by Bill Scheft
Sheila would figure out what this all meant. And she did. Again. Funny, for the last two months, that had been their afterplay every time they had sex. College Boy sputtering out his confusion over all the good stuff and Sheila kindly telling him how he felt. Sometimes, he couldn’t wait that long to be straightened out. He would cab right from the late shuttle to Serious Fitness, Inc., and help her finish cleaning the gym. He’d yak and she’d nod. Rarely say a word other than, “Well, that blows.” Her mere presence was enough.
They would take the tram into Midtown and try to eat responsibly and always fail. Or go back to Sheila’s apartment and order way too much from one of the three Greek coffee shops on Roosevelt Island that delivered. One night, College Boy leaned over after dessert and tried to kiss her.
“If you touch me,” Sheila said, “I swear to God, I’ll vomit.”
“Hey, I know I’m not the most attractive guy in the world….”
They’d make love and wind up with one of their heads in the other’s lap. And College Boy would finish talking and Sheila would say, “It’s fear, baby doll. It’s all fear.” Once, after Jerry’s funeral, they switched roles and Sheila did all the yakking. College Boy stroked that great red hair and whispered, “It’s fear, sweetie. It’s all fear.” He’d learned well. Now, if he could just get it above a whisper.
He’d always leave Sheila’s place around midnight so they could both handle the morning. There was one time when they ate in Midtown and she stayed over at 301 East Sixty-fifth Street, but even though Mort’s bed now had appropriate linen, it was just too weird. Sheila did what she could to chase the weirdness that night. She kept knocking on the headboard and saying with mock surprise, “I thought you said this was your place.” So, they’d split up around midnight and he’d tram back alone. But the next day, always, College Boy would purposely leave his overnight bag behind so he could fetch it on the way to LaGuardia from the studio and spend five minutes in some fellow tenant’s doorway kissing the cleaning lady goodbye. He never missed the eleven-thirty Delta shuttle back to Logan. Maybe now it would be different, now that 301 East Sixty-fifth was his address.
The one-thirty shuttle took an easy bounce on the runway, a charity hop, and taxied toward the Marine Air Terminal. Sunday, 2:25 P.M. Late June, and all the softball rosters were frozen for the regular season.
Whither College Boy? He’d come back next spring. Play for two, maybe three teams in the morning leagues at Heckscher, after the radio show. For free. The Improv and Columbus on Monday, Roy’s Tuesdays. Wait. The Improv played at 10. So two teams, Columbus and Roy’s. That would be enough. That would be pretty damn good.
The other passengers were taking forever to get off, which was just fine. The shuttle was the last thing he knew, the end of the familiar. His sure hands started to shake, and when he started to get frightened, he told himself it was just Mort helping him off. That worked for about two seconds, then College Boy let himself get as fearful as he was.
What now? Right, Baggage Claim. But where the hell was Baggage Claim?
What now?
He walked out of the jetway and went right past her. The chauffeur’s outfit might have confused him. Or everything else he wasn’t looking for.
“Hey!”
He didn’t stop. She thought about yelling “College Boy!” but didn’t. Instead, she ran after him and lightly tapped his shoulder.
He turned around and his eyes caught the white sign she was holding:
COME HERE, it read.
And then he looked up. Sheila. Chauffeur’s cap now doffed, a torrent of red hair followed. Red. The official hair of great-looking women.
College Boy had no idea what to say, but he had learned. Learned from a master.
“You’re looking awfully well today.”
She laughed. And she knew how to get to Baggage Claim.
Some guys just live right.
Acknowledgments
I don’t know when we’ll be doing this again, so I’m going to try and get everyone in.
This book does not see the light of publishing day without Cara Stein, my friend and television agent at William Morris, who last February walked it across the hall to Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, who read it twice over the following weekend (risking expulsion from the literary agents union) and four months later, sold it in about a day and a half.
David Hirshey of HarperCollins, an old acquaintance from the Dubious Achievement Awards, bought the book (as predicted by New Jersey licensed psychic Carol DeWolfe), and subsequently introduced himself to all my friends as “The Bravest Jew in New York” (not predicted by New Jersey licensed psychic Carol DeWolfe).
The job of editing this manuscript was shared by Hirshey and Jeff Kellogg. Hirshey you’ve met. Let me say this about Jeff Kellogg: Scary good. Made the book infinitely better and left no fingerprints.
Barbara Gaines was the only person who read every word as this book was being written and her infectious joy was equaled only by her impatience to see the next chapter.
Peter Grunwald got me through a couple of tough spots and helped me do “the thinking you don’t like to do.”
Amy Williams read the first 100 pages in September, 1999, a year and a half after I had stopped writing this thing, and told me to start again.
Steve Wulf made me a columnist at ESPN Magazine, 20 years after I had given up such notions.
My five brothers and sisters—Tom, Andrea, Sally, Harriet, and John—who responded with such giggling glee when the book was sold, I had to check to make sure they weren’t from another family.
My parents, Gitty and the original Bill Scheft, who, as the ultimate display of their love, never asked me to explain my decision to major in Latin or any of the quixotic careers that followed.
Herbert Warren Wind, who generously showed me the possibilities of the writer’s life in Manhattan.
And David Letterman, who has made me a billion times funnier than I ever made him.
And the rest, for you and God knows what over the years: Larry Amoros, Dave Anderson, Tom Aronson, Randy Burns, Mike Barrie and Jim Mulholland, Peter Beilin, Jude Brennan, Bill Brink, Peter Brush, Rob Castillo, Larry David, Laurie Diamond, Maureen Dowd, Clyde Edgerton, J. P. Elder, Barbara Feldon, Garrison, Neil Genzlinger, Buzz Gray, Don Harrell, Howard Josepher, Chris Knutsen, Nathan Lane, Hart Leavitt, Harriet Lyons, Dusty Maddox, Bruce McCall, Tim McCarver, Seamus McCotter, Robert McDonald, Gerard Mulligan, John O’Brien, Steve O’Donnell, John O’Leary, Tom Perrotta, Arthur Pincus, Bob Reinhart, Adam Resnick, Stephen Sherrill, Jeff Stilson, Kevin Talty, Jeff Toobin, Ben Walker, J. J. and Marilyn Wall, Lydia Weaver, Rick Wolff, Richard Yates, Margot Zobel, and Eric Zoyd.
Lastly, the book is dedicated to my wife, Adrianne Tolsch, a singular package of beauty, brilliance, and devotion who will forever be my best quality. And if I’m ever lucky enough to do this again, the boys in production won’t have to change the dedication page.
My time is up. You’ve been great. Enjoy Tower of Power.
Bill Scheft
New York City
November, 2001
About the Author
BILL SCHEFT is a columnist for Sports Illustrated and has spent the last eleven years as a monologue writer for David Letterman. The Ringer is his first novel. He lives in New York.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise for The Ringer
“Adroitly fusing what he learned from Philip Roth with what he learned from Don Rickles with what he wrote for David Letterman, Scheft has succeeded where more celebrated cutups have failed. He has written a book that is actually funny…. Scheft keeps the material coming at machine-gun pace. The jokes are plentiful and very high in quality.”
—New York Times Book Review (featured)
“A moving story about love between wounded souls that will linger in the mind far longer than the laughs.”
—Bruce McCall, author of Zany Afternoons and The Last Dre
am-O-Rama
“A winning debut. Scheft blends crackling banter, pithy prose, and empathy for his characters in a punchy Raymond Chandler-meets-Bruce Jay Friedman style…. A sparkling discovery.”
—Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)
“Bill Scheft’s The Ringer is the most interesting book I have read since Dave Eggers’s Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It’s funny, energetic, intelligent, touching, and funny. If you don’t enjoy this book, there is something wrong with you.”
—David Letterman
“Delightful…. Full of likable eccentrics, unlikely situations, and clever comic riffs. The Ringer is a funny, bighearted book.”
—Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Joe College
“Scheft infuses his book with compassion as well as laughs…. A touching story about family, responsibility, and a thirty-five-year-old deciding it might be time to grow up.”
—Boston Globe
“Bill Scheft’s novel produces the kind of explosive laughs that can create an unsanitary condition.”
—Jeffrey Toobin
“Amazing debut. A no-miss read…. A tightly crafted, fast-moving book, frequently funny and thought provoking.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Damn funny, and ultimately moving. Four stars.”
—Maxim
“Funny, insightful, and profound…. I’m outraged.”
—Larry David, cocreator of Seinfeld and creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm
“Several hilarious but touching characters in what looks to be the summer’s funniest novel…. A wonderful and swift-moving piece of fiction.”
—Trenton Times
“Well conceived.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Bill Scheft has written a first novel that is much, much better than it has any right to be for someone already so successful.”
—Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
“The illegitimate child of Elmore Leonard and Christopher Buckley. Witty, satiric dialogue and quirky but believable characters…. Even when [Scheft’s] being serious, he’s still funny. He’s one of the rare authors who captures the way people actually talk.”
—CurledUpwithaGoodBook.com (four and a half stars)
* Recommended Summer Reading, USA Today
* BEST BET, New York magazine
* New York Daily News Book Club
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE RINGER. Copyright © 2002 by Bill Scheft. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2008 ISBN: 9780061882135
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