The index of self destru.., p.5
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, page 5
But whatever scruples these people had felt obliged to pretend they’d had about Frank were simply forgotten. Everyone went out of their way to tell her how much they’d missed these parties. The intervening years had conferred on them—as it had on so many things that belonged (was it really possible?) to the previous century—a retrospective sheen of poignant innocence. How odd it seemed now, to have lived in a state of nearly constant celebration. Everyone wanted a return to the days before things went off track.
In almost every other way, the timing was terrible. Edward didn’t seem to have any interest in seeing people. Even before leaving school, Margo hadn’t been herself for months. Frank had declared that he was finally working on the big book that weekly deadlines had kept him from all his life, and he still spent long hours in his office, but Kit suspected that he mostly spent them drinking and watching TV. The rest of the time, he wandered the house in a haze of self-pity. He called old friends seeking commiseration and tried to get them to boycott the Herald, an effort that only served to show how little social capital he had left. And somehow all of this was just the beginning of their problems. Only she knew the worst of it.
Perversely, that argued in favor of a celebration. Failing to mark the occasion would have amounted to an admission that her son’s return had not solved the deeper faults at the heart of her family. She wanted to prove that they hadn’t been defeated—by the war, by the financial collapse, by Frank’s unerring talent for compounding his mistakes. Once it was clear that all their old friends meant to be there, Kit hoped that the occasion would be good for everyone. Frank flourished with an audience, and their parties had always brought out the best in him. She’d hoped to introduce Edward to some people who could put him in the way of a new job, something substantial to occupy his time. She didn’t know enough about Margo’s particular complaints to guess at what might help her, but at least a party would get them talking to each other again.
After the crowd leaked into a second room, she moved between the two, diligently playing hostess, until she saw Edward come in. He was still in the clothes he’d worn to lunch with Justin—khaki pants and button-down shirt, no jacket or tie—and he was sweating as though he’d been out for another run. He was an hour late for his own party, but he was there. He was safe. More than this, he looked happy. Exhilarated, even. Whatever he’d needed to do to be able to enjoy the evening was fine with her. She caught his eye from across the room, and he gave her an apologetic smile.
A few people standing near the library door cheered as he came into view, and he raised a hand almost violently, as if protecting himself from the response more than acknowledging it. He stood in that position, framed in the doorway, while the fact of his presence—and with it, presumably, the fact of his prior absence—spread through the room. Scattered clapping coalesced into full applause. The piano player, who’d been halfway through “A Foggy Day in London Town,” stopped mid-verse. Everyone waited for Edward to respond, but he seemed stuck in place, willing their scrutiny to stop. The moment threatened to turn awkward until Frank crossed the room. He pulled Edward into an embrace, raised his drink, and let out a whistle. Several people tapped their glasses, though the room was already at full attention. Frank always made some kind of speech at these parties—he never wasted an audience—but they usually came later in the night. Kit was glad he was getting it out of the way while they were all sober enough.
“It’s been a while since we gathered in this house,” he began. “A lot has changed. I want to say first of all how nice it is to have everyone here to welcome Edward home, and how proud I am of my son. He has put his life on the line for a worthy cause.”
Another cheer went up, a few glasses raised in peremptory toast. Kit could see Edward growing restless under his father’s grip, and Frank seemed to consider leaving it there, which Kit knew he couldn’t do.
“The meaning of this sacrifice is in no way lessened by the fact that our current commander in chief doesn’t appreciate the seriousness of the fight we’re engaged in. As hard as it may be for some people in this country—maybe even some people in this room—to admit, we live in a safer, freer world than the one we occupied the last time we all stood here together. Because of men and women like Edward, millions of people have been given the opportunity to choose their own political destinies for the first time. My guess is that in the coming years there will be a lot more people in that part of the world doing the same. And when history”—here he raised his voice over a murmur of cross talk—“when history renders its judgment on our actions of the past few years, this is what will matter. Not petty grievances and minor setbacks, not even more serious mistakes, but the fact that democracy is making its way from a privileged exception to a global right. My son helped make that happen.”
When Frank raised his glass, every guest raised one with him. How could they not? Yet Kit wondered how many believed what he’d said. Certainly Frank believed it himself, but did Edward? Did she? It pleased Kit to see Frank showing pride in his son, but even now she couldn’t pretend to treat Edward’s time in the army as anything other than a terrible mistake. She didn’t much care what the fighting had meant. She didn’t even care whether they’d won or lost. What mattered was that her son was alive. She knew that if he’d never come back, some part of Frank would have thought it a worthwhile sacrifice, and the very idea still angered her, even with Edward right there.
Once it was clear that Frank’s speaking part was done, Kit went outside for another cigarette, which she’d been putting off doing until Edward turned up. She realized how anxious she’d been only now that she felt the anxiety leaving her body with the exhale of smoke. Justin was standing with a few old friends in the back of the garden, and he broke from the group to approach.
“That was a fine performance,” he said.
“He’s still got it,” Kit agreed.
“It’s good to have everyone back here.”
“We’re glad to have you back.”
Besides being her son’s best friend, Justin had long been a kind of protégé of Kit’s, but their relationship had cooled after he left Q&M to work for Dan Eisen, and they’d seen a lot less of each other while Edward was gone. She’d had the idea that he might one day take over the firm, and it was only once he was gone that she’d started thinking seriously about selling. In her most irrational moments she blamed him a little for what had come next, though she knew he’d made the sensible decision. If he’d stayed, he might be very rich, but considerably less so than he was now.
“I’m glad we all made it through.”
Something about the remark struck a nerve. They hadn’t made it through quite yet, and Justin might have known as much. He was one of the few people with any real sense of what had happened to her.
“Actually, we’re in some real trouble,” she said.
She was trying not to sound too dramatic, but as she spoke the full force of it hit her.
“I’m sure Frank will get it back together. Blakeman’s profile ought to help.”
“For once I’m not talking about Frank.”
She watched Justin deciding what to make of this.
“I know you took a hit when UniBank went down.”
He looked down awkwardly as he spoke. He probably assumed there was money somewhere else, counted her among the many unfortunates who were just a little less rich right now than they’d been a year ago.
“There’s nothing left,” she said. “Nothing.”
She hadn’t planned to tell this to anyone, not even Frank, certainly not her son’s closest friend, her former acolyte, whatever Justin was to them. She couldn’t say whether it was the force of the truth, the shame of having revealed it, or maybe even some level of relief at speaking it out loud that made her start to cry. She was not someone who cried, but now she couldn’t stop, and beside her Justin seemed more shocked than anything else.
“Maybe I can help,” he said.
She’d practically been begging for this offer, but hearing him make it embarrassed her. After the Ballpark Incident, he’d offered to provide a statement on Frank’s behalf, to talk about the role the Doyles had played in his life, but Frank had refused. Anyone who knew him at all knew he wasn’t a bigot, he’d said, and he wasn’t going to advertise his racial bona fides to prove it. This had likely been a tactical mistake—Justin had become one of the city’s most prominent black citizens, and his good word would have gone a long way—but Kit had been relieved. She didn’t want to turn decades of real family feeling into something transactional.
“It’s a shame I never played the game the way Eisen does. I could have used that kind of edge.”
This was unfair to Justin, who was trying to be kind. Kit knew nothing about Eisen apart from the rumors that sprung up around anyone who enjoyed the kind of success he’d had over the past decade, and the fact that a few years of working for him had made Justin more money than she’d earned in her entire career.
She tried to smile as she wiped away her tears.
“I’m being dramatic,” she told him. “We’ll find a way to muddle through, I’m sure.” She dropped her half-finished cigarette into one of the small buckets of sand set out for the purpose. “Let’s think happy thoughts. This is supposed to be a party.”
The moment they stepped back through the doors, Frank caught Kit’s eye. She could tell he’d been waiting for her. She gave him a nod, and he leaned over to whisper in the piano player’s ear. She was halfway to him before the music started.
You could spot the true regulars, because they cleared space as soon as they recognized the song: “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” Frank and Kit had danced to it at nearly every one of these parties. The story of their meeting was legend by now, and you could hear people repeating it to initiates each time they danced to this song. They’d never spoken a word when he proposed. They met in the middle of the room just as the first verse—I never cared much for moonlit skies—began. Frank took her into his arms, and she was twenty again.
He held her tight, with more strength than he’d shown in months, as though trying to tell her he was back, he’d made it through. She wanted badly to believe him. When the song ended, he kissed her to scattered applause.
They stood together while the party continued its business around them. Kit allowed herself to think that these evenings would again become an unmistakable feature of the city’s social landscape. In fact, she knew, they would never throw another party in this house. By the end of the year, they probably wouldn’t even be living there. Behind her, two people she didn’t know were laughing about that park bench preacher who was all of a sudden the talk of New York.
“Did you hear the news?” one of them asked. “The world is coming to an end in the fall.”
That would be all right by me, Kit thought as she counted the time in her head. They might just hold out that long.
4.
Frank boarded the downtown 6 at Seventy-Seventh Street an hour and a half before first pitch. Ever since agreeing to go to the game, he’d been looking forward to his old routine, riding out to the park in a home white jersey and his battered, faded Mets cap with the “Ya Gotta Believe” button pinned to the brim. Not many men in his position would take the train to the game, but that’s how he was. At heart he was still a Brooklyn boy. Fans on the car had sometimes approached with questions about the team’s prospects that season. Hey Doyle, do you think Piazza’s through? How long is Willie going to last? Has El Duque still got something in the tank?
When he switched to the 7 at Grand Central, almost everyone seemed to be heading to the same place, but the few people who recognized him only whispered and laughed. In Jackson Heights, a man with bright red hair and an old Keith Hernandez shirt yelled, “You got a bum deal, Doyle,” which gratified Frank, until the man commenced whistling at the woman seated next to him, one of the few passengers simply suffering through her daily commute. When she stood up and walked away, the red-haired man cursed loudly. This was among the worst parts of Frank’s ordeal: the kind of allies it had brought him.
Before Blakeman’s offer, he hadn’t planned to attend the opening of Citi Field. For the first time in four decades, he didn’t have season tickets, and he hadn’t been sure he’d go to the new park at all. That the great debacle had happened during the last game the Mets ever played at Shea had felt strangely fitting. His days as the team’s most famous fan—a familiar fixture in his seats behind home plate, sure to appear on the jumbotron at some point during every home game, invited often into the announcing booth and twice onto the field to throw out the first pitch—were over. As if in recognition of the fact, the stadium where he’d played that role had been torn down. He knew some people found him solipsistic, but in this case the symbolism really was striking. Who could blame him for avoiding the new home they’d erected in his reputation’s ruins?
What changed his mind was the prospect of facing off with this kid. Like everyone else, Frank had read Sam Waxworth’s election posts. He’d seen his projections, down to the tenth of a percentage point, of a near landslide for Obama. Without mentioning Waxworth by name, Frank had even written a column—his last, as it turned out—about why those projections would be proven wrong. Just as the baseball statheads thought they could make their judgments without scouting, without going to games and getting real human eyeballs on players in the field, the political statheads thought they could make predictions without reporting. But polls couldn’t capture a mood. For that you needed to look around a bit. The country, Frank had decided after attending several rallies, was skittish. At such moments, people opted for experience. They might like the idea of voting for a handsome, well-spoken black man, they might tell pollsters that this was what they planned to do, but in the secrecy of the voting booth they wouldn’t pull that lever for someone who hadn’t completed a full Senate term. The role of commander in chief required a figure who was battle-tested—“Battle Tested” was the column’s head—and that meant McCain.
If Frank had been right about any of this, he sometimes thought, the fallout from his performance at that game would have passed quickly enough. Obama would have been forgotten, and insulting him in jest would have come to seem a venial sin. Frank would have earned credit for being right about the election—not to mention the war—and the Herald would have been forced to take him back. Instead something like the opposite had happened on every count. While the online mob was picking gleefully through the corpse of Frank’s career, this kid with a calculator was getting nearly as much credit for the victory as Obama himself, as though he’d conjured the results into being, rather than just adding up and dividing other people’s work.
After a bit of reflection, Frank recognized Blakeman’s proposal for what it was—an opportunity to show that he was still unbroken. He finally had what the Herald had owed him but hadn’t offered: the chance to justify himself. The numerarchy ruled everything now. It had long ago taken over his wife’s world, the world of finance, convincing everyone that computer modeling could eliminate risk, an idea that had led to some of the most irrational behavior in human history and taken the whole economy down. It had half ruined the first love of his life—baseball—and now it had set its sights on the second—politics. These people were the enemy. How could he pass up the chance to spend nine innings with one of their kings?
At the next stop, the woman switched cars, and the red-haired man fell into offended silence. The rest of the ride proceeded without event. At Willets Point, Frank filed out with everyone else, then walked upstairs to see the new park for the first time. For a moment, the sight strangled him. He’d read that the facade had been built to replicate Ebbets Field, but he wasn’t really prepared to walk into the great cathedral of his youth. The effect was profound, but fleeting. The copy wasn’t even especially accurate, upon closer inspection, and if anyone was equipped to know the difference, it was Frank, who’d been at the last game ever played at the old park—September 24, 1957, a date etched forever in his mind. In case there could be any confusion, the logo of a financial behemoth—one of the several that had been rescued while his wife’s was allowed to collapse—occupied the space where the words “Ebbets Field” should have been.
At the top of a long escalator, an usher took Frank’s ticket, passed its barcode across his handheld scanner, and returned it intact. Frank missed the tear of the stub, the homely thwack now replaced by an automated beep. There was something irrevocable about that rip, which left you with an artifact that testified forever to your presence at that particular game. Each torn edge was a little different from the others, even when you arrived as a group and handed over a stack of four or five to be taken at one go. Now the fact of Frank’s entrance was stored on a server somewhere in the form of zeroes and ones, but his ticket—not even a ticket, just a piece of paper from his printer at home—remained unchanged. If he were still in the business of writing elegiac baseball essays, he would have written one about that.
He bought a program and a beer before stepping through another entrance, this time entering into the open air of the park along the first-base line. He loved taking the measure of a ballpark for the first time, because every one was different—not just the seating and the concession stands but the very dimensions of the field. Of all the unfortunate ideas that the geeks had brought to the game, the worst might have been the notion that you could compare a hitter who played his home games in front of the short porch in right at Yankee Stadium and another who played in the shadow of Fenway’s Green Monster in left by applying some mathematical formula that adjusted for “park effects.” Like so many statistical innovations, this struck Frank as an effort to neutralize reality, sand away all the glorious particularities of life, the things that could not be captured on a spreadsheet, that could be understood only by telling stories about them.
