The Natural (7 page)

Authors: Bernard Malamud

BOOK: The Natural

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He listened closely because he had the weird impression that he knew all the voices in there, and as he sorted them he recognized first the trainer's brogue and then a big voice that he did not so much recall, as remember having heard throughout his lifeâa strong, rawboned voice, familiar from his boyhood and some of the jobs he had worked at later, and the different places he had bummed around in, slop joints, third-rate hotels, prize fight gyms and such; the big voice of a heavy, bull-necked, strong-muscled guy, the kind of gorilla he had more than once fought half to death for no reason he could think of. Oh, the Whammer, he thought, and quickly ducked but straightened up when he remembered the Whammer was almost fifty and long since retired out of the game. But what made him most uneasy was a third voice, higher than the other two, a greedy, penetrating, ass-kissing voice he had definitely heard before. He strained his ears to hear it again but the big voice was talking about this gag he had pulled on Pop Fisher, in particular, spraying white pepper in Pop's handkerchief, which made him sneeze and constantly blow his beak. That commenced an epidemic of base
stealing, to Pop's fury, because the signal to steal that day was for him to raise his handkerchief to his schnozzle.

At the end of the story there was a guffaw and a yelp of laughter, then the trainer remarked something and this other voice, one that stood on stilts, commented that Bump certainly got a kick out of his jokes, and Bump, he must have been, said Pop wouldn't agree to his release, so if he was going to be stuck in this swamp he would at least have a little fun.

He laughed loudly and said, “Here's one for your colyum, kid. We were in Cincy in April and had a free day on our hands because this exhibition game was called off, so in the Plaza lobby that morning we get to bulling about players and records, and you know Pop and this line of his about how lousy the modern player is compared to those mustached freaks he played with in the time of King Tut. He was saying that the average fielder nowadays could maybe hit the kangaroo ball we gotâhe was looking at meâbut you couldn't count on him to catch a high fly. âHow high?' I ask him, innocent, and he points up and says, âAny decent height. They either lose them in the sun or misjudge them in the wind.' So I say, âCould you catch the real high ones, Pop?' And he pipes up, âAs high as they went up I could catch them.' He thinks a minute and says, âI bet I could catch a ball that is dropped from the top of the Empire State Building.' âNo,' I says, like I was surprised, and âYes,' he says. So I say, âWe have nothing on for today, and although there isn't any Empire State Building in Cincinnati, yet I do have this friend of mine at the airport who owns a Piper Cub. I will give him a National League baseball and he will drop it at the height of the building if you will catch it.' âDone,' he says, as perky as a turkey, so I call up this guy I know and arrange it and off we go across the bridge to the Kentucky side of the river, where there is plenty of room to move around in. Well, sir, soon this yellow plane comes over and circles a couple of times till he
has the right height, and then he lets go with something that I didn't tell Pop, but which the boys are onto, is a grapefruit so that if it hits him it will not crack his skull open and kill him. Down the thing comes like a cannonball and Pop, in his black two-piece bathing suit, in case he has to go a little in the water, and wearing a mitt the size of a basket, circles under it like a dizzy duck, holding the sun out of his eyes as he gets a line on where it is coming down. Faster it falls, getting bigger by the second, then Pop, who is now set for the catch, suddenly lets out a howl, âMy Christ, the moon is falling on me,' and the next second, bongâthe grapefruit busts him on the conk and we have all we can do to keep him from drowning in the juice.”

Now there was a loud cackle of laughter in the trainer's room. The voice Roy didn't likeâthe frightening thought dawned on him that the voice
knew
what he was hidingâit changed the subject and wanted to know from Bump if there was any truth to the rumor about him and Pop's niece.

“Naw,” Bump said, and cagily asked, “What rumor?”

“That you and Memo are getting hitched.”

Bump laughed. “She must've started that one herself.”

“Then you deny it?”

The door was shoved open and Bump waltzed out in his shorts, as husky, broadbacked, and big-shouldered as Roy had thought, followed by the trainer and a slightly popeyed gent dressed in an expensive striped suit, whose appearance gave Roy a shooting pain in the pit of the stomachâMax Mercy.

Ashamed to be recognized, to have his past revealed like an egg spattered on the floor, Roy turned away, tucking his jersey into his pants.

But Bump paraded over with his hairy arm outstretched. “Hiya, Buster, you the latest victim they have trapped?”

Roy felt an irritable urge to pitch his fist at the loudmouth, but he nodded and shook hands.

“Welcome to the lousiest team in the world, barring none,”
Bump said. “And this is ol' Doc Casey, the trainer, who has got nobody but cripples on his hands except me. And the hawkshaw with the eyes is Max Mercy, the famous sports colyumist. Most newspaper guys are your pals and know when to keep their traps shut, but to Max a private life is a personal insult. Before you are here a week he will tell the public how much of your salary you send to your grandma and how good is your sex life.”

Max, whose mustache and sideboards were graying, laughed hollowly. He said to Roy, “Didn't catch the name.”

“Roy Hobbs,” he said stiffly, but no one seemed to think it mattered very much.

The game was over and the players hoofed through the tunnel into the locker room. They tore out of their uniforms and piled into the showers. Some stayed in only long enough to wet their skins. Wiping themselves dry, they tumbled into street clothes. Their speed, however, did them no good, for Red, after courteously asking Mercy to leave, posted himself and Earl Wilson, the third base coach, at the door and they let nobody else out. The players waited nervously, except Bump, who slapped backs and advised everybody to cheer up. A few of the boys were working the strategy of staying in the showers so long they hoped Pop would grow sick and tired and leave. But Pop, a self-sustaining torch in the shut managerial office, outwaited them, and when he got the quiet knock from Red that the lobsters were in the pot, yanked open the door and strode sulphurously forth. The team shriveled.

Pop stepped up on a chair where for once, a bald, bristling figure, he towered over them. Waving his bandaged hands he began to berate them but immediately stopped, choked by his rage into silence.

“If he coughs now,” Bump boomed, “he will bust into dust.”

Pop glared at him, his head glowing like a red sun. He savagely burst out that not a single blasted one of them here was a true ballplayer. They were sick monkeys, broken-down mules, pigeon-chested toads, slimy horned worms, but not real, honest-to-god baseball players.

“How's about flatfooted fish?” Bump wisecracked. “Get it, boys, fishâFisher,” and he fell into a deep gargle of laughter at his wit, but the semi-frozen players in the room did not react.

“How's he get away with it?” Roy asked the ghost standing next to him. The pale player whispered out of the corner of his mouth that Bump was presently the leading hitter in the league.

Pop ignored Bump and continued to give the team the rough side of his tongue. “What beats me is that I have spent thousands of dollars for the best players I could lay my hands on. I hired two of the finest coaches in the game. I sweat myself sick trying to direct you, and all you can deliver is those goddamn goose eggs.” His voice rose. “Do you dimwits realize that we have been skunked for the last forty-five innings in a row?”

“Not Bumpsy,” the big voice said, “I am terrific.”

“You now hold the record of the most consecutive games lost in the whole league history, the most strikeouts, the most errorsâ”

“Not Bumpsyâ”

“âthe most foolishness and colossal stupidities. In plain words, you all stink. I am tempted to take pity on those poor dopes who spend a buck and a half to watch you play and trade the whole lousy lot of you away.”

Bump dropped down on his knees and raised his clasped hands. “Me first, Lawdy, me first.”

“âand start from scratch to build up a team that will know how to play together and has guts and will fight the
other guy to death before they drop seventeen games in the cellar.”

The players in the locker room were worn out but Bump was singing, “Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep.”

“Beware,” he croaked low in his throat, “bewaaareâ”

Pop shook a furious finger at him that looked as if it would fly off and strike him in the face. “As for you, Bump Baily, high and mighty though you are, some day you'll pay for your sassifras. Remember that lightning cuts down the tallest trees too.”

Bump didn't like warnings of retribution. His face turned surly.

“Lightning, maybe, but no burnt out old fuse.”

Pop tottered. “Practice at eight in the morning,” he said brokenly. But for Red he would have tumbled off the chair. In his office behind the slammed and smoking door they could hear him sobbing, “Sometimes I could cut my own throat.”

It took the Knights a while to grow bones and crawl out after Bump. But when everybody had gone, including the coaches and Dizzy, Roy remained behind. His face was flaming hot, his clothes soaked in sweat and shame, as if the old man's accusations had been leveled at his head.

When Pop came out in his street clothes, a yellowed Panama and a loud sport jacket, he was startled to see Roy sitting there in the gloom and asked what he was waiting for.

“No place to go,” Roy said.

“Whyn't you get a room?”

“Ain't got what it takes.”

Pop looked at him. “Scotty paid you your bonus cash, didn't he?”

“Two hundred, but I had debts.”

“You shoulda drawn an advance on your first two weeks' pay from the office when you came in today. It's too late now,
they quit at five, so I will write you out my personal check for twenty-five dollars and you can pay me back when you get the money.”

Pop balanced his checkbook on his knee. “You married?”

“No.”

“Whyn't you ask around among the married players to see who has got a spare room? That way you'd have a more regular life. Either that, or in a respectable boarding house. Some of the boys who have their homes out of town prefer to stay at a moderate-priced hotel, which I myself have done since my wife passed away, but a boarding house is more homelike and cheaper. Anyway,” Pop advised, “tonight you better come along with me to the hotel and tomorrow you can find a place to suit your needs.”

Roy remarked he wasn't particularly crazy about hotels.

They left the ball park, got into a cab and drove downtown. The sky over the Hudson was orange. Once Pop broke out of his reverie to point out Grant's Tomb.

At the Midtown Hotel, Pop spoke to the desk clerk and he assigned Roy a room on the ninth floor, facing toward the Empire State Building. Pop went up with him and pumped the mattress.

“Not bad,” he said.

After the bellhop had left he said he hoped Roy wasn't the shenanigan type.

“What kind?” Roy asked.

“There are all sorts of nuts in this game and I remember one of my playersâseems to me it was close to twenty years agoâwho used to walk out on the fifteenth floor ledge and scare fits out of people in the other rooms. One day when he was walking out there he fell and broke his leg and only the darndest luck kept him from rolling right overboard. It was beginning to rain and he pulled himself around from window to window, begging for help, and everybody went into stitches
at his acting but kept their windows closed. He finally rolled off and hit bottom.”

Roy had unpacked his valise and was washing up.

“Lemme tell you one practical piece of advice, son,” Pop went on. “You're starting way lateâI was finished after fifteen years as an active player one year after the age you're coming in, but if you want to get along the best way, behave and give the game all you have got, and when you can't do that, quit. We don't need any more goldbrickers or fourflushers or practical jokers around. One Bump Baily is too much for any team.”

He left the room, looking wretched.

The phone jangled and after a minute Roy got around to lifting it.

“What's the matter?” Red Blow barked. “Don't you answer your telephone?”

“I like it to ring a little, gives 'em a chance to change their mind.”

“Who?”

“Anybody.”

Red paused. “Pop asked me to show you around. When are you eating?”

“I am hungry now.”

“Meet me in the lobby, half past six.”