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

for.
    â€œNo place to go,” Roy said.
    â€œWhyn’t you get a room?”
    â€œAin’t got what it takes.”
    Pop looked at him. “Scotty paid you your bonus cash, didn’t he?”
    â€œTwo hundred, but I had debts.”
    â€œYou shoulda drawn an advance on your first two weeks’ pay from the office when you came in today. It’s too late now,
they quit at five, so I will write you out my personal check for twenty-five dollars and you can pay me back when you get the money.”
    Pop balanced his checkbook on his knee. “You married?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhyn’t you ask around among the married players to see who has got a spare room? That way you’d have a more regular life. Either that, or in a respectable boarding house. Some of the boys who have their homes out of town prefer to stay at a moderate-priced hotel, which I myself have done since my wife passed away, but a boarding house is more homelike and cheaper. Anyway,” Pop advised, “tonight you better come along with me to the hotel and tomorrow you can find a place to suit your needs.”
    Roy remarked he wasn’t particularly crazy about hotels.
    They left the ball park, got into a cab and drove downtown. The sky over the Hudson was orange. Once Pop broke out of his reverie to point out Grant’s Tomb.
    At the Midtown Hotel, Pop spoke to the desk clerk and he assigned Roy a room on the ninth floor, facing toward the Empire State Building. Pop went up with him and pumped the mattress.
    â€œNot bad,” he said.
    After the bellhop had left he said he hoped Roy wasn’t the shenanigan type.
    â€œWhat kind?” Roy asked.
    â€œThere are all sorts of nuts in this game and I remember one of my players—seems to me it was close to twenty years ago—who used to walk out on the fifteenth floor ledge and scare fits out of people in the other rooms. One day when he was walking out there he fell and broke his leg and only the darndest luck kept him from rolling right overboard. It was beginning to rain and he pulled himself around from window to window, begging for help, and everybody went into stitches
at his acting but kept their windows closed. He finally rolled off and hit bottom.”
    Roy had unpacked his valise and was washing up.
    â€œLemme tell you one practical piece of advice, son,” Pop went on. “You’re starting way late—I was finished after fifteen years as an active player one year after the age you’re coming in, but if you want to get along the best way, behave and give the game all you have got, and when you can’t do that, quit. We don’t need any more goldbrickers or fourflushers or practical jokers around. One Bump Baily is too much for any team.”
    He left the room, looking wretched.
    The phone jangled and after a minute Roy got around to lifting it.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Red Blow barked. “Don’t you answer your telephone?”
    â€œI like it to ring a little, gives ’em a chance to change their mind.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œAnybody.”
    Red paused. “Pop asked me to show you around. When are you eating?”
    â€œI am hungry now.”
    â€œMeet me in the lobby, half past six.”
    As Roy hung up there was a loud dum-diddy-um-dum on the door and Bump Baily in a red-flowered Hollywood shirt breezed in.
    â€œHiya, buster. Saw you pull in with the old geezer and tracked you down. I would like for you to do me a favor.”
    â€œRoy is the name.”
    â€œRoy is fine. Listen, I got my room on the fourth floor, which is a damn sight classier than this mouse trap. I would like you to borrow it and I will borrow this for tonight.”
    â€œWhat’s the pitch?”

    â€œI am having a lady friend visit me and there are too many nosy people on my floor.”
    Roy considered and said okay. He unconsciously wet his lips.
    Bump slapped him between the shoulders.