“Ugga-bugga!” Danny shouted.
“Let’s crack the other one,” I said.
“Just hold your horses,” powers said. “That’s the one for Maureen, eh?”
“Oh yah,” I said. Had I really forgotten?
“Oooooooooeeeeeee!” screamed Danny. “Let’s get at her. I’m hornier than a three-peckered owl.”
Bucky started the Edsel, snapping on the radio at the same time and twisting the volume up —“Pleeeeeez, Mistah Custah…Ah don’t wanna die”— as he spun wildly out of the gravel pit, bouncing off the far banks and fishtailing down the golf-course road like a tangled spinner.
“You better all have safes,” Danny warned. “Maureen’s not exactly the Virgin Mary.”
Father Schula’s face rose out in the headlights, then vanished. Blindness. Spines dissolving. Rotting forever in hell.
“I haven’t,” I said.
“Huh?” Danny said, his mind racing on to Maureen.
“I haven’t got a safe.”
“Aw shit, Bats. Yous guys got an extra?”
“Not me.”
“Nope.”
Danny slammed the dashboard, causing Bucky to look over in a panic. “Well,” Danny said. “We’ll just have to get you one.”
“Where? I said. At the hospital? Emergency?
“Bucky,” Danny said, taking control. “Drop us first at the Shanghai, eh?”
“Sure.”
Powers whooped and slapped his knee and I looked over at him. He was looking down into his lap as if he’d just broken his neck. It seemed to be dangling side to side, in time with the music but not natural. I’d expected him to hold his booze better, but since I doubt he’d had any more practise than I had myself, I couldn’t waste time worrying about him. I had other problems. How did you get a safe at a Chinese restaurant? I knew there was no machine in the washroom. Could you order it? “A Number Three to go, please?”
Bucky moved the Edsel up through town. The street lights, dancing hypnotically as they slid across the hood, were cut off by the roof and flashed again in the rear window. I realized I wasn’t quite right. Woozy, kind of. Further up Main Street the show was just getting out and I stiffened at the thought of running into the Rileys coming home from North to Alaska. Danny, however, was going to give me no chance to worry.
“Here,” he ordered, leaning back over the seat. “Give me your finger.”
“Huh?”
“Your pointer, arsehole. Straight out like this.” Danny held his out like a gun. I followed suit.
“Now keep it still.”
Danny had a dollar bill in his other hand, all crushed and beaten with the air of a collection plate grab, and he first smoothed it out before wrapping the bill carefully around my finger until it fit tight as a Chinese finger trap.
“There,” Danny said, satisfied. “Now put it in your pocket.”
What was this, one of Batcha’s tricks? Got a toothache? Simple, just suck all day on a nail and then hammer it into a maple on the night of the full moon and the ache will disappear. Need a safe? Nothing to it—just wrap a dollar bill around your finger, stick it in your pocket and your pecker’ll suddenly turn to rubber.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, afraid Danny might be making a fool of me. Powers and Bucky were already giggling.
“Just you go in there and show it to Kim on the cash,” Danny said.
“Kim?”
“He’s the Chink with the glasses.”
Danny turned toward the restaurant, leaned forward and rubbed the steam off the window. “There. He’s on now. Get going.”
“Just show it to him?”
“Just show it to him.”
“Hurry up,” Bucky shouted. “Maureen won’t keep.”
I got out of the car and realized that when I put my feet down that I had lost half of my weight. I had to concentrate completely on my walk, but I couldn’t remember precisely how it was I did walk. I stepped too carefully, like I was walking down the tracks back home; then I tried imitating Danny. It didn’t feel quite right, but it worked.
I pushed quickly through the Shanghai door into the blasting heat from the overhead fan, then through the inner doors, and suddenly found myself face-to-face with an older man who looked up from his newspaper and smiled. His teeth were as yellow as a Pomeranian bantam crest.
“Yes sir,” he said. “Can I help you with anything?”
He caught me off guard. I stared at him, not sure what to say. I had my wrapped dollar finger, still stiff, rammed into my jacket pocket and I made as if to remove it.
Kim jumped up and back a bit, his jaw trembling. He thought I had a gun! I had the finger and suddenly realized this might be one of Danny’s sick jokes.
“Don’t worry,” I said, as if to say it wasn’t loaded. Unlike me.
I couldn’t stop the finger and it was out, lying pointing at him along the rubber-tipped change mat. Kim saw it and relaxed. He smiled at me, winked, quickly checked for observers and then peeled the bill in one motion from my finger. He leaned down and picked up a cigar box from well under the till, set it down, opened it, patted in the dollar and closed it. I was absolutely convinced the dollar had come from the collection plate. Perhaps Mrs. Riley’s, destined, she thought, for the “poor orphans” she was always fretting about when her daughters turned their noses up at turnip. How could a well-intentioned dollar become so misguided? Nothing to it when Danny Shannon’s the middle man.
From another cigar box, this one beneath the cigarette display case, Kim took a small package that I first thought were penny matches. But it was an Indian picture, in full headdress, and when he handed it over I realized this was the key to Maureen the Queen. I rammed the safe into my pocket and fled.
“Ugga-bugga!”
That was me, stealing Danny’s cry.
Danny came back with a loon call. Bucky gunned the Edsel and we were off, up past the theatre and the holy rollers, down along past the bay and the train station and the lumber yard, out Main Street until it trickled into darkness and the occasional light of a gas station. Maureen was waiting, as she promised, at the south end truckers’ stop.
We watch from the parking lot as Danny picked her up. They stopped on the way out while Danny paid her bill and also bought three packs of Sweet Caps and a handful of what might have been Double Bubble gum, it was difficult to see through the frosted glass. This, I presumed, was her price.
It was always my belief that Maureen played for the juveniles, not the midgets. She looked older than Danny, coming out on his arm, but it was difficult to say just how old she was through her make-up. She wore her usual clothes: the shiny black slacks tight from the moment they rose up from under her white rubber boots till they rounded an ample butt tucked in under a pink ski jacket with false rabbit’s fur around the hood and wrists. Her jacket puffed out in front with the hind of a marvellous bust, but there was nothing at all subtle about Maureen’s face: she’d done it and it showed. It was a small, possibly quite pretty face cupped by spongy, teased brown hair, the eyes made up as if she’d been punched, the mouth as if she had bled.
Danny opened the door and Maureen bounced in with a flood of lilac, checking around past me instantly to Tom, who’d steadied his head somehow and slapped a lecherous grin onto it.
“Hi, there, Maureen,” he said. His voice seemed to be coming from back in his throat.
“How’s Tommy,” she said, her high voice rolling back like satin sheets. I had trouble catching my breath.
“Nice car,” Maureen said to the driver. Becky beamed and goosed the engine so the Edsel bucked like a horse. When it settled he moved the shift into drive and pulled away slowly, with extreme caution.
So Bucky, too, was worth recognition. But not me. He had his old man’s fancy car. I had a face full of pimples, mercifully hidden in the dark, and a Chinese safe which for all I knew was just a book of matches. I hated her for ignoring me and part of me wanted to punch right through the
seat and into the back of her spine; another part, however, would like to have snaked right through Bucky’s treasured leather, right through the pink ski jacket, the blouse, the brassiere, right until I had her cupped in my hands and screaming for more.
Christ, I wished we were sitting here in our uniforms. Surely she’d notice my “A.” Big Number “7.” Shit, if Willoughby was introducing the starting line-up here in the car Bucky and Danny wouldn’t even have been mentioned, but now here they were, Danny with his arm around Maureen and Bucky driving with his leg pressed right up against those incredible slacks. She snuggled in tight to Danny and when he squeezed, Maureen went off like a puffball, filling the car around her with perfume and making me choke slightly as I accidentally got ahead of my breath.
Maureen stretched, purred. “What’ve you boys got to drink?”
“Gin,” we all said at once.
“Fab — where’ll we go?”
“We already went through one at the gravel pit,” Bucky said. “May as well try her again?”
“Uh uh,” Maureen said, her voice full of experience. “Cops check there this time of night.”
“My parents are home,” Bucky said, needlessly.
“I haven’t got a home,” Danny said. Maureen laughed and snuggled in tighter to him.
“Not my place,” Powers said, reviving his head lolls just long enough to beg out.
“How about you?” Maureen asked, turning her face so she could see me.
I cleared my throat like I was about to give an oratorical. “No,” I said.
“Just lovely,” she said with disgust. “We may as well go right back then. I’m not going to no fucking gravel pit.”
Fucking? A girl had said fucking? I couldn’t believe it. I could feel myself rising, my heart skipping.
“No wait,” Danny said, chewing his lip as he thought. He turned and faced me, smiling, the Irish charm already at work. For what, I hadn’t a clue. Not Riley’s, surely!
“Bats?”
“What?” I said quickly, the tone unwelcome.
“You’ve got that key to the arena still, eh?”
“Hey, yah!” shouted Bucky, and he leaned on the horn for emphasis.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Why not?” Danny said, smiling over the top of the seat. “It’s going on midnight. Won’t be a soul around. C’mon, eh?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Bats,” Powers said, rallying, pleading. “How can we hurt anything?”
“We’ll get caught.”
“Bullshit,” Danny said. “Who’s to catch us?”
“Come on, Bats. It’s perfect.”
“Sugar gave me the key on condition I use it just for getting in early,” I said.
But he’ll never have to know,” Danny groaned.
Maureen turned, fluttered her punched-out eyes and smiled. “Felix,” she pleaded. How’d she know my name? She reached over and poked my Adam’s apple gently, running her nail up along my jaw and off my chin. I nearly went berserk. “For me, okay, Felix?”
For me! I could feel my heart stampeding. I had to straighten my left leg my crotch hurt so badly.
“Well,” I said, reconsidering. “Sure, why not?”
Danny went into his loon call. Bucky hit the accelerator and the horn at the same time. Powers leaned over and slapped at my shoulder but missed, the hand slamming into my pecker like a hammer. I recoiled forward, holding in. Powers never even noticed; he went back to his head-lolling, giggling.
My hands shook so badly at the side door that Danny had to take the keys away from me and do it himself. The door gave immediately and we were inside, safe. No one would notice the car. Bucky had insisted on leaving it up by the high school rather than anywhere even remotely close to the empty arena lot. And as long as we didn’t spring the big lights it was impossible for anyone to know we were inside. But we could still blow it. Danny had the lemon gin in his hand and was dancing with it, whipping himself around the lobby pillars and booting the garbage pails as he passed. Bucky was jumping up and punching at the ceiling, but missing. Even Powers had come alive, bopping along snapping fingers and humming some incomprehensible song. Maureen followed him, pretending it was stripper music, wiggling out of her ski jacket as she laughed and danced along.
Danny went straight for the “home” dressing room. I would have preferred “visitors” in case we busted something, but Danny was going to have nothing but the best. He even insisted on sitting in his own spot, setting the bottle ceremoniously on the equipment box and dramatically opening it and tossing the cap the length of the room basketball-fashion, dropping it perfectly into the far trash bin. Bucky rounded up some Dixie cups somewhere and set five of them out on the box. Danny poured.
“To the team,” Danny announced, picking up the last glass when it was filled. We all grabbed and drank. The lemon gin wasn’t nearly as sweet and nice as the cherry whiskey, but it didn’t bother Maureen; she drained her glass and plunked it back down for seconds, which Danny was eager to oblige. I sipped at mine, convinced it somehow tasted like pine needles, even though I was sure I’d never tasted a pine needle. Thinking of pine needles made me think of the wood shed, Poppa’s wood shed, and suddenly I felt like I might be sick. Whatever it was swept over me it left me slightly shaken, like I was being watched or about to be found out. I looked out the door, thinking Sugar might be there writing notes to himself on his clipboard: Powers … Cryderman … Shannon … Batterinski … all cut. Ha! — cut. Cut both ways, eh? Cut from the team and …
I shook it off. Maureen finished her second and Danny poured a third. She tossed that back and poured a fourth. Score: Maureen 4-Vernon 1.
“To Toilet Bowles!” Danny announced, picking up his second drink and screeching like a loon. “The one-eyed prick.”
“Piss off, Danny,” I said.
Maureen’s eyes snapped at me. They were green behind the black. A nice green. She was measuring, expecting a fight. Not frightened but eager, anxious. But she didn’t know Danny Shannon and Batterinski.
“Just kidding, Bats.”
“Keep it that way.”
Danny turned to Maureen. “Come on, Maureen. Let’s dance.”
There was no music, nothing, but Danny swung Maureen up onto her feet, both of them giggling and hanging on to their cups, and they waltzed perfectly around the equipment box. Danny started humming “Mr. Lonely” and picked up the pace. I could see Maureen pressing it as tight as she could to Danny’s pants, rubbing up and down as he pushed back and forth. My heart very nearly stopped. Danny started kissing her and I saw her tongue go straight into Danny’s mouth and then they weren’t dancing at all, just standing in front of the chalkboard grinding away and French kissing. I looked down into my cup and swirled it. I didn’t know what to do: watch? leave the room? go up behind her and rub from the other side? I looked at Bucky and he was blushing but giggling. Powers was leering, his head rock-steady now.
I looked again at the chalkboard, trying to settle myself. The plays from the last game were still visible through a half-hearted wipe and I could see that I was the circled “X” in the upper corner. Danny Shannon wasn’t even on the board.
Danny started pawing her, pushing against her breasts through her sweater. Maureen giggled, the air passing from her mouth into his, making his pop open like a weak bubble; she pushed his hand away but the other one went immediately to the other breast. She backed off and shot him a look of fire, but not anger. She leaned and whispered something in Danny’s ear and Danny nodded. Hand in hand they left the room, turning toward the ice. We sat, not knowing what to do, and then heard the pass key turning in the referee’s room. Maureen shrieked with delight and the door slammed shut.
The three of us were left with the bottle but no one made a move to refill their glass. “That goddamn Danny,” Powers said, shaking his head in amazement. “I’d give my right arm to be in his pants right now,”
“Go ahead — they’ll be on the floor by no
w.” Bucky said, laughing.
“You know what I mean,” Powers said. “Goddamn it — the lucky bastard.”
Bucky got up and poured fresheners. Powers refused his. His neck had gone back to being boneless. I tried to drink more but it didn’t want to go down. The room was as if it had gone underwater, with currents moving through it. I didn’t feel good but I knew I, too, desperately wanted to trade places with Danny. I knew if it was going to happen, it was going to happen right here, in my element.
If I couldn’t get laid at the arena I might never get laid anywhere.
The referee’s door rattled again, but this time closed quietly, and then came the sound of Danny’s bare feet slapping along the rubber mat. He came into the dressing room with his shirt off and his pants only belted up, the fly wide open. His chest looked like he’d just played a game, all red and welted with slashes and butt ends.
“Powers,” Danny said, tossing my key back. “Maureen wants to see you right away.”
Power’s neck suddenly went hard. He took a quick drink of the cup he’d been avoiding, cleared his throat and stood up. Danny let loose with a loon’s call followed by a hyena laugh. He punched Powers on the shoulder and pushed him out the door, where Powers slipped slightly and then stumbled down the hall toward the ref’s room.
Danny sat down and poured a tall drink. He picked it up, eyeing it as if the cup were somehow a glass. He closed his eyes. “Fan-tastic!”
The Last Season Page 7
