Drive

by Rob Roberge

  I shake her hand. “So, why is Sean being nice to me? I got the impression I wasn’t one of your favorite people.”

  She sips her beer. “You might not be. The jury’s still out.” She rolls a cigarette, licks the little glue strip and lights it. “But Hedda and Bone said you were a decent human being, so I thought I’d drop by and see.”

  “You know Hedda and Bone?” I say, pleased that Hedda had something nice to say about me.

  “Bone does most of my piercings.”

  “Piercings?” I say. “I didn’t see any in Parcell’s office.”

  “I take them out for work,” she says. “Plus, you didn’t see all of me in the office.”

  “Bone does your piercings,” I say more to myself to let it sink in. I look over at Bone and he raises his glass, looking straight ahead.

  “He introduced me to Hedda. And Mr. Parcell said I had the wrong impression of you. Thought we should meet.”

  “The Chicken Man’s pimping me out?” I say. It was meant to be funny and charming, but it came out wrong and I feel stupid.

  She shakes her head. If she’s offended, she doesn’t let on. “No. If you were going to get fucked tonight—which you are not—then he’d be pimping you.” She drinks her beer. “Not pimping. Facilitating. You’ve got a lot of friends.”

  “Looks that way.” I look over at Terry and Bone. “You getting all of this?”

  “Almost,” Bone says.

  “Talk louder,” Terry says.

  She says, “I should get going.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “I’ve got work to do. I just wanted to set things better between us and I wanted to talk with you. We’ll have lunch. I can call you?” she says.

  “You can call me,” I say. “Drop by. Whatever.”

  She gets off her stool and puts her pouch of Drum into this metal purse she has that looks like a canteen. “You boys’ll talk about me when I go, right?”

  “You know it,” Bone says.

  She walks up the stairs. I look at Terry and Bone, then back to the empty stairwell.

  “You could’ve looked that time, coach,” she calls down. “A missed opportunity.” The door opens and closes.

  Terry gives me another drink. “You’re having a nice day.”

  “No kidding.” I look at him. “A perfect night.”

  Bone shakes his head. “Perfect would have been if she wanted dinner. Lunch isn’t the best sign.”

  “No?” I say.

  Terry nods. “Dinner would have been better. Even just drinks would’ve been better.”

  “Lunch is the least intimate of all the meals,” Bone says.

  “Says who?”

  “Am I right?” Bone says to Terry,

  Terry looks at me. “The man speaks the truth.”

  “Lunch is bad?” I say.

  “Didn’t say that,” Bone says. “This is early. Lunch is better than nothing. It’s just the meal with the least amount of sexual overtone. Dinner can lead to a fuck. So can drinks. Breakfast is very intimate. A private meal. Full of sex. Breakfast is personal.”

  “Woman invites you to breakfast, you’re doing fine,” Terry says.

  Bone nods and taps on the bar. “But lunch. Lunch suggests nothing and leads to nothing—for the most part.” He sips his beer. “Lunch offers very little.”

  “You can get a dinner out of lunch,” Terry says.

  “True,” Bone says. “It can lead to a better meal. Lunch is a try-out, at best.”

  “Everybody knows this?” I say.

  Terry shrugs. “Everybody but you, Bomber. A minor league meal.”

  “What do you know about her?” I say to Bone.

  “Smart. Got her Ph.D. a while back. Dr. Cohen. She taught part-time at Ringling last year. Composition. She’s working on a book—-something about shitty jobs,” he says.

  “The topless cleaning?” I say, still unclear on the whole deal.

  He nods. “Topless cleaner, stripper, phone sex—shit like that.”

  “Really?” I say. “Why?”

  “She’s interested in ‘women’s issues,’” he says, making that annoying quotation mark gesture with his middle and index fingers. People do that, they remind me of Nixon, though I don’t think I ever saw him do it.

  27

  It’s another hot, slimy night and the mosquitoes eat me up on the way back to The Palms. The smell of chicken shit festers in the dense air. The bugs, they’re relentless-—little Joe Frazier bugs—and I make it home with these welts as big as pinkie knuckles all over my arms and neck.

  I turn on the TV and Hip through the channels. Late night crap. “American Gladiators,” lame movies and the usual infomercials—the hair cutter that hooks up to your vacuum, the pasta-maker guy, the juicer guy, that shocking blonde screaming woman who lost a lot of weight. I think that’s her hook. After a couple of runs through the channels, I mute the sound and keep clicking.

  I stop on ESPN II—they’re showing a re-run of “The World’s Strongest Man” competition. I remember this. It was originally on CBS in the 70’s. They’d gather all these chunky power lifters and football linemen. I turn the sound up and Brent Musburger does his best to make this sound like a legitimate sport.

  They’re racing up a fifty yard hill with refrigerators strapped to their backs, these fat guys are. They wear red and blue clingy outfits and look like college wrestlers. Bruce-somebody beats all the other fat red-faced huffers and puffers up the hill with his appliance. Musburger interviews him at the top of the hill.

  “I saw Tony straining,” Bruce says. “So I just put my head down and went on up.” Two lackeys unstrap the refrigerator from his back and he springs forward.

  “Good show,” Musburger says. “And good luck in the Girl Lift.”

  He thanks Musburger and turns to the meager crowd and pumps his meaty fists into the air. The crowd, they love this guy.

  They show the leader board, and Bruce is way out in front of the others.

  “Barring a disaster in the final event, it looks at if he’s got his second title wrapped up,” Musburger says, as they go to commercial. Coming up, the screen reads. The Girl Lift.

  I click through the channels quickly during the break. Every couple of minutes, the blind cow thumps against the side of the building. You can hear it up on the second floor. Bone says she’s in heat—it happens every once in a while—and she runs against cars and walls and things all night. The other cows are in heat too, but they’re not much of a problem. The apartment thumps twice more. Someone, I think it’s Money, shouts, “I’m going to kill that fucking animal.”

  The competition starts again and everyone is in place for the Girl Lift. It’s at a beach—I think it’s Venice. You can see the ocean in the background. The fat guys all have 70’s bushy hair—a couple have those silly white guy perms—that blows in the breeze. Bruce, the big leader, he’s got these Fat Elvis sideburns that border on muttonchops. One by one, they go to the bar.

  The bar has 150 pounds on it. There is a cage, connected through this gyroscope of metal, above them and the bar. Empty, it weights 50 pounds. It can’t fall on them—there’s a safety device that keeps the cage six feet from the ground. They all lift the bar and empty cage.

  “Let’s start adding girls,” Musburger says. The crowd cheers.

  Again, one by one, The Embraceable Ewes—the LA Rams cheerleaders get in the cage.

  “Toni is a dancer from Pasadena,” Musburger says as the woman in the cheerleader outfit climbs into the cage over the fat guy. “She’s 112 pounds. Along with Karen, that brings the total to 417 pounds.”

  After six cheerleaders are cramped into the cage, Musburger says, “What a display of strength. How many girls can these competitors lift?”

  Beneath the caged women, the fat guys wobble and change color from pasty white to blotchy red. Some lift, some don’t, and it’s down to Kyle-somebody—winner of the telephone poll toss—and Bruce—the refrigerator race winner.

 
Kyle can’t lift seven cheerleaders. Bruce, who already has the title wrapped up, motions the remaining two cheerleaders into the cage.

  “Amazing,” Musburger says. “Folks, he doesn’t need to do this, but he going to lift all the girls.” The crowd cheers.

  Bruce gets under the caged women. He rakes a couple of deep breaths, steadies himself and, after a small wobble, gets the cage up. The cheerleaders oh and ah, do a parody of surprise. Bruce bails out from under the cage and the women bounce a couple of times before the cage comes to a rest. A couple of them look a little shaken.

  “What a competitor,” Musburger says.

  I click through the channels again. A guy sets fire to the hood of a 65 Mustang. “Easy Clean will makes it good as new,” he says. The wall rattles. The blind cow moans. I change the channels. Australian Rules football—a bunch of guys beating the shit out of each other for no apparent reason. I don’t understand it, and I watch, fascinated in a bored sort of way. The wall shakes and rattles again. The cow moans—a tortured and lonely sound. Parcell—dressed up as The Chicken Man—is yelling on one of the stations I click by.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Money—this time I’m sure it’s him—screams.

  I click back to the burning Mustang station. The fire’s out, a woman from the audience wipes it clean. It shines, candy apple red, under the studio lights.

  “Isn’t that amazing?” the host says. The audience claps.

  28

  The baseball strike’s still on, and we get a little coverage in the paper. Most of the story’s about Hedda, bur Darnell and Money get some ink, too. I read the paper out by the pool, which is still drained. The early morning sun warms me, and I feel mildly relaxed for the first time in years. My knee starts to stiffen up and I lie down on the ground for a while, but the sandspurs dig too much. I walk down into the deep end of the pool and stretch out on the bottom. A shadow blocks the sun.

  “You OK?” Bone says, standing near the diving board, which still leans, rusted, toward the pool.

  “I’m OK. Good, in fact.” Bone moves a little and I have to shade my eyes with my hand. “There’s a lot about Hedda in the paper.”

  “Read it,” he says. He moves back in front of the sun and I put my hand down. “I had no idea she was that good.”

  “Don’t base an opinion on one game,” I say. He moves. “Stay still.”

  “Sorry.” He comes down into the pool and sits against the side. He wears the same paint-smeared cut-offs he had the night we met. In addition to the nipple rings, he’s got one in his belly button.

  “That new?” I say and point.

  He shakes his head. “Nope. Don’t always wear them all.” He grabs his head and pulls it toward his shoulder. His neck makes a series of cracks. “I didn’t see all of the game—I meant from the article. Player of the year twice and all that. I had no idea.”

  I close my eyes. “She was something in college. You don’t get to a pro league—even a shitty one—if you suck.” I make a shooting gesture, hold the follow-through. “Everyone I’ve got was a star somewhere.”

  “Really?” He lights a cigarette.

  “You watch a professional game, and you’re looking at players that’ve been stars their whole lives—most of them, anyway. Some of the bigger guys—the seven footers—they’re not much, but you need size and there just aren’t that many big people around.” I sit up. “Anyone under six-nine, though—you’re looking at someone who knows what it feels like to be a star”

  Bone looks up at The Palms and points. “This must suck for them, then.”

  “Everyone here’s on the way up or the way down. This is not the direct route to anywhere. I’ve got four or five that want to go up—but only Money and Latimore have a shot. The rest—Shasky, Fillmore and Karpov—are on their way out. No one wants to be in The Gulf Coast League. Except Hedda. She’s the only one this could be a success for. Already is—she’s a first.” I flip over and take my shirt off, the sun heats my back. “You should go congratulate her. She did something special last night.”

  “I don’t want to bother her,” he says. He takes a drag of his cigarette. “You think she likes me. Ben?”

  I turn my head and look at him. “I don’t know. I’m just her coach.” He seems disappointed. “She’s letting you do her tattoo.”

  He shrugs. “I do a lot of them. I’m good. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I thought it might.” I roll over.

  “It could,” he says. “But it doesn’t have to.”

  “I thought maybe it was a good sign—trust wise.”

  He gets up. “It might be.” He does a pull-up out of the pool. “Time to get to work. Take it easy, Ben.”

  I wave and roll back onto my stomach. I spend most of the morning trying to get some extra sleep. Around ten, the team, one by one, starts waking up and my privacy is ruined. I head to my room and take a shower.

  29

  We take the first three games of a four game road trip. We fly to Galveston and kick the shit out of The Galveston Rangers 123-96. The gym was empty—you could have counted the fans—and talk is that the Rangers might fold before the season ends, and cut the league down to seven teams. From Galveston, we take a chartered bus to New Orleans where we beat The Bayou Dogs by twenty. Two days later, we head up the road to Mississippi and take a close one from The Jackson Gators. Latimore’s Achilles was sore and I rested him most of the second and third quarters. Money and Keller came up big, though, and we did enough to win. I pulled Money in the third quarter and screamed at him for not playing D. Two or three minutes of the game went by with me in his face yelling. I put him back in the fourth and he won the game for us.

  After midnight, we’re on the bus again, headed east on 20 to play The Montgomery Rebels tomorrow night. I take a seat up front, look at the Rebels roster, and listen to the tires hiss on the road. Money comes up behind me.

  I hand him the roster. “You know any of these guys?”

  He takes it and looks down the list. “Personally, or game?”

  “Either. But I’m more concerned with their games.”

  “Daniel Jefferson,” he says and taps the clipboard. “Slasher. Aggressive.”

  “He got size?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Undersized three. Quick. He’s thin, though. Hedda could post him, but he could give her trouble on the other end. No jumper, but he’s relentless going to the hole.” He hands the roster back to me. “The rest of these are just names.”

  “The first time we play them, they’re just names. Next week, when we get them at home, I want you to be able to write a book about—” I check their shooting guards name on the roster—”Derrick Hancock. His moves, his tendencies, his whole game. I quiz you, and you’ll tell me his height, weight, strengths, weaknesses, and what he likes for dinner.”

  He looks down at me for a moment, and slides into the seat. He leans toward me. “Why the fuck you dog me like this?”

  “I’m dogging you?”

  “What do you call it?”

  I shake my head. “Coaching you.” I take a deep breath. “You want to get out of this league?”

  He points at the Montgomery roster. “I don’t belong with those names.” He slaps the clipboard with the back of his hand. “You know that.”

  “You know who Les Harding is?”

  He rolls his eyes. “No.”

  “Les Harding played one minute for Miami back in ‘92. Look up his stat line. One minute—no points, no rebounds, no assists—not even a fucking foul. Nothing.”

  “It’s my fault I never heard of this guy?”

  “He was better than you.”

  “Bullshit. Some one-minute nothing better than me? He’s nobody.”

  “He made it. That minute put him in the record books. You can look up Les Harding.” I point at my chest. “You can’t look up Ben Thompson.” I point at him. “And you can’t look up Kenny Cash—no matter how pretty his game might be. You know how many guys with pretty games
ended up nowhere? I know nothing about this guy and I’d trade places with him. He could have the most miserable existence on this planet—be dirt poor and have tumors on his balls—and I’d trade. That’s how much you should want it. You think I’m dogging you, that’s fine. But if you listen to me, someone might be able to find you in that book someday, and you might stick for a little longer than a minute.”

  He sits quietly for a moment and takes the roster from me, looks, and gives it back. “I put this Hancock chump in my pocket, and you leave me alone?”

  “No. This isn’t a one-shot deal. I’ll leave you alone when you get the call. Your game’s full of holes. I don’t tell you that to hurt your feelings—it’s the truth and someone before me should have done it.”

  “Well, thank you, Kenny Cash’s savior.” His voice is cold and angry. He shakes his head and gets up. “Can’t fucking win here.” I hear him grumbling his way through the bus. It’s under his breath, but he wants me to hear him. “Sarasota Shit. Sarasota Headache. Sarasota fucking pain in my ass.” He sits a few seats behind me. “You watch your boy Hancock tomorrow, coach,” he calls above the seats. “See what’s left of him when I ’m done.”

  Lights zip by the other way on the dark road. I wonder if I was a little hard on him—he’s worked a lot on his game since he’s been here and he’s close, real close, to where he should be. Around two, the rhythm of the bus rumbling over the wet pavement puts me to sleep.

  30

  “Montgomery Rebels,” Darnell says. It’s two minutes to tip-off and he comes over by the bench to get some water. He shakes his head.

  “What?” I say.

  “Their name. Rebels.” He crushes the little triangular paper cup and tosses it behind the bench. “Makes you wonder if these crackers are ever gonna know they were on the wrong side of that war.” He looks at me. “You don’t find their name problematic, politically speaking?”

  “I didn’t,” I say. “But I do. Hadn’t thought about it.”

  He raises his eyebrows and smiles, but it’s a mean smile that says I’m not so bright. “Not something you have to think about, is it?” He pats me on the shoulder and sits on the bench. The horn blows and the team comes to the sideline.