Peter Abrahams - The Fan

Gil braked, switched off the lights.

“Did I say stop?” Boucicaut said.

“You want me to drive with no lights?”

“Why not?”

“I can’t see a thing.”

“You have turned into a city boy, old buddy.”

Gil drove, very slow. He saw nothing but black snowflakes striking the windshield, their edges green from the instrument lights. But Boucicaut, silently, with little movements of his hand, showed him the way. Gil hunched over the wheel, peering into the darkness. Boucicaut sat back, tipping the bottle up to his mouth once or twice. The chains crunched unhurriedly through the snow.

A yellow light glimmered in the distance. Boucicaut put the bottle down. The light grew bigger and brighter: a lantern light, mounted on a post. “Close enough,” said Boucicaut.

Gil stopped in the middle of the road. From his pocket, Boucicaut fished out a key ring loaded with twenty or thirty keys. Flipping through them, he felt Gil’s gaze. “Screwed every maid in the valley,” he said. “For fun and profit.” He selected a key and slid it off the ring. “Just pop the trunk again and sit tight.” Boucicaut got out, walked toward the light. For a minute or two his silhouette moved behind a curtain of black snowflakes. Then the light went out, and he was gone.

The wind rose, made aggressive noises in the trees and around the car. Gil ran the motor to keep warm. After a while, he switched on the radio, pressed AM, hit SEEK. He caught a few bars of different songs he didn’t know, rap, lite, country, rock. Then, faint, crackling, distorted: “… two on, two out, top of the sixth, with the score…”

Gil set the station, jacked up the volume. The game faded away, like windblown voices. Another station ballooned across the frequency, playing some stupid oldie. Gil slapped the dashboard, hard enough to make his palm tingle. That felt good, so he did it again, a little harder. The game returned for an instant, almost lost in I’m-gonna-love-you-all-night-long bullshit: “… and he rings him up-Rayburn didn’t like that call one bit. He’s…” And it was gone again. Gil’s hand was raised to strike the dash once more, when a bear-sized shadow loomed in front of the car.

Not a bear, although there were probably bear still in these woods, but Boucicaut, carrying a big box, or a stack of smaller boxes. Gil slid down the window. “You have to play it so fuckin’ loud?” said Boucicaut. “I could hear you all the way up to the house.”

Gil shut off the radio. Boucicaut moved around to the trunk. The rear end sagged for a moment. Then he was at the window again. “Don’t go away,” he said.

“Where would I go?” said Gil. “I’m lost.”

Boucicaut laughed. Gil started laughing too, a laugh that gathered momentum and took on a life of its own. He clamped it off.

“Got that bottle?” said Boucicaut.

Gil found it on the floor. Boucicaut took a hit, then Gil, then Boucicaut again. “Save me some, old buddy,” said Boucicaut, walking off in the darkness.

Gil switched on the radio, pressed SEEK. SEEK couldn’t find the ball game. He swallowed some more Canadian, then punched in the FANLINE on his autodialer. The number rang and rang.

“Fucking answer,” he shouted down the line.

But there was no answer. He counted fifty rings and hung up.

Boucicaut came back, made the rear end sag again, snapped the trunk shut, got in the car. “Vamoose,” he said.

“Where?”

Boucicaut had the bottle in his hand. “Back down, for Christ’s sake.”

“The joke’s over?”

“What joke?”

“The practical joke.”

Boucicaut smiled, his remaining teeth green in the panel light. “Yeah, it’s over.”

Gil drove down the mountain, back into the rain, lights out most of the way. Boucicaut emptied the bottle, chucked it out the window. “Bang and Olufsen any good?” he said, as they came to the stop sign at the access road.

“Top of the line.”

“Hey,” said Boucicaut, “we make a good team.” He got out and took off the chains.

Gil thought: Yes. I know that. He ran his tongue along the edge of his chipped tooth.

At the bottom of the mountain, Boucicaut pointed west, away from town. Gil followed almost-forgotten back roads for ten or fifteen minutes, turned down a long, unpaved lane, parked in front of an old farmhouse. Boucicaut went in without knocking. He came back with a man even fatter than he was, shirtless despite the cold. They emptied the trunk, carrying everything inside.

Boucicaut came back alone. “Nice work,” he said, shoving something into Gil’s shirt pocket.

“What’s this?”

“Your share,” said Boucicaut. “Not too rich to turn down a hundred bucks, are you?”

Gil wasn’t.

“And something else,” said Boucicaut when they were back on the road. “I thought of you as soon as I saw it, old buddy.” He reached into his jacket, flicked on the interior light, held something up for Gil to see: a baseball, in a clear crystal box. A yellowed, autographed baseball, but Gil couldn’t take his eyes off the road long enough to read the name.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“The Babe,” said Boucicaut. “Who else?”

“That must be worth a lot of money.”

“It’s yours.”

Gil wanted to say something like, “I couldn’t do that,” but he was too choked up. Boucicaut set the ball down on the edge of Gil’s seat. It rolled against his thigh and rested there.

Miles went by, with rain pelting down, Boucicaut leaning back, eyes closed, Gil feeling the ball against his leg, thinking, we’re a team. They were almost in town when Boucicaut opened his eyes and said: “Ever see American Blade magazine?”

“Sure.”

“Came across a copy today. Some of your dad’s knives were listed in the back.”

“I know.”

“Guy was asking four grand for one of them.”

“They’re collector’s items.”

“That’s where they all went-to collectors?”

“Most of them.”

“How many’ve you got?”

“You’ve seen it.”

“Just the one? How did that happen?”

“It happened.”

Gil drove back through town, into the woods, up the lane that led to Boucicaut’s trailer. The wind died down; all at once the windshield wipers were squeaking on dry glass.

They parked, got out of the car, Gil taking the ball. “Wait a sec,” Boucicaut said. He went into the trailer alone. The outside lights flashed on, illuminating the yard. When Boucicaut came back he had the baseball gloves in his hand. “Feelin’ loose?” he said.

For a moment, Gil couldn’t speak. A thrill went through him, shooting down his spine, along his arms and legs, up the back of his neck, into his face.

“Thought we’d play a little catch,” said Boucicaut. “How’s the old arm?”

“Best it’s ever been.”

Boucicaut laughed, donned the mitt, motioned for the ball.

“We’re going to use this?”

“What it’s for, ain’t it?” replied Boucicaut. Gil handed him the ball. Boucicaut put it in the fielder’s glove and handed it back. Then he walked to the edge of the yard, turned, got down in his crouch. His legs must have been very strong, Gil thought, because he did it quite easily, despite all that weight.

“Let’s see what you got,” Boucicaut said, pounding his mitt.

The thrill washed through Gil again. He rubbed the ball in his hands, felt the softness of the old, oiled cowhide, saw the signature in the yellow glow of the outside light: Babe Ruth. He slid his left hand into the glove, gripped the ball across the seams with his right.

“Give me a sign,” he said.

Boucicaut smiled a thin smile and held his index finger along the inside of his thigh. Gil toed an imaginary rubber, went into his windup. It all came back, the slow and easy pivot, left leg coming up, arm sweeping back, nice and loose. He even remembered to point the ball for an instant straight at center field; it felt tiny, his hand huge. He himself felt huge, light, full of possibility. And then he was bringing it all up and forward, bending his back, bearing down, closing his shoulder, snapping his wrist like a whip: perfection. He let go and followed through, left leg whipping around, knuckles almost in the mud. The ball flew in high and blazing.