The Natural

“Don’t mention it.”

“It was a bet. Will you take my IOU?”

“Wa

“Sure.”

“You’ll lose your panties,” Max warned.

“On what?” Gus asked.

Roy thought. “What about another number?”

“Righto. What kind?”

“I’ll pick out a number from one to ten. You tell me what it is.”

Gus considered. “For the three hundred?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want me to write the number?”

“Keep it in your head.”

“Go ahead.”

“Got the number?”

“I have it.”

Again Gus eclipsed his good eye and took a slow breath. He made it seem like a kind of magic he was doing. Memo was fascinated.

“Deuce,” Gus quickly a

Roy felt as if he had been struck on the conk. He considered lying but knew they could tell if he did.

“That’s right, how’d you do it?” He felt foolish.

Gus winked.

Max was all but coming apart with laughter. Memo looked away.

Gus swallowed his Scotch. “Two is a magic number,” he crooned at Memo. “Two makes the world go around.” She smiled slightly, watching Roy.

He tried to eat but felt numbed.

Max just couldn’t stop cackling. Roy felt like busting him one in the snoot.

Gus put his long arm around Memo’s bare shoulders. “I have lots of luck, don’t I, babyface?”

She nodded and sipped her drink.

The lights went on. The m.c. bobbed up from a table he had been sitting at and went into his routine.

“Six hundred I owe to you,” Roy said, throwing Max into another whoop of laughter.

“Forget it, slugger. Maybe some day you might be able to do me a favor.”

They were all suddenly silent.

“What kind of favor?” Roy asked.

“When I am down and out you can buy me a cup o’ coffee.”

They laughed, except Roy.

“I’ll pay you now.” He left the table and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned with a white tablecloth over his arm.

Roy flapped out the cloth and one of the spotlights happened to catch it in the air. It turned red, then gold.

“What’s going on?” Max said.

Roy whisked the cloth over Gus’s head.

“The first installment.”

He grabbed the bookie’s nose and yanked. A stream of silver dollars clattered into his plate.

Gus stared at the money. Memo looked at Roy in intense surprise.

People at the nearby tables turned to see what was going on. Those in the rear craned and got up. The m.c. gave up his jokes and waved both spots to Roy.

“For Pete’s sake, sit down,” Max hissed.

Roy rippled the green cloth in front of Max’s face and dragged out of his astonished mouth a dead herring.

Everybody in the place applauded.

From Memo’s bosom, he plucked a duck egg.

Gus got red in the face. Roy grabbed his beak again and twisted — it shed more cartwheels.

“Second installment.”

“What the hell is this?” Gus sputtered.

The color wheels spun. Roy turned purple, red, and yellow. From the glum Mercy’s pocket he extracted a long salami.

Gus’s ears ran a third installment of silver. A whirl of the cloth and a white bu

4

Maybe I might break my back while I am at it,” Roy spoke into the microphone at home plate before a hushed sellout crowd jampacked into Knights Field, “but I will do my best — the best I am able — to be the greatest there ever was in the game.

“I thank you.” He finished with a gulp that echoed like an electric hiccup through the loudspeakers and sat down, not quite happy with himself despite the celebration, because when called on to speak he had meant to begin with a joke, then thank them for their favor and say what a good team the Knights were and how he enjoyed working for Pop Fisher, but it had come out this other way. On the other hand, so what the hell if they knew what was on his mind?

It was “Roy Hobbs Day,” that had been in the making since two weeks ago, when Max Mercy printed in his column: “Roy Hobbs, El Swatto, has been ixnayed on a pay raise. Trying to kill the bird that lays the golden baseball, Judge?” A grass roots movement developed among the loyal fans to put the Judge to shame (if possible) and they had quickly arranged a Day for Roy, which was held after the Knights had bounced into third place, following a night game win over the Phils, who now led them by only four games, themselves two behind the first-place Pirates.

The whole thing was kept a surprise, and after batting practice was over on this particular Saturday afternoon in early August, the right field gate had swung open and a whole caravan of cars, led by a limousine full of officials and American Legio

“Who, me?” he said, rising…

When he had made his speech and retired to the dugout, after a quick, unbelieving glance at the mountain of gifts they were unpacking for him, the fans sat back in frozen silence, some quickly crossing their fingers, some spitting over their left shoulders, onto the steps so they wouldn’t get anyone wet, almost all hoping he had not jinxed himself forever by saying what he had said. “The best there ever was in the game” might tempt the wrath of.some mighty powerful ghosts. But they quickly recovered from the shock of his audacity and clapped up a thick thunder of applause.

It was everyman’s party and they were determined to enjoy it. No one knew exactly who had supplied the big dough, but the loyal everyday fans had contributed all sorts of small change and single bucks to buy enough merchandise to furnish a fair-sized general store. When everything was unloaded from the van, Roy posed in front of it, fiddling with a gadget or two for the benefit of the photographers, though he later tipped off Dizzy to sell whatever he could to whoever had the cash. Mercy himself counted two television sets, a baby tractor, five hundred feet of pink plastic garden hose, a na

When he was told, to his amazement, that the Mercedes Benz was his too, he could only say, “This is the happiest day of my life.” Getting in, he drove around the park to the frenzied waving and whistling of the fans and whirring of movie cameras. The gleaming white job was light to the touch of hand and foot and he felt he could float off in it over the stadium wall. But he stopped before Memo’s box and asked if she would go with him for a jaunt after the game, to which she, lowering her eyes, replied she was agreeable.