“Gone With the Wind,” his father said. “Good movie.”
At the commercial Biddy rose to all fours and reached out, awkwardly, and flipped the dial.
“What’re you doing, Biddy?” his mother asked.
“I’ll switch it back,” he said. Dauer was standing on third and Kansas City had a new pitcher. He waited but nothing happened; the pitcher was warming up, so he turned back.
“You know,” his mother said, and at first he was unsure whom she was addressing, “it’s not like we go anywhere at all. And that’s not even the point. The point is that it doesn’t seem to matter anymore, what I want, what I’d like. It’s like if that fits into the plans, fine.”
“It does matter,” Biddy’s father said.
His mother returned her attention to the movie.
Biddy watched with her, the air humid and unmoving with the window open. Armies marched and cities burned. Men and women gazed at each other like starving animals or religious zealots. Kristi yawned and squashed a tiny spider creeping by on the rug.
His father went into the kitchen during a commercial and returned with a big glass noisy with ice.
“What’s that?” his mother asked. “You didn’t get me one?”
“You want one? I’ll get you one. Collins?” His father gestured with the glass. She nodded.
They were quiet with their drinks for two or three scenes. His mother moved her chair closer and his father put an arm around her. The movie boomed on. There was some whispering and Kristi said, “I’m trying to hear.”
At the commercial his mother went into the bathroom. When she came out, they both said good night and went to bed, shutting the bedroom door lightly.
Biddy looked at Kristi.
“I guess they made up,” she said. “See what else is on.”
Two days later, they drove to Yankee Stadium. Eight of them, the Sieberts and Lirianos: Biddy, his mother, father, Kristi, Louis, Mickey, Ginnie, and Dom, for a game with the Brewers. Only Cindy remained home, preferring to watch The Band Wagon on television with her fiancé.
They sat in the United Technologies box and his father felt lucky to have the seats. The Lirianos were in the front four, Louis at eighteen taller than his parents. He ate popcorn one piece at a time, gazing serenely out toward Gorman Thomas in center field and the scoreboard above him even as plays were made in the infield. Mickey, next to him, squirmed or groaned according to events on the field, banging his hands on the rail in front of him when Robin Yount ranged behind second only to have a ground ball carom up over his shoulder into center field. Lou Piniella drove one into right field and the lead runner came around to score when Ben Oglivie of the Brewers slipped fielding the ball. The box was quiet. His father had no particular favorite and Dom felt that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for IBM. Biddy was an Orioles fan and they were two games behind New York in the pennant race. Louis cheered decorously. Dave Winfield stepped to the plate. The sky was blue and clear and tracked by birds in the distance. The Milwaukee outfield was spread pleasingly against the green of the grass and wall beyond. Thomas arched his back in center, legs spread, and Oglivie stood relaxed and poised, despite his error, waiting for the pitch.
Over his shoulder Dom suggested beers, and insisted he had it and that Biddy’s father could pay for the next round. After searching briefly for one of the wandering vendors, he stuffed some bills into Biddy’s hand and told him two beers and to take Louis with him, since he was eighteen, and to have him do the ordering.
Biddy walked up the steps, looking back every so often at Winfield’s cuts, with Louis following, crunching popcorn.
“What do they want?” Louis said, standing in line.
Biddy shrugged, hearing a roar, and craned his head around to try and see back out onto the field.
The line moved up. “Two beers,” Louis said loudly. The man across the counter flicked the taps back and filled two yellow paper cups with foamy beer. “Two-fifty,” he said. Louis laid two of the singles Biddy had given him on the counter and fished in his pocket for change. He set a quarter on the glass.
The man stared at him evenly. “One more, pal,” he said. Louis blinked, out of bills.
Biddy stepped closer. “A quarter,” he said. “He needs another quarter, Louis.”
“A quarter?” Louis said.
“What is he, retarded?” someone said from the back of the line.
Biddy pulled him out of line. Louis told the story back at the box. Dom left, Biddy’s father calling after him, asking what he was going to do. Winfield was on second. After Dom disappeared, Biddy asked what had happened.
His father returned his attention to the field. “Oh, Oglivie again. The son of a bitch looks like he’s on skates out there. They better get him some new shoes or new feet or something.”
Dom came back down the aisle escorted by two policemen. He stabbed the air with his finger, looking back over his shoulder and saying, “And I’ll tell you what. If that yim-yam says something like that again, I’ll kill him. You tell him that.”
“Awright, siddown,” the policeman said. “And thank Christ you’re still here.”
Ginnie and Judy were too embarrassed for anything but anger, and they didn’t move or speak the rest of the game.
“Son of a bitch,” Dom said to himself.
The game limped on, the box quiet. In the seventh with the score 3–0 New York, Ben Oglivie blasted a home run into deep center field with two Brewers on base. Dom stood to applaud and sat back down. Biddy watched Oglivie round third, struck by the efficiency with which he had redeemed himself.
In the ninth Willie Randolph homered for the Yankees and they all got up to go, collecting bags and hats while everyone was still cheering.
“Those poor bastards aren’t going anywhere,” Dom said, looking back at the disconsolate Brewer dugout. “No pitching.”
At the top of the aisle Biddy turned and saw the scoreboard in center blink and change, proclaiming a final in Cleveland: CLEVE 5, BALT 4, dropping the Orioles three back, and he turned to follow his family and friends down the exit ramp.
Kristi had two turtles, Foofer and Kid, and killed them both. Foofer had crawled onto a small stone she had put in the clear plastic terrarium where the turtles were kept and had gotten out, flopping onto his chin with a distinctly wooden noise as she watched. She had done nothing, allowing him to creep across the desk top until he came to the edge, and then had opened the drawer underneath and toppled him in, shutting it with a bang.
Biddy, who’d been in her room collecting more paper, had said, “Kristi, don’t leave him in the drawer.”
“He always gets out,” she said.
“You can’t punish a turtle,” he said. “Take the rock out of there and he won’t get out.”
She’d replaced the turtle, but days later, seeing only Kid, he’d opened the drawer to find the dried Foofer, half buried under pens and small plastic rulers in his search for moisture or an exit.
Kid had disappeared a few days later.
Kristi, her father said, was erratic. Her mother worried about her. She had more trouble at Our Lady of Peace than her brother did, although he seemed to be rapidly closing the gap. Sister Theresa had long since decided and informed the Siebert family by letter and consultation that neither her conduct nor her effort was all it could be. In fact, she did not, ever, behave like a little lady. Biddy had at least been a very good student at her age.
She despised the nuns and disliked school generally. At times he would be called down from his classroom to help discipline his sister, although how he was expected to help he was never able to fathom. He would at those times look into her defiant eyes with embarrassment, irritation, and pride. She seemed beyond him then, the intensity of her anger and unhappiness revealing itself in fleeting words or gestures that seemed unnoticed or ignored by the others around her. He was never much help. To the Sisters she was as unpredictably ferocious as a cornered raccoon or a small, angry cat. At one point while he looked on she had wrenched herself free from Sister Mary of Mercy, tearing the sleeve of her habit, and had been slapped for her trouble. A kind of horrified and fascinated silence had ensued while they all stared at the black sleeve hanging loose and ragged away from Sister’s arm, even the slap forgotten in the strange blasphemous image before them. Nuns were rarely touched and Kristi’s assault on the taboo had made her famous throughout the school; to an extent it was as if they’d seen God bleed.