Peter Abrahams
The Fan
1
“ Who’s next? Gil on the car phone? What’s shakin’, Gil?”
Dead air.
“Speak, Gil.”
“Is this…”
“Go on.”
“Hello?”
“You’re on the JOC.”
“Am I on?”
“Not for long, Gil, the way we’re going. This is supposed to be entertainment.”
Dead air.
“Got a question or a comment for us, Gil?”
“First-time caller.”
“Fantabulous. What’s on your mind?”
“I’m a little nervous.”
“What’s to be nervous? Just three million pairs of ears out there, hanging on your every word. What’s the topic?”
“The Sox.”
“I like the way you say that.”
“How do I say it?”
“Like-what else could it be?”
Dead air.
“What about the Sox, Gil?”
“Just that I’m psyched, Bernie.”
“Bernie’s off today. This is Norm. Everybody gets psyched in the spring. That’s a given in this game. Like ballpark mustard.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
Dead air.
“Gil?”
“I’ve been waiting a long time.”
“For what?”
“This year.”
“What’s special about it?”
“It’s their year.”
“Why so tentative?”
“Tentative?”
“Just pulling your leg. The way you sound so sure. Like it’s a lead-pipe cinch. The mark of the true-blue fan.”
Dead air.
“Gil?”
“Yeah?”
“The Vegas odds are-what are they, Fred? Fred in the control room there, doing something repulsive with a pastrami on rye-ten to one on the Sox for the pennant, twenty, what is it, twenty-five to one on the whole shebang. Just to give us some perspective on this, Gil, what would you wager at those odds, if you were a wagering man?”
“Everything I owe.”
“Owe? Hey. I like this guy. He’s got a sense of humor after all. But, Gil-you’re setting yourself up for a season of disillusion, my friend.”
“Disillusion?”
“Yeah, like-”
“I know what disillusion means.”
“Do you? Then you must-”
“They went down to the wire last year, didn’t they?”
“Ancient history, Gil.”
“And now they’ve got Rayburn on top of it.”
“Rayburn, Rayburn. Sheesh. Everybody wants to talk about the Rayburn signing. He’s not the Messiah, good people. He’s not coming down from heaven with a Louisville Slugger raised on high. On Opening Day, he’s flying in on the team charter from Orlando, plugged into his Walkman. Puts on his pants one leg at a time, just like you and-”
“For Christ’s sake, he-”
“Can’t say that on the air, Gil. And I can cut you off by pressing this little button right here.”
“Don’t. The kid’s-”
“What kid? He turns thirty-two in July. That’s middle-aged in this-”
“-averaging a hundred and twenty-three RBIs for the past three years playing on that piece of-”
“Watch it-”
“-dung outfit-can I say dung? ”
“Dung’s okay.”
“-they’ve got out there. What kind of numbers is he going to put up in the bandbox, and with that sweet swing of his?”
“Who knows? Check out the record on free agents, my friend, especially the happy-go-lucky ones taking home the cabbage he signed for. Not so sweet, honeylike swing or not.”
“Why are you so g-”
“Don’t get ugly, Gil. Come on now. ’Fess up. You honestly in the bottom of your heart believe he’s worth what they shelled out? Answer me that.”
Dead air.
“Hello? Hello? Lost Gil. Let’s go to Donnie, downtown. You’re on JOC-Radio, Donnie, WJOC, fifty thousand nonstop watts of clear-channel sports talk, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. What’s shakin’?”
2
Gil parked his 325i a block from the office, thinking too late of things he could have said to Bernie, or Norm, or whoever the hell it was. Order book and sample case in hand, he stepped out onto the icy sidewalk as the first snowflakes drifted down around him, hardly bigger than dust motes. It didn’t look like the start of a major storm, didn’t feel like the beginning of a bad day. Two teenaged boys slouched by, caps pulled low over their eyes. They noticed his license plate-WNSOX-and he heard one say, “Yeah, right.”
Gil bought a Lottabucks Kwikpik and the Sporting News at the ground-floor newsstand and skimmed the training-camp reports on the elevator. There was a photograph of Rayburn smiling beside the batting cage. The
