The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop

4

FLYNN had his back to the mound and was staring probably out toward his bull pen where he had two relievers working and at the same time watching Matt Garrison shift over there toward first as the Pioneer pinch runner came down the line to take his — but who was that? who'd those guys have? Tuck Wilson maybe: Bancroft sent Wilson in to run for Rutherford, okay. Henry stared woozily down upon those three ones on his kitchen table, trying to put all that scene back together again, get some order in this damn operation, men, and he was Old Fennimore McCaffree in his black suit giving orders and Barney Bancroft urging the boys how they had to win this game and all the old Elders sitting like a panel of enraged titans up on the Elders Bench and the catcher Chauncey O'Shea blubbering there behind the plate all broken up by this thing and he was the umpire Frosty Young hollering out they had to play ball no matter what and thinking how hard it was going to be to call them straight though he had to and he was also each of the old-time Pioneers who'd come there for Brock Rutherford Day at Pioneer Park and now a little awestruck but back there to see this thing out… but mostly he was only J. Henry Waugh, pooped and plastered Prop., thinking that this was sure a helluva thing for a grown man to be doing at dawn on a working day, and how was he going to face up to old Zifferblatt two hours from now?

But Flynn finally turned to Jock Casey and asked him: "You sure you feel like staying in this game?"

And Casey said, "Yeah, why not?"

"Because I can always—"

"Forget it." Casey was impatient. "Let's just get going."

Well, old Flynn shook his head, as though to say it was out of his hands, and he left the field, Casey being essentially right: finish it out. See what happened. The stands were dead still. Jammed, though. They had all come back. They wanted to be there. Who could tell? might be the last game in the UBA.

Henry wrote in Wilson pinch-running for the hit-and-now-buried batsman, R.I.P., but his gloves made his fingers so clumsy he could hardly read it afterwards, so he pulled them off and threw them over on the shelves, then traced over what he'd written; it was still pretty hard to read. Henry considered the situation, that it was the bottom of the third, Pioneers batting, Wilson on first, no outs, Ramsey swinging against Casey on the Rookie-to-Rookie chart, and even managed a dim picture of how it was down there to start this game up again, how it must be, no matter what anybody was saying out loud; then he picked up the dice, scrambling the bean ball in his fist, and rolled for Toby Ramsey, and things were moving again: GO 1B/R Adv 1 if F, which meant that Garrison took the play unassisted at first, Ramsey out, but Wilson now down on second, and it suddenly occurred to Henry, now thinking like Bancroft, or maybe like one of the old Pioneers, Willie O'Leary perhaps, that Ramsey should have been ordered to bunt, but it really didn't matter, came out the same way anyhow, and also: why did Bancroft send an old tub like Tuck Wilson in as a pinch runner? he must have meant to use one of the younger boys, and in the confusion — but, hell, that was no damn way to run a ball game. Henry, feeling oddly suffocated, realized then he still had his coat on, so he took it off and dropped it over the back of the chair. So now it was Grammercy Locke, one out and a man on second, which meant Casey should give Locke an intentional pass and try for the double play, and even though Henry personally wanted to see Locke swing away, wanted to see them all swing away, he gave in to the logic of it, and that put Locke on first, Wilson on second, and Hatrack Hines at the plate: action on the Rookie-to-Star chart now for four straight Pioneer batters. He supposed there was probably a little chin music down there now around the base paths and in the dugouts, and maybe even some gathering hoopla up in the stands, but he couldn't hear it He rolled for Hines, who got a walk, loading up the bases, with home-run champ Witness York coming to the plate, and finally he was able to smile, and, scratching his head, he wondered where he had left his hat. He rolled: FO RF/R Adv 1. Well, a fly-out to right, pretty disappointing, but at least it brought old Tuck Wilson waddling in from third after the catch, put runners in scoring position on second and third, two outs, Star hitter Stan Patterson at the plate, but Patterson, trying too hard maybe, struck out, and that was all. Struck out! Henry was standing, curved over his table, supported by both stiffened arms, gazing despondently down upon his Universal Baseball Association. It was as though nothing had happened, Casey was still burning them in, and even though it was now Pioneers 1 and Knicks 0, nobody had got a hit yet.

Henry tugged off his scarf, tossed it over on the drainboard by the sink, and sat down heavily. Should go to bed. No, then he'd never get up and he'd be out of a job. Today was Friday. If he could just get through the day somehow, there was the weekend to recover. All right, who was up? oh wait, that's right, the Pioneers needed a pitcher in there, and who was it going to be? better use their ace, Mickey Halifax: they had to win this one, didn't they? they did. And so he sat there, leaning on one elbow, fighting sleep, vaguely worried about Zifferblatt, one of Sandy's tunes wandering through his sodden head, rolling the dice, and not much happened for a couple innings except that Chauncey O'Shea, the Knicks' rookie catcher who was supposed to be blind with tears of remorse, tripled in the fifth to spoil the Rutherford-Halifax no-hitter. Luckily, Halifax got the side out, O'Shea dying on base, but meanwhile the Pioneers were doing just nothing at all.

Okay, so now the sixth, the game was officially a complete one, even if it got called, and as of now the Pioneers would be the winners, 1-to-O, so surely it was a temptation for Frosty Young to see clouds in the sky, but on the other hand, Casey still had a no-hitter, and there would be a lot of resentment if they didn't let the Pioneers have another chance or two at busting that up, and besides, it still wasn't time to go to work, and he had to do something. Henry put fire on under the day-old coffee sitting on the stove and tried to talk himself into a little of the old excitement. He even said out loud: "All right, fellas, a little pepper now, let's wake up!" — but he heard himself talking to a wooden kitchen table all too plainly, and he thought: what a drunken loony old goat you are, they oughta lock you up.

But he sat down anyway, just to see what the dice would bring, because it was clearly on his mind, either something happened — something in short remedial—or into the garbage hag with the whole works, and with that the Knicks started laying into Halifax. It was Killer Casey who started it appropriately enough with a line-drive single, and then after a couple outs, Garrison doubled, Baldwin singled, and McCamish homered, and so suddenly it was a 4-to-1 ball game, the Mad Jock and his Knicks out in front. There was still time for the Pioneers to fight back, and Henry barked irritably at them, or maybe just at the dice, as he threw for them in the bottom of the sixth, but grim Casey cut them down, one-two-three. A hard-bitten cold-blooded sonuvabitch. And then the seventh, the old lucky seventh, there was Crybaby O'Shea kicking things off for the Knicks with a double off the left-field wall and Musgraves walking and Casey doubling them both home and Batkin singling to score Casey. And were they laughing about it, for god's sake? Weeks struck out, but Garrison singled and Baldwin got a base on balls, loading up the bags. "Aw, get your Ace's ass to the showers!" Henry grumped disgustedly at Halifax, and called in Drew McDermott in relief. And so McCamish knocked the ball down to Hatrack Hines at third, who fumbled it, and a run scored, and Maverly singled and a run scored, and O'Shea singled, his third hit of the ball game, and a run scored. Henry, chin in his right hand and rolling with his left, watched them prance around the bases, having a damn picnic. Musgraves, the only Knick in the whole line-up so far without a hit, singled home McCamish, which brought Jock the Jerk to the plate for the second time this inning, and now with the bases loaded and the game a goddamn rout. Henry supposed, in his morass of gloom and nausea, that Casey would probably tear the cover off the ball, but he didn't. Against every rule in the book and contrary to Flynn's signals, he bunted, a squeeze bunt under the awesome circumstances, and Maverly scored from third; Pioneer catcher Royce Ingram's throw to first was wild, Casey was safe, and on the error O'Shea came sliding in for yet another run. Insane, but there it was. Nor was it all. Batkin popped up to Hines, but Weeks singled home Musgraves and Matt Garrison doubled, scoring Casey, before Biff Baldwin finally lined out to center to end the massacre. Knicks 15, Pioneers 1. Henry couldn't see much down there in Pioneer Park, but he did notice that just about all the fans had got up and walked out.

By now the coffee had been boiling for some time and the kitchen stank of it. Henry pushed himself up out of his chair, turned off the burner, dumped pot and all into the sink. Outside, the sky, starless, was graying toward day. A few neon signs burned in the half light, proclaiming names and wonders: the new and wearisome order. He looked at his watch: still more than an hour before he had to,confront the old man. What could he tell him? This was probably the end, all right: got the axe, boys, got the aches. The most he could hope for was a terrific chewing out, and bad as he was feeling this morning, that was really nothing to hope for at all. It was autumn, but Henry felt plunged into the deepest of winters. But no, it was the middle of a baseball season, remember? Green fields and hot suns and shirtsleeved fanatics out on the bleaching boards, last to give it up and go home: he turned back to the table.

Who was up? Ingram. Damon's old battery mate. Damon's old battery mate struck out — for the third straight goddamn time. Then Wilder singled to spoil — at last — Mad Jock's no-hitter (and oddly he felt regret, because not even punishment then was total), but Goodman James bounced into a double play. Why am I murdering myself like this? he wondered, but he went on pitching the dice, and in the top of the eighth, the Knicks' Walt McCamish drew a base on balls, Maverly whacked a fly ball out to Witness York, who dropped it, and Shook-up O'Shea belted out his fourth hit of the game, bringing in McCamish. Musgraves walked to fill the bags, and Casey knocked a ball out to the mound, busting McDermott's finger, two runs scoring on the error. That was too much. Henry threw the dice across the kitchen, took a cold shower, put on fresh clothes, pulled the chain on the lamp over the kitchen table, and went out for breakfast.

His bus was already overloaded when it arrived at his stop, and Henry was tempted to walk, getting out in the air was already doing him some good, but he couldn't risk arriving late, not today, so he squeezed on with the others, joining the sour community on its morning pilgrimage. Din of coughing and snuffling, here and there a sneeze exploding from a buffed nose: assailed by microbes, his head uncovered, he felt anything but invulnerable. He pressed rearward, pushed out a couple stops early, the bus exhaling as though with profound relief, and bought a newspaper at a stand on the corner there, obeying some old impulse which, he realized, he'd nearly forgotten, the giving of the coin, the snapping up of the paper, taking the world to heart and mind, or some world anyway.

In the coffee shop, he looked around for Lou: not here yet. He waited for one of the small tables in front of the counter to clear, glancing the while at the headlines. Some priest who quit and got married. Gold and silver shortages. Orgy that the cops broke up. Rapes and murders. Makings of another large war. A table opened up: Henry claimed it, looping his scarf over the second chair. War seemed to be a must for every generation. A pageant to fortify the tribal spirit. A columnist plumped for bloodless war through the space race. Henry sympathized with the man, but it could never work. Mere abstraction.

People needed casualty lists, territory footage won and lost, bounded sets with strategies and payoff functions, supply and communication routes disrupted or restored, tonnage totals, and deaths, downed planes, and prisoners socked away like a hoard of calculable runs scored. Besides, war was available to everybody, the space race to few: war was a kind of whorehouse for mass release of moonlust. Lunacy: anyway, he sure wasn't inventing it. The dishes on his table were cleared with a hard clap and rattle that hammered on the bare raw lobes of his brain and made him wince with pain. Don't give up, he cautioned himself. The waitress sponged the table with a rag that smelled like something between an old goat and a dead fish. He ordered a muffin and coffee, hoping he could keep it down.

New customers wheezed in, questioned the scarfed chair: "Sorry, taken." Henry ducked from their scowls into his paper, sipping the hot coffee, and thankful for it.

Finally, Lou showed up, spare hat — Henry's gray felt — in hand. "Henry!" He huffed and puffed excitedly down the aisle between the counter and the tables, smashing toes and jogging elbows, brandishing the hat on high, flushed face openly smiling: man without disguises. "You left your hat yesterday, Henry!"

Henry cleared the spare chair of his scarf, accepted the hat —"Thanks, Lou" — and held on to his coffee and the table until Lou could come to complete rest across from him.

"I was worried, I mean, I didn't know where you'd— what're you gonna do today about…?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'll just have to—"

"I went by last night, thought you'd be home, I asked down in the delicatessen, I was afraid you might have, I don't know, left town, or. ."

"I went out for a drink." "A drink? Oh."

"Your order?"

"Anyway, I went by again this morning, just in case. I thought you'd need your hat, and I thought I'd maybe go up just to, well, I mean, I didn't know what you might have, how you might have — but Mr. Diskin told me he'd seen you leave this morning, so—"

"Lou, the girl's waiting."

"Hunh? Oh! Uh, number four, please, easy over, and tea. And a Danish on the side." He glanced at his watch, tongue between his lips.

"Four over tea'n Danish!"

"Oh, uh, Miss. ." Lou blushed when she turned back on him, then smiled shyly. "Could you make that… two number fours?"

"Double up that four!"

"Say, he certainly has wonderful pastrami!"

"Who'sthat?"

"Mr. Diskin." Lou smiled. Well, anyway he didn't waste his trip. Holly Tibbett himself.

"You know, Lou, I was just thinking, what if we divided up the world into eight clubs, split the wealth more or less among them, and let them, taking turns, choose space teams from all the present available talent—"

"What're you talking about, Henry?"

"The space race. See, I was thinking, if you could just work it out so that statistically it was more exciting — and see, you might make a rule where the teams could buy, sell, and trade personnel, and then for rule infractions, you could bench key scientists and pilots—"

"Henry, are you. .?" Lou leaned forward, studying Henry's face quizzically, as though discovering something horrible there. "Do you feel okay? You look, I don't know… changed."

"Just a little tired, Lou. I didn't get much sleep."

"Oh." Food arrived, several platters of it, erasing some of the anguish on Lou's big round face, and making him wonder: "Say, Henry, are you sure you've had enough to eat?"

"Sure, plenty." Lou eyed the empty muffin plate disdainfully, then stared again at Henry's face, while scooping the eggs in. Well, Henry thought, I have changed. "Don't worry, Lou, it'll be all right." He was very tired, and it was making him restless. He shifted in his chair, took a couple deep breaths. "Anyway, it doesn't matter." It was amazing to watch Lou when he got really attuned to his eating. All clumsiness vanished and his fingers played over the food as upon a musical instrument, his face flushing with pleasure and mild exertion. And yet there was something demonic about it, too, something destructive: as though, if given the chance, his mountainous bulk could consume all there was. "I figure the best thing is just to go tell Ziff I was sick and hope he buys that."

Lou looked up from his eggs in shock. "But" — he dabbed yolk from his mouth with a paper napkin—"why don't you tell him the truth?"

*The truth?"

"The, you know, your… I mean, the relative, the one who, the funeral. ."

"Oh, that!" Inwardly, he smiled. True, he could… "I don't know, I guess I didn't feel that. ."

"Nobody goes to work when there's a death in the family, Henry. I'm sure Mr. Zifferblatt will understand that, he's not inhuman, you know."

"I suppose not."

"Is it that you're, that you don't want to, you know, talk about it?"

"Something like that, I guess."

Lou smiled broadly around a jowlful of half-chewed pastry and pointed at himself. The advocate. "I'll go up first," were his Danish-muffled words of amity.

And true, two's opposition, three's a coalition, for after Lou's preparing of the way, Horace Zifferblatt's welcome on behalf of the firm of Dunkelmann, Zauber & Zifferblatt was perhaps still something less than open-armed, but he twitched his old head in what was no doubt intended as a commiserating nod, and paid his respects to the deceased with an embarrassed grunt and floorward scowl, glancing then at the clock which showed that he recognized Henry had arrived not only on time, but five minutes early; then returned to his glassed-in office to clock the rest of the arrivals.

Of course, Henry, in his condition, had only one available strategy for the day, and that was to bluff with his empty hand. He had nothing left but will power, and was running short of that. He pursued methodically each ritual, the hanging up of his coat and hat, the gathering and sorting of ledgers, the sharpening of pencils and filling of pens, the shuffling of drawers, clearing of throat, opening of books, search for eraser, stroking of jaw, loosening of collar, adjusting of self in chair, inspection of faulty penpoint, replacement thereof: all for a gain of seventeen minutes out of a total day's play of seven-and-a-half hours. You're not going to make it, boy, he advised himself and winced as though trying to read an illegible entry in the book open before him… and it was illegible, he couldn't see a thing.

He opened the drawer to search for his magnifying glass, came upon his horseracing game in a set of manila file folders. When last he'd played it, there'd been a three-year-old named Ramshorn causing a sensation, though the big horses were still Saturday's Exile and Portent. Yes, and there was Muffin and Saddlepoint and Annie Oakley: he flicked hastily through the folders, waking up a little. Jacinto Abril, who'd tried and failed as a UBA ballplayer, was developing into one of the greatest jockeys of all time. Henry glanced around: heads down and working. Well, it was a temptation. But no, not yet. Had to get some work done first. Ziff would be watching him this morning. Save it for the afternoon. Need it more then anyway.

He turned back to the journal he'd opened. Who was it? Meo Roth's Skylight Protection Company: Repairs, Waterproofing, Replacement, and Screening. A sad case, because the firm was dying. Purchases had dwindled to almost nothing; inventory was constant, but through obsolescence, had become a storage liability rather than an asset; gross trading profit had sunk below selling, administrative, and general expenses; and, on top of it all, there were rents, mortgage payments, and taxes to be paid out. Old Meo Roth was reeling toward the ruin level. "Join the company," Henry said, then glanced up guiltily; a head or two turned his way briefly. He cleared his throat and lipped a few numbers to cover what was becoming an incurable and stupid habit.

Exit from competition: true, that was both his prospect and his problem. Roth had a bin full of glass and junk that was only costing him money to keep; Henry had a kitchen full of heroes and history, and after heavy investment, his corporate account had suddenly sunk to zero. Accretion of wasting assets. No flexibility. Roth had blundered in his inventory scheduling: if he could dump that glass and steal a load of plastic or fiberglass skydomes, he still might, with drive and imagination, make it. But what was Henry's solution? There must be a way, he thought — but then he remembered that absurd ball game back on the table that the bad guys were winning, 18-to—1. What did he mean, "bad guys"? Because, damn it, they killed the kid. And it was the kid who'd brought new interest, new value, a sense of profit, to the game. You mean, things were sort of running down before…? Yes, that was probably true: he'd already been slowly buckling under to a kind of long-run market vulnerability, the kind that had killed off complex games of his in the past. What had happened the last four or five league years? Not much. And then Damon had come along to light things up again. And maybe that was it: Casey had put out the light and everybody was playing in the dark. An 18-to-1 ball game, they must be playing in the dark! He watched them down there, playing in the dark, running around, tripping over bases, there in the dark, wallowing around in heaps of paper, spilling off the table edge—

He jerked his head up so fast, he got a crick in his neck. He rubbed it, peeking around at the others, but afraid to look over toward Zifferblatt's office. He took some deep gulps of air, flexed his fingers, stretched his legs under the desk, con-centrated on the figures. The clock on the wall, which somehow in its fat white roundness and hard black numbers always reminded Henry of Horace Zifferblatt himself, told him: thirty minutes down, seven hours to go. He sighed. Don't think about the whole day, that'll kill you, just try to make it to lunch break. One inning at a time. But he was beginning to get pretty nauseous, which the idea of lunch only aggravated. He rubbed his neck, and with extreme concentration, managed to post his first entry of the day. Shaky, but legible. In the right place, too, he was sure of it. He smiled at his victory.

But five minutes later, he was snoring on the books. So loud he could hear himself. When Zifferblatt woke him by a violent shaking of the ledgers under his face, he was dreaming he had just signed a contract with old Meo Roth that would save the firm and his own as well, and Roth/Ziff had tears of gratitude in his eyes. "That's all right," Henry said, rearing up, "think nothing of it."

Bulging above Henry's desk, thick thumbs rammed in his belt, face white with astonishment and rage, and this time it was no act, certainly not, choking as though he'd just swallowed something big and heavy as a headstone, Zifferblatt was able only to open his mouth and close it. He jerked his jowls in the general direction of his office. Henry rose and followed. Watched by all.

Even in his office, Zifferblatt could not find his voice. He sat down abruptly behind his desk, glared once at Henry, then pulled out the company checkbook, proceeded to write out a check, his dewlaps and chins aquiver with energy and conviction.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Zifferblatt," Henry said. "I haven't been getting much sleep."

"I can understand personal problems," Zifferblatt sputtered, "but — but to disturb an entire office!"

"I know. It's inexcusable. I shouldn't have come today."

Zifferblatt grunted, worked his soft mouth back and forth, stared down at the check he had just written out, then dropped it on the desk in front of him and leaned back in his swivel chair. "Sit down, Mr. Waugh." Books with blood-red or pale green backs lined every wall but the one behind Zifferblatt's head. That one was hung with diplomas, certificates, photographs, mottos, clippings, charts, clocks, travel souvenirs, and a map of the city on which a red blot pierced by a green arrow indicated the house of DZ&Z. Under black-bordered photos of the late lamented Abe Zauber and Marty Dunkelmann, the inscription: They are with us still. "A young man, Mr. Engel said."

"Yes."

"An athlete."

"Yes, a baseball pitcher."

"Oh yes, baseball." Zifferblatt pressed bis stiff spatulate thumbs together over his round belly and pursed his lips as though to blow a kiss or spit. "The great American game." He paused, smiled — or perhaps it was only a gas pain, a tic just below the nose: "After business, of course." The pictures of his children were all taken in infancy… as though he hadn't let them live past that. "And, tell me, what do both baseball and business need, Mr. Waugh?"

"Somebody to keep the books."

"Well, humph, yes, but I was going to say hard playing, and above all, teamwork!" He socked his padded palm with a rolled fist, then squeaked forward in his chair. His eye fell on the check; he tore it up, saying: "One member not pulling his share, and the whole operation can be forced to liquidate. A lot of individual stars aren't enough, you've got to have organization and discipline, as well. You do see that, don't you, Mr. Waugh?" Henry nodded, though the movement intensified his headache and the crick in his neck. Ziff stood to make a point: "You're a man now of mature years, forty, fifty—"

"Fifty-six."

"Fifty-six! Nine years from retirement! And I'm asking you, do you wish to keep your job here, or do you not?"

"I do, but—"

"Well, then, accept a little advice, my friend. Accounting like baseball is an art and a science and a rough competitive business. Some make it and some don't. The ones who make it keep their heads up, their eyes open, their minds on their job, and pull their part without belly-aching. Wages are based on performance, Mr. Waugh, and what we want around here at DZ&Z is professionals!" He paced the room, getting worked up. "What we expect, we give. This is the American way, Mr. Waugh! Why, old Marty Dunkelmann here never quit till the moment he died! I can still remember how I came to the office that morning and found him in here, bolt upright in his chair, eyes rolled back, and one finger on an error in a column of accounts receivable. He'd showed me that mistake just the night before, the only one I've made in fifty years of accounting; we were partners but we expected just as much out of each other as we did from any employee; he must've died while I was walking out the door! I'd been sitting right where you— Waugh! Mr. Waugh! Wake up!"

Henry's head jerked up, but it was all he could do to open his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dunkelmann — Zifferblatt. I'd better—"

"I'll tell you what you'd better, Waugh, you'd better be here at 8:30 sharp on Monday morning and every morning hereafter, not one minute later, and not one single exception, and prepared to put in a full day's work, or your position with us is terminated! Have I made myself clear?"

Henry nodded and stood. Woozily. "Yes, sir."

"All right, you can go now. You're no good to anybody here today anyway — though I hardly need mention, you can't expect us to pay you for not working."

"I understand."

Ziff softened, lower lip fluttering forward in a kind of senile pout. "Now, get rested up, Mr. Waugh, and try to get over this other thing. We all suffer losses, but we must learn to live with them. Let's see if we can't make a fresh start next week. You used to be a great asset to our team here at DZ&Z, and I would like to believe you soon will be again."

"Yes, sir."

At his desk, putting away his books and materials, Henry realized his hands were shaking, his knees weak. Not anger really, just felt shot down. Ziff was right: he was getting disorganized. The old menace.

Lou in a passing whisper: "Henry! Is everything, are you…?"

"Yes. I'll be back Monday. Going home now to sleep. Thanks, Lou."

"Oh." Lou watched him close things up. "I was thinking maybe about, well, like I been saying about your eating, Henry, maybe Mitch's…?"

Lou's cure-all. "I don't know, I—"

"I was planning to go there tomorrow night… **

"Well, all right"

"Shall I come by?"

"I'll meet you there. About nine."

"Do you know where it…?"

"I'll find it."

"Monday morning!" lipped Horace Zifferblatt from his glass office, shaking his stubby index finger, then aiming it clockward, as Henry left.

Some people would look on his game, Henry realized, as a kind of running away. Lou, for instance, could not understand why he didn't see more movies or visit museums or join an interesting club or something, and though he could accept the idea of taking on outside work for extra money, he'd probably be astonished to learn about the game. But descending in the building elevator, urethra of his world prison, dropping dejectedly into a kind of private sinkhole, having to return to all that commitment and all that emptiness, Henry was aware that you could see it both ways: Roth's skylighting problems were, in a way, a diversion for him from his own. Sometimes, true, in the heat of a pennant chase, for example, his daytime job could be a nuisance, but over the long haul he needed that balance, that rhythmic shift from house to house, and he knew that total one-sided participation in the league would soon grow even more oppressive than his job at Dunkelmann, Zauber & Zifferblatt.

The elevator door yawned open, discharging him into the lobby, and thence, past the building directories and signs, into the street. A bright day, after all, though the sun's light was hard and cold. The streets, as always, were full of moving people, going going going, the endless jostling flow. They gave him somehow a vague and somber sense of fatality and closed circuits. Motion. The American scene. The rovin' gambler. Cowpoke and trainman. A travelin' man always longs for a home, cause a travelin' man is always alone. Out of the east into the north, push out to the west, then march through the south back home again: like a baserunner on the paths, alone in a hostile cosmos, the stars out there in their places, and him trying to dominate the world by stepping on it all. Probably suffered a sense of confinement there in the batter's box, felt the need to strike forth on a meaningful quest of some kind. Balls hurled down to him off the magic mound, regularly as the seasons: his limited chances. Or rather: not to him, but just to earth, passive, faintly hostile, deprecatory, masked— while he interposed himself heroically to defy the holy condition. . not knowing his defiance was merely a part of it.

So what were his possible strategies? He could quit the game. Burn it. But what would that do to him? Odd thing about an operation like this league: once you set it in motion, you were yourself somehow launched into the same orbit; there was growth in the making of it, development, but there was also a denning of the outer edges. Moreover, the urge to annihilate — he'd felt it before — seemed somehow alien to him, and he didn't trust it. And yet: what else could he do? That 18-to-1 deformity waiting for him on his kitchen table was like a special message for him, a self-revelation, the clang of an alarm: wake up! get out! shuck it off! insane! Traffic zim-zoomed through die sunny streets. Of course, there might be more alternatives than just two.

Passing a newsstand on his way to the bus stop, he bought another newspaper. What am I buying all these damn papers for? he asked himself. Different paper, different headlines, different stories, even different horoscopes. Must be some other world. Reflecting on his Space Race League, he realized it was no solution to war, but only an enhancement of it. Like Zifferblatt said, professionals earn their pay on performance in a competitive milieu, and you couldn't expect them to abide by any gentlemen's agreement. And what code could hold in an association of total power? No, you'd have to expect bribes, double-crosses, coalitions, information exchanges, and, sooner or later, a bomb or two. The old McGraw-Cobb syndrome: cut 'em up! If you're the only one left standing, you just gotta be the winner — the way Rag Rooney and Frosty Young played ball, and it got them into the Hall of Fame, didn't it?

Waiting for the bus, he saw that storefront across the street — Thornton's. Well, that's right, Barney surely had the right to bring up a replacement for Damon. Injuries were one thing, but a dead ballplayer was another. Unprecedented, but the Association was bound to approve it So why not Thornton Shadwell? The thought cheered him some, and then on the bus, he had other ideas. First of all, that the circuit wasn't closed, his or any other: there were patterns, but they were shifting and ambiguous and you had a lot of room inside them. Secondly, that the game on his table was not a message, but an event: the only signs he had were his own reactions; if these worsened, it might be best, after all, to close down the Association, maybe invent some new game, or in fact go join some club or other. But first he should finish out this season. He had this weekend to get it done. Then he'd be free to do as he wished. Maybe some kid pitcher would pick up where Damon left off. It was possible. And besides, it was irrational, but in spite of that game on the table, he felt certain the Pioneers were going to take the pennant. Why not? First, though, he thought, alighting from the bus, let's hit the sack, team.