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- - - S p o r t s m a n ’ s by "The Jimmy Wynn Ensemble" Dale Barrigar, Michael Antonucci & Garin Cycholl Perhaps
the next question was his. Strange
children should smile at each other and say, “Let’s play.”
But that’s not what happened next.
Nakamora was nothing but a strange child.
Katsimbalis had warned me his turn-on was eel fighting.
That kind of action would have made Pap spit his chew and swear
off the shine. I couldn’t afford to be choosy. I
just kept smiling. Nakamora remained silent and unimpressed.
Joliet Casino is no gamer’s paradise.
Billboards lies. The geriatrics call the shots.
Low-ante blackjack, nickel slots and a cheap buffet keep them
coming back for more. All
the grandmas would have been too much for Pap’s cock fighting roots. Their beanie babies made Nakamora edgy too.
I quit smiling. “This
place is nowhere. You’ll won’t find the action you want,” I said.
“But there’s a place we can go.
Nothing fancy, but I think you’ll feel at home.
It’s a ways from here.” We
took 55-North. Traffic was
light, even for a Saturday morning.
Nakamora was relieved to get off the grounds.
The promoters had him stashed in Joliet for six days.
I was into my second day of looking after him.
The Breeders’ was another week away.
He still wasn’t talking, but he seemed happy, looking out the
window and patting his foot to the George Strait on the radio.
Around Romeoville he crashed and I quit paying attention to him. For
a hole in the wall in hillbilly-town, Big Tim’s had more going than
that Joliet showboat ever would. Katsimbalis
wouldn’t approve of the sudden venue change, but he really couldn’t
beef. Big Tim was sweeping
the sidewalk as I pulled up. “Top
o’ the morning, Rupp. You
mighty early today. Who’s
the friend?” “This
here is Mr. Nakamora. He’s
in town for the Breeders’. Thought
we’d stop by and say ‘how do.’” “Tell
your friend we’re proud to know him and glad he’s here. You all are
welcome to sit down soon as you get acclimated.” He
gave a tight nod and went back to his sweeping.
There was a good game going inside. Nakamora smelled it, too.
He left the car, moving quickly toward the building. James
Earl was behind the bar, well into his day with three East Coast games
going at once. Kentucky-Alabama
held most of his attention. “What’s
happening, James?” I asked. “Meet
Mr. Nakamora. He’s here for the Breeders’.” James
never looked away from the TV’s. “What
do you know about the Miami game? Second
quarter?” James asked. Nakamora
looked down, perhaps disappointed. “Don’t
mess with the Canes,” I said. “The
secondary goes one way. Linebackers
another. Check MTSU and
Western Kentucky. Hilltoppers
take points in the third and a Middle Tennessee lineman has the flu.” “Where’s
that from?” “Katsimbalis.” Nakamora
looked up when I said Katsimbalis. “Like
I said, Jimmy, this here’s Mr. Nakamora.
Did Big Tim go somewhere?” He
pointed toward the wooden stairs at the back of the room. “Mr.
Nakamora, this is what we call a social club.
Just friends. Everybody
here is good people.” There
were two open seats at the table in Big Tim’s office.
The game wanted new blood and Nakamora made himself at home.
Tim put on a pot of coffee and gave me the high sign. I shut the door. There’d
been gambling in this building longer than I could count.
Pap brought me here once when I was eight or ten.
Big Tim set me up with a root beer, passed me a football card and
started explaining spreads, favorites, and underdogs.
Instructed me to test my luck.
I took favorites—the Bears, Buffalo, the Oilers and the L.A.
Rams—they all covered and Big Tim counted out my cash at the end of
the afternoon. Soon as I had a driver’s license, I started running.
They sent me to Wisconsin. Country
folk with nothing better to do but lose money on the Badgers.
They didn’t like the Milwaukee Italians, so they booked with
us. The
money was good enough to forget about school.
Pap didn’t have any troubles with that.
He figured it was good having another full-timer in the house.
My maw wasn’t pleased, but the cash kept her quiet.
Deliveries and pick-ups at Dairyland became part of my route.
The account was good, arms running down I-55, all the way to West
Memphis. Dog track people bet anything.
Most of all, they liked college hoops.
I had their pick-6 and play-12 combos going out.
NFL, NBA, Div-One, One-A, horses, baseball.
Anything in season. The
track was taking on tickets from work-a-day dog fans back in Chicago.
Big Tim and Pap called it door-to-door service. And
those dog tamers gave great tips. Honking-up
their king-size rails in the kennels and cashing in on their insider
dope was probably more than a seventeen-year-old could handle.
I started fucking up. One
Friday in September I didn’t make the drop, and Pap and Big Tim cut me
off. Tim said they’d have
sent me to Burns Harbor if I wasn’t kin. Dealing
weed in Racine seemed to be the answer for awhile. That would have
worked except for the blow. It all caught up with me quick and I made it the best way I
could. I wasn’t proud,
but I stayed lucky. As soon
as I kicked my habit, I went to Detroit. $ As
soon as I kicked my habit I went to Detroit. But
wait. There was something
else first. That was when I was running away. . . I
wrote, Cheery
Nebraska bird chirps piped outside the window, sun fell on the floor,
the room was growing warmer, and two strands of long blond hair were
curled on the indented pillow next to his head, like a story-book
reminder. Katsimbalis (me) felt fine, newly rested for the first time in
a long while. Feeling so
fine he figured some calisthenics were in order, rare thought for him.
Also things were getting rough—he wanted to be in tip-top shape for
whatever came down the pike. So
out of the bed and out of his clothes.
Jumping jacks first, totally naked. Get the heart pumping. It
felt good, feet thumping the floor, arms in unison winging over his
head, up-down, up-down. Deep knee bends now, balls flopping while he moved.
He tried some push-ups, cranking out twenty, already out of
breath. Sit-ups.
Oh, those were a little awkward. Try something else.
He had his bare ass to the window, legs spread, knees straight,
bending down attempting to touch his toes, when he heard a loud tap on
the window glass. Simultaneously
he saw between his legs the old man’s (Dr. Hoyt’s) upside-down face
at the glass. Straightening up, I swung around. The top of a ladder leaned against the sill, the Doctor
peering angrily into the room. “Open
the window, you son of a bitch!” the Doc said, his voice muffled
through the glass; cocking his head, he glared into the room.
Trying a different strategy, his face softened and he batted his
eyelashes. “Peek-a-boo, I
see you,” he said, waving his fingers.
Katsimbalis put his hand in front of his dick, moved to the
window and pulled down the shade. The
Doc yelled that he’d heard thumping and wanted to make sure everything
was okay. He said it’d sounded like an elephant was about to crash
down through his ceiling. I went to the bed and put my pants back on.
Back at the window, I popped the shade up.
The Doc’s hands gripped the ladder.
“Open up,” he said, pointing both forefingers like little
pistol barrels while the rest of his hands stayed wrapped around the
ladder. Katsimbalis pulled
up the pane, stared down at Dr. Hoyt, and suddenly had a terrific urge
to reach out and shove the ladder backward.
That would take care of a lot, he thought. “Listen,” the Doc said through the screen, his gaze
fastened on Katsimbalis’s bare midriff.
“I didn’t mean to intrude.
Just making sure you were all right.
It was that thumping.” The
Doc began to climb down the ladder.
“Anyway,” he said as his head disappeared, “breakfast is
ready. Come on down when
you want to and get you some.” The
top of the ladder went away and Katsimbalis shut the window. Hungry
as hell, he tossed on his shirt and lunged downstairs.
He wanted to get to the kitchen before the Doc, although he
didn’t know why. It was a race. At
the kitchen table, the girl sat with her hair in a ponytail, facial skin
so pale he saw she’d painted it white with makeup.
Katsimbalis looked closer, assuring himself of this.
The old woman was doing something at the sink, a stick figure in
an apron, the old man nowhere around.
Katsimbalis had beaten him; this victory made him happy.
The girl’s shoulders were squared, back straight, one hand in
her lap, the other moving outward mechanically to a bowl of prunes on
the table. The hand took a
prune and moved it to the mouth, the mouth chewed, the throat swallowed,
the hand came out again and the process repeated.
Her head moved slowly so her eyes met his.
She winked, her hand moving for another prune.
The old woman served Katsimbalis eggs, bacon, buttered toast,
biscuits and gravy, ham steak, and cherry cobbler, he burned the roof of
his mouth on that but gobbled it down without pause along with the last
of the savory ham. He dispatched all the food with the appetite of a man who
knows the feeling of not knowing when his next meal might arrive.
Katsimbalis was on the run.
The woman came and poured him more coffee.
The girl looked at him from the other end of the table, chin
resting on her knee. She
asked him to tell her his name again and she smiled when he said it.
I sipped the coffee, leaned back in my chair and belched. “Had
your cholesterol count checked lately?” The
Doc leaned in the doorway, watching him and grinning.
Katsimbalis had the feeling he’d been being inspected and
appraised the whole time he ate. He
had his own special reasons for disliking this.
Without a moment for Katsimbalis to catch his breath or digest
the feast, the old man came over and invited Katsimbalis on the walk,
slapping him on the back. The
yard was an acre of tangled, unmowed lawn and patches of packed-down
dirt, the ratty German shepherd asleep on a mound of dirt behind the
barn, a busted-up wire fence surrounding the yard in the places where it
hadn’t fallen down, beyond that brown plains.
I was used to concrete, buildings, shit, Chicago. But there was a
dead horse back there somewhere. The
sky here was tall and large as could be, chipped blue and cloudless, the
day dusty, dry, and hot, a faint grassy smell in the air, like a cow’s
breath, at least to Katsimbalis, who’d never been close to a cow
except for dinner. Katsimbalis
pulled his t-shirt from his stomach and looked up at the sky as the Doc
pulled a long, fat cigar from a pocket on the front of his overalls and
stuck it in his mouth and lit it with a plastic lighter, the aroma
telling Katsimbalis, no expert technically, that the cigar was good. They
started off, stepping over a place where the fence was mashed down into
the dirt. The Doc called
the dog, Fred, and it got up and ran to his side and followed them,
nipping at the man’s ankles, trotting behind, jogging ahead, losing
itself in a stand of tall grass, circling around and coming back again.
After a while the dog got tired and fell in behind them.
It nipped Katsimbalis on the calf through his pants but the nip
felt more affectionate than angry.
They walked single file, the Doc leading, over a long thin path
that cut through the brown grass. The
immensity of land made Katsimbalis feel his head had been lifted off his
shoulders. In a slow undulation, the land began to rise and the old
man—the Doc—ahead began to puff.
The dog behind panted heavily and when the old man reached the
crest of the gradual slope, he turned, stopped, bent in the wind and
relit the cigar stub with the plastic lighter, cupping its tip in his
hand. Then he waved the
hand with the cigar in a gesture meant to sweep in all the plain. “There
are only two live pasts, you jackass,” the Doc said.
“Mine and yours. You’re in deep shit now. You’re gonna have
to change your vocabulary.” $
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