Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City

“Hey Martin!”

It was Norm Hoelzer, sitting in the second row. Hoelzer was a local small-timer. Kitchens and bathrooms. “Well hi,” Probst said.

“Some game, isn’t it?”

“Oh. It’s …” He didn’t know what it was.

“You here with Barbara?”

How dare Hoelzer know his wife’s first name?

He shook his head: no, he wasn’t here with Barbara. Hoelzer’s wife’s name was Bonnie. Grew roses. Probst forced his way through a group of boys in letter jackets.

“Hey Martin!” A hand waved from deep in the stands. Joe Farrell. Here with what looked to be his daughter and son-in-law. “Well hi,” Probst said. (At this distance Farrell of course couldn’t hear him.) He kept walking. It was a tight squeeze, with the cheerleaders taking up half the track, and fans, mostly kids, lining the cable between the cheerleaders and the Statesman benches. “Hey Martin!” another voice called from the stands. Probst—well hi! – ignored it. “Martin!” The noise, after all, was terrific. Cheers came in sheets, like the avalanching calls of katydids. Most of the cheerleaders were idle at the moment, but a few of them did flying dutchmen out of sheer high spirits. How splendidly these girls were built. Probst followed a man in a wool coat slowly, content for once to proceed at the going speed.

“Martin!” A large hand gripped his arm. The man in the wool coat had turned around, and when Probst saw his face his heart sank. It was Jack DuChamp, his old friend from high school. Probst hadn’t seen him in a good ten years.

“I wondered who was stepping on my heels!” Jack grabbed Probst’s other arm and beamed at him.

“Well!” Probst said. He didn’t know what else to say.

“I should have guessed you wouldn’t miss this game,” Jack said.

“I’d missed it for a couple of years in a row, actually.”

Jack nodded, not hearing him. “I was going to get a Coke, but the lines were too long. Do you want to come sit with me?”

The invitation closed on Probst like a bear trap on his leg. Sitting in the stands with Jack DuChamp—reminiscing about their South Side youth, comparing their utterly divergent careers—was the last thing in the world he felt like doing.

“Well!” he said again.

“Or are you here with people?”

“No, yes, I—” The look of entreaty on Jack’s face was more than Probst could stand. He’d spent too large a part of his life with Jack to be able to lie easily. “No,” he said, “I came alone. Where are you sitting?”

Jack pointed towards the north end of the field and laughed. “In the three-dollar seats!”

Probst heard himself chuckle.

“Jesus, Martin, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Jack held his arm. They were climbing into the stands.

“It must be ten years.” Instantly Probst regretted having named the actual figure.

“We keep seeing your name in the paper, though …”

From the field Probst heard the wordless exertions of another play, the accidental grunts, rising cheers and tearing fabric. Jack DuChamp had moved his family to Webster Groves about the same time Probst and Barbara had moved there. Unfortunately, the house Jack bought was soon condemned to make room for Interstate 44, and the only houses for sale in Webster at the time were well beyond his price range. So he moved his family to Crestwood, a new town, a new school district, and Probst, whose company held the I-44 demolition contracts and did the actual razing of the houses, felt responsible. As a matter of fact, he felt guilty.

“Aren’tcha?” Jack had stopped halfway up the long stairs and was surveying the crowd to their right.

“Beg pardon?” Probst said.

“I said you’re just the same.”

“No.”

“You always did have your head in the clouds.”

“What?”

“Excuse us,” Jack said. A young family in tartan stood up to let them by. Probst tried to keep his eyes on his feet, but the dark space beneath the bench reminded him uncomfortably of the heavy cream. He wondered how few minutes he could get away with staying before he left again. Would five suffice? Five minutes to atone for a decade of silence?

Jack stopped. “Martin, this is Billy Wonder, friend of mine. Bill-y, this is Martin Probst, a very old friend of mine. He, uh—”

“Sure!” A large-boned man with buck teeth sprang to his feet. “Sure. Sure! This is quite an honor!” He took Probst’s hand and shook it vigorously.

“Didn’t catch your name,” Probst said.

“Sure! Windell, Bill Windell. Glad to know you.”

Probst stared at the buck teeth.

“Can we make some room here?” Jack said. Windell pulled Probst into a narrow space on the bench. Jack sat down fussily on his right with an air of mission accomplished. Windell slapped a pocket flask in a leather case against Probst’s chest. “Never touch the stuff! A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” He drove his elbow into Probst’s left biceps.

“Bill’s my boss,” Jack explained.

“You’d never guess it to see us at work,” Windell said.

“Don’t you believe it.” Jack reached across Probst’s lap and unscrewed the cap of the pocket flask. “He’s done one-forty all by himself.”

“Hundred thirty maybe.” Windell gave Probst a big, practiced wink, and Probst, not bothering to wonder what in hell the two of them were talking about, was filled with the certainty that Windell was a scoutmaster. His eyes, which were blue, had a milkiness that often showed up in men charged with instilling moral values. Furthermore, he had a crewcut. “So: Martin Probst.” Windell sucked his teeth and nodded philosophically.

Probst had no place to put his elbows. He tilted the flask to his lips, intending to take a polite sip. He gagged. It was apricot brandy. Elbows almost knocking on his lap, he passed the flask to Jack, who shook his head. “Thanks. Too early in the day for me.”

He tried to return it to Windell, but Windell said, “No, be my guest.”

Probst took a long swig, wiped his mouth, and looked at Jack for the cap to the flask. Jack didn’t seem to have it. Probst noticed it below him at his feet and reached down, but his legs straightened as he bent, pushing it over the edge of their tier and underneath the bleacher in front of them. He dropped into a squat, groping down.

“Don’t. Here—no,” Jack said. “I’ll get it.”

“No, no. Here.” Probst stretched until his fingers reached the ground, then unexpectedly he tipped backwards, landing on his butt in the shade of the fans, who were leaping to their feet in response to something on the field. The cold penetrated his pants, but he was more comfortable down here. His hand traveled far, searching for the cap. It came upon a sneaker and backed away over the coarse, damp concrete, and then ran into something soft – an apple core. Screams rode the chafed air. The space was too narrow for him to see what he was doing. He groped further, sensing Windell’s scoutmasterly gaze. Probst and Jack had been Scouts together, often tentmates, all the way up through Eagledom.

Well hi! The cap. He’d found the cap. His hand closed around it. He struggled up. “I think I’d better be going,” he said.

A forlorn sound creaked out of Jack. “Nih.”

“At least stay for the half,” Windell said.

Probst remembered the peculiar power Jack could wield, the whirlpool of guilt into which he could drag his more successful friend. “How much time is left?” he asked.

“Four minutes,” Jack said reproachfully.

A messy running play expired in front of them. The score was still 13–0. Probst turned to Windell. “So, uh, where do you live, Bill?” He already knew roughly what Windell did, he being Jack’s boss and Jack being in middle management at Sears.