The Natural - Маламуд Бернард

“My what!” Pop exploded.

“It says in the letter.”

Red, who had returned from the mound, took the letter, unfolded it, and handed it to Pop. He read it in a single swoop then shook his head in disbelief.

“Scotty Carson sent you?”

“That’s right.”

“He must be daffy.”

Roy wet his dry lips.

Pop shot him a shrewd look. “You’re thirty-five if you’re a day.”

“Thirty-four, but I’m good for ten years.”

“Thirty-four — Holy Jupiter, mister, you belong in an old man’s home, not baseball.”

The players along the bench were looking at him. Roy licked his lips.

“Where’d he pick you up?” Pop asked.

“I was with the Oomoo Oilers.”

“In what league?”

“They’re semipros.”

“Ever been in organized baseball?”

“I only recently got back in the game.”

“What do you mean got back?”

“Used to play in high school.”

Pop snorted. “Well, it’s a helluva mess.” He slapped the letter with the back of his fingers. “Scotty signed him and the Judge okayed it. Neither of them consulted me. They can’t do that,” he said to Red. “That thief in the tower might have sixty per cent of the stock but I have it in writing that I am to manage this team and approve all player deals as long as I live.”

“I got a contract,” said Roy.

“Lemme see it.”

Roy pulled a blue-backed paper out of his inside coat pocket.

Pop scanned it. “Where in blazes did he get the figure of three thousand dollars?”

“It was for a five thousand minimum but the Judge said I already missed one-third of the season.”

Pop burst into scornful laughter. “Sure, but that entitles you to about thirty-three hundred. Just like that godawful deadbeat. He’d skin his dead father if he could get into the grave.”

He returned the contract to Roy. “It’s illegal.”

“Scotty’s your chief Scout?” Roy asked.

“That’s right.”

“He signed me to a contract with an open figure and the Judge filled it in. I asked about that and Scotty said he had the authority to sign me.”

“He has,” Red said to Pop. “You said so yourself if he found anybody decent.”

“That’s right, that’s what I said, but who needs a fielder old enough to be my son? I got a left fielder,” he said to Roy, “a darn good one when he feels like it and ain’t playing practical jokes on everybody.”

Roy stood up. “If you don’t want me, Merry Christmas.”

“Wait a second,” said Red. He fingered Pop up close to the fountain and spoke to him privately.

Pop calmed down. “I’m sorry, son,” he apologized to Roy when he returned to the bench, “but you came across me at a bad time. Also thirty-four years for a rookie is starting with one foot in the grave. But like Red says, if our best scout sent you, you musta showed him something. Go on in the clubhouse and have Dizzy fit you up with a monkey suit. Then report back here and I will locate you a place on this bench with the rest of my All-Stars.” He threw the players a withering look and they quickly turned away.

“Listen, mister,” Roy said, “I know my way out of this jungle if you can’t use me. I don’t want any second pickings.”

“Do as he told you,” Red said.

Roy rose, got his valise and bassoon case together, and headed into the tunnel. His heart was thumping like a noisy barrel.

“I shoulda bought a farm,” Pop muttered.

The pitcher in the shower had left the door wide open so the locker room was clouded with steam when Roy came in. Unable to find anybody he yelled into the shower room where was the prop man, and the one in the shower yelled back in the equipment room and close the door it was drafty. When the steam had thinned out and Roy could see his way around he located the manager’s office, so labeled in black letters on the door, but not the equipment room. In the diagonally opposite corner were the trainer’s quarters, and here the door was ajar and gave forth an oil of wintergreen smell that crawled up his nose. He could see the trainer, in a gray sweatshirt with KNIGHTS stenciled across his chest, working on a man mountain on the rubbing table. Catching sight of Roy, the trainer called out in an Irish brogue who was he looking for?

“Prop man,” Roy said.

“That’s Dizzy — down the hail.” The trainer made with his eyes to the left so Roy opened the door there and went down the hall. He located a sign, “Equipment,” and through the window under it saw the prop man in a baseball jersey sitting on a uniform trunk with his back to the wall. He was reading the sports page of the Mirror.

Roy rapped on the ledge and Dizzy, a former utility pitcher, hastily put the paper down. “Caught me at an interesting moment,” he grinned. “I was reading about this catcher that got beaned in Boston yesterday. Broke the side of his skull.”

“The name’s Roy Hobbs, new hand here. Fisher told me to get outfitted.”

“New man — fielder, eh?”

Roy nodded.

“Yeah, we been one man short on the roster for two weeks. One of our guys went and got himself hit on the head with a fly ball and both of his legs are now paralyzed.”

Roy winked.

“Honest to God. And just before that our regular third baseman stepped on a bat and rolled down the dugout steps. Snapped his spine in two places.” Dizzy grimaced. “We sure been enjoying an unlucky season.”

He came forth with a tape measure and took Roy’s measurements, then he went back and collected a pile of stuff from the shelves.

“Try this for size.” He handed him a blue cap with a white K stitched on the front of it.

Roy tried it. “Too small.”

“You sure got some size noggin there.”

“Seven and a half.” Roy looked at him.

“Just a social remark. No offense meant or intended.” He gave Roy a size that fitted.

“How’s it look?” Roy asked.

“A dream but why the tears?”

“I have a cold.” He turned away.

Dizzy asked him to sign for the stuff — Judge Banner insisted. He helped Roy carry it to his locker.

“Keep anything you like inside of here but for goodness’ sakes no booze. Pop throws fits if any of the players drink.”

Roy stood the bassoon case in upright. “Got a lock for the door?”

“Nobody locks their doors here. Before the game you deposit your valuables in that trunk there and I will lock them up.”

“Okay, skip it.”

Dizzy excused himself to get back to his paper and Roy began to undress.

The locker room was tomblike quiet. The pitcher who had been in the showers — his footsteps were still wet on the floor — had dressed rapidly and vanished. As he put his things away, Roy found himself looking around every so often to make sure he was here. He was, all right, yet in all his imagining of how it would be when he finally hit the majors, he had not expected to feel so down in the dumps. It was different than he had thought it would be. So different he almost felt like walking out, jumping back on a train, and going wherever people went when they were running out on something. Maybe for a long rest in one of those towns he had lived in as a kid. Like the place where he had that shaggy mutt that used to scamper through the woods, drawing him after it to the deepest, stillest part, till the silence was so pure you could crack it if you threw a rock. Roy remained lost in the silence till the dog’s yapping woke him, though as he came out of it, it was not barking he heard but the sound of voices through the trainer’s half-open door.