The Natural

Still a doubt existed. Maybe white mustache was wrong? They could misjudge them too. Maybe there was a mite less wind behind the ball than he thought, and it would hit the ground at his feet rather than land in the glove. Mistakes could happen in everything. Wouldn’t be the first time a sawbones was wrong. Maybe he was a hundred per cent dead wrong.

The next evening, amid a procession of fathers leaving the hospital at baby-feeding time, he sneaked out of the building. A cab got him to Knights Field, and Happy Pellers, the astonished groundskeeper, let him in. A phone call brought Dizzy to the scene. Roy changed into uniform (he almost wept to behold Wonderboy so forlorn in the locker) and Happy donned catcher’s gear. Dizzy prepared to pitch. It was just to practice, Roy said, so he would have his eye and timing alert for the playoff Monday. Happy switched on the night floods to make things clearer. Dizzy practiced a few pitches and then with Roy standing at the plate, served one over the middle. As he swung, Roy felt a jet of steam blow through the center of his skull. They gathered him up, bundled him into a cab, and got him back to the hospital, where nobody had missed him.

It was a storm on and Roy out in it. Not exactly true, it was Sam Simpson who was lost and Roy outsearching him. He tracked up and down the hills, leaving his white tracks, till he come to this shack with the white on the roof.

Anybody in here? he calls.

Nope.

You don’t know my friend Sam?

Nope.

He wept and try to go away.

Come on in, kiddo, I was only foolin’.

Roy dry his eyes and went in. Sam was settin’ at the table under the open bulb, his collar and tie off, playing solitaire with all spades.

Roy sit by the fire till Sam finish. Sam looked up wearing his half-moon specs, glinting moonlight.

Well, son, said Sam, lightin’ up on his cigar.

I swear I didn’t do it, Sam.

Didn’t do what?

Didn’t do nothin’.

Who said you did?

Roy wouldn’t answer, shut tight as a clam.

Sam stayed awhile, then he say to Roy, Take my advice, kiddo.

Yes, Sam.

Don’t do it.

No, said Roy, I won’t. He rose and stood headbent before Sam’s chair.

Let’s go back home, Sam, let’s now.

Sam peered out the window.

I would like to, kiddo, honest, but we can’t go out there now. Heck, it’s snowin’ baseballs.

When he came to, Roy made the specialist promise to tell no one about his condition just in case he had the slightest chance of improving enough to play for maybe another season. The specialist frankly said he didn’t see that chance, but he was willing to keep mum because he believed in the principle of freedom of action. So he told no one and neither did Roy — not even Memo. (No one had even mentioned the subject of his playing in the Series but Roy had already privately decided to take his chances in that.)

But mostly his thoughts were dismal. That frightened feeling: bust before beginning. On the merry-go-round again about his failure to complete his mission in the game. About this he suffered most. He lay for hours staring at the window. Often the glass looked wet though it wasn’t raining. A man who had been walking in bright sunshine limped away into a mist. This broke the heart… When the feeling passed, if it ever did, there was the necessity of making new choices. Since it was alfeady the end of the season, he had about four months in which to cash in on testimonials, endorsements, ghost-written articles, personal appearances, and such like. But what after that, when spring training time came and he disappeared into the backwoods? He recalled a sickening procession of jobs — as cook, well-driller, mechanic, logger, beanpicker, and for whatever odd change, semipro ballplayer. He dared not think further.

And the loneliness too, from job to job, never some place in particular for any decent length of time because of the dissatisfaction that grew, after a short while, out of anything he did… But supposing he could collect around twenty-five G’s — could that amount, to begin with, satisfy a girl like Memo if she married him? He tried to think of ways of investing twenty-five thousand — maybe in a restaurant or tavern — to build it up to fifty, and then somehow to double that. His mind skipped from money to Memo, the only one who came to see him every day. He remembered the excitement he felt for her in that strapless yellow dress the night of the party. And bad as he felt now he couldn’t help but think how desirable she had looked, waiting for him naked in bed.

Such thoughts occupied him much of the time as he sat in the armchair, thumbing through old magazines, or resting in bed. He sometimes considered suicide but the thought was too oppressive to stay long in his mind. He dozed a good deal and usually woke feeling lonely. (Except for Red, once, nobody from the team had come to see him, though small knots of fans still gathered in the street and argued whether he would really be in Monday’s game.) Saturday night he awoke from an after supper nap more gloomy than ever, so he reached under his pillow for Iris’ letter. But just then Memo came into the room with an armful of flowers so he gladly let it lay where it was.

Despite how attractive she usually managed to keep herself (he could appreciate that in spite of a momentary return of the nausea) she appeared worn out now, with bluish shadows under her eyes. And he noticed, as she stuffed the flowers and red autumn leaves into the vase, that she was wearing the same black dress she had worn all week, a thing she never did before, and that her hair was lusterless and not well kept. She had days ago sorrowed it was her fault that this had happened to the team. How stupid not to have waited just a day or two more. (Pop, she wept, had called her filthy names.) She had despaired every minute — really despaired — up to the time she heard he was going to be in the playoff. At least she did not have it on her conscience that he would be out of that, so she felt better now. Not better enough, he worried, or she wouldn’t be so lost and lonely-looking.

After she had arranged the flowers, Memo stood mutely at the open window, gazing down into the darkening street. When he least expected it, she sobbed out in a voice full of misery, “Oh, Roy, I can’t stand it any longer, I can’t.”

He sat up. “What’s wrong?”

Her voice was choked. “I can’t go on with my life as it is.” Memo dropped into the armchair and began to weep. In a minute everything around her was wet.

Tossing aside the blanket he swung his legs out of bed. She looked up, attempting to smile. “Don’t get up, hon. I’ll be all right.”

Roy sat uneasily at the edge of the bed. He never knew what to do when they cried.

“It’s just that I’m fed up,” she wept. “Fed up. Pop is terrible to me and I don’t want to go on living off him, even if he is my uncle. I have to get a job or something, or go somewhere.”

“What did that bastard shrimp say to you?”

She found a handkerchief in her purse and blew her nose. “It isn’t his words,” she said sadly. “Words can’t kill. It’s that I’m sick of this kind of life. I want to get away.”

Then she let go again and looked like a little lost bird beating around in a cage. He was moved, and hovered over her like an old maid aunt trying to stop a leak.

“Don’t cry, Memo. Just say the word and I will take care of you.” In a cracked voice he said, “Just marry me.”