The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

When a North American Black Bear emerges from the woods, Trisha is almost relieved. However, as the bear draws closer she decides that it is really the God of the Lost in bear form. Clouds of bugs swirl around its face. It tells her to run, but she can barely stand on her weakened legs. Trisha remembers Tom Gordon’s assertion that God intervenes in the bottom of the ninth inning and his secret to winning—establishing that you are the better player. Whispering “icewater” to herself, Trisha steps toward the creature, provoking it to charge her. Again, Trisha again hears the bear telling her to run, but she knows that “stillness [is] her last chance…stillness and maybe a good hard curveball” (290). She understands how Tom Gordon must feel under pressure. The bear creature sniffs at her face; its eyes are insect-infested “tunnels…toward the god’s unimaginable brain” (291) and its throat is full of wasps. Still, she does not move. The creature’s face shifts into the faces of Trisha’s teachers, friends, family, and dangerous strangers. She hears “the hum of its poisoned works” and thinks that this sound is “the real Subaudible” (292). The creature rises onto its hind legs and compels Trisha to look at it.