Slot Machine

by Chris Lynch

  “Okay,” he said, and turned back to face Frank.

  “The only thing that pisses me off,” I snapped, grabbing Mikie by the arm, “is that I fell for it. Like a jerk. I can’t believe I fell into that bullshit slotting trap. Slots! Shithead,” I said, and smacked myself in the forehead.

  “El,” Frank said, grabbing my hand before I hurt myself somethin’ awful just like Coach Wolfe predicted. “You come with me tomorrow. I’ll get you in Golf Sector.”

  “Are you joking?” Mikie laughed.

  “I have to go where they send me,” I said. “And I’m sure they won’t be sending me to the country club. Besides, it doesn’t matter. There is no difference. Every slot is exactly the same as every other slot. That’s what I learned.”

  He shook his head smartly. “Oh no they’re not. The rest of them might all be the same, but not mine.”

  “Okay, fine, not yours,” I said, taking a perfect round white potato off of Mikie’s plate and popping it whole into my mouth without even asking. “But still, it’s the last place they’re going to send me.”

  “Consider yourself sent,” Frank said, “I’m reassigning you.”

  “You have that kind of power?” Mikie asked, suspicious.

  “Now you’re catching on,” Frank said. “It’s not all for nothing, getting in with the right group.”

  “Don’t do it, El,” Mikie said. “They’re just going to turn you into a counselor toady, like...” He jerked a silent thumb in Frank’s direction.

  Frank wasn’t the easiest guy to offend; you really had to work at it. But this bothered him, that Mikie didn’t seem to grasp just what status Frank had attained. It was a very important point with him.

  “You refuse to give me any credit at all,” Frank steamed. “You want to know what it’s about? I’ll tell you. I’m chosen, all right? You see who these guys are, the big ones like Obie? You might not like them, but they’re the top of the hill around here. And now, when they move on, guess who the next top of the hill is? That’s right, your old buddy Frank.”

  Frankie paused in his speech, waiting for some new appreciation from Mike. It was too slow coming.

  “Come on, Mikie. I’m being groomed, they tell me. Of all these guys here, I’m picked to carry on the tradition. There is a big tradition at this school, and tradition means everything. This is how it happened with Obie and those guys before, and with the guys who came along before that. This means something. I’m going to be a real somebody in this picture. And you guys are going to be there with me if you want. It’s going to be the coolest time...”

  “Maybe he knows what he’s talking about, Mike,” I said, even though I doubted it. But the whole scene was getting to me. “Maybe Franko’s going to turn out to be a genius, and you’re going to just be one more slot monkey.”

  Frankie got up and went to meet his buddies, like he did every night now. But he looked a little less beat than he had the last few nights. “Tomorrow,” he said, pointing at me and winking.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  Mike stared at me.

  “What?” I said. “It might be fun. You know, Mike, maybe Frank’s right. You don’t have to be so stiff all the time.”

  He didn’t respond at all. So I finished my dinners. Then I finished his. “I have to go,” I said, taking all three trays to the dumper. “I have to go finish something.”

  I left him there and went back to the Cluster. When I got there, it was empty except for Thor, who was waiting on my bed.

  “Elvin, remember what Brother Jackson said about ‘If you don’t have a slot, then what are we going to do with you?’ Well he’s the kind of guy who picks his words carefully, y’know? It wasn’t an idle question—it was more like a warning.”

  “Why are you here, Thor?” I asked.

  “I’m here because I like you, and I want to help you get along.”

  “And because you’ve been spoken to? About me?”

  “Don’t be paranoid. We get spoken to about everybody, in one way or another. Evaluations are just a part of the program. The thing is, you want to get along, Elvin. You don’t have to love everything about the school—I don’t love it all myself. But I learned. I learned how to play. You don’t have to love the slotting thing, but trust me, you don’t want to be alone either. When Jackson says, ‘You’ll never get anywhere in this world without your slot,’ what he means is ‘You’ll never get anywhere in this world.’” As he said it, Thor pointed with both index fingers at the floor under us—meaning where we’re at now.

  I walked past him, picked up my wrestling book, and tucked it under my arm.

  “Thanks,” I said, I wasn’t sure for what. I’d figure it out later, but for now it felt like he was doing something nice for me, and I should appreciate it.

  “Make yourself some friends. Some other guys like yourself,” Thor said, laughing a friendly laugh at the ridiculousness of that last part. “I’ve seen it every way here. Seen some guys work it right, seen other guys do not such a good job of it. You don’t want to just not fit when you get to this school, Elvin. Believe me, you don’t want that.”

  “Okay, Thor,” I said as I walked out the door. I said it like a wiseguy because that was the way to handle it. But I took him seriously all the same. “I’m going right now. I’m gonna hit the trail and round me up some friends.” I started calling out to the surrounding hills, “Yo! Yoooo-hooooo. Friends? Where are you, friends? Come on now, you can’t hide from me forever.”

  When I got to the library, I didn’t flip on the lights once I was inside. I just found my way to the stack where I knew the Rummy book belonged. I thought I was just going to slip it back into place. But I didn’t. First I ripped off the front cover. Then the back. Then I tore out the intro page with the stupid “Every boy yearns for a good tussle” sermon. Then I ripped the book in half at the spine, threw the halves on the floor, picked them up again, tore out one page, two, three, four, five, six. Threw them up in the air.

  I couldn’t let it go.

  I tore out more pages. Crumpled them. Picked them back up, picked up the covers. Cracked the covers over my knee. Slapped it all together in one big trash sandwich, and jammed it back in the stack.

  I figured it wouldn’t be missed. You’d have to be a loser to come looking for that book anyway.

  Then I went quietly to the librarian’s raised desk in the middle of the main room. I sat down, clicked on the single brass desk lamp, found a pen and paper, and wrote.

  Mom,

  So what about this home schooling thing? Ever hear of it? What do you know about it? Why wasn’t I informed before? Am I too old? Is it too late for me? Please investigate.

  But that’s the future. As for right now, I’m nowhere. I closed out my wrestling career—you saw me at my zenith, I must say—by cascading down the weight classes in search of a lighten weaker opponent. By the merciful end I was losing to guys who weighed less than my bathing suit does when it’s wet. It was really stupid, the whole wrestling thing, and you know what? I don’t even miss it. I don’t feel a thing. I am embarrassed, but not because they ran me out of wrestling, but because I was in. I was so stupid for a week. I told you this camp was no good for me. I was a lot of things before I came here. I was a lot of grotesque things. But I was never stupid. You must admit that, Ma, that I was never stupid. So see? See what happened to me here?

  But I’m better now. To answer your question, no, I’m not upset and I’m not bothered, and I don’t miss it.

  And I don’t miss home. I don’t miss watching TV movies with you, and eating supper off my lap. And I don’t miss walking six blocks to the convenience store together every night after supper because we pretended to forget some small and stupid thing when we did the big weekly shopping. I don’t miss that long slow walk to Henry’s, past the American Legion baseball game under the lights to get a box of brown sugar or Kleenex or Comet and then get a blue slush at Larry’s next door for the walk
back home. I mean, what kind of way is that to spend a hot July night anyway?

  And I don’t miss my friends, who are here, but it isn’t the same as being home in beautiful boring July with them, doing more nothing than ever which is when we are best together. It isn’t the same with them, because... I’m not sure why. But something is happening here and it is very frightening to me the way taping the windows before a hurricane is frightening to me, whether we ever get hit with the storm or not.

  But I don’t miss it.

  And I don’t miss you at all, Ma. I know I said that two paragraphs ago but sometimes, like during all the nights here when the black and quiet come in under the door for nobody but me, I feel like I don’t say that as much as I should say it.

  But I am not lonely as I free-fall down through the slots here, to a bottom that goes I don’t know where because I am afraid to look down.

  Got a net handy, Ma?

  I am not lonely because I have these questions to keep me company. They stay with me the whole time, to make sure I’m never alone. Is there a slot for me? What do I do? Where do I go? Is there a place for me? Will anyone be there when I get there?

  So you see I’m not lonely. I’m not lonely, and I don’t miss anyone. Did it work, then? Am I who we wanted me to be when we sent me here? Am I flying, like the baby bird rolled out of the nest? Or am I free-falling? Is there a difference?

  Oh, wait a minute, I just remembered. I’m a golfer.

  Never mind.

  Elvin “Links” Bishop

  Chapter 10: Golf and god.

  I WOKE UP THE next morning and went bleary-eyed through my routine. Moaned and groaned. Stretched until something like non-Gumby human motion was possible. Lumbered out to do my run.

  I slowed down. The naked eye probably could not tell, but I slowed down. Then I stopped, which was obvious. I didn’t have to run. I was no longer a football player or a baseball player or a wrestler. I was, once again, a mere sloth. In fact I was beneath sloth—I was a golfer. I went back inside and slept another hour in my running clothes.

  “Coming?” Frank asked, kicking my bed as he rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. His voice was hoarse, his hair standing way up and all over like cotton candy.

  “Ya, I’m coming,” I said. “It’s not like I’m here sorting through invitations, wondering which party to go to.”

  I sat up slowly and looked all around at the empty bunks and the last of the guys heading off to their Sectors. I’d outslept everybody, even Frankie. Breakfast was over already. “Will there be snacks?” I asked.

  “I’ll wait for you outside,” he grogged. “I have to get outside. They’ll have stuff; just don’t talk about food to me now.”

  “Oh, what to wear, what to wear,” I said into my sliver of a locker as Frank coughed and hacked and possibly upchucked in the background.

  I laughed. First a little, then a lot. Frank heaved louder and I laughed harder. Not at him. I wasn’t happy that he was hurting. It was just that, with that soundtrack playing for me as I clothes shopped, I realized how ridiculous this all was. Golf. Golfing with Obie. Dressing for golfing with Obie.

  Frankie had been quiet for a while, until I came out the door. Bent over a rock, he looked at me, then started heaving all over again.

  “What?” I asked, looking over my own ensemble. “Too much?”

  I had on some of my “good” clothes that I had packed in case—I don’t know, in case there was a dance or something, I guess. Pale yellow, wide-band polyester fat-man Sansabelt semi-dressy shorts that came down to just above the knee. White sandals, tan socks. And a screaming orange lifeguard T-shirt that I could not resist borrowing off of Thor’s bed even though it was too tight and fit my belly like shrink-wrap. And his evergreen Green Bay Packers football hat that was really a baseball hat.

  “You cannot come,” Frank grunted through heaves. “This is the thanks I get for trying to hel—Uuuuuuggghhgh. Bluaaaaaaahhhhhggggghhhh.”

  “It’s the orange and the tan together, then, huh? Is that the problem?”

  “El,” he said, wiping his mouth on the hem of his T-shirt, “if you don’t go get that costume off, I’m going to throw up all over it.”

  I shook my head and folded my arms. “Nope. Sorry. I’m a golfer and this is what golfers look like. You invited me, so let’s get moving.”

  He didn’t make a sound, hardly even breathed. He just sat there in a heap on the ground staring at me, then began rubbing his eyes again. He was helpless to do anything about me.

  “Help me up,” he begged, sticking out his hand. When he was on his feet, he looked me over once more. “Fine. But you’re on your own. Whatever they do to you, you asked for it.”

  “Can’t be any worse than what they did to you,” I said, walking ahead of him.

  “I just had a lot of fun, that’s all.”

  “Well then, I just hope whatever they do to me, it isn’t any fun.”

  “Look,” somebody yelled as soon as we made our appearance over the hill. “Franko brought his own caddy. It’s a chimp.”

  “Jesus,” Obie said, smacking me on the chest. “You look like somethin’ I puked up this mornin’.”

  They all YUK-YUK-YUK laughed.

  “Oh no,” I interrupted, “not if it was the same stuff Frankie puked up this morning. See, I’m yellow and orange, and Frank’s puke was mostly brown and red.”

  They all thought that was even funnier than my outfit. Except Frankie, who turned on me. “Don’t do it to me, Elvin.” He grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me close to him, put his eyeballs almost up against my eyeballs, so his rancid breath mingled with my breath. “Not this morning,” he said. “And not in front of these people. It’ll be too much.” He let go of my shirt when I shut completely up and lost the wiseguy part of my smile.

  “Yo, Franko,” Obie said, clapping him on the back. “Bet you could use one of these, after last night.” He pulled a dripping cold yellow can of beer out of his golf bag. It was not yet nine-thirty A.M.

  Obie held it right under Frankie’s nose. I could see his eyes water. Which made my eyes water. His lips tightened. He produced instant sweat, on his lip, his brow, down along his sideburn areas. His skin turned the canary color of my shorts as Obie leered, continued to hold the beer there, and breathed his own probably wonderful breath in Frankie’s face. He was holding on like a tiger, but Frankie wasn’t going to make it through this, not another ten seconds.

  “Give me that,” I said, snatching the beer right out of Obie’s hand. At first he looked like he was going to clock me, even took a step toward me as his buddies oooohhhed at him to do it. But quick as I could, I ripped the top of the beer open, tipped it up, and started chugging.

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa,” they started chanting, for me. Just like in frat-party movies. I watched Obie out of the corner of my eye, to make sure this was working. It was. He was watching me as if I were coming up on the rail at the Kentucky Derby with all his money on my nose.

  Glug-glug-glug... slam. I did it. Spiked the can in the dirt, and let rip with a burp that could have brought black bears down out of the hills to mate with me.

  They loved me. Frank loved me best, though.

  “Glad you came,” he whispered, touching me lightly on the back. He looked better already. He was renewed.

  “Get two more of those bad boys over here, will you?” he roared. “Jeez, we’re thirsty guys, you know. Right, El? What, do they think they’re playing with kids here?”

  The beers arrived before I even had a chance to gag. With them came a slap on the back and a bag of golf clubs to schlep. Blindly I toddled after the pack, shaky and afraid.

  “Now you’re going the right way, El,” Frank said.

  “Am I?” I asked, looking all over the place desperately, without any idea what the right way was.

  “Drink up, boys,” Obie commanded from the front of the pack. “And get those clubs up here, goddammit.”

  “Drink up,” F
rank said, clapping his can against mine.

  “Jesus, Frank,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “What time do you want it to be?” he asked, talking and laughing and drinking all at once so that the beer ran out of both corners of his mouth.

  They wouldn’t let me golf until I finished that beer. So I remained a caddy through the first and second and third holes. Then on the fourth tee I finished the beer and didn’t want to golf anymore. I just wanted to sit down on the grass.

  “Come on, Elvin,” Frankie said, tugging me up by the shirt. “You can’t sit there—you have to carry the bags.”

  By now we were both lugging around two whole sets of clubs belonging to the O’s.

  “No way,” I said. “I’m sitting.”

  “You can’t sit.”

  “Fine,” I said, and lay down.

  Frank rushed away from me, so as not to be tainted by the connection. I got up on my elbows and watched as he put the bags down and teed up. Whack.

  I couldn’t believe it. He was great. It sounded like the snap of a thick healthy tree branch breaking when he hit that ball. It sailed straight and long, thirty yards past the next-best drive. Golf. It was about the only thing Frank and his dad did together all the time.

  “Nice shot, Franko,” Obie said, punching Frank on the shoulder. “Now get those bags, will ya?”

  The O’s all loped along toward the fifth hole, unburdened by their own clubs. Unburdened by anything else, either.

  “Come on, Elvin, get it going,” Frankie said.

  “This sucks worse than Football Sector.”

  “It does not,” he said. “And it’ll get a lot more fun later on, trust me. But for now, do your job. Privilege has to be earned, you know.”

  “No it doesn’t, stupid. That’s why they call it a privilege, because you don’t do shit to get it. You just, you know, get it.”

  Frank was getting frustrated with me. “El, if they reach the next tee without their clubs... Come on. Please?” he asked anxiously as the O’s left us behind.