“I just cut myself,” he says, all sullen.

“Right. Shaving. But I don’t want to see it on your finger when you go out there. I’m looking after your own best interests.”

Would I have said that if I hadn’t seen Joe so upset he was crying? I like to think so. I like to think I was also looking after the best interests of the game, which I loved then and now. Virtual Bowling can’t hold a candle, believe me.

I walked away before he could say anything else. And I didn’t look back. Partly because I didn’t want to see what was under the Band-Aid, mostly because Joe was standing in his office door, beckoning to me. I won’t swear there was more gray in his hair, but I won’t swear there wasn’t.

I came into the office and closed the door. An awful idea occurred to me. It made a kind of sense, given the look on his face. “Jesus, Joe, is it your wife? Or the kids? Did something happen to one of the kids?”

He started, like I’d just woken him out of a dream. “Jessie and the kids are fine. But George…oh God. I can’t believe it. This is such a mess.” And he put the heels of his palms against his eyes. A sound came out of him, but it wasn’t a sob. It was a laugh. The most terrible fucked-up laugh I ever heard.

“What is it? Who called you?”

“I have to think,” he says-but not to me. It was himself he was talking to. “I have to decide how I’m going to…” He took his hands off his eyes, and he seemed a little more like himself. “You’re managing today, Grannie.”

“Me? I can’t manage! The Doo’d blow his stack! He’s going for his two hundredth again, and-”

“None of that matters, don’t you see? Not now.”

“What-”

“Just shut up and make out a lineup card. As for that kid…” He thought, then shook his head. “Hell, let him play, why not? Shit, bat him fifth. I was gonna move him up, anyway.”