Winning the City Redux

by Theodore Weesner

  The giant man took half a step forward and, like the pride of the Yankees, gave a nod to the gawking eighth-and ninth-graders.

  “Now some of you may not recognize the name Von Bothner, so let me fill you in. Von Bothner happens to be to basketball what Lynn Chadnois is to football in the Saginaw Valley. Mr. Bothner was all-American at Syracuse in the not too distant past. I said all-American, is case you missed it. And, for what, seven years, Von? For seven years he was a mainstay forward of none other than the Detroit Pistons! Mr. Bothner kept up with his engineering studies as well, however—if all that achievement weren’t enough for a lifetime—and at the present time is Plant Supervisor, Chevrolet Plant Ten!

  “His sons,” Coach Burke adds, “who I imagine some of you HAVE heard of. His sons are both recent WINNERS of the Soap Box Derby at Akron! Keith, the oldest—I believe I have this right. Going to Akron, for the Nationals two years ago, Keith finished first in the entire country. That’s the entire United States of America. And last year Mr. Bothner’s younger son, Karl—also the winner at the county and state levels—placed third overall in the Nationals at Akron! You may not have known that we have such a famous family living in nearby Fenton Meadows where—among all else this busy family manages to do—they breed thoroughbred horses!

  “Irregardless, I am pleased to have an opportunity to meet Mr. Bothner in person, as I have this afternoon. His sons will be coming into the city to school next year, one to high school, as I understand it, and one here to Walt Whitman . . . for which reason Mr. Bothner is visiting today, to get a feel for the competition the city programs have to offer . . . which may be a bit stiffer, if I may say so, than they are in Fenton Meadows.” This drew some giggles as Coach Burke added, “So let’s do our best to show our distinguished visitor why it is that we were conference co-champions last year! And why it is, this year, that we have our sights set on winning the Scholastic Conference outright!

  “First things first, however. Right now I’m going to ask our co-captains to say a word or two about how they see the forth coming season going. First, Dale Wheeler, who did an outstanding job for us last year as floor captain and playmaker guard. Dale, how about it—how do you see things shaping up for the new year?”

  Startled, sitting on the new ball, Dale says, “Well, aah—”

  “Stand up, Dale,” Coach Burke tells him.

  Dale unfolds to his feet, taking the ball in his hands as something upon which to more or less focus. “Well—” he says, glancing up from the ball over the thirty-odd boys. “Aah, we were co-champs last year, like Coach says. But if anybody thinks we’re going to just win this year, then we won’t, because that’s wrong and is one thing, as co-captain, I won’t be letting happen. No way.”

  “Well put, Dale. Joe Dillard . . . what do you have to say? Given that you’re not a professional athlete in another sport just yet.”

  The boys titter, pleased to be on the inside of things, and it is then, repositioning himself on the ball, that Dale finds himself visited by stage fright. He speaks in class but has never addressed students or teammates in such a way and, as in other things he did not know, was unaware that stage fright might know his name. Thus does he tremble and, sitting there, realizes that sounds are active in his ears to such an extent that Sonny Joe’s words pass in a blur.

  As Coach Burke is jabbering and the others are getting to their feet, Dale does the same. His thought is, well, he said some things, did a pep talk of the kind expected from team leaders, and now it’s time to show them why he’s there . . . to leap like a leopard and put the ball in the hoop. “Let’s do it,” he says, as half of the squad moves with him and half with Sonny Joe, into an opening drill. “Time to show some speed and do the deed!” he has them know, drawing some smiles at his rhyme.

  CHAPTER 8

  IN BED IN THE DARK, DALE LISTENS FOR HIS FATHER TO COME in from second shift. He’s looking forward—his news feels like a small gift—to having his father know that his plant supervisor, a huge man named Mr. Von Bothner, visited his school that day. Mr. Bothner has two sons, Dale will explain, who want to come into the city to play school ball where he plays, where he is co-captain and on his way to winning the City not only in Scholastic League but in City League, too!

  Dale is deeply asleep, however, when his father is due home, and knows later, from an absence of sound and his internal clock, that their apartment remains empty. There’s no telling where his father might be or what stage of intoxication he might be in and, to Dale’s surprise, a forlorn feeling rises in him in his inability to pass on his exciting news.

  Deeper into the night, he awakens to music. His father has made it home and music means, of course, that he’s drinking. Hearing a woman’s voice, the faint shock of her vocal cords brings Dale more fully awake. He listens. Even as their voices aren’t loud and they play the music at low volume, it’s clear from the female laughter that they are half in the bag and have their eye on his father’s sack in the apartment’s front bedroom.

  Only rarely does his father bring women home, the last time a Sunday maybe half a year ago when, as if by way of unspoken communication between them, Dale slipped out and walked into Lower Downtown to a matinee. Knowing from their voices that his father’s bedroom door has been opened, Dale covers his head with his arm and pillow to make his way into one of his dreams of winning it all, of setting them free, of gaining respect in the big industrial city where they live.

  # # #

  AS DAY is breaking, Dale awakens yet again to music. It isn’t volume, rather it’s repetition that is making its way into Dale’s subconscious, a song playing over and over, the words imprinting his mind and heart where they will linger for no less a time than forever:

  Crazy . . .

  Crazy for feeling so lonely . . .

  Dale lies in bed reading the shapes of pre-dawn shadows. Life with his hard-drinking dad. It’s always been this way, and Dale still has little idea how to make his way through the minefield waiting in living room and kitchen on his way to escaping into free air outdoors. Life with the heartbroken man who loves him and is his father.

  Worry . . .

  Why do I let myself worry?

  Wondering . . . what in the world did I do?

  # # #

  WASHED AND DRESSED, ready for school, Dale opens the hallway door at last—to an odor of cigarettes, ashes, alcohol, Patsy Cline lamenting her fate—and enters the kitchen, trusting his father and the woman to be out of view. A single high-heeled shoe lies on the living-room floor and the door to his father’s bedroom is ajar. Other times Dale has turned off the phonograph and grabbed a bite on the move, but this time, slipping on his windbreaker, taking his schoolbooks in hand, he is reaching for the kitchen door like a burglar when his father says behind him, “Curlytop, whatcha doing?”

  “Heading out,” Dale says.

  There, in his underwear, his father says, “It’s just a old friend down on her luck, spending the night.”

  “Yah.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “School’s okay?”

  “One thing,” Dale says. “Mr. Bothner came to our practice at school.”

  “Who did?”

  “Mr. Bothner. Von Bothner.”

  “You mean the big shot from the plant?”

  “He’s checking things out . . . for his sons.”

  “He’s a big old bird that guy . . . musta played some ball in his day.”

  “He was a star, with the Pistons, is what Coach Burke said. He’s checking out competition in town, stuff like that, for his sons.”

  “They any good? Bet they don’t play like you do.”

  “Nobody’s seen them . . . but yeah, I’ll bet you a dollar I’m better.”

  Dale did not mean to brag, only to offer an objective word at the daybreak. “They live on a horse farm in Fenton Meadows,” he adds. “Both sons won the Soap Box Derby, and I guess one of them won the Nationals at Akron. Now they wanna pl
ay ball in town.”

  “Sounds like they got a lot, but I still bet you can show them a thing or two,” his father tells him, trying to smile.

  CHAPTER 9

  EACH MORNING IN HOMEROOM, UNDER A CLOTH BANNER embroidered Word Power Challenge, Miss Furbish writes two words on the blackboard that look alike but have different meanings. It’s an exercise in which they’re challenged to know the words before going on, thirty minutes later, with the day’s classes, a challenge that Dale always takes to heart. He likes Miss Furbish, has perceived that she likes him, and every morning looks forward to the word game that once, with a substitute, left the balance of the morning feeling off kilter. “Word power,” Miss Furbish likes reminding them. “Words fuel the mind . . . in every possible way.”

  alter/altar

  faze/phase

  mourning/morning

  complement/compliment

  Dale likes school, regards Miss Furbish as just about his favorite teacher, and is always pleased to see her, knowing that in her attention to them all, she always has his attention in turn. “Dale Wheeler can think on his feet,” she remarked once (confirming him as a disciple he wanted to be) when he stood to take on the Word Power Challenge profane/profound. “Think about whatever it is—truly think about it—and tell the truth of what you know. Don’t SAY what you think someone might LIKE to hear,” she advised. “That’s no way to become a self-respecting human being.”

  # # #

  DALE LIKES SCHOOL best when he has done the work, and dislikes it when he has not. He figured out on his own, in sixth grade, that doing the work made him feel good. If he did time in the Reference Room during the day, and time at the kitchen table at night, there would be a payoff the next day that was more exquisite than excruciating. Let there be quizzes, tests, questions, for they were the payoff he came to enjoy.

  Civics with Mrs. Cross is also a favorite class and Mrs. Cross his next-to-favorite teacher. She’s the school’s most popular—more than Miss Furbish and Social Studies—and is admired by students in the way Dale admires Miss Furbish as his slightly prematurely gray homeroom live wire. Mrs. Cross’s husband is a Congressman, away much of the time in Washington, DC (students see him as the deprived party), and her classes every time are stimulating exercises in which the hour flies by all too quickly. With Miss Furbish, the two teachers—and some others—make life at school into a family of a kind he likes.

  When unprepared, however, Dale dislikes himself sitting there behind Zona Kaplan in homeroom. Certain girls, like Zona, are never unprepared, while in truth Dale often feels a temptation to bypass his homework, however aware he is of the consequences. Most often he does the work and likes school, adores Mrs. Cross and Miss Furbish, and occasionally fantasizes about one or the other being the mother he recalls seeing but three or four times since age two, when she abandoned ship and ended up married to a man who owned a tavern on Long Lake. Rarely thinking of his mother, he makes no connection between her absence and his adoration for the couple of women her age at school.

  CHAPTER 10

  ZONA KAPLAN’S BLACK HAIR IS CLOSE BEFORE HIM AND DALE is less than his alert self when Miss Furbish turns from writing the day’s Word Power Challenge on the board, looks at him and says, “Dale Wheeler. Can you stand and meet today’s word power challenge?”

  There is her smile and there are the words: Repute/Repose.

  Caught off guard, Dale knows his face is reddening.

  “Take your time, Dale, think them out,” she tells him.

  He senses her regret in embarrassing him. Friendship is in her eyes and he is trying at once to take her at her word. Take your time, he thinks. Shed the confusion and do what she says. Think!

  “Well, repute,” he says, on his feet beside his desk. “I’ve heard that. I’ve read it and am pretty sure I know what it means. People say someone is reputed to be something.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well . . . reputed . . . to be a gangster! It’s like a report or something that isn’t written down.”

  “Dale, that is excellent!” Miss Furbish says. “Are you saying REPUTE reports something to be SO? Or only that it is THOUGHT to be so?”

  “Only thought to be so,” Dale says, and knows in his relief that he is feeling better.

  “Rep-u-tay-shun,” Miss Furbish says. “I’m sure you know that word?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You see the relationship between REPUTE and REPUTATION? Of course you do. Now then, does REPOSE mean the same thing?”

  “The words you put on the board never mean the same thing,” Dale tells his adored teacher, drawing laughter from her and the class.

  “I may fool you one of these days,” she says. “Though I don’t like playing tricks. Games, but not tricks. Have we done GAMES and TRICKS? Dale, tell us the meaning of REPOSE.”

  “Well, repose. Repose?”

  “You’ve heard of LYING IN REPOSE?”

  “I’ve heard of that,” Dale replies.

  “To be IN REPOSE? It means?”

  “Well, it means, I think . . . to be maybe dead . . . ?”

  This draws another laugh and Miss Furbish says, “That’s okay. That’s just fine. I want you to tell the truth of what you know. REPOSE can mean to be asleep, or posing, or yes, to be dead. A person may be CALM. TRANQUIL. In REPOSE. And it’s true, a BODY, a DEAD BODY, may LIE IN REPOSE. Excellent, Dale. I’ve told you before that you can think on your feet and it is something I want you to believe about yourself.”

  Her words so grip Dale that a threat of emotion approaches his eyes. He knows that if he looks away his eyes will film over and some jerk—having no idea how much, down deep, he wants Miss Furbish to be his friend, his sister, his mother—will tease him by saying a teacher made him cry, and how he’ll have to act tough to get the person to back off.

  CHAPTER 11

  AFTER SCHOOL THE GIANT MAN IS WEARING THE SAME WHITE sneakers—which sneakers had to be issued by the Pistons—and charcoal pants, indicating he has come directly from his office overlooking Plant Ten. The great long factory building with its hundreds of wire-mesh windows blurring orange sparkles and hissing valves along the river in Lower Downtown, isn’t far from where Dale and his father live. Where is his father now? Did he make it to work? Could Mr. Bothner know, Dale wonders, that his father is one of the hundreds of men who work at Plant Ten in the production of endless Chevrolet frames and axles?

  Dale practices hard as always, calls up his moves in an effort to impress the big visitor. He draws remarks of praise from Coach Burke, from other players, even from Sonny Joe, but whenever he steals a glance to see if he’s been observed by Mr. Bothner, the giant man is at a distance in the gym or looking elsewhere.

  Only when working the far end with centers and forwards does Mr. Bothner take the floor to talk. Like others among the guards and playmakers, Dale looks over from one line or another to glean whatever the man is saying. Images also come to mind of his father at home in their apartment, half-bombed, waiting for Dale to come in and help him to his feet in the midst of his intoxicated exclamations of love and loyalty.

  Might the woman still be there? What if he enters and finds them in a naked pile on the floor? Laying on the floor . . . or lying on the floor? What would Miss Furbish think of that? Yeah, ha ha. Did a person lie down to get laid, or lay down to get lied? Or lie to get laid? Yeah, be a smart ass, Dale tells himself. But not within Miss Furbish’s hearing.

  The silver-haired horse demonstrates some moves at last and has them staring in awe. As he works with Sonny Joe—who else?—they’re told to watch. Pushing out and up, up, up into sky hooks, not one hand alone but both hands taking the ball high—gripping the ball in one hand at last like a volleyball while deflecting a foul with the other hand—Mr. Bothner returns his feet to the floor and continues talking. Arms and hands outstretched his enormous size had been all the more apparent. New Bob Feller or not, Sonny Joe remains a sapling next to a giant oak that—wings spread and massive ha
nds opened—looks to be twice his size and ten times as strong.

  It’s what real pros look like, Dale thinks. Bigger than life. Seen in person they’re twice as big as in their photographs. Veins and muscles, head sizes, chins, noses, even lips and choppers, everything in a real pro is oversized and tells, Dale believes, on why they’re pros and why others are but ordinary human beings.

  Dale also continues to imagine Mr. Bothner’s sons as stringbean sissies. Continues to imagine catching the big man’s eye, impressing him and having a comment of pride conveyed to his father on the line in Plant Ten. Continues to believe he is turning everything in his life around.

  So it is, on the occasion at last of a full-court scrimmage, that Dale gives his all on a drive into the key against Hal Doyle, and lets loose with his shot—hot damn! it works! it works!—going high, twisting, taking the block, shaking the block, executing the knock and delivering a blow on putting it away over his shoulder in a full-reverse layup! It’s the shot he’s practiced a thousand times at the park as well as after sweeping the gyms in the morning. It draws smiles, a slap over the hair from Sonny Joe, a grin from Burkebutt and someone saying to Hal Doyle, “Jock’s on the floor, man.”

  He did it! Took the lead, showed the speed, pulled off the deed! But on sneaking a glance to the side he sees that the big man has left for the day and has not borne witness.

  CHAPTER 12

  Hey! Mister Tambourine Man,

  play a song for me . . .

  I’m not sleepy and there is

  no place I’m going to . . .

  DALE SINGS WITH FEELING INTO WATER STREAMING DOWN his face. Last in the shower, he is probably the last one in the locker room and maybe in the school, which feeling he likes. Only when he is at his locker, getting dressed, and Slim, the locker room man, passes by and says, “You still here?” does he admit to himself how much he always puts off going home. It’s a familiar routine. Life with an alcoholic . . . for when his father undertakes a binge anything can be waiting at home, from the drunken partying of two lost souls to the sad and sodden semi-consciousness of one.