Free The Natural by Bernard Malamud Page B

to invest in something good, he advised him to do so. “There is a short life in baseball and we have to think of the future. Anything can happen to you in this game. Today you are on top and tomorrow you will be on your way out to Dubuque. Try to protect your old age. It don’t pay to waste what you earn.”
    To his surprise, Roy answered, “To hell with my old age. I will be in this game a long time.”
    Red rubbed his chin. “How are you so sure?”
    â€œIt wasn’t for nothing it took me fifteen years to get here. I came for more than the ride and I will leave my mark around here.”
    Red waited to hear more but Roy shut up.
    Red shrugged, “Well, each to their choice.”
    Roy said good night and went upstairs. Entering Bump’s room, he picked up a gilt hairpin from the carpet and put it into his wallet because some claimed it brought luck. For a while he stood at the window and watched the lit Empire State Building. It was a great big city, all right. He undressed, thinking of Pop’s flop that changed his whole life, and got into bed.
    In the dark the bed was in motion, going round in wide, sweeping circles. He didn’t like the feeling so he lay deathly still and let everything go by—the trees, mountains, states. Then he felt he was headed into a place where he did not want to go and tried urgently to think of ways to stop the bed. But he couldn’t and it went on, a roaring locomotive now, screaming into the night, so that he was tensed and sweating and groaned aloud why did it have to be me? what did I do
to deserve it? seeing himself again walking down the long, lonely corridor, carrying the bassoon case, the knock, the crazy Harriet (less and more than human) with the shiny pistol, and him, cut down in the very flower of his youth, lying in a red pool of his own blood.
    No, he cried, oh no, and lashed at his pillow, as he had a thousand times before.
    Finally, as the sight of him through the long long years of suffering faded away, he quieted down. The noise of the train eased off as it came to a stop, and Roy found himself set down in a field somewhere in the country, where he had a long and satisfying love affair with this girl he had seen in the picture tonight.
    He thought of her till he had fallen all but deep asleep, when a door seemed to open in the mind and this naked redheaded lovely slid out of a momentary flash of light, and the room was dark again. He thought he was still dreaming of the picture but the funny part of it was when she got into bed with him he almost cried out in pain as her icy hands and feet, in immediate embrace, slashed his hot body, but there among the apples, grapes, and melons, he found what he wanted and had it.

A t the clubhouse the next morning the unshaven Knights were glum and redeyed. They moved around listlessly and cursed each step. Angry fist fights broke out among them. They were sore at themselves and the world, yet when Roy came in and headed for his locker they looked up and watched with interest. He opened the door and found his new uniform knotted up dripping wet on a hook. His sanitary socks and woolen stockings were slashed to shreds and all the other things were smeared black with shoe polish. He located his jock, with two red apples in it, swinging from a cord attached to the light globe, and both his shoes were nailed to the ceiling. The boys let out a bellow of laughter. Bump just about doubled up howling, but Roy yanked the wet pants off the hook and caught him with it smack in the face. The players let out another yowl.
    Bump comically dried himself with a bath towel, digging deep into his ears, wiping under the arms, and shimmying as he rubbed it across his fat behind.
    â€œFast guesswork, buster, and to show you there’s no hard feelings, how’s about a Camel?”
    Roy wanted nothing from the bastard but took the cigarette because everyone was looking on. When he lit it, someone in the