34
IT WAS APRIL, BUT it felt more like football weather as I ran into the outfield. “Go, Slammers,” somebody called halfheartedly from the bleachers. There were only a few people sitting huddled there—mostly the hard-core wives and kids of some of the other players. It was my first night back in the game since my heart attack. Our shortstop’s cousin had filled in for me during the opening games of the season, but he’d relinquished the position as soon as I said I could play again. I’d been working out at home for a few weeks, carefully, just to get the kinks out of my muscles, but I was still pretty stiff, and the glove felt heavy and awkward on my hand. The last couple of games had been called because of rain, and even though the grass was soggy, we’d decided to play. I was especially eager to get going, to see if I’d survive the exertion. Everything I did again for the first time since my heart attack turned out to be another survival test I had to pass.
It felt weird out there under the lights, especially in that weather. As soon as we took the field, it started to rain again. It was actually more of a mist than a downpour, and it made the other players seem farther away than they really were. But I reminded myself that it was always a little lonely in the outfield. I smacked my fist into the glove, to keep warm, to do something. Stu Kramer was playing first base, as usual, and it was comforting to have a doctor nearby. Nothing was going to happen, but if it did, he’d be right there. Hell, I felt ready for anything. “Play ball!” some kid called from the bleachers, and the words bounced around, sounding like several voices.
Only one pop fly came my way in the first inning, but it was Bayville’s third out. It was hit almost directly over me, and I just drifted around a little, until I was in position for it, and let it fall into my glove. There was some mild cheering and booing as I loped back toward our bench. I saw that I was loosening up, moving with less effort.
Sitting on the bench, I looked over toward the bleachers, remembering sultry, starlit nights and Paulie and the kids yelling and clapping for our team. After the game, I’d let Annie and Jason run around the bases a few times and then, whether we’d won or lost, we’d drive somewhere to celebrate with hamburgers and ice cream. I’d still be all sweaty, and Paulie would open her window, saying, “Pee-yew! Doesn’t Daddy stink?” But she’d keep one hand on my damp thigh while she drove, and we often made love on those nights as soon as the children fell asleep. I was sure that only fools saw everything in such rosy retrospect. And although I knew it wasn’t true, Jason’s defection seemed to be the main cause of all my problems. Yet I’d really stopped looking for him, just as Paulie had accused me of doing. Whenever I made myself think about it, a kind of lethargy came over me and I had trouble concentrating, and even staying awake. I still stopped in at the rock clubs from time to time, and I was still in touch with a few of the musicians Jason had hung out with, but there hadn’t been any new leads for a while. One of these days, as soon as I could arrange another stretch of time away from the studio, I was going to head West and put in a really heavy search for him. I couldn’t lay everything on Mike again right now, and Sara wasn’t due to give birth for a couple of weeks, anyway—I had that much leeway.
By the time I came up to bat, it had stopped raining, but a dank chill hung in the air. Stu had reached base with an infield single, and there were two outs. So the pressure was on me, which was just the way I liked it, at least in sports. After my heart attack, Paulie told me that maybe I was an A-type after all, despite appearances, and that I’d have to change if I wanted to live. Later I understood that it had been a coded message, that she was really talking about Janine and me. And I did change, and I did want to live, but not without Paulie.
I dug my spikes in as Jim McNulty went into his windup. His first pitch sailed high and away—ball one. He put the second one almost in the same spot, but I swung at it anyway, and missed by a mile. “Hey, get glasses, blindo!” some moron yelled from the bleachers, and I enjoyed a twitch of irritability, a quickening of the blood. I let the next, near-perfect pitch go right by me for spite, and there were more catcalls from the stands and from the other team. Now I was behind, one ball and two strikes. Our first-base coach, Lenny Schultz, clapped his hands and called out his usual string of chatter, like an auctioneer. Stu, dancing on and off first, yelled, “Take your time, Howie baby! Wait for a better one! Wait for a beauty! Send me home, Howie baby!”
McNulty’s control was off tonight, and his fourth pitch was low. It would have been an easy ball if I’d taken it, but I started chasing it and my whole body followed through before I could check my swing. Thwack! I’d hit a solid grounder that went right through McNulty’s legs into center field. It was a single, but the center fielder bobbled it, and Stu, who was greased lightning, started around second for third. I thought they’d try to nail him there, so I headed for second, but they decided to go for me instead. Everybody was yelling and my legs were pumping like pistons to beat the throw. I had to slide in headfirst, and it was close, but I was safe. “Way to go, Howie baby!” Stu hollered from third as I scrambled to my feet, even though I was clearly having another heart attack. It couldn’t hammer away like that without suffering damage, could it? My legs were wobbling and I was breathing like an accordion. Our handful of fans had worked up an enthusiastic chant. “Go, Slammers, go! Go, Slammers, go!” I kept my foot on the bag and continued wheezing while Shecky Snyder walked up to the plate. Shecky was a good hitter. Like me, he did better at bat under pressure, and he even seemed to relish the heckling from the other side. When somebody on the Bayville bench yelled, “Fan the air, Snyder!” he yelled back, “Fan your ass!” without taking his eyes off McNulty. I put a tentative hand to my chest. My heart was still blasting off in there, but maybe it was slowing down a little.
It went to a full count on Shecky, and I hunkered down, ready to break for third. I glanced from McNulty, who pawed the mound nervously, to the plate where Shecky was waving his bat. And then, at the edge of my vision, I saw a scrawny little woman sprinting from the parking lot toward the diamond. It looked like La Rae, but what would she be doing here? Frank didn’t play softball, and she wasn’t much of a fan, especially not one of mine. But it was La Rae. What the hell did she want, and what was her big hurry? McNulty went into his windup and delivered a perfect curveball to Shecky. He swung at it as La Rae came closer, calling “Howard! Howard!,” her voice carrying over all the other noise. Shecky had connected with a line drive that flew right over everyone’s head. Stu started to go, and so did I, but in the wrong direction, away from third and toward La Rae. In that brief moment of chaos, I thought the worst thoughts, that someone had died—Paulie or one of the kids. And I had the same terrified, heartsick feeling I’d had years ago when my mother appeared suddenly at the door of my third-grade classroom in the middle of the day. Someone had died that time. It was only my aunt in St Louis—my mother’s older sister—someone I hardly knew. But I didn’t find out immediately, and my mother’s grieving face was bad enough news itself. I saw that La Rae looked something like that when she was only a few yards away, and in sharper focus. There were outraged cries from the diamond and the bleachers. “Hey, Howie! Hey, Flax! Shit, man, where you going? Lady, get off the field!”
“What’s the matter?” I shouted at La Rae, who could hardly catch her own breath and was flapping her hands to tell me to wait a minute. “I … looked … everywhere for you!” she sputtered finally, indignantly. You’d think we had a date and I’d stood her up.
“What is it?” I demanded, grabbing her arm.
“It’s Sara,” she said, wresting her arm free. “Whew! It’s … Sara’s time, and Paulie wants you to come.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “It’s too soon!” And I hadn’t gone to California yet, hadn’t brought Jason back. Dumbly, I remembered my mother pulling me along on the way home from school that day, how my feet had only skimmed the sidewalk. “And did you write to Aunt Essie like I told you?” she’d said, weeping, hurrying as if we were late fo
r something. “Did you thank her for your birthday present?” It was cruel of her, and completely unfair. I had just begun the third grade; I hardly knew how to write. And children didn’t send letters much in those days, or receive them. A few years later, at the funeral home, Pete would show me death in a unisex shroud, in a polished box. But first my mother demonstrated its main quality, absence. No more Aunt Essie, who I hadn’t learned to love in time, or even written to. What had she sent for my birthday, anyway? I began to cry, too, flying along the street with my mother, stricken with bewildered grief and regret.
“Is there trouble?” I asked La Rae now. “What did Paulie say?”
“I don’t know,” La Rae said, still huffing. “She was so excited she hardly made sense. ‘Find Howard,’ she kept saying, that’s all I know. She called your house, she called your studio. You men are never where you’re supposed to be!” She was in a suffocating rage that I figured had little to do with me.
“Stop it!” I said. “You found me, didn’t you? Is she … are they at the hospital?” I realized that I’d never really believed Sara’s plans for a home delivery. The whole thing seemed so romantic and impractical. Paulie was surrounded by doctors and nurses when she gave birth, and it was still a bloodbath.
“No. No, Paulie said they were at Ann’s, and that the baby was coming soon.”
“Hey, listen, the baby’s coming!” I called to the men on the diamond, who were gathering like a lynch mob, and there were more disgruntled cries. Someone even yelled, “So fucking what? Play ball!” But Stu waved me on, shouting, “Good luck, Howie baby! I hope it’s a boy!”
35
HOWARD DIDN’T ANSWER, SO I called La Rae and asked her to track him down for me. He was entitled to be here if he wanted to be; my mother was right about that, at least. I ate half of one of Ann’s sandwiches and went back upstairs. “She’s in transition,” Carmen said as I came in the door. For a moment, I forgot what that meant—it sounded trendy, like an excuse people might make for not settling down. And then I understood that Sara was approaching the final stage of her labor. She began howling, as if to confirm it, and I heard a door slam downstairs—Ann or Spence trying to hide from that ferocious sound.
I went to the bed. Sara was sitting on the edge now, swaying from side to side. Her face was glossy with sweat. When I touched her hair, she shuddered and cried, “Don’t! Leave me alone! Let me out of here! I want to go home!”
“What should I do?” I asked Carmen, and she said, “Just stay here with her. Come on, lovey,” she told Sara, “why don’t you lie down now.” Her voice had a steady, lulling rhythm I tried to imitate. “Lie down, Sara,” I said. “It will be over soon. We love you.”
“I’m going to push!” Sara threatened when she was half lying, half sitting against the pillows. “Oh, shit, oh, fuck, I can’t stand it anymore! I’m going to push!”
“Not yet,” Carmen warned her. “In a little while you can. Now, blow out through your mouth. You know how, like you’re blowing out candles.”
“Blow out the candles,” I echoed. “For the baby’s birthday,” and I pursed my lips and demonstrated, until I thought I would hyperventilate.
Carmen propped Sara’s legs open, planting her feet flat on the bed. Sara blew and blew before she howled again. Her belly had risen into a point, like a witch’s hat. In the middle of her next contraction, her bag of waters ruptured, flooding the bed, smelling strangely like summer rain. I worked with Carmen, pulling out the wet pads, replacing them with dry ones, grateful for something practical to do.
The door opened and Ann peeked in. “Can I help?” she asked in a high, tremulous voice. I hesitated, but Carmen said, “Sure, come on in. Come tell Sara how good she’s doing.”
Ann tiptoed to the bed, whispering, “Sara? It’s me. You’re so wonderful, Sara, and we’re here with you.”
Sara was wild-eyed, and blowing in quicker, more frantic breaths, as if this was the only language she could remember now. Carmen murmured a steady singsong of encouragement, like a lullaby.
When it was time, at last, for Sara to push, she did it in great, grunting efforts and with what looked like ecstatic concentration. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she said before each animal expulsion of noise. “Why doesn’t somebody help me!” she yelled. “I hate this shit!” I saw that Spence had come back into the room, drawn here more than he was repelled—lonely, in that large house, for this singular event. I was glad he didn’t have his camera with him. I couldn’t imagine sitting around watching a video of this someday, the way we used to watch our silent, innocent home movies. Who needed more than memory’s record, anyway? And Jason would be missing from it, would always be missing from it, no matter how many times we played it back.
“Only a few more pushes,” Carmen said. “You’re doing great, Sara, you’re opening up just like a flower.” I thought of those accelerated nature films, where flowers bloomed with miraculous speed. I thought of the shells we’d bought in Chinatown for our little children, the ones that opened in water to release a paper bouquet.
“Look, she’s crowning,” Carmen said, and I saw a small, dark, glistening circle of scalp. “Don’t push now! Wait!” she ordered Sara. “Let the head come slowly, let it just come.” But it retreated for a moment, as if stricken with stage fright, before it reappeared. Carmen cupped it gently as it emerged, allowing the tiny, mottled face to turn to one side. It was frowning fiercely, its eyes squeezed shut against even that meager light, and its tongue was out, tasting the air. Then Sara reached down and helped catch the shoulders as they came slithering through. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I don’t believe it! Does it have everything?”
It was a boy, with all his fingers and toes, with his elaborate, miniature parts intact. He was pink and blue and spangled with blood, and still connected to Sara by the thick, pulsing cord. Carmen held him in one arm and used the syringe to suction the mucus from his nose and mouth. Then she wrapped him in a receiving blanket and laid him on Sara’s still-inflated belly, where he wailed in that creaking, newborn tremolo for all the world to hear. “Hello,” Sara kept saying to him. “Hello. Hello.”
The afterbirth was born with ease a few minutes later. When the cord stopped pulsing, Carmen clamped it, and handed me the scissors from the bedside tray. I cut the cord, which was as tough as gristle, thinking of how city officials snipped ribbons to commemorate new buildings. I felt I should say something to observe the occasion, the way they do, but I was too clogged with emotion to speak. Ann, or maybe Spence, was sobbing, and the room shimmered and melted around us.
“This is Byron,” Sara said, with the baby snuffling on her breast now. “Say hi, Byron.” She waved his little fist at us.
How had she recovered so quickly? And when had she chosen that name? We’d discussed names weeks ago, and she’d only mentioned Jesse and Wesley for a boy. I was relieved that she hadn’t come up with something more radical—wasn’t there some singer’s child called God? I wondered if Sara had named the baby for Lord Byron, unlikely as that seemed, and when I found my voice again, I asked her. It turned out to be for another Byron, who’d been her seatmate in the first grade, and the first boy she’d ever liked. But maybe he’d been named for the poet.
“Oh, we forgot the music, didn’t we?” Ann said.
“Everybody does,” Carmen assured her.
Spence went downstairs for the champagne he’d kept chilled for weeks, and we all toasted the baby’s health, and Sara’s, and Carmen’s. She looked almost as worn out and happy as Sara. “I don’t know how you can take this on a regular basis,” I said. “Do you just get used to it after a while?” And she smiled and said, “Oh, no, no. And I hope I never get used to it.”
Howard showed up a little while later, and I went into the hallway carrying the swaddled, screaming baby. Howard was in his softball uniform, the knees mud-splattered as if he’d slid on them all the way here. It became difficult for me to speak again. I opened the blanket so he could see it was a boy. “I know,” he
told me. “Jesus, just listen to him, will you!” He touched the baby’s hands, his feet, and let out a laugh of desperate joy. “I think he’s going to be a sideman, Paulie,” he said.
“Here, Howie, take him,” I said, and handed him the baby.
Spence, who had retrieved his camera, began filming us in the hallway. “And now the new grandparents are making their first public appearance,” he announced in a deep, mock-serious voice. He followed us like a paparazzo into the guest room, where Sara, cleansed and combed, was enthroned on fresh pillows. She held out her arms and Howard lowered the baby into them, kissing her on the top of her head. Sara put the baby to her breast and coaxed him with her fingers until he began to root and then nurse. Spence recorded everything on tape. “Smile,” he kept commanding us. “This thriller will be opening next week in a theater near you.”
Then Howard took my hand and led me back into the hallway, out of the range of Spence’s camera. I could still hear its faint whirring and the more urgent sound of the baby’s sucking. I leaned wearily against the wall. “Paulie, listen,” Howard said. He hadn’t let go of my hand. “This is really crazy … But listen,” he said again, “I think I know where Jason is.”
36
THE MINUTE I LEFT the arctic zone of the airport, the heavy tropical air hit me. It brought back all my earlier visits to Miami, especially that extended one right after my father died. Lying under the palm trees then, during those burning days and sluggish nights, made me forget about winter back in New York. What reality did snow have in all that summery green, that golden sunlight? And along with winter, I managed to lose sight of Paulie and the children, too, for a while. Oh, I knew they were there, all right, waiting for me to get over my craziness and come home. I spoke to them daily, but their disembodied voices were changed by distance, became thinner and less familiar. The connection between us was stretched too far for them to reel me back in. Paulie said much later that it must have been an enchantment, and I suppose she was right. But how long had I known where Jason was? Longer, maybe, than I’d ever care to admit. There were clear enough clues all along. The fact that nobody had run across him anywhere in town. Those tens and twenties he’d sent Sara through the mail, just the way my mother had always sent them to him. And she hadn’t called for several weeks—her way, I realized now, of avoiding uncomfortable questions. When I got worried and finally called her, she didn’t ask about either of the children, for the first time in memory. She doted on them both, but she had always favored Jason, much the way she’d favored me when I was a kid. My sister used to complain about it. “He gets away with everything,” she’d say, and that was a pretty fair assessment. The wonder is that I ever got away at all.
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