The girls, still posted in front of the television set, are watching a puppet who lives in a garbage can holler at a man in a bird suit. Bob takes up a position at the kitchen counter on the living room side and leans over it as if it were a fence. “I just saw Ted Williams,” he announces.
“Oh. Did you get what you wanted? You know, the nets for the shrimp. I managed to save the pan. Shrimp would be nice. A change.”
“Yeah. I mean, no, I … I guess I got so excited and all, seeing Ted Williams like that, alive. You know? Ted Williams! I mean, I knew he was alive, and I knew he had a place around here, in Islamorada, but I never expected to actually walk up on him like that. It’s really amazing to me. You probably can’t understand that.”
“No,” she says in a flat voice, and it’s clear to Bob that she doesn’t want to, either.
But he goes on. “Ted Williams is like a god to me, ever since I was a kid. My father took me once to Fenway Park down in Boston, and it was really to see Ted Williams play. He was old then, Ted Williams, I mean, not my father, and about to retire. Old for a ballplayer. Anyhow, we got there and got seats out behind the third baseline so we could see him better. He played left field. And then it turned out he didn’t play that day, I think they put Yastrzemski in, who was only a kid then, just come up from Pawtucket or someplace. Williams was sick or something. My father, he was more pissed off than I was, I think, and he bitched and moaned about it all the way home, and that was the only time we ever went to a ball game together. Whenever I asked to go again, he’d say, ‘Remember last time we drove all the way down to Boston and Williams didn’t even play.’ And then, the next year, I think it was, Williams retired, and from then on left field belonged to Yaz. I really should’ve gotten Yaz’s autograph last spring up in Winter Haven. Actually, I should’ve gotten Ted Williams’ autograph today….”
“Bob,” Elaine says, interrupting him. “We have to talk.” She turns and faces him, holding a wooden spoon in her hand as if about to wave it at him to make her point.
“Yeah?” He whips out his cigarettes and lights one, and his hands are trembling. “Everybody seems to want to have a fucking talk with me these days.” Then, without his knowing how or why, his voice has changed pitch and tone, and he’s shouting at her. “Ave wants to talk to me! You want to talk to me! Anybody else around here wants to talk to me?” he barks, turning to the children, who look up startled, confused.
“Bob, for heaven’s sake …”
“I can’t even come in here and get a little excited about seeing my goddamned childhood hero, a man who’s a fucking god to me, without bringing me down for it!”
“All I said was …”
“All you said was, ‘I want to have a talk with you,’ in that damned accusing way of yours, as if I was a fucking little kid, like you’re going to tell me what’s what and how it’s all my fault! I know already what you got to say to me.”
She folds her arms over her breasts. “What, then? You tell me.”
“I know. I know.”
“What?”
He spins and walks toward the door, stops, and without looking at her, says, “You want to tell me what I already know. You want to tell me what shit this all is.
“Is it? You feel that way about it?”
He remains silent for a second. “Yeah. It’s shit. All of it, shit, shit, shit. And now you want to tell me how it’s all my fault,” he says in a low, cold voice. “You like doing that, telling me how it’s all my fault.”
“Is it?”
“No! No, goddamn it! It’s not all my fault!” He’s bellowing again, glaring at her from the door. “It’s shit, all right, but it’s not my fault!”
“Bob, the girls! Please! You’ll wake the baby.”
“Send ’em outside. We’ll get this settled now, once and for all, dammit!”
“Send them outside yourself,” she answers. “They’re your children too, remember.”
“Ruthie, Emma! Get outside for a while and play in the yard or something. Me and Mommy got to talk about something private.”
The girls whine and argue that the show’s not over yet, they don’t want to go outside, it’s raining. They turn back to the screen, and Ruthie slides her thumb into her mouth.
“Take your damned thumb out of your mouth!” Bob shouts. “And get the hell outside when I tell you to! It’s not raining now.”
Quickly, they obey, careful not to touch him as they pass him at the door.
Elaine turns down the burner on the stove and sits heavily at the kitchen table. She crosses her legs and lights a cigarette, waiting. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Whose fault is it?”
