The Fan

9

The ophthalmologist was an old Jewish guy with one of those pendants shaped like the Greek letter pi. They sat in the dark and quiet examination room, the ophthalmologist clicking new lenses through the lens machine, Bobby Rayburn peering through them and reporting what he saw in the illuminated square on the far wall.

“E, W, N, T, R, F.”

Click. “And the line that begins with L?”

“L, P, Z, Y, O, A.”

Click. “Possibly the one below?”

“U, B, D, F, C, R.”

Click. “Better or worse?”

“Worse.”

Click. “Better or worse?”

“Better.”

Click. “Better or worse?”

“About the same.”

The ophthalmologist had bright blue eyes. They came closer, gazed through the pupils of Bobby’s eyes and into their depths. A long black hair curled out of the old man’s right nostril. He rolled back his stool, switched on a desk lamp, wrote on a chart. Bobby watched the pen wiggling in the pool of light, then examined the other light sources in the room-the letters on the wall, his Rolex.

“So, Doc-do I need glasses?”

“Glasses?” The ophthalmologist stopped writing. “Only to make a fashion statement. Your vision is perfect. More than perfect-twenty-fifteen in the right eye and even better in the left. Even better. Almost twenty-ten. Such acuity I find only in children, and then seldom. Glasses? You could qualify as an astronaut or a jet pilot or something of that nature, Mr.-” He checked the chart. “-Rayburn.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes?”

The ophthalmologist pursed his lips. “Quite the opposite. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He swung the lens machine out of the way, pointed at the wall. “Read that bottom line, if you please.”

“D, Y, X, C, N, R.”

“You see? You’re the first patient I’ve had in here since January who could do that, and he was a child, not ten years old. You’ve been blessed, Mr.-” Another glance at the chart. “-Rayburn.”

“Then how come I’m not seeing as well as I used to?”

“What makes you think you’re not seeing as well as you used to?”

Bobby didn’t want to go into it. The guy didn’t know who he was or what he did, probably was one of those people who knew nothing about baseball, not even the basics, like balls and strikes. Bobby liked that in a way but it made going into it too difficult. “I don’t know,” he said.

The ophthalmologist smiled a little smile. Bobby didn’t like that smile; he had seen similar ones on the faces of sportswriters. “It’s almost impossible from an optical point of view that you ever saw measurably better than you’re seeing now,” said the ophthalmologist. “Do you follow me?”

“Yes,” Bobby said, although he wasn’t sure he did.

“You’re so close to the theoretical upper limit, the polar opposite of blindness, if you will,” the ophthalmologist continued. “How you interpret visual data, on the other hand, is a different question.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The ophthalmologist’s smile faded. “It means that your physical equipment is fine. Other factors may be influencing the way you see the physical world, or think you are seeing it.”

“What other factors?”

“Lack of sleep. Alcohol abuse. Drug abuse.”

Bobby shook his head to each of those. “What else?”

“Stress.”

“Like?”

“What causes stress?”

Bobby nodded.

“All the usual problems. Money worries, love worries, job worries, sickness in the family, death of someone close. And sometimes good things are stressful too.” The bright blue eyes looked deep into Bobby’s again, probing this time beyond the retinas. “Have you had a period of stress lately?” The long nostril hair quivered like a tendril.

“What do you mean good things? ”

“A promotion. Birth of a child. Winning a lottery. Any big change is stressful.”

“I did sign a new contract,” Bobby said.

“When was that?”

“Last month.”

“Well, then.”

“So when will I start seeing better?”

The ophthalmologist laughed, although Bobby didn’t see what was funny. He looked again at the letters on the bottom line, read them easily. But they were just sitting there on the wall, motionless. What if they were suddenly spinning, and coming toward him fast? Could he identify them then? And how soon?

“It’s easy to read them when they’re not moving,” Bobby said.

“Not moving?” The ophthalmologist fingered his little pi pendant.

Bobby thought of his four-leaf clover, lost in center field. “Never mind.”

The ophthalmologist laid his hand, light and bony, on Bobby’s knee. “Try perhaps to relax,” he said.

“Relax?”

“You might consider taking some time off from work, for example.”

“I had the whole winter off,” Bobby said.

The ophthalmologist removed his hand. A Jewish guy, but not like Wald with his $100 haircuts and his mouth; more like one of those scholars in the movies, with a skull cap and gloves that kept your fingers free for writing in unheated studies.

“Have you ever seen a therapist, Mr. Rayburn?”

“Every day.”

“Every day?”

“Sure,” said Bobby; because of the rib thing. “Physio.”

The old man blinked his blue eyes. “I meant the psychological kind.”

“You’re talking about a shrink?”

“Not necessarily.”

But something like a shrink. Out of the question.

And then he remembered the radio reporter’s question: Do you feel any special pressure because of the big contract?

“I take it security’s one of your prime considerations,” the real-estate agent was saying as Bobby walked into the skylit entrance hall, his footsteps clicking on the terra-cotta, echoing through the empty house.

They turned to him, Val with a look on her face that said, You’re late, the real-estate agent hurrying forward with his hand out: “Mr. Rayburn?” That meant that like the ophthalmologist he wasn’t a fan either: fans called him Bobby. “Delighted to meet you.”

They shook hands. The real-estate agent was as tall as Bobby but much thinner; he wore the kind of flowing double-breasted suit that Wald always wore, only looked good in it. He gave his name, which Bobby didn’t catch, and said: “Just delighted.”

Delighted. Oh, Christ, Bobby thought.

Val read his reaction, he could tell from her tone when she said, “Roger was just describing the security system here.”

“State of the art, naturally,” the real-estate agent said. “The vendor had an important collection of Latin American art. A lovely Rivera used to hang right here.” He indicated the blank wall opposite the door, blank except for a small video screen beside the light switch. A message was flashing on it. Roger, following Bobby’s gaze, said, “That’s just the internal part of the system. The whole network’s plugged into the police station, the fire station, and the security company’s master control.” Roger moved toward the screen. Bobby, with his eyes, could read it from where he was: “Motion in foyer. Motion in foyer.”

They toured the house. Saw the kitchen, with its terra-cotta floor, granite countertops, stained-glass windows in the breakfast bay. “From an old church near Sienna,” Roger said. Then the living room with its enormous fieldstone hearth and windows two stories tall. And the indoor pool with the chandelier hanging over it. The master suite with another huge fireplace, a walk-in closet as big as their bedroom in California, a balcony overlooking the terrace, the outdoor pool, and the broad lawn, sloping down to the sea, two hundred feet away.

“I almost forgot,” said Roger, turning a knob on the wall. The house filled with music, deep, rich, full-classical shit, but as though the orchestra were all around them. “Wonderful, no?” Roger said.

“Yes,” said Val.

Bobby opened a door.

“Half lav,” said Roger. “Seven others, not counting the maid’s quarters.”

Bobby went in, closed the door. The music followed him: strings, woodwinds, brass, swelling all around him. He took his stance in the mirror, swung an invisible bat. Opening Day: one for four. Popped out in foul ground, K’d twice; and the grand slam in the second. Boom. Total luck-he hadn’t seen the pitch at all, just flicked the bat through the waist-high plane. The ball hit it on the screws. Total luck, but only Bobby knew. He turned on a gold tap, watched water swirl around a blue-marble sink. He saw everything clearly: the silver-and-black flecks in the marble, the changing colors pulsing through the running water. But was he seeing it with that coffee-table book clarity? He didn’t know. Relax, that was the key. He concentrated on various parts of his body: shoulders, upper back, neck, hips. He thought he felt relaxed, even in his chest, over the rib cage. The only thing he wasn’t relaxed about was not seeing the ball.

Bobby splashed water on his face, went out. The real-estate guy was talking on a cellular phone; Val was fixing her lipstick, making those funny lip shapes women do.

“I’ll show you something,” she said.

He followed her down a hall, into another room, empty except for a space station in one corner, big enough for a kid to play in. “They had grandchildren,” Val said.

“Who?”

“The owners.”

“How come they’re selling?”

“Died in a plane crash,” Val said.

Bobby didn’t like that.

“Private plane,” Val added. “I think on a ski trip.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Does what make?”

“Whether it was a private plane or not.”

“Let’s not fight, Bobby.”

Bobby walked over to the space station, sat at the control panel, pressed a button. Words appeared on a screen: “Welcome to Saturn Station U.S. 2, orbiting Titan at an altitude of fifty miles, speed 1,200 miles per hour, distance from earth 887.9 million miles, outside temperature minus 270.4 degrees Celsius, all systems go. Awaiting further instructions.”

You could qualify as an astronaut. Was that a sign? Bobby said: “You like this place?”

“I love it.”

A cheerleader from Lubbock, and now she loved a place like this. Bobby looked for signs of the cheerleader in her. She still had the great body, the blond hair, except not piled up anymore; she’d had it cut, in the style of a woman lawyer or something, although she hadn’t worked a day since they got married. Bobby didn’t care about that. Why should she work? She hadn’t worked, but was starting to look like she had; and the cheerleader was gone.

“Don’t you?” Val said.

“Don’t I what?”

“Love it.”

“This?” said Bobby. “It’s not me.”

“Why not?”

“Or you either, Val.”

“Valerie. And don’t tell me what is or isn’t me.”

The real-estate guy bounded into the room. “Ah,” he said, “Sean’s room.”

Bobby got up from the space-station console. The asshole already knew about Sean, name and everything. The screen flashed: “Unidentified object approaching at 87 degrees, 41 minutes. Approx. speed 16,000 m.p.h. Approx. distance 8,000 miles. Awaiting further instructions.” They had half an hour, Bobby thought.

“Want to visit the cellar, Mr. Rayburn? Inspect all the machinery?”

Bobby shook his head.

“State of the art,” the real-estate guy added.

“I’m sure it’s fine, Roger,” Val said. “I wouldn’t mind having a look at the outdoor pool, though.”

“Sure thing.”

He led them out back. Putting green, stone barbecue, cabana, pool.

“Twenty-five meters,” said Roger. “By-” He consulted a leatherbound notebook. “Fifteen. Heated, of course.”

“It’s not fenced in,” Val said.

“Not necessary, since the whole property is,” Roger replied, quickly adding, “but I’m sure something suitable could be designed, if it’s Sean you’re thinking about.”

The pool was empty. A whiffle-ball bat lay on the bottom. Bobby walked to the shallow end, down the stairs, across the bottom of the pool, picked it up. Roger, looking down at him, laughed and said, “Busman’s holiday?”

“Huh?”

Roger stoped laughing. Bobby got out of the pool, carrying the whiffle-ball bat. He saw the back door of the house open and Wald came out, walking fast across the lawn.

Wald handed him the Herald. “Nice poke yesterday.” The back page was a full shot of Bobby, swinging from the heels; off balance, he could tell just from the still photo. Terrible. The headline read: “Rayburn burns Birds.”

Roger, reading over Bobby’s shoulder, said: “Wow, isn’t that something?”

Wald glanced around. “What’s all this?” he said.

“We’re just looking,” Bobby told him.

“Like it, Chaz?” Val asked.

“How much?” Wald said.

“The owners are asking one point six,” Roger said. “That includes appliances, all the built-ins, the security, the sound, the-”

“That’s not what I asked,” Wald interrupted, “what they’re asking. I asked how much.”

Roger blinked.

“Who are these owners?” Wald said.

“They died in a private plane crash,” Val told him.

“Invitation only?” Wald said.

Val laughed. That surprised Bobby. Wald turned to Roger. “So it’s an estate sale.”

“Something like that.” Roger unfastened one of the buttons on the cuff of his double-breasted jacket, fastened it again.

“Something like that.” Wald looked at Bobby and Val standing by the edge of the empty pool. “Well? You like it?”

“I do,” said Val.

“We’d have to talk,” said Bobby.

“So talk.”

Bobby and Val walked down toward the sea. The lawn sloped sharply, then leveled out all the way to the beach, flat as a ball field. It was gray under a gray sky. A red sail cut through the water far away, like a shark fin. “Why not?” Val said. “We have to live somewhere. Unless you want me to stay in California. Me and Sean.”

“Why would I want that? I just signed a three-year deal here, for Christ’s sake.”

Val didn’t answer. She and Sean? Bobby tried to picture Sean’s face; the only face that appeared belonged to the other Sean, yellow and drawn on the hospital pillow. That was bad.

She was watching him. “You like it?” Bobby said.

“Don’t you?”

Bobby shrugged. “Isn’t it a bit… too much?”

“The money?”

“The place.”

“Too much in what way?”

Bobby couldn’t put it into words.

“It’s in the best of taste, Bobby,” Val said. “So much… tonier than California.”

“Tonier?”

“You know what I mean. Roger says Architectural Digest did a piece on it a few years ago.”

“Who are they?”

Val sighed.

Bobby looked up at the pool. Wald and Roger were both still standing there, talking on cellular phones.

“Why not?” Val said again.

Why not? Bobby had no answer. Besides, there was the whiffle-ball bat: a good sign.

“Okay,” Bobby said. Val leaned across the space between them, kissed him on the cheek. Bobby thought of his Aunt Greta. She’d been a cheerleader too, he recalled.

They walked back up to the pool. Wald and Roger said good-bye into their phones and pocketed them.

“I guess we like it,” said Bobby.

Wald nodded. “Spill it,” he said to Roger.

“Spill it?”

“The number.”

“As I mentioned, they’re asking-”

Wald held up his hand. “We haven’t got time for all the bullshit. Bobby’s got to be at BP in less than an hour. What’ll they take, absolute bottom figure?”

Roger brushed a hand through his beautifully cut hair. “I couldn’t really say with any accuracy. I mean, it’s not my-”

“Knock it off. You’re in the business. What’s your best guess?”

“One three.”

“We’ll go to nine and a quarter. Period. Finito.”

“I don’t really think that’s a realistic-”

“Offer good until midnight tonight. Subject to inspections, etcetera. You and I’ll go draw up the papers, Bobby doesn’t have to hang around for that, then I’ll drop Valerie at the hotel.”

“Chaz?” said Bobby.

“Yes?”

“Can we talk?”

“You’re the boss.”

Bobby walked down toward the sea again, this time with Wald. He couldn’t find the red sail. “Nine and a quarter,” he said. “Can I afford that?”

“Had a look at your contract, Bobby? Hell, yes, you can afford it. What’s more, anything under one one would be a steal for this spread-checked into it before I came over.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I do my job, just like you do yours. If you let me.”

“A steal?”

“On the water, Bobby. That’s what it’s all about for these old-money putzes.”

Bobby looked around. He couldn’t see any other houses. “That’s who lives here-old-money putzes?”

Wald clapped him on the back. “They won’t bother you, Bobby. No one’s going to bother you in a place like this.”

Bobby stared out to sea. Now he spotted the red sail, on the edge of the horizon, a red drop on a gray wall. “Can you see that?”

“See what?”

“The red sail.” Bobby pointed.

Wald squinted. “Don’t see anything.”

“All right,” Bobby said. “Do it.”

“Jawohl.”

Bobby drove himself to the ballpark. It was raining lightly so there was no BP. He sat in the clubhouse, pressed PLAY, read the paper, signed balls; all the while avoiding Primo, who sat on his stool, playing 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.