For weeks, six weeks in all, the only thing I can think about is Fred. I do other things. I go to school. Altschuler tells me several times that he misses Fred too. I thank him. I’m polite enough, but I don’t want to talk about it, so I don’t ask Altschuler to walk home with me, and I don’t hang around trying to bump into him accidentally all the time, which is what I was doing before Fred died. I come into classes as late as I can so Altschuler won’t get a chance to talk to me about anything important, and I run out after class like the original bolt of lightning. Altschuler isn’t dumb, so we don’t talk much after the first week. By the fourth week after Fred died, I try to find ways to avoid seeing Altschuler at all. Every time I look at him I am angry. For the first few days when I start to feel this way, I am angry at myself for having gotten mixed up with Altschuler at all. It doesn’t take long before it’s Altschuler I’m mad at and not myself. It was that talk about making out with Enid Gerber and Mary Lou Gerrity that got us started. It was a bunch of lies, in other words. We would never have done anything if it hadn’t been for those lies. Mine too. But mostly his, I think. They were mostly his. That’s what led to all the trouble. Fred died because of some stupid lies about making out. It certainly isn’t in my nature to queer around. I never did it before. If it hadn’t been for Altschuler, I would never have done it at all. I can’t stand the sight of Altschuler. I guess it gives me some pleasure for the next two weeks to think how much I hate Altschuler.
Six weeks pass, and we are playing baseball outdoors. I’m no athlete and certainly no baseball player, but New York kids don’t have room to practice baseball anywhere, so in my school they are even lousier than I am. I get elected captain of this dopey team that goes to a lot of other private schools around New York to play. The first game is with another Episcopal school with an even worse team than ours, so we win the game by a dramatic score. Just about every kid who goes to bat for our side gets a home run. We have to stop the game in the fourth inning, because it is dark and our team has only one strikeout after each of us has been at bat twice during this inning alone. If we had gone nine innings, it would have been after midnight before the game broke up.
So the next day I am an important figure in the school. Frankie Menlo practically dusts off my seat on the bus on the way to school. It’s ridiculous to shine like a star among these guys. In Massachusetts they wouldn’t have been allowed to pinch-hit in a hurricane, and here they are on our first team. That I am the best player is comment enough on the rest of the team. I remember my grandmother was forever repeating that everything is relative, and now I know what she meant.
It doesn’t matter though. For the first time in six weeks I begin to get used to life without Fred. I can see that life goes on without him, even for me—and this dumb baseball team I am the star of.
The next week we tie a nonsectarian school, but in a few days we slaughter some more Episcopalians. Altschuler is on the team too, but he doesn’t shine as he did on the basketball floor, and he isn’t nearly as good a hitter as I am. He tells me how great I am all the time, but I don’t thank him when he says it. I don’t know why. Except I do know why, so why do I say I don’t?
The fourth game is the hardest. No score. Bottom of the ninth. Davy the Dazzler gets a home run, the only score of the game, and against a nonsec school. In the locker room afterward, everyone is yelling and screaming about what a great guy I am. They are also running around and snapping towels at each other. They have more energy here than they have on the field.
“Slugger Ross!” everyone is yelling. “Hooray for Slugger Ross!” The guys like to horse around like that. It’s OK, I guess. As long as I remember I’m no great shakes.
Some guy snaps his towel on my backside when I am going into the shower. It stings so much that I turn the water on very cold to take away the burn. The water is like needles against my body. I like it a lot. I like the force pounding down on me, my eyes closed so I can get as close as I can to the nozzle.
