Read Online Home Game by Michael Lewis - Free Book Online

Quinn claims are “llamas,” are also surprisingly aggressive. I rush after her and quickly lose any chance of securing a comfortable place to sleep. By the time I herd Quinn back into the saucer, all of the soft, level places have been taken. We’ll be spending the night on the hard, steep slope just below the rim.
    All the other fathers have their tents looking very tentlike. These are elaborate affairs, with great huge roofs and fancy walk-in entrances. The man in the tent beside me not only has his tent up and running, he has a fantastic contraption that looks like a giant fire extinguisher and sounds like a pneumatic pump. He’s huffing and wheezing over the thing like a pro. He is inflating what appears to be a full-sized mattress inside his enormous tent. I do not own one of these. I have never even seen one of these. My tent is still in its sack on the ground.
    Quinn looks around, then at me.
    â€œWhere is our tent, Daddy?”
    â€œIt’s in there.” I point to the blue sack.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI haven’t put it up yet. You want to help Daddy put up the tent?”
    â€œI want to go see the llamas.”
    A bit tensely: “I need you to stay here while I put up our tent.”
    In a flash, she’s gone.
    One eye on the donkeys, I unravel the tent and count our possessions with the other. These are: the tent and two sleeping bags I bought last week at REI, one head-mounted coal miner’s flashlight that Tabitha gave me so I could see the barbecue pit when I grilled at night, three diapers, one sack of wipes, a purple and green glow-in-the-dark toothbrush, one tube of strawberry-flavored toothpaste, insect repellant, a pair of what Quinn calls “my stripey PJs,” along with the pink slippers she insisted she could not do without. Finally there is a tattered and yellowing Outward Bound student handbook from the last time I camped—years ago, when I spent a month wandering about a wilderness area in Oregon. In this tattered Outward Bound handbook is everything I have forgotten about camping. Or so I think. When I open it I see that it is, like Outward Bound itself, more concerned with my spiritual development than my survival. It’s filled with aphorisms the Outward Bound student is meant to take to heart:
    They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter.
    â€”Job 24:8
    For the first time in more than two decades, I pitch a tent. It has such an odd shape to it , I think to myself when I am finished. John wanders over and stares a bit. “It looks like one of those old Volkswagen beetles with a tarp thrown over it,” he finally says.
    â€œI’m a little worried the fly sheet isn’t on right,” I say.
    He thinks about what appears to be my problem. “I think you’ll be okay in downtown Oakland,” he says.
    The man in the tent next door continues to pump away at his inflatable mattress. Sweat drips from the tip of his nose. John leaves. I turn to the sweating man. So far as I can see, his giant inflatable mattress is no more inflated than it had been twenty minutes before. No longer does he seem quite the aficionado.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I ask.
    He stops, relieved to have an excuse not to keep pumping away. “Trying to pump this fucking thing up,” he says.
    I peer into his tent at the limp mattress. “How does it work?” I ask.
    â€œI’m not sure,” he says. “My wife bought it.” Pause. “This whole thing was my wife’s idea.”
    I sympathize and yet at the same time do not. The truth is, I am pleased by his distress. It means that it is possible, just, that I am not the least-prepared father for the journey that lies ahead of us. Quinn and I may not survive, but we won’t be the first to go.
    A night in Fairyland divides fairly neatly into two dramatically different experiences. The first amounts to a rave for toddlers.