The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [176]
This last was a joke, and Affenlight smiled. Most likely the string of errors was perfectly looped, without any ends at all. There were no whys in a person’s life, and very few hows. In the end, in search of useful wisdom, you could only come back to the most hackneyed concepts, like kindness, forbearance, infinite patience. Solomon and Lincoln: This too shall pass. Damn right it will. Or Chekhov: Nothing passes. Equally true.
He followed these thoughts down his legal pad for a few moments, then set aside his pencil and inspected his fingertips, which had acquired half-moons of pale grime from the window screen. The sentences he’d scribbled down were a bit gloomy, a bit equivocal for commencement, but they could be brushed into shape. The keynote speaker, the middling politician, would give the rah-rah, use-your-many-talents-and-advantages-for-the-benefit-of-all exhortation. Affenlight would stick to humor and resignation.
His cell phone ring-a-ding-dinged. Contango lifted his nose inquisitively. Affenlight waited a few beats before answering, so as not to seem too eager.
“We did it again,” said Owen, over the din of a locker room. “Eight to seven.”
“Hot damn!” Affenlight slapped the twill of his thigh. “Amazing.”
“You don’t know the half of it. You should see the teams we’re playing against. There must be a large allocation for steroids at these schools. And their fans do coordinated dances.”
“And yet the Harpooners keep carrying the day.”
“Well, we carried today. Sal pitched beyond his talents. And Adam and Mike each hit a home run. Those two are playing like men possessed.”
“Amazing,” Affenlight repeated. “And you?”
“I may have contributed a hit or two.”
“Two?”
“Two,” Owen confirmed. “Coach has me batting third.”
“Amazing,” Affenlight said for the third and, he resolved, final time. Sometimes talking to Owen rendered him extremely eloquent; sometimes it reduced him to slack-jawed stupidity.
“So you’ll be here tomorrow?” Owen asked. “For the championship?”
“I booked a flight already. I didn’t want to tell you, in case that constituted some kind of jinx. It leaves at the crack of dawn.”
“Perfect. You know, Guert, I’ve never been nervous before a game before. I’ve never even understood the concept of nervousness before a game. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? You could win, or you could lose. But now I’m thinking about tomorrow, the national championship game, live on ESPN, and it’s like…” He lowered his voice as if making a shameful confession. “I want to win.”
Affenlight smiled. It was a joy to hear Owen, he of the preternatural calm detachment, cop to a strong feeling of any sort.
“Have you checked on Henry?” Owen asked.
“I knocked on the door last night,” Affenlight said. “And again earlier today. He never seems to be home.”
“Oh, he’s home,” Owen said. “He’s just not answering the door. You’ll have to surprise him. Can you get a key from Infrastructure?”
Affenlight reached into his pocket, fingered the key he’d borrowed when Owen was in the hospital. He carried it like a talisman. “I think so.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Guert. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all.”
Affenlight hung up the phone. Beyond the window, the quad had entered that afternoon hiccup between the end of classes and the dinner rush. The sun lay below the tree line, the light cinema soft. No one, as far as Affenlight could discern, ever accomplished anything at this time of day, although many of the students were compulsive accomplishers, and the gymnasium treadmills, if not the library carrels, were probably packed. Mrs. McCallister’s yellow roses were budding, just barely, in the narrow space beside Scull Hall; he pulled out his daybook and made a note to praise their beauty. A knock came at the door.
71
Entrez you,” called Affenlight, an old malapropic joke, if you could call it a joke, from Pella’s elementary school French class.
In came Evan Melkin, the dean of Student Affairs. Melkin was still half a student himself—Class-of-’92-and-Never-Left, cherubic and chinless,