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By Root 1343 0

the clap of her flip-flops on the stairs. He arose before dawn, walked his usual route along the lake he loved, went to the office to plow through the work he’d been neglecting. He rarely slept and he rarely tired. His heart in his chest felt dangerously full, swollen and tender, like a fruit so ripe it threatens to split its skin. He wanted every day and every moment, the moments with Owen, the moments between Owen, to last and last and last. In his life he’d passed through long periods of gratefulness and good cheer, but he’d scarcely even imagined this level of thorough contentment with things as they were. His chronic restlessness had fled. He wanted nothing new. He wanted only to hang on to what he had. It was almost excruciating. Everything that floated through his life’s width—a sunny day or a sudden cloudburst, an e-mail from an old colleague, a conversation with Pella that didn’t turn into a fight—seemed loaded with such poignance that he found himself on the verge of country-music tears, and could cope with his own ridiculousness only by making fun of himself. Affenlight, you maudlin old coot. Affenlight, you fool.

33

On the ferry ride back from Wainwright, Schwartz sat by himself, listening to the battered old tape of carefully chosen Metallica and Public Enemy songs he listened to before every game. The game had ended, ended badly—he was listening not to pump himself up but to drown out his thoughts. The sun was down, and a cold steady wind flowed through the unsealed joints of the old ferry cabin. He’d popped three Vikes with a handful of Advil, bundled up as best he could, and was preparing to recede from consciousness.

Somehow, despite the blaring music and his closed eyes, he sensed a presence at his shoulder. He thought it would be Henry, but it turned out to be Coach Cox.

“You seen the Skrimmer?” Coach Cox asked.

“I think he’s out on deck.”

“On deck? It’s frickin’ freezing out there.” Coach Cox sat down, rubbed his hands together, blew into his cupped palms. Schwartz took off his headphones and shut the book he hadn’t been reading. The rest of the team was belowdecks by the snack bar, playing poker for packets of salt. “You talk to him?” Coach Cox asked.

“A little.”

“He’s hanging in there?”

Schwartz shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“His wing’s okay?”

“Wing’s fine.”

Coach Cox stroked his mustache, pondered the situation for a while. “Well, hell.”

Bottom of the ninth. Two outs, runner on second. Westish ahead 7 to 6. Loondorf threw a good heavy curve, and the batter rapped a ground ball right at Henry. All he had to do was throw it to first and the game was over. Instead he patted the ball into the palm of his glove once, twice, again, side-skipping toward first as if not-so-secretly wishing he could side-skip all the way there and hand the ball to Rick. He patted the glove a fourth time and, needing to hurry because the runner was nearing first, uncorked a way-too-high, way-too-hard throw that Rick barely bothered to leap for. It cleared the low fence behind first base and, because there weren’t any bleachers or fans to stop it, skidded across the street that abutted the park and rattled into the wheel well of somebody’s truck. The tying run scored. The next batter singled to end the game, the Harpooners’ first loss in weeks.

“He looked good before that last throw,” Coach Cox said. “I thought he had it turned around.”

“Me too.”

“Listen.” Coach Cox’s gruff voice sanded the gaps in the wind. “I heard you were low on cash.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody told me. Something I heard.”

“Did Henry say that?”

Coach Cox shrugged. “Let me loan you a few bucks,” he said. “Man’s gotta eat.”

Schwartz had a ten-meal-a-week pass for the dining hall. Lately he’d been eating ten meals a week, plus whatever he could sneak out in his backpack, which wasn’t much. The check-in ladies had never warmed to his charms—his size, an asset in other situations, roused their suspicion. Pella brought him ham-and-cheese sandwiches after her dishwashing shifts. She also offered to take him to dinner on her father’s