Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  The girls had gathered around the boys, and they were laughing, too. Their amusement was easy and untroubled. Mitch had been the target of their jokes for so long that their attacks upon him were inspired more by habit than venom. They even felt a distant sort of fondness for the boy who had been the source of so much amusement over the years.

  Candy was pulling at his hand now, trying desperately to get away from him, to take the small steps that would transport her from the land of the untouchable to the arena of the acceptable.

  "Mi-chull, Mi-chull, "Charlie Shields called out in a high, good-humored falsetto. "Come here and get your diapers changed."

  A blue-black vortex of rage and pain consumed him. The rage caught him in its grasp and sank its talons through his flesh. A cry built inside him as he let that small, sweet hand go, a roar of outrage at this loss of his fresh new manhood. And with that roar, years of dilligent self-control gave way inside him.

  He launched himself at the boys. They were five and he was one, but he didn't care. It was a suicide attack, a kamikaze mission with no hope for personal survival, but only a distant yearning for some posthumous dignity of the spirit. They laughed as he came toward them. They catcalled at the hilarity of Mitchell Blaine attacking them. But then they saw the expression on his face and their mockery died.

  He began to throw wild, vicious punches. The girls screamed and a crowd gathered in response to the invisible radar that instantly detected a hallway fight.

  Charlie Shields shrieked in pain as Mitch's fist snapped the cartilage in his nose and sent blood spurting out. Artie Tarpey gave a grunt of agony as he felt a rib crack. Mitch was indiscriminate with his violence, propelled by a rage that had been building inside him for nearly a decade. He hit anything he could touch, and barely felt the blows he suffered in return. Two of the boys were finally able to pin him long enough to slam him into a locker. He smashed the thin metal door with his body and then hurled himself back at them.

  The boys had fought among themselves since they were children, and there were unwritten rules of conduct they all followed. But Mitch hadn't been part of their fights, and he didn't know their rules. Now the boys found themselves the targets of a vicious, single-minded attack that was outside their realm of experience. Mitch brought Herb McGill down with a flying tackle and pinned him to the tiled floor. Charlie, holding his broken nose and whimpering with pain, tried to rescue Herb, but Mitch shook him away.

  It took three male teachers to put an end to the violence, and even then Mitch didn't give up easily. As the men dragged him away to the principal's office, he refused to meet the eyes of Candy Fuller.

  The aunts were summoned. They cried when they saw him slumped forward on the office bench with his bruised elbows propped on his thighs, bloody hands dangling between his splayed knees. His white starched shirt was torn and gore-spattered, his eye swollen closed. He looked up at their frail, birdlike frames and saw their fear for him.

  Aunt Theodora recovered before her sister and advanced like a brigadier general upon the principal. "Explain this outrage at once, Jordan Featherstone. How could you allow something like this to happen to our Mitchell?"

  " Your Mitchell just sent three of his classmates to the emergency room at the hospital," Mr. Featherstone replied sharply. "He's suspended for the next two weeks."

  The aunts listened in horror to the details of their nephew's hallway brawl. They gazed at Mitch, first with bewilderment and then condemnation. Amity's eyes grew fierce behind her wire-rimmed spectacles. "You will come home with us at once, Mitchell," she ordered. "We will deal with this in private."

  "We are extremely disappointed in you," Theodora exclaimed. "Extremely!"

  He could see them conjuring up their most terrible punishment. A stern lecture, a hundred sentences instead of fifty. His heart contracted with love for them and regret at the distress he had inflicted. "Go on home," he said gently. "I'll be there in a little while."

  Flabbergasted, they repeated their commands. He shook his head sadly. When they saw that they couldn't sway him, Amity tried to tidy the torn shoulder seam of his shirt, and Theodora told Jordan Featherstone that his school was full of hooligans.

  Mr. Featherstone began to lecture him, but Mitch had something else to do. He apologized politely to the three adults. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to be rude, but there's something I have to do."

  He walked out of the school and made his way on foot to the emergency room at Clearbrook Memorial Hospital.

  There he found Artie Tarpey, Herb McGill, and Charlie Shields, who was holding an ice pack to his nose. Mitch sat quietly with them while they waited their turn to get patched up. They talked about the Warrior's football team and whether they had a shot at division finals. They talked about the sophomore teachers and the tunes on the Top Forty. None of them mentioned the fight.

  That fall Mitch broke forever his aunts' gentle domination. He landed a part-time job at a local television repair shop and fell in love with the relentlessly masculine world of electronics. When his school suspension was over, he patiently endured all of their duckings and twitterings, then kissed them affectionately on their papery cheeks and went out to train with the football team. Although the squad had already been chosen, his dogged persistence won him the admiration of the coaches, and by the end of the season he was playing.

  In the next two years Mitch Blaine re-created football at Clearbrook High. No one had ever seen a boy play the game like he did. He wasn't the fastest wide receiver in the state, but he was so strong, so ferocious in his concentration, so single-minded in his race for the goal line, that it was almost impossible to stop him. The college scouts began sending him love letters.

  Off the playing fields, Mitch was still the most well-behaved boy in Clearbrook, Ohio-quiet, polite, conservatively dressed, academically brilliant. The girls who had once laughed at him left notes in his locker and fought with each other for the right to ask him to a turnabout dance. One of those who fought for his attention was Candy Fuller. He was consistently courteous to her and relentlessly unforgiving.

  In a cabin on the shores of Lake Hope, he and Penny Baker lost their virginities together. The experience was better than anything he had ever imagined, and he determined to repeat it as often as possible.

  "Would you raise your seat back, Mr. Blaine? We're getting ready to land."

  The flight attendant who smelled like his aunts' bathpowder stood next to his seat. He still missed those dear old ladies. They had died a few years ago, Amity passing on within three days of Theodora.

  The flight attendant leaned over him deferentially. "Is Boston home, or are you here on business?"

  "Home," he replied, although it no longer felt that way.

  She chatted with him for a few minutes and couldn't quite hide her disappointment when he didn't ask for her phone number.

  Mitch had long ago accepted the fact that he had a strong effect on women, but he hadn't given the matter much thought since his undergraduate days at Ohio State. He still didn't understand that the contrasts in his nature were what fascinated them. Women were drawn to his quiet courtesy and impeccable manners, but it was the juxtaposition of those gentler qualities with an almost ferocious masculinity that had made so many of them fall in love with him over the years.

  Mitch didn't worry about his masculinity any more. He didn't have to. But when he had graduated from high school, it had been very much on his mind. He remembered leaving his aunts behind for his freshman year at Ohio State, and then he remembered his sophomore year, when he finally found the father figure he had been seeking for so long-Wayne Woodrow Hayes, the Buckeyes' legendary football coach.

  Mitch smiled and shut his eyes. While the plane circled Logan Airport, he thought back to those Saturday afternoons when he had carried the football to glory in the horseshoe-shaped stadium on the banks of the Olentangy River. Even now he could hear the chimes of "Carmen Ohio" ringing in his mind. But most of all, he remembered Woody.
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br />   Everybody called the Buckeye football players dumb. A lot of them were dumb. Woody knew that. But he didn't like everybody else knowing it. When Woody first saw the hard-hitting, clean-living boy from Clearbrook, Ohio, in action, his eyes got misty. Not only did Mitch play the kind of single-minded, no-holds-barred football that Woody had invented, but he was carrying a 3.7 grade average in Electrical Engineering to go along with it.

  Not Phys Ed.

  Not Communication Arts.

  Electrical Engineering.

  Woody was a scholar, and he loved intelligent minds. His hobby was military history, and he laced his pregame speeches with references to his favorite men-Napoleon, Patton, and General Douglas MacArthur.

  Mitch Blaine knew who they were.

  Every Buckeye football player who wore the scarlet and gray respected and feared Woody Hayes, but that didn't keep them from joking about his old-fashioned sentiments behind his back. Mitch saw the humor in Woody, but he still loved listening to him talk. Woody believed in God, America, and Ohio State, in that order. He believed in back-breaking hard work and a strict moral code. And, gradually, Woody Hayes helped define for Mitch what it meant to be a man.

  Mitch grew close to the crusty coach. Even after he was graduated from Ohio State and had gone on to MIT for his master's degree, he still telephoned him. One evening in the summer of 1969, Mitch called with the biggest news of his life.

  "Coach, I've decided to get married."

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "That red-haired young lady you brought over for me to meet the last time you were in Columbus?"

  "Yes. Louise."

  "I remember." Woody seemed to be collecting his thoughts. "She's from a rich family, you told me."

  "Her people came to Boston with the Pilgrims."

  Another long silence, and then Woody delivered his verdict. "She has thin blood, son. I advise you to reconsider."

  Like a fool, Mitch hadn't listened.

  Mitch's house smelled damp and empty when he let himself inside. He set his suitcase down and wished it could all be different, that he could walk upstairs and find David, his five-year-old son, and Liza, his three-year-old daughter, curled beneath the covers in their bedrooms. But those bedrooms were empty now, stripped of their furniture and the sweet scramble of toys he used to stumble over when he kissed them good night.

  His housekeeper had cleaned up the mess from his alcoholic oblivion. As he carried his suitcase upstairs, he felt a curl of disgust in his gut from all that self-pity he had been wallowing in. During the first few weeks after Louise had left with the children, he had been able to function normally. But the house had been so empty at night that he had begun keeping company with a bottle of scotch, not the best companion for someone who had never been much of a drinker. Eventually, he had conceived an alcohol-inspired plan to stop working, buy a boat, and sail around the Caribbean for a while. He had managed to implement the first part of his plan, but the second and third parts had required too much energy. And then Sam Gamble had kidnapped him, and the small wonders he had seen in that garage in Silicon Valley had forced him to rejoin the world.

  As he stripped off his clothes and turned on the shower, he reminded himself that Sam Gamble hadn't been his only kidnapper. His mouth tightened with displeasure as he thought of Susannah Faulconer. Of all the women Sam could have taken up with, Susannah Faulconer had been the worse possible choice. Mitch knew from experience, since he had married a woman just like her. Susannah and Louise even looked a little alike. Both were tall and slender. They had discreet private-school voices and carried themselves with that special air of composure that only those born into privileged families seem to possess. And both obviously got a kick out of slumming with men who were their social inferiors.

  He had even considered warning Sam about Susannah, but Mitch hadn't listened to Woody, and Sam wouldn't listen, either. Only experience would teach Sam that women like Susannah Faulconer were dilettantes. They were fascinated by men who weren't part of their upbringing, but that fascination faded in the day-to-day drudgery of living.

  "I'm tired of being married to you, Mitch," Louise had said one evening a month ago, when he'd come home from work. The sight of his cool, sophisticated wife sitting on the couch toying with a set of car keys was imprinted on his mind forever.

  "We don't have anything in common," she had gone on. "You like to work. I like to go to parties. I want to have fun some place other than in the bedroom for a change."

  Mitch had refused to admit even to himself that he no longer loved her. Their marriage had its roots in a youthful attraction of opposites instead of commonality of interests, but it was too late to remedy the mistake. They had children, she was a good mother, and marriage was forever.

  "If you're unhappy, we'll make changes," he had said immediately. "We're a family, Louise, and we made vows to each other. If we have problems, let's get some counseling to help us work them out."

  "Why bother?" she had retorted. Then she had told him that she had already taken the children to her mother's and she was on her way to join them. Picking up her purse, she had left the house without another word.

  And that was what he couldn't forgive. She had simply walked out, abandoning a seven-year marriage without making any effort to solve the problems between them.

  Mitch understood bored socialites like Susannah Faulconer. He knew what they could do to a man, and he pitied Sam Gamble for what lay in store for him. But at the same time, he couldn't stop thinking about the excitement taking place in that Silicon Valley garage.

  Chapter 15

  Susannah was sitting at the assembly table soldering some connections on the board she had just finished stuffing when Mitchell Blaine walked back into her life. It had been nearly a month since he had returned to Boston, and although he and Sam had talked on the phone a number of times, Mitch had shown no signs of changing his mind about joining them. Now, as he gave her a coldly courteous nod, she experienced an uneasy combination of hope and dismay.

  Sam was obviously glad to see him, but he refused to give anything away. His lip curled as he surveyed Mitch's conservative navy-blue suit and maroon tie. "Somebody die? You look like a fuckin' pall bearer."

  "All of us don't have your flair for fashion." Mitch gazed with distaste at Sam's ragged jeans and a faded T-shirt that was stretched nearly to transparency over Sam's chest.

  Sam grinned. "So what are you doing out here?"

  "I had an interview this morning. I thought I'd stop by to invite you and Yank for dinner. There's a French place in Palo Alto, or we could go into the city if you prefer."

  Susannah's grip tightened on her soldering iron and she glanced sharply at Sam to see how he would react to the fact she had been neatly cut from the picture.

  Once again Sam let his eyes rove over Mitch's business suit. "Let's make it Mom and Pop's."

  She waited for him to say more-to mention her-but he didn't. Mitch agreed to Sam's choice of restaurant. They chatted for a while and looked over the latest work Yank had done on the prototype.

  Susannah confronted Sam as soon as Mitch left, but he shrugged off her indignation. "Give him time," he said. "Once he gets to know you, he'll change his mind. You're too sensitive." He reached for her, ready to quiet her protests with kisses, but a new stubbornness took hold of her, and she resisted him. For some unfathomable reason Mitch disliked her, and he was giving no indication that he intended to change his mind. Getting up stiffly from the table, she went into the house so she could collect her thoughts. Sam didn't follow her.

  That evening, she took her clothes into the bathroom and got dressed. She told herself she wouldn't let them dismiss her without a fight, but courage still didn't come easily, and she fumbled with the button at the waistband of her skirt, and then snagged her hair in the inexpensive loose-knit mauve sweater she had bought at Angela's favorite outlet store. Brushing her hair to the nape of her neck, she tied it back with a scarf. Angela came into
the bathroom and fluffed the curls that had formed around her face.

  "Don't let them push you around, Suzie," she said, attuned as always to what was happening around her. "Stick to your guns." She clipped a pair of beaded pink and purple triangles to Susannah's lobes. "I won fifty dollars at the slots when I was wearing these in Vegas last June. They'll bring you luck."

  Susannah smiled and gave her a fierce, impulsive hug. She felt closer to Sam's mother than she had ever felt to her own.

  Yank and Sam were both in the kitchen. Sam looked surprised when she walked in, as if he hadn't expected her to come with them. The sharp corners of the pink and purple triangles banged into the hollows beneath her ears.

  "I don't know why you're making such a big deal of this," he said defensively. "It's just a meeting."

  Instead of replying, she walked out to the car.

  Mitch was already at the restaurant when they arrived. He had traded in his suit for dark brown slacks and a gold sport shirt. A Rolex gleamed in the sandy-brown hairs at his wrist. He stood as she approached, but made no attempt to hide his displeasure at her appearance. The men slid into the booth on each side of him. She took the seat on the end, keeping her back as straight as Grandmother Bennett's yardstick.

  "This is supposed to be a business meeting, Sam," he said, nodding in her direction.

  "That's why I'm here," she replied before Sam could answer.

  The jukebox began to play a Linda Ronstadt hit. "Roberta isn't coming," Yank said abruptly.

  Susannah gave him a sharp glance. Yank was hardly given to idle chatter, so he obviously wanted to make a point, but she had no idea whether he was indicating that she shouldn't be here either or whether he was making a distinction between the two women in her favor.

  He began to draw an abstract figure in the moisture on the beer pitcher-another one of his diagrams. Did he design circuitry even in his sleep? she wondered. For the moment, it was easier to watch Yank's finger than deal with the tension that permeated the booth.