The Fan

3

“… by Bud and Bud Lite.”

“Hey. We’re back. We’ll have the scores, but first let’s take a call from Manny in-”

Bobby Rayburn rolled over, hit the slumber button, and tried to go back to sleep. Normally he couldn’t; when he was up he was up, end of story, but this morning he awoke still tired from yesterday’s cross-country trip and probably could have eased back into sleep, if he hadn’t had to piss so bad. After a minute or two he gave up, got out of bed. The curtains in his room at the Flamingo Bay Motor Inn and Spa were drawn, but not completely: a shaft of light penetrated the darkness, falling across the shoulder and face of the girl sleeping in the bed. Bobby tried to remember her name.

He went into the bathroom and pissed. He felt good. A little hung over, but good. The rib-cage thing was all better, or just about. He saw his reflection in the mirror: he was in shape, in great shape considering it was only March.

Back in the bedroom, the phone was ringing. He answered it. “Yeah?”

“Morning, big guy.” It was Wald. “How was the flight?”

“Fine.”

“How’s that rib cage?”

“Fine.”

“Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Pick you up in fifteen minutes, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Got a little surprise for you.”

“What?”

“You’ll see.”

The girl opened her eyes. They were on him right away. She gave him a long look. Oh, Christ.

“Good morning, Bobby,” she said.

“Morning, babe.”

She sat up, exposing her breasts. Nice ones.

“Last night was fantastic, Bobby.”

“Yeah.” Or thanks; should he have said thanks? Or that it was fantastic for him too? Yeah. That was probably it. Too late. He recalled how she’d come over to him in the bar, while the front-desk people took care of his bags; or maybe that was another time, another girl, and this one had been waiting by the pool when he’d left the bar and walked across the inner court to his room.

Under the sheets, her lower body made a grinding motion. “Feels early,” she said. “Coming back to bed?” Her nipples hardened, just like that.

“Sorry,” he told her. “Got to run.”

“When’ll you be back?”

“Late.” She didn’t take the hint. “Maybe you better get going too.”

She bit her lip. “How about a little kiss good-bye?”

Bobby leaned over and gave her a little kiss. She smelled of sex. He considered and rejected a peck on the forehead, went with a lip kiss, but closemouthed and quick. She had other ideas; turning his kiss into something else, and taking hold of his dick.

“Mmm,” she said.

They left the room together. Wald was parked outside in his Targa with the 6 PRCNT vanity plate.

“Bye, Bobby,” she said. “See you sometime.”

“Bye.”

He got into the car. Wald was smiling. “Nice,” he said, watching the girl hurry off, tossing her hair in the sunshine. “Does she have a sister?”

“I don’t know.”

“Even the mother would probably do.”

Bobby was tired of the subject. “Where’re we going?”

“Pancake Palace?”

“Sure.”

“And then I’ll run you over to the facility. They’re expecting you at ten-thirty. Photos, handshakes, all that, but no interviews. BP at eleven. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“And last but not least.” Wald reached inside his linen jacket, handed Bobby an envelope.

Bobby opened it. Inside was a check in his name, drawn on the Chase Manhattan Bank for $1,175,000. “This is?…”

“First half of the signing bonus,” Wald said. “Minus the agency fee.”

“Oh.”

He started to put it in his pocket, but Wald said, “Want me to bank it this afternoon? Shame to lose out on a day’s interest.”

“What’s a day’s interest?”

“On this? Hundred and fifty, two hundred bucks, at current rates. Something like that. Maybe we can make a deal.”

“You can make a deal on interest rates?”

“It’s like Archimedes, Bobby. Get me a lever long enough and I can move the earth. Your job is to-”

“Get you the lever.” Bobby handed him the check.

Wald laughed. “No flies on you.” The breeze blew through the open roof of the Targa, heavy, hot, humid.

They sat at a booth along the back wall of Pancake Palace. Bobby had blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, OJ, coffee.

“Get ready,” Wald said.

A father at a nearby table was nudging his son. The son didn’t want to do it. “He won’t bite,” said the father in a stage whisper, maybe hoping Bobby would look up, smile at the boy, seem approachable, nonbiting. Bobby kept eating, head down.

But still the boy came, holding out a baseball and a pen. Didn’t say anything, just laid them by the pancakes. Bobby wrote his name on the ball. Didn’t say anything either. Then the father came over, big smile, hitching up his pants, toast crumbs on his lips.

“Gonna hit one out for us this year, Bobby?”

“I’m eating breakfast,” Bobby said.

The father, still smiling, laid four or five more balls in front of him. This was a money-making operation. Bobby started to repeat what he’d just said, but Wald, glancing around the room, said, “Globe ’s watching,” so Bobby signed the balls.

“All right, ” said the father, as though about to high-five somebody. Not “thanks.” He dropped the balls in a plastic bag.

Wald picked up the check. They got in the Targa, drove south past fast-food places, an alligator farm, a fireworks stand. Wald switched on the radio.

“… shoulda been running on the play, situation like that. What I can’t understand is-”

Bobby switched it off.

“When’s Valerie coming?” Wald asked.

Bobby’s wife didn’t like to be called Val anymore. Bobby kept forgetting, but Wald never did. “School vacation,” Bobby said.

“When’s that?”

“Don’t know. She’s supposed to call.” Bobby saw a man in rags doing a stiff-legged dance by the side of the road. “What’s the surprise?” he asked.

“Surprise?”

“You were talking about on the phone.”

“I gave it to you already. The check, Bobby. The bonus.”

“Oh.”

Wald pulled into the training complex, parked in front of a palm tree with Bobby’s name posted on it. Bobby slipped on his headphones, pressed PLAY. They got out. Wald popped the trunk, took out the equipment bag. Bobby looked around. He didn’t like Florida, didn’t like the heavy air. He liked the air in Arizona, where he’d trained for the last ten years. They walked toward the clubhouse.

“I’ll take that,” Bobby said. He carried his equipment bag inside.

They were waiting: Mr. Hakimora, the new owner; Thorpe, the GM; Burrows, the manager. Bobby pressed STOP. He shook hands with them, faced the cameras when voices called, “Over here, Bobby,” and said, “I’m looking forward to the season,” when they asked him how he felt, and, “One-hundred percent,” when they asked him about the rib cage, even though there were supposed to be no interviews. Then he went into the clubhouse.

“A little glitch I forgot to mention,” Wald said in Bobby’s ear as he stood before his stall. Mail was already stacked on the shelf. A dozen bats still taped together for shipping-thirty-two-ounce, thirty-four-and-a-half-inch Adirondack 433B’s, unfinished because of Bobby’s belief that lacquer took English off the ball-leaned in one corner. His spring-training uniform waited on a hanger, white pants and a redmesh shirt with black-and-white trim. No names were stitched on the backs of the spring shirts because of all the extra players in camp, but there were numbers. They’d given him number twenty-eight.

“No problem,” Bobby said. He had worn number eleven ever since freshman year in high school, but they were paying him the big money and he didn’t want to make trouble. “I’ll just wear sweats today while they get it switched.”

Pause. “Regrettably,” said Wald, “it’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

A sweating man with a sunburned bald head hurried toward them, wiping his hand on his pant leg, then offering it to Bobby.

“Stook,” he said. “Equipment manager.”

Bobby remembered him from the All-Star locker room in Chicago, a few years before. They shook hands.

“Anything I can do for you, just holler,” Stook said.

“As a matter of fact,” Bobby said, eyeing the shirt.

“Oh, that’s for practice. Your name’ll be on the game shirts, home and away, in four-inch letters. Rayburn. We can stretch it out on that back of yours real nice.”

“It’s not the name,” Bobby said. “It’s the number.”

“The number?”

“I wear eleven.”

Stook looked at Wald.

Wald put his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “See, Bobby, there’s been a little screwup. Nobody’s fault, really. Just one of those things-permutations, if you like-that can happen in complex, drawn-out negotiations. Maybe it should have been brought to the table at the time, but with the kind of numbers-money numbers, I’m talking about-being discussed, it seemed like such an insig-make that lesser-”

“I wear eleven.” Bobby shook Wald’s hand off his shoulder.

“Thirty-three’s available, Bobby,” Stook said. “That’s three times eleven. And so’s forty-one. That’s got a one in it.”

“Is there some problem with eleven?” Bobby said.

Again Stook looked at Wald. “A bit of one,” Wald said, glancing at a lean man sitting naked on a stool across the room, playing Nintendo. “Primo’s already got it.”

Primo was the shortstop. Four- or five-year veteran, mediocre stick, magician with the glove: Bobby didn’t really know him, but didn’t like him much anyway. Once, after Bobby’d doubled against someone in spring training-couldn’t remember the pitcher, or even the season-Primo had made a remark in Spanish to the second baseman. Bobby didn’t understand Spanish, but he hadn’t liked the sound of it all the same, or the arrogant expression in Primo’s eyes; like some conquistador, although there was more Indian and black than Spaniard in Primo.

“Better talk to him,” Bobby said. “I’ll wear sweats for today.”

“Who’s his agent?” Wald said.

“I can find out,” Stook replied.

“Never mind,” Wald told him. “I’ll take care of it.”

Bobby hung his clothes in the stall, getting a whiff of the girl as he did so, then opened his equipment bag and dressed: sleeves first, then jock, sanitaries, stirrups, the white uniform pants, cleats, and finally, just for today, a USA sweat shirt he still had from a Japan winter tour a few seasons before. His gear always went on in that precise order.

Bobby cut the tape from the bats, hefted a few, chose the one his hands liked the best, then walked onto the field and stood by the batting cage. Burrows himself was behind the screen in front of the mound, throwing BP. Bobby watched some big kid take his cuts. At first he looked good, driving a few sharply to left. Then Bobby noticed that it was all arms; his feet were too quick, taking his body right out of the swing.

“Bobby?” said someone behind him.

Bobby turned, saw a woman with a tape recorder.

“Jewel Stern from JOC-Radio,” she said. “Got time for a few questions?”

“Okay,” Bobby said, forgetting for a moment-was it because he’d noticed flaws in the big kid’s swing, or because the reporter was good-looking, even if a little older than his usual type? — that there weren’t supposed to be interviews.

“Right here’s fine,” the reporter said. “Get that thwack of bat on ball. One of my favorite ambient sounds.”

“Mine too.”

“Yeah?” She gave him a quick glance. He said nothing.

The reporter-he’d forgotten her name-started adjusting her equipment. “What do you think of the phenom?” she asked, checking her levels.

“What phenom?”

She jerked her head at the kid in the batting cage. “Simkins. They thought he was a year or two away, now it’s even money he’ll go north.”

“Yeah?” Bobby said.

The kid skyed one to right and stepped out of the cage. Burrows motioned at Bobby.

“Try your luck, Mr. Rayburn?” he said.

“There,” said the reporter. “All set.”

“Got to go,” Bobby told her.

“One quick question.” She spoke into her mike: “Do you feel under any special pressure because of the big contract this year, Bobby?” She thrust the mike at him.

“No,” he said, walking toward the cage with his bat on his shoulder.

She followed him. “But what about the fans?”

“What about them?”

“Won’t the money raise their expectations?”

“The fans,” said Bobby, “are what it’s all about.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Bobby, stepping into the cage, didn’t reply.

He stood in the batter’s box, touched the middle of the plate with the bat, took his stance, looked out. All at once, as though he were waking from a nap, everything was defined with exaggerated clarity, like objects in a coffee-table book: the silvery whiskers on Burrows’s face, the loping and shagging shadows of the outfielders on the deep-green grass, the glints of sunshine on the chain-link fence, the waxy leaves of the fake-looking palm trees beyond.

“Not going to hurt me now, are you, Bobby?” said Burrows. Had he been a pitcher, long ago? Bobby wasn’t sure. Burrows fed him a fat one. First pitch of the season-so clear-and Bobby was surprised by a sudden physical tingling, not unlike the feeling when you know you’re going to get laid, just a little higher up inside him. Bobby waited on that coffee table pitch, maybe a hair too long, and smashed it off the screen right in front of Burrows’s chest.

“Jesus Christ,” said Burrows.

Bobby smiled.

Burrows dipped into the ball basket, put a little more on the next one. This time Bobby didn’t wait long enough, but got a good piece, one-hopping the fence in left center. Then he found his timing, or it found him; he felt that almost imperceptible tightening along the outside of his left leg and around the left side of his torso that always meant his swing was right. Down the left-field line. Off the top of the fence in left center. Over the fence in center. Over the fence in right center. Over the fence in left. Over the phony palm trees in center. Off the screen in front of Burrows, who flinched, after the fact.

“Jesus Christ.”

Bobby stepped out. The phenom stepped in, trying not to see him. Jesus Christ. Bobby almost spoke the words aloud. Day one, and he was there already. He felt absurdly strong, as though he could do a thousand pushups, or hop the ten-foot fence himself. They got him cheap.

The phenom took his cuts. Not so good this time. Bobby saw that Burrows wasn’t throwing any harder, probably couldn’t, but that he was moving the ball around, up and in, down and out; looking for weaknesses, and finding some. The phenom bounced a few through the unmanned infield, fouled one off, and another, and another, then nubbed one that rolled weakly to the foot of Burrows’s screen.

“ ’Kay,” Burrows said.

Phenom out, Bobby in.

“Outside,” Bobby said. Burrows sent one over the outside half. Bobby drilled it down the right-field line. He drove the next one between first and second, lined the one after that over Burrows’s head, pulled the last two, one to straightaway left, one down the line.

“Inside,” Bobby said, and he worked his way back around, lining the last one, the toughest one, inside-out over first base.

“Gonna have us a little fun this year,” Burrows said.

Bobby stepped out. Contract pressure? They got him cheap.

He ran for a while in the outfield, stretched, ran some more, shagged. After an hour or so, he went into the clubhouse, showered, changed. The number twenty-eight shirt was gone from his stall, but nothing hung in its place.

Bobby went to the buffet, made himself a sandwich, took a beer. Primo, wearing a towel, came to the other side of the table, made a sandwich, took a beer, didn’t look at him. Bobby was trying to decide whether he should say something and, if so, what, when someone behind him said:

“Bobby?”

Bobby turned, saw a skinny little guy with glasses and frizzy hair.

“Hi,” he said and spoke his name, which Bobby didn’t catch. “I’m the DCR-director of community relations.”

Bobby shook hands; was doing a lot of handshaking today, now that he thought about it, and getting tired of it. He tried to remember if Wald had his clubs in the trunk.

“Wonder if you could do me a very special favor, Bobby,” the skinny guy said.

“What’s that?”

“We got a call about this kid. They’ve got a thing at the hospital here, what’s it called?” He took a notebook from his blazer pocket. “ ‘The Wish Upon a Star Benefit Program,’ ” he read. “It’s for sick kids, really sick-terminal, that type of situation.” Bobby looked over the skinny guy’s shoulder; Wald had come in, speaking on a portable phone. The DCR talked faster. “Anyway, the idea is these kids get to make a kind of last wish, and the folks in the program try to make it come true. Within reason. The thing is this kid wants to see you.”

Wald was laughing into his portable phone. “What kid?” Bobby said.

The DCR checked his notebook. “Looks like John something. Can’t read my own writing.”

Bobby started to walk away. “Sure,” he said. “Maybe. Sometime.”

The DCR followed him. “Don’t mean to be a pest, Bobby, but the problem is, if you’re going to do it, it’s going to have to be soon. Very soon. Like tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“The nurse or whoever it was said he might not be strong enough later.”

Wald clicked off his phone, stuck it in his monogrammed shirt pocket. “All set?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Bobby answered.

“You don’t know?”

“It’s about this kid,” the DCR said and explained it all over again.

Bobby and the DCR waited for Wald’s reaction. “It’s up to you, Bobby,” he said.

“Up to me?”

“If you want to do it or not.”

Bobby turned to the DCR. “What is it, exactly?”

“Just a hospital visit. It’s about fifteen minutes away. I can run you over right now, if you want.”

Did Bobby want to do it? No. But he found himself saying, “All right.” He knew why, too: because he’d been seeing the ball so well, made such a good beginning, didn’t want to screw it up. Made no sense, but that was the reason.

“Fantastic,” said the DCR, and Bobby realized he’d just earned the DCR some points with his boss, whoever that was.

Wald checked his watch. “This’ll work okay, actually. I’ve got a meeting, the bank, make a few calls-we’ll still have time to play nine.” He turned to the DCR. “You know the Three Pines C.C.? Drop him there by three.”

“Got my clubs?” Bobby said.

“I’m your man,” said Wald. He hurried out.

The DCR rubbed his hands. “Fantastic,” he said again.

“Should we take some balls?” Bobby asked. “For the kid?”

The DCR thought about it. “Maybe a bat would be nicer, for something like this.”

“One of my bats?”

“Oh, I’m sure any bat’ll be fine.”

But why not one of his own? He had an unlimited free supply. Bobby went to his stall, glanced at the bats, selected one he knew his hands wouldn’t like, just by the pattern of the grain on the handle. “We’ll give him this,” Bobby said.

“That’s awfully nice of you, Bobby.”

The DCR drove Bobby to the hospital. “Great to have you here, Bobby,” he said on the way. “It’s my first year with the organization too.”

“Where were you before?”

“Wharton.”

Bobby hadn’t played a day in the minors. He couldn’t place it.

A nurse met them at the front door. “So nice of you to come, Mr. Rayburn,” she said, offering her hand and holding onto Bobby’s for an extra moment. Not a fox like the girl from last night, but not bad looking at all.

The nurse led Bobby and the DCR, who carried the bat, into an elevator. They rode up a few floors, people getting in and out, shooting glances at Bobby from the sides of their eyes; then walked down a brightly lit, airless corridor and into a room. The DCR gave the bat to Bobby.

A heavy woman sat in a chair, fingering the crucifix that hung around her neck. She got to her feet. “Oh, thank God you’ve come,” she said, “thank you, thank you.” She seized Bobby’s free hand in both of hers; for a second he thought she was about to kiss it.

The woman drew Bobby to the bed. “Look, baby,” she said, almost cooing, “look who’s come to see you.”

The boy in the bed opened his eyes. He seemed small, but not necessarily young. His head was bald, his face hollow and lemon-colored. The boy’s eyes, feverish and muddy, fastened on Bobby. He spoke, but too softly for Bobby to hear.

“Pardon?” said Bobby.

The boy took a deep breath; it made him wince. He tried again. This time Bobby heard. “You’re my hero.”

Bobby didn’t know what to say. The feverish, muddy eyes were locked on his.

“Why don’t you shake hands with him, baby?” the mother said.

The boy’s hand rose an inch or two off the sheets, subsided. Bobby laid his own hand on top. The boy’s hand felt hot; Bobby’s looked like a work by Michelangelo. “Hi, John,” he said.

“It’s Sean,” the mother said.

“Sorry,” said the DCR and muttered, “my goddamn handwriting.”

“Sean,” Bobby said. It was his own boy’s name; he almost winced himself. “I’ve brought you something.” He raised the bat to where the boy could see. Bobby felt the boy’s hand straining beneath his. He let go. The boy’s hand rose again, an inch or two. Bobby slid the bat underneath.

“Would you sign it for him?” asked the mother.

The DCR gave Bobby a felt pen. Bobby wrote on the barrel, “To Sean”-then what? The pen kept moving, ahead of his thoughts: “a brave kid,” and he signed his name. The mother made a sobbing sound, clamped her hand over her face and turned away, but the boy heard. He sighed. The mother grew quiet. The room went silent. Bobby heard breaking glass, far away.

The boy licked his lips. They were cracked and dry, as was his tongue. He took a deep breath and spoke again. “Did you play today?” he said.

“Just practice. We’ve got a game tomorrow.”

“Against who?”

Bobby didn’t know.

“The Tigers,” said the DCR.

All at once, the boy tried to raise his head, tried to sit up. The cords in his shrunken neck rose, but he got nowhere. He stopped trying, lay panting for a moment or two.

“Bobby?” he said when he recovered his breath.

“Yeah?”

His eyes, muddier, hotter, found Bobby’s again. “Hit a home run for me.”

Bobby said nothing.

“Please,” said the boy.

“I’ll try.”

“You’ll do it,” the boy said. “I know you will. You’re a superstar.”

“I’ll try.”

The boy smiled a little smile. Then his eyes closed. Was he dead? Bobby almost blurted the thought before the nurse stepped forward, saying, “We’d better let him rest.”

They went out into the corridor, leaving the boy lying quietly on the bed, the bat beside him. The mother embraced Bobby, dampening his polo shirt with her face. “Bless you, Mr. Rayburn,” she said. “You’re like a god to him.”

The nurse walked Bobby and the DCR to the elevator. She slipped Bobby a note. He read it on the way down: “I’m off at eight,” she’d written over her name and number.

Bobby crumpled it. “Mind if I have that?” said the DCR. Bobby gave it to him, then put on his headphones and pressed PLAY.

Bobby got to the first tee at 2:55. Wald was taking practice swings. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“Okay,” said Bobby. “I promised the kid I’d hit one out tomorrow. Like Babe Ruth.”

Wald teed up, waggled his driver. “That wasn’t the Babe, Bobby. It was William Bendix.” He hooked the ball into a grove of scrub pine, not far away.