The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [157]
He turned to face her, held out his arms. “You look pretty good.”
“Henry. Cut it out. You’re drunk.”
He belched discreetly into his hand. “I love you.”
“No, you do not.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You moron. How’d you get so drunk? You were drunk before, but not like this.”
“I drank the wine.”
“The wine? What wine?”
“Kitchen wine.”
“You drank kitchen wine? Okay. You drink all the kitchen wine you want. You’ve earned it. But don’t go around telling people you love them. Deal?”
Henry nodded. Then he closed his eyes. Pella took him by the hand and led him out into the living room. When he awoke a few hours later, he awoke in darkness, the room spinning, his face pressed into the couch. A hand was shaking his shoulder. “Henry,” Pella whispered.
He grunted.
“It’s almost five thirty. I’m leaving for work. Go sleep in my room so my roommates don’t get mad.”
61
On the day before the regional tournament began, Schwartz drove out to see his orthopedist. The clinic was tucked into a redbrick strip mall between a cell phone outlet and a Christian bookstore. Schwartz parked the Buick in the handicapped spot, a little in-joke with himself. Julie, the receptionist, held up two fingers, indicating which exam room he should head to. He always scheduled the first appointment after Dr. Kellner’s lunch so he wouldn’t have to wait.
“Mike.” Dr. Kellner gave him a strong handshake, held the grip. Orthopedists, in Schwartz’s experience, were serious alpha males; hard-charging, broad-chested guys much like himself, except better at math. “I’ve been keeping up with the team. Conference champs. Congrats.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s a banner year for Jewish ballplayers. That Braun kid for the Brew Crew is going like gangbusters.”
“The Hebrew Hammer,” Schwartz said gamely. Dr. Kellner liked to connect with him on an ethnic level; understandable in this part of the country, where the natives were blond or German or both.
“So what have we got today?”
“Just here for my monthly tune-up.”
“Well, good. Hop up on the table, Captain Crepitus.”
Schwartz hoisted himself onto the padded exam table, lay on his back, yanked his sweatpants’ gathered elastic hems up onto his thighs. Dr. Kellner tested his range of motion, prodded each kneecap, applied valgus and varus stresses. “Where does it hurt best?” he asked, an old joke of theirs.
Crepitus: the noise produced by rubbing irregular cartilage surfaces together, as in osteoarthritis. With each stretch Schwartz’s knees snapped and popped at increasing volume, as if trying to outbid each other. Within a minute Dr. Kellner had heard enough. He plopped down in a chair, scratched a meaty arm under his short-sleeved scrub shirt. “Nothing we don’t already know,” he said. “Normal people have cartilage, you’ve got ground beef. Every game you catch brings you that much closer to a couple TKRs.”
“I’m almost done,” Schwartz said. “Just regionals this weekend.” And nationals too, if they won—when they won—but not much point in saying so.
Dr. Kellner was making marks on Schwartz’s chart. “Can’t hardly wait,” he said without looking up. “We’ll get you in the OR, knock your ass out, clean you out good. Cartilage, scar tissue, the works. Get you ready for life after baseball. No more of this stopgap bullshit. How’s the back? You’ve been seeing your chiropractor?”
“Every week.”
“You want me to have a look?”
Schwartz shrugged. “Not much point right now.”
Dr. Kellner nodded. “Keep going with the anti-inflammatories. Twelve hundred milligrams three times a day is fine for a guy your size.”
“I have been.” Schwartz paused, pretended to study the kitschy framed posters of strongman stretches that hung above the exam table. “But as long as I’m here… maybe we should go one more round with the Vicoprofen.”
Dr. Kellner cocked his head. “We’ve talked about this, Mike.”
“Just a dozen or so. Enough to get me through these games.”
“We agreed that your attachment to these painkillers was borderline problematic.”
“It’s not an attachment.