Empire Falls

other silent sleepers. One of these was Charles Beaumont Whiting, who, like the great Hemingway (if Horace was to be believed), must have woken up one morning impressed by the futility of his existence, a feeling Max doubted he’d ever understand. Life was a lot of things, including disappointing from time to time, but still.
    Atop C. B. Whiting’s nearby grave, his widow had placed a monument to ensure that her husband stayed right where he was. Max unzipped there and reflected that a good, long, soul-cleansing pee was something many men his age were incapable of. Once they turned seventy, they became leaky faucets with slow, incessant drips. Not Max, whose prostate ought to be willed to science. “I hope you’re good and thirsty,” he told old Charlie, then let go.
    Only when he was finished did he look up and notice, perched atop the monument, a stone cat. Odd that he hadn’t noticed this on any of his previous homages to C. B. Whiting, of which there’d been many. The animal looked so lifelike that it gave Max a scare, though not as big as the one he would’ve gotten had he looked closer and seen it was breathing.

CHAPTER 8
    T HE SUMMER M ILES TURNED NINE , he played second base for the Empire Paper Giants. One of the younger boys on the team, he spent most of the season on the bench watching the older boys, the fearless ones who stayed in front of ground balls no matter how hard they were hit. Coach LaSalle wouldn’t put him in until the late innings, by which time the game was either won or lost—for which Miles was grateful, terrified that the team might lose because of him. When he did finally enter the game and the boys on the opposing team saw him loitering around second base with his too large glove and fearful expression, they’d turn around and bat left-handed, knowing that a ground ball in his direction was as good as a hit .
    All of which changed the last week in July when Miles made a miraculous catch. Actually, he’d been daydreaming at his post when he heard the crack of the bat, and the ball was on him so fast he hadn’t time to duck out of the way, as was his custom. The ball hit his open glove so hard that it lodged in the webbing, spinning Miles completely around and landing him on the seat of his pants. Somehow the glove managed to stay on his hand and the ball in the glove. “Look what I found,” Coach LaSalle said when he trotted in, his tone not so much mean as pleased, and the backslapping congratulations of his teammates gave Miles heart. Though to this point it had been a consistent source of humiliation, Miles purely loved the game of baseball, and he loved even more the idea that he might be an asset to the team instead of a liability. Having caught one ball by mistake, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t start catching others on purpose .
    When his mother announced that they were going away for a week’s vacation, Miles agreed only on the condition that he be allowed to bring his glove. Grace assured him there’d be no place to play on Martha’s Vineyard , but he was determined to practice every day, even if only by throwing himself pop flies on the beach. Besides, his mother admitted she’d never been there herself, so Miles harbored a secret hope they’d be surprised by what they found there. To his way of thinking, if the island was full of rich people, as she claimed, there just might be baseball diamonds everywhere, more than enough for everyone who wanted to play. There were probably leagues set up just for boys like himself who were dragged away against their will, at the worst possible moment, on hastily conceived vacations .
    It turned out his mother was right, though, as Miles could tell from the deck of the ferry as they steamed into Vineyard Haven. But it was clear that his mother hadn’t known exactly what to expect either, because when they docked and she got a good look at the crowds of well-dressed people in expensive-looking cars who’d come to meet the ferry, Miles saw her hand steal to her mouth, as it did when she was afraid or became aware that she’d made a mistake. In fact, she looked like she was considering just remaining there at the railing of the ferry and returning home without even disembarking. It was Miles who spotted the man on the wharf below, waving either at them or at someone near them. Miles had never seen him before, but when he pointed the man out, his mother waved back. “How did you know us?” she asked when the man,