Part 68 (2/2)

The lawyer purpled. He didn't look like a happy-go-lucky tanned preppie anymore. He looked Dad-scary, like one of those fathers in Disney who was about to seriously lose his s.h.i.+t and haul off and smack a whiny kid. Death's own Pawpaw, who'd stood in for his father, had gone red like that whenever he ”mouthed off,” a sin that could be committed even without opening his mouth. He had an instinctive curl-up-and-hide reaction to it, and the lawyer seemed to sense this, looming over him. He felt like he was about to be eaten.

”You listen to me, *Darren* -- this is not the kind of thing you f.u.c.k up. This isn't something *I'm* going to f.u.c.k up. I win my cases and you're not going to change that. There's too much at stake here for you to blow it all with your childish, selfish --”

He seemed to catch himself then, and he snorted a hot breath through his nose that blew over Death's face. ”Listen, there's a lot on the line here. More money than you or I are worth. I'm trying to help you out here. Whatever you write, whatever you say, it's going to be very closely scrutinized. From now on, you should treat every piece of information that emanates from your fingertips as likely to be covered on the evening news and repeated to everyone you've ever met. No matter how private you think you're being, it'll come out. It's not pretty, and I know you didn't ask for it, but you're here, and there's nothing you can do to change that.

He left then, embarra.s.sed at losing his temper, embarra.s.sed at Death's meek silence. Death poked at his laptop some. He thought about writing down more notes, but that was probably in the same category.

He closed his eyes and now, *now* he felt the extent of his injuries, felt them truly for the first time since he'd woken up in this hospital. There were deep, grinding pains in his legs -- both knees broken, fracture in the left thigh. His ribs hurt every time he breathed. His face was a ruin, his mouth felt like he had twisted lumps of hamburger glued to his torn lips. His d.i.c.k -- well, they'd catheterized him, but that didn't account for the feelings down there. He'd been kicked repeatedly and viciously, and they told him that the reconstructive surgeries -- surgeries, plural -- would take some time, and nothing was certain until they were done.

He'd managed to pretend that his body wasn't there for so long as he was able to poke at the computer. Now it came back to him. He had the painkiller rocker-switch and the pain wasn't any worse than what pa.s.sed for normal, but he had an idea that if he hit it enough times, he'd be able to get away from his body for a while again.

He tried it.

Hilda and Lester sat uncomfortably on the sofa next to each other. Perry had hoped they'd hit it off, but it was clear after Lester tried his Yoko joke again that the chemistry wasn't there. Now they were having a rare moment of all-look-same-screen, the TV switched on like in an old comedy, no one looking at their own laptop.

The tension was thick, and Perry was sick of it.

He reached for his computer and asked it to find him the baseball gloves. Two of the drawers on the living-room walls glowed pink. He fetched the gloves down, tossed one to Lester, and picked up his ball.

”Come on,” he said. ”TV is historically accurate, but it's not very social.”

Lester got up from the sofa, a slow smile spreading on his face, and Hilda followed a minute later. Outside, by the cracked pool, it was coming on slow twilight and that magic, tropical blood-orange sky like a swirl of sorbet.

Lester and Perry each put on their gloves. Perry'd worn his now and again, but had never had a real game of catch with it. Lester lobbed an easy toss to him and when it smacked his glove, it felt so *right*, the sound and the vibration and the fine cloud of dust that rose up from the mitt's pocket, Christ, it was like a sacrament.

He couldn't lob the ball back, because of his busted wing, so he handed the ball to Hilda. ”You're my designated right arm,” he said. She smiled and chucked the ball back to Lester.

They played until the twilight deepened to velvety warm dark and humming bugs and starlight. Each time he caught a ball, something left Perry, some pain long held in his chest, evanesced into the night air. His catching arm, stiff from being twisted by the weight of the cast on his other hand, unlimbered and became fluid. His mind was becalmed.

None of them talked, though they sometimes laughed when a ball went wild, and both Perry and Lester went ”ooh,” when Lester made a jump-catch that nearly tumbled him into the dry pool.

Perry hadn't played a game of catch since he was a kid. Catch wasn't his dad's strong suit, and he and his friends had liked video-games better than tossing a ball, which was pretty dull by comparison.

But that night it was magic, and when it got to full dark and they could barely see the ball except as a second moon hurtling white through the air, they kept tossing it a few more times before Perry dropped it into the pocket of his baggy shorts. ”Let's get a drink,”

he said.

Lester came over and gave him a big, bearish hug. Then Hilda joined them. ”You stink,” Lester said, ”Seriously, dude. Like the a.s.s of a dead bear.”

That broke them up and set them to laughing together, a giggling fit that left them gasping, Lester on all fours. Perry's arm forgot to hurt and he moved to kiss Hilda on the cheek and instead she turned her head to kiss him full on the lips, a real juicy, steamy one that made his ear-wax melt.

”Drinks,” Hilda said, breaking the kiss.

They went upstairs, holding the mitts, and had a beer together on the patio, talking softly about nothing in particular, and then Lester hugged them good night and then they all went to bed, and Perry put his face into the hair at the back of Hilda's neck and told her he loved her, and Hilda snuggled up to him and they fell asleep.

A GAME OF CATCH

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