleaned out his locker. His best mitts, cleats, hats, and batting gloves went into his team duffel. His game jersey, though caked with infield clay, did not go into one of the organization's large, rolling laundry bins, but headed out the door with him as well. A tag sale in front of his apartment complex freed him of his couch and dresser. What the Salvation Army did not want of his other meager furnishings, he left by the curb. Lincoln didn't have much of a plan, nothing in his life was organized to the point of thought. All he wanted was to sit by the side of a hotel pool and sip on a colorful drink with a paper umbrella in it and watch the girls unwrap themselves, just sit and dissolve underneath the sun's brightness and maybe dive in when it got too hot. He wanted to hit on girls in nightclubs and get plastered in bars, to take in glitzy shows and double down at blackjack and roll craps and go for the inside straight, anything that might distract a man who had just walked away from a good chunk of his identity.