Peter Abrahams - The Fan

“Fine.”

“No pain?”

“No.”

“No discomfort?”

“No.”

“Good. I want you to relax all the muscles around the rib cage, Bobby, releasing tension from all around the area where it used to hurt. Relax, relax, relax. Let go, let go, let go.”

Bobby sighed.

“Now, Bobby, now that you’re so deeply relaxed, do you think you could tell me what it is you’re afraid of?”

Pause.

“Or worried about?”

Pause.

“Or concerned about?”

“Something happening to Sean. I’m afraid of something happening to Sean.”

“Who is Sean?”

“My son.”

“Is he sick?”

“No-”

“Is-”

“-not to my knowledge.”

“Is there anything wrong with him?”

“No.”

“I see.” Long pause. “What I really meant to ask was what are you afraid of in baseball?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you afraid of getting hit with the ball?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid you’re not going to be able to perform as well as you have in the past?” Long pause.

“Are you afraid that you will have difficulty shutting out the distractions of off-field aspects of your life?”

“No.”

“Are you worried, or concerned, that in any way your new contract will make it harder-not hard, simply harder-to achieve what you’ve achieved in past seasons?”

“Yes.”

Pause.

“Bobby?”

“Yes.”

“Are you still looking at the glow of the fire in the window by the crimson-colored shutter of the little farmhouse?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to picture something, Bobby, an object, to see this object so strongly that everything else-the glow of the fire, the crimson shutter-vanishes. Everything else vanishes, Bobby. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now I’m going to tell you what it is I want you to see. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“The object is a baseball, Bobby. A perfect white baseball with perfectly even red-stitched seams. Can you see it, Bobby?”

“Yes.”

“See it and only it?”

“Like a coffee-table book.”

“I’m sorry?”

“As clear as those pictures in a coffee-table book.”

“Very good. What is the ball doing, Bobby?”

“Starting to spin.” Pause. “It’s a slider. Outside corner. Maybe low.” Pause. “Maybe not.”

“Could you hit it?”

“Don’t know.”

“I want you to hit it, Bobby. I want you to see that slider all the way, and do all the things you have to do to hit it. I want you to hit it on the sweet spot of the bat, and then I want you to feel the feeling of doing it.”

Long pause.

“Did you see the ball all the way, Bobby?”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel the feeling of hitting it on the sweet spot of the bat?”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel the feeling in every muscle, in every bone, deep in your brain?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. You will remember that feeling, in every muscle, in every bone, deep in your brain. You will remember that feeling, and you will remember that sharp image of that perfectly white baseball with its perfectly even red-stitched seams. Let us just be here in silence, building those memories.”

Silence.

“Bobby, I want you to get up now, to sit in the chair. Good. I’m going to count backward from five, and when I reach zero our session will be over. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Five, four, three, two, one, zero.”

“Philip has a vision,” Val said. They were at Fellini’s, one of those restaurants making a statement that Bobby didn’t understand. “Tell him about it, Philip.”

Philip leaned over the table. “It’s really a shared vision,” he began. “Mine and Valerie’s. Your wife has a good eye, Mr. Rayburn.”

“She does?”

“Certainly. When it comes to design.”

Food came, strange-tasting and not enough. Philip described his vision, a large vision that lasted through dessert. Bobby had stopped paying attention long before that. He didn’t want to hear about sculptured spaces and recessed cans. He wanted to hurry through the rest of the off-day, get to tomorrow, get to the ballpark, get to the plate, hit. He was going to hit: his hands, his wrists, his whole body had the feeling it always had when he was on a roll.

The bill arrived. Philip, drawing on his napkin, made no move to pick it up, so Bobby did. Under the table, Val’s foot pressed against his. “Well, Bobby,” she said, “what do you think?”

“Talk to Wald,” Bobby said, rising.

“Wait,” said Val. “We haven’t even discussed the pool enclosure.”

“Got to go,” said Bobby.

He went home, leaving Val and Philip with their coffee. Val’s mother was reclining in front of the forty-five-inch screen, her fingers in a bowl of popcorn.

“Where’s Sean?”

“Gone to bed, dear,” she said, her eyes on the young Marlon Brando.

Bobby went into Sean’s room. It was dark, except the space-station control panel, glowing in the corner. Bobby went to the bed, gazed down.

Sean was fast asleep. In the light from the space station, Bobby could see that he didn’t look at all like the other Sean, the bald, hollow-faced chemo kid from the hospital. His Sean was almost as big, but he was not yet six, and the other Sean had probably been at least ten. His Sean had thick blond hair, a broad face, broad forehead, well-knit frame. His Sean wasn’t dying. He was sleeping peacefully, recharging the batteries, his hands lying relaxed on the covers. His Sean had nothing in common with the other Sean. The other Sean wasn’t even around anymore, for Christ’s sake. Still, it was bad luck, two Seans, and no amount of rationalizing could change that.

Bobby went over to the space station. Did Sean like it? Bobby didn’t know: he’d been on a road trip almost the whole time since they’d moved in. He sat at the console. There was a message on the screen: “Captain Sean: Invasion of the Arcturian Web requires heroic action. Awaiting instructions.”

Bobby pressed a button. A menu appeared on the screen. “Choices. 1. Abandon planet. 2. Activate Weapon X. 3. Send negotiator bearing intergalactic white flag of peace.”

Bobby rubbed his rib cage. No pain at all, and he felt loose, as loose as he’d felt on the first day of spring training. Point one four seven. Just a stupid joke. In a month, two weeks even, no one would remember. No heroic action required: he just had to get up there and do what he did.

But a hero is what he had been to the other Sean. Hit a home run for me, and you’re my hero, and all that shit. Was hitting home runs on request heroic? It was luck, pure, blind, and simple. And what was luck? The residue of something-preparation? — according to some old baseball saying he’d heard from some coach along the way. Still, he could have handled the other Sean situation, the chemo Sean situation, differently, could have said that the grand slam in the opener had been for a little boy he’d met on a hospital visit in spring training. Or, better, let the facts slip out through that DCR guy, whatever his name was. Or Wald-Wald would have known the best way. A good idea-he was still learning to play the game-but too late.

Bobby selected 3. “Send negotiator bearing intergalactic white flag of peace.”

The screen went blank. A new message popped up. “Alien invasion successful. You are now a prisoner of the Arcturian Web. Awaiting instructions.”

The next day-the first hot day of the year, with the sun shining and the breeze blowing out-Bobby was on the field before anyone else. He ran for a while, feeling loose and strong, stretched, ran some more, broke a sweat. In BP the ball was a perfect white sphere with perfectly even red-stitched seams, and he punished it, sending six drives in a row over the wall in left, the last two over the lights as well. Punished it and felt good.