Nintendo.
At 12:50 Bobby put on his game shirt, number forty-one. He wasn’t getting used to it. It was like a bad haircut, or too-tight shoes, something that made you look and feel stupid. He shot a glance at Primo, crossing himself in front of his locker, wearing eleven.
At 1:05 they took to the field. Primo went three for three with a walk. Bobby forced him at second twice, grounding into two double plays. He also flied out and struck out. Ofer. They lost in the rain, three-zip.
After, there was a girl waiting outside the players’ lot. Bobby didn’t catch her name; maybe she didn’t mention it. He took her to a hotel, not his, and banged her pitilessly.
“Oh, Bobby, I’ve never felt like this, ever.”
“What do you mean?”
“The orgasm you gave me. It was just so…”
Later, he returned alone to his own hotel, entered the suite. Val wasn’t there. Bobby lay in the Jacuzzi, drinking a beer. Relaxing. He counted the rings holding up the shower curtain. Eleven. He stopped relaxing.
Bobby got out of the Jacuzzi, went to bed. He awoke in the night, feeling someone beside him. He forgot where he was, thought it was the girl from the players’ lot, started getting hard.
“Bobby?”
It was Val.
“What?”
“It’s done.”
“What is?”
“The house. Nine and a half. Chaz is amazing. We can move in next week.”
Bobby didn’t say anything. Val reached for him. They hadn’t had sex in a long time. They had it now. Nothing special. Val had that great body, much nicer than the parking-lot girl’s, but in bed she was nothing special.
After, they lay side by side, not quite touching. “Things are working out, aren’t they?” Val said. “Wait till Sean gets a load of that space station.”
Bobby wondered what had become of the unidentified object, zooming in at sixteen thousand miles per hour. Then he tried to picture Sean’s face, and again got the other Sean, wide-eyed on his pillow. He went back to sleep.
Bobby woke up once during the night. He couldn’t remember where he’d put the lucky whiffle-ball bat.
10
“-as in the case of John Paciorek, to give you a for-instance.”
“You don’t mean Tom?”
“I said what I meant, Bernie. John Paciorek. September 29, 1963. First major-league game. Houston Colt. 45s.”
“Remember that uniform, Jewel? A collector’s item now.”
“Before my time, Bernie, as you know. Back to Paciorek, John. First game in the bigs. Goes three for three with three ribbies and four runs scored against the Mets, and never plays again. Never plays again, Bernie. True story. What do you think it means?”
“Beats me, Jewel.”
“That baseball’s like a European movie, Bernie. That’s what it means.”
“European movies aren’t exactly my forte, Jewel. I can’t even think of any off hand, except maybe The Crying Game. ”
“That’s close enough.”
April 9, second Wednesday of the month. 7:59. Ding. Fifth floor: linoleum still sticky, Prime National Mortgage still vacant. Gil: all showered and shaved, decked out in a clean shirt and a sober suit fresh out of dry-cleaner’s plastic carrying his order book and sample case and a jumbo takeout black coffee; and on time. He also had a new tie-red and black, nothing like his old lucky one-and a plan for breaking the Everest news gently, even with an optimistic spin. He now knew, at last, that yellow was a lousy color for a tie. Red and black, so much better: stand-up, optimistic, take no prisoners. The face of the rep is an optimistic face-he’d read that in a memo from Cincinnati-and wasn’t the tie the face of the suit? He liked that idea, would have to try it out on someone-Lenore? Ellen? Gil couldn’t think of the right person. He put on a sunny smile to go with his crisp clean freshness. The thrower felt light and warm against his leg.
“Morning, Bridgid. How’s Figgy doing with the fishing-rod thing?”
Bridgid didn’t look up from her keyboard. “It’s over.”
“Probably just as well. Once a city boy, always a city boy, right?”
Now she glanced at him, then quickly turned away. “Right.”
But if the fishing-rod thing was over, where were the fifty bucks going to come from? Gil, staying optimistic, pushed the thought from his mind and opened the conference-room door. Garrity and the eleven other Northeast reps were already sitting around the table. Twelve, actually: the eight veterans, plus the three brought in by O’Meara last month, plus one more: Figgy. He was passing Lifesavers to Verrucci, the new rep from Texas. Garrity saw Gil, held up his index finger, hurried to the door.
“Got a second?”
“If you do,” said Gil. “It’s eight o’clock.”
Garrity backed him into the hall, closing the door with Gil halfway through a recount. They went down the hall, into Garrity’s office. “Sit down, Gil,” Garrity said, indicating the couch that he had brought in after his divorce a few years ago. Much too soft and homey for an office couch: Gil had never seen anyone using it.
He sat, sinking down too deep for comfort. Garrity perched on a corner of his desk. His pant leg slid up, revealing his shiny, pink, hairless shin: an old man’s leg. Gil’s father wouldn’t have been much older than Garrity, if he’d lived.
“Figgy’s back?” Gil said.
“Nothing I could do about it,” Garrity said. “Cincinnati.”
Garrity’s attitude surprised him. “Figgy’s not so bad.”
“Nice of you to say so,” Garrity said, “under the circumstances.”
Circumstances? Did Garrity somehow know about the fifty? It wasn’t that big a deal. “What do you mean?”
Garrity took a deep breath, blew it out through pursed lips. “Gil,” he said.
“What?”
“Do I have to spell it out?”
“Spell what out?”
“O’Meara’s been on the phone with the Everest people.” Garrity waited for Gil to say something. Gil, trying to remember the spin plan, trying to stay optimistic, was quiet. Garrity continued, “The long and the short of it, and I wish to God it wasn’t me having to say this, is that you’re-”
Gil found his voice. “I can explain all about the Everest thing.” But not sitting down on this stupid couch with my knees in the air. Gil rose. He had the order book, sample case, and jumbo black coffee in his hands. Too much: the coffee spilled, mostly on his pants, some on the couch. Scalding pain, but he ignored it. He also ignored the fact that for the second day in a row, he’d ruined his clean crisp freshness, wet himself. This realization was harder to ignore than the pain; it made him want to rip his clothes off, to go into a frenzy. Instead he found himself talking a mile a minute. “I can explain the Everest reconfiguration. First of all, I don’t know what you heard from O’Meara, or what Everest told him, except it couldn’t have been Chuckie, he’s in Chicago, but I can promise you it’s not nearly as bad as it-”
Garrity was shaking his head. “Save it, Gil. The word’s come down from Cincinnati.”
“What word?”
“Aw, Gil, don’t make me. The word that you’re… you know.”
“That I’m what?” He took a step closer to Garrity, loomed over him.
Garrity’s face hardened. “I’ll need your order book, Gil. And your sample case. Outstanding commission
