Balling the Jack

by Frank Baldwin

  Looking at her face I get the pitchfork in the gut again. In some you can see the weak spot, the place it will fall in with time. Hers will stand every test. I shake my head. Some fisherman you would make, Tom. Throwing back a keeper.

  She sees me when I’m almost on her and gives me her cheek. The old look, but turned down a little. She puts a dollar in the guitar case of the singer and he follows us with a mournful stare as we start off east along St. Mark’s.

  Friday night in the Village—what a scene. Bald women and guys with hair to their asses. Kids with pierced lips and fruits in full flower. Music from a hundred boxes. Reggae to punk to Sinatra in half a block. I wonder what Dad would say about this crowd. As we stop to check out a T-shirt stand Lisa tells me about her night.

  “A stockbroker, Tom. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I figured the last two were such losers, this one would have to be a nice guy.”

  The last two?

  “At the least I thought I could count on a good meal. Tom, this guy sits across from me in Elaine’s and actually tells me how much you-know-what he’s getting.”

  I laugh. “There’s an icebreaker. I’ll have to remember that.”

  She punches my arm. “Then, at the end of the night, he can’t believe I won’t let him up. Stands there with his foot in the elevator and a stupid grin, saying, ‘Do you know how many women are dying to go out with me?’ I told him one less than he thinks and ran up the stairs.”

  We walk on, past the outdoor cafés and jewelry booths.

  “Well, after a guy like that I must look pretty good, huh?”

  She gives me her skeptical smile.

  “You’re okay for a little conversation once in a while. So tell me about the gang. How are Linda and Jimmy?”

  “Pretty grim. Extended cease-fires marred by occasional hand-to-hand combat.”

  “That’s terrible.” Lisa’s eyes show her hurt. “How about Bobby and Tank? And Dave—tell me he’s got a girlfriend.”

  “Several, and working on a new one tonight.”

  I fill Lisa in on the whole gang, on the darts championship and Stella. On Mike and Molly and the new case at the firm. I leave out Duggan. No sense getting into that. She tells me about her job at the PR company. It’s okay except for the glass ceiling, and her scuzzy boss, who’s always hugging her at the slightest excuse. She thinks maybe she’ll go back to school, if only to kill time till she sorts out in her head what she really wants to do. Her folks are in town from Boston tomorrow and have promised her dinner and a show.

  “Your dad must be pretty psyched that I’m not in the picture anymore.”

  She starts to blush. “Oh, stop. Dad forgot about that a long time ago.”

  Not likely. Lisa’s dad is a great guy but he doesn’t have much use for me. One time while I stayed with them over break, he ducked into the garage for a late-night smoke and surprised us on the hood of his Buick. He’s hated me ever since, and I can’t say I blame him. No man should have to see his daughter getting fucked.

  She tosses her hair and half looks at me, dipping her head.

  “So,” she asks, “you seeing anybody?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Really nobody? Or a lot of nobodies?”

  “Nobody.”

  Who’s going to quibble about a score or two?

  It’s 1:30 A.M. when we end up in front of her building. We’ve been walking for two hours. She pats my arm and gives a weary smile.

  “Don’t spoil a good night, Reasons.”

  “We’ll do this again soon?”

  “We’ll see.”

  At the elevator she turns and waves. Seeing her there alone, that brave smile on her, I swallow hard. Damn, I miss her. I want her on my shoulder again, and more. I want to wake to her in the morning. A year ago we did everything and now she’s off limits. I can’t even take her hand when we walk. Serves me right, I know. Patience, Tom.

  It’s never been one of my strong suits, but I need it right now. Because I can see in her face and hear in her voice that she’s starting to forgive me. I just have to sweat it out.

  As I walk home my mood comes around. Just seeing Lisa again did me good. So what if I’m out of money. There’s always next week, and maybe next week I’ll pick a winner, and maybe when I do I’ll call Lisa and offer to take her someplace nice. She’ll say yes, I’m sure.

  I turn onto Second Avenue, stop and stare at myself in a shop window. Okay, Tom. Time to quit dodging the big one. Duggan. What the hell do I do about this mess? I set my jaw. Okay. Strip the problem to its essence and lay it out.

  I bet twenty grand on a dart match and doubled it to forty. I’ve got to come up with the dough in two weeks or scrap the match.

  Point one. Scrapping the match is not an option. I could never go to Duggan now and chicken out. I wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Then, too, there’s the little matter of my ass. You never know who these Irish guys are connected to, especially in Hell’s Kitchen. Besides, we can win this match. I know we can. We beat ’em once, we can do it again.

  Okay, so we play the match. Now I’ve reduced it to a fundraising problem. Point two. How do I raise forty thousand bucks in two weeks? As I walk along Fourteenth Street I pass two banks before stopping cold at the third one. I laugh out loud at the simplicity of it.

  I’ll get a loan.

  Why didn’t I think of it before? This is America, after all. Isn’t every Tom, Dick, and Harry doing it, every day? Guys with a lot less on the ball than me, hatching schemes and getting money thrown at them. I’m bright, fit, gainfully employed by a top New York firm. What’s to stop me from doing the same? That’s what banks are here for, right? To invest in human potential? Turn ideas into gold? I can hear the radio ads now—“Our dollars for your dreams.”

  And I can hear my pitch tomorrow morning. Give him a little Horatio Alger. I can’t tell him it’s for a bet, of course, but I’ll come up with something. Some grand vision, and for a little faith and a little capital I’ll let Citibank in on the ground floor. After all, it’s not so much the project as myself I’ll be selling. And what’s forty grand next to a man’s character?

  That settles it. My branch has Saturday hours. First thing in the morning I’ll put on my suit and tie and knock them dead. I look up at the dark windows in the buildings all around me. Sleeping somewhere in this city right now is a loan officer who’s in for more than he can handle.

  Turning onto my block I run into old man Kretzky and his creaky dachshund, Bullet, who snorts happily and shakes his belly at the sight of me. Kretzky leans on his cane and eyes me gruffly.

  “Out carousing again, son?”

  “No, sir. Just a good summer walk.”

  He looks at me suspiciously. “You’re not drunk?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Humpf. You young people today—that’s all you want to do. Stay out late, drink, play your music. Not one of you knows what it means to put in an honest day’s work.”

  “No, sir.”

  At the steps he gives me Bullet’s leash and leans on my arm. “Fifty years I been on this block, son. Watched a hundred kids like you come and go. Seen you coming in drunk, bringing in girls. What kind of girl goes back to a man’s place at night? Tell me that, son. What kind of girl goes to a bar, anyway?”

  “Times change, sir.”

  “The hell they do. Church, son. That’s where you meet a girl. Church.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kretzky has outlived everyone he knows so I let him blow off steam once in a while. It does him good. He’s been in his fifth-floor walk-up forever. Must pay about a hundred bucks in rent. The landlord can’t wait for him to kick off so he can jack it up ten times, but the guy keeps right on going. He’s doing better than old Bullet, that’s for sure. During the week I walk Bullet a few times to give the old man a break. The dog can make it up one set of stairs but you have to carry him the rest of the way. On the second landing I pick him up and he licks my face.

 
; Kretzky’s apartment is down the hall from ours. When the music’s too loud for him he throws a rubber ball against our door. Every so often he’ll have me in for a whisky and tell me the problem with us kids. It’s always the same lecture. Lazy, no drive, ought to bring back conscription to make men out of us. Tonight he gives me the short version.

  “I’ll tell you something, son. You kids bitch and moan, but the world is the same pie it’s always been. The problem with you is you want somebody to hand you your slice. Get out there and work for it like we did! That’s what I say.”

  “Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

  Inside, I brush my teeth and throw a few darts to wind down. I’m still pumped from the night with Lisa and the loan idea. I gather up the empty beer cans and divide them between Molly’s and Mike’s underwear drawers.

  In bed I start to plot my strategy for the bank tomorrow. Remember, Tom—creativity. Initiative. Onward and upward. Drifting off, I think of Lisa and her cotton dress. It must be off her by now. Hanging from a peg on her door, I’ll bet. With her sleeping just a few feet away. The window open a crack, as always, Bach turned low on the tape player.

  Sweet dreams.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MR. REASONS, do you know what collateral is?”

  “I think so—sure.”

  Ten minutes into the loan session and things aren’t going quite as planned.

  “Perhaps I should spell it out for you. Just so there is no misunderstanding.”

  You should see this guy. A real hat rack. Thin and pale, with a forehead you could land a plane on.

  “Collateral serves to guarantee a loan. Typically it is a house or apartment, sometimes a car. Something of value you put up against your loan to ensure repayment. You default on the loan, we gain title to the apartment or car. Is that all clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your problem, Mr. Reasons, is one of collateral. To be blunt, your problem is that you have nothing we want.”

  Just my luck to draw a hard-ass. I come in all nice and polite, in my best suit, and as soon as I mention a loan he starts in on me. I’m hardly into my pitch before he’s playing Twenty Questions. Wants to know if I’ve ever applied for a bank loan before. Like that makes a difference. Wants to know the last time I had a credit check run on me. Whatever that is. Wants to know the status of my student loan. Beats me. I stopped reading their letters six months ago, when they turned nasty. I start to fidget.

  “One thing we look for in an applicant, Mr. Reasons, is what we call a credit history. Some indication that they have borrowed before and made good on it. Now we understand that some applicants will be borrowing for the first time, but I should warn you that your profile as a borrower is not encouraging. Let’s call up your account on the screen, shall we, and see what we have to work with.”

  Uh-oh. He pushes a few buttons, looks at the screen, then back at me with a tight smile.

  “According to this, Mr. Reasons, your average balance over the past year has been two hundred twenty-seven dollars. Currently it stands at, ahem, twelve dollars.”

  I try to explain I like to keep a lot of cash on hand, but I’m losing him. I try a different tack.

  “Okay, sir. I understand you’ve got to give some weight to all that technical stuff. But can we set appearances aside for a second? Forget about money, about apartments or cars. What you’re really investing in here is my character, right? And the strength of my idea. If you’re willing to give me capital it’s because you believe in my capacity to make it grow. And isn’t that capacity more a function of my drive, my initiative, my spirit, if you will, than whether or not I own a house or a car?”

  He smiles like you would at the boss’s brat climbing over your good furniture. “Just the same, Mr. Reasons, we feel better seeing the house or the car.”

  “Well, I don’t have the house or the car. I’ll grant you that. But I do have a solid-gold idea. And I’d hate to see you lose out on it because of a silly formality.”

  He taps his pen on the back of his hand.

  “In a hundred words or less, Mr. Reasons, run this idea by me again. Some kind of hot-dog stand, was it?”

  I lean forward.

  “Not a hot-dog stand—a life stand. Mobile, like the hot-dog carts, but instead of franks you carry yuppie products. Splits of champagne, designer belts, quiche. Whatever they’re buying these days. And here’s the kicker—instead of grubby guys in aprons, the stands are worked by babes. Babes in high heels and low-cuts, with a lot to show and none too shy about showing it, if you get my drift. The execs will climb over each other to spend their money there, sir. Put two in the financial district, two in midtown, then just sit back and count the money.”

  His expression doesn’t change.

  “I’m underwhelmed,” he says.

  I can see I’m getting nowhere, and when he starts to stand, I swing for the fences.

  “Okay, sir, I’ll cut the crap. The yuppie life stand is a crock. I made it up to impress you. It’s clear that didn’t happen, so let’s talk business here.” His eyes narrow.

  “I really need the money for what you might call a shortterm, high-yield speculative venture that’s a lock to succeed. Now I don’t know if they got you on commission here or what, but you front me the forty thousand today, I’ll come back through the door with, say, forty-four thousand in two weeks. That’s a nice little profit for the branch—or for you.” I spread my hands. “I’m sure not going to ask where it goes.” I smile. “I make out okay and so do you, and all because you stepped away from the forms and procedures for a minute and went with your gut. What do you say?”

  He stands. “I say thank you for an amusing morning, Mr. Reasons. Unfortunately, Citibank is not in the habit of bankrolling short-term, highly speculative ventures for parties with no credit, no collateral, and twelve dollars in the bank. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Just a minute, sir. Forty thousand isn’t cut in stone. Let’s knock it down to twenty, and up your cut to fìve grand. Surely you can swing that?”

  He straightens and talks down his nose. “We are not a Hong Kong tailor, Mr. Reasons. We don’t bargain. Good day.” He marches off.

  Back on the street I’m steamed. To think I got up at seven on a Saturday for that prick. No wonder bankers take so much shit. Give them a chance to do a little business and they hide behind procedure. And where does he get off talking to me like that, anyway? He isn’t much older than I am. I should have taken a swing at him. Don’t think I don’t know his type. I saw them every day at school. Probably an Alpha Delta, with a major in BS and a minor in kissing ass. Croissants every morning, reads The Wall Street Journal on the can. Well, screw him. I wouldn’t take his money if he chased me down the street with it.

  Man, though, what do I do now? I don’t panic easy, but this is getting serious. Two weeks till game day and not a dollar in sight. I start down the block. Johnny, the cripple by the subway, shakes his cup at me and I give him my change. I walk in a long arc, down Second Avenue for fìve blocks and back up Third. All right, Tom, think it out. What are my options?

  Getting it from the family is out. Dad doesn’t have that kind of dough, and if he did, what the hell could I tell him I need it for? Anyway, I wouldn’t go to Dad for this. The gang? Nothing doing. None of them have any real money. I might have been able to bring them in for a grand or so apiece, but the little white lie I told last night scotched any chance of that.

  You see, I called everyone oh the team and they’re all on board for the match. The only thing I fudged on was the stake. They think it’s for pizza and beer. I should have fessed up, maybe, but they’d piss themselves if they knew the truth. Even if they agreed to play, the pressure of that kind of money would sink their game, and if we’re going to win this one, I need them throwing nice and easy.

  Besides, no way Duggan told his team what they’re playing for. He’d have to spread some of the dough around and that’s not his style. I don’t doubt he can raise it, t
hough. He’s a bartender, and these Irish bartenders are something else. They all talk like they’re worth ten bucks, but when they’re up against it they got a stash somewhere, or know someone who does. I’ve seen it a dozen times. Friday night they hit you up for cab fare and Sunday they open their own place. Just once I’d like to get a look at their tax returns.

  An hour of walking up and down and still I’m stumped. Even Johnny stops shaking his cup and wants to know what’s on my mind. Same thing as on his, really—raising a little capital. I turn it around and around in my head. I stop in at a bodega for a lottery ticket, pick two numbers, crumple it up and toss it away. I’m licked. I need a second opinion.

  I start uptown, for good this time. Only one guy to go to on this one. Only one guy who won’t tell me I’m nuts. Hell, he’ll like the adventure of it. Dave is that guy, of course, and it just so happens he’s buying me lunch today. I go over it all again in my head on the walk up, and by the time I reach the Upper East Side I’m set to confide. Not over lunch, though. This is one problem that will sound a lot better at night, with a few beers in the both of us.

  I walk into the Polo Grounds, where the pretty young grads in shorts and the smell of beer lift my spirits. Any game you’d ever want to see is on one of the ten tubes surrounding the main room. I spot Dave. He’s commandeered a table in the middle of the action, with a clear view of the ladies’ room. He has a pint in front of him and one ready for me. He looks a little hung over but otherwise his chipper self. I take a seat.

  “Why the suit, Tom?”

  “I had to pop into the office.”

  He slides me my pint.

  “Cheers,” he says. “So, you want the good news first or the bad news?”

  “Give me the bad news.”

  “Two-Hundred-Tenth Street, Inwood Park, is not technically the Bronx. People who live there call it the Bronx, but I checked the zoning laws this morning and it’s actually in the borough of Manhattan.”