Everything on the Line

by Bob Mitchell

  Ugo has developed physically into a young man with the perfect proportions of a tennis champ. A male Goldilocks with a racquet. Not too tall. Not too short. Not too chunky. Not too slight. Just right.

  He has, mostly thanks to his beloved Giglio, accrued the most extraordinary combination of skills and has become the amalgam of the ideal player, possessing in one beautiful package the serve of Gonzalez or Sampras, the forehand of Johnston or Vines, the backhand of Budge or Rosewall, the volley of Newcombe or McEnroe, the strength of Hoad or Vilas, the mental toughness of Hewitt or Nadal, the consistency of Lendl or Wilander, the return of Agassi or Connors, the athleticism of Noah or Monfils, the coolness of Borg or Federer, the champion’s pedigree of Tilden or Laver.

  After forty minutes of intense hitting, Giglio signs to Ugo that it’s time to take a blow, and he and his charge meet at the net for a powwow. This is still the part Ugo enjoys most, listening to the enlightening perceptions about tennis and life that his coach always shares with him.

  As Giglio begins his didactic little spiel, the girls stop hitting, too, and saunter over to listen to his pearls.

  “Ragazzo,” Giglio begins, then corrects himself when he realizes his audience is now not one, but two young persons. “Ragazzi, I want to talk to you about strength,” he says, signing and speaking simultaneously.

  Ugo flexes his right bicep manfully and giggles.

  “No, not that kind of strength, but the kind that both of you have inside yourselves, the kind that is a big part of why you have both accomplished so much so early so far.”

  Antonella looks first at Giglio, then at Ugo, and her face turns the color of a robin’s breast.

  “Well, you guys are what I’d call ‘strong’ players inside. But you both can do some improving.

  Antonella’s gorgeous periwinkle eyes flash. Ugo listens raptly and smiles inside himself.

  “Ad esempio,” Giglio continues, offering the example, “at one point during your hits, both of you gave up on retrieving drop shots when you were behind the baseline. Now, I know this is a difficult situation, and most players would weigh the pros and cons of trying for a shot where they have less than a 10 percent chance of success, in the process sacrificing valuable energy, and they, you know, they just couldn’t be bothered. Well, guess what. You are both not most players.”

  Ugo looks at Giglio and then at Antonella, and Antonella looks at Giglio and then at Ugo, and both ragazzi get it.

  “Have you ever heard of Aesop’s fable of the wind and the sun?”

  The two adolescent heads shake in unison.

  “Allora, the wind and the sun are having this argument about which one is stronger. Well, they see this guy down there walking along, and the sun says, ‘I see how we can decide our argument. Whoever can make this guy take off his coat will be declared the stronger. You begin.’ So while the sun hides behind a cloud, the wind blows as hard as he can, but the harder he blows, the more tightly the guy down there holds onto his coat, until finally the wind has to give up. Then the sun comes out and, effortlessly, shines as bright as he can on the guy, who before long becomes so hot that he removes his coat.”

  Ugo thinks about the way his principal foe, Jack Spade, plays tennis, with all his bluster, and then he thinks about how powerful poetry is and how well the fable expresses the point about bluster versus inner strength.

  Antonella smiles and looks into Ugo’s eyes and points to him with her index finger, then places her right hand on her chest, then places both hands on her shoulders and projects them forward toward Ugo, turning them into fists.

  You are…my…strength.

  On the sidelines, Gioconda puffs her chest out, not in a boastful way, but the way a mother eagle would upon seeing her chick leave the cliff’s edge and take flight for the very first time. She looks at Antonella’s mamma, Pia, who is happily sitting beside her, and smiles her Mona Lisa smile.

  * * *

  Ugo Bellezza, Antonella Cazzaro, Giglio Marotti, Gioconda Bellezza, and Pia Cazzaro are standing in the corner of a dimly lit room in the Galleria dell’Accademia, gazing intently at Giorgione’s haunting masterpiece La Tempesta.

  It is a painting whose diminutive stature belies its gravitas. Although it has evoked many interpretations, symbolic and otherwise, the five viewers are all experiencing the same internal reaction. As they look at the central figure of the nude mother lovingly nursing her baby—a woman oozing innocence and purity through her uninhibited nakedness and bathed in light against a dark, stormy sky—the painting imbues each of them with a deep sense of silence. Their ten eyes move naturally from the nursing mother to the eerie natural background and then again to the mother, and the maternal figure looks back at them all, as if her stare were being captured by a hidden camera and frozen in time as she gazes out silently from within the frame.

  The Tempest is encased in silence, and the room, with no one else in it but the five viewers, is silent, and no words are needed to express their collective feeling of peaceful awe.

  Utter silence is always with Ugo, but it is now also with his four companions, who are intensely feeling Ugo’s lifetime sentence, this eternal and internal prison of silenzio.

  And the five experience the painting, and at this very instant the profound nature of soundlessness, as one.

  * * *

  A person who cannot hear misses a great deal less of Venice than of nearly any other city on earth. This is due to the absence of ground and underground transportation, noisy central marketplaces, bustling department stores, and tourist-ridden parks, zoos, and megamuseums. Aside from the hyperactivity in the Piazza San Marco, Venice is a haven of tranquillity and quietude.

  From the Galleria dell’Accademia, the walk to the Osteria Galileo restaurant is a pleasant one, and Ugo is enjoying Venice’s tranquillity and quietude no more than his four traveling companions.

  Ugo and Antonella, walking hand in hand through the narrow calles and lagging behind Giglio and their mammas, are in their own little private world where not a sound can be heard, aware of nothing other than the noticeably accelerated lub-dub of their two hearts.

  The Osteria Galileo is situated near the center of a modestly sized but charming square, the Campo San Angelo, best known for its leaning campanile. Twenty outdoor tables, in rows of four, sit under a large white cloth canopy, and the one occupied by Giglio, Gioconda, Ugo, Antonella, and Pia distinguishes itself from the rest by its excessive liveliness and goodwill.

  On their table are strewn bowls and plates and platters that brave the constant assault of utensils that jab, clamp, scoop, scrape, and spear their contents. Namely, a colorful array of indigenous dishes of the Veneto region: prawns and squid and octopus, and risotto and polenta and risi e bisi (rice and peas) and castraure (fried purple baby artichokes grown locally in Sant’Erasmo), and savory main courses like bisato su l’ara (eels roasted with bay leaves), fegato alla veneziana (calf’s livers with onions), baccalà (dried salted cod), and seppie nere (cuttlefish stewed in their own ink).

  In the midst of the gustatory glee, Giglio Marotti speaks.

  “So, has anyone ever heard of the famous telegram that the American humorist, journalist, essayist, and actor Robert Benchley sent from Venice to his editor at The New Yorker magazine over a hundred years ago?”

  Apparently not.

  “Well,” Giglio continues, a largish gulp of local Amarone wine warming his gullet, “he was supposed to have said, Strade allagate. Attendo istruzioni, ‘Streets flooded. Please advise.’”

  After a pause of two seconds, the auditory equivalent of a facial double take, the other four at the table erupt in collective hilarity.

  “Funny thing is,” Giglio continues as the laughter subsides, “it’s not only a hysterical quote, but it’s also meaningful. Beyond the fun, I think the guy was actually trying to say that when adversity strikes, you have to take what seems to be a bad thing and deal with what you have and make something good out of it.”

  Another paus
e after Giglio’s explanation, but this time it is more pregnant.

  Giglio himself is thinking about how his tennis career was sadly cut short but oh how he wouldn’t trade his life for anyone’s, and Gioconda is thinking about the tragic suicide of her husband and how she’ll never know why but had he not committed the selfish act Giglio would never have entered her or Ugo’s life, and Pia is thinking about how her husband left her when Antonella was eight and could she ever be a good mother? but how she knows in her heart that she has in fact been a very good one, and how, and Antonella is thinking about how she has thrown herself into her tennis so much that she never thought she could ever find a really good and decent young man who could truly love her but that was before she met Ugo, and Ugo is thinking about how he has never been able to hear a thing not a bird chirping or a bee buzzing or the canals of Venice rippling or what he imagines is the warm, sweet voice of Antonella Cazzaro but despite all this how is it that his life, filled with his passion for tennis and the love of his mamma and his coach and his girlfriend, is so unspeakably happy and what did he ever do to deserve it?

  9

  Rough Town

  IT’S HOT AS HELL AND MUGGY AS HECK AND FUSES ARE SHORT, so it must be summer in New York. It is August, 2047, and seventeen-year-old Jack Spade is training like an adolescent possessed for the upcoming U.S. Open in his hometown.

  “Goddammit!” Odi Mondheim screams, a large vein filling up and tracing its way southward from the side of his cranium to the corner of his left eye, its winding bluish path simulating a major river on a Rand McNally map.

  “Listen up,” he says to a boardroom bulging with top Nike executives, “this is not brain surgery, it’s a goddam hangnail!”

  Odi’s assistant in crime, Dick Malberg, lets a creepy, prescient smirk escape from the left corner of his mouth.

  “A hangnail,” Odi repeats. “The apparel in the new Black Jack tennis line will be all black, period, and the Nike swoosh will be black and raised slightly from the surface to stand out. Now, I’ve seen all your designs of black apparel with red swooshes, yellow shooshes, blue swooshes, and green swooshes. Very nice, but no dice. The whole point of the Black Jack line is that it is black, all black, because black is intimidating and black is strong and black is a winner, just like Black Jack Spade. Do I make myself clear?”

  The eight executives sitting around the conference table in the Nike office at 6 East 57th Street glance at one another, nod their heads. Crime assistant Malberg’s wicked smirk broadens.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” Odi says. “Our boy Jack Spade is the hottest thing since the iMiniTelevideoPhone. And so, I am here representing his father to tell you that your offer of a $20 million, one-year contract for the Black Jack tennis apparel line just ain’t gonna cut it. Are you kidding, for this kind of talent? Man, it only comes your way once in a blue moon. Once in your lifetimes, you’ll get the chance to see a Michael Jordan or a Wayne Gretzky or a Willie Mays or a Tiger Woods or a Gale Sayers. Jack’s the real deal, so it’s $100 million for two years or…you can cram it where the sun don’t shine!”

  Eight executive mouths drop open and sixteen executive eyes bug out and the conference room at 6 East 57th Street is now a mausoleum.

  “Well,” Dick Malberg adds as he and Odi make their exit, “I see you folks need a little time to mull this over. Why don’t your lawyers call our lawyers by noon tomorrow? Good day, gentlemen and ladies.”

  * * *

  “Can we talk?”

  Avis Spade has been waiting to hear these three little words from her son, Jack, for nearly seven years.

  “Well, of course, my dear, you can always talk to your mom.”

  “Um, er…,” Jack fumbles, “Mom, I think I have a little problem.”

  Avis thinks she knows what it is but dares not interrupt.

  “Well, it’s…it’s…Ira,” Jack blurts. “I know he’s behind me all the way and wants me to succeed, but sometimes…sometimes he just drives me up a wall!”

  Avis Spade feels a tinge of exoneration after all these lonely, long-suffering years.

  “Mom, if you don’t know already, I’ve been taking…pills…that help me hold it together.”

  Avis knows.

  “And sometimes I get so nervous that I rip things up and even hurt myself. I just feel this pressure to win, and the only thing that makes the feeling go away is taking these pills. I mean, I don’t think my father’s such a bad guy, not really, but sometimes it seems like when he’s pushing me real hard…it’s almost like…the devil makes him do it!”

  Took the words right out of his mother’s mouth.

  Avis’s mind wanders back to the halcyon days of her marriage, eons ago it seems, when Ira used to bring her flowers, when he used to listen to what she had to say, when he was actually a caring human being. There he is, helping her with groceries, assisting her with the dishes and with changing Jack’s diapers. So when did it start going south? Squinting her eyes as if to see more clearly back into the past, she fast-forwards from when Jack was an infant…2032, no…2036, no, Jack was six and things were still pretty good…2039, hmmm, no, still okay…2040?…yeah, that was the start of things, when Jack was nine, no, ten, and the tennis thing began to snowball and Ira started pushing hard and it became the biggest thing in his life, and maybe the only thing…

  * * *

  If things in Dallas are the biggest, things in New York City are the most. Most cultural, most commercial, most active, most exciting, most international, most celebrated. And also, most rough. In terms of rough American towns, Detroit is in second place, oh, about a gazillion miles behind.

  And this year of 2047 is no exception. Roughly once every twenty-three minutes a murder is committed in Gotham. Roughly once every nineteen minutes a suicide occurs. Roughly once every twelve minutes an accident happens. Roughly once every eight minutes someone enters the ER of one of the City’s overcrowded hospitals.

  That’s rough.

  Ira Spade jukes around a couple of homeless men lying on the sidewalk at Broadway and Forty-fifth. A stubble-faced drunkard bumps into him, grabs him by the shoulders, and burps unapologetically in his face. Filled with disgust for the whole of humankind and reeking of secondhand Jim Beam, Ira enters Mahoney’s Bar and furtively slaps a crisp $100 bill into the palm of the hostess. She smiles and, elbowing past a dozen disgruntled waiting patrons, leads him to the only booth still available, way there in the back.

  Thanks to the 2045 U.S. repeal of the ban on smoking in public places, the visibility in the saloon is barely more than three feet, the billows of cigar and cigarette smoke turning the establishment into one of those murky scenes in a Sherlock Holmes mystery that is dominated by a swirling, opalescent fog.

  Ira fidgets for a few moments, removes an index card from his breast pocket, jots something down, puts the card back into his pocket, takes it out again and crosses out the note, puts it back into his pocket. He has not noticed the youngish lady who has slinked into the booth and is seated opposite him.

  “Well, hi there, stranger!” the slinker coos.

  Ira tosses the bimbo a patronizing glance. “Hi. You been taking care of yourself?”

  “Yup.”

  “Lookee here,” Ira says, his left eye twitching to beat the band. “I asked you to come here tonight…”

  The young woman closes her eyes, as if they are weighed down by all that mascara. When she opens them, they are moist, and terribly red, betraying a lifetime of hardship and a chronological status decades beyond her actual thirty-three years.

  “…because…because things, well…”

  The young woman’s full lips sink at the corners, devolving into a moue. She knows what is coming.

  “…well, have gotten out of hand. Lola…

  Ira reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a thickish white envelope.

  “…this is for you. Consider it a going-away present.”

  He squeezes Lola’s hand with pressure that expresses somethi
ng between anger and affection. “I want you to go away, far away. I want you out of my life forever. I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve worked way too hard and put far too much time and sweat and moolah into the kid’s career that I’ll be goddamned if something like this comes between me and the total success of this project. Savvy?”

  “Savvy,” Lola says, grabs the envelope, and sashays out of the bar and Ira Spade’s life.

  * * *

  “So, Jack, who do you think will win the U.S. Open this year, if you can be objective for a moment?” Bob Pasotti, the grizzled sports beat writer for the New York Chronicle, asks at the pre-U.S. Open press conference.

  “Well, I—” Jack Spade begins.

  “We think this is a no-brainer, to be honest,” Ira Spade interrupts his only child. “Sure, some of you guys are picking that Italiano kid, but you’re full of it. The next U.S. Open champ is gonna be an American from right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. And that American is gonna be Big Bad Black Jack Spade. And you can quote me on that.”

  Black Jack’s cheeks turn a bright red.

  “Next question?” Ira Spade asks.

  “This one’s for Jack,” Walter “Happy” Upton, dean of sportswriters, says. “Jack, it’s clear that you and Ugo Bellezza are basically equals in terms of ability and potential. Yet you continue to maintain that you are better than he. So my question to you is, what makes you so cocksure?”

  “Well, I—” Jack Spade begins.

  “We think that you have some nerve asking that question,” Ira Spade responds. “How dare you imply that this little Italiano deaf twerp is as good as Black Jack Spade! And to prove my point, just hang around until the U.S. Open finals, and maybe from that time forward, you’ll learn to hold your tongue before making such a wacko statement!”

  Ira Spade’s left eye is twitching like a demon and Jack Spade’s face is as crimson as a torero’s cape and “Happy” Upton is seriously considering punching Ira’s lights out once and for all before thinking better of it.

  * * *

  It is midnight at 200 East 57th Street, and Avis Spade is lying in bed alone, wondering where in the hell her husband is. Her exhausted eyes are closed, and although her mind is used to thinking in straightforward, simple terms, for some reason, tonight, it is projecting a metaphor, and a doozy at that. She is imagining a camel, just like the one on the old cigarette package (she interrupts the dream to wonder momentarily why they never called the cigarettes “Dromedary,” or conversely, why they never put a “real” camel—one with two humps—on the package), and the camel’s back is laden with straw, so much so that its contorted face is straining mightily under the weight and now that she examines the camel’s face more closely, she realizes with no small degree of horror that it is in fact her own face, which somehow, as a two-dimensional profile, has been superimposed on top of the beast of burden’s and there, at the end of the camel’s long neck, is her delicate, noble nose with the long, narrow, Helen-Reddy nostrils and her sad, dark brown eyes and her once-beautiful lips drained of their hope and metamorphosed through the years into a drooping pair of faded rose petals turning down at the corners.