Lysistrata

by Flora, Fletcher

  Well, that part about my going with Marsha Davis really broke off in him, and he sat there gawking at me with his nasty mouth hanging open, and I got out before he could close it and start in on me again. I walked across town to the high school, and all the rest of the team were already in the locker room when I got there, because I’d lost so much time jawing with the old man, and old Mulloy was pacing up and down like a God-damn cat on hot rocks.

  I got into my suit and sat down on a bench, and outside in the gym you could hear all the maniacs raising hell and giving fifteen rahs for this and that, and the band was playing these snappy marches that make you lose what little God-damn sense you might have had to start with, and it got into you a little, at that, even though you knew you were a creep for letting it and should have had your tail kicked up between your shoulders. Just before time to go out on the floor, old Mulloy got out in the middle of the locker room and raised his arms like some evangelist or something who was trying to get everyone to pay attention, and when we were quiet he still didn’t say anything but just stood there with his shoulders sort of stooped a little like he was tired as hell, and the silence kept stretching on and on until you wanted to jump up and yell at him, for Christ’s sake, and then finally he said in this low, tired voice, “Fellows, this is where I get off. I’ve done my best for you, I’ve taught you all I know, and now it’s all up to you. All I’m going to say is, I know you’re going to get out there and give me all you’ve got.” Then he turned and walked off to his crummy little office in this God-damn awful silence that was like a damn funeral or something, and his shoulders were stooped this way that seemed to say that it was all pretty damn hopeless, and he walked like every step damn near broke his back, but he wasn’t fooling me any, and I knew it was just a corny act that was supposed to get us all juiced up and ready to run our guts out just to show him we could beat this other team, and probably he’d read about some big college coach doing it sometime or other, because, as a matter of fact, I don’t think he had the brains to think of it all by himself. I’m bound to say it worked with the rest of the team, though, the God-damn spooks, and when old Mulloy was gone they all jumped up and started banging each other around, including me, and saying, “Let’s go, gang! That’s the old pepper, gang! Let’s show Coach we can do it! Let’s get this one for old Coach!” and I thought, Horse manure! I’ll get it for old Skimmer, that’s who I’ll get it for.

  Pretty soon we ran out on the floor in a line behind old Tizzy, who was captain, and the second we showed up everyone began to jump up and down and raise the God-damn roof, and the band broke into the school march that was really some college song they’d swiped and just changed the words some, and the guys and dolls in white pants and white skirts ran back and forth waving their arms, the dolls flashing their butts, and we began running in for setups and passing the ball around and doing the things we were supposed to do to get warmed up. After a while everyone got off the floor except the referees and the two starting teams, and the game got started, and I’ll tell you one thing, however full of bull old Mulloy was about practically everything else, he was sure right about that damn team being sharp as hell and hard to beat, and to tell the truth, I thought for quite a while we weren’t going to do it. They were really tall, in the first place, a bunch of God-damn goons, and in the second place, they played firehouse basketball, just like we did, and they could run like wolves, and it’s a fact that they were leading us by three points at the damn half.

  Well, you can bet old Mulloy had forgotten all about his corny act by that time, and in the locker room he was so damn mad he was slobbering at the mouth and really chewed the hell out of us.

  He said we weren’t doing anything right, and the other team was making monkeys out of us, and as a matter of fact we were playing like a bunch of stumble bums who’d never seen a basketball before, but this was bull, too, and the truth is, we were playing a damn good game, but the other team was playing just as good and in fact, so far, three points better. We went back out on the floor for the second half, and it’s a good thing we went when we did because I was on the verge of telling old Mulloy he could play the rest of the God-damn game himself if he thought we were such bums, and it just happened that we got the ball right away and banged it into old Tizzy, and Tizzy banged it out to me, and I jumped and pushed just as one of the guys on the other team hit me like a freight train, the dirty bastard, but the ball went through the hoop anyhow. This gave me a free-throw besides the bucket, and I made it, and we were all even. Old Mulloy over on the bench started yelling, “Go, go, go!” and that big mouth of his was just like a diesel horn, and the crowd picked it up and started yelling, “Go, go, go!” like a God-damn chant or something, and we went. For a while it got into you in spite of yourself, and you kept going like you’d sure as hell be shot at sunrise at least if you didn’t, but then it began to get pretty damn thin, and you just wanted to sit down on the lousy floor and let all the loud-mouths come down and go themselves for a while and see how they liked it, the sons of bitches. By that time, though, we’d run those goons down to where they were about two inches high and had built up a ten-point lead, and we never lost it, and I was high point man again with twenty-seven points.

  In the locker room was the same old bull again, everyone horseplaying and slapping tails and old Mulloy strutting back and forth and gobbling like a God-damn turkey. He’d changed his tune again, now that the game was won, and he said he’d never doubted for a minute that we’d win it and that this little old team wasn’t going to lose a game all season, and as a matter of fact it was true, and that’s the way it turned out, but I’ve got my own opinion about how much he had to do with it. I’ll say one thing, though, and that is, I’m damn glad wedidwin all our games, and I’d sure as hell hate to play on a team coached by that bastard thatdidn’twin, because all this stuff he was full of about clean play and sportsmanship was a lot of bull, and all he wanted us to do was win, and he started getting mean as a damn alley cat every time it looked for a while like we might not do it.

  I was just about dressed when old Tizzy came over and said, “I’ve got the old man’s car, Scaggs, and you and Marsha are supposed to ride out to the Club with Marion and me. You about ready to go?” I said I was and hurried up and finished dressing, and Tizzy and I walked out in the hall together, and Marsha and Marion were waiting there. Marsha grabbed me by the arm in that way she had and began telling me what a great game it was, and how wonderful I’d been, and how she was just simply limp from excitement, and I thought, Well, Skimmer, it looks like a big night, and as a matter of fact it was.

  Marsha and I rode out to the Country Club in the back seat, of course, and old Marion was sitting all plastered up against Tizzy in front, and he was driving the damn car with one hand all the time and didn’t have any time to pay any attention to what Marsha and I were doing in back, and we were doing plenty and then some, and the truth is, in spite of Tizzy and Marion being all tied up in their own business, I was a little worried about the damn rear-view mirror. It didn’t take long to get to the Club, not near long enough from the way I looked at it, and we drove up this long gravel drive in front of the clubhouse, and we all got out and went inside but Tizzy, and he drove the Buick on down to park it and come in afterward. The clubhouse was built on a slope, and there was a big front veranda on the ground floor, and we went downstairs to the room where we were going to have the brawl, and it was still on the ground floor there, too, only on the back because of the slope, and there were big glass doors that opened onto another veranda that looked right out over the golf course. The doors were closed, naturally, because it was cold, but you could look out over the course that was smooth and rolling with trees scattered around over it, and the moon was up out there, about as big as a God-damn washtub and a kind of orange color, and it wasn’t too bad if you didn’t have any more to do than look at it.

  There were a lot of other guys and girls there that I’d seen around school, and we went throug
h the great game, Scaggs, routine, which was all right to loosen me up and make me feel at home, because to tell the truth, I felt like a slob right at first and mad as hell because I did, and if anyone had said the wrong thing, I’d probably have clobbered him right in the mouth. No one said anything wrong, though, and someone started a stack of platters going on a big phonograph against the wall, and Marsha and I started to dance, with her all up and down the front of me, and after that it was free going, with me loose as ashes all the way.

  In the next room, which was the bar, there was a bunch of old crumbs having a party, and I guess they were really supposed to be looking after us, but as it turned out, before it was over, they needed someone to look after them. They were drinking highballs and stuff like that, and we were drinking cokes, and after a while a couple of guys in our bunch slipped in and swiped a bottle of whisky from behind the bar and brought it back, and we spiked up some cokes and passed them around, and everything was going pretty good until one doll got sick and checked her cookies in the middle of the floor, and that tore it. Three or four old guys came in from the bar next door and took away what was left of the spiked cokes and probably drank them themselves, the bastards, and I was ready to throw them right back where they came from on their tails if I could’ve got anyone to pitch in, but I couldn’t. After that, someone cleaned up the mess, and an old doll who had about three sheets in the wind and was doing her damnedest to hide it came in and said in this God-damn coy voice that fun was fun and no one wanted to spoil it but just to think about what we did before we did it, and Marsha looked at me and said in this voice that she made sound just like the old doll’s, “Well, I’ve already thought about what I want to do next, so let’s go outside and do it.”

  Well, some guys may need an engraved invitation, but not old Skimmer, so we slipped out through the glass doors and across the veranda and started down across the golf course, and Marsha said, “Have you ever played golf?” and I said I hadn’t, and the truth is, I hadn’t thought much about it at all, except that there didn’t seem to be any God-damn sense in it whatever, and I’ve heard my old man say that anybody who’d carry a bag of clubs around for miles hitting a little ball in front of him must have damn little to do and be queer in the head besides. Anyhow, old Marsha didn’t really care whether I played or not, or even answered her question, and neither did I, for that matter, because we both had something else on our minds that even my old man could see some sense in now and then. We went quite a way across the grass to a big tree and sat down under the tree and began to kiss and fool around, but the wind whipped in under the tree, and it was cold as hell, and before long I could hear her teeth rattling together and feel little goose pimples all over her skin.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Let’s go find the car,” and to tell the truth, I was ready to go almost anywhere myself to get out of that damn wind, and under the circumstances, that probably gives you a pretty good idea just how damn cold it was. We went back across the grass at an angle to the parking lot and down a row of cars until we came to the Buick, and Marsha said, “This is it,” and I started to open the door, but damned if old Tizzy hadn’t locked it, the skinny bastard.

  Marsha stamped her foot and said, “Oh, that damn Tizzy!” and I said, “What the hell would he want to do a thing like that for?” and she said, “Oh, that’s just like him, he doesn’t give a damn about anyone else as long as he’s got the keys to get in himself in case he gets that drippy Marion to come outside.”

  Anyhow, the cars on both sides kept the wind off of us, and we stood there and did a lot more kissing and fooling around, and it wasn’t so bad after all, but not as good as it might have been, and Marsha said we’d been gone so long someone might miss us and we’d better go back, and so we did, but no one had missed us at all, and we might as well have stayed outside all the rest of the time we were there as far as I could see, except that it was pretty damn cold.

  As a matter of fact, though, we finally got on a sofa out in another little room that was almost as good as outside, besides being warmer, the only trouble being that you had to be sort of careful and not do too much and be ready to pretend that you were just sitting there talking if anyone else came in. Marsha kept telling me how I was just what she’d always wanted, the strong type that always knew just what he was after and wasn’t like all these other guys that seemed so juvenile, and I said she was just what I’d always wanted, too, and she said she knew there wasn’t anything on earth that could keep us apart, now that we’d found each other, and altogether it was damn good stuff, in spite of being largely bull, and it didn’t seem like any time at all before one of the old dolls from the bar came in and said we had to get the hell out of there and go home.

  It was about midnight then, but we didn’t go home but went to an owl diner in town instead and had sandwiches and stuff to drink and listened to the juke box. When it got time to leave, I decided I’d better pick up the check, because if I kept letting old Tizzy do it someone might get the idea I was a God-damn deadbeat, or something, so I did, and old Tizzy said I didn’t have to do it and let him pay half at least, but he didn’t insist very hard, damn him, and it cost me a dollar and twenty-eight cents with tax. We got in the Buick again and started off, and old Tizzy saying, “Well, now, how shall we work this?” and I knew what he was getting around to was, should he take me home first or Marsha, and the idea was that, either way, he didn’t want us around to cramp his style when he took Marion home.

  If there’d been any way to louse him up, I’d have done it, just for locking the door of the God-damn Buick, but there wasn’t any way that I could see, so I said, “Why don’t you just let me off at your house with Marsha and then I’ll walk on home,” and he said, “Oh, you don’t want to walk clear across town this time of night,” and I said, “Sure I do, I like to walk,” and so he said well, have it your own way, which I intended to, and he drove up to his house and let us out in the driveway.

  I walked Marsha up to the front steps, and we stood there in the dark and kissed and fooled around some more, quite a bit as a matter of fact, and she said, “I wish I never had to go in,” and I said I wished she didn’t either, and she looked up through her lashes and gave this little laugh and said, “Better yet, I wish you could come in and stay all night,” and I said I sure as hell wished I could, too, but that it would be a damn hot day in January before we ever got her old man to see it the same way. She said that was right and fathers were a hell of a problem when you came right down to it, and then we loved each other up pretty good for the road, because she was getting shivery and goose pimply again, like on the golf course, and so was I, to tell the truth, and besides, old Tizzy would be getting back any minute and it was time she was getting in.

  I went home to bed, and I lay there thinking about what a hell of a big difference this God-damn crazy game of basketball had made in everything, and how the difference might even have been a little bigger by this time if only the weather had been warmer, but there was always another time coming up, and I began to get the idea that maybe I had something really big by the tail, a hell of a lot bigger than old Bugs or I had ever thought, and God only knew what might come of it if I really kept at it and worked it for all it was worth. I was just about to go to sleep when I remembered the change from the fin that was still in my pants pocket, and I got up and got it and stuck it in the toe of my shoe, because it would’ve been just like the old man to sneak in and go through my pockets to see if I’d really taken the fin and had anything left, the sneaky son of a bitch.

  Well, if you were around at the time and read the sports page, you’ll remember that I went through with this basketball stuff, just like I decided to, and really made a big thing of it. I got my picture in a lot of papers in other towns, even, and stories about how I was the best damn sharpshooter anyone had ever heard of, and I guess I must have been, at that, because I was high point man in the league all season and wound up after it was all over being high point man
in the whole God-damn state. In the league, every team had to play each other twice, home and home, which means once on each other’s court, and old Mulloy really sweat out the game we had to play on their court with the team that damn near beat us on ours, and he was a genuine pain in the tail, the way he kept pointing us for that particular game, as he called it, and trying to juice us up with his corny crap that was supposed to be psychology or something.

  It turned out that he did all his sweating for nothing, anyhow, because we beat them on their own court easier than we had on ours, and from then on we just coasted in and were league champions going away. I kept going out with Marsha all this time, and I’m not going to say a hell of a lot more about it, except that she was a real classy doll who always knew just what the score was, and that the weather wasn’t always as God-damn cold as it was the night we had the party at the Country Club.

  After all the leagues in the state had finished playing and had a champion, they divided the state into regions, and all the champions in each region played each other in what was called regional tournaments. It happened that it was the year to have our particular regional tournament in our own gym, and that was a break for us because a team usually can do a little better on its home court, and the school really made a God-damn production of it. We had these big pep rallies in the auditorium, with the cheer leaders and the band there and everyone going crazy, and old Mulloy was really in hog heaven, and you’d have thought to hear him talk that the bastard had won the championship all by himself. Every day on the sports page of the paper there was a big black headline that said ALL THE WAY, FELLOWS, and when we finally got around to playing the games, it seemed like everyone in town except my old man and old lady tried to get in the God-damn gym, and I’m bound to say that it got out of hand and pretty God-damn silly, all in all, but it was all gravy for Skimmer any way you looked at it, and who the hell was I to complain?