Trash Talk

by Robert Gussin

  Arnie spotted Jordy across the way talking with a photographer and went over to say hello.

  “Well Arnie, things look great” said Jordy. “This is Gary Fraise, our photographer. Gary, this is Arnie Schwartz, head of the conference committee.”

  They shook hands, and Gary assured Arnie that he would capture the action during the conference.

  Pam and Melissa ushered Arnie around to look in all the meeting rooms as well as the grand ballroom. Everything appeared to be in good shape. The meeting rooms looked well equipped with audiovisual equipment, water pitchers, paper cups that were environmentally friendly and flip charts with lovely yellowish tan recycled paper pads. The ballroom was set-up with tables for eight people, and large, banquet-type tables in the center of the room and a few other locations, where hors d’oeuvres would be set out at 6:00 p.m. Two bars, as yet unstocked, were set up, one at each end of the ballroom. “Trash Talk” posters on easels were evident near the wall in several places around the room and a large Welcome Conferees sign hung at the end farthest from the main doors.

  Arnie went with Pam and Melissa to check the registration desk. Jordy left the photographer and joined them. There were three young women hired as temporary employees to handle the registration. Pam and Melissa intended to help out.

  “Well guys, 518 registrants. Can you believe it?” Jordy crowed.

  “It’s incredible,” said Pam. “I talked with some folks from the national office and they have never had more than about 200 — I think 205. They can’t get over it. I told them they can thank Jordy’s ads and the beauty of Sarasota. And I also told them that a whole lot of people appreciate Florida’s environmentalist mentality and that helped attract a bigger group as well.”

  “Hey, whatever,” said Arnie, “let’s just keep our fingers crossed that all goes smoothly. By the way, have any of you seen Ed Mundhill? I’m not really looking forward to running into him, but he certainly should be happy with everything here.”

  None of the others had seen him. Melissa commented, “I understand that nothing ever makes him happy, but at least he shouldn’t be angry with us.”

  They all laughed.

  “Let’s split up the list of speakers, and we’ll each start to check and see if they’ve arrived yet and if they have any special needs for their presentations,” Arnie suggested. “I expect that in a couple of hours this place is going to be a madhouse.” C h

  a p t e r 13

  Pam and Melissa looked concerned as they rushed into Arnie’s makeshift office in a small conference room at the edge of the convention center.

  Arnie had secluded himself in the office at about one o’clock and closed the door so he could concentrate on reviewing the program one more time.

  “Arnie, you’ve got to come out here and take a look at the registration line,” said Melissa breathlessly.

  “It’s weird,” added Pam. “You gotta take a look.”

  “Hey guys, I’m busy. I’ll take a look in about fifteen minutes.”

  “No,” urged Pam. “Come and look now. Please.”

  Arnie reluctantly pushed himself away from the desk and out of his chair grumbling about interruptions and began to follow. “What’s so interesting about a registration line?” he asked as they went through the doorway. But as he moved into the registration center, he froze and his mouth dropped open.

  “What the hell?” He couldn’t believe his eyes. The line was long and that was good. But what was so strange is that it looked like a very uneven picket fence. Very uneven! There were the average-looking environmentalists, many of whom Arnie knew — or they looked familiar from past meetings. But they were outnumbered by groups of what looked to Arnie like giants interspersed in the registration line, some alone but most in groups of anywhere from two to six or seven.

  They were all men, far more black men than white, and they were bigger than anyone that Arnie had ever seen. Some were tall big and a little on the thin side. But many were big-big — tall and heavy. Arnie thought that many must be almost seven feet and a large number were probably more than three hundred pounds! Who were they and where did they come from? Arnie wondered. Were these guys that were involved in operating equipment like compactors? He had never seen them at any other environmentalist society meetings. This trash topic must have excited a whole new group that never attended the past meetings.

  He was about to suggest to Pam and Melissa that they go and talk to a few of them and maybe to some of the regulars as well, since many of the usual-sized environmentalists kept gawking up at these others as though they were trying to see a woodpecker in a giant redwood tree. The large guys also seemed to know one another, and they were a lot louder than the average society member.

  But before Arnie got the words out, Jordy came rushing up. As he began pushing Arnie, Pam, and Melissa back toward Arnie’s office, he said in a breathless, panicky voice. “Oh man, have we got some problems.”

  “Whatdaya mean?” said Arnie.

  “Are those people anti-environmental protestors?” asked Pam.

  “No, no,” cried Jordy. “Shit. You won’t believe what’s happened. My ad! That great ad! Holy shit. It said come to the Trash Talk Conference. Well, I just talked to two of those guys and do you know who they are?”

  Three simultaneous “nos” accompanied by vigorous back and forth shaking of the three heads was the identical response from Pam, Melissa, and Arnie.

  “Well,” continued Jordy, “the two I talked to are professional basketball players and —”

  But before he could continue Melissa cried out, “Oh god, they came to the wrong meeting.”

  “No,” shouted Jordy. “They think they’re at the right meeting. Trash Talk to them means insulting each other by swearing and saying bad things and insulting people on the other team so they get upset and angry and it screws up their game. They told me that almost all the pros in all the sports do it. And they said it’s really an art and it’s really cool and when they saw the ad they jumped on this meeting. Hell, they’re here to brush up their skills. They think that we have experts. Wait till they see the program. We’ll be dead! Oh, Jesus Christ, what are we gonna do now? This could be the biggest disaster in the history of the Environmentalist Society. Hell, it could be the biggest disaster in the history of Sarasota! Hell, the country!”

  They were cooked!

  Arnie thought of Mundhill and unconsciously reached down to his crotch.

  C h a p t e r

  14

  Chuck Barkey and Max Gordon were the first of the athletes to actually get registered and receive their registration materials in the neat yellowishbrown biodegradable cloth-like briefcase. They were earlier than most of their colleagues since they had arrived in Sarasota the day before to scope out the city night life. That had not gone all that well. They had wandered out of the hotel and walked a few blocks where they found a nice restaurant called Monroes. Their waiter had informed them that Monroes had a “night club” upstairs and they might just want to drop in up there after dinner. It sounded good. Dinner was fine, although Max could have eaten three of the steaks rather than just the one delicate cut that he had received. Chuck liked the ahi tuna as well as the shrimp cocktail appetizer. He was a bit more used to dining out in the elite style than was Max, who generally found an “all-you-can-eat” buffet restaurant when he was traveling with the team.

  “When you’re six feet eleven and about three hundred pounds, you ain’t lookin for the nine ounce cut,” he told Chuck.

  Chuck got a kick out of Max, although at six foot six and two-hundred-forty pounds, Chuck could have handled another filet or two of that ahi.

  “Well,” said Chuck, “maybe some peanuts and pretzels with the beer upstairs will carry us over until you get to bite into some pretty young thing’s thigh.”

  “Hey, that’s for me,” said Max. They paid their bill and went upstairs to the club. Most of the other patrons were well beyond fifty, although they did manage to sit next to a cou
ple of attractive young ladies at the end of the bar.

  “Well, hello,” said Chuck. “Hope you’re here for the Trash Talk conference.”

  “The what?” said one of the two.

  “Trash Talk conference?” said the second.

  “No, we’re just here on layover until tomorrow. We’re Delta Airline attendants and we just flew in from St. Louis today.”

  “Well,” said Max, “We would like to lay over with you!”

  “Oh sure,” said the blond with a giggle. “And we can talk trash all night!”

  “No shi — I mean no kidding,” said Max. “Wouldn’t you like to do something exciting with us two debonair gentlemen?”

  The two looked at each other. This wasn’t their first encounter with the likes of these two. “Hey, I’ll tell you what,” said the cute redhead. “Let’s take the romantic Gulf cruise. It leaves from just a couple blocks from here and we can have drinks and music and who knows what.”

  “Sounds great,” said Max enthusiastically. He and Chuck both missed the wink between the redhead and blond.

  The “romantic gulf cruise” turned out to be a two-and-a-half-hour boat ride on a barge with palm trees in buckets of dirt placed around the perimeter of the boat. The music was primarily Hawaiian luau in nature and the drinks consisted of fruit punch with or without rum. With rum the drinks were two dollars. Without rum, the juice drinks were included in the twenty-dollar ticket for the cruise. Three hours later and with terrible rum headaches, Chuck and Max were headed back to the Ritz alone. Brenda and Joan said that they had a great evening, learned a lot about posting up and fast breaks, as well as gaining some insight into the psychology of trash talk. But, since they were required to have at least eight hour’s sleep before working a flight, and they had to be at the airport at 10 a.m., they were calling it a night.

  “Welcome to Sarasota,” said Chuck as he got off the elevator on his floor, two below Max. “I’ll meet you for brunch at eleven tomorrow, and then we’ll go register for the meeting.

  “Good night,” said Max. “Sweet dreams.” C h a p

  t e r 15

  Max and Chuck carried their registration packages over to the Boat House, which was the restaurant and bar attached to the Hyatt.

  “Come on, Chuck. I’ll buy you a beer and we can look at this stuff,” said Max.

  “I’ll settle for coffee,” retorted Chuck. “I’m still rum soaked.”

  They sat at one of the small, wooden tables in the bar area and, after giving the waitress their order, they opened their briefcases and pulled out a stack of papers. Chuck was the first to open the pamphlet marked program, and then the shit hit the fan!

  “What the fuck?” said Max.

  Chuck’s only response was, “Holy shit.”

  “What is this, Chuck? We musta signed in at the wrong place.”

  “Can’t be,” said Chuck. “This ugly bag they gave us says Trash Talk Conference.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Both stood in unison and grabbed their stuff.

  “Fuck the beer,” said Max.

  Chuck didn’t answer and they both hurried back toward the registration area.

  As they reentered the registration area they just about ran into Bernie “Too Fat” McCann. McCann was the six foot five, four hundred six pound offensive tackle from Green Bay. In his youth Bernie had revered the former defensive end from Dallas, Ed “Too Tall” Jones. When Bernie was a teenager, he was tall for his age and kept referring to himself as “Too Tall McCann.” But, as he gained more and more weight, his buddies changed that to “Too Fat McCann,” and that name had followed him through the University of Miami and on to Green Bay. Too Fat McCann was also touted to have the biggest butt in the history of the NFL. Although not official, it was claimed to be sixtythree inches wide.

  Too Fat was in the process of bitching to a friend of his, Randy Wilson. Wilson, not small himself at six feet seven and two hundred forty-five pounds, was a forward with the Atlanta basketball team. Evidently Too Fat had also arrived in Sarasota on Saturday and, while exploring the town, walked over to the marina where he watched people parasailing, that is, being pulled by a speedboat while harnessed to a parachute attached to the boat by a long rope. Too Fat had been fascinated. It looked like great fun to sail along that high up in the air and get such a great view of the shoreline. He’d decided to give it a try. The three parasail employees paled when they saw Too Fat approaching.

  “Hey, I’d like to give that a try,” said Too Fat. The three men looked at each other and had a very animated conversation in Spanish. After a minute or two, one turned to Too Fat and said, “Sir, I’m not sure we can take you.” Before he could say more, Too Fat said, “What the hell you talkin’ about,” and he pulled out two one hundred dollar bills and handed them to the man. “Sign says ‘Parasail Here’ and I’m a payin’ customer.”

  More discussion in Spanish followed and, with the realization that this guy was willing to pay two hundred dollars for a forty-dollar ride, they said okay.

  They had to fasten three harnesses together, but they finally fitted Too Fat in the harnesses and hooked him to the parachute. With Too Fat in the harness standing in the appropriate spot on the boat platform, ready to lift off once the boat reached adequate speed to fill the parachute with air, the boat took off. One of the three crew members stood near Too Fat, one was lookout for any other boats or swimmers, and one drove. As the boat reached it’s maximum speed of about thirty miles an hour, the parachute filled with air, but Too Fat never budged. The boat screamed along with the frustrated crew praying for wind gusts, but it was hopeless. This load was far too heavy.

  Greater speed was needed. They returned to the dock with Too Fat refusing to give up or move. He had paid his money and he wanted to float high in the sky. The three crewman decided to add a second motor from one of the other boats — this one eighty horsepower. After the addition, they headed back into the gulf and up along the shore of Longboat Key. Too Fat had visions of soaring sixty to seventy feet in the air, just like the parasailers he had watched, and getting a really great view of the scenery.

  Both engines screamed as the boat achieved it’s top speed of about 48 miles per hour, and the driver turned it into the wind to fill the parachute and launch Too Fat into flight.

  An eighty-two-year-old man standing on the beach on Longboat Key would later describe to his friends and family what he saw as something he had never seen in thirty-five years of watching parasailers run up and down the shore of Longboat Key. Too Fat and his parachute took the maximum gust of wind and did a para-skip. He lifted off the boat and rose about three feet into the air, but as the boat hit a wave and slowed by about two miles an hour, Too Fat hit the water with that broad ass of his and skittered along the surface for about thirty feet and then, as the boat picked up it’s lost speed he lifted again, no more than seven or eight feet before an oncoming wave once again slightly slowed the boat, and Too Fat hit the water again. The octagenarian on shore would tell everyone he spoke with afterward that the big hulk hooked to a parachute and skipping or bouncing along the surface of the water was hightailing it back toward the pier at Marina Jack’s when he lost sight of the party.

  “It was some sight,” he bragged. “Thirty-five years never seen nothin’ like that.”

  Too Fat was dragged back to shore coughing and sputtering and the three crew members and two dock workers pulled him on shore and out of his harness.

  As Too Fat staggered away, he swore to himself that he was staying on solid ground from then on and never getting in a lake or the ocean again. “Shit, football is a hell of a lot safer,” he was mumbling as he shakily made his way back to the hotel.

  And so, with numerous bruises and still hearing water sloshing inside his ears, Too Fat McCann was at the end of the registration line anxious to get into something a hellava lot better than parasailing. Too Fat loved trash talk.

  Barkey and Gordon saw Wilson and McCann at the end of the line and
went over to see what they knew about this meeting.

  After a quick exchange of greetings and high fives all around, Chuck asked, “Have you guys seen the program for this meeting?”

  “No,” said Wilson, and McCann shook his head no. “We just got in this registration line.”

  “Well,” said Max, “you’re in for a big surprise.”

  “Oh yeah,” said McCann. “What kind, good or bad?”

  “Hey,” said Chuck Barkey, “I think we have a king-size misunderstanding. Look at these sessions.” He pointed to his program. “Biodegradability,” “Environmental Impact,” and “Disposal Issues Related to the Red Tide,” “Where do we go with Dump Sites,” and on and on. Does that sound like trash talk to you?”

  “It sounds like tree-hugger talk,” said Wilson.

  “Sounds like some kind of environmental jazz,” said McCann.

  “Yeah, that’s the same conclusion we came up with,” piped in Max Gordon. “We got ourselves signed into some fuckin’ environmental shit meeting. I think we been screwed.”

  “How the fuck can that happen?” said McCann.

  “I think we’ve been duped by someone sponsoring this meeting,” said Barkey. “Max and I were just on our way to find the bastards who are runnin’ this and find out what’s goin’ on.”

  “We’ll come along,” said Wilson. He and Too Fat left the registration line, and the group headed for the door marked office across the room. C h a p t

  e r 16

  Arnie, Pam, Melissa, and Jordy were hunkered down in the office trying to come to grips with what happened. To make matters even more complicated, Mr. Schriff, the head of the Sarasota Environmentalist’s office and their boss, arrived to see how things were going, and was now cloistered in the office with them.

  “I am thinking that something is going wrong here,” said Mr Schriff. “There is much shouting out there from those large people.”

  “See, Jordy, that’s what comes from false advertising,” admonished Arnie, ignoring Mr. Schriff’s comments.