Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories

by Jean Shepherd

  Deliberately and meticulously, I set Wolf down on the concrete floor for the first time. We were made for each other, just the way Mariah was made for Scut. The personality of tops is an odd thing. Mariah spun with an angry ferocity, a carnivorous drive that was despised and feared by everyone who had the bad luck to see it in action. Wolf, on the other hand, was steadier, giving off a note higher in pitch than Mariah but in some ways even more deadly. Mariah was a hot-blooded animal; Wolf, cold-blooded, snakelike. It would be an interesting meeting.

  Again I laid the top precisely on the mark I had made, getting the feel of it, gradually letting myself out, feeling the full flush of rising excitement and mounting confidence as I gradually mastered the sinister Wolf. Even from the start, however, I had the sneaky, uneasy feeling that somehow I didn’t really own this top. At first I felt that it was just because I was not used to it, little suspecting how right I was.

  For two weeks, every night, Wolf and I practiced together in the basement. I had decided not to show him to anyone until we could take on Farkas. No telling what might have happened if Farkas had heard of the existence of Wolf, and my plans, before I was ready to really give him a battle. Even at that, I knew very well that my chances of breaking even with Farkas, let alone defeating him, were as slim as the chances of that proverbial snowball in hell-In public I began throwing my weight around with second-string tops, until the word slowly began to spread throughout the gym, the auditorium, the homerooms; till at recess time I could always draw a small claque of fans goading me on to belt some poor kid’s top into the boondocks.

  Since the day Farkas had publicly humiliated me, he no longer even deigned to note my topwork. Once, however, he paused briefly, while twisting Jack Robertsons arm behind him and belting him in the ribs with his free hand, to spit a thin spray of tobacco juice over my orange top, which had just landed neatly beside Delbert Bumpus’ yellow ball-bearing spinner. He might have taken me on right then and there, but he was busy giving Robertson his refresher course. Periodically, Farkas treated every kid in the class to a good, brisk, tendon-snapping arm twist. He shoved the victim’s wrist up between his shoulder blades, pushing up and twisting out, until the supplicant’s face turned ashen, his eyes bugged out and his tongue lolled in agony, Farkas yelling: “C’mon, you son of a bitch. Say it!”

  “… Graaahhhkkk!”

  “C’mon, say it! You son of a bitch.” Farkas gives him two more degrees of twist and brings his knee smartly into contact with the tailbone of the sufferer.

  “I said SAY it!”

  The victim, looking piteously at the ring of silent, scornful watchers, including, no doubt, his ex-girlfriend, finally squeaked out: “I’m a chicken bastard.”

  “Say it again, louder.”

  “I’M A CHICKEN BASTARD.” With that, Farkas hurled the pain-wracked body violently into the stickers. “Gimme a cigarette, Dill.”

  And the two of them would go skulking off toward the poolroom. He gave this refresher course about every six months, to all of us. We figure he kept a list and checked us off when our time came.

  It was Friday. I knew that today would be the day. Somehow you know those things. It had rained all night, a hard, driving, Midwestern drenching downpour. Now, as I toyed with my Wheaties, I could feel the edge of danger mounting within me.

  “Will you listen to me? I’m talking to you.”

  “Ah … what?”

  “When I’m talking to you, I want you to listen. You sit there like you’ve got potatoes in your ears!”

  My mother always had a thing about my not listening; also dragging my feet. That drove her crazy. She always yelled that I didn’t walk straight, either.

  “How many times have I told you not to slump like that while you’re eating? It isn’t good for your stomach.”

  I scrunched around in my chair, pretending I was listening to her.

  “You’d better be home early this afternoon, because you’ve got to go to the store. I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “How many times have I told you not to say ‘Yeah’?”

  “… Yeah.”

  This went on for about three hours or so, until I finally got out of the house, with Wolf stuck down deep in my hip pocket, with two other, lesser, tops in my front right-side pocket. I was loaded for bear.

  It looked like rain as I walked through the alleys, over the fences, through the vacant lots on my way to the playground, kicking sheets of water up from muddy puddles, skipping bottle caps into new lakes as I moved toward the battlefield. A few other kids drifted in the same direction from the next block. The trees dripped warm water under the low, gray, ragged clouds. Off to the north, toward Lake Michigan, even though it was full daytime, the steel mills glowed dark red against the low-hanging overcast.

  At last on the playground, I began my carefully thought-out scheme. “Hey, Kissel, how ‘bout a little action?”

  My top, the second-string orange one, whistled out and landed with a click on the asphalt. ‘How ‘bout it, Kissel?”

  I scooped up the top, this time laying her down on one of the school steps, making it walk downstairs a step at a time, a neat trick from my basic repertoire. Finally goaded, Kissel pulled out of his pocket his lumpy little green top.

  “I won’t split it. Just nick it a little, Kissel. Don’t worry.”

  A few onlookers had drifted into range, sensing something important afoot I was deliberately overplaying my hand.

  “I’ll even let you go first, Kissel. Come on—chicken?” I spun my top temptingly in front of Kissel’s Indian Tread tennis shoes. He couldn’t resist any longer. He bit hard.

  “All right, smart guy,” he said, “take that!” His green top narrowly missed mine, bouncing on the asphalt and then settling down into its pedestrian buzz. Quickly I scooped up my top, wound it up and let him have it. His green toy careened drunkenly into the gutter.

  “Sorry, Kissel. I just can’t control it.” I put my top back into my pocket, saying loudly:

  “There’s no good top men around here, anyway. Let’s get up a game of softball.”

  I had made sure that before any of this happened, Grover Dill was in the throng. I knew only one thing could happen after such an outrageous remark. Even now his sloping shoulders, his thick neck, his ragged crewcut were disappearing in the direction of the alley behind the school where he and Farkas smoked cigars, chewed tobacco, hatched plots and went over their refresher-course check lists. I must admit that I felt no little nervousness at this point, but it was too late to turn back. The die was cast

  Nervously I fished a Tootsie Roll out of my pocket, and chewed furiously to cover up. Sure enough, not five minutes had passed—in fact, we were in the middle of choosing up sides for the Softball game—when a tremendous wallop from behind sent me sprawling into a puddle. Instantly the mob surged forward. Looking up from the mud, I saw Farkas holding Mariah casually in his left hand, while spinning his greasy black top string like a lariat in his right It whistled faintly.

  “Get up, ya chicken bastard.”

  He quickly wound the string around Mariah and flicked it high into the air, catching it on his palm as it came down. She spun efficiently on his hand for a moment before he closed his talons over her. “Come on, get up.”

  Slowly I arose, pretending to be contrite.

  “What’s the matter, Farkas? What did I do? Gee whiz!” A low snicker went through the multitude. They recognized the signs, the old familiar signs. To a man, they had uttered those words themselves from time to time. They enjoyed seeing others in the trap.

  “Get out ya top.”

  “My top?”

  “GET IT OUT!”

  A few drops of rain had begun to fall, and it seemed to grow darker by the second. By now the crowd had grown, until we were ringed by a motley circle of noncommittal faces. Every kid on the playground was in the crowd. The word was out. Farkas was getting someone, and Farkas demanded an audience.
Nervously, I pulled out my poor doomed orange top. There was no hope for it once Farkas zeroed in his sights. I had carefully planned this sacrifice.

  “Well flip for firsties,” Farkas barked, his eyes cold, Mariah resting at the ready.

  “Flip, Dill. Heads.”

  His crony spun his famous two-headed nickel into the gray air.

  “Heads. You win, Scut,” Dill snarled in my direction.

  The crowd murmured ominously, but stilled instantly when Farkas glanced quickly around to spot who the wise guys were.

  “Spin, jerk.”

  I wound my orange top tightly, dug my feet as hard as I could down on the asphalt Using my underhand sweep, fast and low, I laid her down a good 15 feet away.

  Farkas half crouched, Mariah digging into his grimy thumb, the rusty metal washer he used for a button jabbing out between his fingers. His arm jerked down and out, the string snapped, black Mariah struck. That is, she missed, by less than an inch. The two tops spun side by side for a moment until I darted forward, scooped mine up and backed off. Before me, black Mariah sat toadlike, growling moodily, while Farkas watched with ill-concealed contempt

  I decided to go in for the kill. Again my arm dropped, the orange top streaked out, heading straight for black Mariah’s vitals. It was a good shot. Farkas knew it. He snarled low in his throat The crowd murmured excitedly as my orange top cracked smartly against Mariah—but wobbled off weakly among the feet of the onlookers. Mariah did not budge.

  “Spin it again, ya chicken bastard.”

  Farkas picked up Mariah and waited for my next move. I knew this was it. I had missed my chance. But then, I wasn’t counting on this poor top. My big move was on the way.

  I spun. Then, with his accustomed sardonic ease, the showboat attitude he always displayed when picking up a scalp, Farkas neatly cracked my top into kingdom come, the deadly spike sending up a thin spray from the wet pavement.

  By habit or tradition, the multitude indicated its approval of Scut’s victory:

  “Wow!”

  “Holy smokes!”

  “Gee whiz!”

  “Whoooiee!”

  And other sickening sounds.

  Farkas casually picked up Mariah, turned his back on me and, followed by Dill, started to walk away, the crowd parting before them. It was now!

  My hand whipped down into my back pocket, quickly snaked Wolf out into the open, and in the twinkling of a moment, I had him wound and instantly laid Wolf down hard and solid Its high, thin note, steady as a dentist’s drill and twice as nasty, cut through the falling rain and stopped Farkas in his tracks. He turned and stared for a long instant. His eyes seemed to widen and he actually, for a moment at least, appeared to grow pale-but even more baleful—as he recognized Wolf for what it was. Between us, the silver-gray top sang tauntingly. I didn’t say a word. Wolf said it all.

  The crowd, sensing that something had happened, became hushed and tense. Somewhere off in the south a mutter of thunder rumbled and stilled. Casually, Farkas wound his top string about Mariah and, without a word, laid it down with a hard, vicious, overhand, cracking shot that missed Wolf by the thickness of a coat of paint. The two tops spun together with no daylight between, Mariah’s bass rumble blending with the shuddering whine of Wolf in an eerie, angry duet.

  Quickly I picked up Wolf, and this time, with all the force I had, I went in for the big one. A silver-gray streak, Wolf blurred out before me. The crowd gasped audibly. Scut peered sharply down at Mariah as Wolf screamed toward the coup de grâce.

  I couldn’t believe it! Moving like a shadow over Mariah, Wolf missed by the thickness of a hair. Instantly, with a cackle, Farkas gathered in Mariah and, with a guttural laugh, sent her down the rails to finish off Wolf. I had seen him really angry at an opponent before, but nothing like this. I was afraid to look, half turning away—but the roar of the crowd told me that, incredibly, Mariah had missed!

  It was my turn now. For once in my life, my nerves were like steel. This time, with infinite deliberation, I aimed and carefully let fly, a little higher, with more lift, a more deadly trajectory. Wolf rose and came down like a fiend of hell, swooping out of the sky like some gray eagle. But at the last impossible instant, it actually seemed to change course in mid-air, grazing Mariah slightly and skittering off into a puddle.

  Again and again we attacked each other, first Wolf, then Mariah. Over and over we drove at each others vitals. Something was happening that slowly began to dawn first on Farkas and me and then on the crowd. Incredibly, these two tops seemed to be afraid of each other. Either that, or they were somehow, in some way, mysteriously jinxed.

  My arm ached. Farkas paused only to blow his nose on his sleeve before going back to the attack. It was growing darker; and it became obvious to us that at this rate, neither of us was going to scalp the other. The two insane tops, grimy, covered with mud, leaped like live things—ricocheting, leapfrogging, hovering over each other, behaving in a way that no top before or since has ever acted. They hated each other; yet they seemed to be in league.

  Dill, like all good toadies, tried everything he could to snaffle Wolf, kicking up mud when I spun, going even to the extent of nudging me violently on two occasions, hoping to tip the balance. Farkas was game but growing angrier and fiercer by the second, until finally he grabbed Mariah up from the scratched and scarred battlefield, looked at me with a long, searing gaze of hate and finally said, in a low voice:

  “OK, ya chicken bastard. Let’s play keepers.”

  Keepers meant that one kid would own both these tops, if his top could drive the other out of a circle made on the concrete with chalk. It was the final test of topping. Farkas was gambling Mariah against Wolf. Dill quickly drew a lopsided circle on the concrete sidewalk that paralleled the asphalt. The hard surface was perfect for keepers.

  “You go first,” Farkas commanded.

  Under the rules of the game, you were not allowed to strike your opponent’s top directly, so it really didn’t matter who went first. The tops themselves fought it out, walking each other around the circle until one or the other was pushed out

  I spun Wolf—little realizing for the last time. It whistled out in a low arc, landing fair in the center of the circle. I put as much power on the spin itself as I could, cracking the string with a hard, flat snap. Wolf spun, waiting for Mariah, its spike ringing sharp and hard. Farkas spun Mariah, and the two tops hummed within an inch of each other. Slowly they walked, closer and closer, as the crowd closed in. Closer and even closer, then finally—tick … tick … tick—they touched. Locked in mortal combat, first Wolf and then Mariah, then Mariah and then Wolf, ticking, humming in rising and falling cadence as they edged toward the dreaded line. Which would go out first?

  For a few moments it seemed as though Wolf was doomed, but then, righting itself, it shouldered Mariah closer. Impossibly, the two seemed to pick up speed as they spun. Angrier and angrier they grew, until suddenly, with a lunge, the two tops smashed together, both reeling in tandem in a mad, locked, spinning embrace together over the line and out of the circle. The rain, falling steadily, pattered down on the two hazy forms in the misty air.

  Farkas, sensing victory, shouted: “YOURS IS OUT!”

  He darted forward. The two tops continued to struggle and together they toppled over the curb, into the gutter, clicking, snarling crazily in the fast-running water, sending up sharp rooster tails of muddy foam. I moved as fast as I could to defend Wolf.

  Suddenly, it was all over. The two tops, locked in mortal combat, disappeared down a sewer from which rose a deep roar of rushing water. They were gone. Never before had any of us seen tops behave like this!

  Farkas, his face white, his eyes glazed, stared down into the raging flood through the grille of the drain. Then, without a word, he arose and, followed by Dill, walked off down the street in the rain. I knew I would never see Wolf again. But somehow I knew that neither Wolf nor Mariah were finished. They would go on. I don’t know why I knew this, but I did
, and I still do.

  The crowd broke up into small knots. The great top days were over at Warren G. Harding School. A few weeks later, I rode over to the other side of town, looking for the Total Victory. One time, months later, I thought I saw it, but it turned out to be a place where they sold stuffed animals and rocking chairs. Off and on, for a while, I continued my search; but I never found it again.

  “Gosh, I don’t think we’ll be able to leave for the lake today. My stomach….” Instantly, a chorus of self-pitying moans and whimpers drowns out the hapless TV daddy. His TV wife, surrounded by her rosy-cheeked brood and a mountain of tennis rackets, suitcases, water skis and all the other paraphernalia for an on-the-go family holiday, reaches into her Mexican handbag, pulls out a blue bottle and hands it to him.

  “Here, take two of these.”

  “Well, OK, but it’s no use. I’ve tried everything.”

  Popping the pills into his mouth, he smacks his lips a couple of times and says irritably, “Why, these taste just like—candy.”

  “There’s no law that says medicine can’t taste good,” the family shouts in unison.

  He swallows doubtfully, waits a moment for the little A’s and B’s to go to work, then breaks into a blinding Ultra Brite smile. “Say, you’re right. I feel good again.” Cheers.

  “All right, then, let’s get the show on the road,” barks the TV momma, herding the happy family out the door toward the station wagon and vacationland.

  My old man, I reflected gratefully as I snapped off the set, was not a TV daddy. For one thing, I have never heard one of them use anything like the language he employed in moments of stress. Had he been playing that same touching scene, it would have gone something like this: