The Great American Novel by Philip Roth Page B

pitch left Gil’s hand, earmarked for the zygomatic arch. And Mike the Mouth, even before making his call, rushed to kneel beside the man spread across the plate, to touch his wrist and see if he was still alive. Barely, barely.
    â€œThat’s three!” Mike roared to the stands. And to Gamesh—“And that’s it!”
    â€œWhat’s it?” howled Gamesh. “He ducked, didn’t he? He got out of the way, didn’t he? You can’t give me the thumb—I didn’t even nick him!”
    â€œThanks to his own superhuman effort. His pulse is just about beating. It’s a wonder he isn’t lying there dead.”
    â€œWell,” answered Gamesh, with a grin, “that’s his lookout.”
    â€œNo, son, no, it is mine.”
    â€œYeah—and what about line drives back at the pitcher! More pitchers get hit in the head with liners than batters get beaned in the noggin—and do you throw out the guy what hit the line drive? No! Never! And the reason why is because they ain’t Gil Gamesh! Because they ain’t me!”
    â€œSon,” asked Mike the Mouth, grimacing as though in pain, “just what in the world do you think I have against you?”
    â€œI’m too great, that’s what!”
    Donning his protective mask, Mike the Mouth replied, “We are only human beings, Gamesh, trying to get along. That’s the last time I’ll remind you.”
    â€œBoy, I sure hope so,” muttered Gil, and then to the batter, he called, “All right, bud, let’s try to stay up on our feet this time. All that fallin’ down in there, people gonna think you’re pickled.”
    With such speed did that fourth pitch travel the sixty feet and six inches to the plate, that the batsman, had he been Man o’War himself, could still not have moved from its path in time. He never had a chance … Aimed, however, just above the nasal bone, the fastball clipped the bill of his blue and gray Aceldama cap and spun it completely around on his head. Gamesh’s idea of a joke, to see the smile he was sporting way down there in that crouch.
    â€œThat’s no good,” thundered Mike, “take your base!”
    â€œIf he can,” commented Gil, watching the shell-shocked hitter trying to collect himself enough to figure out which way to go, up the third- or the first-base line.
    â€œAnd you,” said Mike softly, “can take off too, son.” And here he hiked that gnarled pickle of a thumb into the air, and announced, “You’re out of the game!”
    The pitcher’s glove went skyward; as though Mike had hit his jackpot, the green eyes began spinning in Gil’s head. “No!”
    â€œYes, oh yes. Or I forfeit this one too. I’ll give you to the letter C for Chastised, son. A. B.…”
    â€œNO!” screamed Gil, but before Mike could bring down the guillotine, he was into the Greenback dugout, headed straight on to the showers, for that he should be credited with a second loss was more than the nineteen-year-old immortal could endure.
    And thereafter, through that sizzling July and August, and down through the dog days of September, he behaved himself. No improvement in his disposition, of course, but it wasn’t to turn him into Little Boy Blue that General Oakhart had put Mike the Mouth on his tail—it was to make him obedient to the Rules and the Regulations, and that Mike did. On his third outing with Mike behind the plate, Gamesh pitched a nineteen-inning three-hitter, and the only time he was anywhere near being ejected from the game, he restrained himself by sinking his prominent incisors into his glove, rather than into Mike’s ear, which was actually closer at that moment to his teeth.
    The General was in the stands that day, and immediately after the last out went around to the umpires’ dressing room to congratulate his iron-willed arbiter. He found him