If Rock and Roll Were a Machine

by Terry Davis

  Lawler was quick, and he cheated way up past the serving box. He got to a lot of balls, and he put them away with a pinch shot that was so accurate, it pissed you off even when you weren’t down there getting beat by it.

  Bert knew it was easy to stand up at the rail and see what was wrong with another guy’s game. It was easy to get it right in your head. But it was real hard to get it right when you were down there on the court.

  * * *

  At the end of February, Lawler was still on top in B. Bert had won five straight and moved up to the middle of C. He was feeling strong and wasn’t fading in third games.

  Bert didn’t think he was playing well, though. He’d begun winning just on his knowledge of the game, and this had begun to feel like cheating. Few of the guys in C cared how the game was played. Most of them were working men who wanted to sweat and bang out their frustrations on that blue ball. They played once, twice a week, and they never practiced. Bert played Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday night, and Sunday, and he practiced after aerobics on the other days.

  Bert was afraid that the skills of the game were coming too slowly. He told himself to be patient, but that was another thing more easily conceived than enacted.

  Bert was suffering a mild case of despair as he and Scotty sat in the hot tub for their Thursday night critique. Earlier Bert had played his best match since league started against the best player he’d faced. He lost the first game 11–15, then won the last two 15–13 and 15–9. Scotty had arrived for game three.

  Winning wasn’t much of a thrill and neither was having played his best. All he was doing was making fewer mistakes than his opponents. If this was the extent of his best play, where did that put him?

  “It puts you, Bert,” Scotty said, “at the point where I tell you to give yourself a fucking break.”

  The tub was full of team racquetball players. Scotty spoke quietly, and against the talk and laughter, the hum of the pump and bubbling of the water, nobody overheard. But his voice had that edge to it. It was the voice he’d used when Bert bashed his head.

  But then his voice softened and rose to a conversational level. “I’ll tell you what I mean,” Scotty said. “You’re at a plateau. You understand a bunch of stuff with your head, but your body hasn’t got it yet. It will.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” he said.

  Bert felt a surge of excitement. It was like an electric current pouring in with the jets of water.

  “I want you to start hitting the shit out of the ball,” Scotty said. “Backhands too. I want you to just blast the fuck out of every ball you hit.”

  This was more of a jolt than Bert was ready for.

  Scotty held his hands up in a gesture that said, Give me a minute here. “In practice hit the ball as hard as you can, and try to do it from a perfect setup through a perfect swing. In practice think about power and about the shape of the human spring that creates it. But in games I don’t want you thinking about anything except blasting the ball into powder. I don’t care if you skip a hundred balls and get skunked three straight every match until the league ends.

  “You know the fundamentals of this game, Bert,” Scotty said. “If you add to those things all the strength you’ve got, and if you give your body some time, it’ll create a racquetball player.”

  Bert closed his eyes and sank to the bottom of the tub. When his shoulders met the tile he opened his eyes and looked up into the blue luminescence. He let the air in his lungs float him to the surface. “And the second thing?” he said.

  Scotty smiled, then he laughed his big, deep laugh. “The second and third things aren’t so long-winded,” he said. “I want you to get a B-league sheet and start calling some of those people for games.”

  “Nobody’ll want to play me,” Bert said. “I’ll be pulverizing all the balls.”

  Scotty laughed again. “Balls are cheap,” he said.

  “What’s last?” Bert said.

  “There’s a tournament in Richland the second weekend in March,” Scotty replied. “I want you to enter the C bracket. If Thompson’s basketball team makes regionals they’ll be playing there that weekend. Maybe I could get to one of your matches.”

  “I work Saturdays,” Bert said.

  Scotty smiled and shook his head.

  “But I think my boss will let me off for this.”

  * * *

  So Bert proceeded to whale on that little blue ball. And it wasn’t pretty. It didn’t seem to matter whether he was thinking about power and stroke or about the human spring he was endeavoring to become, the ball seldom went where he meant it to. And it seldom went with power.

  It was dangerous to play Bert in this stage of his racquetball evolution. No one, including Bert himself, had a clue where his vicious swings would send the ball, and there was always the chance that he might smoke one. Bert knocked a light-panel out of the ceiling. He hit an untold number of balls out of the court, one of which knocked the headphones off a woman pumping away on the StairMaster. He got too far around on a backhand and actually hit the ball behind him. His opponent was standing across court in the corner, as far from danger as he could get. Still, Bert drilled him.

  “Now there’s a backhand, kid,” the guy said after he pulled up his T-shirt and showed Bert the reddening imprint of the ball over his bottom rib. “The fucking thing goes backward.”

  Bert got games with some B people. But he didn’t call Gary Lawler. He did, however, have Lawler’s phone number handy now. And Bert would call. When his game evolved a little more.

  Chapter 25

  Waiver of Responsibility

  Spokane received its last snowfall of winter on the first Tuesday in March. A few light flakes melted against the Bug’s windshield as Bert drove to the print shop after fifth period. Scotty was happy to give him these afternoons off so he could work with the Explorer staff. Bert helped make up the paper until it was time to head for the club and his five-thirty match. When he walked out the print shop door he stepped into snow higher than his high-tops. The flakes were big and wet. The Bug was all white including the tires.

  Bert left his head in the locker room and let his body play the match as the plan dictated. His body lost to a guy his own age from St. George’s named Kevin, whom his mind could have beaten. It was okay though. Bert finally smoked a few for points, even one backhand, and he served a few drives for aces. Those shots felt like dreams made flesh, graphite, and nylon, and they sounded—not like high-caliber, but certainly like medium-caliber weapons. They sounded almost like the shots of a real player. Bert stood there after the ball rolled out and wondered who hit it. Kevin looked back and wondered the same.

  The Bug wore a twelve-inch snowcap when Bert left the club to return to the print shop. Darby was the only staffer still there. She said Tanneran left early because he’d taken his snow tires off the day before and was afraid he’d never make it home if he stayed any longer.

  Bert was a smart kid, but he didn’t know everything, and one of the things he didn’t know was that dealing with the sexuality in aerobics class rather than remaining at the mercy of it was, in a subtle way, putting him less at the mercy of sexuality in general. Bert was also unaware that his commitment to racquetball had cut into his self-consciousness; there just wasn’t enough room in his head or time in his life to be obsessed with everything. Further, Bert didn’t realize that the conditioning he was doing had shaped him up. His body was a little stronger and so supported itself in a more confident posture. Bert’s head had not received this message yet, but it would. The culmination of this growth was that—even though he didn’t know it—Bert had begun thinking of Darby Granger as just another kid. And so, for the first time since September when he’d seen her in the journalism room through the haze of headache and humiliation and asked her if Tanneran was around, Bert spoke to Darby without being spoken to first.

  He was pasting up a story about the controversy over AIDS education in Spokane schools when he stopped and looked at Darby,
who was running headlines through the paste machine. “Hey, Darb,” Bert said. “Does controversy always have to rage?”

  The look she gave him was similar to Kevin’s expression on the racquetball court. You said something? You hit that ball?

  “Couldn’t controversy maybe thunder for a change? Couldn’t it boil or fulminate?”

  “We’re not poets, Egg,” Darby replied. “We’re journalists. Clichés are the heart and soul of journalism. They’re our meat and potatoes.”

  “I was just curious,” Bert said.

  The scar on Bert’s forehead was not a major disfiguration, but it did show clearly in the strong lights of the paste-up room and Darby’s eyes had been drawn to it all evening. “I’m curious about something too, Egg,” she said. “How’d you get the scar?”

  Bert told her the truth.

  “I had my suspicions about you,” Darby said. “You are not just an egg: You are a psycho egg.”

  “I’m harmless to others” was Bert’s response.

  It was pushing nine o’clock when Bert finished pasting up the rewrites and Darby had taken care of all the headlines and together they had stacked the pages in the correct order for the printer. Bert took the stack and said he’d carry it to the back room. As he was walking away he stopped. “I’m starved,” he said. “You feel like a bite to eat, Darb?”

  Bert had spoken before he thought. He wished he could take it back.

  But it was too late. Darby said she always felt like a bite to eat. She also said they’d take her Tracker. She’d hoped all winter for a snow like this so she and the plows could be the only ones on the road.

  Bert said he could put away a bunch of fishwiches. Darby heard the suggestion of concern for low cholesterol and wondered if Bert was not only an egg but a health Nazi. She wasn’t independent beyond all effects of peer pressure, however, so she mentioned chicken. But Darby Granger wasn’t into low cholesterol. She looked over at Bert and said, “You know what I really feel like eating, Egg?”

  It was easy for Bert to reply because he also had a hankering. “Greaseburgers!” they said in unison. So Darby pointed the Tracker in the direction of Dick’s Drive-in, where Spokane’s finest greaseburger is served.

  It was strange for Dick’s to be so quiet. But then the whole town was quiet. The snow fell so thick, it was like a white string curtain, and it was so wet, it stuck to everything. Even the lights were subdued by a covering of snow. Bert and Darby heard the plows roll by on Division and the big trucks rumble by on the elevated freeway, but even with those sounds it was almost like being out in the country. Darby didn’t even have the radio on.

  They were down to scouring the last of the tartar sauce out of the little paper cups with the last of the fries when Darby spoke. “Think you want to edit the paper next year?”

  Bert looked at her.

  “You know, Egg,” she said, “edit the Explorer. Be the editor.”

  Bert didn’t have to think about it. “No,” he said. “I’d like to be associate. That’s where I’d be the most help.” He looked at Darby as he’d look at any friend. “You’re an excellent editor,” he said. “You’re comfortable in authority, people trust your judgment, and you don’t humiliate them.” He shifted in his seat. “I never thought you were making fun of me when you called me Egg.”

  “You know why I call you Egg, Bert?” Darby said.

  Bert squinched his face. “Because I remind you of something shot out of a chicken’s ass?”

  Darby smiled. “Besides that,” she said. “I call you Egg because you have a shell.”

  It didn’t hurt Bert’s feelings. He knew it was true.

  * * *

  The plows had been up Maple Street, so once Darby hooked her nylon tow rope on to the Bug and pulled it out of the print shop lot, Bert was mobile.

  The last flakes of the last snow of winter fell before Bert had driven many blocks. The temperature was rising. It must have been above freezing already. Bert wasn’t tired and he needed to have one of his parents sign the waiver on his tournament form, so he passed up the turn to Gram’s and headed to his folks’ house.

  He left the Bug in the middle of the street, took the shovel from the porch, and went to work on the driveway. His dad must be out of town. If he were home, he’d be out with his snowblower.

  It was so quiet. So quiet and so beautiful. The pine and fir and spruce trees in the yards were completely covered with snow—it was like they’d been sprayed. Their lower branches drooped to the ground under the weight. They didn’t even look like trees. They looked like snow spires. Serene was the name for this night. Bert’s shovel scraping lightly against the concrete was the only sound. Before long Bert heard the garage-door opener kick in, then his mom appeared in her robe and slippers.

  They sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window at the woods. Bert dropped little marshmallows into his mom’s hot chocolate until the surface was covered with white like everything outside, then he covered his own with a double layer.

  Bert assured her that he was feeling fine, that if he were losing weight, it was because of exercise, not diet or anxiety. He said he was too busy to be anxious.

  Jean Bowden was surprised to hear that her son was doing aerobics. She’d tried aerobics for a while but got frustrated because she couldn’t keep up with the routines. She still had her outfit. Bert said it took a while to get the hang of it. He said a lot of women her age came to the classes.

  Jean asked if Bert was doing okay at Gram’s, and he said he was doing fine. “Don’t you get lonely out there in Gramp’s workshop by yourself?” she asked.

  “I never get lonely,” Bert replied. He realized how that sounded. “Everything else bothers me,” he said. “I just never get lonely.”

  Jean Bowden smiled and shook her head. Who was this boy—this young man—she had carried on her hip? One day she left him at kindergarten with tears running down his face, and now he stops by to shovel snow and says he never gets lonely.

  Yes, she thought it would be all right if he drove to Richland to play in a racquetball tournament. She just hoped the roads would be clear. And yes, she would sign the Waiver of Responsibility required of minors.

  * * *

  Bert swung by the post office on his way home. He had to climb out to drop the envelope in the curb box because the plows had buried it in a huge snowpile.

  He thought of responsibility the rest of the way home, and he thought of responsibility as he lay in bed.

  Bert wondered how his parents could have placed him in the hands of a man like Lawler. They were supposed to be responsible for him, and yet they just handed him over to that prick.

  They were trying to be responsible, Bert knew. They were trying. They just fucked up. His dad was gone all the time then, and his mom had just started college. They were busy, and it had just slipped by.

  For the first time, Bert realized something: His folks weren’t responsible for him anymore. They had waived their responsibility when they stuck him in Lawler’s class for a second year. He tried not to blame them for that, but it was tough. He was responsible for himself now. He wasn’t crazy about the idea. That’s just how it was.

  Chapter 26

  Letting It Go

  Bert exited 395 South at the Richland sign. Gleeful radio voices were forecasting temps in the sixties, maybe as high as seventy by Sunday. What a weekend to ride. Too bad Bert didn’t have a motorcycle anymore. He followed the directions on the tournament flyer clipped to his clipboard on the seat beside him, and by God if he didn’t wind up at the Tri-Cities Racquet Club. He’d never been on a trip by himself before. So far it was fun.

  Bert checked in at the tournament desk and picked up his T-shirt. On the back was written in black TRI-CITIES RACQUET CLUB PRO-AM. He traded his car keys for a locker key and a towel. On his way to the locker room he passed a long table with pastries, apple and orange slices, and two big thermos jugs of juice. God, he thought, I get a shirt worth ten bucks, I can eat mayb
e five bucks’ worth of breakfast now and tomorrow, there’s pizza tonight, plus, I get to play racquetball—at twenty-five bucks this is cheap fun. Bert had forgotten for the moment that he would also be paying around forty dollars for the motel.

  Bert had been dubious about the workout clothes his mom bought him. He’d found the Nordstrom box on his cot yesterday after school. Two pairs of those shiny, tight knee-length pants, black and neon-blue, and two tank tops cut deep under the arms. He liked the pants, but he couldn’t wear the tanks in public. A guy’s got to have lats to wear tanks cut like that. Bert had lats, of course; they just weren’t developed enough to show.

  He wore the blue pants, which were so tight he didn’t need a jock, and over them a pair of gold Thompson High PE shorts slit up the sides. He wore an old blue Lacoste shirt, faded and soft. His new Ektelon Quantus racquet was also blue. Bert knew he was going to get murdered in the tournament, but at least he’d get murdered looking good. He hoped, however, that he didn’t look too color-coordinated.

  Bert did get murdered in his first match. He lost 6–15, 9–15 to a guy named Dirk. Bert remembered the name because he repeated it. “Nice shot, Dirk. Jesus, Dirk, you smoked that one.”

  Dirk was shaped like a giant ham and had a ham’s low fat-content. And he hit the ball as hard as Scotty. He wasn’t accurate and all he had was his forehand, but it didn’t matter. A lot of times he hit the ball so hard, it bounced off the back wall to the front again before Bert could get to it. Bert would watch him set up, then sometimes before he could turn his head the ball would crack against the front wall and rebound past him.

  Bert didn’t play badly, he just didn’t get a chance to hit many balls. He was frustrated about that, but still it had been a fun match.

  The loss dropped Bert into the consolation round. He checked the chart and learned that he played someone named Stone at three. If he won, he played again at seven. If he lost, the tournament was over for him.