“No.” Sean rubbed the teddy bear’s head with his foot.
“I mean what a popular name it is. All the other kids around named Sean.”
“I don’t know any Seans.”
“A dime a dozen. Take my word for it. You’ll see when you get older.”
“I know Corey. And Tyler.”
“I said take my word for it.”
Sean nodded. “Got a game today?”
“Yeah. The thing is-”
“Can I come?”
“Not today. What I’m saying is that maybe your mother and I made a-”
“Is it on TV?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The game.”
“Hell, I don’t know. Aren’t they all? The point is, Sean’s a lousy name.”
Sean’s lower lip quivered again, but a little less this time. And his jaw stuck out more.
“I don’t mean lousy. I just mean… dime a dozen. Like I said before.”
“Dime a dozen?”
“All over the place. Not like Bradley.”
“Bradley?”
“Your middle name. Didn’t you know that?”
“I know my name.”
“There you go, then.”
“I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like?”
“Bradley.”
“Bradley’s a fine name. It’s Grandpa’s name.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Would Grandpa want to hear you say that?”
“And Mommy doesn’t like it either.”
“Don’t make up stories.”
“I’m not. She told me.”
“But it was her idea, for Christ’s sake.”
“She told me.”
On the screen, Bullwinkle sprang off the diving board and saw that the pool was empty. Freeze frame. Commercial. “You could be Brad for short.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Why the hell not? Brad’s a cool name.”
“I like Sean.”
“Well, I don’t. So think about it.” Bobby rose and headed for the door. The commercial ended. Bullwinkle resumed his fall. His antlers caught in the cords of Boris Badanov’s descending parachute and he wafted safely down.
…
On the way to the ballpark, Bobby tried to picture a perfect white baseball with red-stitched seams, tried to feel the feeling of hitting it on the sweet spot of the bat. As hard as he tried, all he could visualize was a blurred, generic baseball, not even that, more the idea of a baseball; and he could feel nothing at all. He gave up. At that moment, another image rose in his mind, complete to the finest detail: the painted farmhouse on the hypnotist’s wall, with the glow of the hearth fire just visible through the window with the deep-crimson shutters.
“Goddamn it,” he said aloud. “I’m not centered.” The back of his hand began to tingle, where he’d hit Primo.
Bobby parked in the players’ lot, got out of the car, put on the headphones, pressed PLAY. The music was just a jumble of unconnected noise. He pressed STOP.
“See you a minute, Bobby?” said Burrows as Bobby entered the clubhouse.
They went into Burrows’s office. Burrows sat at his desk, a metal one with nothing on it, and lit a cigarette. Bobby took a card-table chair on the other side.
“How’s the rib cage, big guy?”
“Fine. Jesus.”
“Hey. Gotta ask. Valuable commodity.”
“What’s up?”
“Not much,” said Burrows. He gazed into the distance, although there was no distance in the windowless room. “Thinkin’ about restin’ you today, is all.”
“Forget it. I’m not tired.”
Burrows took a deep drag on his cigarette, let the smoke drift slowly from his nostrils. His eyes grew dreamy, just for a moment.
“There’s tired and there’s tired,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I got to take care of my players. That’s what managing’s all about nowadays. Protecting the investment. It’s a long season. Don’t need to tell you that, Bobby.”
“The rib cage is fine,” Bobby said. “Never was anything wrong with it. And I’m not tired, in any meaning of the word.”
“You’re a tiger, Bobby. That’s one of the reasons you’re… what you are. Why we’re so doggone glad to have you here. But sometimes even tigers got to rest.” He dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it under his heel. “Just for the day, big guy. Take some of the pressure off.”
“I’m not feeling any pressure.”
“ ’Course not.” Burrows rose. “Just for today, then.”
And who’s going to start in my place? That was the question in Bobby’s mind, but he didn’t ask it.
He dressed: the number-eleven T-shirt first, then sleeves, jock, sanitaries, stirrups, pants, cleats, warm-up jersey-and walked down the tunnel to the dugout. The lineup was already taped to the wall. Rayburn was at the bottom, with the rest of the reserves. Someone named Simkins was playing center field and batting seventh. The name meant nothing to Bobby. He scanned the field, found the newcomer in the batting cage, recognized him after some thought: the kid from spring training, the phenom with the all-arm swing and the too-quick feet, who hadn’t even made it to the final cut. Now he was back. Bobby watched him rattle three balls off the center-field fence, then rocket a few more onto the street. In a few months the kid had turned into Ted Williams.
When Bobby’s turn came, he didn’t think about picturing baseballs or feeling feelings. He just swung as hard as he could, and the ball started taking off all over the yard. The most vicious drive of all tore past Primo’s head in shallow left. Primo didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all, just stood there relaxed and arrogant, like a matador. Bobby went into the dugout, part way down the tunnel, then swung his bat as hard as he could at the cement wall. It splintered in his hands. He felt a little better.
The feeling lasted until the fourth inning. Bobby sat in the dugout beside Boyle, chewing gum. The Yankees on a sunny Saturday afternoon. S.R.O. Zero-zero. Then, with two out and nobody on, the kid jerked one down the line in left, fair by five or six feet, and gone. He ran quickly around the bases, head down, keeping the smile off his face. The crowd rose, the way crowds do for someone’s first big-league home run.
“Why do they do that?” Bobby said.
“Why do they do anything?” said Boyle, spitting a thin jet of tobacco juice between his feet.
That helped, but not enough. The cleansed feeling that had come from smashing the bat kept slipping away. Then, in the top of the fifth, the kid made a good, not great, over-the-shoulder catch in the triangle to save a run, and got another standing O as he ran off. The cleansed feeling vanished completely, replaced by an internal stew of bottled-up energy, adrenaline, aggression. On the outside Bobby was perfectly still. The tension between the two states was unbearable, made him want to smash again, and shout, and tear onto the field.
In the ninth the bullpen broke down, and they fell behind, three to one. Simkins led off the bottom of the
