The Natural

“I am young in my mind and healthy in my body,” Roy said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Only be careful,” Pop said.

Roy said good night but couldn’t move because Pop had gripped his elbow. Leading him to the corner, he whispered to Roy not to have too much to do with Memo.

Roy stiffened.

“Don’t get me wrong, son, she’s not a bad girl —”

Roy glared.

Pop gulped. “I am the one who is really bad. It was me who introduced her to Bump.” He looked sick. “I hoped she would straighten him out and sorta hold him in the team — but — well, you know how these things are. Bump was not the marrying kind and she sorta — well, you know what I mean.”

“So what?” said Roy.

“Nothing,” he answered brokenly. “Only I was wrong for encouraging them to get together with maybe in the back of my mind the idea of how they would do so—without getting married, that is — and I have suffered from it since.”

Roy said nothing and Pop wouldn’t look him in the eye. “What I started to say,” he went on, “is that although she is not really a bad person, yet she is unlucky and always has been and I think that there is some kind of whammy in her that carries her luck to other people. That’s why I would like you to watch out and not get too tied up with her.”

“You’re a lousy uncle.”

“I am considering you.”

“I will consider myself.”

“Don’t mistake me, son. She was my sister’s girl and I do love her, but she is always dissatisfied and will snarl you up in her trouble in a way that will weaken your strength if you don’t watch out.”

“You might as well know that I love her.”

Pop listened gloomily. “Does she feel the same to you?”

“Not yet but I think she will.”

“Well, you are on your own.” He looked so forlorn that Roy said, “Don’t worry yourself about her. I will change her luck too.”

“You might at that.” Pop took out his billfold and extracted a pink paper that he handed to Roy.

Roy inspected it through his good eye. It was a check for two thousand dollars, made Out to him. “What’s it for?”

“The balance of your salary for the time you missed before you got here. I figure that you are entitled to at least the minimum pay for the year.”

“Did the Judge send it?”

“That worm? He wouldn’t send you his bad breath. It’s my personal check.” Pop was blushing.

Roy handed it back. “I am making out okay. If the Judge wants to raise my pay, all right, but I don’t want your personal money.”

“My boy, if you knew what you mean to me —”

“Don’t say it.” Roy’s throat was thick with sentiment. “Wait till I get you the pe

He turned to go and bumped into Max Mercy at his elbow. Max’s sleepy popeyes goggled when he saw Roy’s shiner. He sped back into the lobby.

“That slob is up to no good,” Roy said.

“He was sleeping on the couch next to where I was waiting for you to come home. He heard Red tell me you hadn’t showed up. Kept a camera with him back there.”

“He better not take a picture of my eye,” Roy said.

He beat it up the back stairs with Max on his tail. Though the columnist carried a camera and a pocketful of flashbulbs he ran faster than Roy had expected, so to ditch him he shot through the second-floor door and sped down the corridor. Seeing over his shoulder that Max was still after him he ducked through a pair of open glass doors into an enormous black ballroom, strewn with chairs, potted palms, and music stands from a dance last night. The lingering odor of perfume mixed with cigarette smoke reminded him of the smell of Memo’s hair and haunted him even now. He thought of hiding behind something but that would make him a ridiculous sitting duck for a chance shot of Max’s, so since his good eye had become accustomed to the dark he nimbly picked his way among the obstacles, hoping the four-eyed monstrosity behind him would break his camera or maybe a leg. But Max seemed to smell his way around in the dark and hung tight. Reaching the glass doors at the other end of the ballroom, Roy sidestepped out just as a bulb lit in a wavering flash that would leave Max with a snapshot of nothing but a deserted ballroom. The columnist stuck like glue to Roy’s shadow, spiraling after him up the stairs and through the long empty ninth-floor corridor (broad and soft-carpeted so that their footsteps were silent) which stretched ahead, it seemed to Roy, like an endless highway.

He felt he had been ru

Ahead was his door. Max was panting after him. As Roy shoved the key into the lock, poking his eye close to do the job quick, Max from fifteen feet away aimed the camera and snapped the shutter. The flashbulb burst in the reflector. The door slammed. Max swore blue bloody murder as Roy, inside, howled with laughing.

5

He had a whopping good time at the ball game. Doc Casey had squeezed the swelling of his eye down and painted out the black with a flesh-tone color, and Roy led the attack against the Phils that sank them twice that afternoon, sweeping the series for the Knights and raising them into second place, only three games behind the Pirates. Pop was hilarious. The fans went wild. The newspapers called the Knights “the wonder team of the age” and said they were headed for the pe

On his way to Memo’s after the game, Roy met her, wearing her summer furpiece, coming along the fourth-floor hall.

“I thought I would drop around and see how you are, Memo.”

She continued her slightly swaying walk to the elevator.

“I am all right,” she said.

He paused. “See the doctor yet?”

Memo blushed and said quickly, “He says it’s neuritis — nothing serious.”

She pressed the elevator button.

“Nothing serious?”

“That’s what he said.” She was looking up the elevator shaft and he sensed she had not been to the doctor. He guessed her breast was not sick. He guessed she had said that to get him to slow down. Though he did not care for her technique, he controlled his anger and asked her to go to the movies.

“Sorry. Gus is picking me up.”

Back in his room he felt restless. He thought he’d be better off without her but the thought only made him bitter. Red Blow called him to go to the pictures but Roy said he had a headache. Later he went out by himself. That night he dreamed of her all night long. The sick breast had turned green yet he was anxious to have a feel of it.

The next day, against the Braves, Roy got exactly no hits. The Knights won, but against the Dodgers in Brooklyn on Tuesday he went hitless once more and they lost. Since he had never before gone without a hit more than six times in a row there was talk now of a slump. That made him uneasy but he tried not to think of it, concerning himself with Memo and continuing his search through the papers for news of a hit-and-run accident on Long Island. Finding no mention of one he blamed the whole thing on his imagination and thought he’d better forget it. And he told himself not to worry about the slump — it happened to the very best — but after a third day without even a bingle he couldn’t help but worry.