69

Practice had ended an hour before, and now it was just the two of them together in the dimness of the third-floor gym, the smaller man crouched in the batting cage, unleashing swing after swing like a repeatable toy, the other standing behind the cage’s netting with his chin declined and his arms crossed over his chest. After a dozen line drives in a row, Izzy fouled one straight back. Schwartz reached out and snared it barehanded, strands of nylon netting between the ball and his hand.

“Keep your hands up,” he said.

“Aye aye, Abuelo.”

Schwartz didn’t mind the nickname, which all the freshpersons had adopted. It referred to his widow’s peak and his creaky knees, his crotchetiness, his penchant for dispensing pearls of wisdom like an old man on a porch, but there was a more interesting meaning in there too. For Izzy and the other young players, Henry was the father figure, the guy who’d harassed and cajoled and counseled them day by day, bucked them up and called them out, made them memorize passages of Aparicio—taught them, in his own imperturbable way, the lessons Schwartz had taught to Henry and Rick and Starblind. Henry was their father and Schwartz was abuelo. But now their father had abandoned them, as fathers often did, and the old man was back in charge.

“Keep your weight back,” he said. “You’re lunging.”

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

“Goddamnit, Izzy. Quit slapping at the ball like that. This isn’t a catfight.”

Ping.

Actually, the kid looked good. He wasn’t Henry, but he was going to be one hell of a college ballplayer. Better than Starblind, most likely. Better than Schwartz, for sure.

His batting stance was pure Skrimmer: the easy sink of the knees, the sense of prevailing silence, the dart of the hands to the ball. Good players tended to be good mimics; old footage of Aparicio, if you were as familiar as Schwartz with Henry’s movements and mannerisms, was downright eerie to watch. And now, in a similar way, it was eerie to watch Izzy. The lineage was clear.

Duane Jenkins, the school’s AD, was standing at the far end of the gym, hands in his khaki pockets. “Hey Mike,” he called. “You got a sec?”

Schwartz gave Izzy a fist bump through the nylon. “Strong work,” he said. “We’re going to need that this weekend.”

“I’m done, Abuelo?”

“You’re never done. Go get dinner.”

Schwartz followed Jenkins up to the AD’s office, tried to arrange himself in a tiny cloth-covered chair. If big men ran the world, as was often supposed, you’d think they could get the furniture right.

“Nationals.” Jenkins shook his head in wonderment. “How’s it feel?”

“It’ll feel pretty good if we win.”

Jenkins smiled. “Win or lose, it’s been a heck of a year. Especially for you. Conference champs in football. A regional in baseball. Academic all-conference. School record for home runs.”

Schwartz looked at his watch. He wasn’t in the mood for a Mike Schwartz retrospective.

“Westish sports are having an unprecedented amount of success across the board, Mike, and that’s mostly your doing. Coach Cox’s been here for thirteen years, Coach Foster for ten. Somehow I don’t think they suddenly turned into geniuses four years ago. And I can’t say I’m getting a heck of a lot smarter either. You’ve changed the culture of this entire program.”

“What’s your point, Duane?” Schwartz liked Jenkins, he’d always liked Jenkins, because even though Jenkins didn’t know what he was doing, he tended not to bullshit. But this sounded suspiciously like bullshit.

Jenkins smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I was trying to lead into this slowly, but I should know better by now, with you.

“I don’t know if you’ve locked in any plans for next year, but I’ve been authorized to offer you a job.”

Schwartz’s back spasmed, just above his ass. He squeezed the arms of the too-small chair and lifted himself a few inches off the cloth, grimacing.

“Assistant football coach, assistant baseball coach, and assistant athletic director in charge of recruiting and raising funds. Basically you’d be doing what you’ve been doing for the past four years. Except instead of paying for the privilege, you’d be getting paid.” Jenkins opened a folder on his desk, took out a sheet of paper covered in tiny type, and handed it to Schwartz. Circled in ink, halfway down the page, was a number.

Schwartz had spent enough time trying to finagle money for the football and baseball programs that he knew the AD’s budget down to the dollar. “You can’t afford this.”

Jenkins smiled, shrugged. “It’s authorized.”

It wasn’t graduate-of-Yale-Law money, it wasn’t first-round-draft-pick money, but it was okay. Surprisingly okay. A person could pay his rent, his Visa bill. He could even, before too long, put down a payment on a car that could hold a quart of oil, get the Buddha off his back about his carbon footprint.

“The funding’s locked in for three years minimum,” Jenkins was saying. “But if you wanted to leave sooner, to go back to school or to do whatever, you’d be free to do so. I’d say however many years we could keep you around, whether one or three or thirty, would be a blessing for us.”

Schwartz wondered where he’d gotten the money. Jenkins wasn’t the kind of mover-shaker who could drum up funds where there weren’t any. That was why he was the athletic director of a school that had always taken pride in the mediocrity of its athletics: he wasn’t a mover-shaker.

“So?” Jenkins asked.

Schwartz shook his head. “No thanks.”

Jenkins looked confused, maybe even crestfallen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, no thanks. I don’t want to coach.”

Jenkins scratched his thinning auburn hair above one ear. “But you already are a coach,” he said. “You’re the best coach this school’s ever had, and we’ve never paid you a penny. Might as well let us make it up to you, at least for a year.”

“Can’t do it, Duane.”

Jenkins leaned back in his chair, tried to regroup. Glanced around the office as if trying to take in the big picture. “Can I ask what you plan to do instead?”

“Don’t know.”

Jenkins nodded. “But you’re sick of the grind. Road trips. Two-a-days. Supervising workouts. Half your life inside this building. The whole deal.”

“I’m not sick of it,” said Schwartz. “I just—” Just what? Just didn’t want to wake up in twenty years and see behind him a string of lives he’d changed, stretching out endlessly, rah rah go team, while he himself stayed exactly the same. Stagnant. Ungreat. Still wearing sweatpants to work. He who cannot, coaches.

“There’s benefits there,” Jenkins said. “Health insurance, dental. As for vacation, we shut down for most of July. Plus you can eat for free in the dining hall. Not sure how appealing that is.”

“It’s a nice offer.”

“I could probably tack on another grand or two,” Jenkins said. “But that’s about it.”

“It’s a nice offer,” Schwartz repeated. “I wouldn’t want more.”

“So you’ll think about it?”

“No.”

“Think about it.” Jenkins took the contract, which Schwartz was still holding, and put it back in the folder. He put the folder in his desk. “The job starts August fifteenth. There are no other candidates.”