The Fan

6

“ Edge geometry,” Gil’s father would say. “That’s what it’s all about.” He’d tap the steel with the tuning hammer, indicating the spot. Gil would strike with the twelve-pounder. Tap, strike, tap, strike: the steel cherry-red from the forge; the anvil live and quiet; Gil still a boy, but big and strong; his father the master.

They lived in the trailer. The forge was out back, in the barn. RENARD STEEL FORGE, read the sign over the door. Winters were best, when the coke in the forge glowed hot, and the wind whined and moaned through cracks in the old walls. In airless summers, nothing came through the wide-open door but black flies, and Gil’s sweat ran down his bare arms, down the twelve-pounder, sizzling on the steel with every stroke. He got stronger and stronger, became the finest striker his father had ever had. But by then it was an anachronism. Every smith who could afford one had a power hammer; and Gil never mastered edge geometry, or any of the other precision skills. He just liked to swing the big hammer.

Gil awoke from a forge dream in sheets damp with sweat. Edge geometry; precision skills: none of it mattered anyway. His father got sick, and soon after the moneymen came and took their name away. Gil’s eyes went to the picture of Richie; his father had been called Richie too. There was no resemblance. Gil turned on the radio.

“-may have reinjured those ribs making a sensational diving catch in the first inning. Certainly there was a lot of comment in the press box about Burrows leaving him in.”

“Why take chances with the big-ticket guys, Jewel, especially in the month of March?”

“That’s it exactly, Norm. And the thing is he didn’t look like himself up there at the plate yesterday. Sid Burrows may have a lot to answer for.”

“Thanks, Jewel. See you at the top of the hour. We’ll go to the phones after this brief-”

In a bad mood now, Gil put on his robe, picked up his toilet kit, and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Lenore had already been there. The mirror was steamed, except for a cleared circle in the center where his own face now appeared, sniffing. He smelled her perfume, a dense, rich smell of tropical flowers, a smell that gave him a headache, or made him aware of the headache he already had. Gil shaved, showered, went back to his room.

“-Ron in Brighton. What’ve you got for us, Ron?”

“Can we talk hockey for a sec?”

“Anything you want.”

Gil dressed: white shirt, blue suit, yellow tie. He had five or six yellow ties, left over from the days when they were in. This one, with a pattern of tiny mauve discs, was his lucky tie, worn the day he earned his highest single commission, $3,740, from a sporting-goods chain that went bankrupt not long after. Gil was knotting his lucky tie when someone knocked on his door.

“It’s open.”

Lenore walked in, wearing her kimono, the one that came halfway to her knees. Gil’s headache, confined until then in a narrow wedge behind his right eye, began to spread.

“Nice tie,” Lenore said.

“Thanks.”

“Guess what the temperature is.”

Gil glanced out his window, saw no clues in the brick wall.

“Fourteen degrees,” Lenore told him. “And they’re calling for snow.”

That wasn’t cold to Gil, and snow didn’t bother him.

“It’s my day off, thank God,” said Lenore. “I’m going to spend it in bed.” The kimono opened a little, revealing more of her leg. Lenore had well-shaped, muscular legs; she’d run track in high school, had trophies on the cracked bureau in her room to prove it. Now she sold jewelry in a mall off the ring road.

Gil switched off the radio, took his coat from the wall hook.

Lenore toyed with a lock of her hair. “I wouldn’t mind a little company,” she said.

“Got to work.” Gil moved toward the door. Lenore stepped aside, but not enough to keep him from bumping against her hip.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be.” Lenore pressed against him, pressed hard with her soft breasts, backing him against the bed.

Gil had work to do: he could see the day’s schedule in his head, laid out in neat boxes, ready to be checked off. He put his hands on her shoulders, almost pushed her away. But Lenore’s hips made a comma-shaped motion, like a preview of what could be happening in the next minute, and the neat boxes in his head collapsed.

The blue suit, the yellow tie, the white shirt, the kimono, all came off. “I’m so pent-up,” said Lenore, as they moved onto the bed, their bare skins, warm and soft from the shower, prickling up in goosebumps.

Gil was pent-up too. He was inside her in moments, her buttocks cupped in his hands.

“Gentle.”

But what good would gentle do? Not with this headache, not in this mood. His body took over. Her mouth was at his ear and he heard her suck in her breath, heard every nuance and texture of the sound. It was basic, animal, a world in itself. He came.

“Gil?”

He lay on her, the boxes rebuilding themselves in his head.

“You didn’t wait for me?”

First: call Everest. Second: bank what was left of Hale’s money, pay the car bill and something on the credit cards. Third: hit Bluewater Fishing and Tackle. Fourth: try a cold call at the new Great Outdoors on the north shore. That would leave just enough time to drive down for Richie at five.

“Gil?”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t just leave me like this.”

“Like what?”

“Pent-up, Gil. I’m still pent-up.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Something.”

He stuck his hand down there.

Her mouth was at his ear again. “Lick me, baby.” He still heard every nuance and texture of the sound, but now it didn’t have the same effect. She would have to settle for his finger. He moved it in circles, mentally putting on his white shirt, blue suit, yellow tie, unlocking the 325i, driving off, punching in Everest and Co. on the car phone.

You got in the car, you kept plugging. Gil told himself that a few times, until he was hyped enough to call Everest. He had to rehype twice before he got past the purchasing VP’s secretary.

“Hi, Chuck. Gil Renard here.”

“What is it?”

“Our meeting on the eighth. Two-thirty’s tough for me, Chuck. How’s the morning?”

“Full up.”

“Maybe late afternoon, then.”

“Flying to Chicago.”

“Any chance we could make it earlier?”

“Earlier?”

“A day or two earlier. The sixth? The seventh?”

“Didn’t we go through this already?”

“I just thought maybe you’d had a cancellation or something, could squeeze me in.” Shit. First rule of the commission rep: Look and sound successful.

“No.”

“What about later that week?”

“In Chicago. Didn’t I say that?”

“When are you coming back?”

“End of the month.”

“End of the month?”

“I’m in Chicago till the twelfth. Then we’re taking two weeks in Maui.”

Rule two: take the offensive. Gil tried to think of a line that would do that, and failed.

“Hello?” said the VP. “You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“So what is it? Scratch you for the eighth?”

“No,” Gil said. “I’ll be there.” He thought of a line. “Have that checkbook ready.”

“We’ll see,” said the VP, and hung up.

Rule three: ignore rejection. He called Garrity. “Good news,” he said. “Everest loves the Iwo Jima stuff. Going to build their whole approach around it. Thing is, they’re asking for a few weeks to solidify their plans. Should I give it to them?”

“You mean they’re not going to order this month?”

“They need time to retool, like I said.”

Silence. “Give it to them,” Garrity said at last. “But it better be a whopper, Gil.”

“What?”

“Their order, I’m talking about.”

“Count on it,” Gil said.

“We are,” said Garrity. “See you on the ninth.”

“The ninth?”

“Sales meeting.”

“Right,” said Gil. “Got to go. I’m on a call.” Look and sound successful.

Gil stopped at Cleats for a quick one, then got back in the car, kept plugging. First, the bank. After making the car payment and the interest payments on his cards, he had $693.20 in his checking account and three or four hundred in his pocket. Plus the tickets. Free and clear, big boy, free and clear.

He hit Bluewater Fishing and Tackle. The owner’s son was out front. Gil showed him the Iwo Jima catalogue, got him excited. Then the owner, a fat old guy in a plaid shirt, walked in from the back room. He checked out the catalogue, asked if Gil had any samples. Gil handed him the Survivor.

“Great handle,” said the owner’s son.

The owner turned the Survivor over in his hands a few times, then looked up at Gil. “This is shit, Gil. You know that.”

Gil wanted to say, “Shit sells.” Especially if it’s got a fancy handle. But: don’t argue with a customer. He put the Survivor away. “What about the regular stuff?” His headache, which had shrunk back to the wedge behind his right eye, now expanded again.

“I’ll take three-dozen Clipits,” the owner said. “And a dozen of those folding hunters with big bolsters.”

“Eight-inch?”

“Five and a quarter. A dozen skinners, two boxes of pocketknives-”

“Red?”

“Blue. Dozen fillet knives, and maybe two of those birders.

“And?”

“That’ll do it.”

“That’ll do it?” March was supposed to be a big month. Bluewater had ordered three or four times as much the year before.

“Blame the economy,” the owner said.

Gil wrote up the order. Commission: $187.63. He faxed it in from the car, then stopped at Cleats and checked the box scores over a hamburger and a beer. Rayburn: 0 for 4, 4 Ks.

“Burrows is an asshole,” Gil said.

“Just because he wants them to work for their money?” Leon said, drawing a pint of Harpoon.

“Use your head, Leon. Rayburn’s an investment. Like an oil well. Got to protect your investments.”

“I feel like shit today,” Leon replied, “and I’m in here busting my ass. No one said, ‘You’re our oil well, Leon. Take the day off.’ ”

“You’re replaceable. That’s the difference.”

“And you’re not?” Leon said, before he remembered they stood on opposite sides of the bar, or noticed the expression on Gil’s face. “Hey, no offense.” Leon drew another pint. “On me.”

Gil drank up, went outside. Snow was falling, just as Lenore had forecast. He realized he had to piss, didn’t want to go back inside. He stepped into an alley, pissed a yellow circle in the fresh snow, added crescent seams inside its borders: a baseball. And had plenty left inside him to melt it all away.

North of the city, snow fell harder. It took Gil an hour to reach Great Outdoors, a big well-stocked store with a waterfall and a wall for rock climbing. Gil walked around until a woman with a name tag on her down vest approached and said, “May I help you, sir?”

Look and sound successful. “I’d like to see the owner.”

“The owner?”

“Or the manager.”

“May I ask what it’s about?”

“Business,” Gil said. Tell nothing to underlings. That was another rule.

The woman looked him over, then led him to the manager’s office, went in by herself, came out a moment later. “He’ll see you.”

Gil walked in, pulling out his card. The first thirty seconds were everything on a cold call. Hype, hype. “Gil Renard,” Gil said, laying the card on the desk: R. G. RENARD FINE KNIVES. He smiled a confident smile. The man at the desk didn’t look at the card. He sat behind a computer, fingers poised over the keys.

“You’re a rep?”

“Right. And I couldn’t help noticing that in this big beautiful store devoted to the outdoors, there isn’t a single knife.” He opened his briefcase.

“We’ll have scads of them in a few days,” said the manager.

“Excuse me?”

“The ship docked in San Francisco last night.”

“You’ve got a supplier?”

“Exactly.” The manager named a Japanese company, one of the best.

Gil smiled his confident smile. “If you’ll give me three minutes”-he’d stolen that line from Figgy-“I can prove to you that we’re competitive with them in quality, and better in price. In fact, we’ve got a new-”

“Not possible,” said the manager. “We’ve signed a three-year exclusive.”

There was no line to counter that. “Maybe I could leave our catalogue.”

“Just lay it there.” The manager’s fingers fluttered down to the keys.

Outside the snowflakes had grown fat, moist, silvery; almost rain. Gil walked around the Great Outdoors building and pissed against a packing case. Then he got in the car and drove south.

The phone buzzed.

“I’m looking at the Bluewater order.” Garrity. “What the hell’s going on?”

“He says it’s the economy.”

“I’m not talking about the size of the order, although that stinks too. I’m talking about why aren’t you pushing the goddamn Iwo Jima line?”

“I’m pushing it. The old guy knows his stuff, that’s all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That it’s shit and he knows it.” Was he yelling? The woman in the next car was watching him.

There was a pause before Garrity spoke again. “You’d better do some thinking, Gil.”

“About what?”

“I don’t have to spell it out, boyo.” Click. Hum.

Gil tried to do some thinking. The first thought he had was about the time Boucicaut knocked himself out against the backstop, chasing a pop foul. Boucicaut. A rock. Odell, for all his strength and skill, wasn’t a rock like Boucicaut.

Gil turned on the radio.

Bottom of the fourth at Soxtown. Primo tripled. Lanz struck out. Washington came to the plate. Gil dialed FANLINE.

“Where’s Rayburn hitting?”

“Fanline’s closed,” a woman said. “We’re not taking calls till after the game.”

“I don’t care about that. Just where’s he hitting?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Washington flied out, ending the inning. Gil listened hard, waiting for an explanation. None came. He called Cleats. Leon answered.

“Leon. This is Gil. Got the game on?”

“Gil?”

“Renard. You know.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Where’s Rayburn batting?”

“Huh?”

“In the order. Where’s he batting?”

Gil heard Leon call, “Any of you guys watching this?” Pause. Voices. “Where’s Rayburn batting?” More voices. Gil strained to hear what they were saying. Leon came back on. “He’s not in the lineup.”

“How come?”

“You’re asking me?”

“I just meant-”

“Kind of busy in here. Got to go.”

Goddamn rib cage. Those things took forever to heal, and by then you’d lost your timing. He could have killed Burrows.

Gil changed the station, tried to get into the music, think about something else. But he couldn’t. After a while, he called information, got the press-box number at Soxtown. He entered it on his speed dialer, then rang it.

“Yeah,” said a man at the other end.

What was her name? “Jewel,” Gil said. “Jewel Stern.”

Background noise. Gil thought he heard the crack of a bat. A woman was saying, “… bored out of my mind.” Then the same woman was on the phone. “Yeah?”

“Jewel Stern?” Gil said.

“Speaking.”

“What’s wrong with Rayburn?”

“Who’s this?”

Gil thought of giving his name, but what was the point? “Just a fan.”

“Listen, fan. This is a working press box, not twenty questions.”

“What’s your problem, lady? I’m asking one simple-”

Jewel Stern hung up the phone. “Getting crazy out there,” she said.

The Herald guy said, “Prodigious isn’t in my goddamn spellcheck.”

“Or in your readers’ vocabulary,” Jewel said, before spelling it for him.

By five o’clock, the snow had turned to rain. It soaked Gil’s hair as he stood outside the middle door of the rented South Shore triplex, waiting for someone to answer his knock. After a minute or two, Ellen opened the door. She was still in her office clothes, wore her hair in a new cut, had lost weight.

“You don’t have to pound like that,” she said. “I was in the john.”

“Where’s Richie?”

“With Tim.”

“What do you mean-with Tim?” Tim was the boyfriend. “I told you I was taking him to the movies.”

“Please don’t raise your voice in public.”

Gil lowered it. “What do you mean with Tim?”

“Little League tryouts are tonight. I couldn’t reach you.”

“They won’t have tryouts in this.”

“Wrong. It’s indoors, at the high school.”

“When did it start?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Please don’t raise your voice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried. Didn’t I say that already?”

“The office can always get me. You know that.”

Ellen didn’t reply. She stared at him, eyes made small by the lenses of her glasses. He noticed she had new red frames, the kind that made a statement, although he didn’t know what it was. He didn’t say anything either, just walked back to his car and drove off.

The high school was three blocks away. Gil hurried into the gym, rain dripping down his face. A man with a whistle around his neck hit a ground ball to a boy standing at center court, the number twenty pinned to his chest. The ball bounced off the boy’s glove. He chased it down and threw a two-hopper to a teenager standing by the man with the whistle. “That’s the way,” said the man with the whistle. He tossed the boy three fly balls, two of which he caught. “Nice job. Off you go.” The boy ran off, joining a woman in the stands. The men on the sideline wrote on their clipboards.

“Twenty-one,” said the man with the whistle. Twenty-one emerged from a group of fifty or sixty kids waiting at the far end of the court.

“Hustle.”

Gil moved down the near side, his eyes on the numbered kids. He spotted Richie: twenty-six. He was chewing on the rawhide lace of his glove. Gil took a seat in the stands.

The drill: three grounders, three flies, six throws. Twenty-one missed them all, and threw poorly, but twenty-two fielded every ball cleanly and had a strong arm. Twenty-three’s arm was even stronger, and this time when the man with the whistle said, “Nice job,” his tone said it too. Twenty-three was a big kid, not possibly the same age as Richie.

Gil was aware of a man stepping down through the stands, sitting beside him. “Hi, Gil,” he said. “Aren’t they cute?”

Gil turned. Tim.

“Who?” Gil said.

“The kids. It’s the best age.” Tim held out his hand. “How’re you doing?”

Gil shook hands. “They’re not all nine, are they?”

“Supposed to be,” Tim said. “The tens are next, then the elevens and the twelves. The draft’s in a couple weeks, not that it matters where Richie’s concerned.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only a handful of nines make the majors. The rest play in the minors. No pressure.”

But Richie was good. Gil remembered how they’d rolled a tennis ball back and forth across the floor while Richie was still in diapers. “He’ll be right up there,” Gil said.

“Sure.” Tim opened a file. Inside were sheets of paper with five or six lines of handwritten W s on the top half and crayon drawings of wigwams, willows, and winter below. Tim made a red check mark on the first sheet and wrote, “Wonderful!” underlining the W, then turned to the next one.

“Twenty-six,” called the man with the whistle. Richie came forward, chewing on his glove.

Hustle, thought Gil.

“Hustle,” said the man with the whistle.

Richie jogged to center court, his right foot glancing out to the side slightly on every stride. “Does he always run like that?” Gil said.

“Like what?” asked Tim, looking up from his papers.

The man with the whistle hit the first ground ball, right at Richie, but much harder than any of the other ground balls yet hit, Gil thought, and picking up topspin on the composite floor.

Glove down, glove down.

Richie stuck his glove down, but too late, and the ball went through his legs.

“Oops,” said Tim.

“No problem,” said the man with the whistle, and hit Richie another. Again: harder than the balls he’d hit the other kids.

“Glove down.” This time Gil said it aloud, but quietly, he was sure of that.

Richie got his glove down a little faster, deflecting the ball to the side. He ran after it, bobbled it, scooped it up, threw a sidearm rainbow that bounced a few times and finally rolled to the feet of the teenager.

“Much better,” said Tim.

“How long have you known about this?” Gil said.

“About what?”

“This tryout.”

“A few weeks?”

“Have you been practicing with him?”

“In this weather?”

The third grounder was on its way. “Look how hard the asshole’s hitting it,” Gil said, not loudly, and, not much louder, “Butt down, butt down.” Get your butt down and the glove comes down automatically. Had Richie heard him? Probably not, but he did get down for this one, and the ball popped into his glove.

“All right, twenty-six,” said the man with the whistle. Richie threw the ball in, a little more strongly this time, but still a sidearm toss that didn’t come close to reaching in the air.

“Crow-hop, for Christ’s sake,” Gil said. But quietly.

Richie looked into the stands.

“Here we go,” said the man with the whistle, and tossed the first fly ball.

Richie turned from the stands, realized what was happening, tried to find the ball, glancing up wildly at the gym ceiling.

“Get your fucking glove up.”

“Hey,” said Tim. “Easy.”

Richie got his glove up, but never saw the ball. It arced under the gaudy championship banners for basketball, football, wrestling, and hit him on the head.

Richie collapsed screaming on the gym floor, holding his head, jerking around in agony. The coaches with the clipboards, the man with the whistle, the teenager, all ran to him, but Gil got there first. He knelt, put his hand on Richie’s shoulder, felt his boniness under the sweat shirt.

“Richie, it’s me. You’re all right.”

Richie kept screaming and jerking.

“You’re all right. Control yourself.”

Gil pushed Richie’s hands aside, felt his head: a little bump sprouting on the side. Nothing.

“Come on, now,” Gil said. He squeezed Richie’s shoulder, not too hard.

Richie quieted. “It’s your fault,” he said, so softly Gil hardly heard. Maybe he’d imagined it.

Gil grew aware of the people standing around. He reached for Richie’s hand, helped him up. Applause from the stands.

“He okay?” asked the man with the whistle.

Gil turned on him. “You don’t worry about that,” he said. “You just worry about hitting them fair to everybody.” He walked Richie off the court.

By the second Coke and third slice of pizza, Richie had cheered up. “I did pretty good on that grounder, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Remember to square to the ball and get your butt down.”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s the way to do it. Even more.”

“Think I’ll make it?”

“Make what?”

“The majors.”

Gil looked into his son’s eyes, light brown eyes, the same shade as his mother’s, watching closely. Richie was probably going to need glasses too, maybe needed them already. Gil was still searching for the right answer when Richie said, “Daddy Tim says it doesn’t matter whether I make it this year or not.”

That was new, Daddy Tim. Gil swallowed the rest of his beer and said, “He’s right.”

Richie nodded. He ate more pizza, drank more Coke. “The uniforms are better in the majors. You get button shirts and your name on the back. Rossi Plumbing’s the best. Green pinstripes.”

Gil ordered another beer.

“Do you think they’ll pick me?”

“Who?”

“Rossi Plumbing. That was their coach, hitting the grounders.”

“Hard to predict a draft,” Gil said.

“Think I’ll go in the first round?”

“Hard to say. How about another Coke?”

“I’m not supposed to drink Coke.”

“Who says?”

“Mom and Da-and Tim.”

“Miss?” said Gil, flagging down the waitress. “Another Coke.” He turned to Richie. “Different rules when you’re with your father.”

Richie chewed on his straw. “Did you see Jason Pellegrini?”

“Who’s he?”

“Twenty-three.”

“I think so.”

“He’s pretty good, huh?”

“Not bad. I wasn’t really watching.”

“Better than me?”

“About the same. All kids are about the same at your age.”

Richie gave him a look. “How were you, at my age?”

First pick. First pick, every goddamn time. Would have made that number twenty-three look like… like you. “About the same,” Gil said. He reached into his pocket, laid the tickets on the table. “Speaking of the majors,” he said.

Richie picked them up, holding them a little closer to his eyes than Gil thought normal. “Opening Day!”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yeah, you told me. Thanks. Dad.”

“Pick you up at eleven, sharp.”

“How many days away is it?”

They counted them. Then they went to a movie. Something about a pirate who drowns in a shipwreck and returns to a Caribbean resort as a ghost. Gil thought it was a comedy until the ghost-pirate chopped off a croupier’s hand with his cutlass. The cutlass didn’t look authentic to Gil. Turning to point this out to Richie, he saw that his son had his eyes covered.

Gil drove Richie home, parked outside the triplex. He thought of putting his arm around Richie, giving him a hug good-bye. Then he wondered how Richie would take it, decided it might be better if Richie made the first move. Nothing happened.

Richie opened the car door. “Bye,” he said.

“Bye.” Richie closed the door, started walking across the narrow lawn.

Gil slid down the window. “Richie?”

Richie stopped and turned. “Yeah?”

“When was the last time you saw the eye doctor?”

“Was I that bad?” Richie went into the house.