The Obstacle Course

by JF Freedman

  “Oh yeah, that.” Big fucking deal, it’s Ravensburg’s one claim to fame, something that happened a hundred and forty years ago. Nothing else has ever happened since, that’s the kind of town it is.

  “And it’s on the road to the Academy,” he added. “Have you ever been there?”

  “I go every weekend practically,” I said. “I practically live there weekends.”

  “Really?” He seemed impressed at that.

  “Oh, yeah, I really like it up there, I hang around, eat with some of the midshipmen, run the obstacle course and stuff with them …” I trailed off—something told me this wasn’t a guy to throw a load of bullshit at.

  “And you want to be one of us,” he said. “An Annapolis man.”

  “It’s my dream, sir.”

  That made him smile, although I felt self-conscious about saying it, since I never do.

  There wasn’t much more to talk about after that. A fourteen-year-old kid and a retired admiral in the Navy—except for liking models and the Navy we didn’t have a lot in common, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I was pretty tongue-tied, from who he was and what he’d done.

  “Good luck on your model,” he told me, offering his hand, which I shook.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Perhaps we’ll meet again. Continue our discussion.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Okay.” I felt like a complete moron, even though he was trying hard to be nice and make me feel easy. I couldn’t help it; he had too much class for me to be comfortable with him, not right away anyway.

  He paid for his purchases and walked out. I watched him go. An admiral—a Naval Academy admiral. I’d actually talked to one.

  “Hell of a nice guy, the old admiral,” Bill said, bringing me back to earth. “Good model builder, too,” he added, “he’s in here almost as much as you are. You’ll probably run into him again sometime. You can compare notes.”

  Sure, I thought. Like some Navy admiral wants to talk to a kid like me. He’d been polite, that’s all. But we had talked. From now on, any time I worked on a model, I’d remember that.

  We were cruising around, me and Burt. Not really cruising, you need wheels for that, just kind of bopping here and there, fucking off, trying to keep from being bored out of our gourds, which is pretty easy to do in a chickenshit town like Ravensburg. Be bored, I mean. First we hit Doc Goldberg’s drugstore and read through about half the comic books before Doc came over and told us “library’s closed, boys.” That’s his favorite expression. I’ve been reading comic books in there since first grade, which is how I learned to read, sitting on a pile of ladies’ magazines and working my way through the comic books in Doc’s drugstore. He’s a pretty good guy, just don’t swipe nothing from him, Dickie Chast stole a comic once, one measly comic, and Doc called the cops on him. Dickie had to go to jail all night long until his old man bailed him out, for a dime Plastic Man.

  Just about everything was closed, seeing’s how it was a week-night. Everything closes real early around here during the week, except the places that sell booze. There ain’t no clock on drinking, as my old man likes to say.

  Finally we wound up down at the bowling alley, which is this low-slung unpainted cinderblock job connected to the skating rink, which is where I spend quite a few of my Saturday afternoons when I’m not up at Annapolis. Everybody hangs out at the rink, you can see all your buddies there, plus all the girls in town go, all the neat ones anyway. It’s got a big parking lot in front. There ain’t a hell of a lot of money in Ravensburg but what there is goes into wheels. You catch some cherry vehicles cruising around this town, best cars in the whole D.C. area.

  The alley and rink are in the south part of town, the real white-trash section, about as far south as any sober white man wants to go at night. Any farther you’re looking to get your head bashed in by one of the hobos living in the jungle down by the railroad tracks, or by some nigger voodoo doctor wanting some white blood for one of their sacrifices. The niggers live past the railroad tracks on the other side of the Anacostia River. Nobody’s crazy enough to go down there, that is for shit-sure. I don’t know anybody who’s actually had his veins opened up by any of the coloreds, but I’ve heard the stories since I was a kid, and I don’t want to ever find out if they’re true or false.

  I didn’t really want to go in the bowling alley, but it’s about the only place open at night where kids can go in, and they’ve got a whole lot of great pinball machines, which Burt likes playing with a purple passion. That boy is one mean pinball player, he could win contests if they ever had any.

  The reason I didn’t want to go in was because my old man was inside. Tuesday night’s his league’s bowling night. He’s on the Lions Club team, the Ravensburg Lions. Not exactly an exclusive club, not with my old man being a member. They’re a motley crew, they can’t bowl worth a shit except for my old man, they’re always down at the bottom of the standings. Not that they give a shit—they just want a night out so’s they can drink and check out the women bowlers. Nobody ever comes with their wife or husband, it’s like an unwritten law, nobody wants their style cramped.

  “Your old man here tonight?” Burt asked. We were standing outside, freezing our buns off.

  “More’n likely.”

  “I bet he don’t feature you coming in here.”

  “He doesn’t give a shit.” Which is a lie, he’s telling me all the time not to come down the alley when it’s his league night, he doesn’t like the distractions. I think it’s ’cause he doesn’t like me seeing him checking out the pussy. My old man’s a legend in his own time when it comes to pussy, he’s had more ass than a toilet bowl. I’m not supposed to know anything about that but you hear so many damn stories you know some of them have to be true.

  “So are we going in or not?” Burt asked, shifting from one foot to the other, blowing on his hands. “I’m freezing my cookies off out here.”

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” I said. That’s one of my favorite lines, I got it from Jack Benny, that guy cracks me up, he’s funnier than Amos and Andy even.

  “You’re chickenshit ’cause you don’t want your old man seeing you.”

  “Fuck I am.”

  “Fuck you’re not.”

  We still weren’t going anywhere. I didn’t want to go in ’cause my old man would be royally pissed if I did, but I don’t ever let Burt tell me what I’m chickenshit about. Not Burt, not anybody.

  “I just want to avoid him in case he’s in a bad mood,” I said. Which is about the only mood he’s ever in.

  “We’ll sneak in and go right to the back and play the machines,” Burt offered. “No one’ll even see us.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably best.” Me and Burt’re real good at sneaking around, with any luck my old man wouldn’t spot us at all.

  It was crowded inside and smoky as hell. The noise was so deafening with the crash of the bowling and the yelling back and forth you couldn’t hardly hear yourself think. All twenty-four lanes were taken and everybody in the place had a drink in their hands, including the women.

  “There’s your dad,” Burt said, pointing at a lane in the center of the alley.

  My old man was standing at the head of the lane, intently looking down at the six-eight split. They bowl duckpins around here, the little balls. Anybody carrying an average over one-twenty is a major bowler. My dad’s average is 127, up in the top ten, a good twenty points higher than anyone else on his team.

  “Hey Steve, you convert this, son, I’m buying you any drink you want,” Fred Gash called out in this deep southern-Maryland accent of his. He was laughing as he tilted a brown paper sack up to his mouth and took a good Adam’s-apple-bobbing swig.

  “You’re buying me a drink anyways, motor-mouth,” my old man answered over his shoulder, “so shut up a minute here and let me concentrate on this miserable spare I left myself.”

  He powdered his hands and picked up one of his own purple-pearlescent Brunswick duckpin balls—he’s o
ne of the only guys in the league who owns his own balls, along with his own monogrammed ball bag—crouched down real low with his ass pointing up in the air, and took careful aim. He took his four smooth steps, right-left-right-glide, and threw a Brooklyn fade that caught the six ball and sent it skidding ever so sweetly into the eight for his spare.

  I love watching my old man bowl. It’s like he’s another person almost.

  “Way to go, big Steve,” Fred yelled admiringly. Fred has this habit of talking like Norton on “The Honeymooners,” another one of my favorite shows. I love it when Kramden says “one of these days, Alice, one of these days, pow, right in the kisser!” It’s like my folks, except Kramden never hits his wife.

  “Make it a double,” my dad told Fred, feeling cocky. He pulled his comb out of his back pocket and rearranged his hair. He spends as much time on his hair as a girl, especially now that Elvis is popular, that’s how my old man wears his hair; one of the few personal things we have in common, a good thick head of hair and the style we wear it in. He likes to look cool, in case one of the cooze is eyeballing him, which has been known to happen.

  “Daniels,” he specified, “none of that lowdown shit you’re drinking out of that sack of yours.” He lifted a Pall Mall out of the pack in Fred’s shirt pocket—the Ravensburg Lions Club bowling shirt they all wear, it’s purple and yellow sateen with their names embroidered on the pocket—fired it up, and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. That’s where I get being good at smoke rings, I’ll bet.

  “Your old man’s rolling good,” Burt observed.

  “He’s okay. Let’s go play some pinball.” I didn’t like standing around there.

  We went back to the pinball machines. Burt stuck a nickel in the Wizard, the hardest machine in the place. You need a million points for one free game. Burt’s about the only guy who ever wins games on the Wizard. I dumped a nickel in Roller Derby, one of my own favorites that’s not too hard, and had just put the first ball in play when out of the corner of my eye I saw my old man walking across the alley to where the women leagues were bowling. He reached over the seats and pulled at the ponytail of some bleached blonde wearing a shirt from Ledo’s Pizza, over in the Adelphi shopping center. She’s one of the waitresses there. They’ve got about the best pizza in the whole area; my old man takes Ruthie and me there once in a while. He leaves my mom at home, he says he likes to spend a little time alone with his kids, which is a crock of shit. This waitress, her name is Peg, she’s always the one waits on us and he doesn’t want my mom to see, that’s what I think. She’s kind of tall and stringy but she’s got what’re called bedroom eyes. I think she’s got the hots for my old man.

  They started talking; I couldn’t hear what since I was too far away, but they seemed pretty friendly.

  Then Roger Coffey happened to look back, and caught my eye. He was sitting next to Fred, sharing his bottle. He smiled at me and waved. I waved back, kind of feebly. I like Roger, he’s a nice guy, but I didn’t feature getting spotted. It was too late, though, he’d nabbed me.

  “Hey, Steve,” Roger called across the alley.

  My old man looked up and Roger jerked his thumb over to me. My old man turned with this annoyed expression on his face. I know that look. I kind of waved at him. He said something to Peg and walked back over to his lane. He was pissed I was there, I knew that for sure.

  That was the end of my pinball playing for the night. I tilted out and gave the damn machine a good hard whack. What the hell, here we were, might as well join the party. You never know with my old man, he can be a lot of fun sometimes, especially if he’s bowling good.

  I walked over and plopped down between Fred and Roger. Fred rumpled up my hair. He knows I hate it when he does that, that’s how come he does it. These guys, it’s like if they fuck with you it means they like you.

  “How’s it going, ace?” Fred asked.

  “Could be better, could be worse,” I replied. I dug out my comb and redid my hair, sneaking a look over at my dad.

  “How’re you doing tonight?” I asked him, checking out the score sheet. “One thirty-seven, damn, Dad, you might be high man tonight!”

  He looked at me quick, drained his drink, got into position to bowl. Fred offered his bottle to me.

  “You want something to warm you up?” he teased me.

  “What you got?” I asked, playing along. Like I’m going to actually drink in front of my old man.

  “V.O.”

  I shook my head.

  “Naw. I only drink Four Buds.”

  “Your old man was wondering how come his whiskey tasted like it was watered,” Roger said. “Hey Steve,” he called out to my dad, who was on the line getting into position, “it ain’t your old lady’s been watering your whiskey after all.”

  They laughed. My old man paid them no mind. He was intent on finishing up good.

  One, two, three steps and start the glide.

  “Hit it clean, Dad,” I called, just as the ball was leaving his hand.

  The ball hooked like a son of a bitch, leaving most of the pins standing.

  “Thanks for the help,” my old man said sarcastically. He was pissed, I could tell, but he was trying to keep the cork in the bottle on account of his friends being there. A few lousy pins, who gives a shit?

  “Anytime, dad,” I answered. Once we get going it’s hard to stop.

  “How’s about you two pretending you like each other?” Fred asked. “I mean you are related, ain’t you?”

  “Didn’t you ever hear the story about how I was left on his doorstep?” I asked. “He thought I was a basketful of Four Roses is how come he took me in.”

  “If you wasn’t a mixup at the hospital you should’ve been,” my old man shot back.

  The other men shifted around uneasily.

  “You better go on home, Roy,” Fred suggested.

  I’d outstayed my welcome, I knew that, if I’d ever had one to begin with, which was doubtful. It always turns out like this, and I’m always hoping it won’t.

  “I’ll see you horny old bunch of buzzards later,” I told the men on the bench. I reached into Roger’s shirt pocket and snatched a cigarette.

  “Anybody got a match?” I asked, just as Burt joined the party. He’d either gotten tired of winning all those pinball games or wanted to see if there were going to be any fireworks between my old man and me. More likely the latter.

  “I got a match,” Burt sang out, trying to be cool and fit in, “your ass and my face.”

  The men liked to fall off the bench they all laughed so hard at that.

  “I meant the other way, vice versa,” Burt said quickly, turning red as a beet. That was the end of him being cool for the night. Served him right, you never get in a pissing match with my old man and his buddies, that’s what they do all night long, they’re masters at it.

  “You were right the first time,” I told him.

  My old man was out of patience with the both of us.

  “I want you out of here, goddamnit,” he told me, real hot.

  “Hey Steve,” Roger said, “loosen up, boy, Christ almighty a stranger’d think you two was mortal enemies the way you carry on.”

  My old man didn’t want to be pacified.

  “He’s my kid and I’ll talk to him like I feel. You don’t give a damn, do you?” he asked me. I could tell he was feeling guilty, trying to find a way to back out. “Anyways,” he went on, “what’re you doing out here this time of night? I told you you were grounded this week.”

  He’s always grounding me on some petty shit or other, to show me he’s the boss and can run my life any way he pleases. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and that’s a hell of a lot.

  “Me and Burt had to go to the library to do our homework. You want me to do my homework, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t see you doing no homework over by them pinballs.”

  “I stopped off to see you.”

  “Okay. Now you’ve seen me. Now go on home.” />
  I walked away, but didn’t leave completely. I stood near the door, watching him.

  “Come on, man!” Burt hissed. He knew what my old man was like when he was mad.

  “In a minute,” I told him. “Don’t get your bowels in an uproar.”

  “I’m leaving,” Burt said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Not if I see you first.”

  He took off. I should’ve too, but like the dumb ass I can be, I didn’t. Sure enough, my old man spotted me lingering.

  “Go on home!” he called out over the noise. “I don’t want you hanging ’round here. It’s a bad atmosphere for kids.”

  I almost laughed out loud at that one. He glared at me. There was nothing I could do, so I turned and walked out, trying to be as cool as I could.

  The bowlers emerged from the lanes, their jackets held tight against their bodies. It was cold as hell out and coming from inside where it was like an oven made it seem colder. People said their good-nights, stumbled to their cars.

  My old man saw me. I was standing alongside the building, hunched up against the wind.

  “Boy, I’m about out of patience with you,” he told me, his voice letting me know just how angry he was, “did I not tell you to haul your ass home?”

  “I figured I’d wait and ride back with you being’s how you were almost finished.”

  We eyeballed each other.

  “I appreciate that, Roy, believe me I do,” he said, his voice quieter now, like he actually understood how I felt for once, “but we’re going on down the Dixie for a couple brews, so you mosey on home and I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

  “Why don’t I come with you? I ain’t tired anyways.” I really wanted to come.

  “’Cause they don’t let minors in that’s why and I don’t want you in that place, you’ll be old enough soon enough, now go on, you’re going to catch cold out here.”

  He started to turn away, then turned back.

  “And tell your mama not to wait up for me.”

  I started walking away as the men piled into their cars and headed out to continue their drinking, no doubt—anything to keep from going home to the ball and chain. As soon as I heard them leaving I stopped, watching from the shadows so my old man couldn’t see me, in case he was checking up. Then I followed the men the way they had gone.