The Natural (14 page)

Lon Toomey, the hulking Cub hurler, who had twice in the last two weeks handed Roy his lumps, smiled behind his glove. He shot a quick gl4nce at Fowler on second, fingered the ball, reared and threw. Roy, at the plate, watched it streak by.

“Stuh-rike.”

He toed in, his fears returning. What if the slump did not give way? How much longer could it go on without destroying him?

Toomey lifted his right leg high and threw. Roy swung from his heels at a bad ball and the umpire sneezed in the breeze.

“Strike two!”

Wonderboy resembled a sagging baloney. Pop cursed the bat and some of the Knights’ rooters among the fans booed. Mike Barney’s harrowed puss looked yellow.

Roy felt sick with remorse that he hadn’t laid aside Wonderboy in the beginning and gone into the game with four licks at bat instead of only three miserable strikes, two of which he already used up. How could he explain to Barney that he had traded his kid’s life away out of loyalty to a hunk of wood?

The lady in the stands hesitantly rose for the second time. A photographer who had stationed himself nearby snapped a clear shot of her. She was an attractive woman, around thirty, maybe more, and built solid but not too big. Her bosom was neat, and her dark hair, parted on the side, hung loose and soft. A reporter approached her and asked her name but she wouldn’t give it to him, nor would she, blushing, say why she was standing now. The fans behind her hooted, “Down in front,” but though her eyes showed she was troubled she remained standing.

Noticing Toomey watching her, Roy stole a quick look. He caught the red dress and a white rose, turned away, then came quickly back for another take, drawn by the feeling that her smile was for him. Now why would she do that for? She seemed to be wanting to say something, and then it flashed on him the reason she was standing was to show her confidence in him. He felt surprised that anybody would want to do that for him. At the same time he became aware that the night had spread out in all directions and was filled with an unbelievable fragrance.

A pitch streaked toward him. Toomey had pulled a fast one. With a sob Roy fell back and swung.

Part of the crowd broke for the exits. Mike Barney wept freely now, and the lady who had stood up for Roy absently pulled on her white gloves and left.

The ball shot through Toomey’s astounded legs and began to climb. The second baseman, laying back on the grass on a hunch, stabbed high for it but it leaped over his straining fingers, sailed through the light and up into the dark, like a white star seeking an old constellation.

Toomey, shrunk to a pygmy, stared into the vast sky.

Roy circled the bases like a Mississippi steamboat, lights lit, flags fluttering, whistle banging, coming round the bend. The Knights poured out of their dugout to pound his back, and hundreds of their rooters hopped about in the field. He stood on the home base, lifting his cap to the lady’s empty seat.

And though Fowler goose-egged the Cubs in the last of the ninth and got credit for the win, everybody knew it was Roy alone who had saved the boy’s life.

It seemed perfectly natural to Iris to be waiting for him, with her shoes off to ease her feet, here on the park grass. He had been in her mind so often in the past month she could not conceive of him as a stranger, though he certainly was. She remembered having fallen asleep thinking of him last night. She had been gazing at the stars through her window, unaware just when they dissolved into summer rain, although she remembered opening a brown eye in time to see the twopronged lightning plunge through a cloud and spread its running fire in all directions. And though she was sometimes afraid she would be hurt by it (this was her particular fear) she did not get up to shut the window but watched the writhing flame roll across the sky, until it disappeared over the horizon. The night was drenched and fragrant. Without the others knowing, she had slipped on a dress and gone across the road to walk in a field of daisies whose white stars lit up her bare feet as she thought of tomorrow in much the way she had at sixteen.

Tonight was a high, free evening, still green and gold above the white fortress of buildings on Michigan Avenue, yet fading over the lake, from violet to the first blue of night. A breeze with a breath of autumn in it, despite that afternoon’s heat in the city, blew at intervals through the trees. From time to time she caught herself glancing, sometimes frowning, at her wristwatch although it was her own fault she had come so early. Her arms showed gooseflesh and she wondered if she had been rash to wear a thin dress at night but that was silly because the night was warm. It did not take her long to comprehend that the gooseflesh was not for now but another time, long ago, a time she was, however, no longer afraid to remember.

Half her life ago, just out of childhood it seemed, but that couldn’t be because she was too strangely ready for the irrevocable change that followed, she had one night alone in the movies met a man twice her age, with whom she had gone walking in the park. Sensing at once what he so unyieldingly desired, she felt instead of fright, amazement at her willingness to respond, considering she was not, like some she later met, starved of affection. But a mother’s love was one thing, and his, when he embraced her under the thick-leaved tree that covered them, was something else again. She had all she could do to tear herself away from him, and rushed through the branches, scratching her face and arms in the bargain. But he would not let her go, leading her always into dark places, hidden from all but the light of the stars, and taught her with his kisses that she could race without running. All but bursting with motion she cried don’t look, and when he restlessly turned away, undressed the bottom half of her. She offered herself in a white dress and bare feet and was considerably surprised when he pounced like a tiger.

A horn hooted.

It was Roy driving a hired car. He looked around for a parking place but she had slipped on her shoes and waved she was coming.

He had come across her picture in one of the morning papers the day after he had knocked out the homer for the kid. Slicing it out carefully with his knife, he folded it without creasing the face and kept it in his wallet. Whenever he had a minute to himself (he was a smashing success at bat — five for five, three home runs — and was lionized by all) he took the picture out and studied it, trying to figure out why she had done that for him; nobody else ever had. Usually when he was down he was down alone, without flowers or mourners. He suspected she might be batty or a grownup bobby soxer gone nuts over him for having his name and picture in the papers. But from the intelligent look of her it didn’t seem likely. There were some players the ladies might fall for through seeing their pictures but not him — not that he was bad-looking or anything, just that he was no dream boy — nor was she the type to do it. In her wide eyes he saw something which caused him to believe she knew what life was like, though you really couldn’t be sure.

He made up his mind and telephoned the photographer who had taken this shot of her, for any information he might have as to where she lived, but at his office they said he was covering a forest fire in Minnesota. During the game that afternoon Roy scanned the stands around him and in the fifth frame located her practically at his elbow in deep left. He got one of the ushers to take her a note saying could she meet him tonight? She wrote back not tonight but enclosed her phone number. After a shot of Scotch he called her. Her voice was interesting but she said frankly she wondered if their acquaintance ought to end now, because these things could be disillusioning when they dragged past their time. He said he didn’t think she would disappoint him. After some coaxing she yielded, chiefly because Roy insisted he wanted to thank her in person for her support of him.

He held the door open and she stepped in.

“I’m Iris Lemon,” she said with a blush.

“Roy Hobbs.” He felt foolish for of course she knew his name. Despite his good intentions he was disappointed right off, because she was heavier than he had thought — the picture didn’t show that so much or if it did he hadn’t noticed — and she had lost something, in this soft brown dress, that she’d had in the red. He didn’t like them hefty, yet on second thought it couldn’t be said she really was. Big, yes, but shapely too. Her face and hair were pretty and her body — she knew what to wear on her feet — was well proportioned. He admitted she was attractive although as a rule he never thought so unless they were slim like Memo.

So he asked her right out was she married.

She seemed startled, then smiled and said, “No, are you?”

“Nope.”

“How is it the girls missed you?”

Though tempted to go into a long explanation about that, he let it pass with a shrug. Neither of them was looking at the other. They both stared at the road ahead. The car hadn’t moved.

Iris felt she had been mistaken to come. He seemed so big and bulky next to her, and close up looked disappointingly different from what she had expected. In street clothes he gained little and lost more, a warrior’s quality he showed in his uniform. Now he looked like any big-muscled mechanic or bartender on his night off. Whatever difference could it have made to her that this particular one had slumped? She was amazed at her sentimentality.

Roy was thinking about Memo. If not for her he wouldn’t be here trying to make himself at ease with this one. She hadn’t treated him right. For a while things had looked good between them but no sooner had he gone into a slump when she began again to avoid him. Had she been nice to him instead, he’d have got out of his trouble sooner. However, he wasn’t bitter, because Memo was remote, even unreal. Strange how quick he forgot what she was like, though he couldn’t what she looked like. Yet with that thought even her image went up in smoke. Iris, a stranger, had done for him what the other wouldn’t, in public view what’s more. He felt for her a gratitude it was hard to hold in.

“When you get to know me better you will like me more.” He surprised himself with that — the hoarse remark echoed within him — and she, sure she had misjudged him, felt a catch in her throat as she replied, “I like you now.”

He stepped on the starter and they drove off in the lilac dusk. Where to? he had asked and she had said it made no difference, she liked to ride. He felt, once they started, as if he had been sprung from the coop, and only now, as the white moon popped into the sky, did he begin to appreciate how bad it had been with him during the time of his slump.

They drove so they could almost always see the lake. The new moon climbed higher in the blue night, shedding light like rain. They drove along the lit highway to where the lake turned up into Indiana and they could see the lumpy yellow dunes along the shore. Elsewhere the land was shadowless and flat except for a few trees here and there. Roy turned into a winding dirt road and before long they came to this deserted beach, enclosed in a broken arc of white birches. The wind here was balmy and the water lit on its surface.

He shut off the motor. In the silence — everything but the lapping of the lake water — they too were silent. He hesitated at what next move to make and she prayed it would be the right one although she was not quite sure what she meant.

Roy asked did she want to get out. She understood he wanted her to so she said yes. But she surprised him by saying she had been here before.

“How’s the water?” he asked.

“Cold. The whole lake is, but you get used to it soon.”

They walked along the shore and then to a cluster of birches. Iris sat on the ground under one of the trees and slipped off her shoes. Her movements were graceful, she made her big feet seem small.

He sat nearby, his eyes on her. She sensed he wanted to talk but now felt curiously unconcerned with his problems. She had not expected the night to be this beautiful. Since it was, she asked no more than to be allowed to enjoy it.

But Roy impatiently asked her why she had stood up for him the other night.

She did not immediately reply.

After a minute he asked again.

“I don’t know,” Iris sighed.

That was not the answer he had expected.

“How come?”

“I’ve been trying to explain it to myself.” She lit a cigarette. He was now a little in awe of her, something he had not foreseen, though he pretended not to be.

“You’re a Knights fan, ain’t you?”

“No.”

“Then how come — I don’t get it.”

“I’m not a baseball fan but I like to read about the different players. That’s how I became interested in you — your career.”

“You read about my slump?” His throat tightened at the word.

“Yes, and before that of your triumphs.”

“Ever see me play — before the other night?”

She shook her head. “Once then and again yesterday.”

“Why’d you come — the first time?”

She rubbed her cigarette into the dirt. “Because I hate to see a hero fail. There are so few of them.”

She said it seriously and he felt she meant it.

“Without heroes we’re all plain people and don’t know how far we can go.”

“You mean the big guys set the records and tile little buggers try and bust them?”

“Yes, it’s their function to be the best and for the rest of us to understand what they represent and guide ourselves accordingly.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way but it sounded all right.

“There are so many young boys you influence.”

“That’s right,” said Roy.

“You’ve got to give them your best.”

“I try to do that.”

“I mean as a man too.”

He nodded.

“I felt that if you knew people believed in you, you’d regain your power. That’s why I stood up in the grandstand. I hadn’t meant to before I came. It happened naturally. Of course I was embarrassed but I don’t think you can do anything for anyone without giving up something of your own. What I gave up was my privacy among all those people. I hope you weren’t ashamed of me?”

He shook his head. “Were you praying for me to smack one over the roof?”

“I hoped you might become yourself again.”

“I was jinxed,” Roy explained to her. “Something was keeping me out of my true form. Up at the plate I was blind as a bat and Wonderboy had the heebie jeebies. But when you stood up and I saw you with that red dress on and thought to myself she is with me even if nobody else is, it broke the whammy.”

Iris laughed.

Roy crawled over to her and laid his head in her lap. She let him. Her dress was scented with lilac and clean laundry smell. Her thighs were firm under his head. He got a cigar out of his pocket and lit it but it stank up the night so he flung it away.

“I sure am glad you didn’t stand me up,” he sighed.

“Who would?” she smiled.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She softly said she was willing to.

Roy struggled with himself. The urge to tell her was strong. On the other hand, talk about his inner self was always like plowing up a graveyard.

She saw the sweat gleaming on his brow. “Don’t if you don’t feel like it.”

“Everything came out different than I thought.” His eyes were clouded.

“In what sense?”

“Different.”

“I don’t understand.”

He coughed, tore his voice clear and blurted, “My goddamn life didn’t turn out like I wanted it to.”

“Whose does?” she said cruelly. He looked up. Her expression was tender.

The sweat oozed out of him. “I wanted everything.” His voice boomed out in the silence.

She waited.

“I had a lot to give to this game.”

“Life?”

“Baseball. If I had started out fifteen years ago like I tried to, I’da been the king of them all by now.”

“The king of what?”

“The best in the game,” he said impatiently.

She sighed deeply. “You’re so good now.”

“I’da been better. I’da broke most every record there was.”

“Does that mean so much to you?”

“Sure,” he answered. “It’s like what you said before. You break the records and everybody else tries to catch up with you if they can.”

“Couldn’t you be satisfied with just breaking a few?” Her pinpricking was beginning to annoy him. “Not if I could break most of them,” he insisted.

“But I don’t understand why you should make so much of that. Are your values so — ”

He heard a train hoot and went freezing cold.

“Where’s that train?” he cried, jumping to his feet.

“What train?”

He stared into the night.

“The one I just heard.”

“It must have been a bird cry. There are no trains here.”

He gazed at her suspiciously but then relaxed and sat down.

“That way,” he continued with what he had been saying, “if you leave all those records that nobody else can beat — they’ll always remember you. You sorta never die.”

“Are you afraid of death?”

Roy stared at her listening face. “Now what has that got to do with it?”

She didn’t answer. Finally he laid his head back on her lap, his eyes shut.

She stroked his brow siowiy with her fingers.

“What happened fifteen years ago, Roy?”

Roy felt like crying, yet he told her — the first one he ever had. “I was just a kid and I got shot by this batty dame on the night before my tryout, and after that I just couldn’t get started again. I lost my confidence and everything I did flopped.”