The Ringer

by Bill Scheft

  Before Papa J laid on hands, College Boy had entrusted his rhomboids to a Fifth Avenue chiropractor, the type of guy who went into skeletal manipulation after he realized there was too much integrity selling aluminum siding. For $240, he cracked College Boy like one of those old commercials for Bonamo Turkish Taffy, then told him to walk for ten minutes, twice a day, on a hard floor, wearing one boot. For two weeks, or until he had another $240. On Day Ten, he woke Rachel at 1 A.M. when he clop-clopped outside in the hall. When he came back in, she was just finishing buttoning her blouse and preparing to silently storm out.

  “I forgot to do this a second time,” he said.

  Nothing.

  “Are you leaving?”

  She grabbed her bag.

  “Are you not talking to me?”

  Rachel wheeled and gave the doorknob a pre-slam grip. “I don’t talk to stupid people.” Slam.

  On Day Twelve, Julio showed him the lunge. Shit. For $240, he could have scored an ounce and a half of pot.

  The ice felt good on the ferry. He lay back on the bag, and his restricted movement prevented him from doing a crossword or flipping through the News or Post. So, he just stared at tomorrow’s entries for Belmont. Hardly a sacrifice.

  That was the other item usually tucked in Bagzilla’s lock-zippered side pocket. OTB tickets. Unripped OTB tickets. Unripped until eleven that night, when he would call the Off Track Betting hotline and find out if he had won the ninth race triple. College Boy knew just enough about handicapping horse races to know he didn’t have a fucking clue. But he knew just enough about chance and probability (an elective junior year which he tamed for an A-minus) to develop a low-risk, high-yield investment system which could potentially net him thousands of tax-free dollars a year. And who better, who better to take the gambling out of gambling than a thirty-five-year-old man leaning on an ice bag on his way to Staten Island whose idea of planning for the future was deciding whether to set his VCR to tape the Yankees or Mets before he left his apartment?

  College Boy didn’t even like horses. But he liked numbers. Loved them. He could update his batting average before the ball dropped into the outfield. But he did not like all numbers. Only numbers that made sense. And because only he, College Boy, knew which numbers those were, well, you have an idea how much sense this would make to the rest of the world. Which was fine with College Boy. He had a deal with the rest of the world. He didn’t have to explain which numbers made sense, and the rest of the world didn’t have to explain the popularity of soccer, ABBA, or The Road Less Traveled.

  But College Boy would tell anyone his system if they asked. And if they didn’t ask why. It was very simple. He only bet during softball season. He only bet on the ninth race at Belmont. He only bet the trifecta, a wager in which you had to correctly pick the first three horses. He only bet one-dollar boxes, which meant the three horses he picked could finish in any order. He only spent a maximum of thirty-six dollars per day (thirty-six, good number), which bought six one-dollar box tickets. And, here now is The System: he only picked combinations of horses whose numbers added up. 1-2-3. 2-3-1. 3-2-1. Need more? Okay, here are all the possible combinations (based on a nine-horse field):

  1-3-4 (1-4-3, 3-1-4, 3-4-1, 4-1-3, 4-3-1); 1-4-5; 1-5-6; 1-6-7; 1-7-8; 1-8-9; 2-3-5; 2-4-6; 2-5-7; 2-6-8; 2-7-9; 3-4-7; 3-5-8; 3-6-9; 4-5-9.

  Simple. To College Boy, numbers that added up made sense. It meant the universe had an order. And if that order perhaps translated into a $586.20 payout, well then, on that day, the universe had shown its spiritual, nurturing side as well.

  College Boy spent $216 a week trying to restore order to the universe via the ninth at Belmont. He had been doing this for the last five years. When he started bagging two hundred dollars a game from Morgan Stanley, his teammates chirped in with all kinds of unsolicited investment advice. He was so grateful to be making the extra dough, he messed around with some shit he still didn’t understand. He might even have made 8 percent on his money. But it was Wall Street. Their universe. And 8 percent was a number that made no sense to College Boy. Meanwhile, he spent that year transcribing every winning trifecta at Belmont, Aqueduct, and Saratoga. In 1985, at Belmont Race Track, the numbers in the triple added up 38 percent of the time. The payoffs ranged from $26.20 to $6,656.40.

  Of course, six tickets didn’t cover all the combinations. You had to have the right numbers when they came in. Just like any other schmuck. That’s when the chance part came into play. That’s why in the last five years, College Boy and The System had grossed total winnings of…$313. And that’s only because he had hit for $4,180 five years ago. And only because an OTB clerk had punched him a ticket for 1-2-4, rather than 1-3-4.

  College Boy looked again at the results of Monday’s ninth. 8-5-6. $748.40. There were no tickets in Bagzilla’s lock-zippered side pocket today. Belmont was dark Tuesdays. The universe was closed.

  Twenty minutes with the ice was enough. Any more and he’d just be feeling sorry for himself. College Boy spent the last few minutes on the ferry with his white baseball pants around his ankles, rubbing Sportscreme into his hamstring. If you had to work your wheels with analgesic, better to do it in the privacy of public transportation. Not at the ballpark. Sure, you could stretch. Go nuts, stretch your brains out. But don’t let them see you taking a pregame palmful of Advil, like some over-the-counter Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty. Don’t let them hear the peppermill grind of a waiting ice bag. Don’t let them smell Tiger Balm. Don’t fuck with their image of you, The Ringer. They’re entitled to it. They’ve paid for it.

  And not just their image of The Ringer. Your image, too. College Boy bought the ringer ideal as his thirteen teams bought and paid for the ringer reality. The difference was he never let go. He knew it was over once the game ended, so why leave? Where else can a guy succeed six and three-quarters out of ten times, as College Boy did, and be twice as good as everyone else?

  Okay, fuck the numbers for a second. To be good, really good, at the one thing you do. To do nothing else. To not—not!—be a fraud. Who wouldn’t want that?

  And so he rang, romping in Heckscher and three other boroughs, and felt the collective exhale of all just by his showing up. College Boy’s here! Just show up, put a team on his back and let the game come to him. Then get your money. Don’t give anything away. Then go show up at the next place. Don’t stay too long. And don’t let them see you hurt. The ringer philosophy of life. Apply everywhere and laugh all the way to the AFTRA bank every Friday.

  College Boy wasn’t the first guy to get paid for playing softball. Just the first to market himself so relentlessly. Every year, the players that jousted with him in four of the five boroughs became younger, stronger, even faster. Their tools undeniably more plentiful. But none of them got more money. None.

  The white thing helped. College Boy was, for the first and only time in his life, a minority. And he took advantage of it like that guy who forced the Bakke Amendment. The ringer market was overstocked with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Their sheer numbers drove their per game price down. And that Latin thing, that love for the game, that “I’ll play for nothing all day” shit. A smart, cheap manager could really tap into that. The truly great young Latin players only lasted a year, two tops. Too frustrating. Too embarrassing. Softball? Didn’t matter how fast the pitch came in. Clemente never played fucking softball. They might try to come back years later, but by then there was a job, a family, a drug habit, or a belly they couldn’t get out from under. Maybe they’d play once a week. They couldn’t guarantee. College Boy guaranteed.

  After thirteen years of helping some slob festoon his bar, restaurant, gas station, auto showroom, or office lobby with the kind of phallic tributes only available in championship trophy size, College Boy had become a trophy himself. Lord of The Ringers. Part icon, part good luck charm, all wheels. If you were tired of your team going 8–6 and losing in the first round of the playoffs, tired of eating shit from the guys at O’Hurley’s or Al’s Sunoco St
ation or Goldman Sachs, tired of carrying around your ordinary, tribute-less penis, you gave College Boy a call. He guaranteed you the big hardware in three years. And he always made good on his guarantee.

  Of course, some fellas didn’t want to want to wait three years. That’s when College Boy set up a budget and made a few calls. Papa J at first. Ant’ny at short. Hector out of detox and on the mound. A couple of hungry twenty-dollar-a-game Spanish kids. And maybe two or three guys who actually worked at the bar, the restaurant, the gas station, or the office. By the time the trophy showed up, the total ringer tab came to $4,000. College Boy would deliver it personally and the guy, the slob, would immediately raise it above his head. (“Look what I bought, Mommy!”/“Very nice, dear.”)

  With his benefactor’s hands in the air, College Boy swooped in for his second payoff. That’s when he’d convince the guy to shell out another two grand for jackets. You know, those stylish nylon wind-breakers (“Ale ‘n’ Hearty, Yorkville Softball, Div. II Champs, 1984”) that inspired the line from every woman over eighteen: “You’re not going out wearing that, are you?” College Boy had his pitch down and away: “I’ve got a friend at Gerry Cosby’s. He’ll do forty jackets for two thousand dollars. You give fifteen to the guys on the team, sell the rest here at the bar (restaurant, gas station, office) for eighty dollars. You’ll make your money back and have free advertising. Every guy I’ve done this for says it helped business. And most of them end up ordering more. Have I steered you wrong yet? Just make the check out to Gerry Cosby, C-O-S…”

  And it did come to $2,000: $1,000 for the jackets, $400 for College Boy’s friend to write up the appropriate sales slip (whose bottom line was always some bargainy figure like $1,983.67), $600 for College Boy’s standard shipping and handling charges. The extra money would pay his rent in December, around the time College Boy would stuff that fiscal year’s windbreaker into the closest winter coat collection barrel.

  The guarantees he made were restricted to Manhattan. In Queens, Brooklyn, or Staten Island he just showed up and played ball. Just a mercenary with no wife and a sixty-pound bag to support. Everyone in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island already had a trophy. Everyone out there knew how much a windbreaker really cost.

  The Staten Island Ferry squeezed into the dock. Shit. He forgot to buy bananas. College Boy’s extra stretching session at Heckscher had forced him to rush to the ferry and pass by the fruit stand at Fifty-seventh and Eighth. He couldn’t take six Advil on an empty stomach, and all they sold in Stapleton Town Park after six was beer and pot. College Boy lived on bananas during his softball day. Gatorade in solid form. Bagzilla’s produce section was empty. He could gut it out and let his wheels operate ibuprofen-free. Or Plan B. Six Advil, plus twelve Tums. It had kind of worked once two years ago. Oh no, it hadn’t. Too late.

  The bus dropped him off at Stapleton Town Park at 7:10. College Boy, first guy on the field. Again. The local kids, with two scuffed-up hardballs, one bat, and almost enough gloves, ran around in daylight’s last licks. They still had twenty minutes before the big guys showed up and chased them off. College Boy had fifty minutes till game time. Perfect. Forty-five to stretch, four minutes, fifty seconds to take some balls at third, the last ten seconds to find a piece of food, something to cushion Plan B.

  The stretching went well. He only muttered “Good Christ” three times. The bonus time in Heckscher less than two hours ago had helped, and the yapping of his rhomboid took his mind off the hamstring. Around twenty-of, the bulk of the T. J.’s Tavern team showed up, carrying the bulk of T. J.’s Tavern under their arms. The guys from T. J.’s never brought enough beer to get drunk, just enough to blow a two-run lead in the bottom of the seventh.

  It was College Boy and Papa J’s job to get the lead to at least three by the seventh. Where was Papa J anyway? The guy was amazing. He was at least ten years older than College Boy, yet his entire regimen of stretching consisted of bending over his bag looking for rolling papers. Papa J was one of the two great things about playing for T. J.’s Tavern. The other was the uniform.

  Of the thirteen jerseys in Bagzilla, T. J.’s Tavern was the only one which stayed folded all week. White/white, button front, Michigan navy blue piping around the collar and sleeves. Navy blue double-stitched tackle-twill Old English style “T. J.’s” over the left breast, just like the Tigers home uniforms. Navy-blue double-stitched tackle-twill 8-inch high number on back. 2.

  Number 2. The pay scale varied, the wheels went different places, the rhomboids dropped in unannounced, Bagzilla cleared space for new apparel and sundries. But the number on every jersey was always the same. 2. Fifty dollars a game. Number 2 on the back of the shirt. That was the minimum price for College Boy. There was no discussion. Sometimes, a manager would say, “But Joey’s been wearing 2 for years.” And College Boy would smile. “Well, if Joey doesn’t want to give it up, he shouldn’t.” He’d smile again. “But I’m really silly about this.” And then he’d start to walk away and continue until there was an arm around him. Joey. The jersey would still be sweaty. “Good luck number?” Joey would ask.

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I never had any fucking luck with it. I hit .218 last year. Here.”

  Something like that. His first year as a ringer, 1979, College Boy made sixty dollars a week. He should have made ninety, but he dropped out of a league on Ninety-sixth Street after one game. He went 0-for-4. He wore number 12. There was no 2. That guy, Billy, had moved, and taken his jersey. Nobody had a new number for him. Or College Boy.

  So, it had to be 2.

  2.

  Just another number that made sense.

  “Come and git your love. Come and git your lo-ove…”

  College Boy did not have to turn around. Which helped because he was in mid-lunge.

  “Papa J.”

  He stopped singing. “What time is it, amigo?”

  “Ten of.”

  “Shit. What the fuck is Papa J gonna do?”

  “You could stretch,” said College Boy.

  “Shit…”

  “You could take some batting practice.”

  “Don’t need no BP.”

  “I think I saw a couple of girls behind the bleachers. You could work on your rap.”

  “Don’t need no work.”

  “Well, that leaves blowing me.”

  “I think I’ll stretch.”

  Papa J leaned over his bag, looking for rolling papers. “Come and git your love. Come and git your lo-ove…” He pulled out something wrapped in foil that thudded like ethnic food.

  “What’s that?” College Boy asked.

  “Cuban sandwich.”

  “Let me have the top piece of bread.”

  “I’ll let you have a bite.”

  “I don’t want a bite. I need a piece of bread.”

  “How am I gonna eat this, bro?”

  “Like a pizza.”

  “Can’t do it, Freddy.” Freddy was not College Boy’s name. Freddy was what Papa J called everybody when he wasn’t calling them bro or amigo.

  “I’ll give you a buck for the bread.”

  “Five.”

  Plan B—the Advil/Tums quinella—was about to seriously start not working.

  “A buck and a Valium.”

  “Qué color, amigo?”

  “Yellow.”

  “No agua?”

  “Blow me.”

  “Okay, a buck, a yellow, and you blow me.”

  “Deal.”

  “All right,” said Papa J, sealing the transaction with a slow, soul shake. “And we ready for Freddy.”

  The Staten Island game was kind to College Boy’s wheels. Seven innings at third base, which was like a vacation anyway, and very little work on the basepaths. He saw to that. College Boy came up four times and finished 1-for-2. He walked in the top of the first and trotted in five pitches later on Papa J’s long home run. (Papa J sang “Come and Git Your Love” as soon as the ball took off.) His deep sacrifice fl
y in the third scored T.J.’s sixth run and a well-planned line drive to third in the fifth was caught before he could take a step. When College Boy walked back to the bench, he could swear his right hamstring was thanking him.

  In the top of the seventh, T. J.’s Tavern led, 8–3, and two guys got on with two outs. Shit, he had to bat again. College Boy figured he’d aim another line drive third base-way and act like this load pitching for Red’s, Jimmy, or Timmy, had his number. But the guy tried to get cute with a change-up, and College Boy waited the half-second longer it took before teaching Jimmy or Timmy a lesson. The ball hit the gap in right-center like a rock on a frozen pond. An easy home run. A triple if you had no wheels. Yet when the throw finally came back in, College Boy, at never more than a lope, was on second.

  That’s when Morales, playing left field for the other guys, started.

  “Hey, what’s College Boy doing on second? You okay, College Boy? You on second. What happened? Were you carrying that fucking bag of yours on your back?”

  Without turning, he knew it was Morales. He’d heard that bogus Pacino “Scarface” accent for five years, in six different leagues. Morales was a ringer. And ringers could give shit to other ringers. Maybe that was all he was going to say. Maybe he’d shut up.

  “Hey, College Boy.” No. “Something wrong with your legs? They gonna have to take you out back and shoot you.”

  College Boy rarely responded. Almost as rarely as he slowed up at second on an easy home run. “Morales,” he said, “you start for this team?” Ringer shit. Like that.

  “Hey, fu—” and then Morales had to chase down a fly ball for the third out.

  College Boy waited for Morales to run in, and they put their arms around each other, as ringers do, as they walked off the field. No hard feelings. Just trying to make a supplemental living. See you tomorrow night in Bayside. See you Saturday for the doubleheader at Heckscher. See you Sunday for two more at Riis Park.