11/22/63

He became Lennie. He hijacked not just your eyes — because he was so damn big — but the heart in your chest. You forgot everything else, the way people forgot their everyday cares when Jim LaDue faded back to throw a pass. Mike might have been built to crash the opposing line in humble obscurity, but he had been made—by God, if there is such a deity; by a roll of the genetic dice if there is not — to stand on a stage and disappear into someone else.

“It was a goof for everyone but you,” I said.

“Me, too. At first.”

“Because at first you didn’t know.”

“No. I dint.” Husky. Almost whispering. He lowered his head because the tears were coming again and he didn’t want me to see them. The coach had called him Clark Gable, and if I called the man on it, he’d claim it was just a joke. A goof. A yuk. As if he didn’t know the rest of the squad would pick up on it and pile on. As if he didn’t know that shit would hurt Mike in a way being called Bohunk Mike never could. Why do people do that to gifted people? Is it jealousy? Fear? Both, maybe. But this kid had the advantage of knowing how good he was. And we both knew Coach Borman wasn’t really the problem. The only person who could stop Mike from going onstage tomorrow night was Mike.

“You’ve played football in front of crowds nine times bigger than the one that’ll be in that auditorium. Hell, when you boys went down to Dallas for the regionals last November, you played in front of ten or twelve thousand. And they were not friendly.”

“Football’s different. When we hit the field, we’re all wearing the same uniform and helmets. Folks can only tell us apart by our numbers. Everybody’s on the same side—”

“There are nine other people in this show with you, Mike, and that’s not counting the townspeople I wrote in to give your football buddies something to do. They’re a team, too.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Maybe not quite. But one thing is the same — if you let them down, the shit falls apart and everybody loses. The actors, the crew, the Pep Club girls who did the publicity, and all the people who are planning to come in for the show, some of them from ranches fifty miles out. Not to mention me. I lose, too.”

“I guess that’s so,” he said. He was looking at his feet, and mighty big feet they were.

“I could stand to lose Slim or Curley; I’d just send someone out with the book to read the part. I guess I could even stand to lose Curley’s Wife—”

“I wish Sandy was a little better,” Mike said. “She’s pretty as hell, but if she ever hits her mark, it’s an accident.”

I allowed myself a cautious inward smile. I was starting to think this was going to be all right. “What I couldn’t stand — what the show couldn’t stand — is to lose you or Vince Knowles.”

Vince was playing Lennie’s road-buddy George, and actually, we could have stood the loss if he’d gotten the flu or broken his neck in a road accident (always a possibility, given the way he drove his daddy’s farm truck). I would have gone on in Vince’s place, if push came to shove, even though I was much too big for the part, and I wouldn’t need just to read, either. After six weeks of rehearsals, I was as off-the-book as any of my actors. More than some. But I couldn’t replace Mike. No one could replace him, with his unique combination of size and actual talent. He was the linchpin.

“What if I fuck up?” he asked, then heard what he’d said and clapped a hand to his mouth.

I sat down beside him on the couch. There wasn’t much room, but I managed. Right then I wasn’t thinking of John Kennedy, Al Templeton, Frank Dunning, or the world I’d come from. Right then I was thinking of nothing but this big boy… and my show. Because at some point it had become mine, just as this earlier time with its party-line telephones and cheap gas had become mine. At that moment I cared more about Of Mice and Men than I did about Lee Harvey Oswald.

But I cared even more about Mike.

I took his hand off his mouth. Put it on one huge thigh. Put my hands on his shoulders. Looked into his eyes. “Listen to me,” I said. “Are you listening?”

“Yessir.”

“You are not going to fuck up. Say it.”

“I…”

“Say it.”

“I’m not going to fuck up.”

“What you’re going to do is amaze them. I promise you that, Mike.” Gripping his shoulders tighter. It was like trying to sink my fingers into stones. He could have picked me up and broken me over his knee, but he only sat there looking at me from a pair of eyes that were humble, hopeful, and still rimmed with tears. “Do you hear me? I promise.”

4

The stage was a beachhead of light. Beyond it was a lake of darkness where the audience sat. George and Lennie stood on the bank of an imaginary river. The other men had been sent away, but they wouldn’t be gone long; if the big, vaguely smiling hulk of a man in the overalls were to die with any dignity, George would have to see to it himself.

“George? Where them guys goin?”