The Fan by Peter Abrahams Page A

all right.”
    Richie kept screaming and jerking.
    “You’re all right. Control yourself.”
    Gil pushed Richie’s hands aside, felt his head: a little bump sprouting on the side. Nothing.
    “Come on, now,” Gil said. He squeezed Richie’s shoulder, not too hard.
    Richie quieted. “It’s your fault,” he said, so softly Gil hardly heard. Maybe he’d imagined it.
    Gil grew aware of the people standing around. He reached for Richie’s hand, helped him up. Applause from the stands.
    “He okay?” asked the man with the whistle.
    Gil turned on him. “You don’t worry about that,” he said. “You just worry about hitting them fair to everybody.” He walked Richie off the court.
    By the second Coke and third slice of pizza, Richie had cheered up. “I did pretty good on that grounder, didn’t I?”
    “Yeah. Remember to square to the ball and get your butt down.”
    “I did.”
    “Well, that’s the way to do it. Even more.”
    “Think I’ll make it?”
    “Make what?”
    “The majors.”
    Gil looked into his son’s eyes, light brown eyes, the same shade as his mother’s, watching closely. Richie was probably going to need glasses too, maybe needed them already. Gil was still searching for the right answer when Richie said, “Daddy Tim says it doesn’t matter whether I make it this year or not.”
    That was new, Daddy Tim. Gil swallowed the rest of his beer and said, “He’s right.”
    Richie nodded. He ate more pizza, drank more Coke. “The uniforms are better in the majors. You get button shirts and your name on the back. Rossi Plumbing’s the best. Green pinstripes.”
    Gil ordered another beer.
    “Do you think they’ll pick me?”
    “Who?”
    “Rossi Plumbing. That was their coach, hitting the grounders.”
    “Hard to predict a draft,” Gil said.
    “Think I’ll go in the first round?”
    “Hard to say. How about another Coke?”
    “I’m not supposed to drink Coke.”
    “Who says?”
    “Mom and Da—and Tim.”
    “Miss?” said Gil, flagging down the waitress. “Another Coke.” He turned to Richie. “Different rules when you’re with your father.”
    Richie chewed on his straw. “Did you see Jason Pellegrini?”
    “Who’s he?”
    “Twenty-three.”
    “I think so.”
    “He’s pretty good, huh?”
    “Not bad. I wasn’t really watching.”
    “Better than me?”
    “About the same. All kids are about the same at your age.”
    Richie gave him a look. “How were you, at my age?”
    First pick. First pick, every goddamn time. Would have made that number twenty-three look like … like
you
. “About the same,” Gil said. He reached into his pocket, laid the tickets on the table. “Speaking of the majors,” he said.
    Richie picked them up, holding them a little closer to his eyes than Gil thought normal. “Opening Day!”
    “Didn’t I tell you?”
    “Yeah, you told me. Thanks. Dad.”
    “Pick you up at eleven, sharp.”
    “How many days away is it?”
    They counted them. Then they went to a movie. Something about a pirate who drowns in a shipwreck and returns to a Caribbean resort as a ghost. Gil thought it was a comedy until the ghost-pirate chopped off a croupier’s hand with his cutlass. The cutlass didn’t look authentic to Gil. Turning to point this out to Richie, he saw that his son had his eyes covered.
    Gil drove Richie home, parked outside the triplex. He thought of putting his arm around Richie, giving him a hug good-bye. Then he wondered how Richie would take it, decided it might be better if Richie made the first move. Nothing happened.
    Richie opened the car door. “Bye,” he said.
    “Bye.” Richie closed the door, started walking across the narrow lawn.
    Gil slid down the window. “Richie?”
    Richie stopped and turned. “Yeah?”
    “When was the last time you saw the eye doctor?”
    “Was I that bad?” Richie went into the house.

7
    “ Y ou know what you can do with spring training.”
    “What’s that, Jewel?”
    “Get a grip on that