Ring Game

by Pete Hautman

  Beaut held out the water bottle toward Crow. “You want some?”

  Crow stood up and walked away. Walk away from bad hands early. He proceeded into the main room, a large open area that contained most of the back, shoulder, and arm equipment, and the cardio gear—four stationary bikes, a pair of Stairmasters, and a rowing machine. He remembered the first time he’d walked into Bigg Bodies and seen the long rows of weight-training equipment, the padded benches covered in cherry-red vinyl, rack after rack of neatly stacked iron plates, a two-tiered rack of dumbbells stretching out across a sea of pebble-gray carpeting. He had quickly realized that the size of the gym was exaggerated by the mirrored walls, but somehow that knowledge had not taken away from the majesty of it. He still liked to imagine himself in an endless room, an illusion shattered only when he encountered a reflection of himself.

  Behind the counter near the entrance sat Arling Biggie, better known as Bigg, reading a magazine, wearing his usual red, white, and blue silk warm-ups. He looked up from his reading, caught Crow’s eye, smiled, and winked. From his perch behind the counter, Bigg had a view into every corner of his mirrored establishment. Crow was sure he had seen Beaut’s little trick with the water bottle.

  Crow stepped onto one of the Stairmasters and began climbing, determined to think about something peaceful, like fishing, which was what he planned to do as soon as he finished his workout. Drive up to Whiting Lake to his old man’s cabin. Throw a line in the water. It was a three-hour drive, but he’d be there by four o’clock, plenty of time to land a monster. Throw out a buzz bait, reel it in. Throw it out, reel it in. If the buzz bait didn’t work he could maybe try a spoon, or even one of those weird lures his father made out of spark plugs or strips of auto body. Load up his line with a twisted scrap of Dodge minivan, throw it out, reel it in.

  According to the computer readout on the Stairmaster, Crow had climbed seventeen floors when Arling Biggie leaned a meaty forearm on the handrail and looked up at Crow. “Beaut give you a hard time there, Crow?”

  Crow let the fishing thing go and pulled himself back to the here and now. “You saw that?”

  “I thought you guys were going to go at it.”

  Crow nodded. “So did I.”

  “Probably a good thing you didn’t.”

  “Maybe. How come you keep him around? He must cost you business.”

  Bigg looked like a short, aging version of the Incredible Hulk with a shaven scalp and thick sideburns that began in front of his ears and followed the line of his jaw to the tips of his Fu Manchu mustache. The look, Crow believed, was designed to make people want to laugh—then think better of it. Bigg’s round, unblinking blue eyes, a little white showing all the way around the iris, had a reptilian quality that belied his clownish whiskers.

  Bigg considered Crow’s comment. He raised his short, thick eyebrows, pushed out his lower lip, and contracted his trapezius muscles. His thick neck disappeared, and his cantaloupe shoulders rose a full three inches. He held the pose for an instant, then relaxed. Crow took it for a shrug.

  “Beaut’s not so bad, once you get used to him. It’s like with Flowrean: Once you get used to the smell, you kinda get to like it.”

  “I can hold my breath around Flowrean. Beaut’s tougher to ignore.”

  Bigg smiled and nodded. “I know what you mean. But when Beaut’s doing his workout, he’s on his own time. Just another member. Technically speaking, he hasn’t broken any of our rules.” He ticked off the three Bigg Bodies rules on his stumpy fingers. “One: Beaut racks his weights. Two: Beaut gives a spot if you ask him nice. Three: Beaut pays his dues on time.” He laughed. “Course, they come right out of his paycheck.” He gave Crow a flat smile. “Unlike some of our members, who pay no dues whatsofuckingever.”

  “You should’ve thought about that when you bet those queens.”

  “You’re the luckiest son-of-a-bitch I ever played cards with,” Bigg said.

  Crow stopped climbing. The treads sank to the floor, bringing him down to Bigg’s level. “Is that what this is about?” he asked.

  Bigg looked over his shoulder into the chest room. Crow followed his gaze, saw Beaut watching them, a white grin shimmering on his tanned face.

  If that Joe Crow had started working out ten, fifteen years ago, Bigg thought, he might’ve been one hell of a powerlifter. He had the classic powerlifter’s build: small and compact, with muscular thighs, short arms, and naturally sloped shoulders. He’d never make it now, of course. Not at his age. A guy couldn’t expect to walk into a gym for the first time at thirtysomething and expect to compete, no matter how good his genes. Crow had pissed away his life when he could’ve been a champion. A real shame. Bigg had been a competitive powerlifter until 1979, when, a few days after squatting nine hundred twenty pounds in the Tri-State, he’d blown out his left knee. Playing golf, of all things. He’d gone on to a brief career on the pro wrestling circuit under the name “Studly Doo-Rite,” then spent a few years working as a personal trainer, occasionally collecting bills for a furniture rental company just for laughs. Eight years ago, at the age of forty, he’d bought Smithy’s Auto Body and turned it into Bigg Bodies, the Choice of Twin Cities Bodybuilders.

  Bigg gave Crow a cuff on the shoulder and returned to his stool behind the counter. Crow continued his climb to nowhere on the Stairmaster again, that dreamy, blank look returning to his face. It was the same look he’d had when Bigg had bet those three queens, the same look he’d had when he’d shown Bigg his straight and won himself a lifetime membership to Bigg Bodies. In fact, it was pretty much the same look Crow always had. Bigg found such complacency to be enormously irritating.

  Maybe he should tell Beaut to turn up the heat, drop a plate on Crow’s head or something. That might be interesting. He’d have to think about that. One thing for sure, he didn’t want to watch Crow working out for free every day for the rest of his life.

  He picked up the magazine he had been reading, but nothing had changed. Bigg Bodies had failed, once again, to make the Mpls./St. Paul magazine list of “Best Twin Cities Workouts.” Not even a mention. In fact, no one who worked at the magazine had ever visited Bigg’s, much less worked out there. Never mind that Bigg had trained three of the last five Mr. Minnesotas. Never mind that he’d been training champions years before those pencilnecks at Bally’s had moved in on the market with their chromium “fitness centers” and spandex discotheques. He’d been to one once. A bunch of geeks standing in line waiting their turn to use the ten-pound dumbbells. No serious bodybuilder had ever worked out twice at a Bally’s.

  Running a gym was a pain in the ass anyways. Up at five-thirty every morning, dealing with all these ’roided-out kids with their big talk and nothing egos, listening to a bunch of pinheads grunting and farting their way through their sets. It was undignified. Work his ass to the bone and then get screwed over by some pencilneck reporter who probably got a free membership to Bally’s for writing the article. Maybe he should close the joint, get into selling amino acids and protein supplements instead. Or buy a couple more stretches, build up his limo business. That was easy money, renting out those white Lincolns to wedding parties and such. Easier than running this damn gym.

  Arling Biggie crumpled the magazine in his meaty fist, dropped it into the overflowing trash can behind the counter. None of his customers read anything but muscle mags anyways.

  Beaut Miller watched his chest in the mirror as he performed his fourteenth set of cable crosses. He wore a fluorescent orange T-shirt with the neck and sleeves cut away, a narrow strip of ragged cloth surmounting each mountainous shoulder, the neck and armholes cut low, almost to his waist, showing his pectorals to maximum effect. An impressive chest, especially in its current pumped condition. He loved the way his serratus muscles popped when he did cable crosses. He wished he had a better audience. He wished some kid he’d known in high school would walk in and get an eyeful. One of those kids who used to give him a hard time, back when he’d been Little Leslie Miller
.

  Almost anybody would do for an audience. Anyone other than Miss Stinkypants, who didn’t give a shit about anybody. Beaut sneaked a glance at her in the mirror. Flowrean was on her back, ankles crossed, bare feet in the air, pressing a pair of fifty-pound dumbbells—a lot of weight for a gal her size—giving forth a hoarse grunt of effort with each rep. The bitch was probably on the ’roids. Probably had to shave every morning.

  Beaut tried not to get too close to Flowrean, ever since the time he’d accidentally—well, sort of accidentally—poked his elbow into one of her tits, and she’d jumped him like a psycho bobcat from hell, all claws and screams and kicks—he’d lost about a yard of skin in three seconds. Stone bitch. It was right around that time that she’d started wearing her goldfish necklace. She was still a looker, but nobody’d want her now. A little B.O. was one thing, but those dead fish hangin’ over her tits, that was too much. Beaut couldn’t figure out why anybody’d want to smell that bad. Any other gym, she’d’ve been eighty-sixed, but Bigg, he had a thing for Flowrean Peeche. Bigg was funny that way.

  Looking past her reflection, he saw Crow coming back into the chest room. Beaut hadn’t minded a bit when Bigg asked him to give the pilgrim a hard time. It was a pleasure. He’d about sprained his abs trying not to laugh when those plates had slid off—Ka-clang! Kangkangka-kang! Kuh-chlang! Beaut grinned at Crow’s reflection, performed a final rep with the cables, and let the weight stacks slam back into place. He turned and crossed his arms and waited, wondering what the frozen-faced little wimp had in mind. Waiting for the close-range eye contact. Give him that fuck you look, see what he did with it.

  Crow stopped in front of Beaut, looking up. The moment of eye contact didn’t feel as satisfying as Beaut had expected. Crow’s gaze was too calm. Beaut felt Little Leslie tugging urgently at his frontal lobes. He flexed his jaw muscles until his teeth pulsed painfully, causing his chickenshit alter ego to bury itself deeper in his brain. Fucking Little Leslie, any little thing, and he’d shit his pants. Beaut tipped his head back, pointing his chin, holding Crow’s eyes, ignoring Little Leslie’s frantic scrabbling, thinking that if Crow didn’t look away soon, he’d have to either step back or give him a short one to the solar plexus.

  Crow said, “You have an opportunity here, Beaut.”

  Beaut was so startled he felt his jaw go slack. Have I been dissed? he wondered. He wasn’t sure, but that was how it felt, like the guy was fucking with him, like the guy was the fucker instead of the fuckee. Beaut concentrated on holding Crow’s gaze—he wasn’t going to be the first one to look away.

  “You have the opportunity to do nothing.” Crow’s eyes were calm, almost sleepy. Almost inviting. Something in his voice frightened Little Leslie badly.

  Beaut said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Crow’s brown eyes remained flat and opaque.

  Little Leslie was going into crisis. Beaut heard himself say, as if from a distance, “Someday somebody’s gonna fuck you up good, Crow.”

  Crow smiled. “It will be worth it.”

  Little Leslie moaned. Beaut watched Crow turn and walk away.

  A few weeks before, Beaut had been leaving T.G.I. Friday’s when a drunk, a guy Beaut had had a few words with earlier that evening, had come roaring across the parking lot in a Chevy Blazer. Beaut had jumped out of the way with no room to spare—he’d felt the Blazer’s bumper tick the heel of his shoe. The way he’d felt then—once he realized he wasn’t hurt—that was the way he felt now. Numb, and relieved that he hadn’t wet his pants.

  Beaut heard a noise, turned his head to see Flowrean looking right at him, laughing, snorting through her nose, white teeth flashing in the fluorescent lights, goldfish dancing.

  Crow took a leisurely shower, keeping his eyes open, half expecting Beaut to follow him into the locker room and try something. He didn’t want it to go anywhere, but he wasn’t going to cut back on his shower time.

  Beaut didn’t show. That was good. Crow wasn’t sure it had worked, getting in Beaut’s face that way. A bully like Beaut, the way to put the fear into him was to let him know that you didn’t care if you got hurt. It usually worked. You could never be sure what a guy like that would do, but he had another rule: Always bet into weakness.

  A few weeks earlier, during an otherwise astonishingly unproductive afternoon, Joe Crow had taken up a pencil and, on the cover of the Minneapolis Yellow Pages, scribbled a list of things to remember when playing poker. That original list had contained seven items. Since then, he had added more rules as they occurred to him. He was up to about twenty-five. He thought some of them were pretty good.

  On his way out, Crow glanced back into the chest room. Beaut was alone, pumping himself up again with the cables. Bigg gave a glum nod as Crow passed the front counter. Crow crossed the hot parking lot to his GTO, which was parked over near Bigg’s two white rental stretch limousines. He tossed his gym bag onto the passenger seat, cranked the engine into life, and rumbled out onto the street. Minutes later he was on the freeway entrance ramp winding out the big V-8, slamming the transmission into third gear when he noticed, just above the wiper blade, a red smudge, as if someone had planted a kiss on his windshield.

  3

  When you go fishing, beware the fish.

  —Crow’s rules

  MID-AFTERNOON ON WHITING LAKE: The thermometers tacked to the walls of the lakeshore cabins had peaked half an hour ago, some at eighty-one, some as high as ninety-two. Later, holding sweating cans of Pig’s Eye beer, the owners of the cabins would stand around their smoking Webers and argue about how hot it had gotten, each defending their own thermometer’s accuracy, citing location, poor vision, and manufacturing problems as the reason other thermometers disagreed with their own. The air was beginning to move from west to east, making the flat surface of the lake shimmer. Out on the big water, the surface began to jiggle in spots, forming near waves. Water that had been soaking up the July sun now threw off shards of light. From the shore it looked like sparks dancing just above the surface.

  To the two men drifting in the battered aluminum john-boat three hundred yards off the point of Pine Island, the sparkling effect was not noticeable. Axel Speeter first became aware of the afternoon breeze as a tugging sensation on his arm hairs. He looked at his forearm, at the forest of white hair, making sure that what he was feeling wasn’t something about to bite him. A variety of bloodsucking insects had been feeding on him all week, and he was tired of it. They never seemed to bother Sam O’Gara, the other occupant of the boat. Sam, about half Axel’s girth and a foot shorter, had been staying at his cabin on Pine Island for most of the summer, and he claimed he hadn’t given up but a thimbleful of blood. “The bugs know not to fuck with Sam O’Gara,” he said. “Besides, you’re bigger. You got more blood.”

  Sam was fishing with a lure he’d carved from the taillight lens of a ’65 Mustang. He twitched his rod tip, let the makeshift lure settle back toward the bottom, jigged it up again, let it settle, over and over, every five seconds, just like a damn robot. He’d been applying the same technique for over two hours without a strike.

  A deerfly buzzed Axel’s nose, veered away, did a loop around Sam’s greasy red baseball cap, landed on the bill for half a second, then buzzed off, apparently deciding not to fuck with him. Axel reeled in his line and examined the dying leech hanging from the hook. He lowered it back into the water. The three small walleyes he’d caught were hanging alongside the boat, waiting to be gutted, filleted, breaded, and fried. Axel was ready to call it a day, but he knew better than to suggest returning to the island. Sam would automatically object, and they’d be guaranteed another hour on the water. He pulled his cap low over his eyes and let his gaze wander down the shoreline. Maybe he should buy one of those cabins, have his own boat, his own place on the lake, fish when and where and for however long he wanted. How would Sophie feel about that? He shook his head, trying to derail that train of thought. The whole reason he’d come up here was to forget
about Sophie and that crazy damn daughter of hers. The whole situation made him physically ill. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since Carmen had announced her engagement.

  He said, “Hey, Sam.”

  “What?”

  “How’s it going? You holding your end of the boat down?”

  Sam smiled and squinted, causing the number of wrinkles on his face to quadruple. “They ain’t biting, but I’m stayin’ dry.”

  It was a very Sam O’Gara thing to say. Axel did not know what the one fact had to do with the other, but when Sam put them together they sort of stuck. He remembered meeting Sam back in fifty-nine at a poker game in Sioux Falls. Sam hadn’t had the wrinkles then, but he’d had the mouth. Axel let a wave of nostalgia wash over him.

  “Hey, Sam.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How about you let me try out one of those Sam O’Gara originals.”

  Sam looked surprised, but pleased. “What you got in mind?”

  Axel thought for a moment. “You got anything in a fifty-nine Chevy?”

  For the first quarter of the three-hour drive up from the cities, Joe Crow had kept himself entertained by listing, one by one, all the women he had ever known to wear red lipstick. He tried to imagine each of them kissing his windshield, but could not come up with a plausible image. He was repeatedly forced to the conclusion that someone had mistaken his car for someone else’s, which seemed unlikely, since there were very few lemon-yellow ’69 GTOs remaining in this universe. But it was better than any of his other ideas.

  After a time, the question began to grate on him. He tried to push it aside in favor of other mental exercises, but the lipstick print kept reminding him that his car had been kissed. He finally turned on the windshield washer and watched the lipstick smear, then disappear. His mind set free, he began to brood about other things. Beaut Miller muscled his way back into Crow’s thoughts, leering and flexing his ridiculous arms. As soon as Crow recognized Beaut, he propelled his mind in other directions. Fishing, poker, highway signs, the way the engine made the hood vibrate, how his body felt after a good workout, music …