“Too far.”
“I’m talking about later, in the city. Not now, not in the Catskills, moron. She’s seventeen, goes to Barnard, a chemistry major. Sheila says Adele is pretty. You and Adele. Me and Sheila. A double date.”
“Double-shmubble. I don’t have wheels, and I don’t want to sit in the subway for an hour and a half to meet a chemist.”
“Ever hear of Glock Brothers Manufacturing?”
“No. Go alone.”
“I’ll pick you up on my way from Brooklyn. You never heard of Glock Manufacturing?”
“You think, if I go with you, it will be easier to face Sheila’s parents. Since you ruined her life.”
Larry said, “Don’t hock mir a chinek,” which means, “Don’t bang me a teakettle,” or, without the Yiddish compression, “Don’t bug me with empty chatter.” He continued: “You don’t know shit. You’ll never get anywhere.”
“Fuck you. I don’t like to be used.”
“Sheila’s father is Herschel Glock.”
“Fuck him, too.”
“Glock Manufacturing makes airplane parts for Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. Her father owns the company.”
“So he’s a rich man. So his daughters are rich girls. Big deal.”
“I can’t talk to you.”
“You want to talk to me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
To go out with Sheila’s sister would have been kicks, but Larry let me score only three points and used me like a dog to retrieve the ball for him so he could hit it again too hard and fast for me. Besides, I had no car and didn’t want charity. Who knows what the date would cost? Maybe twenty bucks. It took a week, serving a married couple, to make fifteen. I planned to go alone the next day to the courts and slam the ball till the pain was unbearable. It was near the end of the season, not enough time to improve much, and I’d never beat Larry anyway. But if I could win five points, I’d say I twisted my ankle, and quit in the middle of the game, and never play him again. He wouldn’t know for sure if he could beat me. The sunlight was unbearable. And I was too mixed up with feeling to know what I wanted, but I could refuse to go out with Sheila’s sister. That was a powerful response, disappointing to Larry and hurtful to me, because I wanted to go with Sheila’s sister. In the bunkhouse we flopped on our beds, two feet apart, and lay shining with sweat. I reviewed the game in memory, making myself more depressed and angry. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t relax. Larry said, “Is it raining?”
“It’s the sunniest day on record,” I said, and my hurt feelings grabbed my voice. “You want to know something, Larry. We’re different. We don’t look like each other. We don’t think like each other. We don’t nothing like each other. It’s a miracle that we can even speak and understand what’s said, either in English or Yiddish.”
He groaned.
I glanced at him and saw eyes without pupils, showing only whites. A horrible face, as if he were tortured by my remarks or he’d remembered something extremely important that he hadn’t done.
I sat up, saying, “You’re making me sick, you freak,” then realized he couldn’t hear me. He was foaming at the corners of his mouth, and his body was thrashing like a live wire. Foam pinkish with blood streamed down his chin. I shouted for help. Nobody came. I heard voices in the next room. I ran into the next room. A bed was strewn with dollars and quarters and playing cards. Two guys sat on the adjacent bed to the left, facing three on the bed to the right. Nobody noticed me until I brought both fists down on the cards and dollars. Quarters flew up in the air. I shouted, “Larry is having a fit.”
They rushed after me into my room. Larry, still thrashing, was sliding up the wall against his back, as if to escape a snake on his mattress. His face was blue. Bloody foam was running down his neck. Someone said, “He’s swallowing his tongue. Do something.” I saw a comb on the window ledge above Larry’s bed and snatched it. Two guys seized Larry’s arms and forced him down flat onto the bed. I straddled his chest and pried his mouth open with the edge of the comb, clenching it in my fists at either end. I said, “Open, open, open,” as I forced the edge of the comb between his teeth, trying to press his tongue down. He went limp abruptly. The guys let go of his arms. I slid off his chest. We backed away. His head rolled to one side, then slowly to the other, as if to shake away the seizure. He opened his eyes, seeing, and said, “What?” The word was dim, from far away. I said, “Are you all right, Larry? You had a seizure.”
“When?”
I took over his station at dinner, waiting his tables. Busboys came shooting from nearby stations to clear dishes, doing double work. We’d have done the same at breakfast, but he insisted on returning to his station. He made it through the day with no help. That night, in the casino bar, drinking beers, he said he felt fine. He didn’t remember the seizure. I described it to him, feeling nervous and guilty, as if I shouldn’t be telling him this about himself. He said it had happened before. Only his parents knew.
“I’m worried,” he said.
“Of course.”
“Hairy Murray the tummler is driving up to play handball tomorrow afternoon.”
“You’re worried about that? Call off the game.”
“I’ll rip his head off.”
“Sure. But not tomorrow.”
“I put money down.”
“Forfeit. Tell him you’re sick. Hairy Murray doesn’t need your money. He’ll let you keep it.”
“He hangs out with hard guys. He won’t let me keep one cent. It’s a question of honor.”
“It’s a question of you being sick.”
“I can play.”
“You want to be king of the little black ball.”
“Yeah.”
We sat for a while in silence. Then I said, “Because of Sheila?”
“That’s over.”
“Yesterday you were fixing me up with her sister, the great chemist.”
“I phoned Sheila last night. I told her what happened and said to stay out of my life.”
“What did she say?”
“She was crying.”
“I’m sorry. So why are you playing?”
“I want to win.”
“You want to lose.”
“If I need a psychiatrist, I’ll give you a ring.”
“Do that. I’ll have you put in a straitjacket. You had a fit right in my face. El gran mambo.”
Hairy Murray arrived like a boxer, with an entourage. He was on the short side, with a thick neck, wide and deeply sloping shoulders, and short arms. He wore a white linen suit, white shoes, and sunglasses. He looked tropical. When he stepped out of his Cadillac, he began limping heavily toward the handball court, then, suddenly, he became a blind man, walking in the wrong direction. His entourage, five guys in flashy gabardine slacks, were laughing their heads off. The dining-room and kitchen staff were already in the stands, along with the musicians and a lot of the guests. When people arrived from other resorts, they sat on the grass. Everyone knew about Larry’s seizure. It made the game more interesting.
Hairy Murray waved to the crowd, then began to strip. One of the gabardine men held his shorts and sneakers. It was another joke, changing in public. When Hairy Murray dropped his pants, he snapped them back up again instantly. He had no underwear. He pretended to be confused, shamed by his forgetfulness. Everyone had seen his big cock slop free of his pants. Men cheered and booed. Women stared wildly at each other, smiling with disgust. Hairy Murray’s entourage, virtually in tears, was laughing as they made a circle around him, shielding him from view while he changed.