Esther M. Friesner - Jesus at Bat

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2024-11-24 0 0 44.75KB 20 页 5.9玖币

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ESTHER M. FRIESNER

JESUS AT THE BAT

PHILIP ROTH HAD ALREADY written The Great American Novel; Victor Harris was

screwed. If you're going to be successful with the writing thing you have to

write about what you know, and the only thing Victor Harris really knew was

baseball. (He thought he knew sex, but that's another story.) The only

question

remaining was: How much longer would he be able to keep up the sweet,

unstressful position of sensitive, creative, Aspiring-Author/ Househusband

(without actually becoming Published Author/Househusband) before Barb, his

wife,

caught wise?

He kept a copy of Stephen King's Playboy interview prominently displayed in

the

small basement cubby that was his "office," the better to remind Barb of at

least one loyal lady who'd held down a decidedly unfun job (Dunkin' Donuts)

while hubby mud-wrestled with the Muse until he hit pay dirt. Stand by your

man,

it seemed to say, and soon you shall limo beside him. Cast your sugar crullers

upon the waters and they shall be returned unto you an hundredfold as caviar.

But the interview was curling with age faster than Victor's first rejection

slip

(also prominently displayed: it was from the New Yorker and had the

distinction

of sporting an actual, human, hand-written note of comment scrawled in the

margin, viz.: "Sorry." Whether this referred to the rejecting editor's regrets

or the manuscript's quality was best left nebulous) and Barb was starting to

get

the hard-bitten, narrow look of a ten-year-old facing off against parents who

persist in chirping about Santa. Not good.

So the King interview was a life-vest whose kapok molecules were rapidly

metamorphosing into cesium. Victor told himself that many a good woman of

Barb's

generation would be grateful to have a fulfilling multiphase career as

aesthetician by day, Amway rep by night, but Barb didn't see it that way. Why

didn't she appreciate the stresses of the Art? Why must he cringe each time

she

demanded, "Haven't you sold anything yet?" or "Why don't you go down to Four

Comers Used Cars and see if Jerry'll give you your old job back?" or "Why in

bell did you ever major in English? Everyone around here speaks it already."

Useless to attempt explaining the creative nature to such a scrawny soul.

Futile

to preach the exquisitely painful yet glacial process of inspiration,

motivation, and execution in l'oeuvre Harris to the heathen. None so blind as

they who will not see themselves vacationing in Hawaii this year -- again! --

and the Millers next door have already gone four times!

Of the bricks of such marital differences are the divorce courts of this fair

nation built. So, too, the occasional ax-murder-with-P.M.S.-defense case. On

the

surface it would seem that a miracle would be necessary to save Victor Harris'

neck from the chop. That was where the Brothers' Meeting Little League came

in.

No, really.

And that was why, with luck, there would forever be one less used car salesman

at Four Comers and never a moment's peace for the Harris family at the Sharon

Valley Regional Elementary School P.T.A. spring picnic.

"Barb, hon, you look just gorgeous!" Sally McClellan swept down on Barb like a

tornado on a trailer park.

The McClellans and the Harrises didn't usually move in the same circles.

Victor

Harris moved in circles pretty constantly, while Phil McClellan moved solely

a steep, straight line of ascent to the windswept heights of financial success

whence he might safely piss on the upturned faces of those below.

However, when the first sweet shoots of spring green burst through the hard

Sharon Valley earth, Phil McClellan graciously maintained temporary bladder

control so far as Victor's face went. As he told The Little Woman, if kissing

Victor Harris' skinny ass was called for to achieve your goals, then by God

and

Ted Turner Industries, Phil McClellan would take a back seat to no one when it

came to posterior pucker-ups. The Little Woman conducted herself accordingly

regarded Mrs. Victor Harris' more shapely buns, indeed.

Barb was nobody's fool except Victor's and he'd had to marry her for that

privilege. She knew just what Sally was after and she sat back on the picnic

table bench with all the smirking superiority of a Renaissance prince

contemplating where to insert his next dagger. "Sally, darling" she purred.

Cheeks brushed. Kissy-kissy mwah-mwahs were uttered. "When are you gonna come

around to the La Belle so I can get my hands on your hair?" (La Belle being

the

town aesthetorium where Barb currently aestheted.)

Sally gave a nervous little giggle and fluffed her golden pour of curls with

apparent need. "Oh, I'll be around. I don't think I'm due for a trim just

yet."

"Every six weeks." Relentless, that was Barb in the spring. "And I know I

haven't seen you since last September." Somewhere a ghostly poniard glittered.

"I hear tell you've been going up to Pittsburgh to have it done." Zzzip-zot, a

slender blade slipped in and out between Sally McClellan's spareribs without

The

Little Woman feeling anything but a draft tickling her pancreas.

Sally turned bright red. "Who told you that?"

"Marylynn Drummer." Barb's eyes were hooded and inscrutable, but she licked

her

lips to savor the taste of blood.

"Well, it's just a baldfaced lie!" Sally spat. "When did she say so?"

"Mmmm, hard to recall." Barb sucked a few last crimson drops off the tip of

her

index finger. "I see her so often. Every week she's in the La Belie for a

shampoo and blow-dry at least. She's got a standing appointment." It was time

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Esther M. Friesner - Jesus at Bat

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