Slide - Kyle Beachy [118]
Richard Potter Mays, risen to a certain level of influence and a certain kind of might. A good man who loved his sons enough, and loved his wife enough, and loved himself enough, to do whatever he could to protect the one son who didn't drown.
I thought of Audrey's island, and her spear, and knew without doubt that if there was to be love in this world—and there was— it had shed all name and could only be considered and spoken of as gifts. Here was a bridge, gift from the city to the city. Two baseball gloves sat in my car. There was a starfish. Crippled, yes, and gone forever, but a gift.
Stuart said, “Man, this morning, after the ad, on the walk over here, you know what I kept thinking about? Go crazy, folks.”
“Nineteen eighty-five,” I said. “Ozzie and his miracle to beat the Dodgers. To this day I hear Jack Bucks call and shiver. Six years old, and I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad. Ozzie hangs over the plate. He's not the long-ball threat from the left side.”
“Trying to handle the smoking Tom Niedenfuer. Big man from the North Country. Minnesota. First baseman and the third baseman guard the lines.”
“Smith corks one into right, down the line. It may go. Go crazy, folks, go crazy. It's a home run. And the Cardinals have won the game. By the score of three to two. On a home run by the Wizard.”
“Sixteen years,” Stuart said.
“Go crazy, folks, go crazy.”
I heard polite applause from the chairs, then a male voice requesting a warm welcome for the man without whom none of this would have been possible, St. Louis's own Mr. Richard Mays. I began to clap. As did Stuart. And at this point the polite applause grew, and stacked, and evolved into something loud and powerful and hearty enough that we all seemed impressed by the applause, everyone in the small crowd clapping, hands chest-level or higher, including my mother, who wasn't the but was among the first to stand before others joined, and still others, until every single person on the bridge was standing and clapping for my father. And also for themselves, clapping for the success of the clapping, an ascending spiral. Stuart and I watched and clapped. We didn't stop, and soon enough my father began clapping back, seated at first and then standing, moving to the lectern, his hands in front of him, completing the circle. Those standing from chairs turned to either side and seemed to clap for their neighbors. This was the beauty of applause, its lack of defined object. It was sound alone, a celebration, a noise that would continue for as long as we made it. Sound of human percussion. I continued clapping.
acknowledgments
To …
Roger and Terry Beachy, Noah Eaker, Susan Kamil, Jennifer de la Fuente, Carol Anshaw, Janet Desaulniers, Sara Levine, Margaret Chapman, Odie Lindsay Thomas King, Jake Cosden, Tommy, Todd Rovak, Kathryn Corrine, Violet Brown, David Cohn (I may be a writer, but I'm no Serengeti), Janie Porche, Robert Fulstone, Liz Cross, Cait, Andrew Yawitz, Eric Nenninger, Tracy Marie, Sarah Aloe, Eden Laurin, Pomonans, skateboarders, and the magicians from whom I thief. The St. Louis Cardinals and the greatest defensive shortstop to ever play the game. And then back to Roger and Terry Beachy, Roger and Terry Beachy, repeated to the point that I can no longer speak.
… Thank you.
about the author
Kyle Beachy lives in Chicago. This is his first novel.
THE SLIDE
A Dial Press Book / February 2009
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2009 by Kyle Beachy
The Dial Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and
the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beachy, Kyle.
The slide : a novel / Kyle Beachy.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33821-5
1. College graduates—Fiction. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology)—
Fiction. 3. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.E235S65 2009
813′.6—dc22 2008029631
www.dialpress.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover