The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [137]
Lopez shrugged. “Not yet.”
Schwartz peered into the tinted glass door. “Pretty packed in there.”
“Stuffed,” said Lopez. “I’m not even letting girls in right now.”
“You seen the Skrimmer at all?”
“Henry? Here?” Lopez squinted and scratched at his chin as if he were being forced to consider some complex riddle. “Guess not. Adam’s inside, though.”
“Starblind? What’s he doing here? We’ve got games tomorrow.”
Lopez shrugged. “Got me. He’s with some chick.”
“Great,” said Schwartz. “Outstanding.” Seven hours till the bus departed for the biggest and—if they lost, which they wouldn’t—the last games of his Westish career. Not only was he not asleep, not only was he out of meds and pissed about it, not only could he feel every beat of his pulse in his half-destroyed knees, not only was his best player despondent and AWOL, but his second-best player was breaking curfew to chase tail. “Mind if we take a peek?”
Lopez leaned into the glass door with a fleshy forearm, letting them bypass the line and the two-dollar cover. Bartleby’s was full of bodies and flashing lights. Neon cursive signs glared down from the walls, advertising the old local beers—Schlitz, Blatz, Hamm’s, Pabst, Huber, Old Style—that were now owned by a Southern tobacco conglomerate. NBA playoff games on the TVs, crappy hip-hop on the jukebox, two beefy townies aiming plastic guns at the console of Big Buck Hunter IV. Owen leaned forward to yell in Schwartz’s ear.
“What?” Schwartz yelled back.
“I said, I’m standing in beer.”
“We’re all standing in beer.”
“But why? It’s disgusting.”
It was too loud to explain heterosexual courtship to Owen, even if he’d wanted to, so Schwartz kept pushing through the crowd, peering out over the baseball caps and the glossy hair of girls, unable to stop looking for Henry even though there was no way Henry would be here. God, that beer smelled good. He tried not to drink before games, but in the absence of Vikes—he’d run out this morning—a few beers were a near necessity.
Owen tapped him on the shoulder. “I see Adam.”
“Where?”
“End of the bar.”
His face was obscured by the abundant wheat-colored hair of the girl he was kissing, but the shimmering silver jacket was unmistakably Starblind’s. When the kiss was finished he plucked a lime rind from his mouth, dropped it in a squat glass, and held up two fingers to signal the bartender for another round. The girl draped one arm around his neck, her head resting against his shoulder in drunken worship.
“Oh my,” said Owen.
Schwartz elbowed his way through the heaving, half-dancing crowd, fists clenching and unclenching in a slow alternating rhythm. The bartender poured out two more shots of tequila. Sophie stood up, gathered her hair in a two-handed sheaf, and presented her neck to Starblind, who licked it slowly, then picked a salt shaker off the bar and sprinkled some whiteness on Sophie’s wetted skin. Sophie took a wedge of lime from the bartenders’ condiment bins and placed it between her teeth, pulp side out. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. Starblind leaned in, licked the salt from her neck in a leisurely, lizardly way, and with a surreptitious flick of his wrist as he moved in for the kiss tossed a strobe-lit shot of tequila over his shoulder and down the front of Schwartz’s shirt.
“Hi guys,” Schwartz said.
Starblind blanched. “Mikey-o!” Sophie crowed, flinging her arms around Schwartz’s neck and swooning in to peck his cheek. She had the same fish-belly complexion as her brother, minus the windburned tan that came from spending winter mornings running stadiums, plus the mottled tequila flush that spread from her cheeks to the neckline of her butter-colored sundress. “Owen-o!” she cheered, doling out another hug.
The Buddha smiled the sort of untroubled smile that had earned him his nickname. “Hello, my dear. Having fun?”
“Yes. Where’s my brother? I need to find my brother. Let’s all do a shot.