The game is doubles 501. The difference between this and singles 501 is that you have to double in as well as out. You can’t start scoring until you hit a double. Any trouble doing that can put a team in a hole that’s tough to get out of. The chalker calls the players to the line.
Game one is the kind of tight back-and-forth battle that makes darts such a kick to watch. Unless your ass is on the line, that is. I go through a pint and a half in the ten-minute game, most of it when Tank, with a chance to end it, wires his shot at the double 8, the rest when Kelly steps to the line and throws the point of his first dart into the double 10 and through my heart. The bar explodes.
“Eight-six. Advantage: County Hell.”
If the general panics in battle, his troops will. Same for the captain in darts. I pat Dave and Tank as they leave the board.
“Heads up, guys. You played great.” I turn to Bobby and Claire. “Okay, you two—Jimmy and I aren’t ready to go home yet. Go up there and give us a shot to win this thing.” I slide Bobby a short one of tequila. “For luck,” I say. He downs it and they head to the board.
Claire wins the cork toss but can’t open with a double. Gallagher gets the Hellions on straight away. Bobby strikes out with his double too, then Claire, then Bobby again. Lucky for us the Hellions aren’t scoring well, but even so they cruise out to a 150-point lead. I’m set to bite through my glass.
“Excuse me a second,” Claire says, making her way to the bathroom. The Hellions snicker, except for Gallagher, who clears a path for her, then nods back at Duggan’s angry look. “Don’t worry, Joey—we got this one.”
They haven’t invented the drink I need right now. Nothing in darts is worse than watching your team fail to double on in 501. You fall farther and farther back, and as captain there isn’t a thing you can do but drink to cut the pressure. I order an Absolut straight up and down half of it at a gulp. The drunks can feel a win coming now and the buzz at the bar is louder than it’s been all night.
I start in on the rest of my drink when the din of a second ago cuts out and all I can hear is the door of the bathroom swinging shut and the twentieth straight Irish folk song coming from the jukebox. I turn to see what’s up and join the drunks and the Hellions and all the Drinkers, too, in watching Claire walk from the bathroom without her blouse. She wears a little chemise thing that comes halfway down her smooth belly, and she’s holding her bra in her hands. The drunk next to me falls clean off his stool. Claire walks through the awed crowd to Gallagher, slips the bra over his neck like an Olympic medal and pats his cheek. “Hold that, will you, sport? I just can’t throw free and easy with it on.” The wall behind Gallagher is all that keeps him standing.
Claire steps to the line, throws a double 16 with her first dart and the game, for us, is on. Five minutes later she closes it out. Cold water in the face brought Gallagher back to this week but his game didn’t come with him, and he and Wilson never even got a shot at an out. Bobby was a little shaky himself, but Claire didn’t need him. She took out a 76 with just two darts to end it.
At the bar, she puts her blouse back on and a jacket, too. She doesn’t have the heart to get her bra back from Gallagher, and anyway it would take an army. She smiles weakly at me.
“You don’t have to say it, Claire,” I tell her quietly. “I owe you forever.”
She takes a sip of her pint. “Just go do your part, Reasons, and we’ll call it even.”
My part. Christ, it’s come to that, hasn’t it?
“Let’s do it, Tommy,” says Jimmy, looking like he can’t wait to get started.
“Okay. Give me a second.”
I start into the can, but I can hear Duggan and Papa O’Shea inside around the corner and something in their voices stops me.
“For Chrissakes, you shoulda finished them off by now.”
“We got ’em, O’Shea. They can’t win this last one.”
“They won enough so far. Do I gotta do it all for ya?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean. I take out the fuckin’ captain and you still can’t finish ’em off. Don’t forget whose money is on this match. Now go win.”
“You broke his fingers? You bastard, O’Shea. I didn’t need your help tonight. I never have.”
“You just win that game, Duggan. You win that game or you won’t leave this bar long enough to piss for the rest of your days.”
If you hit a guy just right, you don’t even feel it. It’s like a perfect swing in baseball. I get a good two-step start, say “Hey” when I’m almost on him and he turns right into the punch. I catch him under the chin with a left uppercut and he falls back through the stall door and lands on his seat on the can, out cold. Not a drop of blood. Like something you might see in a Chaplin movie.
Duggan looks at him in shock and then with a low smile and pulls the stall door closed.
“Shame he’s too big to flush,” he says. He turns to me. “I didn’t know about your hand.”
“I heard.”
“And earlier, about your girl. That was talk.”
I nod. “Whatever. Let’s finish this thing.”
He starts out ahead of me but turns at the door. “I’m still gonna beat you, college boy.”
“We’ll see.”
I join Jimmy at the bar as he finishes his pint and calls for another.
“Okay, Coach,” he says. “What’s the game plan?”
I take a cooling sip of Absolut. “Pretty simple, really. You win the cork shoot, go first and throw a perfect game. I aim for the middle of the board and pray for luck.”
“With your track record you might be better off just hoping.”
The chalker steps forward. “Adam’s Curse and County Hell are tied eight-eight,” he calls to the crowd. “Let the final game begin.”
Some of the drunks are up on their stools now but they are quiet, caught up in the spirit of the match. There is only the music from the jukebox and a soft murmur from the crowd as we move to the board.
Killigan starts the cork shoot by hitting a single bull. “Pull it?” he asks.
Jimmy has the right to pull the dart to ensure himself a clear shot at the target.
“Leave it.” Jimmy steps up and hits a double bull. We will go first.
I miss the noise. In the quiet I can feel the whole bar watching us, and looking at my busted fingers it hits me that I have no idea how we’re going to win this one. Come on, Tom. This is no time to lose your nerve.
As I shake hands with Killigan and Duggan, though, I can feel it going. For the first time all night it sinks in that there isn’t a thing I have that isn’t riding on this match. My neck included.
If only it weren’t so damn quiet in here. The song on the jukebox ends and now it’s like a tomb, and so hot I have to press my pint to my forehead..
“You all right, Tommy?” Jimmy asks.
“Yeah.”
But I’m not all right. Jimmy starts to bob and weave on me, though he’s standing still, and I turn to the wall for a second. I close my eyes to shut out the bar but my own visions start coming fast and hard. I see Stella sitting alone, a mourning veil on her. I see Vincent shaking his head sadly, and Big Dom breathing in on me, his fist drawn back, saying, “Make me laugh, kid. Last chance.” Most of all, clear as the sun, I see Lisa. She stands in her cotton dress, her hands in mine, and then I see her take them away and turn and pull her sweater about her and walk off.
From a long way away Jimmy is saying, “Tommy, Tommy, snap out of it,” and I feel a hand on my shoulder but I’m still looking after Lisa, who is getting smaller now, and nothing matters but keeping her in sight.
My forehead is on the wall now and I’m shaking off Jimmy and then through it all comes the voice of Duggan, saying, “Looks like we got us a forfeit,” and the sneer and the Irish in his voice snap me out of it.
I’m in the bar again, looking at Duggan. I reach up, press sweat from my face with my fingers and come all the way back. For a second I feel
a shot of panic again but I steel my knees and instead of keeling over I feel the old rush coming on.
The old rush that starts as fear and passes through into peace and calm. And tonight it’s more pure than ever. And as my vision clears and I take in the place again I realize I’ve waited all my life for this moment. The big score. I glimpsed it as a kid, that day on the sidewalk in Seoul, watching the soldier walk off with the girls. I looked for it through the years in the different schools, always the new kid, getting by because I could stick the jumper, or run a game of dice in the hall before class, but always on the outside. I felt it coming that morning on the lawn with Dad, when I said I wasn’t joining up and he said, “what the hell else you gonna do”?
And as Jimmy steps to the line I realize it had to come to this. I had to take all the money I had, and a lot more I didn’t, and put it all on this night. And then I had to go one better. I had to risk Lisa, too. She’s the best thing I’ve ever seen, and any hope I have for down the line, but to earn her I had to do this. It doesn’t even matter that she won’t know. I’ll know. Tonight, and a year from now and through the years. I’ll know and it will be the difference.
And as the chalker calls, “Game on,” I see with perfect clarity and know too that it’s more even than Lisa. I had to take that last step. To put my skin on the line. That’s why the rush is so pure. Because I bet it all. Bet it all on a lousy game of darts so I could stand here for one shining moment and feel a feeling they don’t make anymore.
And as Jimmy pulls his arm back to throw, my head is clear and I’m ready for whatever’s to come like I’ve never been ready for anything. I’m free, guys. Free.
Jimmy doubles on with a 16, like he always does. Then my eyes and all the eyes of us Drinkers lock onto the same spot—the triple 20. He puts his second dart in there straight as you please, and after a perfect two-second pause the third dart thuds in beside it. 152 on. 349 left.
Killigan doubles on with a 20, then hits two single 20s for a score of 80. 421 left. In any other game that would be a great start. I step to the line. For the first time all night I feel I belong there. Screw this throwing at the middle and praying crap. I’m a 20s shooter and I’m not changing now. I stare at the 20 until it’s all I see on the board and until the red triple spot in the heart of her looks as big as Jersey. I fire away. Single 20, single 20, and a 1. I score 41. 308 left.
Duggan steps up and fires a ton. 321 left.
He might as well have left his darts in the board. Jimmy matches his ton. 208 left.
Killigan stands at the line so delicately I swear I could blow him over. He has one last push in him and here it comes. Triple 20. He shifts to the left just a fraction and throws again. Triple 20. The bar hushes. Single 20. 140 scored. 181 left.
Me again. Look at the target hard enough and the arm will find a way to get it there. I hit a 20, a 5, and the last dart falls into the triple 18 for a big score. Quite a stroke of luck, if you believe in luck. 79 scored. 129 left.
Duggan paws the line like a bull. He sets his sights downstairs. Triple 19. He sets his sights upstairs. Triple 20. He’s throwing faster than I can figure his score. He plants his third dart in the triple 16, pumps his fist, and the drunks explode again. Duggan has just hit three triples, scored 165 points, and left Killigan needing only a double 8 to win the match. Sean Killigan can hit a double 8 left-handed.
“Beat that,” says Duggan to Jimmy.
“Nice darts,” says Jimmy quietly. He turns to me. “Okay, Tommy. Looks like it’s now or never. You do the math, I’ll do the shooting.”
“Okay.”
“Just one thing—send me out on a double bull.”
“Right.”
There’s a light around Jimmy now as he steps to the line. I can see it, anyway.
“Hit a nineteen, Jimmy.”
He buries it.
If only his wife could see how beautiful he is right now. He has the glow Jordan gets sometimes at the end of games.
“Triple twenty, Jimmy.”
He nails it.
“Take her home.”
You’ll say it’s the drinks, but as the dart leaves his hand I swear I can see everyone in the bar. The drunks, mouths open, up on their stools. Claire with her arms around Bobby and Tank, and Dave just behind them, smiling already. Duggan with his eyes on the board and his fists clenched, and Killigan, so small beside him, his darts flat in his palm. And holding on to the wall like a drunk comes Papa O’Shea, staggering from the bathroom just in time to see the finish.
Jimmy splits the cork right in two.
All us Drinkers let out yells and a few of the drunks join in in their confusion. Tank pours a pint over his head and then the team surges to the board to mob Jimmy and I pull out the barstool from the guy next to me, climb it and give Keats the high sign. He pulls at the briefcase, but Shakespeare hasn’t figured it all out yet and keeps his grip on it. And as the whole team turns from the board and heads for me, I see a beautiful thing. Keats, our knapsack on his shoulder, lifting Shakespeare clear of the ground with both hands tight around his neck and shaking him like a child. After ten seconds of this a purple Shakespeare drops the case and Keats drops Shakespeare and I’m leading the whole team now, with Claire in the center, in a flying wedge to the door. I grab the briefcase on the way by, and the drunks are parting and the Pogues are playing and I push the gang out the door into the limo I booked and the last thing I see, as I back out, is a sputtering Papa O’Shea, his big face scarlet, reach for Duggan’s collar and Duggan come up with a very quick right uppercut that catches O’Shea right where I caught him and sends him backward back into the can. And then I’m in the limo too, saying, “Adam’s Curse” to the driver, and I’m in the back seat with all my friends, the best anyone’s ever had, our faces close and flushed, and Keats, too, who’s not a bad-looking guy at all when you see him up close, and the money’s in the car and we’re all in the money and as I pop the cork on a bottle of bubbly I make a vow to myself that I’m pretty sure I’ll keep.
I’m through gambling.
EPILOGUE
MANHATTAN sure is pretty this morning.
The buildings, the water, it all looks new. I sit outside Lisa’s in my new used car, waiting for her to come down the steps. Another few minutes and we’ll be off.
It’s taken me a couple days to recover from the victory bash Friday night. Stella sure can throw a party. She gave us the run of the place, top shelf included, until last call, and then turned all the regulars out and locked the door with the rest of us inside. She led us downstairs to a private room with a couple kegs in it and told us to go to work. I think Keats polished off one by himself. I was all beered out by that point, so after a split or two of Moët I stuck to pints of ice water.
It was down there that I divvied up the dough. Sat everyone around a poker table and cut them in. I split Stella’s twenty-five grand evenly among the six of us. Bobby, Tank, Jimmy, and Claire I slipped two thousand each on top of the thousand they put in. Figured that as hones go, we would have been a 2–1 shot, at least. I paid Dave back his five grand and another five besides, doubled Keats’s paycheck to a thousand and threw five hundred to the limo driver. None of the gang had ever seen that much cash before and after toasting it and ourselves we turned up the music and danced.
The rest of them were still going strong at 6 A.M. when I cut out and cabbed to Madge’s Corner Pub in Bay Ridge. Madge herself let me in. Vincent and Dom were waiting for me, sitting at the bar.
“Aloha,” I said.
Vincent was very pleasant, commending me on my promptness and saying we’d have to do business again sometime. “By the way,” he said, while counting out the twenty grand, “a cousin of mine was in here asking about you the night you borrowed the money.”
“Gino?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I took some dough off him in blackjack. Should I be worried?”
“Nah. I didn’t want him interfering with my investment, so I steered
him wrong. Not that it matters. I could have drawn a map to your place for him, kid, and it would have taken him a week to track you down. The guy couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”
At the door I shook his hand.
“Good luck, kid.”
“Thanks.”
I looked over his shoulder at Dom.
“Hey, Dom, I got a good one for you. Have you heard the one about the chicken who couldn’t get it up?”
“No, kid,” he said with a big grin. “How’s it go?”
I paused. “Actually, Dom,” I said, “I’m going to hold on to it. Somebody might need to tell it to you someday. Good-bye, guys.”
As I walked away Vincent came to the door and called after me.
“Hey, kid—remember my advice.”
“What’s that, Vincent?”
“Don’t bet baseball.”
Over the weekend I settled up at the pad. Ben made it easy on me by moving in. A month’s rent is all it cost me. I even got a little hug from Molly, who I must say has been one long ray of sunshine since she hooked up with Tarzan.
As it turned out, I had a chance to say good-bye to Mike, too. He came by with a truck to get his stuff and wound up giving me a lift to the storage center with mine. Wouldn’t you know, he’s moving back in with his folks. Just till he can get over Molly, he says. What can you do? At least he’ll still have someone to boss him around.
First thing this morning I dropped in on Revolution Autos, a big lot over on Eleventh Avenue by the river. An old college buddy still works summers there slinging cars. I called him last week and asked him to pick out the best five-thousand-dollar machine on the lot. There she was, a silver Olds, waiting for me with the keys in her.
From there I swung by the bank to tie up the final loose end. Wrote out a ten-thousand-dollar cashier’s check to MasterCard and dropped it into a corner mailbox. That made me square with everyone.
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