Ring Game

by Pete Hautman

  Rupe smiled. “Neither do I,” he said. He looked at his watch. “We had better go. We’re supposed to be in Rochester by ten. Dr. Bell was quite clear on that point.”

  37

  How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?

  —Satchel Paige

  “IT’S A LITTLE TIGHT,” Carmen said.

  Sophie picked up Carmen’s Marlboros from the night-stand and shook one loose. “I told you it would be.”

  “Maybe it’s supposed to be tight.”

  “I don’t think so. That roll you’ve got going … no, I really don’t think so.”

  Carmen looked down at her bare midriff, where the waistband of the skirt was buried in her flesh. She raised her arms and sucked in her stomach, turned her right hip toward the mirror. “That looks pretty good.”

  “I’d like to see you hold that pose for the whole ceremony. Have you got a light?”

  “There’s a lighter in my purse. What am I gonna do?”

  Sophie shrugged. “We could make you a sash. You know, like a beauty queen.” She found the lighter and lit the cigarette. She’d been off them for three months, but marrying off her only daughter, that was no time to quit. She’d been bumming them off Carmen for the past week. “This is a nice lighter,” she said.

  “Hy gave it to me. It’s a Dunhill.”

  “It looks expensive.”

  “Three hundred dollars.”

  Sophie put the lighter back in Carmen’s purse. “That would buy a lot of matches.”

  Carmen tugged the waistband down an inch, revealing a red stripe where it had dug into her stomach. “You don’t think we could let it out in back a little?”

  Sophie breathed smoke out through her nose. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Let’s have a look.”

  Carmen swished over to her mother and presented her derriere. Sophie fixed the cigarette between her lips and examined the seam that began at the small of Carmen’s back. “There’s no extra material back there. I don’t see how we could let it out. Unless you want to walk around with your butt hanging out.”

  “Better than this thing digging into my belly.”

  “I suppose we could open up the seam, then cover it up with something.”

  “Like what?” Carmen asked.

  Sophie frowned, then smiled. “How about a nice big bow?”

  After their little talk, the long telomere guy had simply walked out of the gym without another word. Bigg figured he wouldn’t be back, and that was what he told Flowrean.

  “I guess I owe you,” she said, looking not at all happy about it.

  “Just part of our complete membership services package.”

  Flowrean returned to her workout. She must’ve done eighteen sets of squats, going all the way up to three fifty-five for her heaviest lift, then coming back down, a plate at a time, working as hard, in the end, to lift the empty bar as she had at three fifty-five. Bigg loved that about Flowrean. She held nothing back. Every set was done to failure, even if she had to repeat a lift thirty or forty times. Two solid hours of brutal lower body work, as much as Bigg himself had done back in his powerlifting days.

  Flowrean had gone from the squat rack to the vertical leg press, then on to leg extensions, curls, and three varieties of calf raises, attacking each new exercise with undiminished intensity, leaving each machine pooled with perspiration. At one point, Bigg could stand it no longer and had wiped down the leg extension machine. Flowrean seemed not to take offense—if she even noticed.

  She was on the mats now, finishing up her stretching routine, sweat dripping from the tip of her nose, contorting her body in ways that had Bigg adjusting his briefs every thirty seconds. When she finally gave it up and headed into the locker room, Bigg hurried into his office, locked the door, turned off the light, and opened the door to his viewing chamber.

  This time, he was not disappointed.

  Flowrean had positioned herself directly in front of the mirror. As Bigg watched, she slowly peeled her sodden top up over her head and dropped it on the floor. Her upper body glistened, striped with rivulets of perspiration. Bigg put his face close to the glass, watching one descending droplet, then another. For several seconds she stood there, her breasts rising and falling with each breath, eyes on her reflection, one hand stroking her belly, her index finger making slow circles around her navel. With her other hand, she pushed her sweatpants down past her hips, let them fall around her ankles. Her legs were pumped and flushed. She stepped out of her puddled sweats and turned slowly around, flexing and relaxing her calves, thighs, glutes. Bigg pressed his face to the glass, breathing heavily as Flowrean Peeche showed him, in narcissistic detail, every square centimeter of her flesh.

  When she came out of the locker room, Bigg was waiting at the front counter.

  “Hey, Flo? You got a second?”

  Refusing to meet his eyes, she headed out the door. He caught up with her outside as she was unlocking her car.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “I’m kind of busy,” she said, opening the door to put it between them. She was still turned on from her performance in the locker room. Being this close to Bigg, having a conversation, felt weird and wrong, as if he had stepped inside of her body.

  “I wanted to ask you something.”

  Bigg wasn’t acting like his usual self. He seemed uncomfortable and embarrassed. Flo waited, suddenly curious.

  “I was wondering … I have to go to a wedding tonight,” He held up a slightly crumpled invitation and gave her a crooked smile. “I was wondering if you’d like to go. With me.”

  Flo gaped. This was so far from anything she had ever expected of Bigg, she did not know how to respond.

  Bigg continued, “I don’t mean like on a date. It’s just that I’d feel funny going to a wedding alone, you know? Think of it as a free dinner. That’s all.”

  Flo said, because she did not know what to say, “Dinner?”

  “Yes. Dinner and music and, you know, it might be fun.”

  Flo peered closely at Bigg. Was she missing something? Was this really Arling Biggie?

  “You want me to go to a wedding? With you?” This was all very strange. She said, “I don’t think so.”

  “We could take one of the limos.”

  “A limo?” Flo had never ridden in a limo before.

  “I promise not to touch you.” Bigg put his hands in his pockets. “I won’t let anyone touch you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll drive the limo. You can ride in the back. All by yourself.”

  Flo lowered herself into the driver’s seat of her Miata. She rested her hands on the steering wheel and stared out through the windshield, surprised to find herself actually considering it.

  “You don’t even have to talk to me,” Bigg said. “Just sit at the same table. You don’t even have to do that.”

  Flo looked up at him and asked, “Who’s getting married?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  Flo shook her head. “I won’t know anybody.”

  “You know me.”

  “I mean besides you.”

  Bigg’s face sagged, then tightened. “You know Joe Crow, don’t you? Works out here? He’ll be there.”

  “Joe Crow?”

  “Yeah. He’ll be driving the other limo.”

  The rental tux fit perfect. Hyatt ran his fingers through his hair a few times, made minor adjustments to his tie and cummerbund. He did a slow pirouette, watching himself in the dressing room’s three-way mirror, giving himself a suave, slightly cocked smile. Very elegant.

  “I do,” he said. “I do, I do, I do.”

  He cleared his throat and loosened the bow tie. He closed one eye, leaned into the mirror, and twisted his features into an expression of agony. “Oh my god!” he moaned, clutching at his side. “Please help me! Oh my god!” He grabbed his stomach and hunched forward, his reflection only centimeters away. He stared into his own eyes, unblinking, hold
ing them open for ten, fifteen, twenty seconds. When he blinked, the tears came. “Lord God in heaven,” he sobbed. “They’ve taken her!”

  Sixty seconds later, Hyatt emerged from the dressing room to find Ted the salesman looking extremely concerned.

  “Are you all right, sir?” Ted asked.

  “I’m perfect,” Hyatt said, giving the guy a reassuring grin. “Everything is perfect.”

  “I’m not s’posed to work till four,” Beaut whined.

  Arling Biggie squeezed the telephone handset, feeling the plastic flex. “I don’t care,” he said. “This is an emergency. I gotta go to a wedding.”

  “You getting married?”

  “No. Hy Hilton is.”

  “The water boy? That’s your big emergency?”

  Bigg said, “This isn’t the time to argue with your landlord and your employer, Leslie.” He listened to the sound of Beaut breathing into the phone.

  “Okay, but I get double time.”

  “You’ll get your butt down here in double time, is what you’ll get.” He knew he shouldn’t keep pushing Beaut’s buttons, but he couldn’t help it. He was all jazzed up from talking to Flowrean. Sometimes he amazed himself, the things he would do.

  “Okay, okay,” Beaut said. “I’ll be right over. Only you owe me for this.”

  Bigg hung up the phone. He looked at the clock on his desk, trying to organize the next few hours in his head. He had to get home to find out if any of his suits still fit. There was the one he’d bought for his mother’s funeral, that was only a couple years old. If it didn’t fit, he’d have to get an emergency alteration job. He knew a guy. And he had to get some kind of flowers or something. Maybe fill up the back of the limo with them, just in case Flowrean got the idea to wear her organic necklace to the wedding. And some kind of present. Did he have time for a haircut? Bigg rubbed his hand over his wispy scalp. Forget the haircut. What he’d do, he’d leave his car at the gym and take one of the limos home, save himself a trip back. And then—shit, he had to come back anyway to give Joe Crow his goddamn limo. Get him to sign a contract for it. Maybe he could have Beaut take care of that … on second thought, he’d best keep Crow away from Beaut. Christ almighty, how had this day gotten so complicated?

  Flowrean Peeche’s Miata descended into the underground parking garage of the Greensward, one of those big apartment buildings downtown. Chuckles pulled over to the curb and stared at the building, fixing it in his mind, wondering whether she lived there, or was simply visiting someone. He could see a man sitting behind a desk in the lobby. Should he ask? That might not get him anywhere. After a moment’s thought, he made a U-turn and drove back to a florist’s shop he had noticed earlier. One dozen roses with extra baby’s breath—Chuckles liked baby’s breath—cost him forty-three dollars. He returned to the Greensward, parked in front of the lobby, and carried the roses inside. The security guard was in the process of taking a huge bite from what looked like a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich. He looked up and frowned, one cheek distended.

  “Delivery for Ms. Flowrean Peeche,” Chuckles said.

  The guard flexed his eyebrows and nodded as he chewed. He set the sandwich on his desk and picked up the phone. He was about to punch in a number when he realized that if anyone answered, he would be unable to speak. Returning the phone to its cradle, he began working his jaw furiously, holding up one forefinger, bidding Chuckles to wait.

  Chuckles said, “I’ll just leave these with you, okay?” He put the bouquet on the desk and backed away. The guard, still chewing, watched him leave.

  “That’s not acceptable. You are scheduled to be here. I have to leave at o-four hundred.” Chip Bouchet pressed the phone against his mouth. “That’s four o’clock.” He listened, nodding. “I know you know that. I have an engagement. You were scheduled. We have a schedule you know—” He blinked, looked at the phone, hung it up. “That was not strategic,” he said.

  Benjy Hiss, sitting across from Chip in the ACO Security Annex, said, “What’s that?”

  “That was Chuckles,” said Chip. “He says he’s sick.”

  “Oh. Was he supposed to work today?”

  “He was scheduled.”

  Benjy shrugged and returned his attention to the multi-page memo on his lap. “Man, they don’t want much, do they?”

  “Who?”

  “Our fearless leaders. Four weeks they’ll be gone, and they want miracles. This will take four months.”

  Chip compressed his thin lips. This scrawny little raghead with his accent and his black eyes was another example of what had gone wrong with the church. How could Polly and Rupe entrust their entire organization to this fast-talking Iranian or Arab Jew or whatever the hell he was? Didn’t they ever read the papers? Those people were all insane.

  Benjy said, “They want all the rooms on the east wing repainted. Do we have any painters among the Faithful?”

  “I have to leave at o-four hundred.”

  “So leave. I’ll be here. Rupe wants new carpet in his office. Polly wants a new window. A window! What does she think, it’s like hanging a picture?”

  Chip shook his head. He did not like surprises, especially today. Chuckles calling in sick—more evidence that the church was rotting from within, its foundations weakened by the lies of the Elders. Other people had become ill, too. Becky the shipping clerk had caught a cold. And Nan Blagen, one of the ACO’s wealthiest members, had recently undergone surgery for breast cancer. Polly and Rupe had concealed Nan’s illness from the Faithful, but Chip had overheard them talking about it in Rupe’s office, where he had planted one of his microphones. Immortals weren’t supposed to get sick. If they got sick, they had done it to themselves. Or the church had failed to protect them. Because the corruption of the elders filtered down to the Faithful. Then there was the crazy woman in the hall, and her friend the referee. More signs of corruption. He kept thinking about what Chuckles had told him a few weeks ago. He imagined Polly, the First Elder, kneeling on the floor, unzipping his pants—

  “No!” he barked.

  Benjy jumped. The memo fell off his lap onto the floor.

  “Whatsamatter?”

  “Nothing,” said Chip, embarrassed by his outburst.

  Benjy picked up the memo and found the page he had been reviewing. “They want to completely redecorate the auditorium and the gymnasium. And look here—” He stabbed the page with his forefinger. “Put up website. Three words. ‘Put up website.’ Like ‘Take out trash.’ What are they thinking? I just snap my fingers, and we’re on the Net?”

  “I have to leave at four,” Chip said.

  “Fine. I’ll lock up. I’ll lock the doors, and then I’ll ‘put up website.’”

  “There are procedures. Twelve doors. Windows to check. Surveillance and alarm system protocols.”

  Benjy smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Cheep, I know all that. Who do you think installed the alarms?”

  Chip pinched his nostrils shut with his left hand, clamped his lips shut, and flexed his diaphragm—an exercise he had been performing since he was a kid. The increased internal pressure calmed him and helped him think. He held it in for about ten seconds, then released his nostrils and let the air hiss slowly out through his nose.

  Benjy said, “What are you doing? Popping your ears?”

  “Polly said that one of us, me or Chuckles, were supposed to be here always.”

  “What, twenty-four hours a day?”

  “During business hours.”

  “Oh. So, do you take everything she tells you literally?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Polly says we are going to live forever. You believe that literally?”

  Chip was shocked. “What?”

  “Do you think we are immortal, Cheep?”

  “Yes!”

  Benjy nodded. “Good. I was just checking. But as far as leaving work early, I wouldn’t worry about it. What’s a couple of hours when you’re going to be around for a few thousand years?�
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  38

  I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a wearer of new clothes.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  THERE’S NO FOOL LIKE an old fool,” Axel said as he gave a final tug on Sam’s tie.

  Sam said, “I heard that before.” The two old men stood stiffly in front of Sophie’s vanity, awkward in their jackets and ties. Sam had shown up twenty minutes earlier, looking for help with his tie, a four-inch-wide acid trip in orange and bile green polyester.

  “That’s ’cause it’s always been true. You don’t believe me, take a look.”

  Sam was already looking in the mirror, grinning at his reflection. “I may be an old fool, but I damn sure got me a date.” His three-piece suit, an iridescent blue polyester relic from the seventies, shimmered luxuriously. “She still fits,” he said.

  “It’s quite a suit, Sam.”

  “Bought it for my daughter’s wedding. Turned out I never got my invite, but I got myself this suit just in case.”

  “Yeah, you look pretty sharp for an old fool. Sort of like a bluebottle fly.”

  “You ain’t lookin’ too bad yourself.” Sam gave Axel a poke in the cummerbund.

  Axel shrugged, causing his tuxedo jacket to rise and catch under his armpits. He shook out his arms and tugged down on the lapels, returning the jacket to its original shape. “You know, I bet it cost me more to rent this monkey suit than it cost you to buy that thing.”

  “Traded a valve job on a six-banger Camaro for it.”

  “Like I said,” Axel said. He looked at the alarm clock. “I wish Sophie would get back here. We’re gonna be late.”

  “You got time, Ax. They ain’t gonna get married without you and your checkbook.” Sam leaned toward the mirror, scratching his neck. “Think I oughta shave again?”

  “I don’t expect it’ll make any difference. Once she gets a load of your sartorial splendor, she’s not gonna notice anything else.”

  “I guess you’re right. Hey, you got another beer?” Sam headed toward the kitchenette.

  Axel followed, walking with the peculiar gait of a seventy-four-year-old man wearing a tuxedo for the first time in half a century. Sam had located a Budweiser and was pouring it into his mouth.