The Sacrifice Game

by Brian D'Amato

  “7 Ocelots, 4—”

  But before he’d finished he was cut off by the sound of oiled skin chalkboard-screeching on the clay-packed surface and then a bone-snap as Emerald Immanent’s yoke collided with 5-5’s upper body. Then, before I could see anything, both teams had bunched into a scrum over the two of them and the drivers were already pulling them apart. Emerald Immanent had made it look like a mistake, but of course he’d charged at 5-5 and checked him the instant 5-5 was out of the red zone.

  Everyone pulled apart. 5-5 was sort of sliding along the red bank, leaving a dark stringy bileish trail. The percussionists had mimicked the sound of fighting and now they were using maracas and notched sticks like bear calls to imitate the sound of blood spraying out of an artery and splattering on the ground.

  The hell of it was that touching an opposing player wasn’t a foul unless it was a definite attack. And naturally the umpires didn’t call this one. The offending player was supposed to go through all kinds of apologies or be ready to fight. Emerald Immanent was already running through his mea culpa in a sarcastic tone. 5-5 was trying to say something, too, but when he realized you couldn’t understand what he was saying through his mouthful of bloody mush, he started signing that he wanted to stay in the ball game. Hun Xoc was walking him off the court at this point but 5-5 was resisting and just to humor him Teentsy Bear told Hun Xoc to let his brother go and back away. 5-5 took one half-step and then fell forward on his face, rolling over on his yoke like a canoe on pavement, with his lower right leg bent bassackward. On the other side of the court the Ocelots laughed and imitated the fall.

  “7 Ocelots, 4 Harpies,” the cantor said again.

  The untouchables swept up with their round handleless brooms and sprinkled oil and pigment onto the surfaces. Two of our invisibles carried 5-5 off, back through our end zone to the offering table. His leg swung in a circular motion, like his knee was a ball-and-socket joint. Shit, I thought. He didn’t look good.

  Teentsy Bear calmed everyone down and sent in Red Cord as our new zonekeeper. The fifth serve came down fast and our side wasn’t quite together. The Ocelots got an easy goal.

  “8 Ocelots, 4 Harpies.”

  They changed balls for the next serve and each team had a little time to retreat behind the end zone and huddle. One of our ball surgeons came up and told us 5-5 was dying and 2 Jeweled Skull had given word that he was going to be considered the first sacrifice of the ball game.

  We all looked at each other. Nobody broke their hard-ass face.

  Damn.

  Another misconception about the Mesoamerican hipball game is that the losing team got sacrificed. Or at least that wasn’t usual. What actually happened was that different offerings followed the match on each side. In general the losing side would see its defeat as a sign that their gods weren’t happy with them and they needed more gifts to the gods, so they’d sacrifice some people to them. The winning side might sacrifice a few of the people to their gods, just to say thank-you. Sometimes it was opposing players, if they’d been playing for each other’s lives, but otherwise the offerings were just thralls or whatever human stakes had been put on the table. But sometimes the losing team would be so mad they’d end up killing the winning team, especially if the losers were more powerful. Whatever happened, only the gods always came out on top.

  I said something—I forget what—to Hun Xoc. You weren’t supposed to be able to see anything in his face but I knew him so well I thought I could see a lot. And it wasn’t just anger, it wasn’t all boiled down to violence like I think I talked about a long time ago. There was anger there, but there was this big aquifer under it of just plain surprised sadness there, that childlike disappointment that the world was such a ghastly place.

  The team was passing around a wide, shallow basin with a faecaloid pile of cigar stubs smoldering in the center. I rubbed my thumbs in the ashes.

  “Great One Harpy,

  Now protect us,

  Guard our goal zone,

  Please, Great Harpy,”

  I whispered, and marked four ascending dextral streaks over each of my nipples—which were dyed blue, and just barely exposed over the mass of my ball yoke and hip padding—to signify that my presumably debilitating grief over 5-5 had already burned out and I was ready to be an instrument of his revenge.

  “Chun!”

  ( 35 )

  At the first bounce of the next serve, Emerald Immanent got the tip back to Emerald Howler. Howler dribbled once and passed it back to Emerald Immanent. He shot. A miss. 5-5’s replacement set the ball up for Hun Xoc, who took a long shot. Miss. “P’uchik bok, pak, bok, bok BOK.” The ball was getting back into its counterclockwise orbit. Emerald Immanent shot and missed high. There was a “Baat” back to the Harpies, a good one this time. Red Beak shot but missed. Emerald Snapper picked up the ball and passed to Emerald Immanent but Hun Xoc was there to intercept the pass and knocked it back over the line toward our end zone. He undershot but Red Cord dove forward on one knee and just before the ball hit the red floor he made a spectacular save, the Willie Mays catch of the day, sending the ball high up to Red Beak. He set up for a shot but Emerald Howler was there and checked him and quicker than you could see everyone had mashed into a ball again, and the drivers were separating them, but then somehow Emerald Snapper was still dribbling and Emerald Immanent was out of the scrum, got the ball, and hit the peg.

  “Nine goals, Ocelots

  And four goals, Harpies.”

  Was that legal? I wondered. I flipped through Chacal’s memories but I couldn’t find another situation when the drivers were on the court and someone scored anyway. This is fucked up, I repeated, fucked up, fucked up. Hun Xoc and Red Beak got loose from the scrum and staggered back to their markers. Red Beak didn’t look like he had too many serves left in him. I deserted my waiting-marker in the little bullpen-marker and stepped in front of Teentsy Bear, collaring him in the middle of his signaling to Hun Xoc.

  I’ve got to get in there, I said.

  He snapped at me. “Wait,” he said. “We’re going to put everything into the next two balls and then I’ll move you forward if I have to.” He went back into the scrum.

  It’s true, I thought, I was way out of line. And Teentsy Bear didn’t have the awe of me a lot of people had. It was like the way Phil Jackson used to handle Dennis Rodman. I got another loneliness wave in spite of myself. The ball societies created this intense sort of sports-academy family/rival relationship. The moment you felt you were being excluded from the group you just wanted to hang yourself. Calm way down, I thought, that’s not you, it’s not a real feeling, it’s a relic from Chacal.

  Serve 7. The ball went around sixteen times. Neither team was letting the other strikers get off good shot. Finally the ball caught the underside of our goal peg, “T’un!”

  And then, there was a piff of powdered pigment.

  “Wakal t’un!”

  “Eight goals Ocelots,

  Six goals, Harpies.”

  No effing way, I thought. That ball did not touch that bowl. Cheat, cheat. Strings attached. Wiggly peg. Pea shooter. Something. Hun Xoc and a bunch of the other Harpies were looking up at the umpires, too, and a few bloods in the stands were shouting at them, but the umpires didn’t do anything. Fuckers.

  Nobody called for a check. Bogus. Shame.

  Waves of grumbles were spreading through the Harpies’ stands but so far no one was going to challenge the umpires.

  At this rate we could be toast in two more serves.

  Emerald Immanent got the eighth tip. Red Beak rushed at him on his unsteady legs. Emerald Immanent shot over Red Beak’s head. BOK. Red Beak couldn’t get his arm up in time. He just jumped and blocked the shot with his face. There was just this blchufff sound. Something happened that looked like what used to happen in this machine that used to grind up eaten-out coconuts outside the company store on that finca in Livingston. It was like a big dirty blender, and my dad would throw the sucker into the gadget’s e
el mouth and one instant it was this solid round thing and the next it was just this gooey pulverulence and strings of yellow pulp. Hun Xoc didn’t break his game, though, he scooped up the loose ball, dribbled once, and took a close, easy shot, turning the Ocelots’ goal vase into a cloud of emerald shardlets.

  “Harpy great-goal, 13 Ocelots, 8 Harpies.”

  The Harpies weren’t sure whether to cheer or clap—that is, clap their hands against their chests to express their disapproval. We were ahead but we’d lost two players and used up our bench. The Ocelots still had their substitutes intact. Goons. Personally, I guess I should have been more upset about Red Beak but I was so pumped up that I was going to get in the ball game.

  They carried Red Beak off the court. Cash in his chips, I thought. He’s as dead as the novel. Yes, we have no more forwards today. I stared pleadingly at Teentsy Bear’s hands. He looked back at me. I felt eight different hormones blasting into my medulla and a huge erection popping against its tortoiseshell cup.

  Come on. Come on. The untouchables hoisted up a fresh ball. Come on—

  Teentsy Bear’s hand coughed and then signed Go.

  Yes!

  Before I could walk forward Armadillo Shit put a wad of chili-flavored chewing gum into my mouth. It was more liquid than the twentieth-century-and-later kind, and it was laced with cocaine that had been traded over unimaginable vast distances from the far south, from a whole other world. Kind of a combination tooth protector and combat pill.

  “Hit me,” I said. Armadillo Shit slapped my right cheek. I slapped him back with the back of palm of my left hand and stepped out into the court. You could smell how pumped the crowd was. My feet found the warm-friend welcome of my marker through the latex soles.

  The ball knot unraveled. My body automatically shifted its weight from side to side, my toes hooking over the edge of the marker, my yoke twisting left and right around my upper waist like a heavy tire, settling into the groove of the supersensitive and super-sturdy Motown bump-swings that were every ballplayer’s dominant lifetime rhythm. A few beats ago I’d still been aware of all these confusing conflicting feelings, gratitude to and love for 2 Jeweled Skull and also all these competing worries about Lady Koh and Marena and my own objectives, and now they were all just wiped out as I felt the centrality of the face-off marker, the elevation of the targets, the volume of warm air between the banks, and especially the vectors of my teammates and opponents.

  The ball was about to disengage.

  I snuck a hand down into my eyedazzler sarong-swags and tightened the inner knots on my yoke-padding.

  I flexed my iffy ankle. I felt like I could jump over the mul. Gonna pop a pot of powdered pigment, I thought. Poppety poppety pot. The ball dropped, more slowly than ever this time, the world slowing as I sped up.

  “Chun!”

  I was there before I knew it and my hip connected, my mass transferring inertia into the sphere, and I had that rush back again. Of the few things I can tell you for sure, I can tell you that it was more satisfying than getting your Louisville Slugger square into a twelve-inch regulation softball.

  Hun Xoc got the pass. I got around Emerald Howler as he passed back to me. “Bok.” No problem. I shot. “BOK.” I missed. Whiff.

  Emerald Snapper got the ball. Emerald Immanent set up and scored a great-goal.

  “Seventeen goals, Ocelots,

  And eight goals, Harpies.”

  Long time away, I thought. Don’t get discouraged. Come on, focus.

  I noticed the torches had been lit. In the violet twilight the court was weirdly multishadowed and dichromatic. I looked at the sky. Need another watch, I thought. Come on.

  Hun Xoc was watching our coach. Teentsy Bear was watching the other side. I turned and caught what he was saying.

  They’re going to trap you between them, Teentsy signed to Hun Xoc.

  I’ll take care of it, Hun Xoc signed.

  Not allowed, Teentsy Bear signed. Even if we get a goal or two while they’re beating you up it doesn’t matter. If you’re out of action we’re rat bait.

  Red Hun Xoc signed an “Understood.” The tenth ball came down.

  “Chun!”

  ( 36 )

  Like Teentsy had said, Emerald Immanent pretended to try to make the tip and then he and Emerald Howler came together at Hun Xoc. Just as they were about to trap him, and without looking, Hun Xoc faked a stumble. I got the ball and back-passed to Red Cord. He bounce-passed back to me. I came up to shoot. Howler was about to nail me but Hun Xoc was there and jumped high up in front of him, waving his arms and puffing out his cheeks into a frog face. I shot but just missed the peg. Emerald Snapper got it and passed. Emerald Immanent shot, missed, and then instead of recovering dove into Hun Xoc and gave him a good bump, but Hun Xoc rolled himself up like an armadillo and slipped away backward, back into our home zone. He was the best at that stuff. Red Cord had gotten the ball and sent me a lob pass. I shuffled four finger-widths closer to the north bank. My old systems were still responding, everything flowing pretty well.

  Apex. Down. I got my hip into place and braced myself and “bok,” yesssss, ball! Ball! Ball!

  Correct angle.

  Dodge. Around. Successful. Under.

  Ball. Ball. Now.

  “BOK!!!”

  I got the black sun just at the right nanoinstant and the feeling was like nothing else, so delicate, so powerful, so round, so firm, so fully boked, so violent even though you’re just standing in one place. It’s hard to explain how visceral the impact is, I guess if anything it feels most like doing a “dig” in volleyball, or hitting a chester or header in fútbol, I mean, soccer. Or like the way you can launch another person on a trampoline. When you hit the ball with your body the contact’s just erotic, it’s like you’re a slit-gong ringing out this incredible chord made up of all your different nerves, pain, pleasure, position, everything, it’s globally refreshing like every one of your two hundred and six bones pops out of its socket, shakes off all the accumulated pressure of time and gravity, and snaps back into place better than ever, and you just buzz and ring afterward like you went through this electroshock degaussing.

  I could feel I was going to make the shot, so instead of a follow-through I dove forward, rolling over along the oiled bank before he could get to me. I couldn’t see the jade dust falling on me, but t seemed as though I could feel it.

  Score! GREAT-SCORE! GREATSCOOORRRE!!!

  “Li’skuba wasak. 17 Ocelots, 12 Harpies.”

  On the eleventh serve Hun Xoc shouldered in a great-goal, bringing the score to 17 Ocelots, 16 Harpies. As of now Hun Xoc was the top ballplayer in the known world. I got eye contact with him and his exposed cheeks flashed or implied a smile under his mask. Floods of pride welled up in my chest or heart or wherever such fountains well.

  On the twelfth serve I hit a single, for 17 Ocelots to 17 Harpies. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was a whole new game. The cheering went on and on and on. And—the—crowd—goes—wild, my mind looped over and over, in the weird even spondee of Howard Cosell. The Harpy clansmen and partisans and even what you might call “undecideds” were all really roaring this time, like stir-crazy cats in the middle of winter in the old Lion House at the Bronx Zoo, the way when they really got going that reverb would just soak into all the tons of masonry around you until the whole building was like a big old bronze alarum bell. I rolled back and south into our home zone and into a cloud of trash talk, a little afraid the cats were going to pile on top of me even after the call, and didn’t look up until I saw the red paint under me. A big shadow passed on my right, Emerald Immanent glaring suspiciously at me, thinking of hand-smashing me even though the ball was dead. He didn’t do it, though. Even if all the umpires had been fixed they’d have to call a si’pil—a big fault, like a sin—and take him out of the game.

  “You’re gonna get balled,” Emerald Immanent muttered. “Balled” meant getting trussed and wrapped up, alive into a big-old ball and kicked around unto deat
h. I was about to say something snappy back but thought better of it. He’d know my voice on the first syllable. It was kind of like if everyone thought Michael Jordan had died and then he came back to play as a rookie with a different number, darker skin, repositioned eyebrows, no moustache, a beard, a blond Afro, and no tongue. If he hung back people wouldn’t pick up on it, but if he started stuffing basket after basket a few people would start saying how much he looked like Jordan, and the word would spread, and in a few minutes the whole stadium would be talking about how he had to be His Airness, and the word would spread, and . . . well, anyway, I wouldn’t stay unrecognized for long no matter what I did. But there still wasn’t any point tipping cards right away. I was still an unknown scrub who’d just had a lucky shot.

  Marker. There. Mine. My spot. My marker.

  The thirteenth serve came down. I was there exactly right for the tip but something was off, it was like the ball just caught and paused in midair for half a beat. I’d overshot and tried to step back but by the time the ball had actually fallen Emerald Immanent had gotten a good line on it. He passed it back to Emerald Howler, who took a leisurely shot and made an easy great-goal.

  “18 Ocelots, 17 Harpies.”

  The ball had been rigged with a nearly invisible gut cord, and it had hesitated just long enough before it snapped the line to throw us off. There was rustling in the Harpy side of the crowd. I looked up at them and heard the word “si’pil,” major cheat.