The Whore's Child

pointed out.
    â€œHe’ll kiss my ass before I’ll ever work a day for him,” Lin heard his father predict. With the child’s hands clamped tight over his eyes, he couldn’t see a thing.
    â€œWell, I don’t know if I’d buy this,” Uncle Bert said. “Not at that price.”
    â€œOh, they’ll come down some.”
    â€œStill.”
    Lin could sense that his father had turned toward him now. “Okay,” he called over, “put those kids down. It’s time to go.”
    The salesman in the plaid coat was bouncing from one foot to the other when they pulled back into the lot. “I was just about to call the cops,” he announced when they got out.
    â€œThe car I left here was worth a lot more than this gas-guzzler.” Lin’s father pointed at Uncle Bert’s Buick, sitting right where they left it.
    â€œThat’s true,” the salesman conceded. “Except it’s not yours. It’s your brother’s.”
    The two men stood looking at the Bonneville. Lin’s shirtsleeve still had a smelly wet spot where he’d balanced the toddler.
    â€œSo, what do you think?”
    â€œRuns hot, too,” Lin’s father said.
    The man nodded. “That Chrysler you drove last week was twice the car.”
    â€œShould be, at twice the price.”
    â€œWell, the better something is, the more it costs. You’ve probably noticed that yourself, Slick.”
    â€œSo what do you really need?”
    â€œOn which?”
    â€œThis one.”
    â€œThe one that guzzles gas and runs hot?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œI suppose I could let it go for two grand.”
    â€œHow about if I was somebody else? Like one of your golfing buddies?”
    â€œIf
you
were somebody
else
?” the man sighed. “What a wonderful world this would be.”
    AFFECTION
    Mr. Christie wanted to make a catcher out of Hugo Wentz, until the boy’s father went ballistic at the suggestion. Mr. Wentz drove the Caddy right up behind the backstop, got out and read Mr. Christie the riot act over the fence, as Hugo sat in the front seat with the grim expression of someone who, if allowed to redesign the world to his own specifications, would retain very little of the present one. Only when his father, having told Mr. Christie how it was going to be, got back in the car did Hugo get out, toss his glove over the fence and begin his long solitary trek to the distant gate and then back again, as his father fishtailed through the stone pillars.
    Lin watched the whole thing from second base, wondering first why Mr. Christie allowed the other man to speak to him that way, and then why he didn’t seem to hold it against Hugo when he finally arrived back at the diamond and promptly sat on his glove where he’d tossed it in the grass.
    â€œCome on out here, son,” Mr. Christie called, then added, when the boy stood up and started walking, “and bring your glove with you. We’re going to try you at a new position.”
    That Mr. Christie treated Hugo Wentz so kindly was puzzling to Lin, who couldn’t think of a single reason why he should. Bestowing affection on a boy that fat, sullen and sarcastic called into question the value of affection in general and devalued the affection afforded boys who’d earned it. Lin understood that Mr. Christie was quick to smile, to encourage and forgive, but there had to be a limit, didn’t there?
    Which was why, when Mr. Christie welcomed Hugo to the pitcher’s mound—of all places—and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder while pointing out home plate to him, Lin found himself disliking not just Hugo but also Mr. Christie, and he made a mental note right then to refuse his offer of a ride home. Since he’d started painting their house on weekends, Mr. Christie had taken to giving him a lift after practice, laying Lin’s bike carefully in the bed of his pickup on top of the canvas duffel bag that contained the bats and balls. A couple of times they’d even stopped at the DQ for soft ice cream. Mr. Christie had a way of asking questions so that Lin didn’t mind answering, and of nodding at all his answers as if they were the very ones he himself would have offered. Never did Lin feel more at the center of things than in Mr. Christie’s presence, which was why, last week at the DQ, a terrible wish had occurred to him before he could prevent it, a wish