Drive

by Rob Roberge

  “How’d he play?” she says and points at me.

  “All hate and anger. Like the devil on roller-skates. You know that feeling when you’re leaning back in your chair, and it feels like it might topple backwards? That moment you don’t know if you can get control or not where everything’s up in the air?”

  She nods.

  “Then you know what coaching him was like,” he says and gestures toward me with his mug. “When he came to us, he was so undisciplined, it Was frightening. A win was a win, a loss was the end of the world. Boy would rip apart a locker room after a loss. But he had it—that meanness. Bomber took every loss personally. Still does.”

  “That true?” Sean says.

  “I was an asshole,” I say, and think about college—most everyone I played with couldn’t stand me. If someone wasn’t as good as me, I figured they weren’t working. I yelled at my teammates, the refs, my coaches, and I trash-talked my man all night long. The me that comes out when I need to win is someone I hate.

  “We were playing some division two school,” Terry says. “And this kid—I forget his name.”

  “Leon Garriss,” I say. “Don’t tell this story.”

  “Leon Garriss is shooting off in the papers about how he’s going to shut Bomber down. Ben had just hit for 42 against Georgia, and this Garris kid says, ‘No way Thompson comes in our house and gets 40,’ or some shit like that. So two, three days before the game, Bomber’s collecting papers—he’s cutting out articles and making a scrapbook. We go to the game and he’s got his little leather bound book full of articles about what Garriss is going to do to Ben Thompson. Takes it to the locker room. Gets out on the floor and starts jawing with this kid—quoting him. After his first few jumpers fall, he’s screaming at this Garriss kid No way Thompson hits for 40—not in our house. “ Terry laughs.

  “Stop,” I say.

  Sean shushes me with her finger.

  “Near half-time. Bomber’s got twenty-five, and their coach screams, ‘Who’s got him?’ and Bomber’s yelling at the kid, ‘Who’s got me?’ Late in the second half, we’re up twenty, and he’s got?” Terry looks at me.

  “47,” I say.

  “47. And we pull him out. The game’s over, he’s got a career high—he should be happy, right? He glares at this Garriss kid all the way off the court, tells him the coaches took pity on him, or he would have lit him for fifty. After the game, he autographs his little scrapbook and gives it to a reporter and tells him to give it to Garriss.”

  I look down at the bar, see the condensation rings from my bottle turning the bar wood a milky white. I think that Leon Garriss—wherever he is in the world—probably still thinks I‘m a childish jerk. Based on what I did, he’s right. “I wasn’t always like that,” I say. I take a drink. “Finish the story. Tell her what you did.”

  Terry shrugs. “We benched him for the next game. I told him it was a classless display and it was his worst game of the year.”

  “Both of which were true,” I say. “I had 47, but I took thirty-five shots to get it. We should have beaten them by fifty. That game still bothers me. I‘ve thought about writing Garriss a letter for years. Write it my head sometimes when I‘m driving or when I can’t sleep.”

  “Listen to you,” Sean says. “Talking about a game—a game you won—fifteen years ago. You think that guy even remembers you?“

  “I’d remember me if I were him,” I say. I think again of sending him that letter I should—but know I never will—write.

  35

  Sean and I go to dinner at some seafood place out on Turtle Bay. We get an outdoor table. There’s a nice breeze off the bay and the air is thick with the smell of those candles they use to keep the bugs away.

  “How do you like coaching?” she says.

  “Is this the getting to know each other part of the day?”

  “It was a question. You’re new to it, right?”

  “Yeah. Tell the truth, I don‘t know if I like it or not. Too many egos—too many people to be concerned about.” I tell her some of the Money/Darnell situation. Fill her in on the problems with Hedda that I had early in the season. “It seems like someone’s always pissed at me,” I say. “Hard to deal with.”

  “It’s natural,” she says. “You’ve got a lot of say in their lives.”

  “That’s the problem,” I say. “It’s been ten years since anyone gave a shit about what I thought. I’d show up at a job, talk about the weather, the color scheme, paint for eight hours and go home and drink until I fell asleep. What I did or didn’t do had no effect on people.”

  Sean frowns, looks down at the table.

  “What?” I say.

  “Weren’t you married?” she says. “During this time your actions had no effect on people?”

  “I was a mess—it wasn’t all drinking. I just wasn’t a very good person. Linda gave up on expecting anything from me a long time before we signed papers.” I look out at the water. Big mouthed birds—maybe they’re pelicans—skid above the water’s surface and dive in every couple of minutes. “But you’re right. It’s just different now—a direct cause and effect.” I look at her. “I screw up with Kenny Cash, I could stall his career. When you’re twenty-five in basketball, a year is a lifetime. He gets one, maybe two, more shots at the big-time.”

  “But he’s doing well,” she says.

  “He is. For now. It’s so delicate. He needs everything to fall into place. Be at the right spot at the right time. Let’s say Orlando invites him for a fall try-out. They’re deep at shooting guard —if they rake him he’s their fifth guard—nothing but an insurance policy. He gets no chance to develop—no playing time. In two years, his career’s over. No one wants a twenty-seven year-old guy whose game still needs polish. And Darnell scares the hell out of me. I think he needs someone to push him—force him to be the player he was.”

  She eats a shrimp, adds another skin to the pile on the paper plate between us. “So why don’t you?”

  I shake my head. “Can’t. Every time I feel like I should push him, I’ll pull back. Every time Darnell’s been close in his career, he’s fucked up. Pressure destroys him.” I look back at the water. Some clouds go over us and it’s cold for a moment and then warm again as they pass. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for pushing him back to coke.” I shake my head. “The whole deal’s brought back my ulcer. I don’t sleep too well—I’m always on edge.”

  “So quit,” she says.

  I laugh. “I can’t. I think I might love it.” I look at her. She leans forward to eat over her plate and I try to see if I can spot her nipple ring. She looks up and catches me. She smiles and pulls back her vest, exposing her right breast. There’s a silver hoop with a black ball in her nipple. She puts the vest back. I look away, and then at the other tables to see if anyone noticed.

  “Prude,” she says. “I know you. You won’t ask me anything that’s on your mind, but you’ll go back and ask Terry or Bone what they think about me. Right?”

  “You got me,” I say.

  “Don’t blow your chance,” she says. “Ask.”

  “Bone told me you were working on a book?”

  “Which is what you say, but what you mean is ‘why do you work in the sex industry?’”

  “OK. Why topless cleaning?”

  “After I finished my dissertation, I went on the job market. There are very few jobs in English, and even fewer in Post-Structuralist Feminism. I needed money, and I got sick of five bucks an hour temping and the slave wages you get for teaching little Rush Limbaugh clones composition. I took a job dancing at a club.”

  “A club?”

  “Strip bar,” she says. “But I didn’t strip—I didn’t know how yet. I was a cage dancer.”

  “I’ve always had a weakness for cage dancers.”

  “How could you not?” she says. “Anyway, I got treated better at the club then I was ever treated as a secretary. Which was interesting—I was, in a way, more of a piece of meat when I was
a word processor than when I was a piece of meat. And the money was good. I moved on to stripping—the money was better. I found the power dynamic interesting, so I started trying other jobs. Now I’m doing the cleaning once a week, and phone sex the rest of the time. The idea for the book just kind of grew out of all that.”

  “I’m still a little unclear on the book.”

  “It’s pretty complex. About gender roles and power. Obviously, it has to address economy. The power of the erotic. Ritual and anonymtry. I’ll show you some of it if you want.”

  “Sure.” I say. “Do you like the jobs?”

  She looks out at the water and then back to me. “That’s not a yes or no question. Some of it’s very interesting. Some of it’s arousing and some of it’s depressing. I’ll give the whole story some time, but I don’t want to go into it. The phone sex is probably the best of it. I get to talk dirty, which is fun, I get paid, and I get people being honest—which is a very rare thing.” She takes a drink.

  “Honest? Don’t people lie all the time on the phone?”

  “It’s a different kind of honest. They’re honest about their desire—not their job or their height or weight. It’s a more important honesty,” she says. “What turns you on, Ben?”

  I look down at the table.

  “See?” she says. “You can’t be honest about desire. You’re worried I’ll think you’re a freak, right?”

  “I don’t know if freak’s the right word—it’s just a hard question to answer.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” she says. “But it’s not in the script, it’s not what you talk about over dinner. This culture’s very interesting about sex.” She reaches into her metal purse. As she opens the top, it catches the sun like a flashbulb for a second. She writes a number on a post-it note and hands it to me. Under the number is the name Cassandra.

  “Call me,” she says. “You tell me what turns you on. I’ll tell you. We’ll trade stories.”

  “Really?”

  “It’ll be fun,” she says. “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t know,” I say,

  “What if I said I wouldn’t sleep with you until you do this for me?”

  “That could tip the scales,” I say.

  36

  I get back to The Palms about sunset. Bone’s lifting weights out by his storage garage. The weights, he’s painted them all bright colors—the fives are yellow, the tens are neon blue, the fifteens are Cadillac pink. He’s doing alternate curls when I walk up to him.

  “All this athleticism has inspired me,” he says. He’s lean—a good body, if a little thin.

  “You ever played ball?” I say.

  “Basketball?”

  “No foosball. Of course basketball,” I say. “Darnell’s sore as hell. If he can’t go, I’ve only got nine players. I need a warm body for a scrimmage tomorrow. You interested?”

  He does a couple more curls, one right, one left. “Can’t,” he says and grunts with the weights. “Heart murmur.”

  “Really? A bad one?”

  “Not that bad, but bad enough. Can’t take the risk. Sorry, Ben.”

  “No problem. I thought you might enjoy it.” He puts the yellow weights down and starts working his triceps with the pink ones. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

  He stands up. “Not you fault.” He bends down over the bench and starts on the left arm. “Me and Hedda are going to see Citizen Kane at the art house tonight. You want to come?”

  “You don’t want to be alone?”

  “Not yet,” he says. “I’d appreciate it if you came along.”

  I think about calling Sean, but we’ve spent a lot of time together today, and I don’t want to wear thin on her. “Cool if we ask Terry?” I say.

  “Go for it,” he says. “Meet you at the pool at nine?

  I nod and head up to my room.

  37

  At quarter to nine, I head over to The Bunker and ask Terry if he’s got any plans for the night.

  “I’m running a business here,” he says.

  I look around. He and I are the only people here. “You close whenever you want.”

  “True enough,” he says. “What’s up?”

  “Me, Hedda and Bone are going to see Citizen Kane at the art house. Interested?”

  He shakes his head and wipes down the bar. “Seen it.”

  “You can see a great movie more then once.”

  “True. But that ain’t no great movie,” he says. “White man’s tragedy.” He shakes his head again. “Got no time for that.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No it’s not. Some rich white man comes close to owning half the world and then he loses it. Then he says ‘Rosebud’ and people go fucking nuts trying to figure it out.” Terry opens his eyes wide and puts his hands up on his cheeks and does a mocking imitation of surprise. “And it turns out it was his sled when he was a poor little boy.” He smiles. “Man has to own half of everything and live to be sixty to discover that the world ain’t his particular oyster? A very white thing to do. Black folks are born with that little tidbit of information—don’t need to live to be sixty to figure it out.”

  “I don’t think the world’s my oyster,” I say.

  “No. But I’m talking general here.”

  I lean over the bar and pour myself some water.

  “It’s not that simple,” I say. “The movie.”

  “No, it’s not. But it does two things I got no patience for. It romanticizes poverty and it’s nostalgic. Poverty is poverty and nostalgia is white.”

  “No black Rosebuds?” I say.

  “No black Rosebuds.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” I say. I finish my water. “So you don’t want to come?”

  “No. I appreciate the offer, though.” He turns on the TV. “Stop by after.”

  “You got it.” I head up the stairs and over to The Palms.

  38

  Bone and Hedda are by the pool.

  “No Terry?” Hedda says.

  I shake my head. “Just us. He wants us to stop by after, though.”

  “No can do,” Bone says. “I’ve got a job later.”

  “At night?” I say.

  We start to walk to Bone’s truck. “He’s doing tattoos at Show Folks,” Hedda says.

  “Which is what?”

  I hold the passenger door for Hedda. They both stop and look at me.

  “You’re serious?” Bone says. “You’ve never heard of Show Folks?”

  “This is a crime?”

  “It’s the circus bar,” Hedda says. “All the freaks drink there.”

  “Lobster Boy drank there,” Bone says.

  Sarasota was the winter home for the circuses. That, I knew, but I hadn’t made any connection. “Lobster Boy?”

  Bone pulls out of the driveway. The truck is suffocating and I roll down the window. “You been living in a cave, Ben?” Bone says. “Lobsrer Boy. He had this hand problem.”

  “Disease,” Hedda says.

  “A disease is a problem,” Bone says. “Anyway, he had these fat, chunky claws for hands.” He takes his hands off the wheel and makes awkward lobster claw gestures that make him look like a fifties sci-fi robot. The truck swerves. He grabs the wheel and rights it. “He married some normal woman—they had kids—I don’t think the kids had lobsteritis, but I’m not sure, Apparently he was a bastard. Drank a lot, beat the shit out of her with his claws. They split up and she married some circus midget.”

  “This is true?” I say. He turns the truck out onto 41.

  “Everybody knows about Lobster Boy,” Hedda says.

  Bone says, “All true. Things don’t work our between her and the midget and she remarries Lobster Boy. Still beats her. Drunk all the time. Smokes Luckies by the carton.”

  “And?” I say.

  “Blew his head off with a shotgun. They found him on the couch, a carton of smokes and a borde of whisky on a TV tray in from of him. Don’t know how he squeezed the trigger
. That’s all I know,” Bone says. “If I find out more tonight, I’ll fill you in.”

  “How many of them are left? There isn’t a circus anymore, is there?”

  “Not like the old circus. But a lot of the old-timers still live here. Freaks have to retire, too, you know.”

  “You’re doing tattoos for retired circus people,” I say. “Strange world.”

  He nods. “A couple small originals and one cover-up.”

  “How’d you get this gig?”

  “Word of mouth,” he says.

  Citizen Kane is pretty much like I remembered it, but it has a new lens. I sit there, thinking about what Terry said and he’s right—it seems sometimes like everybody I know has a better fix on life, a clearer picture, than me. I could live to be a hundred and be wrong about everything. Kane’s not that sad a movie. It’s still beautiful to look at, but I find myself drifting, playing out scenes of despair and violence. The Lobster Boy beating his wife with those pathetic claws. Living in some trailer, chain-smoking over a TV tray. Stained carpets and sad dull-eyed kids. And I’m watching Kane and his first wife eating dinner farther and farther apart—that scene where they keep eating at a bigger and bigger table—and thinking: so what?

  About half-way through the movie, I start to think of different ways to swing the ball when they double-team Darnell in the post. It gives me something to do, and I feel better.

  After the movie, Bone drives me back to The Palms. He grabs his tattoo gun and he and Hedda head off to the circus bar.

  39

  I wave to Terry when I get down to the bottom of the stairs. There are a couple of customers at the bar. Billy, the last of the six-string outlaws, drinks in the back, next to the pool tables. He has his guitar with him, but, thankfully, he’s not playing.

  Terry says, “Got your friend over there. You want to ask him about his urological surgery?”

  “Not really.” I sit. Terry gives me a club soda. “Coffee, too.” He turn and pours and places it in front of me. “You ruined the movie for me.”

  “One man’s opinion, Bomber.” He raises his hands in a what-me? gesture. “Sorry to burst your bubble.”