The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach Read Free Book Online Page A

Coach Cox loves him. If he does half of what he’s capable of, I’ll be spending the next two years right here.” He looked at Henry. “You, on the other hand, have Tennant worked into quite a lather.”
    “I do not,” Henry said.
    “Yeah, sure. You didn’t hear him blabbing at Meccini last night while I was lying in my cot, pretending to be asleep.”
    “What’d he say?”
    Rick looked both ways to make sure no one else was listening, then segued into his Tennant impression. “Bleeping Schwartz. Can’t stand the fact that I’m the captain of this bleeping team. So what does he do? Digs up that little piece of bleep who catches every bleeping thing you hit at him, that’s what. Then trains the little bleep night and day, and proselytizes Coach Cox all bleeping winter about what a fantastic bleeping player he is. Why? So the little bleep can steal my bleeping job, and Schwartz, who’s only a bleeping sophomore, for bleep’s sake, can declare himself the bleeping king of the team.”
    Owen looked up from his book. “Tennant said proselytize? ”
    Rick nodded. “And bleeping. ”
    “Well, he has reason to fear. Henry’s performance has been outstanding.”
    “Come on,” Henry protested. “Tennant’s way better than me.”
    “Lev can hit,” Owen said. “But his defense is slipshod. He lacks the Skrimshander panache.”
    “I didn’t realize Tennant disliked Schwartzy so much,” said Henry, by which he meant, I didn’t realize Tennant disliked me so much. No one had ever called him a little bleep before. He’d noticed that Lev treated him coldly during drills, but he’d chalked this up to simple indifference.
    “What, you live under a rock?” Rick said. “Those two can’t stand each other. I wouldn’t be surprised to see things come to a head pretty soon.”
    “Verily,” Owen agreed.
    The game was tied in the ninth, Tennant on first base, when Two Thirty stepped to the plate. He screwed his back foot into the dirt, lifted his bat high above his head. Already today he’d hit a single and a double. Maybe Argentina had done him some good.
    “Jim Toover!” Owen cheered. “You are skilled! We exhort you!”
    Ball one. Ball two.
    “How could anyone miss that strike zone?” Rick asked.
    Ball three.
    Henry looked toward third base to see if Coach Cox would put the take sign on. “Letting him swing away,” he reported.
    “Really?” Rick said. “That sounds like a bad i—,” but his words were interrupted by an earsplitting ping of ball against aluminum bat. The ball became a speck in the pale-blue sky and carried deep, deep into the parking lot. Henry thought he heard a windshield shatter, but he wasn’t sure. They rushed from the dugout to greet Jim at home plate.
    Rick shook his head in astonishment. “Now I’ll never get off the bench.”
    “Indeed!” Owen gave Two Thirty a celebratory smack on the ass with his Omar Khayyám. “Indeed!”
    With that win the Harpooners, for the first time in anyone’s memory, including Coach Cox’s, were undefeated. They celebrated at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in the strip mall near their motel. Then, over the next three days, they lost their next five games. Tennant was booting every grounder that came his way. Two Thirty struck out repeatedly. As the losses mounted, Coach Cox stood in the third-base coaching box with crossed arms, digging a moat in the dirt with the toe of his cleat and filling it with a steady stream of tobacco juice, as if to protect himself from so much ineptitude. The mood in the dugout turned from optimistic, to determined, to gloomy, to gloomy with a venomous edge. On the bench during their seventh game, Rick hid his phone in his glove and surreptitiously scrolled through the Facebook photos that their classmates had posted that day from West Palm, Miami, Daytona, Panama City Beach—album after album of bikinied girls, blue ocean, brightly colored drinks. “So close,” he moaned, shaking his head. “But so,