The Sacrifice Game jd-2

by Brian D'Amato

  Red Beak kneed the ball south, low into the red expanse of the Harpy wall. Hun Xoc dove after it falling on his knees, blocking its rebound with the top angle of his ornate yoke. The ball settled down into the groove, reverberating between the wall and his yoke like a pinball caught between electric bumpers, the criers imitating the accelerating beat, “ pak, bok, pak, bok, pak-bok, pak-bok, pak-bok pak-bok pak-bok pakbok pakbok pakbokpakbok pakbokpakbokpakbokpakbok,” into a blur of sound. Hipball was a dignified game, a stolid ritual, an act of worship. But it was also a much faster game even than basketball, at least as fast as jai-alai or Ping-Pong.

  Emerald Immanent recovered but Red Beak backed away from him into the Harpies’ end zone. The main territorial rule was that neither team was allowed into the other’s end zone, which in our case was the left half of the east half of the court, a red area shaped like a backward L. So in this match that meant the Ocelots couldn’t step on red and the Harpy clan couldn’t step on emerald. Each side’s blocker couldn’t leave the zone but the strikers could go anywhere but the enemy’s home quadrant. You couldn’t keep the ball in your zone for more than four bank- or body-bounces, though, and if the ball hit the level floor on your half of the court, it was out and you had to turn it over to the other team, but this hardly ever happened. The ball was too bouncy and the players were too good. Any one of these people could have body-juggled a cinder block and kept it in the air for scores of scores of scores of beats.

  Red Beak waited for Hun Xoc to get between him and Emerald Immanent, and then took a slow run up toward the peg, working the ball with short flesh-dribbles onto the north wall. He shot and missed. Emerald Snapper got the ball and passed to Emerald Howler. Howler shot and missed and Hun Xoc got the ball. The deal was that it was nearly impossible to shoot for a goal from the enemy’s side of the center line, although “backward goals” and even error goals off the opposing team did happen. And since there was only one really good spot on your side to shoot for the opposing goal, the ball tended to follow a fairly set course. You’d gain possession, get the ball into position on your right side, and then charge up along the right bank, shooting ahead and up to the right at the other team’s peg. If you missed the peg, the opposing team would almost always gain possession. Then they’d do the same thing, they’d set up, make their own run and shoot for your goal, on your left side, and then you’d get the ball back and repeat the process. So even though there wasn’t a net, the design of the court itself created a back-and-forth motion and a general counterclockwise draw, like the endless left turn on a racecourse. And the same centrifugal force tended to keep the two teams separate, although not enough to prevent a clash or two. Despite how dangerous it was, it wasn’t really a contact sport, at least in theory.

  Hun Xoc worked the ball up the north bank, “ bok, pak, bok, pak,” and suddenly took a long shot, like a three-pointer, sending the big black planet nearly into the Ocelot spectators’ baatob, and even though the ball seemed to miss the goal, it grazed the fragile jar of dyed marble powder. The jar wobbled and fell, trailing emerald-green plumes.

  “Waak’al, waak’al,” the chanter shouted. The word meant “explode,” that is, a great-goal. The Harpy partisans went wild with a special hiss-cheer you used on big points. It wasn’t that stupid Mexican trilling thing, though, like they encourage you to do at tequila bars in the States. It was more like ten thousand panicked crows. The boot-stamping sloshed welcomely over to the Ocelots’ side.

  “Halach tun Kot, lahka tunob Kotob, wasak tunob Bolomob,” the chanter called,

  “Harpy Great-goal, 2 Ocelots, 4 Harpies.”

  Maybe we’re okay, I thought. The invisibles scurried in to clean up and replace the jars. The Magister flashed his hand-mirror and the fourth serve fell. Red Beak got it and shot. Miss. Emerald Immanent trapped the ball, took two dribbles up the south wall, “bok pak bok pak,” and shot, BOK.

  Miss. Too high. I would have made that. Goddamnit, lemme out there. The ball arced up over the stands and a Harpy spectator, as per custom, deflected it back down -

  But something was wrong, the guy in the Harpy stands should have passed the ball to us, but instead he’d deflected it the wrong way, back toward the Ocelots. Emerald Immanent leisurely repositioned himself, got the rebound, and shot again. He hit the peg.

  “BOK T’UN WAAK’A!” “Great-goal! 6 Ocelots, 4 Harpies.”

  On the Harpy side the sort-of-boos coalesced into “keechtikob, keechtikob, keechtikob,” “ s pies, spies, spies.” Whoever’d batted the ball in the wrong direction was getting pretty badly torn up. Even if he swore that it was a mistake there was no way they’d believe he hadn’t been turned by the Ocelots.

  Still, it wouldn’t work twice.

  On the next serve Hun Xoc got the tip but Emerald Immanent and Emerald Howler charged on him so fast he passed the ball back to 5–5. The pass overshot and 5–5 missed it. The ball hit the red bank and bounced over our zone down into the trench, about to go out. 5–5 leaned out to make a save and got the ball back in the air, but he was off-balance and fell onto the white, out of the Harpy Zone, which gave the Ocelots a point without a goal. The umpire signaled and the cantor started to call out the new score “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 defea
t 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 eel 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.

  “Chu
n!”

  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.