Read Online The Natural by Bernard Malamud - Free Book Online Page A

they let nobody else out. The players waited nervously, except Bump, who slapped backs and advised everybody to cheer up. A few of the boys were working the strategy of staying in the showers so long they hoped Pop would grow sick and tired and leave. But Pop, a self-sustaining torch in the shut managerial office, outwaited them, and when he got the quiet knock from Red that the lobsters were in the pot, yanked open the door and strode sulphurously forth. The team shriveled.
    Pop stepped up on a chair where for once, a bald, bristling figure, he towered over them. Waving his bandaged hands he began to berate them but immediately stopped, choked by his rage into silence.
    â€œIf he coughs now,” Bump boomed, “he will bust into dust.”

    Pop glared at him, his head glowing like a red sun. He savagely burst out that not a single blasted one of them here was a true ballplayer. They were sick monkeys, broken-down mules, pigeon-chested toads, slimy horned worms, but not real, honest-to-god baseball players.
    â€œHow’s about flatfooted fish?” Bump wisecracked. “Get it, boys, fish—Fisher,” and he fell into a deep gargle of laughter at his wit, but the semi-frozen players in the room did not react.
    â€œHow’s he get away with it?” Roy asked the ghost standing next to him. The pale player whispered out of the corner of his mouth that Bump was presently the leading hitter in the league.
    Pop ignored Bump and continued to give the team the rough side of his tongue. “What beats me is that I have spent thousands of dollars for the best players I could lay my hands on. I hired two of the finest coaches in the game. I sweat myself sick trying to direct you, and all you can deliver is those goddamn goose eggs.” His voice rose. “Do you dimwits realize that we have been skunked for the last forty-five innings in a row?”
    â€œNot Bumpsy,” the big voice said, “I am terrific.”
    â€œYou now hold the record of the most consecutive games lost in the whole league history, the most strikeouts, the most errors—”
    â€œNot Bumpsy—”
    â€œâ€”the most foolishness and colossal stupidities. In plain words, you all stink. I am tempted to take pity on those poor dopes who spend a buck and a half to watch you play and trade the whole lousy lot of you away.”
    Bump dropped down on his knees and raised his clasped hands. “Me first, Lawdy, me first.”
    â€œâ€”and start from scratch to build up a team that will know how to play together and has guts and will fight the
other guy to death before they drop seventeen games in the cellar.”
    The players in the locker room were worn out but Bump was singing, “Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep.”
    â€œBeware,” he croaked low in his throat, “bewaaare—”
    Pop shook a furious finger at him that looked as if it would fly off and strike him in the face. “As for you, Bump Baily, high and mighty though you are, some day you’ll pay for your sassifras. Remember that lightning cuts down the tallest trees too.”
    Bump didn’t like warnings of retribution. His face turned surly.
    â€œLightning, maybe, but no burnt out old fuse.”
    Pop tottered. “Practice at eight in the morning,” he said brokenly. But for Red he would have tumbled off the chair. In his office behind the slammed and smoking door they could hear him sobbing, “Sometimes I could cut my own throat.”
    It took the Knights a while to grow bones and crawl out after Bump. But when everybody had gone, including the coaches and Dizzy, Roy remained behind. His face was flaming hot, his clothes soaked in sweat and shame, as if the old man’s accusations had been leveled at his head.
    Â 
    When Pop came out in his street clothes, a yellowed Panama and a loud sport jacket, he was startled to see Roy sitting there in the gloom and asked what he was waiting