The Bat Boy Christopher Hood

THEBAT BOY

CHRISTOPHER HOOD

I am on a barstool watching Ralph Cantellanotto’s miniature self perform the ballgame’s highlights on a fat screen when the life-sized version of Ralph Cantellanotto walks in. My mouth goes dry and I’m instantly aware of his body and mine, occupying nearly the same space. Seeing a big leaguer outside the confnes of the ballpark is like seeing your math teacher buying breakfast cereal, like the diference between driving to the zoo and waking to fnd a panther on your porch. Te bourbon in my right hand shakes. (My lef hand, steady as a rock, continues to guard the bowl of bar mix that is my dinner. Are you allowed to say “dinner” when it’s your only meal of the day? It is my meal.). Ralph Cantellanotto walks up to the bar to my lef, leans against it, gestures to the bartender and sits. He is a mere couple of bar stools away. Te only other time I saw a baseball player this close, I was eight years old, and he appeared to be a legitimate giant. I am no longer eight, but Ralph Cantellanotto still appears to be just larger than life-sized. He reaches for the bar mix, looks at me and I yield my meal willingly to him.

“Tanks,” he says.

I never knew how much money my own father made and yet I know the exact fgure for the man sitting to my lef: 15 million dollars a year. Given an average of 550 at-bats per season, that means every single time he swings a bat in the on-deck circle, knocks the doughnuts of, steps into the batter’s box and faces a pitcher, he earns roughly 27 grand. Te exact numbers don’t matter; no matter what, I am worth less than a single Ralph Cantellanotto strikeout, and yet, here we are. It is Sunday night, leaning perilously close to Monday morning, and for the moment we are both just

guys from Boston in enemy territory, drinking in a Manhattan bar and singing a lonely tune, although Ralph Cantellanotto does not look lonely. He is sufcient unto himself. His beer arrives, tall in a glass already glistening with perspiration. He takes a long drink.

“Mother’s milk,” he says. Te bartender nods and retreats an appropriate distance. Ralph Cantellanotto takes a handful of bar mix. A pale scar worms its way across his hand. I recall that he had hamate surgery early in his career. I’m not sure what the hamate bone is—a vestigial chip of calcium, I suppose, that existed only to interfere with Ralph Cantellanotto’s ability to put good wood on a 91 mile-per-hour slider—but the hand excavating cashews from the bar mix no longer contains that bone.

“Nasty scar,” I say out loud. He looks surprised that I’ve spoken, although I can guarantee no more surprised than I am myself. He looks at his hand, fexes it. Te scar fushes beet red, fades to pale white.

“I don’t even notice it anymore. Funny how you get used to things.”

“Tat’s so true,” I say, laughing with inappropriate vigor. How smart Ralph Cantellanotto is. And what a jackass I am. Tis seems like a theme that will carry through the evening until he leaves and takes his aura with him. It must change the way you view the world, when everyone around you is transformed by your very presence into blithering idiocy. Does this lead to the assumption that you are not only good at baseball, but smarter than everyone else as well?

He drains the last of his beer, raises the glass to the bartender, who hustles to pour another. It strikes me that he didn’t even have to say what he wanted when he ordered his frst. It just appeared.

“And another,” Ralph Cantellanotto gestures toward my glass, “for…” He looks at me quizzically and extends a hand.

“Joe,” I say, and I shake his hand with my damp one. His grip is all I’d imagine it would be, frm, his long fngers, wide palm and bulging knuckles making it feel as though I’m shaking the composite parts that make up a hand, not a hand itself.

Te bartender waits for my attention.

“What’ll it be, sir?”

“Te same,” I say.

“And that was?” I can’t blame him for not remembering the name of the shot of bourbon I was nursing while Ralph Cantellanotto was felding ground balls, his lef hand sweating in the glove’s leather, nursing while he laced an eighth inning single between frst and second, nursing while he talked to reporters, nursing while he showered, dressed and caught a cab to

arrive next to me at the bar.

“Old Granddad,” I say. “Rocks.”

“No,” Ralph Cantellanotto says, “gimme a break, two real bourbons chico, straight up.”

No ice. Without ice it’s impossible to watch something melt as you contemplate the fact that you are drinking the gas money you need to get home. Wait long enough, and the cubes dissolve into vaguely bone-like shapes—femurs, scapulas, a skull drifing in watery amber before it is gone.

“You ever had Booker’s?” he asks.

“Can’t say that I have.”

“You’ve got a treat in store.” He slides onto the barstool next to me. I feel a bit lightheaded. “It’s like drinking a glass of honey that’s been lit on fre.”

“Sounds delicious,” I say.

“It is.” We sit in silence while highlights from the game fash once again on the television above the bar. Travis Jones, with whom my bar mate has just taken a shower, is plunked in the ribs by a fastball. I wince audibly. Ralph does not blink an eye. I continue to watch him watch the television as his televised-self laces a single into right. I am narrowly holding back from sharing with him the fascinating bit of information that is occupying much of my brainspace: the fact that he is Ralph Cantellanotto. He has probably heard this before, must know it already. Te television cuts to a commercial and he turns on his barstool, scans the bar behind us with an appraising eye.

“Not much poontang in here tonight,” he ofers in a conversational tone.

“Not really,” I say, as though he’d just echoed what I was thinking. He has a blonde wife named Kirsten and three blonde children whose names all begin with the letter K. Sometimes, during his at-bats, the NESN cameras seek them out in the stands, rooting for daddy.

“What are you going to do,” he says, turning back around on his barstool.

“Yeah,” I say, “I guess it’s not that kind of bar.”

He looks at me. “You’d be surprised,” he says.

I look around. Hanging lights subdivide the space into nooks and corners. At café tables and in booths, men in suits with loosened ties drink and confer in hushed tones. Teir shoes gleam with polish.

“Looks like a bunch of guys to me,” I say. “A bunch of guys with money.”

“Right,” he says, his tone weary. “Why do you think the girls come in?

Moths to the fame.”

“Sure. Tat makes sense,” I say. Why don’t I understand the world? I have the moral sensibility of a small child. Men pursue advantage, compete ruthlessly against one another as natural selection intended for them to do, and I stay in the sandbox because someone once told me it was wrong to leave. And as a result I live, for the time being, in my ’83 Honda Accord and they live in four star hotel bars, waiting for poontang that comes to them.

“Some guys like L.A., but for my money, if you’re going to be on the road,” Ralph says, “you can’t do much better than New York.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I say, but he isn’t listening. An ad for a sitcom is playing in which the

“Oh man,” he says. “Tat guy took it right in the nuts.”

“Yeah he did.” Any silence we settle into for more than a moment seems to portend the conversation’s end. Te bourbon arrives in heavy cut tumblers. A fresh bowl of bar mix accompanies the drinks. He swirls and snifs his bourbon, takes a swallow. I follow his lead.

“What do you think?”

“Fire,” I cough. “Not getting the honey yet.”

“Give it time,” he laughs. Quiet descends upon us again. I distract myself with bar mix, trying to disguise my excitement that it has been reflled.

“Speaking of honey,” he says. He nudges me on the shoulder, gestures with his chin. “See that woman?” he whispers. I start to turn around. “Don’t look.”

“What woman?” I say.

“She just came in. Red dress,” he says. “Five o’clock.”

I stretch casually, shrugging my shoulders and turning my head as though to work out a kink. A woman is walking through the bar with purpose. Above her heels her red dress doesn’t hang, it clings to her hips, her petite waist, the gravity-defying underside of her cleavage. Although I’ve never been explicitly aware of doing so, I’ve always maintained a distinction between photographs of women and women themselves; models and actresses and porn stars might as well have descended from another planet, might as well exist only in the media of print and video. Nope. Here she is.

“I see her,” I say.

“What do you think?”

What do I think? I think that I am ffeen years old looking at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I think that this woman seems as distant

and perfect and unattainable as a model wearing a fshnet bikini bottom and no top on a beach in Tailand. I think that talking to Ralph Cantellanotto about Red Dress as though she were real makes me feel like anything is possible. Perhaps she will strip on the bar for the two of us. Perhaps monkeys will burst shrieking from the walls. Perhaps the clocks will start to melt.

“She’s not bad,” I say.

“You know what she is? She’s nasty.” He breathes the word, relishes it on his tongue.

“Right,” I say. I’m not sure what I’m agreeing with. “Man, look at me, I’m serious. She’s nasty.” It sounds like he’s describing a wicked split-fngered fastball, a hammer curve.

“So you know her,” I say.

“Yeah,” he smirks. “I know her.”

“You’re a lucky guy.”

He looks at me, surprised.

“I guess,” he says. “But it’s not luck.”

“No?”

“It’s confdence,” he says. “Tat’s all you need.”

Confdence. Okay, I will be confdent, starting now. I turn on my barstool to scan the bar. I look around the barroom at the tables of men, at the plants in their grand pots, at the oak walls. My eyes lock with Red Dress’s. She’s looking at me; she’s walking toward me. Except of course she isn’t doing either. She arrives at the bar, leans to murmur into Ralph Cantellanotto’s ear, gifing me with a view down the top of her dress. I swallow. Ralph Cantellanotto laughs, whispers something back to her, his hand presses against the small of her back. When she straightens up and strides out of the bar, there’s a room keycard sitting on the bar in front of him. A world I’d known existed but never before seen is revealing itself to me. He pockets the key, turns back to me.

“Confdence,” he says. He winks, sips his bourbon.

“Was that her room key?” I ask. Why am I asking this? At least he doesn’t seem to think I am as big an idiot as I do.

“You got it,” he says.

“Are you going to go up there?”

“We’ll see how the evening plays out.” If that woman were to slip her room key to me, I certainly wouldn’t be able to turn my attention to the pleasure of bourbon and a chat with some guy I’d never met. Tis feels like the fnal piece of evidence in the case that Ralph Cantellanotto’s life is fundamentally and irrevocably diferent from my own.

“Don’t let me keep you,” I say.

“Nah,” he says. “You got to make them wait. She’s not going anywhere.”

“I guess not.” We sit quietly for a little while, the murmur of voices behind us providing the soundtrack for the silenced televisions. My brain, as usual, seizes the opportunity to beat me up a little. I have to get out of this bar before it becomes painfully obvious that my wallet cannot fulfll the basic social obligation of buying the next round of drinks. Instead, I will fnd my way back to my high school friend’s apartment in Brooklyn, and in the morning I will ask him for gas money back to Boston. He will give me a look, give me the money, and subsequently, my embarrassment will prevent me from contacting him ever again. However, I will get to Home Depot in time for my shif, which reminds me that before I ask my friend for money, I must use his shower. I can use the showers at the YMCA on Wednesdays, but Wednesday is a long ripe way away. In the mirror behind the bottles of booze, I look like a trespasser, someone who will, soon, be politely and frmly asked to leave the premises. Is it possible that being aware of hitting bottom means I’m not actually hitting bottom?

“Do you own me?” Ralph asks. He swirls the bourbon in his glass, takes a swallow.

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you own me?”

Is this an odd sociological reference? Is he referring to himself as a public good, a commodity? Or is this a strange form of celebrity theory, the appropriation of the object viewed by the viewer? Tis is the thinking I learned in college.

“In fantasy,” he says. “Am I on your team?”

“Oh!” I say, my voice alive with excitement at coming to understanding. Back on solid ground! “No, I don’t have internet.”

“How can you not have internet?” he says. He doesn’t seem to share my excitement that we’ve resolved our communication issues.

“It’s a longish story,” I say. He’s probably thinking about Red Dress, regretting his choice to stay here at the bar with me. But if my relationship with Ralph Cantellanotto is going to go anywhere, if we are going to become friends and do things friends do like exchange cell phone numbers and acknowledge that I exist, then he’s going to have to know who I am. Confdence. I dive in.

“So I was dating this girl who was maybe out of my league. It was right afer college and I didn’t have anything on the horizon. She had this

great internship at a law frm in Lenox. I got us a little apartment that we couldn’t aford but she liked. I got a job at a hardware store, she had some family money, and we made it work. I don’t know, it was like we were playing house, you know?” I pause long enough to let Ralph interrupt if he’s of a mind to, but he appears to be watching the television. Perhaps I’m just telling the story to myself, something I do ofen anyway.

“I came home early one day. I tossed my keys on the countertop. Tey landed in this patch of sunlight streaming through the window, I don’t know why I still remember that part, but I do. Anyway, I decided to go for a run. When I opened the bedroom door, I had my shirt halfway over my head, and I heard something, and I froze. I pulled the shirt away from my face, and she was on the bed, you know, interning with the lawyer. Tey hadn’t seen me yet, and I stood there for a second, my white shirt over my head like I was waving a fag of surrender.” Tis part doesn’t sound confdent, but Ralph Cantellanotto has stopped watching television. He’s looking at me now; I’ve got his full and undivided. So I keep going.

“I almost felt like I was interrupting myself, like I was the one on the bed with her, like I was divided in two, like I’d lef my own body to watch us from the outside. She was on top, holding his hands down with her hands as she did the moving. She never could come in that position—it had to be straight missionary for her, ofen with an electrical assist—but it was her go-to position when she wanted me—him—to pop.”

“Lots of women are like that,” Ralph says.

“Sure,” I say, “I guess. Anyway, I’d already put myself in debt trying to fnance our lives together and when she lef to intern full time with the lawyer, I had to let the apartment go. I moved back to Boston, didn’t have the money for a deposit on a new place, but I had my car. Which is okay. I can park overnight by the Y and I got a job at Home Depot just up the Jamaicaway. But long story short, no internet.”

He thinks about what I’ve said for a moment, arrives at an assessment.

“What a cunt,” he says.

“I guess,” I say. “But I wouldn’t stay with me either if I had a choice.”

He shakes his head. “You got a confdence problem.”

“You’re right. I do.”

“Don’t do that,” he winces. “Don’t just fucking admit it. Show a little backbone.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Have you been laid since she lef?”

“Sure,” I say. “Sure I have.”

He just looks at me, and I recant.

“No,” I say. “No I haven’t.”

He furrows his brow and looks at me as though calculating something. “So the last pussy you’ve been in is hers.”

“I guess so.” I’d never thought about it that way, but it seems fairly condemning.

“You still got dirty oil on the dipstick,” he says. “You need a lube job.”

“I think I need to save enough money for a place,” I say. “Once I have a place to bring a girl then I can start worrying about a lube job.”

He looks at me, his head tilted to the right just a hair. He’s thinking about something.

“What?” I say. “What is it?” “I want to help you,” he says.

“You already have. I mean, you’ve been really generous.” Money always makes things awkward. His knee is quivering and there’s color in his face. It’s one thing to accept a few drinks, it’s another to accept money. Although if he wanted to slip me a twenty for gas home, I wouldn’t turn it down.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, maybe we’ll see each other again some day and I can pay you back.” Maybe now is the moment we exchange cell phone numbers. I imagine spending my breaks at Home Depot staring at my contacts list. Would I put him under Ralph or Cantellanotto? Perhaps both.

“Sure,” he says. “You’ll pay me back whenever.” He stands up.

“You leaving?” I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“We are,” he says. “Finish your bourbon.”

I swallow the rest of my bourbon like a good boy. It’s more than I’ve taken down in one gulp yet, and I cough. He pats me on the back.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he says. “Chico, put it on my room and add a ffy for you.” Te bartender nods and smiles ingratiatingly. We stand and he guides me out of the bar. I feel as though I’m leaving something behind, but what do I have to leave behind? My wallet? Empty. My credit cards? Maxed. My car keys? No gas. Tere is nothing lef for me to leave. I am only a body, leaving the bar with Ralph Cantellanotto. We get into the elevator. Te mirrored doors close silently, and then I am looking at myself standing next to him. His foot is tapping, and he’s jingling the change in his pocket. He is impatient.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Upstairs.”

I know that Ralph has talked about getting me a lube job. I also know that upstairs, lounging in her hotel room, is the goddess in the red dress.

Te logic connecting these two facts is terrifyingly clear. I already have performance anxiety, and I don’t even know if I’m going to be asked to perform. And now Ralph seems unnaturally eager, stabbing at the elevator buttons as though he could speed its rise, his body wired tight enough to quiver. Te stories I’ve read about closeted ballplayers spring to mind. Am I going to be expected to have sex with Ralph Cantellanotto? I’m not gay, at least, I don’t think I am. I will admit, afer my girlfriend lef, as I picked through the wreckage, I wondered if maybe I was gay. Tat would have been a convenient answer for things, for why she lef, for why nothing seemed to ft, for why I felt so out of focus in a sharply dialed-in world.

“Hey,” I say. “Hey, how did you know I knew? Who you are, I mean. How did you know I knew who you are?” I’m talking to talk now. He looks at me with a quizzical expression.

“I’m Ralph Cantellanotto,” he says, as though that explained everything. Te numbers change as we slip past foors full of rooms on our way upstairs. Te elevator glides so smoothly to a stop that I’m surprised when the doors open. He steps out.

“Hey,” I say, stalled halfway out of the elevator. I feel like I’m about to dive into a pool and I don’t know the temperature of the water. “Hey, why are you doing this?”

“I like helping people,” he says. “When I’m done playing ball, I think I’ll be a coach.”

“Oh,” I say. Te doors start to close, and I step out of the elevator.

“Come on,” he says. We walk down a hallway lined with elegant sconces and dark wood doors with brass number plaques. 2814, 2816, 2818. He inserts a cardkey into 2818 and turns to me. He grips the back of my neck with one hand.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“Ready for what?” I say, but he’s not even listening to my response.

“Let’s do this,” he says.

“Hey,” I say. “Ready for what?” But he’s already disappeared inside, and I follow him, leaving the door open behind me. Te room is nice, bigger than I would have thought, and there’s art on the walls and stuf, but the room itself only registers on the outskirts of my consciousness because Red Dress is lying on one of the two beds, leaning on pillows, watching television. Her dress is hiked up almost to her hips and her bare legs shine in the hotel light. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. She’s looking at Ralph Cantellanotto with lidded eyes and parted lips and then she sees me.

“Te fuck is he doing here?” Te Long Island accent that emerges

from her lips startles me.

“You. Tat’s what he’s doing here,” Ralph says.

“What?” she says.

“What?” I say. Nervousness, embarrassment and gratitude exist so simultaneously in me that they are confused into the same emotion.

“You and him,” Ralph says. “You’re going to do it.”

“Te fuck I am,” she says. Te look she tosses me is thick with disdain.

“Okay,” I say, with a nervous laugh. It was a nice try. Ralph is suddenly at her side. He moves so quickly, I’d almost forgotten he was an athlete. He’s holding her shoulder tight; I can see her skin whitening under his fngers. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but he shakes her for emphasis. She says something back to him, and he responds in an urgent whisper. He’s telling her my story. He’s building sympathy. I have never had less of an idea of what I’m supposed to do with myself. Should I take of my clothes? Look in the other direction during negotiations? Take a shower? Do push ups? Pull my lower lip over my head like a hood? Te television blares on the bureau next to me. I crane my head to see it. People are arguing with one another on the screen. A woman wags her fnger and stands on a couch. Te audience applauds wildly. Te noise clicks of, followed immediately by the screen going black. Te refection of Red Dress appears on the screen, aiming her remote at me.

“Alright,” Ralph Cantellanotto says. “Alright.”

Ralph steps away from the bed. He walks over to me. I watch his refection approach.

“It’s all good,” he says.

“What did you tell her?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey,” the woman says. “Why don’t you come over.”

I look at Ralph Cantellanotto.

“She wants it, man.” He nods toward the woman. “Give it to her.” He walks over to me, gives me a little push. I sleepwalk toward the woman and then I am standing next to the bed rather than next to the bureau. Ralph heads for hallway and the open door. I hear the door close.

“You like what you see?” she asks. She’s kneeling on the bed, facing me. One strap of her dress has fallen from her shoulder, and the swell of her breast is… my mouth is so dry I can’t swallow. I could really use a glass of water.

She grabs my belt and pulls me closer. My erection seems to be the only part of me that understands what to do.

“I guess you do like what you see.”

“Yes,” I stammer. “I guess I do.”

Her fngertips brush against my erection through the cloth of my jeans. Apparently, her fngers are electrifed.

“Holy shit,” I say.

“You like it when I do that?”

“Yes,” I swallow.

“You’re so big,” she says.

“Really?” I say. “I mean, thank you.”

She reached her hand underneath me, through my crotch all the way to my butt, and pulls me in closer.

“You like it like this?” she asks.

“Yes I do,” I say. But she isn’t looking at me when she says it. She’s looking toward the television. I turn my head to follow her eyes. Ralph Cantellanotto is sprawled in a chair at the foot of the bed. His belt is unbuckled and his hand is in his pants. I jump about a foot in the air.

“Jesus Christ!” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “Now take him in your mouth.”

“What?” I say.

“Not yet,” she says. “I’m going to tease you frst.” Her eyes are locked with Ralph Cantellanotto’s as she extends her tongue and licks the front of my jeans.

“Wait a second,” I say. “What’s going on here?”

“Shut up,” he says. His eyes are glazed. He’s talking to me but looking at her as he says it.

“But…”

“Te fuck is your problem?” He looks at me for the frst time. “Just shut up and let her do her thing.” She unbuckles my belt and pulls it from its loops. I’ve lost some weight in the past couple of months, and my jeans slip from my hips. She tosses my belt toward Ralph Cantellanotto on his chair. She breathes on the front of my boxer shorts.

“Oh yeah,” she says. “Oh yeah.”

“Oh yeah,” Ralph Cantellanotto says. It’s as though I don’t even exist. I’m an erection rising between them, I’m furniture, I’m a means to an end.

“Just a second,” I say. I take a half-step from the bed.

“Te girl, Chico, just fuck the girl,” Ralph Cantellanotto says.

“Joe,” I say.

“What?”

“My name is Joe.”

“What?”

“You called me the bartender’s name by accident.”

“Te bartender? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Chico. Te bartender. You know. Chico.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know the bartender’s name?” A crystal of understanding is starting to form in my brain. I do not exist. Nor does the bartender. Nor does the woman, really. Tere is only Ralph Cantellanotto. I look down as though to run this by her, and see that she has slipped the other strap from her shoulder. Her dress has become a skirt, and I am looking at her breasts. I have never seen fake tits in person. Tey are as tall and proud and frm as my erection, which through it all has remained at attention.

“We doing this or not?” she says.

“I don’t know,” I say, but again, she wasn’t asking me.

“Yeah,” Ralph Cantellanotto says. “Do it. Trow him down on the bed and do it.”

She gives me a shove and I land on the other bed. It’s an awkward angle, and though I land with my back on the pillows, I smack my head solidly on the headboard; a crack like a bat echoes in the room.

“Ow,” I say. As though in response, the woman straddles me, aims her ass at Ralph Cantellanotto, and waggles.

“Tat’s right, baby. You like what you see?”

“Slap it,” he says. “Slap that ass.” It’s unclear to whom he’s talking, me or her, but she takes the initiative.

She alternates between looking over her lef shoulder and lowering her head to look between her legs; never once does she look at me. When she lowers her head, I get a face full of blonde hair; when she cranes her neck sideways, I can see our refection in the television next to Ralph Cantellanotto’s chair. My head emerges at intervals, like peek-a-boo, a wide-eyed bafement appearing whenever her writhing happens to swing her to the side. Otherwise, all you can see of me are my feet, splayed and fat, and occasional glimpses of my boxer shorts levered away from my body by my erection. Tat’s what I am on TV: feet, an erection, and bafement. She waggles her ass so enthusiastically that her head gets into the act, her hair like a car wash mat scrubbing my face.

“Oooh,” she breathes toward the foot of the bed. “You like that ass? You need that ass?” I start to laugh. I can’t hold it together. I lean my head back against the headboard and laugh and I don’t hold it in. She stops moving and looks at me for the frst time, her hair draping around her face and around mine. It is as though we are sharing a tiny room together.

“What’s so funny?” she asks.

“Sorry,” I say. I pull it together. “I’m sorry. You may resume.”

She looks at me askance for a second, and then her face clicks back into seduction, the tip of her tongue touching her lips as her eyes half-close with desire, and I start to laugh again just as she’s craning her neck to look back toward the shortstop at the foot of the bed.

“What the fuck.” She sits back on my thighs, the dress a tangle around her legs and mine.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“Yeah,” Ralph Cantellanotto’s voice says. “Ride him. Ride him like that.”

“He’s fucking laughing,” the woman says to him.

“Ride him. Come on, ride him like you need it.”

“What’s his problem?” By this point I’ve stopped laughing, but she’s half-turned toward Ralph Cantellanotto, sitting on one hip, and pointing at me.

“What’s your problem?” he asks.

“I don’t have a problem,” I say.

“Take of your panties,” he says to the woman, and I start laughing again.

“I’m homeless, for Christ’s sake,” I laugh to the ceiling. For some reason, this seems hilarious. “I’m lying on a bed for the frst time in three months.” Tears leak from my eyes, and my stomach hurts from laughing. For the frst time all evening, it doesn’t feel hungry.

Te woman is looking at me with revulsion. It’s a sincere expression, and it’s all for me. For the frst time, she’s here with me on the bed.

“You’re homeless?” she says.

“Well, not really,” I say. “I have a car.”

“You want me to have sex with a fucking homeless guy?”

“You heard him,” Ralph Cantellanotto says. “He’s got a car.”

“You asshole,” she says. She throws a pillow at him, an awkward toss with no real power behind it. He whips it back, a wicked throw like he’s trying to nail a runner at frst across the diamond. Te woman dodges the pillow, launches herself across the bed at him, all scratching nails and curses and fying hair. He grapples her hands into submission. She bucks and her mouth is going a mile a minute. He shoves her onto the other bed.

“You want it?” he says. “You fucking want it?” Her writhing continues, but now she’s moving with him. It’s like he fipped a switch.

“You gonna give it to me?” she says.

“I’ll show you how a man takes care of business.”

“Yeah? You gonna show me?” He climbs aboard. She keeps up a

steady pulse of half-rhetorical questions while he exhorts himself on. My girlfriend and the lawyer weren’t nearly as vocal as these two. He has pulled of his shirt, and his back is hairy. Her fngers grab the hair for leverage as she tries to tug down his pants with her feet, and he leans on one elbow while he works on tugging them down as well. I grab my jeans from the foor, pull them on as they succeed in pulling his of, which means he is now wearing only a pair of white tube socks.

I pick up my belt from the foor, thread it through the loops of my jeans while I look for my shirt. Tere it is, a blue fash emerging periodically from beneath the writhing pair. I contemplate interrupting them for a moment, and then I see Ralph Cantellanotto’s shirt on the chair. What the hell. I pull it over my head, and I’m surprised when the arms are just a little too short.

I head for the door. In the hallway outside another door, a room service tray sits on the carpet. Half a baguette and what looks like an untouched pork chop sit beside the scattered cutlery and napkins. I walk past toward the elevators. I press the button and the doors slide open with a chime to reveal my refection in the mirrored rear wall of the elevator. Tough the man I see in the mirror is wearing another man’s shirt, though he’s sliced in two by the beveled joint between two mirrors, I recognize him. He’s an old friend, and it doesn’t matter how much time has passed. We’re back together now.

Te frst time I met a ballplayer, I was eight years old and walking through a T-station with my dad. Te station was fairly empty, and the people that were there were exchanging looks and nods and sneaking peeks toward a pillar at the far side where Jack Ellsworth stood looking down the tunnel, waiting for the train. My father saw him; his hand gripped my shoulder and we paused. Te station was quiet, and I could hear my father swallow. He took my other shoulder, propelling me before him like a talisman. Now the other people in the station were watching us.

“Dad…” I started, but he shushed me. We arrived at Jack Ellsworth’s pillar and my father cleared his throat. Ellsworth turned toward us with all the weariness of a man waiting for a train, a man thinking why oh why didn’t he just take a cab.

“Jack,” my dad said, “I want you to meet my son.” As though, what, he was introducing me to a friend from work? Jack? My dad’s hands were too tight on my shoulders, and he was bending me forward a little, as though I was between him and something he liked. It was the frst time in my life that I was ashamed of my father. Ellsworth looked at us, looked at me, and I mouthed the word sorry. I would have shrugged if my father’s weight

hadn’t been bearing down on my shoulders. Something changed in Ellsworth’s face, and he smiled at us, shook my hand, shook my father’s hand, asked me if I liked to play baseball.

“Sure,” I said. “But I like basketball better.” Ellsworth laughed, and then his train ground around the corner, and I was grateful to see we were going the opposite direction. Ellsworth stepped onto the train, gave us a little wave, and was gone. Our train came moments later, and my father spent the train ride telling the other passengers about our conversation with Jack Ellsworth. I sat looking out the windows as we emerged from underground, watching snapshots of Quincy and Wollaston fip past, nodding when the story demanded it, holding my secret close like a possession I would never let go: Jack Ellsworth only talked to us because I apologized for my father. He told the story again and again, nudging me because he thought that I was being shy, that I didn’t know how to handle myself yet, but he was wrong. I did know how to handle myself. A grown man’s pride kindled inside me like a fre, the kind of fre that might die to embers from time to time, but will never go out.