you could see a naked woman. April and May had
been like that this year. Like standing in a crowded place while people shoved
by you, but you didn’t notice being jostled because you stood there in the
middle of the sidewalk looking through the little hole in that ring, looking at
that naked body, that woman-body, that only clear and real thing in the world,
while all the rest of the world was just people shoving by you, going no place
in a hurry, wanting to push you out of the way.
He wondered who would pay her rent on July first.
The summer was ahead. He knew they expected him to do something. To make
some sort of decision about himself. He knew that he was expected to get some
sort of a job and work hard and try to get into the fall session somewhere. But
it made him tired to think about it. He wanted to stay in the room and keep the
music low and keep going over April and May, trying to figure out what had happened
to him. There were good guys and bad guys. Could you be a thief from the very
beginning and not know about it? Would you steal again? He wanted to be alone.
He wanted something that was broken to begin to heal. But it didn’t heal. It
stayed broken.
He knew that Ellen had heard some of the talk. Enough so that she had
guessed the rest. He saw it in the way he would catch her looking at him, a
pinched look in her eyes, a flatness in her stare, a look not of hurt, but of
appraisal. They had passed, long ago, from the embittered warfare of childhood
into a relationship of pride and trust, a sense of maintaining a united front.
And now it had become something else. All gone now, the shrill yelling as the
brother broke into the clear and went up and up, hand reached for the wobbling
ball, framed there against the autumn afternoon, shadow lanky in late cold sun,
and a hero had died. Meat had spoiled, and the flesh turned sad, and the eyes
turned inward to look at the pitilessness of what might have been.
It was the death of dreams that mattered. Those slow dreams that are used
to bring on the true dreams of sleep. Taking the long walk from the bullpen to
the mound in the bottom of the ninth, and the bases are full of Yankees and
Mantle is up, standing expressionlessly aside but watching closely as you take
the warm-up pitches, and the stands are muttering who is he who is he, and others say a kid named Delevan they brought him up from class A for the
pennant race and they say he’s got stuff and then you are ready and Mantle
steps in with that blocky face and the big back flexing and you let it go for steeeeerike so blazing fast he doesn’t even twitch
and steeeeerike again and on the last one he
swings in desperation too late and then the next hitter gets a tiny piece of
one enough to send it spinning crazy off to your right and you pounce and make
the play at the plate so it is two down and the stands yelling and the manager
looking like he would cry and they put in a pinch hitter who bangs one foul but
just barely and you steady down and burn one by and then break his back with
the floater and that’s the game and the series.
Now you come up and the big back flexes in that power swing and you turn
and watch it out of sight over the roof of the left-field stands.
There was the dream where you floated down through the tropic sky and
pulled the shroud lines and landed like a cat and cut the chute loose and
buried it and that night moulded the plastic
explosive to the bridge trusses and hid while the train burst in red fatness.
Now they stand down there and look up and as you swing close enough the
finger tightens on the trigger…
Your putt stops short of the hole and you watch Player tap his in.
You walk down the dusty street, spurs jingling in cadence and fingers
hooked and ready, but you are a bit slow and lead spanks dust out of your shut
and later they all come out of their hiding places and look at your body there
in the road, and they congratulate the hero.
You are dead in the dust there because
been like that this year. Like standing in a crowded place while people shoved
by you, but you didn’t notice being jostled because you stood there in the
middle of the sidewalk looking through the little hole in that ring, looking at
that naked body, that woman-body, that only clear and real thing in the world,
while all the rest of the world was just people shoving by you, going no place
in a hurry, wanting to push you out of the way.
He wondered who would pay her rent on July first.
The summer was ahead. He knew they expected him to do something. To make
some sort of decision about himself. He knew that he was expected to get some
sort of a job and work hard and try to get into the fall session somewhere. But
it made him tired to think about it. He wanted to stay in the room and keep the
music low and keep going over April and May, trying to figure out what had happened
to him. There were good guys and bad guys. Could you be a thief from the very
beginning and not know about it? Would you steal again? He wanted to be alone.
He wanted something that was broken to begin to heal. But it didn’t heal. It
stayed broken.
He knew that Ellen had heard some of the talk. Enough so that she had
guessed the rest. He saw it in the way he would catch her looking at him, a
pinched look in her eyes, a flatness in her stare, a look not of hurt, but of
appraisal. They had passed, long ago, from the embittered warfare of childhood
into a relationship of pride and trust, a sense of maintaining a united front.
And now it had become something else. All gone now, the shrill yelling as the
brother broke into the clear and went up and up, hand reached for the wobbling
ball, framed there against the autumn afternoon, shadow lanky in late cold sun,
and a hero had died. Meat had spoiled, and the flesh turned sad, and the eyes
turned inward to look at the pitilessness of what might have been.
It was the death of dreams that mattered. Those slow dreams that are used
to bring on the true dreams of sleep. Taking the long walk from the bullpen to
the mound in the bottom of the ninth, and the bases are full of Yankees and
Mantle is up, standing expressionlessly aside but watching closely as you take
the warm-up pitches, and the stands are muttering who is he who is he, and others say a kid named Delevan they brought him up from class A for the
pennant race and they say he’s got stuff and then you are ready and Mantle
steps in with that blocky face and the big back flexing and you let it go for steeeeerike so blazing fast he doesn’t even twitch
and steeeeerike again and on the last one he
swings in desperation too late and then the next hitter gets a tiny piece of
one enough to send it spinning crazy off to your right and you pounce and make
the play at the plate so it is two down and the stands yelling and the manager
looking like he would cry and they put in a pinch hitter who bangs one foul but
just barely and you steady down and burn one by and then break his back with
the floater and that’s the game and the series.
Now you come up and the big back flexes in that power swing and you turn
and watch it out of sight over the roof of the left-field stands.
There was the dream where you floated down through the tropic sky and
pulled the shroud lines and landed like a cat and cut the chute loose and
buried it and that night moulded the plastic
explosive to the bridge trusses and hid while the train burst in red fatness.
Now they stand down there and look up and as you swing close enough the
finger tightens on the trigger…
Your putt stops short of the hole and you watch Player tap his in.
You walk down the dusty street, spurs jingling in cadence and fingers
hooked and ready, but you are a bit slow and lead spanks dust out of your shut
and later they all come out of their hiding places and look at your body there
in the road, and they congratulate the hero.
You are dead in the dust there because
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