Chapter 9 Max Martin-1

At this moment, he remembered his textbook, and he stepped down the ladder. It is impossible to come home from school without a textbook, fool.He tucked the baseball into his pants pocket and sidled into the dark triangular space behind the ladder, where the bottom of the stairs met the ground.He groped, found the three books he had left there that morning, pulled them out, and grabbed them, along with a composition book with a mottled cover.He blows off the dust, grime and sour smell from it. The apartment manager came in through the back door of the courtyard.The apartment manager was new and walked with a very bad limp.You don't even know if you should show sympathy after meeting.Perhaps, you are wondering why he is walking around.

"what is this?" "Forgot something," Cottle said. "I need to talk to your father." "When I saw him." "Send him a message," said the apartment manager. Cottle couldn't figure out how the apartment manager knew about his situation.The previous apartment manager left in a hurry, and the new one just came to work, looking after four buildings by himself, and walked with a terrible limp, making it uncomfortable to watch.However, he already knew who was whose son, and it was roughly not bad.There was always someone who wanted to have a conversation with his father, and in such conversations his father was mentioned every day.

He climbed up to the fourth floor and walked in.My younger sister, Roxie, was at home, sitting at the kitchen table, absorbed in her homework.Losey was sixteen and always busy with her homework.He has two older brothers, one in the infantry stationed in South Korea and the other in the Airborne in Georgia.That's the Peachtree State.However, if Cottle had to choose between these two forms of work, he felt that he would rather face a fully armed enemy on snow and mud than go out with a thread on his back and enter the floating battlefield. Fragrant night. "What's in his pant bag? Looks suspicious," Losey said. "I think it's an apple. Maybe he skipped school and went to the orchard."

"truancy?" "Take the bus out of town to pick apples. Of course, we have apples here too. But that's for after school. Those who don't go to school don't have apples. Did he pick apples himself?" "If I don't go to school, where do I go?" "I don't know, but I saw from the window that you went through the gate without a book. Look!" "Then, you know, I don't have apples in my pant bag." He pulls out the baseball, plays ball-handling tricks, backspins the ball on his palm and wrist, and then comes up with a shift motion, elbowing the ball back.Losey watched, laughed, and returned to reading.That gesture tells Cottle that he's got a little victory, because you know, the only time the little girl is showing respect is when she's silent.

He stood in the room, looking out the window.He used to sleep here with his two older brothers, and now he is alone.Later, he tossed the ball onto the khaki sheets of the lower bunk.The blanket is made of a sturdy olive-yellow cloth, and is the only detail of military life.He grabbed the sweatshirt that was draped over the back of the chair, pulled it on, and looked out the window again.People walked under the street lights into the gradually darkening night.It was getting dark so quickly.He stood there watching, just watching, the nobody at the window.At this time, he heard the sound of his mother entering the door.

He froze for a moment, thinking to himself, if his mother asked him if he went to school, how should he answer?However, he felt that Losey would not inform.He knew this himself, was more or less sure of it.Through the walls of the room, he sensed Losey's loyalty.He walked into the kitchen and saw his mother packing up the groceries.He put a hand out on Losey's shoulder and stood by the table, his eyes on the brightly colored boxes and cans his mother was laying out. Mother asked, "How many times?" "what?" "Always need a reminder. Don't wear that sweatshirt. I need to wash it."

"Wash with strong detergent," says Losey. "That sweatshirt is dirty." "If it goes to the laundromat, they're sure to send it back," Losey said. "No." See, the world is full of things he shouldn't be doing, clothes he shouldn't be wearing.He liked it, though, when they both spoke to him together, the way their brothers did.Sometimes they gave orders to him, sometimes they teased and ridiculed him, but they had no interest in him, no such deep and endless concern.My sister poked her head forward so she could watch him make specific foolish moves.He liked to run his fingers over the edge of the fruit bowl, over the blemishes of the glaze, to read Roxie's books spread out on the table, to look at the fruit on the plate, to watch his mother do this and that in front of the stove and cupboards. , like the way his mother talks to him.Mother didn't have to look in his direction at all, but knew where he was, and adjusted the volume of his voice according to his distance in different rooms.Perhaps, he hoped that they would understand him and let him keep his secret.

"There are thorns on the jersey," Losey said.She seemed to like the word "thorn fruit", and she spoke with a slightly mocking indifference. "He's covered in thorns. He must have gone to the orchard." He runs his fingers over the inner edge of the fruit bowl, feeling the swirling motion, feeling the spread of the material, feeling the raised dots.His mother told him to wash his hands.She didn't look at him, but she knew the state of his hands at various times of the day.He must have walked in the dirt, must have walked in the dirty dirt and talked at the same time.

They did not speak during dinner.The children's father was not here, and could have walked in at any moment—or, of course, might not have.They are in a state of involuntary waiting.The way his mother came in was comical: she was standing in the doorway with her arms around bundles, the long straps of her purse slung across her body.Sometimes she tugged at the handle bag, sometimes she pushed the bag with her elbow, like a wooden prosthetic.Even when she's not holding something, she makes all sorts of noises, bringing in the hustle and bustle of the outside world, the sounds of the subway, bus, and street, the noise and busyness of everywhere Come.That was what his mother did, and his father would usually come in quietly and stand there, staring, leaning against the wall, as if he had come to the wrong door and needed to explain how he had gone wrong.

His mother was tall and slightly asymmetrical.Also, she is physically strong.He'd lifted what she'd lifted, carried what she used to carry up the fourth floor, and he knew it.She is often expressionless, and it often takes half a minute to mobilize unused muscles and squeeze out a smile. "I see that preacher on the street, and I always see him somewhere on the street," she said. "I saw that too," Cottle said. "I thought to myself, even if we can't imagine, that person has his own life, and he will go home, somewhere. But where does he go? Where does he live? How does he live? I can't imagine. What else would he do besides preaching."

"I've seen people like that in a lot of places," Losey said. "But this guy doesn't move, he's on the same street. I don't think he cares whether people listen or not. He even yells to passing cars." "What did he preach?" "Nobody knows that day, that hour. He sounds like the Russians detonated an atomic bomb. That day, that hour, nobody knows. They announced it on a radio news program." Losey said, "I wouldn't believe it." "I believed it at the time, but then I was discouraged carrying those shopping bags upstairs and felt like my shoulder was about to dislocate." "Let's be serious." "At that point, I stopped and listened to what he had to say. Seriously, that was the first time I heard that guy talk." "He's always been there," Cotter said. "I heard him say it for the first time. No one knows that day, that hour. I think this is a sentence in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew." "I wouldn't believe it," Losey said. "However, that person has his own life. I'm very curious about how he lives." "Some people are always preaching," Losey said. "Look at the clothes he's wearing. Poor thing. He's not mad, and understands what he believes in." "You can understand what you believe in, too," Cottle said. "There are people who understand what they believe in, but act crazy." "Amen," said his sister. After dinner, he went back to his room and stared out of the window.He was supposed to be in the room doing his homework; he was in the room, but he didn't know what homework was.He opened the world history textbook and previewed a few pages.They were making history every minute in those years.Every sentence is another war, another decline on a grand scale.Remember those days.Empires fall, deterrence rises.In his class, there was a kid who tore out several pages of his history textbook almost every day, and then ate the pages one by one.The classmate used this method: open the textbook, put it on the lap under the desk, secretly crumpled the page, and slowly tore it from the spine, making as little noise as possible.Then his tactic was to wait a moment, and in a sort of coughing, put his fist over his mouth, with the page in his fist like a biscuit.Then he stuffed the pages into his mouth, the printing ink and the remembered date.The movement was quiet and concentrated.He waited a moment longer, leaving the page in his mouth.Finally, he chewed carefully and slowly, with small movements, trying not to let the upper and lower teeth touch each other, and trying not to make any noise.Cottle tried to imagine what that would smell like.The crumpled paper is soaked in saliva and slowly softens after absorbing water, making it easier to swallow.He didn't swallow well.You could see his Adam's apple twitching, as if he were manipulating the plane to land on an unfamiliar shore. War and treaties, eat your cookies. Losey is in the shower.He sat on the bed, heard the sound of water hitting the wall in the bathroom next door, and thought of the game in his mind.He recalled sights or sounds he didn't know he had seen or heard, the crowd on the exit ramp, the colors of shirts in his mind, voices in his ears.A policeman sat on a horse, his boots glistening with animal heat.He could hear the water splashing against the galvanized walls of the bathroom—years ago, someone had installed one of those showerheads in the bathroom, and the colored walls clattered as they were used. When my father came home, there was a sound that made it clear that he had entered: the door slowly opened, its hinges creaking.He crossed the hall without a sound, neither undressing nor panting after climbing the stairs.Now, no one in the house could hear him at all.He stood near the gate, bringing something audible.Maybe it's just the pressure of a man standing on the linoleum floor, maybe it's a certain vibe in his body, a tightness that says he's home. Cotter sat on the lower bunk and waited quietly.Father walked through the kitchen and appeared at the door of his room.Max Martin.He was a laborer, moving furniture when there was work to do, and downing whiskey when not.He glanced at Cottle and nodded blankly.He stood there nodding in a gesture that didn't make any sense, seemed to say, oh, it's you.Later, he went into the room and sat on the unused bed, the hammock.They listened to the sound of water hitting the bathroom walls. "have you eaten?" "Meat pie." "Have you left it for me?" "I have no idea." "You don't know. Why? You left the table early? Got an appointment in town?" He understood that his father was joking.His father had protruding cheekbones and chickenpox-like granules on his cheeks. His appearance was a bit vulgar. He had a sparse mustache, which was intentionally made to look special.He looked around the room and observed carefully, as if he felt that he should take a look at the environment in which his son grew up.He was of medium height, with a slightly broad chest and slightly bent legs.Cottle felt his father had limited strength to carry large pieces of furniture up and down the stairs.However, he had seen his father and the big man carrying things together. "Who's in the bathroom?" "Losey." "This shower is like a rainstorm." "She did the same with her homework, and there was nothing left." "It's been like this from beginning to end, that girl." They listened to her in the bathroom.Sitting here with his father talking about Losey somehow made Cottle uncomfortable.Just then, the sound of running water stopped. "Look, I want to pee." "The administrator wants to speak with you." "He's a watchdog, ignore him." "He just came here, how does he know about our family?" "Maybe we are a little famous, I mean you and me. Two men, someone said that these two guys may be difficult to deal with." Cottle relaxed.He felt that there might be no problem.As they say, that man meant no harm.Some things he couldn't hear from his mother, he could hear from his father. Manx called out, "Losey baby. Your daddy needs to use this-device." They both heard a grunt or two.She walked across the aisle barefoot and wrapped in a towel.Manx stood up, pulled up his pants, clicked his tongue, and walked out of the room. Cottle inadvertently—without any mental preparation—has this scene: Bill Watson standing on Eighth Avenue, clutching his jacket.He picked up the baseball, looked at it, and put it down.His father is peeing.Often, the only thing that can be heard is the shower and the sound of the pipes.But, his dad is taking the piss, and he's always been the king of the family.The scene quickly became comical, as he peed long and hard.Cotter wished his brothers were there so they could experience the astonishment together. Father went back into the room and sat down, still in his jacket.The corduroy windbreaker originally belonged to Randall, one of Colter's two older brothers. "Okay, I feel better." "Can you write me a letter? The school needs it," Cottle said. "Really? Write what?" "Let's just say I was sick and missed class for a day." "Dear so-and-so." "Yes, just write it like this." "Forgive my son." "Just write it like this." "He is sick." "Tell them it's a fever." "How tall?" "Let's say 100 degrees, it should be fine." "If you want to get this done, you shouldn't be too low-key." "Okay. Let's say he has a fever of 102 degrees." "Of course, in my opinion, your face is red and healthy." "Recovered quickly, thank you." "But what's that on your sweatshirt?" "I don't know, it's a thornberry." "The thornberry. This place is Harlem. What kind of thornberry?" "I don't know. I think I went full circle." "Where did you go, and you haven't been to school all day?" "I went to the ball game." "match." "At Paul Field. Today." "You were at the game?" Manx asked. "That game got people talking in the street." "That's nothing. I'm there, and it's nothing. I got the ball he hit." "No, you didn't. What ball?" "The home run that won the pennant," Cottle said, a little reluctantly.It was a startling thing, and now that it was being said for the first time, it scared him a little. "No, you didn't." "I chased that ball and got it." "Lying to your face," Manx said. "No lie, I got the ball, right here." "Know what you did?" Manx asked. Cottle reached for the ball. "Sometimes a guy like you can make a blockbuster move." Cotter sat on the lower bunk with his back to the wall, looking at him, at the man on the opposite bed.Later, he picked up the baseball that had rolled into the khaki sheet next to his thigh, held out his hand, and twirled it on his fingertips.He held the baseball aloft with his right hand and spun it with the other, looking nonchalant.He fiddles with baseballs and shows off his treasures.Manx blushed with anger. "You didn't lie, did you?" Cottle made a dizzying array of motions, the baseball dangling in his hands as if by magic, unable to hold on—it left him paralyzed and his eyes popping out.He deliberately made exaggerated performances, staring at Dad. "Hey, you didn't lie to your dad, did you?" "Why should I lie?" "Fine. Why are you lying? You won't." "There's no reason to lie." "That's right. There's no reason. I know that. Who else are you lying to?" "No one." "You didn't tell your mother?" "She'll ask me to send it back." Manx laughed, put his hands on his knees, fixed his eyes on Cotter, then leaned back and laughed. "That's right. She'll hold you and go to the court to return the ball." Cottle didn't want to play anymore.He knew that the worst trap in the world was to side with father against mother.He had to be very careful, it didn't matter what he said or what he did, but the most important thing was to always side with his mother.Otherwise, he is dead. "Okay. So, what do we do next? Maybe, we can go to the stadium another morning and show them the ball. We can bring the ticket stubs so they at least know you were there, sitting right in the In that stand. But who are we going to ask? Which door are we going in? Maybe seventeen people will stand up and say, I have the key ball in my hand, not the one in his hand. I have already I understand, I have understood, I have understood.” Cottle listened to him. "Who cares about us? They see, out of nowhere, two niggers. Are they going to believe some nigger can grab this baseball in a crowded field?" Manx paused. Huatou, perhaps waiting for some idea to pop up in his head. "I think we should write a letter. Yes, we will write a letter to your school first, and then write a letter in our names and send it to the baseball club." Cottle listened to him.He saw his father lost in thought, into a state of anxiety, into a state of plotting. "What did we say in the letter?" "We send it by registered mail. Yes, it adds weight. We also attach ticket stubs." "What are we talking about?" "We sell this baseball, what else do we have to say?" Cottle wanted to stand up and look out the window.He felt oppressed and wished he could look at the street alone and do nothing else. "I don't want to sell, I want to keep it for myself." Manx tilted his head and looked at his son carefully.It took him time to buy into the idea of ​​leaving this baseball at home and letting it fall to dust and become worthless. He said softly: "Why do you keep it? We sold it, bought you a sweater, and threw away this torn shirt. You look like a man who lives in a tree in this dress. We can still Buy something for your mother and sister. It's useless to leave it here, it can't be turned into cash, it's stupid." He spoke in a reasonable tone, obviously after careful consideration, and asked his son who could accept his advice one by one Come on.We do this as a duty to our family, not as a vanity hoarding it as a memento. "We're buying your mother a winter coat. Winter is coming and she needs a thick dress." Cottle hoped that he would appear manly in this matter, not losing to his father. "How much will they give us?" "I don't know, no concept at all. However, if someone wants to get this ball, can they put it somewhere to display. I think the first thing we do is send a registered letter and send the stub. That's called What is it? It’s called a ticket stub for a make-up match in the rain.” "I don't have a stub." Father frowned, with a hurt and surprised expression, as if he had been deeply hurt. "What are you talking about?" "I don't have a stub." "Why not?" "I didn't buy a ticket, I rushed in." "What are you talking about, son?" "I didn't have money to buy a ticket, so I rushed in. If I had money, I would have bought a ticket." He added helplessly: "No money, no ticket." The father's gaze caught the flash of expression on his son's face.Cotter found that his father had a look of panic, a kind of guilt from the bottom of his heart.He talked about money, and brought up the old topic of the family's financial distress.The father is in a state of retreat, his eyes are wandering, and he has escaped from the state just now, and escaped from the state of being responsible for his family.It was a terrifying moment in which Cotter found himself winning a confrontation he hadn't realized he had.He had made his father surrender, into a disconcerting retreat. "Anyway, if it's not a reserved seat or a box seat, the stub doesn't show which section you're sitting in. So the ticket doesn't prove anything. You can pick up used tickets on the street, too," Cottle said. " Father said, "Let's leave it alone, okay?" He stood up, looking stern. "We can't do anything tonight, go to sleep." Cotter didn't mention the letter his father was supposed to write, the one that offered an excuse to play truant.Maybe, tomorrow morning it will all be over.Maybe Dad would change his mind and stop talking about selling baseballs.Perhaps, he will forget about it completely.Cottle knew that if he did nothing for a day, a day and a half, his father would forget about it completely.In this family, it was one of those things they felt sure about, tacitly, waiting for him to forget. Cottle stood by the window, looking down at the street.At school they sometimes told him to keep his eyes off the windows.This or that teacher said so.The answer, they told him, was not out the window.However, he always wanted to say that the answer was there.Some people look out the window, and some people gnaw on the books. He undresses and prepares for bed.He sleeps in shorts and a polo shirt.Mother came into the room to say goodnight to him.As long as she didn't know about the conversation between him and his father, there was nothing wrong with good night.Here's another trap that's lurking in the middle of nowhere.She told him that she had to get up early for work tomorrow, and the place was far away, and she needed to take the subway to the end of Twenty-first Street.She works in an attic with a large electric fan, sewing clothes.Last summer, he went there to work four hours a week, cleaning up pieces of cloth that fell on the floor and moving paper cylinders.They -- forty or fifty women -- teased him, made jokes, and used very explicit language. "Losey can help you stand up." "I don't need anyone's help," he said. "If there is anyone in this world who needs help from others to stand up, that person is you." "She threw things at me." "Catch it first, then throw it back." "Then I can't get my clothes on, she's throwing my clothes." His mother leaned down to kiss him--she hadn't done that in a long time--and then fingered his head, almost knuckle-knuckles, and squeezed his face with both hands, making him feel pain.He heard his father pass by the room and into the kitchen, hoping his father would forget to kiss him. In the dark, he thought about the game.In the satisfying warmth of his sleep, he kept replaying that game in his mind.The game was lost, they won.It was impossible to win, but they won and won forever.It is impossible for them to take this thing away.It was the first thing on his mind in the morning, even in his sleep, a part of him was already there, waking up thinking about that game. Max Martin stood by the refrigerator, looking for the mince pie.She left some mince pies for him, on a plate, like the last meal of a prisoner of X.He took out the pie, sat down at the table, and ate slowly.His head went through pain in one way or another.He looked at the food on his plate and had to remind himself what it was there for. When he was done eating, he put the dish in the sink and decided to wash it and dry it.His movements were exceptionally delicate, and he cleaned the kitchen utensils one by one.He knows he should fix the dripping faucet, but we can only hope he has time to do it some other day.He whistled softly and put the dishes in the cupboard. Ivy came in without looking at him.The way she doesn't look at him is special and deserves a scientific study.That was a movement she was good at, scanning the room with her eyes, but completely ignoring his presence.Such cases should be studied by the scientific community for military purposes. "You were talking to him," she said. "Who cares?" She asked, "Say what?" "I don't need an excuse." "It's been a long time," she said. "He's my son. Who cares?" "Leave him alone. I can handle it," she said. "That's what he needs. He grew up without your preaching. It's just that he didn't say it himself." "Let him tell me." "I'm telling you," she said. She walked around the kitchen, packing things. "I'm going to work early tomorrow. They have a rush order and are going to pay half over," she said. He heard the radio in their bedroom, faintly. "Listen, I tell you seriously, the alarm clock will go off before six o'clock." "Before six o'clock." He said, looking at his watch.It doesn't go away, what does it matter sooner or later, the tone of his speech seems to have nothing to do with these things. She was wearing home clothes and slippers, moving in the kitchen like a sleepwalker, and the eyes of this sleepwalker would never fall on him.But she knew what was going on in the kitchen like the back of her hand, and he didn't.Even when he was there, ready to fall into a pitiful state of sleep, he was completely indifferent to the affairs of the house, not caring at all about the early morning chill, his wife at work, not at all when the blaring alarm clock that had been set to go off. She finds the pill she wants and walks down the aisle.He stood there waiting.He turned off the overhead light and stood in the dimly lit corner of the kitchen. He stood there for fifteen minutes, thinking slowly, trying to organize the thoughts in his head. okay.He left the kitchen, stopped at the door of Cottle's room, and cast his gaze inside, accustoming his eyes to the darkness.The child is fast asleep.Manx walked into the room and saw the baseball, lying on the unoccupied bed.He does it every time.They get something of value without even thinking about how to hide it.Let fairies who don't exist look after your valuables.How many times has he told them?To protect your own things.Things are changing, you have to be defensive in your life. He tried to recall which child slept in which bed back in the days when Cottle was a child and slept in the top bunk.They grow so fast. He stood in the dark room, hesitating, weighing whether he should do it.Then he made a move, reached out and grabbed the baseball.When he did this, he still couldn't make up his mind, and the behavior ended his thinking.Baseball in hand, he crept through the kitchen to the gate.The trench coat on his body—it was his son's trench coat—has roomy pockets, just right for a baseball.He pushed the door open, twisting his face, as if trying to drag back the sound of the door opening.When the head is clear and some time is available, the hinges should be oiled.He closed the door carefully, stepped over the threshold and onto the steps, wondering why they weren't wearing his old clothes and he was wearing theirs? He looks left and right, because he always looks left and right.Then he came down the steps and into the street.