The Art of Fielding: A Novel (51 page)
“So we’ll do another shot. Cortisone with the lido.”
“It’s not enough,” Schwartz said. “It did shit last time.”
Dr. Kellner leaned back in his chair, arms folded, and contemplated Schwartz. “When did you last take any pain meds?”
Schwartz counted back the days. It was now Wednesday; he’d run out on Saturday, the day Henry walked off the field. This season had been rough, painwise; much worse than previous years, worse even than this past football season. Until recently, he’d been getting painkillers both from Dr. Kellner and from Michelle, a nurse at St. Anne’s whom he’d dated on and off since sophomore year. But Schwartz had stopped answering Michelle’s texts when he met Pella, and now—of course—Michelle wasn’t answering his. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Have you been having trouble sleeping?”
“Only a little,” Schwartz lied. “Because of my back.”
“Any chills or excessive sweating?”
“My sweating is always excessive.” Good thing he’d left his windbreaker on. Kellner couldn’t see that his T-shirt was drenched.
“Have you been feeling unusually anxious or irritable?”
“Me, irritable?” Schwartz joked.
Dr. Kellner didn’t laugh. “You drink with the meds? A few beers here and there?”
Schwartz ignored the question. “We’re not talking about habits,” he said. “We’re talking about a well-defined short-term situation. I just need to make it to Sunday. To give my team a chance to win.”
Julie poked her blond head around the door. “Doctor K. Your two o’clock is here.”
One of her eyes had a sleepy tic, but otherwise she was cute enough. No doubt she had a steady stream of meds at her disposal, working here. Schwartz should have laid the groundwork a long time ago; too late now. He’d asked around at school, steering clear of his teammates, who might get the wrong idea, but all anyone had was Adderall and coke, coke and Adderall.
Dr. Kellner shooed Julie away. Schwartz went on: “In moderation these aren’t dangerous drugs, right? They’re legitimate treatment for lots of people. People in way less pain than me. I mean, you can walk into any dentist’s office in town holding your cheek and they’ll write you a scri—”
Dr. Kellner shook his head. “Stop right there, Mike, or I’ll call every doctor, dentist, and pharmacist in a fifty-mile radius and tell them to be on the lookout for you.
Moderation
means small, non-habit-forming amounts. That’s not you. You’ve got a problem with these narcotics. Period. You’re going through withdrawal, and the sooner you ride that out the better. I should ship you over to St. Anne’s to see a counselor, but I know you won’t go and I don’t have time to play babysitter. You want cortisone, I got cortisone. You want to tell me what else is going on in your life that makes a little oblivion so appealing—I’m all ears. Otherwise I’ll see you next month.”
Doctors were the most self-righteous people on earth, Schwartz thought. Healthy and wealthy themselves, surrounded by the sick and dying—it made them feel invincible, and feeling invincible made them pricks. They thought they understood suffering because they saw it every day. They didn’t understand shit. Plus they could prescribe themselves what they knew they needed without having to listen to lectures about the meaning of moderation from people who hadn’t even read the goddamn
Ethics.
Dr. Kellner stood up, looked at his watch.
“Fine,” Schwartz said. “Give me the goddamn shot.”
O
n the way back to campus, Schwartz told himself that he wouldn’t. Then he turned the Buick down Groome Street anyway, to see if what he’d heard was true. He parked on the far side of the street, one house down, in the shade of a massive maple. The curtains in the front room weren’t drawn. A TV flickered bluely, but as far as Schwartz could tell there wasn’t anyone watching it. He cut the engine. The cortisone helped; he had to admit it. He felt like horseshit, he was sweating like crazy, his heart pounded constantly, but his knees would make it through the weekend’s games. He took off his watch for no particular reason and strapped it around the uppermost segment of the steering wheel. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. If he didn’t leave now he’d be late for practice.
As he unclipped his watch from the wheel, someone walked up Groome Street and entered the low chain-link gate of 339. Long dark hair, knee-high leather boots, Burberry coat. It was Noelle Pierson. This was the place, then; he’d heard they were at Noelle’s place. But no sign. Schwartz fired the engine. Noelle climbed the three stairs to the porch. She was a junior, a history major; they’d hooked up a few times his sophomore year, when she still lived in the dorms. As her boot heel hit the porch, the TV ceased to flicker. A figure in a faded red T-shirt jumped off the couch and hurried from the room. He’d been there all along. Schwartz nosed the Buick away from the curb.
T
hat afternoon, for the second straight day, the Harpooners had a flat, desultory practice. Even Coach Cox seemed lethargic. Schwartz, unable to practice because of his knees and unwilling to watch anymore, headed back to the locker room to soak. He was in the whirlpool tub when his teammates wandered in. The door was half open, so he could hear what was being said.
“How good you think these teams are?” asked one of the young guys, probably Loondorf. “Compared to Coshwale.”
“Put it this way,” Rick replied. “Coshwale’s won conference, what, eight times in ten years?”
“Okay.”
“And they’ve never gone to nationals. It’s always some team from the River Nine. Or else WIVA. But mostly River Nine. Those guys are beasts.”
“Who’s the River Nine team?”
“Northern Missouri.”
“Shit. Northern Missouri.”
“In oh-six they won the whole shebang.”
“Are they in our half of the bracket?”
“I think so. I think we play them if we beat McKinnon.”
“Crap. Northern Missouri. When you put it that way.”
“Yeah.”
“Man, we could sure use Henry. Even just to DH.”
“Amen to that.”
“It’ll be good experience, either way.”
“Who knows? Maybe we’ll beat McKinnon. Starblind on the mound. Then see what happens.”
“Could use Henry’s bat, though.”
“One thing I know. We’re gonna party when it’s over. Regardless.”
Schwartz wasn’t in the whirlpool anymore. He was through the door, naked and dripping, closing fast, feet slipping on the concrete floor. He jacked Rick up against the lockers, two hands twisted into Rick’s T-shirt for leverage. “You want to throw a party?” he was screaming, his voice less a voice than a visitation from some very dark place. “Is that what you want?”
Rick shook his head no. He was trembling a little and had his gut sucked in, afraid to breathe, as if Schwartz might hurt him badly. He was right. This wasn’t college-boy Schwartz getting riled up for effect. This wasn’t Schwartz Lite. This was full-bore Schwartz, the kind of Schwartz these prep-school pansies didn’t know they’d never seen. Nobody moved to intervene. Nobody moved at all.
“This weekend is not the end!” Schwartz let go of Rick; he was addressing them all. He bashed his fist against a locker, not even remembering to use his left. He dented the metal, bloodied his knuckles. “Anyone who thinks otherwise, anyone who’d rather go play for McKinnon, or Chute, or Northern Missouri, can clear the hell out. I’m winning a regional title, and then I’m winning a national championship. And guess what? You motherfuckers are along for the ride.”
Coach Cox had wandered into the locker room and was watching dispassionately, hands in his pockets. Through the haze of his rage Schwartz saw a glass Snapple bottle in little Loondorf’s hand; he grabbed it and sent it flying a foot or two over Coach Cox’s head, just because. It was a fucked-up thing to do but he needed their attention. Coach Cox ducked. The bottle exploded against the dingy tile wall between the clock and the water fountain. Shards of glass rained over the room.
“You want to have a party?” Schwartz beat lockers, beat his chest, beat anything stupid enough to be near. “Then it’s going to be a goddamn national championship party. That’s the only kind of party anyone in this room is going to. Because we’re not fucking this up. We’re the Westish Harpooners. Do you hear what I’m saying?
Do you hear me?
”
He sank down on a splintered bench. His shoulders rose and fell as if he were sobbing, but without any tears or noise. He felt pathetic. Always before, his rants and speeches had had an element of performance in them, an element of calculation. But this was pure need. After the season there was nothing. No baseball no football. No meds no apartment no job. No friends no girlfriend. Nothing. And it had to be that way for all of them, down to the last man. They couldn’t just want to win. The other teams wanted to win, and the other teams had more talent. The Harpooners had to feel, like he did, that they would die if they lost.
P
ella woke into the charcoal hum of predawn. Her hand shot to the alarm clock before it could complete even a single screechy
beeeep
that might wake Henry. His T-shirt and socks and warm-up pants, which he’d worn every day since she—since
they—
moved in, lay balled on the rug on his side of the bed. She scooped them up and carried the tiny bundle down to the dank half basement, shoved it into the ancient washing machine, added a half scoop of one of her roommates’ Tide. She brushed her teeth and slipped out the front door, taking her usual detour around Mike’s block. When she clocked in, Hero clicked his tongue at her jokingly: three minutes late.
The students kept dirtying dishes and mugs and glasses and silverware; the cooks kept scalding food to the bottoms of pots; the other dishwashers kept quitting because it was May, the weather was heavenly, and finals were looming. Pella kept picking up shifts. She wasn’t going to classes anymore. You never knew who you’d run into in the lecture halls or out on the quad, and anyway she wanted the money she earned here, in the safety of the noisy, humid kitchen. She missed Professor Eglantine, but she wasn’t going back into oral history class to face all those baseball players. She’d already bought the books for the seminar Professor E was teaching in the fall. By then Mike and Owen would be gone and the rest of them would have half forgotten her. Who knew what’d happen to Henry.
When the breakfast dishes were finished she headed to the VAC, her sweatshirt hood tugged up around her head like a burka. This didn’t keep anyone from seeing her, of course—but it kept her from seeing them. She swam fifteen laps at her slowly improving pace, showered, and headed back for the midday shift.
Toward late afternoon she helped set up the salad bar for dinner. Chef Spirodocus emerged from his tiny office, where he’d been holed up doing paperwork. “Today,” he said, “we make my favorite. Eggs Benedict.”
Their first lessons had been elementary: how to stand in the kitchen without straining your back; how to hold a knife; then how to slice, chop, dice, mince, carve, julienne. Pella had nicks and cuts all up and down her hands—her still-swollen middle finger didn’t help—but her skills were improving day by day. Chef Spirodocus had told her she could graduate to prep cook by fall, which was good, because the dishes were getting boring.
