The Natural

Roy pulled the covers over his head. “Go home.”

The Judge didn’t move. “There is also the matter of next season’s contract.”

Roy listened. Would there ever be a next season? He uncovered his head. “How much?”

“I shall offer — provided we agree on the other matter — a substantial raise.”

“Talk figures.”

“Forty-five thousand for the season. We might also work Out some small percentage on the gate.”

“Twenty-five thousand for dropping the game is not enough,” said Roy. As he spoke an icicle of fright punctured his spine.

The Judge scowled and drew on his half-gone cigar.

“Thirty,” he said, “and no more.”

“Thirty-five,” Roy got out. “Don’t forget I stand to lose a couple of thousand on the pay I could get in the Series.”

“Utterly outrageous,” snapped the Judge.

“Don’t slam the door on your way out.”

The Judge rose, brushed his wrinkled pants and left.

Roy stared at the ceiling — relieved.

The Judge returned. He removed his hat and wiped his perspiring face with his dirty handkerchief. His head was covered with a thick black wig. You never got to the bottom of that creep.

“You are impossible to deal with — but I accept.” His voice was flat. He covered his head with his hat.

But Roy said he had changed his mind when the Judge was out of the room. He had thought it over and decided the boys wanted to win that game and he wanted to help them. That was good. He couldn’t betray his own team and manager. That was bad.

The Judge then hissed, “You may lose Miss Paris to someone else if you are not careful.”

Roy bolted up. “To who for instance?”

“A better provider.”

“You mean Gus Sands?”

The Judge did not directly reply. “A word to the wise —”

“That’s none of your business,” said Roy. He lay back. Then he asked, “What if I couldn’t lose the game by myself? The Pirates ain’t exactly world beaters. We roasted them the last seven times. The boys might do it again even if I didn’t hit a thing.”

The Judge rubbed his scaly hands. “The Knights are demoralized. Without you, I doubt they can win over a sandlot team, contrary opinion notwithstanding. As for the contingency of the flat failure of the opposing team, we have made the necessary arrangements to take care of that.”

Roy was up again. “You mean there’s somebody else in on this deal?”

The Judge smiled around his cigar.

“Somebody on our team?”

“A key man.”

“in that case —” Roy said slowly.

“The thirty-five thousand is final. There’ll be no changing that.”

“With forty-five for the contract —”

“Agreed. You understand you are not under any circumstances to hit the ball safely?”

After a minute Roy said slowly, “I will take the pitck”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The fix is on.”

The Judge caught on and said with a laugh, “I see you share my philological interests.” He lit his dead King Oscar.

Through the nausea Roy remembered an old saying. He quoted, “Woe unto him who calls evil good and good evil.”

The Judge glared at him.

Memo returned and covered his face with wet kisses. She tweaked his nose, mussed his hair, and called him wonderful.

After she left he couldn’t sleep so he reached under his pillow and got out Iris’ letter.

…After my baby was born, the women of the home where my father had brought me to save himself further shame were after me to give it up. They said it would be bad for her to be brought up by an unmarried mother, and that I would have no time to myself or opportunity to take up my normal life. I tried, as they said, to be sensible and offer her for adoption, but I had been nursing her — although warned against it, nursing shrinks the breasts you know, and they were afraid for my figure — and the thought of tearing myself away from her forever was too much for me. Since Papa wouldn’t have her in his house I decided to find a job and bring her up myself. That turned out to be a lot harder than I had expected, because I earned not very much and had to pay for baby’s care all day, her things, the rent of course, and the clothes I had to have for work. At night I had supper to think of, bathing her, laundry, house cleaning, and preparing for the next day, which never changed from any other.

“Except for my baby I was nearly always alone, reading, mostly, to improve myself, although sometimes it was unbearable, especially before I was twenty and just after. It also took quite a while until I got rid of my guilt, or could look upon her as innocent of it, but eventually I did, and soon her loveliness and gaiety and all the tender feelings I had in my heart for her made up for a lot I had suffered. Yet I was tied to time — not so much to the past — nor to the expectations of the future, which was really too far away — only to here and now, day after day, until suddenly the years unrolled and a change came — more a reward of standing it so long than any sudden magic — and more quickly than I could believe, she had grown into a young woman, and almost as if I had wished it on her, fell in love with a wonderful boy and married him. Like me she was a mother before she was seventeen. Suddenly everywhere I looked seemed to be tomorrow, and I was at last free to take up my life where I had left it off one summer night when I went for a walk in the park with a stranger…”

He read down to the last page, where she once more mentioned herself as a grandmother. Roy crumpled the letter and pitched it against the wall.

9

On the morning of the game fist fights broke out all over the stands in Knights Field. Hats, bottles, apple cores, bananas, and the mushy contents of sack lunches were thrown around. A fan in one of the boxes had a rock bounced off his skull, opening a bleeding gash. Two special cops rushed up the steps and got hold of an innocent-looking guy with glasses, whose pockets were stuffed with odd-shaped rocks. They dragged him forth, although he was hollering he had collected them for his rock garden, and flung him headlong out of the park. He was from Pittsburgh and cursed the Knights into the ground. A disappointed truck driver who couldn’t get in to see the game tackled him from behind, knocking the rock collector’s head against the sidewalk and smashing his glasses. He spat out two bloody teeth and sat there sobbing till the ambulance came.

The sun hid behind the clouds for the most part. The day was chilly, football weather, but the stands were decorated with colored bunting, the flags on the grandstand roof rode high in the breeze and the crowd was raucous. The PA man tried to calm them but they were packed together too tight to be peaceful, for the Judge had sold hundreds of extra tickets and the standees raced for any seat that was vacant for a second. Besides, the Knights’ fans were jumpy, their nerves ragged from following the ups and downs of the team. Some glum-face gents bitterly cursed Roy out, calling him welsher, fool, pig-horse for eating himself into that colossal bellyache. But he had his defenders, who claimed the Big Man’s body burned food so fast he needed every bit he ate. They blamed the damage on ptomaine. The accusers wanted to know why no one else at the party had come down sick. They were answered where would the Knights be without Roy — at the bottom of the heap. The one who spoke got a rap on the ear for his trouble. The rapper was grabbed by a cop, run down the catwalk, and pitched into the rotunda. Yet though the fans were out of sorts and crabbing at each other, they presented a solid front when it came to laying bets. Many pessimistically shook their heads, but they counted up the seven straight wins over the Pirates, figured in that Hobbs was back, and reached into their pockets. Although there were not too many Pirate rooters around, the bets were quickly covered for every hard-earned buck.