Peter Abrahams - The Fan

“ Who’s next? Gil on the car phone? What’s shakin’, Gil?”

Dead air.

“Speak, Gil.”

“Is this…”

“Go on.”

“Hello?”

“You’re on the JOC.”

“Am I on?”

“Not for long, Gil, the way we’re going. This is supposed to be entertainment.”

Dead air.

“Got a question or a comment for us, Gil?”

“First-time caller.”

“Fantabulous. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m a little nervous.”

“What’s to be nervous? Just three million pairs of ears out there, hanging on your every word. What’s the topic?”

“The Sox.”

“I like the way you say that.”

“How do I say it?”

“Like-what else could it be?”

Dead air.

“What about the Sox, Gil?”

“Just that I’m psyched, Bernie.”

“Bernie’s off today. This is Norm. Everybody gets psyched in the spring. That’s a given in this game. Like ballpark mustard.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

Dead air.

“Gil?”

“I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“For what?”

“This year.”

“What’s special about it?”

“It’s their year.”

“Why so tentative?”

“Tentative?”

“Just pulling your leg. The way you sound so sure. Like it’s a lead-pipe cinch. The mark of the true-blue fan.”

Dead air.

“Gil?”

“Yeah?”

“The Vegas odds are-what are they, Fred? Fred in the control room there, doing something repulsive with a pastrami on rye-ten to one on the Sox for the pennant, twenty, what is it, twenty-five to one on the whole shebang. Just to give us some perspective on this, Gil, what would you wager at those odds, if you were a wagering man?”

“Everything I owe.”

“Owe? Hey. I like this guy. He’s got a sense of humor after all. But, Gil-you’re setting yourself up for a season of disillusion, my friend.”

“Disillusion?”

“Yeah, like-”

“I know what disillusion means.”

“Do you? Then you must-”

“They went down to the wire last year, didn’t they?”

“Ancient history, Gil.”

“And now they’ve got Rayburn on top of it.”

“Rayburn, Rayburn. Sheesh. Everybody wants to talk about the Rayburn signing. He’s not the Messiah, good people. He’s not coming down from heaven with a Louisville Slugger raised on high. On Opening Day, he’s flying in on the team charter from Orlando, plugged into his Walkman. Puts on his pants one leg at a time, just like you and-”

“For Christ’s sake, he-”

“Can’t say that on the air, Gil. And I can cut you off by pressing this little button right here.”

“Don’t. The kid’s-”

“What kid? He turns thirty-two in July. That’s middle-aged in this-”

“-averaging a hundred and twenty-three RBIs for the past three years playing on that piece of-”

“Watch it-”

“-dung outfit-can I say dung? ”

“Dung’s okay.”

“-they’ve got out there. What kind of numbers is he going to put up in the bandbox, and with that sweet swing of his?”

“Who knows? Check out the record on free agents, my friend, especially the happy-go-lucky ones taking home the cabbage he signed for. Not so sweet, honeylike swing or not.”

“Why are you so g-”

“Don’t get ugly, Gil. Come on now. ’Fess up. You honestly in the bottom of your heart believe he’s worth what they shelled out? Answer me that.”

Dead air.

“Hello? Hello? Lost Gil. Let’s go to Donnie, downtown. You’re on JOC-Radio, Donnie, WJOC, fifty thousand nonstop watts of clear-channel sports talk, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. What’s shakin’?”

Gil parked his 325i a block from the office, thinking too late of things he could have said to Bernie, or Norm, or whoever the hell it was. Order book and sample case in hand, he stepped out onto the icy sidewalk as the first snowflakes drifted down around him, hardly bigger than dust motes. It didn’t look like the start of a major storm, didn’t feel like the beginning of a bad day. Two teenaged boys slouched by, caps pulled low over their eyes. They noticed his license plate-WNSOX-and he heard one say, “Yeah, right.”

Gil bought a Lottabucks Kwikpik and the Sporting News at the ground-floor newsstand and skimmed the training-camp reports on the elevator. There was a photograph of Rayburn smiling beside the batting cage. The caption read, “Banking all those RBI’$.” Gil folded the paper and slid it into his coat pocket.

Ding. Five. Gil walked down the hall, the floor sticky under his feet. The company’s office was next to Prime National Mortage, which had been vacant all winter, and another suite, without lettering on the door, tenantless much longer. He went in. Bridgid was at her desk, unwrapping a bouquet of roses. She pricked her finger, said, “Ow,” and sucked on it.

“Hi,” Gil said. “Tickets in yet?”

The company had season tickets, two box seats halfway down the first baseline, eighteen rows back. The reps divided them according to a complicated formula that was revised every season and this year had alloted Opening Day to Gil.

“Have to ask Garrity,” said Bridgid. Was there something funny about the way she said it? Funny enough, anyway, to register with Gil in passing.

Gil entered the conference room. Sales meetings began at eight sharp, second Wednesday of the month. They were all sitting around the table-the eleven other Northeast reps, and Garrity, regional sales manager. The room smelled of aftershave. Garrity’s eyes went from Gil to the wall clock, as though he were willing him to look at it too. Gil looked. 8:04.

He sat down. Figuerido, area six, just west of his, rolled a tube of Lifesavers across the table; the kind with all the flavors. Gil took one-cherry-and rolled them back to Figgy. Breakfast.

“How’s the Beamer?” Figgy asked in a loud whisper; Figgy was stoked on Gil’s wheels.

Gil made a hand movement like a car speeding down a winding road and sucked on the Lifesaver, waiting for Garrity to get on with it. Garrity always began with a gloomy summation of how they were doing, followed by an uplifting anecdote from his past about how he’d come up off the canvas when all hope was gone and fought his way to victory, hawking vacuum cleaners in Southie or some shit. That was to inspire them before he handed out the new quotas. But Garrity wasn’t on commission now, he was management, and management had no idea what it was like out there. That was fact one.

Garrity’s phone buzzed. He picked it up, listened, said “Yup.” He turned to the door. O’Meara walked in. O’Meara was the national sales manager. He flew in from Cincinnati once a year, took them all to dinner. But a year wasn’t up since his last visit; and it wasn’t dinnertime.

“Welcome, Keith,” Garrity said, rising.

O’Meara ignored him. He made a little beckoning motion with his finger-at Waxman, at Larsen, at Figuerido. They followed him from the room. Figgy forgot his Lifesavers on the table.

“Bonus time already?” someone said. No one laughed. December was bonus time; besides, you had to make quota first, and who was doing that?

Silence until O’Meara returned, followed by three people-white males, like Waxman, Larsen, and Figuerido, dressed in $150 suits like Waxman, Larsen, and Figuerido, but not Waxman, Larsen, and Figuerido. O’Meara introduced them. They took their places in the empty chairs. The one who sat in Figgy’s glanced at the Lifesavers but didn’t touch them.

O’Meara moved to the head of the table. Garrity slid out of his seat. O’Meara could have been Garrity’s upwardly mobile son, better fed and better educated. He put his foot on Garrity’s chair and leaned over the table. “Guys,” he said. “I’ve seen the figures.” He paused. Gil smelled someone’s sweat. Not his: he was cool and dry, not sweating at all. In fact, Gil’s mind wasn’t even on whatever was about to go down. He was remembering an at bat he’d had against the Yankees, one he hadn’t thought of in years. Man on second-must have been Claymore, Gil could still see him, red hair, freckles-last ups, two strikes, two out, one run down, pitch on the way. He almost felt the sunshine.