Underworld

In the early 1990s, 57-year-old Nick Shay drives across the desert. He wants to find Klara Sax, a famous artist, but he is lost. In the distance, Nick spots a New York taxi, and he calls out Klara’s name. When the car stops, Nick sees that it is filled with art students who have painted a normal car to look like the famous yellow taxis. This is a gift, the young artists inside explain, for Klara Sax’s birthday. She will be 72, and she is currently working on an installation piece in the desert in which she repaints abandoned aircraft from the Cold War era. They interest Klara because they never dropped their bombs. Arriving at Klara’s base of operations, Nick sees a French television crew setting up to interview Klara. Nick has not seen Sax since he was a teenager. They had a brief but memorable romantic escapade. He recognizes her immediately and cannot stop looking at her. As she pauses the interview, she beckons Nick to her. Klara remembers Nick, but he feels hesitant to talk to her, worried that he is no longer the person she remembers. Klara mentions the “allegiance” that they shared in the past, which she still feels. Nick returns to the sidelines and watches the rest of the interview. Klara describes why she named the collection “Long Tall Sally” (78), referring to the paintings of women that once featured prominently on the noses of planes. After, Nick speaks to a young artist, and the next day he climbs up a nearby hill at sunrise to get “a natural vantage in relation to the aircraft” (83). He thinks about the nuclear tests that took place in the desert.

Nick Shay and his wife, Marian, take care of his mother. She has come west to stay with the younger couple and spends most of her time watching television. Marian talks with her mother-in-law, discussing New York City and Nick’s childhood. Her husband never talks about his youth, so she is interested to learn more. Nick is concerned that he and his wife no longer talk, especially since their children have grown up and moved out of the house. Marian wants to know about Nick’s father, who “went out to get a pack of cigarettes and never came back” (87). Nick thinks about his father’s chosen cigarette brand, Lucky Strikes, and wonders whether this might mean that he was killed by criminals.

In Los Angeles, Nick attends a baseball game between the Dodgers and the Giants with his coworkers Brian Glassic and Big Sims. They are joined in the company box by a BBC reporter who knows little about the game but is keen to learn about American culture. The reporter asks about the rules and the history of the sport. They discuss the game between the Dodgers and the Giants in 1951, in which Bobby Thomson’s famous home run became known as the Shot Heard ’Round the World. Reluctantly, Nick reveals that he actually owns the baseball that Thomson hit. Big Sims insists that no one owns the ball. He claims that Nick must own a random baseball. Nick is embarrassed. He explains that owning the baseball is “all about losing” (97), as it allows him to commemorate the idea of failure. It celebrates Nick’s obsession with the way in which certain objects bring some people good luck and other people bad luck.

As Nick watches television with his mother, he is struck by a sudden reminiscence. They swap memories, hers “untouched by sentiment” (101). He remembers the Los Angeles riots and the way his son began wearing “baggy shorts and a cap turned backwards” after the riots (102). Nick thinks about how his father, a bookkeeper named Jimmy Costanza, “was able to retain the details of every bet” in his memory (104). The letters in Jimmy’s name can be added up to 13. His memory was so good that he never wrote anything down for work. In the current day, Nick works in waste management. He takes his job seriously and insists that his family recycle properly.

Brian Glassic calls Nick unexpectedly one night and asks Nick to meet him at a shop that specializes in selling a hundred different kinds of condoms. The store, Condomology, amuses Brian, but Nick is not impressed. Brian talks about his older brother, who carried around the same pack of condoms in his wallet throughout his adolescence. Brian buys a pack of condoms for Jeff, his son, as “a token of communication and accord” (113). Nick returns home and tries to explain what happened to Marian. She is busy watching television and does not engage with him. When she finally joins him in bed, Nick implies that she and Brian are having an affair. Marian wordlessly walks out of the room. Nick believes that he has “done it all wrong” (117).

Brian’s son, Jeff, becomes obsessed with tracking down the famous film in which the Texas Highway Killer supposedly shoots a victim. When he finally finds the video, he watches it repeatedly to try and catch “lost information” (118). Nick thinks about his son’s obsession while reflecting on his father’s departure, his mother moving into his house, and his home recycling system for “clean safe healthy garbage” (119). Nick remembers his father shaving and teaching him how to cut bread. Nick thinks about every nuclear bomb that was built and not released during the Cold War.

Nick and Marian fly in a hot-air balloon. They watch the sunset as they pass over the same desert that is now home to Klara Sax’s art installation. Marian thanks Nick for the “greatest birthday present ever” (124). That night, they host a dinner party. Later, they lie in bed and chat without really engaging with one another. In the middle of the night, Nick wakes up. He holds his supposedly fake baseball, for which he paid $34,500, needing “the feel of a baseball” in his hand (131). When Marian asks him to come back to bed, Nick goes up to the roof and listens to the radio commentary of a baseball game. He looks in the direction of where the Polo Grounds used to stand and thinks about his fading memories.

After leaving the game with his baseball, Cotter Martin returns home. His apartment building’s new janitor says he needs to speak to Cotter’s father, but Cotter insists that he does not know his father’s whereabouts. Inside the apartment, Cotter’s sister, Rosie, is studying for school. Cotter tells Rosie about the baseball. He trusts her not to tell their parents about him missing school to attend the game. At dinner, Cotter and Rosie sit in silence with their mother. They are waiting for Cotter’s father, a “working man” named Manx Martin, to arrive. When Manx finally arrives, Cotter begs his father to write a note explaining to his school that he missed a day because he was sick. Manx humors his son but wants to know why Cotter missed school. Cotter tells his father about the game and how he has the ball that Bobby Thomson hit. Manx’s mood changes. He immediately begins to think of ways in which the family could sell the ball back to the team. Cotter, however, wants to keep it. Manx is annoyed with his son and suggests that they revisit the idea the following day. While Cotter is asleep in bed, Manx enters his bedroom and finds the ball sitting on the bed. He takes it.