by David Park
In the assembly area at the back of Facilities Management, most of the crew are filtering into place. They all wear the same green overalls but they cluster in teams according to profession. So under the newly planted palms stand the carpenters, plumbers and electricians, united by their belief that they are the skilled elite, while close to the fencing bunch the mechanics and the irrigation specialists. To their right are grouped the custodians, painters and a little way beyond them his fellow groundskeepers. As he passes the waste technicians, one of them slaps him gently on the back.
‘Ready for a hiding today, Danny Boy?’
‘Dream on, Eamon,’ he answers. ‘Only in your dreams, boyo.’
‘We’re up for it,’ Eamon says, looking round his colleagues for confirmation. ‘Aren’t we, boys?’
‘It’s in the bag, Danny,’ one answers. ‘You boys should throw in the towel now, save yourselves the embarrassment.’
‘Talk on, boys,’ he says, smiling, and heads towards his waiting group who open their circle to receive him. He gives a collective nod and they greet him in their familiar and individual ways.
‘They try to psyche you out, man,’ Raul says. Shows they must be worried – that’s all.’
‘If we can’t beat those bozos, we don’t deserve to be a team,’ Lester offers. ‘Last time I saw Eamon play he could just about carry his beer belly round the court.’
Everybody chips in with an opinion, everybody except Edward, the team’s best player. Younger than the rest of them, a college dropout and one of the few African-Americans in the workforce, he stands, as always, slightly apart and self-contained. At first Danny had assumed the stance was prompted by arrogance but after a while had come to realise that Edward’s shyness was the cause.
‘So what you think, Edward?” he asks.
‘Ain’t no stopping us, man,’ Edward answers, then looks away as if he’s said more than he meant to.
Josh Thornton, the Facilities Manager, arrives as always flanked by the assistant administrator who hands him the daily copy of the duty roster. “OK, you guys, listen up!’ he calls in his bullhorn of a voice and at the command the disparate groups coalesce and filter towards him. Then he reads out the duty schedules for the day, makes some announcements about charity events that need volunteers and, with his usual go-get-them admonition, dismisses everyone to their assigned tasks.
The first few hours of his morning are spent with Raul and Edward, trawling the picnic areas round the lakeside for litter, pruning back shrubbery that’s beginning to encroach on the walkways and removing the detritus that’s been washed up against rhe mesh of the chain-link fence surrounding the sports area. Even though he’s thirty-five years of age, this is the first real job he’s ever had and although sometimes it aches his body, he likes it and likes how it makes him feel.
Mid-morning they filter back to the administration building and he buys a coffee from the canteen, takes it outside and stands in the shade of a tree while he smokes his second cigarette. During this he likes to be on his own, undistracted from the pleasure by the rattle of conversation. Above him the stretching tree smells fresh and green, impervious to the thin stream of smoke he angles upwards. In the strengthening press of light the leaves tremble, as they are limed and waxed by the sun. The day is warming now, but there is a slight breeze that blunts the edge of its sharpness. He watches two girls cycle past, listens to their laughing voices. Suddenly he feels as if he lives in a big place, that there’s room inside his head to construct whatever it is he wants to be his future. It gives him a feeling of lightness as he squints up at the shifting canopy where dappled rays try to flicker through the shade. The leaves are polished and sweetened by the sunlight and he thinks again of Ramona’s skin and of her scent in the moments between sleep and wakening. To have her love seems a richer blessing than he could have thought possible and out of gratitude he takes a final drag of the unfinished cigarette and stubs it out in the dirt with his foot.
After break he’s asked to help Jolie Peters in the rose garden which has been constructed under the windows of the President’s office. There’s not much thinking to do, except what his exacting senior instructs as she frets over the roses, moving delicately through them with her secateurs and sprays. He watches her tilt their heavy, blown faces to the severe scrutiny of her gaze, like a mother inspecting the health of her child, and for a second it makes him think of his own mother but there’s little nostalgia or meaning in the memory. Sometimes she sends him to the store for another spray or a particular feed. He tries to talk to her, to show his admiration for her skill, tells her that the roses look great.
She lifts her head and glances at him. ‘You don’t know anything about roses, Danny – that’s for sure. If you did you’d know these little bitches are in deep shit.’
‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘Don’t worry about it. You got any children, Danny?’
For a second he thinks of telling her about the baby. It’s on the very tip of his tongue but at last he swallows the words, frightened that to release them too early might bring it bad luck, so he shakes his head and leans against the hoe which he has been shown how to move delicately round the beds.
‘Well these here roses are like a sickly child and if you ever have a sickly child you’ll know what I mean. The wind blows a bit too hard, they get a cold. Get their heads splashed, they catch pneumonia.’
He watches her liver-spotted hands cup the black-stippled and blistered head of a rose, then push away a brittle strand of grey hair which has fallen across her face.
‘Never had a sickly child gave me as much grief as these. Mildew, spot – you name it, they get it. If I had my way, I’d dig them all out. Spiteful children, too, never let you touch them except they prick you with a thorn.’
‘Why don’t you get rid of them then? Save yourself all this grief.’
‘They’re her favourite,’ she says, pointing with the secateurs to the President’s window. ‘Likes nothing better, apparently, than looking out over her roses. Well, let her come and tend them. Then she’d change her tune.’
‘Way to go,’ he says, uncertain whether it’s all right to smile.
Later when he’s finished helping and is walking away, she calls to him, ‘Danny, never have a child who gives you grief.’ He raises his hoe in acknowledgement and a farewell salute but as he walks away there is a confused and splintered story trying to form in his head of spinning wheels and thumb pricks, of slights and enduring sleeps, of tall towers choked by thickets, and he has to whistle it clear.
At lunchtime he heads over to the Field House where in the changing rooms, the team are already kitting out and joking with each other. Each Friday they get the use of the main court for an hour. The previous year they had to play on one of the outside ones and so are grateful to be spared the midday sun. There is much high-fiving and back slaps – sometimes he thinks the rituals are as important as the game itself. It’s as if these help cocoon themselves from the ineptitude of their play. So there’s much stretching of muscles and binding of knees and old weaknesses with tape. Raul does his usual quota of ten press-ups followed by the windmilling-arms routine that threatens to decapitate any colleague who stumbles too close, while Cedric uses the mirror to position his headband in precisely the right place on his bald and shining pate. Kenny sips from a lime-coloured sports drink and at intervals puffs out his cheeks. Only Edward sits still and quiet. Someone passes him the ball and he sets it on his thigh for a few seconds before rolling it slowly up and down, using the palm of his hand.
Lester, who is probably the weakest player of them all, gives the team talk, calling them to huddle round. No one jokes any more or fidgets and they link arms and lean into the circle’s centre, listening to the words that are delivered in the sombre tone of a homily.
‘Mark your man close, stay with him – if he goes off court for a piss stay with him. Let the son of a bitch feel your hot breath on the back of his neck. Be in his face all th
e time. But, Raul, no fouls, no free throws. Keep it cool, man! And watch out for Eamon O’Sullivan – the bastard’s all elbows and wind. Keep it cool, play our game and we can’t lose. Danny, let the ball do the work,’ he says as both his hands imitate a rapid flow of passes but for a second look like a car’s windscreen wipers. ‘And keep giving the ball to Edward – ain’t that right, son?’ Edward nods his head and half smiles. ‘In the basket, Edward, every time. In the damn bread bin.’
When they go on court the waste technicians are already there doing a little passing drill. There’s a sprinkling of spectators – a few loner students seeking a cool place to sit unobserved and a couple of the college basketball team who train on court next. He always hates to see them there, in his imagination can already hear their laughter and the barely suppressed guffaws at their fumbling mistakes, their ironic cheers when someone scores. And then his eye catches Ramona sitting near the halfway line, her lunch bag on her lap. He goes over to her right away and she tells him she cannot stay the whole game.
‘Just long enough to see me make a fool of myself,’ he says. She doesn’t answer but looks over his shoulder. He wants to please her. ‘I’m going to speak to Father Mulryne Saturday morning. I said I’d give him an hour of help with the kids’ soccer practice. After it I’ll speak to him.’
‘Good luck,’ she answers and he doesn’t know if she’s referring to the game or his proposed talk with the priest.
The game plays out to its own soundtrack. There is an underscore of grunts and broken breathing, of names called in sharp-edged insistent voices, and over this is scored the constant stammering bounce of the ball and the heavy slap and sudden high-pitched squeak of shoes. Only occasionally is there the soft trill of the ball cleanly kissing the net. As expected there is, too, the laughter of the waiting college players and their ragged bursts of exaggerated applause at moments of accidental skill. Only Edward is immune to their scorn, as he moves about the court, a thin, languid ghost of a player, evading the clattering bodies of the opposition as if he’s spectral, formed only by particles of reflex and instinctive skill.
Conscious of the presence of Ramona, he tries at first to raise his own game, adding a flourish, a decorative elegance, to his movements, but he knows he can’t sustain it and so reverts to what he’s been told to do and gives the ball as early and as often as possible to Edward. There is a beauty in his play – it’s clear that he could have been a college player and in this game he gradually drifts into his own element, moving to his own music, forgetting for a while that he’s slumming it and allowing himself to free-flow, giving himself to the memory of other games in other places. The technicians have no answer but after the first time-out, their play hardens and when Edward receives the ball in a corner he’s banged so hard in the hack by O’Sullivan that he almost hits the first row of seats. O’Sullivan holds up his hands in a simulation of an apology belied by the grin on his face. The college players hoot their decision and he gives them the finger.
‘He fell over!’ he shouts to no one in particular. ‘You only have to look at him and he falls over.’
‘Take it easy, man!’ shout voices from about the court. Others help Edward to his feet. When open play resumes he calls for the ball, takes it deliberately close to O’Sullavan, dips a shoulder, feints and then darts past him in a seamless flow of spped. O’Sullivan stumbles wrong-footed in his slipstream and reddens before kneeling down as if to tie his lace.
Now the game cuts up rough, rougher than he’s ever seen it and with an edge that’s new and ugly. Tempers and elbows are raised, every ball is grappled and bumped for and the game collapes into a staccto stopping and starting, a cacophony of disputed calls and fouls. When Edward stretches to receive a short pass in centre court, O’Sullivan clatters him to the floor, then stands over him shouting at him to get up. At first he lies there, not moving or responding, before jumping up and pushing the ball hard into O’Sullivan’s stomach, causing him to jack-knife in a winded gasp, and then there’s shoving and pushing with players running in from all sides and no one sure if the insurgents are coming to pacify or participate. As O’Sullivan struggles for breath he tries to force his way through to Edward but Danny manages to push himself between the two men.
‘For God’s sake, Eamon, it’s only a game! Let the kid be.’
‘Out of the way, Danny, before you get hurt.’
‘No one’s getting hurt. Cool it for God’s sake!’
‘He’s a showboating son of a bitch! Let’s see just how much of a man he is!’ he shouts and he tries to push him aside to reach his quarry. Without thinking Danny slaps O’Sullivan hard on the cheek and, in the seconds it slows him down, restraining arms from his own team mates are pulling him away and the referee’s whistle is a continuous shrill blast abandoning the game. Suddenly he remembers Ramona and as he looks desperately to the seats he sees her leaving. He calls to her but either she doesn’t hear or has chosen to ignore him, hurrying towards the exit without looking back. Now it’s O’Sullivan’s voice again.
‘Never side against your own. You remember that.’
‘What the hell you talking about, Eamon? Edward is my own – in case you hadn’t noticed we play on the same team. Have you been watching Gangs of New York or friggin’ something? Get real.’ His anger wants to say more but he’s thinking of Ramona and so he hurries off to the changing room, with every step remembering her words about a man who never raised his hand, who knew how to treat her properly, and he smarts at the memory of what he’s done. Should he go to her now to try to explain? But gradually the thought of trying to talk in the restrictive confines of the library, of trying to say important things in whispers, makes him hesitate before telling himself that it would best be postponed until the evening.
In the changing room the team are claiming a victory, talking it up, making it sound like a battle that’s been won, reprising key moments through the distorting lens of their fired-up imaginations. They greet him like a hero, milling round, arms flapping and then hands building a pyramid of high-fives to the fanfare of their hollers. He looks past them to where Edward is changing quickly and slipping into the showers before anyone else. Afterwards he comes across him in the corridor where he is getting a Coke from the machine. As he searches his own pockets for money, Edward drinks slowly from the bottle then uses it to point at him.
‘I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me,’ he says softly. ‘I do it for myself.’
Before he can think of a reply Edwrard has slung his bag over his shoulder and walked off. When he puts his coins in the machine it swallows them but gives nothing in return and in his frustration he thumps the side with his fist.
‘You still fighting, Danny Boy?’ Cedric asks as he joins him in the corridor.
‘It took my money and gave me nothing back.’
‘Must be a woman,’ Cedric says before he retrieves the coins by pressing a button. ‘Let me try.’ There is the soft thunk of the bottle dropping and Cedric smiles as he hands it to him, then pats him on the back.
But it is a cigarette he wants. A cigarette more than anything. If he’s to have one now, however, it will break his designated schedule so he slugs the Coke instead and tries to tell himself that it’s enough.
The afternoon drags out in a sequence of tedious jobs which leaves him frustrated and impatient to see Ramona. He tries to practise and perfect what he wants to say but the words jumble in his head and he decides that it might be best to read the situation before he fixes on an approach. He works with Raul and Edward but there’s no reference to what was said in the corridor and he’s too preoccupied with his own concerns to build bridges and in truth a little angry that the guy is so contemptuous of his efforts to help, an intervention that has brought him only grief. The heat is high now and everything is framed by a light that seems to pulse against his temples.
When he gets home the temperature has dropped a little and Ramona is already sitting on the stoop with her shoes kick
ed off and sipping a cup of iced tea. As he walks towards her, her face is shaded, her expression unclear and he feels as if he’s stumbling blindly into the force field of her uncertain mood.
‘Hi,’ she says neutrally as he reaches the bottom of the steps.
‘Hi,’ he replies as he stares at her face for an answer and then into the awkward stretch of silence, even before he has time to compose them, the words blurt out, Tm sorry, Ramona, really sorry. It just got a bit heated.’
‘I saw that," she says, running her hand through the black sweep of her hair.
‘It was just boys’ stuff. Heat of the moment.’ He stumbles into silence and stands watching her sip her tea.
‘Boys’ stuff? It looked to me like you slapped him pretty hard.’
He stands at the bottom of the steps like a little boy and doesn’t knowr what to say.
‘Get your shower,’ she tells him, ‘the food’s almost ready.’