Mentor: A Memoir (9 page)
Authors: Tom Grimes
My brother-in-law thought my remark would upset my sister. Instead, she tried to keep her smile from widening.
“And you’re telling me the best you could do was a knife? You think a knife is original? You couldn’t have clubbed yourself to death with a dumbbell?”
She laughed through her nose, which made her sound like a dog sniffing a patch of urine.
“I have to tell you, I’m disappointed. I fly out here and you don’t even have the decency to be dead. Next time, get it right. Okay? Otherwise, I might as well stay home.”
Her psychiatrist asked to speak to me in the hallway. “Why did she respond to you?” he said.
“Because we have something in common. We both hate ourselves. What drugs are you pumping into her?”
“Lithium and Haldol. Why do you hate yourselves?”
“My father, mother, and twelve years of Catholic school. How long will she be here? ”
“Until we get her stable. Do you believe your father molested her? ”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he never wanted to touch any of us.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I
n Florida, the humid air opened my pores and seeped into my skin, replenishing the moisture that had been sucked dry by Iowa’s winter. From my motel room, I called Frank. I told him my sister had been taken off suicide watch and was semi-lucid again. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, you know you can’t do any more to help, right?”
n Florida, the humid air opened my pores and seeped into my skin, replenishing the moisture that had been sucked dry by Iowa’s winter. From my motel room, I called Frank. I told him my sister had been taken off suicide watch and was semi-lucid again. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, you know you can’t do any more to help, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then. Get your head back into the book and do what you went there to do.”
Which was to study professional baseball players; to use, as Flannery O’Connor advised young writers to do, my five senses. What did the stadium and its locker room look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like? For my novel to succeed I had to be able to write, “In the air I could smell the vinegarish aroma of sauerkraut, the musty fragrance of ballpark beer.” I needed to transform what I saw into the words “It was a sky-high fly ball. At its peak, I lost sight of the ball as it climbed above the band of light that crowned the stadium, into the envelope of darkness and low-flying smog.” I was required to know that every professional team employs a public relations manager. For the Mets, this was Jay, a pudgy, curly-haired forty-year-old who wore wrinkled suits, eyeglasses that slid down his beaked nose, and a perpetually wide-eyed expression, as if he feared someone might push him off a cliff at any moment. After I’d been cleared to enter the players’ parking lot by an armed guard to whom I’d shown the invitation from Mr. Cashen, Jay confronted me the instant I stepped out of my rented car.
“Who are you? ” He tore the letter out of my hands. “What paper are you with?”
“I’m not with any paper,” I said. “I’m writing a novel.”
He pushed his glasses up toward his feathery eyebrows. “A
novel
?” He pronounced the word as if he suspected me of trying to steal nuclear launch codes. “What for?”
novel
?” He pronounced the word as if he suspected me of trying to steal nuclear launch codes. “What for?”
What for?
I didn’t have an answer. What
are
novels for? Entertainment? Metaphysical inquiry? Chronicling one’s times? Could I tell Jay that the world is chaos and an artful novel satisfies our human desire for order, or that the novel excavates meaning from the rubble of incomprehension? That a novel is a thing to be read upon a beach in July for pleasure, or that I was an Iowa Writers’ Workshop student and writing a novel was my homework? Or that I never want to die and when I’m writing a novel I believe I never will? Then it became clear to me. My novel had changed my life. A year earlier, I’d been a waiter. Sixty pages of prose later, I had a letter permitting me to dissect the lives of millionaire athletes.
I didn’t have an answer. What
are
novels for? Entertainment? Metaphysical inquiry? Chronicling one’s times? Could I tell Jay that the world is chaos and an artful novel satisfies our human desire for order, or that the novel excavates meaning from the rubble of incomprehension? That a novel is a thing to be read upon a beach in July for pleasure, or that I was an Iowa Writers’ Workshop student and writing a novel was my homework? Or that I never want to die and when I’m writing a novel I believe I never will? Then it became clear to me. My novel had changed my life. A year earlier, I’d been a waiter. Sixty pages of prose later, I had a letter permitting me to dissect the lives of millionaire athletes.
“For a lot of reasons,” I said.
He studied Mr. Cashen’s signature, searching for any hint of forgery. Then he said, “Fine. Get a press pass inside. And whatever you do, don’t talk to Darryl.”
He was referring to the team’s superstar, Darryl Strawberry, who shared a common trait with my narrator, Mike Williams, who appears on
Sports Illustrated
’s cover when he’s twenty-one. Strawberry had appeared on it when he was nineteen. He stood six foot six inches tall and had a chest as broad as a refrigerator door. When he strode through the locker room wearing only a towel, his abdominal muscles resembled ice cubes. His biceps swelled to the size of grapefruits whenever he curled his arms, he hit home runs the way normal people swat flies, and he had a temperament as brittle as an eggshell. In successive years, he had been a Most Valuable Player finalist, and, in 1986, he’d won a World Series title. But the season before I arrived, his ability to hit the ball vanished, and the fifty sportswriters who covered the team had only one question for him: “Why?” Frustrated and brooding, he stopped granting interviews. Several columnists punished him by penning savage articles that belittled his talent and criticized his sullen behavior. Finally, he checked into an alcoholic rehab facility after threatening his wife with a loaded pistol. Before I could assure Jay that I wouldn’t interrogate Mr. Strawberry, he darted off to intercept members of the press who had descended on Bobby Ojeda, a starting pitcher who had slowed to a halt in a red Ferrari, which he left purring as his fashion model girlfriend, a creature minted, it seemed, out of pure platinum, circled the car, kissed him, and then dropped into the driver’s seat and sped out of the lot.
Sports Illustrated
’s cover when he’s twenty-one. Strawberry had appeared on it when he was nineteen. He stood six foot six inches tall and had a chest as broad as a refrigerator door. When he strode through the locker room wearing only a towel, his abdominal muscles resembled ice cubes. His biceps swelled to the size of grapefruits whenever he curled his arms, he hit home runs the way normal people swat flies, and he had a temperament as brittle as an eggshell. In successive years, he had been a Most Valuable Player finalist, and, in 1986, he’d won a World Series title. But the season before I arrived, his ability to hit the ball vanished, and the fifty sportswriters who covered the team had only one question for him: “Why?” Frustrated and brooding, he stopped granting interviews. Several columnists punished him by penning savage articles that belittled his talent and criticized his sullen behavior. Finally, he checked into an alcoholic rehab facility after threatening his wife with a loaded pistol. Before I could assure Jay that I wouldn’t interrogate Mr. Strawberry, he darted off to intercept members of the press who had descended on Bobby Ojeda, a starting pitcher who had slowed to a halt in a red Ferrari, which he left purring as his fashion model girlfriend, a creature minted, it seemed, out of pure platinum, circled the car, kissed him, and then dropped into the driver’s seat and sped out of the lot.
I walked to the office Jay had directed me to and collected my press card. In my back pocket, I kept a small, gray memo pad and a blue ballpoint pen, although I’d vowed never to scribble notes in anyone’s presence. To the players, I wanted to become familiar to the point of invisibility. Professional athletes live in a fishbowl. Therefore, they tend to be skittish around people who ask them direct questions. So I planned to ask as few as possible. I entered the locker room and drew a few curious stares. Within an instant, I was forgotten. I found a corner chair, sat, listened to reporters conduct interviews, and watched the players dress. First, they pulled long white socks above their knees and secured them with navy blue stirrups. Next, they hoisted jockstraps over their hips, stepped into Spandex shorts, and then reached inside them to snugly place a hard rubber cup over their testicles. They tugged short-sleeved Mets T-shirts over their heads, slipped into immaculate white, blue, and orange pinstriped uniforms, and then knotted the laces of their polished black cleats. Finally, they crossed the cool, low-ceilinged locker room and studied the blackboard bolted to a cinder-block wall to see who was in the starting lineup. The ones who weren’t said, “Fuck.” The ones who were said nothing, but their bodies swelled when they inhaled, which said everything. Alone and in pairs, they headed for the tunnel that led to the dugout. Civilians were not allowed to follow.
I wandered out to the field. For a moment, the blue sky made me light-headed. I’d become accustomed to Iowa’s muted winter landscape, its subtle shades of gray. I scanned the grass, looking for Strawberry. Instead, I saw Mr. Cashen peering through the fence behind home plate. He wore a tan suit, eyeglasses, and his signature bow tie. Despite being nearly seventy, his dull blond hair and short, swift gait made him appear younger. He and tall, lean Al Harazin, the team’s senior vice president, studied hitters taking batting practice. From a distance, the two seemed to whisper to one another, but mainly they frowned, as if they had been forced to choose between one piece of rotten fruit and another. As I strolled toward them, noting the texture of the third-base bag, the brightness of the white baseline, the palpable calm radiated by the empty expanse of left field, and the stadium’s small scale, I recognized the three sources of my disorientation. Sunshine, a balmy breeze, and the freedom of being outdoors, which Iowa’s winter had erased from my memory. Also, I’d escaped the pressure of my novel. The six months I’d spent hunched over my desk in a small, cold room near an ice-glazed storm window had ended. I felt as if I’d ascended from the ocean’s frigid, black floor, broken the water’s surface, and taken a deep breath. A world did exist apart from the intensity of making sentences and the anxiety of scratching my way toward an ending. The stadium no longer seemed unreal, the players no longer like images in a dream. The shift from one reality to another became complete. And I went to meet Mr. Cashen.
On the evening news, I appeared in the Mets dugout, standing beside the team’s manager, Davey Johnson. I immediately called Frank and said, “I was just on television!”
“Great!” he shouted. A moment later, he dropped his voice an octave and said, “Remember your friends, Tom.”
I laughed. Then I said, “Mr. Cashen told me to say hello. He asked about
Body & Soul
.”
Body & Soul
.”
Frank said, “Tell him it’s going well.”
After
GQ
published its first chapter, a dozen countries bought the rights to publish the novel, only half of which was written. The circle of readers who had read the manuscript loved it. Now, all Frank had to do was finish the book. And, like him, I had to finish mine. But if his expectations for my novel were high, public expectations for his were far higher. Frank had written
Stop-Time
, which, over the years, had become a vibrant thread in the tapestry of American literature. Now he had to write one as good, or better. As for me, although I’d been too embarrassed to mention it to him, fearing that he’d consider it simplistic and poorly written, what was to become my first novel would be published in two months, and when I returned from Florida I would have to sit down in Frank’s office and tell him about it.
GQ
published its first chapter, a dozen countries bought the rights to publish the novel, only half of which was written. The circle of readers who had read the manuscript loved it. Now, all Frank had to do was finish the book. And, like him, I had to finish mine. But if his expectations for my novel were high, public expectations for his were far higher. Frank had written
Stop-Time
, which, over the years, had become a vibrant thread in the tapestry of American literature. Now he had to write one as good, or better. As for me, although I’d been too embarrassed to mention it to him, fearing that he’d consider it simplistic and poorly written, what was to become my first novel would be published in two months, and when I returned from Florida I would have to sit down in Frank’s office and tell him about it.
On a nearly deserted practice field, I stared through the small squares of the fence behind home plate and talked to a retired pitcher who taught me how a knuckleball moves. I listened to him without taking notes, and when I returned to my desk I transformed his descriptions into prose. Then I revised the prose seven times to find my narrator’s voice. The pitcher’s words had the unpolished yet cohesive quality of speech. “The pitch’ll do this,” a twist of his hand, “and then that,” another twist. Mine formed a single sentence designed to allow a reader to see the movement of a knuckleball and understand that “by virtue of its practically spinless nature—the ball only rotates a quarter of a revolution during its trip from the mound to the plate—the pitch has a tendency, when it’s thrown correctly, to assume the flight pattern of a bumblebee, a thing prone to random loops and dodges.”
Standing at home plate was Darryl Strawberry. I hadn’t spoken to him, but I’d followed him. He wanted to practice hitting a curve-ball, which he called a “hook.” One of the team’s stellar pitchers, David Cone, obliged him. After assuming his stance, Strawberry said, “Hook.” Cone reared and threw. Then the ball floated toward us lazily, following a C-shaped path, until it met the barrel of Strawberry’s bat. The ball flew skyward, then dropped into left field. “Hook.” A line drive zipped to right field. “Hook.” A ground ball rolled toward second base. After five minutes, he said, “Okay, throw what you want.” Cone unleashed a fastball, which made a faint
whoosh
as it hurtled toward us. For a millisecond, the ball seemed to swell. Ten feet in front of home plate, it vanished, then reemerged half an instant later in the catcher’s mitt. Instinctively, I jerked my head and ducked. So did the pitching coach. Once we relaxed, he smiled at me.
whoosh
as it hurtled toward us. For a millisecond, the ball seemed to swell. Ten feet in front of home plate, it vanished, then reemerged half an instant later in the catcher’s mitt. Instinctively, I jerked my head and ducked. So did the pitching coach. Once we relaxed, he smiled at me.
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