74

The Harpooners queued along the third-base line, shoulder to shoulder, their caps clapped over the spearmen that adorned their pinstriped chests. Schwartz gazed out at the emerald diamond, which was part of the Atlanta Braves’ spanking-new AAA facility in Comstock, South Carolina. The field breathed magically beneath the high-banked lights, the grass precisely mowed in starburst rays of lighter and deeper green. Down the first-base line the Amherst fans were already on their feet, chanting and cheering and waving their purple pennants. A beefy man in a size-too-small tux clambered out of the stands’ first row and swaggered to home plate, cordless microphone in hand, followed by a crouching cameraman in an ESPN polo. The betuxed guy turned to face the crowd, doffed his white ten-gallon hat, and pressed it to his beefy chest.

“Why’s he in the batter’s box?” Izzy muttered. “He’s messing up the chalk.”

Suitcase, who was standing beside Izzy, nodded and spit. “It’s the national championship, for Chrissake. They could’ve at least gotten a chick to sing the anthem.”

“Yeah, word. A chick in a dress. How hard is that?”

“Ssssshhh,” hissed Loondorf. “That’s Eric Strell.”

“He’s what?”

“Eric Strell. ‘Don’t Fence Me Out’? Remember?” Loondorf, who sang tenor in the Westish Wails, began to croon in a quiet voice: “Don’t… fence me out / In my heart there is no doubt…”

“Country’s gay,” said Izzy.

“It’s a good song,” protested Loondorf. “I might solo on it.”

“Gay.”

“It’s about Mexican immigrants. Like your dad.”

“Ga-a-ay.”

Owen cleared his throat.

Izzy covered his mouth with his cap. “Sorry, Buddha.”

“Can it, all of you.” Schwartz’s voice was sharp, but inwardly he felt pleased that the younger guys were loose enough to goof around. He himself had already puked twice out of nervousness—once discreetly in a locker room sink, once less discreetly by the left-field foul pole during warm-ups. If any balls got hit down into the corner, Quisp or the Amherst left fielder would be in for a messy surprise.

Eric Strell was really belting it out. He wasn’t a small guy—only one notch smaller than Schwartz, and he was crammed into that tux with the boots, the bolo tie, the whole bit, his cheeks the alcoholic color of steak tartare, especially when he reached for the sky with his hat’s crown in his right hand and brought down the HOME… OF THE… BRAAYYYYYVE in a tumid drawl that lasted so long it left him doubled over, crumpled and spent like Arsch after a jog to the lighthouse. The crowd exploded. Eric Strell straightened, waved his ten-gallon hat at the stands. He brought the mike close to his now-crimson face, beefy hand cupped tight around the windscreen, and gazed into the camera lens, making sweet love to each and every American who’d tuned into ESPN2 hoping to see bowling or billiards reruns and instead got the D-III college baseball championship game. “Puh-lay baawwwl!” he purred.

Schwartz put his hat on, blinked back a renegade drop of salt water. He’d always been a sucker for the anthem, and then there was the almost unfair beauty of a professional ballfield, the expensive riotous green of the grass, the scalloped cutouts around the bases, the whole place groomed like living art. As he turned back toward the dugout and glanced into the stands, it seemed as if the little contingent of navy-clad fans were composed entirely of mothers—Rick’s mom flanked by the gawky ten-year-old O’Shea twins; Sal Phlox’s mom ancient and white-haired and leaning into Papa Phlox’s elbow; Meat’s mom seated because of her gout while everyone else stood, spilling out over her chair, a ripe blueberry of a woman in her triple-XL Westish T-shirt. Owen’s and Izzy’s waving their Westish pennants like cheerleaders. Loondorf’s mom, who’d brought them so many kringles over the course of the season; Ajay’s tiny Indian mom with her many bracelets; and on down the line. An endless supply of mothers, though of course the one you wanted was never there.

He plunked down on the bench to don his chest protector. A cell phone buzzed nearby. He glanced around, ready to cuss at someone—no phones in the dugout—then recognized the ring as his own. He unzipped the side pocket of his bag, peeked at the display: Pella’s new number. There were several missed calls too, all from her. What a great time to get in touch. He powered down the phone, grabbed his mask and mitt, and headed up the dugout steps to join his gathered teammates.

Coach Cox read the lineup in his usual way, but you could tell by his rapid mustache-stroking that his nerves were up. “Starblind Avila Dunne. Schwartz O’Shea Boddington. Quisp Phlox Guladni.” He paused, examined their faces, stroked his mustache some more. “Big game today. Real big. But you guys are ready. Play together, and you’ll be fine. I’m not one for speeches, as you know, but I just wanted to say that… I’m really proud of you all. You guys are ballplayers all the way.” Coach Cox glanced around, stroking his mustache, embarrassed at his own floridity. “Mike, you got anything to add?”

Last night, as he lay awake in the hotel room listening to Meat snore—at least they had separate beds this trip—Schwartz had developed a strong premonition that Henry would show up today. It made no sense, there was no way, and yet the premonition had only grown stronger as the day went by, so that now Schwartz was surprised not to see the Skrimmer’s blue eyes as he scanned the huddle. Not that Henry had any business here. His presence, even as a spectator, would have been disruptive. Schwartz looked around the circle, cranked The Stare up to a 7, a 7½. He himself was clean-shaven, his razor burn finally gone, but his teammates had been cultivating playoff beards. Individually the beards ranged from wispy and pathetic to lush and shampooable; taken together they made the Harpooners look like a tough, grizzled group. Yes, Henry had helped them get here, whatever they accomplished they owed in part to him, but to win these last twelve games they’d had to fill the gap left by his absence as quickly as possible, and once you healed the Henry gap you had no place for Henry. Even Owen had a layer of soft grayish fuzz on his face.

While Schwartz lay awake, he tried to concoct a pregame speech that would whip his team into a frenzy. A real fire-and-brimstone number, based on his favorite theme, that ageless angelic theme, of the underdog outlasting the favorite, the oppressed bitch-slapping the oppressor. He was going to start by bringing up the namby-pamby Amherst mascot: Their team was called the Lord Jeffs, after Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the eighteenth-century British general who advocated using smallpox-infected blankets against Native Americans. And—so went the speech—not much had changed in three hundred years. The Amherst players were still Lords, still hip-deep in old-school power and privilege—imagine the practice facilities they had! Imagine the jobs they’d be given when they graduated! By comparison the Harpooners might as well have been sucking on smallpox blankets. They were going to answer to guys like the Amherst guys for the rest of their lives. Their average postgraduation starting salaries were miles apart—Schwartz had looked it up. So were their acceptance rates at places like Harvard and Yale and Stanford Law. Their first, best, and last chance for preemptive revenge was here, now, tonight. Crush the Lords or be forever crushed.

That was the sort of convoluted crap Schwartz kept coming up with, as he stared at the ceiling of the surprisingly cushy Comstock Inn while Arsch sawed logs. But pregame speeches didn’t depend on statistics or cute transitions. There wasn’t another Harpooner who cared about the relative socioeconomic status of Amherst and Westish grads, except maybe Rick, who’d beer-bonged himself out of his Ivy birthright and been banished to Westish. None of Schwartz’s teammates had Schwartzian ambitions. They just wanted to win a baseball game. Which was fine, better than fine, perfect, but it left him without a speech. His nerves were shot. It all came down to this.

He tried to take The Stare to an 8, let it level off when he noticed that the stares coming back at him were like 9, maybe 9½. Plus beards. Starblind was pawing a cleat at the dirt like a coked-up bull. Even Owen’s soft gray eyes above his soft gray fuzz expressed a deathly intensity. Schwartz had talked an awful lot of warrior bullshit in his athletic career, especially at football halftimes, but this was the first time he’d ever felt like one of his teammates—any of his teammates—might haul off and punch him in the throat. The Skrimmer had been their transcendent talent, but now that he was gone the other eighteen Harpooners had found something new inside themselves. A paradox better left unconsidered: they might never have made it here with their best player. Schwartz cast his gaze around the circle one more time. What came back was something beyond confidence, a sense that the game might as well already have happened. He didn’t know if he was ready to play—his mind was everywhere, sleepless and scattered and sentimental—but they sure were. If he was the Ahab of this operation, this tournament the target of his mania, then they were Fedallah’s secret crew.

“You guys,” he said softly, the respect in his voice legit, “are some scary motherfuckers.”

Nobody even smiled at this, much less laughed; they just nodded and took the field.