The Natural

Bracing himself to fight without strength he snapped on the light. A white shadow flew into the bathroom. Rushing in, he kicked the door open. An ancient hoary face stared at him. “Bump!” He groaned and shuddered. An age passed…

His own face gazed back at him from the bathroom mirror, his past, his youth, the fleeting years. He all but blacked out in relief. His head, a jagged rock on aching shoulders, throbbed from its rocky interior. An oppressive sadness weighed like a live pain on his heart. Gasping for air, he stood at the open window and looked down at the dreary city till his legs and arms were drugged with heaviness. He shut the hall door and flopped into bed. In the dark he was lost in an overwhelming weakness… I am finished, he muttered. The pages of the record book fell apart and fluttered away in the wind. He slept and woke, finished. All night long he waited for the bloody silver bullet.

On the road Pop was in a foul mood. He cracked down on team privileges: no more traveling wives, no signing of food checks — Red dispensed the cash for meals every morning before breakfast — curfew at eleven and bed check every night. But Roy had discovered that the old boy had invited Memo to come along with them anyway. He went on the theory that Roy had taken to heart his advice to stay away from her and it was making a wreck out of him. Memo had declined the invitation and Pop guiltily kicked himself for asking her.

Roy was thinking about her the morning they came into Chicago and were on their way to the hotel in a cab — Pop, Red, and him. For a time he had succeeded in keeping her out of his thoughts but now, because of the renewed disappointment, she was back in again. He wondered whether Pop was right and she had maybe jinxed him into a slump. If so, would he do better out here, so far away from her?

The taxi turned up Michigan Avenue, where they had a clear view of the lake. Roy was silent. Red happened to glance out the back window. He stared at something and then said, “Have either of you guys noticed the black Cadillac that is following us around? I’ve seen that damn auto most everywhere we go.”

Roy turned to see. His heart jumped. It looked like the car that had chased them halfway across Long Island.

“Drat ‘em,” Pop said. “I fired those guys a week ago. Guess they didn’t get my postcard.”

Red asked who they were.

“A private eye and his partner,” Pop explained. “I hired them about a month back to watch the Great Man here and keep him outa trouble but it’s a waste of good money now.” He gazed back and fumed. “Those goshdarn saps.”

Roy didn’t say anything but he threw Pop a hard look and the manager was embarrassed.

As the cab pulled up before the hotel, a wild-eyed man in shirtsleeves, hairy-looking and frantic, rushed up to them.

“Any of you guys Roy Hobbs?”

“That’s him,” Pop said grimly, heading into the hotel with Red. He pointed back to where Roy was getting out of the cab.

“No autographs.” Roy ducked past the man.

“Jesus God, Roy,” he cried in a broken voice. He caught Roy’s arm and held on to it. “Don’t pass me by, for the love of God.”

“What d’you want?” Roy stared, suspicious.

“Roy, you don’t know me,” the man sobbed. “My name’s Mike Barney and I drive a truck for Cudahy’s. I don’t want a thing for myself, only a favor for my boy Pete. He was hurt in an accident, playin’ in the street. They operated him for a broken skull a coupla days ago and he ain’t doin’ so good. The doctor says he ain’t fightin’ much.”

Mike Barney’s mouth twisted and he wept.

“What has that got to do with me?” Roy asked, white-faced. The truck driver wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Pete’s a fan of yours, Roy. He got a scrapbook that thick fulla pictures of you. Yesterday they lemme go in and see him and I said to Pete you told me you’d sock a homer for him in the game tonight. After that he sorta smiled and looked better. They go

“Why did you say that for?” Roy said bitterly. “The way I am now I couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

Holding to Roy’s sleeve, Mike Barney fell to his knees. “Please, you gotta do it.”

“Get up,” Roy said. He pitied the guy and wanted to help him yet was afraid what would happen if he couldn’t. He didn’t want that responsibility.

Mike Barney stayed on his knees, sobbing. A crowd had collected and was watching them.

“I will do the best I can if I get the chance.” Roy wrenched his sleeve free and hurried into the lobby.

“A father’s blessing on you,” the truck driver called after him in a cracked voice.

Dressing in the visitors’ clubhouse for the game that night, Roy thought about the kid in the hospital. He had been thinking of him on and off and was anxious to do something for him. He could see himself walking up to the plate and clobbering a long one into the stands and then he imagined the boy, healed and whole, thanking him for saving his life. The picture was unusually vivid, and as he polished Wonderboy, his fingers itched to carry it into the batter’s box and let go at a fat one.

But Pop had other plans. “You are still on the bench, Roy, unless you put that Wonderboy away and use a different stick.”

Roy shook his head and Pop gave the line-up card to the ump without his name on it. When Mike Barney, sitting a few rows behind a box above third base, heard the a

The game began, Roy taking his non-playing position on the far corner of the bench and holding Wonderboy between his knees. It was a clear, warm night and the stands were just about full. The floods on the roof lit up the stadium brighter than day. Above the globe of light lay the dark night, and high in the sky the stars glittered. Though unhappy not to be playing, Roy, for no reason he could think of, felt better in his body than he had in a week. He had a hunch things could go well for him tonight, which was why he especially regretted not being in the game. Furthermore, Mike Barney was directly in his line of vision and sometimes stared at him. Roy’s gaze went past him, farther down the stands, to where a young blackhaired woman, wearing a red dress, was sitting at an aisle seat in short left. He could clearly see the white flower she wore pi

Pop was pitching Fowler, who had kept going pretty well during the two dismal weeks of Roy’s slump, only he was very crabby at everybody — especially Roy — for not getting him any runs, and causing him to lose two well-pitched games. As a result Pop had to keep after him in the late i

Up through the fifth he had kept the Cubs bottled up but he eased off the next i

As the game went on Roy grew tense. He considered telling Pop about the kid and asking for a chance to hit. But Pop was a stubborn cuss and Roy knew he’d continue to insist on him laying Wonderboy aside. This he was afraid to do. Much as he wanted to help the boy — and it really troubled him now — he felt he didn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance at a hit without his own club. And if he once abandoned Wonderboy there was no telling what would happen to him. Probably it would finish his career for keeps, because never since he had made the bat had he swung at a ball with any other.