Free Land of the Blind by Jess Walter Page A

driveways or on the strips in front of their houses, no longer venturing down the block. Bike traffic fell by two thirds. No one dared walk anywhere anymore, lest they be caught out on the street.
    Still, Pete stayed to himself those first days, walking the mile strip of Empire as if he were the only one on it, cigarette in the left corner of his mouth, left eye squinted shut against the curling smoke. It felt as if he were taking the measure of the neighborhood, seeing if anything had changed, who needed to be put in his place, whose ass needed kicking.
    We convinced ourselves that maybe things had changed, and gradually, the next week, we ventured out with our bikes and our baseball cards, but stayed close to our own yards. Then, one afternoon while I engaged in the exquisite task of sorting my baseball cards in the front yard, Pete was suddenly there, leaning against the fence next to my house. Everson was with him, looking as if he’d been kidnapped.
    “Hey,” Pete said in his preternaturally scratchy voice. “What the fuck are those?”
    “Baseball cards.”
    Pete held out his hand and tipped his head back and I looked up at Everson, who shrugged. I stood and brought him the card I happened to have in my hand, an outfielder named George Hendrick of the Cleveland Indians. Pete held it in his hand, turned it over, and made a face like he’d eaten something sour. “What do you do with it?”
    I shrugged. “You collect ’em.”
    “Why?”
    I shrugged again. “For fun.”
    He looked down at the card. “So what, you look at the pictures and beat off? Are you queer, Clark? I mean, Clark’s kind of a queer name, ain’t it?”
    “No.” And I don’t know what came over me, but I really believed I could explain myself to him. “See, you try to collect all the guys from every team and then you see who’s better by the stats on the back. You can measure them against each other and they all start to make sense. That’s the only way baseball makes sense, is if you understand how the numbers work against each other.”
    Everson closed his eyes. Pete turned the card over.
    “See,” I said, “George Hendrick hit nineteen homers. Reggie Jackson hittwenty-nine and had more RBI’s, too. So he’s better. In fact, he’s the best.” My voice lost any force behind it. “See?”
    Pete stared at George Hendrick’s card for a while and then he tossed it back at me. “We’re gonna go party. You comin’?”
    I looked at Everson, who was staring at the ground.
    Pete stepped forward. “You ain’t a puss, are you, Clark?”
    “No,” I said. “No, I’m ready to go.” I left the baseball cards on the porch and we crossed the rabbit hills on our bikes and walked them through the weedy railroad fields until we reached the riverbank where Pete had stashed a six-pack of warm beer that he’d stolen from someone. The three of us passed those beers around and Everson brought out a joint and we drank and smoked and then Pete collected whatever money we had, to pay for the beer—which he’d stolen—and the joint, which he expected to be paid for even though Everson had provided it. These were, in order, my first beer and my first taste of marijuana, and if I felt anything other than a sore throat and nausea I don’t remember it. Since that day I have seen people loosen up and become wild on the effects of alcohol and dope, but I don’t remember any of us smiling or laughing that day, and I guess that’s because Pete drank most of the beer and inhaled most of the pot.
    The next day, he organized a kind of boxing tournament with gloves he had left over from his Golden Gloves days. He enticed a couple of little kids into the tournament as lightweights; they sent each other home bleeding and crying. Next were Everson and me, whom Pete called the middleweights. We swung wildly and connected each time with the other’s ear, until our ears were red and sore, which is when Pete realized we were purposefully not hitting each