John Irving: The Fourth Hand

“Wow,” was all Wallingford said under his breath. Although they were early, Lambeau Field was already more than half full.

The stadium is a pure bowl, with no breaks and no upper deck; there is only one deck at Lambeau, and all the outdoor seats are of the bleacher type. The stands were a primordial scene during the pregame warm-ups: the faces painted green and gold, the yellow plastic-foam things that looked like big flexible penises, and the lunatics with huge wedges of cheese for hats—the cheeseheads ! Wallingford knew he was not in New York.

Down the long, steep aisle they went. They had seats at about midstadium level on the forty-yard line; they were still on the press-box side of the field. Patrick followed Doris, past the stout knees turned sideways, to their seats. He grew aware that they were seated among people who knew them—not just Mrs. Clausen, but Wallingford, too. And it wasn’t that they knew him because he was famous, not in Otto’s hat; it was that they were expecting him. Patrick suddenly realized that he’d met more than half of the closest surrounding fans before. They were Clausens!

He recognized their faces from the countless photos tacked to the walls of the main cabin at the cottage on the lake.

The men patted his shoulders; the women touched his arm, the left one. “Hey, how ya doing?” Wallingford recognized the speaker from his crazed look in the photograph that was safety-pinned to the lining of the jewelry box. It was Donny, the eagle-killer; one side of his face was painted the color of corn, the other the toovivid green of an impossible illness.

“I missed seein’ ya on the news tonight,” a friendly woman said. Patrick remembered her from a photograph, too; she’d been one of the new mothers, in a hospital bed with her newborn child.

“I just didn’t want to miss the game,” Wallingford told her. He felt Doris squeeze his hand; until then, he’d not realized she was holding it. In front of all of them! But they knew already—long before Wallingford. She’d already told them. She had accepted him! He tried to look at her, but she’d put up the hood of her parka. It wasn’t that cold; she was just hiding her face from him. He sat down beside Mrs. Clausen, still holding her hand. His handless arm was seized by an older woman on his left. She was another Mrs. Clausen, a much larger Mrs. Clausen—the late Otto’s mother, little Otto’s grandmother, Doris’s former mother-in-law. (Probably one shouldn’t say “former,” Patrick was thinking.) He smiled at the large woman. She was as tall as he was, sitting down, and she pulled him to her by his arm so that she could kiss his cheek.

“All of us are very happy to see you,” she said. “Doris has informed us.” She smiled approvingly.

Doris might have informed me ! Wallingford was thinking, but when he looked at Doris, her face was hidden in the hood. It was only by the ferocity of her grip on his hand that he knew for certain she’d accepted him. To Patrick’s astonishment, they all had.

There was a moment of silence before the game, which Wallingford assumed was for the 217 dead on EgyptAir 990, but he hadn’t been paying attention. The moment of silence was for Walter Payton, who’d died of complications from liver disease at the age of forty-five. Payton had run for the most yards in NFL history. The temperature was forty-five degrees at kickoff. The night sky was clear. The wind was from the west at seventeen miles per hour, with gusts to thirty. Maybe it was the gusts that got to Favre. In the first half, he threw two interceptions; by the end of the game, he’d thrown four. “I told you he’d be trying too hard,” Doris would say four times, all the while hiding under her hood. During the pregame introductions, the crowd at Lambeau had cheered the Packers’

former coach, Mike Holmgren. Favre and Holmgren had embraced on the field. (Even Patrick Wallingford had noticed that Lambeau Field was located at the intersection of Mike Holmgren Way and Vince Lombardi Avenue.) Holmgren had come home prepared. In addition to the interceptions, Favre lost two fumbles. There were even some boos—a rarity at Lambeau.

“Green Bay fans don’t usually boo,” Donny Clausen said, making it clear that he didn’t boo. Donny leaned close to Patrick; his yellow-and-green face added an extra dementia to his already demented reputation as an eagle-killer. “We all want Doris to be happy,” he whispered menacingly in Wallingford’s ear, which was warm under Otto’s old hat.

“So do I,” Patrick told him.

But what if Otto had killed himself because he couldn’t make Mrs. Clausen happy? What if she’d driven him to do it, had even suggested it in some way? Was it just a case of the bridal jitters that gave Wallingford these terrible thoughts? There was no question that Doris Clausen could drive Patrick Wallingford to kill himself if he ever disappointed her.

Patrick wrapped his right arm around Doris’s small shoulders, pulling her closer to him; with his right hand, he eased the hood of her parka slightly away from her face. He meant only to kiss her cheek, but she turned and kissed him on the lips. He could feel the tears on her cold face before she hid herself in the hood again. Favre was pulled from the game, in favor of backup quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, with a little more than six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Mrs. Clausen faced Wallingford and said, “We’re leaving. I’m not staying to watch the rookie.”

Some of the Clausens grumbled at their going, but the grumbles were goodnatured; even Donny’s crazily painted face revealed a smile. Doris led Patrick by his right hand. They climbed back up to the press box again; someone a little overfriendly let them in. He was a young-looking guy with an athletic build—sturdy enough to be one of the players, or a former player. Doris paid no attention to him, other than to point back in the young man’s direction after she and Wallingford had left him standing at the side door to the press box. They were almost at the elevator when Mrs. Clausen asked, “Did you see that guy?”

“Yes,” Patrick said. The young man was still smiling at them in his overfriendly fashion, although Mrs. Clausen had not once turned to look at him herself.

“Well, that’s the guy I shouldn’t have slept with,” Doris told Wallingford. “Now you know everything about me.”

The elevator was packed with sportswriters, mostly guys. The sports hacks always left the game a little early, to assure themselves of prime spots at the postgame press conference. Most of them knew Mrs. Clausen; although she worked principally in sales, Doris was often the one who issued the press passes. The hacks instantly made room for her. She’d pulled the hood back on her parka because it was warm and close in the elevator.

The sportswriters were spouting stats and clichés about the game. “Costly fumbles

…Holmgren has Favre’s number… Dotson getting thrown out didn’t help… only the second Green Bay loss in the last thirty-six games at Lambeau… the fewest points the Packers have scored in a game since that twenty-one-to-six loss in Dallas in ’96…”

“So what did that game matter?” Mrs. Clausen asked. “That was the year we won the Super Bowl!”

“Are you coming to the press conference, Doris?” one of the hacks asked.

“Not tonight,” she said. “I’ve got a date.”

The sportswriters ooohed and aaahed; someone whistled. With his missing hand hidden in the sleeve of his topcoat, and still wearing Otto Clausen’s hat, Patrick Wallingford felt confident that he was unrecognizable. But old Stubby Farrell, the ancient sports hack from the all-news network, recognized him.

“Hey, lion guy!” Stubby said. Wallingford nodded, at last taking off Otto’s hat.