The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [194]
Izzy had one foot in the batter’s box and was performing his usual pre-at-bat ritual—five signs of the cross at maximum speed. “Izzy!” Henry yelled from the dugout steps. “Step out!” His voice dissolved into the crowd’s roar. “Izzy! Step out!”
Izzy, confused, complied. Henry ran out to Coach Cox and tried to explain that President Affenlight was dead and therefore Owen couldn’t bat. Coach Cox stroked his mustache, annoyed and uncomprehending.
“Owen can’t bat,” Henry said. “He just can’t.”
“Why the goddamn not?”
“Believe me,” Henry pleaded. “He just can’t.”
Coach Cox looked up and down the dugout. The only guys left on the bench were the guys who rarely played—guys who had zero chance against a dealer of filth like Dougal. “Grab a bat.”
“Me?” Henry said. “But Coach… I’m not even wearing a cup.”
“You want mine? Grab a bat and get a goddamn hit, Skrimshander.”
Oh Jesus, Henry thought. He didn’t know what to wish for. If he didn’t get to hit, it would be because Izzy made an out and the game was over. If he did get to hit, he was toast. He hurried to the bat rack to find a bat—he chose a lighter one than usual, to match his diminished strength—and took a few tentative swipes at the evening air. The bat felt like lead in his hands.
Dougal rocked and fired. The pitch was a fastball, low and outside. Izzy, overmatched, stuck out the bat. The ball looped torpidly over the second baseman’s head and dropped in shallow right-center for a single. Oh boy.
Coach Cox pulled his crumpled lineup card from his back pocket and waved at the plate umpire. Dougal stomped pissily around the back of the mound, flipping the rosin bag with the backs of his fingers. Henry squeezed into a batting helmet and slowly made his way toward home plate. He dipped one foot inside the batter’s box, as if testing the temperature of a pool.
“Let’s go, son,” growled the umpire. “Season can’t last forever.”
Henry stepped into the box, tapped the Harpooner on his chest three times. He felt less muscle than he’d grown to expect beneath the starchy fabric. Dougal peered in, agreed to a sign. The Amherst crowd started a chant. The first pitch, an absolutely filthy slider, darted by for a strike.
Henry knew that he was toast. Dougal could throw that filthy pitch twice more, and he wouldn’t come close to hitting it. It was a pro-quality slider, had broken a foot or more while moving outlandishly fast. The timing required to hit a pitch like that was a matter not just of skill but of constant practice. A day off made it tough; a month off made it impossible. Schwartzy might someday have forgiven him for what he’d done with Pella, but now he’d never know—because Schwartz, standing there in the on-deck circle with two weighted bats on his shoulder, would never forgive him for this.
He decided in advance to swing at the second pitch, if only to give Dougal something to think about. Dougal wiped the sweat from his forehead, checked Izzy at first. The pitch was another slider, identical to the first. Henry swung and missed. Two strikes.
Still, he must have done something to catch Dougal’s eye, because Dougal shook off one sign, and then another, and then beckoned for the catcher, who called time and jogged out to confer. The Amherst fans were going crazy. Dougal lifted his glove to his face and spoke through the latticed weave of the webbing, to keep Henry from reading his lips. A burst of affectionate sympathy surged through Henry; somehow all of a sudden, and maybe because he felt so light-headed, it occurred to him that he and Dougal were brothers, members of a tribe of unassuming, live-armed guys, guys who looked like nobodies but carried their force on the inside and were determined to beat you, would do anything to beat you, would kill themselves to beat you, and he knew where Dougal disagreed with his catcher. The catcher figured Henry was an easy mark—wanted to finish him off right away, with another slider down the pipe. The catcher was probably right. But Dougal saw something else in Henry, smelled a whiff of danger (We are brothers,