Headlock

by Adam Berlin

  “He’s certainly as big as they said he’d be.”

  “He’s a big man.”

  “Where do you know him from?” Blue said.

  “Around. We’re friends.”

  “There you go. Keep it vague, right? Vague and mysterious. You’re a smart kid.”

  Blue fondled his boot.

  “It’s good to have friends,” Blue said. “I had one good friend once. We were in the minor leagues together and every time we played an away game we would go out afterward, pick up women and paint the town. Both of us were outfielders. Then he got moved up to Triple A and we sort of lost touch.”

  “I guess you weren’t such good friends.”

  “You’ve got something there, kid. All we had in common was baseball. He ended up hurting his knee. He wasn’t good enough at the plate to be a designated hitter so that was it for him too. He was a great fielder though. He would chase balls down that seemed untouchable and he always looked like he thought he’d make the catch. That’s how you have to chase balls down, right? He was so close to getting the big call and now all he probably has is a bunch of trophies in his office to remind him of the days when he could have made it to the majors. The great American pastime gave me a good ass fucking too. It took three years out of my life.”

  “Sports will do that to you.”

  “There you go. Did you play ball?”

  “Play ball? No. Team sports weren’t for me.”

  “Why is that? I hear some pop psychology philosophy in your voice.”

  “When you have people to rely on it’s not the same level of competition.”

  “That would depend on the situation.”

  “If you’re not alone, the responsibility isn’t all yours. It’s just like blaming your old man for your lot in life.”

  “I don’t blame him. I do what I do.”

  “You’re all grown up then,” I said.

  Blue’s eyes were clear behind the blue lenses. He leaned back, put his hands behind his neck and I recognized how his arms automatically flexed and relaxed. He wasn’t putting on a show for me. He’d been physical all his life. Not like the guys who puffed their chests when they walked down the street, flexed their muscles so long that when it came time to really use them they were tight. Those were the easiest to spot and the easiest to finish.

  “I like team sports,” Blue said. “Thanks to baseball I learned to swing a bat. I could hit a ball a country mile. I was a hitter, which is a very individual part of the sport. It’s just you and the pitcher, right? Teamwork and individuality all rolled into one, which is why it’s the great American pastime. The selfish good working toward the common good. The fathers of the Constitution would have loved the game of baseball with all of its American implications. Wide-open spaces in the outfield. It-ain’t-over-till-it’s-over opportunities. Endless possibilities. It’s what our country was built on, right?”

  “It’s what the casinos were built on.”

  “There you go. All of gambling is built on that premise. It keeps the suckers coming back for more. Like baseball. It’s possible to score a million runs before you get that last out. It’s not probable, but it’s possible, right? There’s no time limit on a baseball game. An inning can last forever if the third out is never made. You have to be a real idiot to think that way, but it is possible.”

  “Until you come along.”

  “Right. I don’t come along until the possibilities are pretty much over.”

  “Pretty much. Not completely.”

  “Pretty much completely.”

  Blue smiled.

  “I like that,” he said. “Pretty much completely. I’m good.”

  “Why don’t you give Gary some time? He’s been winning. He’s been making back the money.”

  “Why are you so interested in Gary?”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “So you said, but that goes against all of your ideas about individual sports. It’s Gary against the people I work for. Now it’s Gary against me so why are you interfering? He’s a big boy, right? He’s a very big boy. I never saw a man eat twenty-three fish sticks in a row. I was counting. Twenty-three fish sticks on top of two giant sandwiches and now he’s loading up on dessert. I’m about ready to vomit just watching him. Look at that.”

  Gary had created one of his giant sundaes and was carrying it across the room.

  “Maybe you have a weak stomach,” I said.

  “My stomach is fine. How’s that bump on your head?”

  “It’s a bump.”

  “Did somebody kick your ass?”

  “Let’s talk about Gary. Let him make back the money.”

  “He had his chance.”

  “Give him some time.”

  “You’re not telling me something. Why do you care about him so much?”

  “I like him. He’s a good guy.”

  “Now there’s where your point about team sports starts to unravel. You like him. You’re connected by like. You’re a team. Does that make you weak?”

  “It really bothers you that baseball is for pussies.”

  “It bothers me that you’re such a confused kid. I bet you’re a college grad.”

  Gary put the sundae on the table and sat down.

  “Did you go to college?” Blue asked Gary.

  “Where do you think I learned to eat like this?”

  “I dropped out of college to play ball,” Blue said. “My sophomoric sophomore year. Still, a few things did sink in. Psychology. Philosophy. Do you know what a syllogism is?”

  “It’s a proof,” Gary said. “If, but, therefore.”

  “There you go.”

  Blue turned to me.

  “With what you’ve given me, kid, I can prove that team sports are as hard as individual sports.”

  Gary looked up from his sundae.

  “It can’t be done,” Gary said.

  “Hear me out.”

  “Baseballs are round,” Gary said, knocking out the syllogism like he was writing it on the blackboard. “But horse shit is also round. Therefore baseball players suck.”

  I laughed extra loud for Blue’s sake. Blue’s eyes were slits behind his sunglasses.

  “Have a sense of humor,” Gary said.

  “I’ve got a sense of humor,” Blue said. “That wasn’t a syllogism. Hear me out.”

  “Are you sure you can do this on your own?” I said. “Maybe you need your teammates around.”

  Blue took his boot off the table and leaned forward.

  “A roommate is not a teammate,” Blue said. “Gary Rose’s roommate is scared of blowtorches. Therefore, I have found Gary Rose.”

  Blue’s laugh wasn’t convincing. Gary went back to spooning ice cream. I shifted my weight in the chair.

  “Now your friend here, he’s a better friend,” Blue said, smiling at Gary and then at me, his eyes more than a little off behind the blue sunglasses. “He’s worried about you so he wants to make a deal. He’s trying to keep you from suffering for the consequences of your actions by proposing a solution to your problem which involves time and money and needing more time for money which is always the dilemma and which bores the fuck out of me. So in a way you are stronger as individuals by sticking up for the team just like I was when I played ball, right? Like the army says, You’re only as strong as your weakest man. Which one of you is weaker?”

  “Maybe you’re the weakest,” I said.

  Blue kept smiling.

  “Very funny kid. You’re a regular comedian.”

  Blue leaned forward some more.

  “Which one?” Blue said. “Is it the fat fuck or the fucking kid?”

  I was out of the chair before Blue could move. I put a half nelson on him, pushed his head into the table. He struggled and I felt his strength and I shifted my feet and held his head down. I felt the weight on me. Four hundred pounds and more. I tried to hold my balance while I pressed Blue’s head but Gary’s weight was too much and I struggled against it, the panic start
ing to come in, the weight of losing completely touching my shoulders, my shoulders sinking from the weight, all of the weight, and I heard Gary’s voice in my ear saying Wait, wait, wait. I pushed Blue’s head into the table and Gary said Wait and I eased my hands off Blue. Blue sat up. He adjusted his blue glasses that were unbroken, still on.

  “Gary Rose,” Blue said. “A weasel like all the others. You don’t think I know why you stopped the kid? You’re afraid for yourself. If I get hurt, someone will really make you pay. And kid, you pull a stunt like that again, I’ll split your fucking head open like a soggy baseball.”

  Gary was holding me around. I breathed to stay calm. I had to worry about Gary and not just me.

  “Let us play a little longer,” Gary said.

  “Us? Did you say us?”

  “Let me play a little longer.”

  “How much longer? Time and money. Money and time.”

  We were back to poker. Gary had to show his hand first.

  “Give me until Sunday,” Gary said.

  “Sunday day? Sunday night? I have to be back on Sunday. It’s Christmas Eve on Sunday and even I take off for that.”

  Gary knew how the count fluctuated and then evened out. He knew how blackjack flowed. We’d been big winners the first night. Medium winners the next day. The winnings had mostly slowed. He knew how long he might need.

  “By the end of Saturday night,” Gary said.

  “That means I have to catch the redeye out of here. With the time difference it won’t be the merriest Christmas.”

  “No one knows you found me yet. I’ll pay you two hundred a day for the four days. Make it an even thousand.”

  “That won’t cover a good-looking hooker to tuck me in at night.”

  “Two thousand.”

  “How much do you have in your pocket?”

  “What I have in my pocket doesn’t concern you.”

  Blue turned to me.

  “See that, kid? I’m trying to be friendly and look what I get. You better remember that, kid. It’s tough to change a man’s nature. There’s a syllogism in there somewhere, but fuck this logic shit, right? Are you going to make a serious offer or not? I’m a professional and a professional upholds his reputation.”

  I watched Gary spoon the melted ice cream into his mouth and swallow. Gary needed both knees. He needed as much support as he could get. He also needed money. I was starting to feel a little nervous for my cousin.

  “I’ll give you three thousand,” Gary said.

  “Four thousand.”

  Gary dipped his finger into the plate, came up with a drop of brown liquid, all the flavors melted together. He put his finger into his mouth, swallowed.

  “You’re in the driver’s seat. Four thousand.”

  “Sold to the big man,” Blue said, his fist coming down on the table like a gavel, his voice an auctioneer’s.

  Gary took the money from his left pocket, counted out forty crisp hundred-dollar bills, handed them to Blue. Blue took the money and filled his wallet. It was a brown snakeskin wallet a shade darker than his boots.

  “Wait,” Blue said.

  He handed the money back to Gary.

  “Put it in my hand like we’re shaking hands and you’re my fat uncle or something giving me a Christmas present. That shit always made me laugh.”

  Gary took a moment to fold the bills in his small palm. He leaned over the table, put one hand on Blue’s shoulder, put his other hand into Blue’s hand, became the uncle, looking at Blue like he was the kid, like he looked at me when I was a kid. If a casting director had observed closely he would have seen more than a four-hundred-pound man. Gary lowered his voice.

  “Here you go, son. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  Blue slapped his hand down on the table, doubled over laughing, the plastic bottle of spring water falling to the floor.

  “I love it. I love it. Didn’t that just kill you when you were a kid? It’s probably real fresh in the kid’s memory. They’d give you fifty cents or a buck and tell you not to spend it all in one place, right? I love it.”

  Gary smiled.

  “I’ll book that Sunday redeye back to the city,” Blue said.

  Blue’s dimple disappeared. He leaned over the table and looked straight at Gary. I shifted my weight.

  “I’ll meet you in your room at a minute past midnight on Sunday and I won’t even charge you for that minute. I don’t care if you win or not, but if you don’t win I’m going to make you pay in a big way so that my friends, so that my connections, so that the men who pay my wages are happy, so that you’ll know better for next time, so that you’ll have more motivation to come up with the money this time and next time and the time after that if you live that long.”

  Like a method actor I kept my mouth shut because the whole scene called for that. It was like a fucking movie only it wasn’t.

  “See you on Sunday,” Gary said.

  Blue leaned in a little more, his eyes still on Gary’s eyes. He lowered his voice, not like an uncle to a kid.

  “He’ll pay too. He’s in on it now.”

  “He has nothing to do with this.”

  “Do you want your money back?”

  Gary didn’t say anything.

  “Do you?”

  “No,” Gary said and he kept his eyes down.

  Blue looked at me.

  “I didn’t think so,” he said.

  I breathed. Blue sat back.

  “Four grand for four days,” Blue said. “An all-expenses-paid Las Vegas vacation. Maybe we can have dinner one night. I’d love to see the damage that the famous Gary Rose does to the night time buffet.”

  Blue put a ten on the table for the waiter and walked out. His muscular arms looked more pumped than they had been. He’d been angry for a moment. It was in his blood too. I could picture him swinging the bat, driving balls over the left field fence in some minor league stadium, shattering kneecaps with textbook perfection right down the middle, a perfect fracture, a straight line.

  20

  I REMEMBERED MY DAD’S explanation to my brother about opportunity cost. He said it was like buying a candy bar that turned out to be lousy. It was better to throw it away than to eat it since the money had already been spent and there was no point in suffering. It was just another way of saying cut your losses.

  Outside it was Thursday. Inside Gary had started losing some of his big bets, pulling low cards when the count said high cards should come out. I thought that when it was over, when we finally left the tables of Las Vegas, I would try to talk to Gary. I would use a food analogy to make him see. You have a Bally’s buffet. It’s the most delicious buffet you’ve ever seen. Juicy prime rib. Golden turkey breasts. Creamy mashed potatoes. Ice cream sundaes with as many sweet maraschinos as you want, pretty please. It’s there. It’s yours. There is only one problem, a single dilemma built in. If you start to eat, then you have to finish the entire buffet. If you don’t finish the buffet, you will never be able to eat again and you will starve to death like your parrot that said Eat me and died not eating. But if you steer clear of the buffet, if you never touch it, you will live a long life full of sensible meals. A salad, a main dish, a scoop of ice cream. You’ll never be able to eat more than that, you’ll never be able to eat until you’re completely content. You will be able to enjoy your meal and the meal will get you to the next meal but you will never be full, totally and gluttonously satisfied. What would you do? I had the food analogy in my head, rehearsed and ready to deliver and redeliver until Gary understood that to eat three square meals a day was a real possibility. Of course Gary would probably turn it around and tell me to curb my behavior too. I didn’t know what I’d say to that.

  In all the gambling books, Gary said, there was a discussion of that moment of clarity when the cards came up right. In wrestling there were clear moments too. Seeing the free hand, the unbalanced leg, the lapse in concentration in an opponent’s eyes, the fear when I started to lift the opponent, the
fear when I lifted the chair and brought it down on Evan Kessler’s head. That had been the clearest moment of all. It was clear every time I replayed it. I wanted other clear moments. I wanted to sit down with my father and just talk. I wanted moments like that so that the other moments became memories like the childhood story of me clenching my hands and holding my breath. It was so long ago that it was me but not me. But it was still me.

  Gary got up from the table and walked slowly past the Bally’s registration desk to the shop that sold postcards, film, pens, cigarettes, candy. He bought three Snickers bars and two PayDays. The cashier wished Gary good luck.

  “I’m still over eighty grand in the hole,” Gary said and ripped open the first Snickers. “Eighty fucking grand. I’m ready to sit down at the roulette table, put all my winnings on red, let it ride twice and pray.”

  He crumpled the wrapper in a ball.

  “You can’t fuck up the count.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “You can’t miss any cards. You have to count perfectly. We have to play perfectly.”

  “I’m keeping the count.”

  Gary bit into his second Snickers, a line of chewy caramel dangling off the bitten portion, pulled to a point.

  “I slept like shit last night,” Gary said. “It’s too hot in the room.”

  He kept the air-conditioning all the way up and each night I pulled the sheet, blanket, and comforter tight around me.

  Gary opened the PayDay and walked over to the registration desk, cut in front of a Japanese couple waiting to check in. He started complaining about the air-conditioning. He wanted to know if there was a problem with the vents on the twenty-fourth floor and if there was he wanted another room. Gary said he wasn’t some penny-ante bum in for a losing night, he expected some good accommodations, he’d been sitting at the tables all day and night for the past four days and what the fuck was up with the air conditioner. The woman behind the desk called up maintenance to check on the air-conditioning. She shook her head a couple of times for Gary’s benefit. She hung up the phone and told Gary that no one had reported any problems. Gary said he was reporting a problem and walked away.