Gurion 21, Pritikin 3.
Pritikin said unfair — someone kept sneezing.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 2.
Pritikin said unfair — I’d yawned in front of him and he had to keep fighting the yawns my yawn had suggested.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Some kids told Pritikin to give it up already. Pritikin said the way they were scowling had screwed him up. Kids walked away.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Pritikin said the kids who were walking away had done so too noisily for him to concentrate. It was almost as if they were deliberately kicking the pebbles around.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Pritikin started saying something, and I told him not to worry, fair was fair, and unfair un-so, he didn’t have to explain. The crowd around the bigtoy had dwindled to half its peak size.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Unfair.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Unfair.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
The crowd shouted that I’d beat him fair. I told them only Pritikin could say for sure what was fair. I asked Pritikin if I had beat him fair.
Almost, but no. There’d only been a few turns this last time during which he was distracted, and although the points he’d lost on those turns wouldn’t have made the difference in themselves, having lost them distracted him from gaining other points.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Almoster, but still no.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
The crowd told Pritikin that simple was boring. They told him it didn’t matter if he won because they’d never simple with him again anyway. Pritikin said there was no point in continuing then. I told him the point was fairness. I told him he was obligated, by honor, to make sure he’d been beaten fair. After all, if he couldn’t be sure, how could he expect the rest of us to be? And where would we be — where would slapslap be — without absolute definitude?
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
It seemed fair.
Seemed wasn’t enough. You need to be certain.
Gurion 21, Pritikin 0.
Now he was sure.
But was he sure he was sure?
He was sure he was sure. I’d beaten him fair.
Shmooly’s turn. Shmooly said he didn’t need a turn, just as long as he was still allowed to simple under the bigtoy with people. I told him he wasn’t. He asked what if he scored on me? What if he scored as much as he scored the last time? Could he simple with people under the bigtoy, then?
Sure, I told him.
He couldn’t remember the score from last time, though. What did he have to score?
I told him last time shmast time. If he scored 3 on me, he could simple under the bigtoy. This lit him up. He said that was fair.
Gurion 21, Shmooly 2.
Unfair — some itches.
Gurion 21, Shmooly 2.
Unfair — cold hands.
Gurion 21, Shmooly 2.
Unfair — wind in his eyes. Plus 3 seemed high, didn’t 3 seem high?
I told him score 2 and he could simple under the bigtoy.
He agreed that was fair and wiped the tears from his eyes.
Gurion 21, Shmooly 1.
Maybe 1 was more fair, he suggested.
Sure thing.
Gurion 21, Shmooly 0.
Maybe he was just too tired. His mom had a cold. He’d only had a hard-boiled egg for breakfast.
Emmanuel gave him a granola bar and he ate it.
Gurion 21, Shmooly 0.
It was unfair, explained Shmooly, it was just unfair. I was Gurion and he was Shmooly. It was unfair that Gurion was faster than Shmooly. How could that be fair? He was born Shmooly and I was born Gurion and that was unfair, it was always unfair and would always be unfair. He didn’t have a chance. He never had a chance. I asked if he wanted me to let him score. He said that he did. I told him to go fuck himself, I wouldn’t let him score; I would simple with him til he was satisfied, but I wouldn’t let him score. He told me to go fuck myself. I told him he couldn’t score on me even if I was fucking myself while he tried to score on me. I told him anyone at Schechter could shut him out while they fucked themselves because he was Shmooly and they weren’t. He told me again to go fuck myself, and that I was a crybaby. He knew everything I was telling him already, he said. He didn’t care anymore what was fair. Fair could go fuck itself, he said. It wasn’t fair that what was fair got to be fair and what wasn’t fair didn’t. Fair was unfair. Everything could go fuck itself. Everything should fuck itself. Everything should fuck itself but not everything fucked itself plus fair was unfair was why I should let him score. That’s why other people let him score, and that’s why I used to let him score, so I should go fuck myself now because it wasn’t fair to change like that and I knew it, he knew I knew it because of how I was crying like a fucking kindergarten fucking crybaby, he told me. I wasn’t the one who was Shmooly, he told me. I wasn’t the one who suffered for fair’s unfairness, he said. He was the one who was Shmooly, he told me, and Shmooly was the one that suffered for fair’s unfairness, and it was unfair for me to make Shmooly feel bad by being a fucking kindergarten crybaby because it was Shmooly who deserved mercy, not me. It was Shmooly, not me from Shmooly. Go fuck myself, he wouldn’t show me mercy, go fuck myself, go fuck myself. Go fuck myself or let him score.
By then I couldn’t distinguish the one choice from the other.
I held my hands out to Shmooly, palms down. Shmooly held his under mine, palms up. And then he scored. Probably I let him.
There was finger-writing across the fog of the bus-door’s windows. It looked like this:
I wiped it out with my sleeve and went to the wheel-well seat, where Vincie had put my coat and backpack.
“Why’d you wipe what I wrote?” he said.
It signified wrong, I told him.
“It fucken whated wrong?” he said.
I said, You wrote it in the shape of a torture instrument.
“I was saying we’re like crucified,” said Vincie. “The like crucification of the Side of Damage,” he said.
We’re not crucified, I said.
“I didn’t say we were fucking crucified. I said like crucified. Like we’re crucifiedish. By the Arrangement. Like you said. Why do I have to play the dumb one all the time?” He stabbed the cushion of his seat with a Bic.
You’re not dumb, I said. You’re smart.
“I’m not smart, Gurion, but I’m not dumb either, and I didn’t say that I was. I asked why do I have to play the dumb one if I’m not dumb, which I’m not?”
I said, You don’t have to play the dumb one, no one said you have to play the dumb one, and we’re not crucifiedish, I never said that. Even if we were, it still doesn’t make sense to write WE DAMAGE WE that way because WE isn’t crucified on ARRANGEMENT the way you wrote it. WE isn’t even crucified on DAMAGE the way you wrote it — the way you wrote it, the WEs are the arms of DAMAGE.
He said, “People can see it better if it’s shaped like a cross. At least I can. But what do I know, since I play the dumb one, which I’m not asking you if I have to play the dumb one or not — I’m telling you: I play the dumb one. Like, I’ve had a crush on the same girl since kindergarten, and I have a million things to say to her, and I don’t think they’re dumb, but I play the dumb one when I see her. She sees me seeing her, and I know what to say, but instead I play the dumb one. I pretend I wasn’t looking. I squint at fucken nothing. I don’t say fuck-all. I play the fucken dumb one. But I don’t know why I do that and what I’m asking you is why I do that. Why the fuck do I do that?”
What’s the girl’s name? I said.
“I’m not fucken telling you. But see? That’s exactly my fucken point, what just happened — you thought you could catch me off-guard, like if you asked me fast enough, I’d tell you her name, like a tricked fucken dumbass, and you think that because of how I always play the dumb one. And so I’m asking you why I always play the dumb one.”