Will ignored the comment because he knew what the man was doing. He looked at the radio instead. Now the radio guy was saying, “… So here’s how we use this giant magnet. We send fancy metal belts to every sportswriter who thinks Bert should not be in the Hall of Fame. Engraved belts, like presents, get it? When scientists hit the magnet’s switch- Whammo! -a hundred sportswriters are suddenly airborne, flying toward Denver without a plane.”
Will had noticed the old man’s chest moving like he was laughing. The joke was kinda funny. But then Will realized the man was crying again. Geezus, it was embarrassing. A grown man crying, Will had never seen it before. Well… that wasn’t true. On the Rez, some of the older Skins occasionally bawled when they got drunk, but it was mad-crying because they were walled in by their lives, dead broke, with snot-nosed kids who would never amount to nothing.
That wasn’t the sound Will was hearing now, this hopeless weeping without bottom, a despair that had the scent of crumbling paper.
Uncocking the gun, Will went to the radio and turned the volume louder. He wasn’t going to shoot the guy, so the only thing he could think of to say was, “Who the hell is Bert? Why don’t sportswriters like him?”
The old man pretended to cough into his hand. On the bar was a towel. He took his time getting the towel, then coughed a few more times and blew his nose, keeping his back to the boy.
“You ever get tired of asking questions? Jesus Christ, you oughta be stealing encyclopedias instead of hard-earned jewelry and stuff.”
Will repeated the question, feeling the air in the room changing, the invisible gray tint clearing, and he thought, Good.
The old man said, “Bert Blyleven. Bert pitched for the Twins when they won the World Series.” Then he held up an index finger, as if there was something too important to miss, but it was really to give himself more time to stop bawling as he listened to the radio guy saying:
“… Blyleven’s got almost four thousand strikeouts, plus two World Series rings. As if that’s not enough to earn the Dutchman a place in Cooperstown, Bert had nearly three hundred career wins, too, despite playing for underpaid teams.” Being funny, the radio announcer added, “Take it easy, Twinkie lovers, I don’t want you to choke on your Grain Belts-I am not referring to our Twins, of course.”
It was another minute before Will said, “I never heard of the guy.”
The man who only later would introduce himself as Otto Guttersen spun his wheelchair, oblivious to the tinted air flowing through Will’s brain. Like smoke, it drifted upward, the space changing from gray-blue to pearl, as Guttersen said, “You gotta be shittin’ me.”
Will said, “ ’ Bout what?”
“You never heard of Bert Blyleven? He’s only one of the greatest pitchers of all time, which most sportswriters know. But there’re still a few dingleberries out there who won’t vote him into the Hall of Fame. Didn’t you just hear what Joe said?”
Joe, Will would also soon learn, was Joe Soucheray, the host of Garage Logic, a local guy who even Will had to admit was pretty funny for being an old Casper from Minnesota.
Will began to relax a little when Guttersen said, “You don’t follow baseball? Maybe Indian chiefs don’t allow TV on the reservation. Or is it because of the Great White Father?”
Usually, Rez jokes didn’t bother Will. The Skins said a lot worse than that, but they were Skins, not some racist old cripple from the Land of a Thousand Lakes.
Will told the old man, “Screw you, I ride rodeo,” and knew it was okay because the man didn’t say anything as he placed the gun on the counter.
“Screw me?” The man snorted and sniffed. “Screw you, kid.”
“Screw you!”
“Screw you.”
Then Will had to listen to him say, “Every kid in the world should know something about baseball. Hell, stealing bases would come natural to someone with your experience.”
Looking around for the garbage bag, Will gave the man a look: Screw YOU!
“Kid, you wanna talk about a real sport? Here, I’ll show you.” The old guy had wheeled toward the bar, where there were wrestling photos on the wall, then stopped suddenly.
“Whoa… Holy Christ,” he whispered, “I just remembered something: My wife told me we’re getting a juvenile-delinquent kid tomorrow. Said he was gonna be living with us for a month, because she signed up for this stupid program down at church. Some foster-grandparent bullshit.” He had poked his big nose toward Will, the old man’s face now become a face with features. “You have anything to say on that subject?”
Will had used his sullen Why should I care? expression and looked at the floor.
“Are you the delinquent? Seriously, I’m asking.”
As the man moved the chair closer, Will knelt for the garbage bag, changing his expression to read That’s so crazy it’s funny.
Guttersen had pale, piggish blue eyes that lit up when he thought he’d done something smart. “I’ll be go-to-hell,” he said, “it is you! Christ! When she said an Indian kid, I thought she meant from freakin’ India. Like with a turban and a dot-you know, a tea drinker who might get pretty good grades in math.”
Will was looking around the room, thinking, I’ve gotta get out of here, as the man pressed on. “Her Tinkerbell friends wouldn’t have said Indian unless it was India. They woulda said Native American or Indigenous- something. But that’s what my wife meant-a juvenile-delinquent Indian.” The old man was grinning for some reason. “By God, you’re just as advertised. I can’t argue with what’s staring me in the kisser!”
Will had started up the stairs.
“Hey, where you going? I wouldn’t mind hearing about what it’s like robbing houses.”
Will kept walking.
Guttersen raised his voice when he didn’t get an instant response, a habit that would irritate the hell out of Will in the future. “I’m bored, for chrissake! That’s not obvious? Come back and have a seat. We still got half an hour of the radio show.”
Will had turned to look at the man. “You don’t want me here, mister. You’re afraid I’ll tell the church people I caught you trying to blow your brains out. If they hear that, they’ll strap you in a straitjacket and take you to the loony farm.”
“I suppose they might try,” Guttersen replied. “You gonna tell?”
“Not if you don’t tell the cops what I do for extra money.”
“I expect you’ve laid up quite a pile, working with a pawnshop. What do you do with all that money, buy drugs? Saving for college?”
In that instant, Will had realized something surprising: He could answer any way he wanted, even tell the old man the truth, an opportunity that would end when he walked out the door.
“I buy marijuana seeds sometimes,” Will had said, talking slow so he could feel what it was like not lying. “I grow it, then make a bunch more money selling tacote to rich kids. You know, weed.”
“ Weed, you call it. I thought the word you drug dealers used was grass. Or… maryann.”
“ Grass, sometimes. Smoke or tacote, they called it on the Rez-the reservation, I mean.”
Guttersen said, “I’ll be go-to-hell,” interested, but not as interested as he was pretending to be. Then the man ruined it with flattery. “I was impressed, you knowing about the Mercury dime. Most people, they’d drop a 1940-S in a Coke machine, not a second thought. You’re a go-getter for an orphan delinquent, I shit thee not.”
Will had almost told Guttersen something else true that he’d never told anyone: He was saving to buy Blue Jacket from the snooty Texans with their fancy ranch. Instead, Will had flashed his Whatever expression, then started up the stairs, telling the old man, “No need to shovel it so high. I’ll tell the church people I ain’t living here but won’t mention the gun.”
“Good. None of their damn business anyway.” The man had pushed his wheelchair to the stairwell, waiting until Will was almost at the top, to offer, “We still got thirty minutes of Garage Logic. Wouldn’t hurt to stay until the wife gets back from the hair parlor.”