The Tail of the Tip-Off

by Rita Mae Brown

  Herb walked out with Harry and BoomBoom. “I sure appreciate you girls coming on over here. You’re a welcome addition to the guild.”

  Both women had just begun their first terms, which lasted three years.

  “I’m learning a lot,” Harry said.

  “Me, too.”

  “Look at these little angels.” Harry knelt down to pet all the cats and Tucker.

  “If she only knew.” Elocution giggled.

  “Don’t be so smug,” Cazenovia chided her. “Humans don’t know what we’re talking about but they know smug.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without those two.” Herb smiled benevolently. “They help write the sermons, they keep an eye on the parishioners, they leave little pawprints on the furniture.”

  “I’m sure they’ve left them on the carpets, too.” BoomBoom liked cats.

  “Well, that they have but I can hardly blame them for wearing those carpets out. Fortunately we are a well-attended church, but it does put wear and tear on the building.” Herb checked his watch. “Game’s in an hour. You all going?”

  “Yes,” the two women said in unison.

  “Well, I’ll see you there. I’d better go through the building and shut some of the doors. On these cold nights it saves on the heat bill. Gotta save it where I can.”

  As he headed down the hall, Mrs. Murphy urged Harry, “Come on, Mom, let’s get out of here!”

  Cazenovia and Elocution hurried into the meeting room, flopping themselves on the sofa with a great show of nonchalance. Too great a show.

  “See you, Rev,” Harry called out as she tossed on her coat, opening the door for her pets and BoomBoom.

  “Whew,” Pewter breathed as she stepped outside into the nasty weather.

  * * *

  2

  The soon-to-be-replaced basketball stadium loomed out of the sea of asphalt like a giant white clam. That such unparalleled ugliness could be part of the University of Virginia, one of the most beautiful sites in America, was a dismal curiosity. Good thing that Mr. Jefferson was dead, for if he caught sight of the Clam he’d perish on the spot.

  Harry had a new wool blanket which she fluffed up on the seat of her old truck with another older blanket for the cats and dog to snuggle in. The three friends would curl up together, burrowing in the blankets and keeping one another toasty, but not before they complained.

  “I hate this!” Mrs. Murphy’s eyes narrowed as Harry sprinted through the sleet to the stadium.

  “I’d rather be here than there. I can stand the stomping and hollering. It’s that buzzer.” Pewter completed two circles then lay down.

  Tucker, ears forward, listened as people laughed in the bad weather, opened umbrellas, slipped in the sleet which was beginning to accumulate. “It must be hard not to have fur. Think of the money they have to spend on raincoats. Gore-Tex stuff costs a fortune. Barbour coats, too. That’s the stuff that really works. But think how awful it must feel to get cold water on naked skin. Poor humans.”

  Fred Forrest, the county building code inspector, walked by the truck. His hands were in his coat pockets, his perpetual frown in place.

  “Think Herb found the desecrated communion wafers yet?” Pewter giggled, a high-pitched little infectious giggle.

  “Can you imagine kneeling at the communion rail and being given a wafer with fang marks in it?” Mrs. Murphy joined in the giggles.

  “I ate all mine. Did you two really just bite some?” Tucker snuggled in next to the cats who loved her thick fur.

  “Oh sure. That’s half the fun.” Pewter’s sides shook.

  Tucker laughed, too. “Gee, I wish I could take communion.”

  “Have to go to catechism first,” Pewter saucily replied. “Of course, we have already done cattychism.”

  They nearly fell off the bench seat laughing.

  “Know what else?” Mrs. Murphy, in the spirit, said. “Have you ever noticed how when they say the Lord’s Prayer it sounds like ‘Lena shot us into temptation’?”

  “You’re terrible.” The small but powerful dog pretended to be horrified.

  “God gave us a sense of humor. That means we’re supposed to use it,” Pewter resolutely declared.

  “Yeah, Miranda has a sense of humor and she’s religious. I mean, she was pretty close to being a religious nut there for a while,” Tucker thoughtfully said of the older woman whom she dearly loved.

  “She needs it. Working at the post office you’d be loony tunes without a sense of humor,” Mrs. Murphy said.

  “Why?”

  “Tucker, it’s a federal building. That means it belongs to the American people and anyone can come and go. If you work for the post office you have to deal with whoever walks through that door. It’s not like a lawyer’s office or doctor’s office where they can throw you out if you don’t belong,” the pretty tiger cat explained.

  “They can throw you out if you’re a nuisance,” Tucker rejoined.

  “There go half the people in Crozet.” Pewter led the others in another giggle fit.

  Inside the Giant Clam, whose real name was University Hall, usually referred to as “U-Hall,” people settled down to enjoy themselves. Perhaps they wouldn’t get giggle fits like Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, but they were primed for a good time.

  Just coming in out of the weather produced a feeling of well-being.

  Tonight’s opponent, Clemson, was in a rebuilding year so the UVA women’s basketball team wasn’t too stressed. Yet those were the very opponents that Coach Ryan worried about. Never take anyone for granted. Prepare for each and every game.

  Harry believed in Coach Ryan and her philosophy, as did many of the season-ticket holders. Harry sat behind the home team’s bench about halfway up the first section, a seat she renewed every year. Harry had little in the way of discretionary income and her three horses took up most of that, but her basketball seat meant a great deal to her.

  Her ex-husband and friend, Fair Haristeen, DVM, sat next to her in his seasonal seat. Next to him sat Jim Sanburne, the mayor of Crozet, and his wife, Big Mim, the Queen of Crozet. On Mim’s other side sat her aunt Tally, well into her nineties and fanatically determined not to miss a basketball game—or anything else for that matter.

  In the row directly behind them sat Matthew Crickenberger and his family, his wife and two boys aged ten and twelve. To the left of Matthew sat the Tuckers: Ned, Susan, and Brooks. Danny, their son, was in his first year at Cornell, so his seat had been taken by Hayden McIntyre’s new partner in the practice, Bill Langston. However, Bill was just moving into Crozet, so he wouldn’t be at the games until next week. Hayden, a thoughtful man despite his directness which is never seen as thoughtful in the South, had purchased the seat from the Tuckers, hoping it would help ease the young, unmarried doctor into the community. He’d asked Deputy Cynthia Cooper to the game tonight but she had to work the late shift at the Sheriff’s Department.

  Tracy Raz, Miranda’s beau, reffed the game with Josef P. The P stood for Pontiakowski—a bit difficult for the inhabitants of such an English place as Charlottesville, so everyone called him “Josef P.”

  Miranda sat opposite her friends on the other side of the basketball court. She had a very good seat provided by the school for the spouse or friend of the referee. She particularly enjoyed it because she could observe her buddies.

  She watched them screaming and hollering because Clemson pulled themselves together and it turned into a tight, fast-paced game. She saw H. H. Donaldson, his wife, Anne, a professor at UVA, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Cameron, who sat in front of Harry, H.H. being one seat to her right, all stand up and clap and stomp in unison to cheer on Virginia. Fred Forrest bellowed the loudest. As he was rows behind Harry and friends, his volume disturbed them little. His assistant at work, Mychelle Burns, a petite, pixieish African-American, was with him. She hollered as much as Fred.

  In his late thirties, H.H. was a driven man. Like Fred, H.H. plumbed new depths at sporting events.
If Hayden McIntyre was direct, H.H. was plain rude at times. Everyone chalked this up to the fact that he had been born on the wrong side of the tracks and had a chip on his shoulder. Anne and Cameron were lovely, which helped to mitigate H.H.’s mouth.

  “Go inside! Go inside!” H.H. yelled at the top of his not inconsiderable lungs.

  BoomBoom Craycroft sat two rows behind Harry. She was thrilled the game was close because next to her sat Blair Bainbridge and his date, Little Mim Sanburne. BoomBoom hadn’t ever dated Blair, a handsome international model, but she figured she’d get around to it. BoomBoom felt she was entitled to any man whom she found marginally interesting. Since she believed most men were interested in her, and most were, she moved on her own schedule. Now that Blair was dating Little Mim, BoomBoom’s nose was out of joint. It wasn’t so much that she had to have him, it was just that she hadn’t had him. To make matters worse, she didn’t have a date for the game because she figured Blair would be there. She hadn’t realized his relationship with Little Mim was proceeding. Up until the Clemson game, Big Mim, Little Mim’s mother, hadn’t paid much attention, either. She was now.

  The Clemson center, Jessie Raynor, a six-foot-three-inch girl, was well coordinated—a lot of times those big people aren’t. She shot straight up in the air over the head of the girl guarding her, Tammy Girond, and with a flick of the wrist dropped a three-pointer right through the net.

  “Oh no!” Harry screamed along with the other Virginia fans.

  Tie ball game.

  Tracy and Josef, both dripping with sweat, had run as far and as hard as the girls. It had been a clean game up until now, when Tammy, in frustration, pushed Jessie, the Clemson forward, flat on her face.

  Josef blew his whistle. He called a personal foul on Tammy Girond. She doubled up her fist in his face and he threw her out of the game. Everyone was on their feet, both benches, all the spectators.

  Jessie walked to the foul line and sunk both of her shots.

  Tracy Raz tossed the ball to Frizz Barber, so named because of her hair, as she waited behind the end line.

  With six seconds left on the clock, the moment was drenched in tension. Frizz quickly passed to her teammate Jenny Ingersoll. The Clemson players, woman-to-woman on defense, bottled up the Virginia players. Jenny, with time leaking out, dribbled two steps to her right, the Clemson player guarding her closely. Then she stopped, spun left and lifted both feet up off the ground, taking her shot. It bounced high off the rim. Jessie Raynor, hands high over her head, jumped up, snagging the ball. The buzzer sounded. End of game.

  The Clemson bench emptied, the girls piling on top of one another. What an upset!

  The noise from the crowd diminished as though someone had turned down the volume dial on the radio. The Virginia players, crestfallen, crossed the court with Coach Ryan. She shook the hand of the Clemson coach as the girls shook the hands of their now-recovered opponents. Respect reflected on the Virginia players’ faces. They’d never take Clemson for granted again. They’d just learned the wisdom of Coach Ryan exhorting them to never, ever underestimate an opponent.

  The crowd finally remembered their manners and politely applauded the Clemson team. As the players retired to the locker rooms, quiet fans filed out.

  It was mid-season. The teams in the conference were all getting better, together. As the crowd shuffled down the circular halls, they discussed the toughness of Clemson and their thoughts on UVA’s next game.

  Josef P., still in his ref’s striped shirt, sprinted out into the parking lot to his car. He opened the door and pulled out a gym bag and as he turned to run back through the sleet, Fred Forrest stopped him. He was by himself, as Mychelle had hurried to her car on the other side of the lot.

  “You cost us the game, asshole!”

  Matthew Crickenberger, passing on the way to his car, stopped. “Hey, that’s enough of that.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do. You’re the last person who should tell me what to do,” Fred sneered.

  “What are you going to do, Fred, fine me for being off a quarter of an inch on an access ramp?” Matthew said but with some geniality.

  Josef shivered in the sleet as Fred stepped in his path. H.H. came up, having sent his family to the station wagon.

  “I’ll do whatever I want!” Fred, adrenaline still pumping after the game, shouted. “You’d better remember that.” He pointed his finger at H.H. “You, too. Bunch of rich assholes. And you, asshole”—Fred suffered from an attenuated vocabulary—“make a call like that in a playoff and you’re dead.”

  “Go on,” Matthew said to Josef as he stepped in front of Fred to block him from taking a swing at Josef. “For Chrissake, Fred, it’s only a game.”

  Josef ran, shivering, back to U-Hall. By now a crowd had gathered around, including Harry, BoomBoom, Fair, Big Mim, Jim, Little Mim, Blair, and others. Aunt Tally sulked in Big Mim’s Bentley but her niece refused to allow her to stand in the worsening weather.

  The animals, awakened by the slamming of doors, watched. They heard bits and snatches of the fuss, which was a row down from their truck.

  Then Fred surveyed his audience. “It’s not just a game. Basketball is life.” He spit on the ground next to H.H.’s shoe.

  “Crude.” Blair towered over Fred.

  “Drop dead,” Fred snarled up at the handsome face.

  “It’s bad sportsmanship, Fred, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” H.H. was disgusted.

  “Who are you to talk? You crawled over the old Miller and Rhoads building when Matthew wasn’t there. Trying to figure out how to run with the big dogs.”

  H.H., a little raw on the subject of competition with Matthew, swung at Fred, hitting him square in the gut.

  Fred doubled over. Fair Haristeen, strong as an ox, quickly grabbed H.H. from behind, and walking him backwards, pulled him to the family station wagon.

  Fred, helped to his feet by Matthew, screamed after him, “I will get you! You’d better be perfect because I’m going to make your life miserable!”

  “That’s enough, Fred.” Matthew was disgusted with the wiry middle-aged inspector.

  “Asshole,” Fred snarled at Matthew then stalked off.

  “What a jerk!” Little Mim shook her head, scattering snowflakes. The sleet was turning to snow.

  “Don’t use slang, dear, it’s so common,” her mother, wrapped in mink, her second best coat for winter, said sotto voce.

  “Oh, Mother.” Little Mim turned her shoulder to her mother, slipped her hand in Blair’s. “Let’s go to Oxo, shall we?”

  Mim glared as her daughter sauntered off. Then she turned to Harry standing next to her. “Think twice before having children.”

  “I’ll be sure to be married first.” Harry tried to lighten the moment.

  “There is that.” Big Mim exhaled, then looked skyward. “We’d better all get home before the sleet that’s underneath all this turns to ice.”

  “Already has, honeybun, already has.” Big Jim returned his attention to his wife after watching Fair deposit a resisting H.H. in his car.

  “Really, Little Mim shouldn’t be out in this. The roads will only get worse.”

  “Blair took his four-wheel-drive, honeybun. He’ll get her home safe and sound.”

  Big Mim said nothing but headed to the Bentley, her husband in tow. She’d have a word with her daughter tomorrow.

  Fair rejoined Harry and BoomBoom, an interesting moment since one was his ex-wife and the other his ex-lover. Life in a small town is filled with such moments and everyone either adjusts to them or gets out. If you got in a huff and declared yourself not on speaking terms, you’d soon wind up with no one to talk to and that would never do. People had to accommodate the messiness of life.

  “Ladies, can I take you both out for a drink?”

  “No, thanks, I want to get home before the roads get worse. Mim’s right and I know I sound like a wuss, but I hate it when it gets like this.” Harry bowed out.

  “Me,
too,” BoomBoom agreed.

  Fair, disappointed because he’d wanted to see Harry, said, “Next game. Rain check or rather, sleet check.” He laughed.

  Harry thought a moment. “Why not?”

  BoomBoom replied. “Yes, I think it would be—fun.”

  BoomBoom’s affair with Fair Haristeen had occurred during his separation from Harry, or so she declared. It provoked Harry to file for the divorce. Fair, then in his early thirties, had been going through a crisis. Whether it was midlife, masculinity, or whatever, it was a crisis and it cost him his marriage, something he deeply regretted. BoomBoom, not one to take relationships with men seriously, tired of the tall, blond, handsome vet soon enough. Her conventional beauty and flirtatiousness always brought her another man, or men, which was perhaps why she didn’t take relationships seriously. Oh, she always wanted to be on the arm of either a handsome man or a rich one, preferably both, but she never thought of men as much more than a means to an end; that end being comfort, luxury, and hopefully pleasure.