The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [107]
“Sorry,” Schwartz muttered. He was doing so unforgivably little to help his friend. Hitting extra grounders, repeating stupid bromides like relax and let it fly—it amounted to moral support, nothing more. Once Henry stepped out on the field, he was totally alone.
There was that aloneness on the screen: that implacable, solitary blankness on Henry’s sweat-streaked face as he backhanded a ball and fired it into the glove of his pudgy first baseman. Not that Henry withdrew from his teammates; in fact, he was more animated on the diamond than anywhere else. But no matter how much he chattered or cheered or bounced around, there was always something frighteningly aloof in his eyes, like a soloist so at one with the music he can’t be reached. You can’t follow me here, those mild blue eyes seemed to say. You’ll never know what this is like.
These days, when Henry walked onto the diamond, those eyes were saying the same thing, but with a rising undercurrent of terror. You’ll never know what this is like. Baseball, in its quiet way, was an extravagantly harrowing game. Football, basketball, hockey, lacrosse—these were melee sports. You could make yourself useful by hustling and scrapping more than the other guy. You could redeem yourself through sheer desire.
But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric—not a scrum but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. You couldn’t storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did while playing football. You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?
It took ten minutes to watch the tape straight through. Schwartz rewound it to the beginning, and they watched it in slow motion. Then regular speed again. Then slo-mo one more time. Sudden spring rain drummed against the flat metal roof of the VAC. The kid on the screen fielded ball after ball, intent and tireless, engulfed in his half-bored rapture.
“Can we go now?” Henry’s foot tapped nervously on the carpet. “I’m hungry.” He wasn’t, really; he had very little appetite these days, but he wanted to get out of there. It was weird, even creepy, how intensely Schwartz was focused on the video—as if he wanted to will that skinny, thoughtless kid back into being. As if Henry were dead instead of sitting right there. I’m right here, he thought.
“One more time,” Schwartz said. “Just once more.” They watched it again, and still Schwartz’s finger hovered over the rewind button. To Schwartz the kid on the screen seemed like a cipher, a sphinx, a silent courier from another time. You’ll never know what this is like. But Schwartz had been trying for years, and he kept trying now. If he could crawl inside that empty head, crack open the oracle of the kid’s blank face—expressionless, expresses God—maybe then he’d know what he should do.
Henry headed to lunch, Schwartz to Glendinning Hall with his anticlimactic stack of binders. When he got home he went through three razors shaving off his thesis beard.
37
Here,” Hero had said during the breakfast shift, “I fix.”
Pella waved him off. “Forget it. It’s fine.” Really her finger didn’t feel too bad; it was stiff and purplish but not overly painful from moment to moment. Every once in a while she’d jam it on a pot or plate or the beveled lip of the sink, and a yelp of pain would escape her. Chef Spirodocus had told her she could go home, but she didn’t want to go home—she wanted to sort silverware into bins, blast bacon fat from shallow pans. After breakfast ended she wanted to restock the so-called salad bar with ketchup and syrup and blueberry yogurt, skim the yellow crust off the mayonnaise, replenish the ice that underlay the stainless-steel tins. Today was Friday, her double-shift day. She wanted to work. She didn’t want to think about last night with Mike or tonight with David. She wanted to be here