Balling the Jack Read online

  I keep telling Jimmy he should turn pro. Hit the dart circuit with me as his trusty manager. I’d take a modest thirty percent and any women he couldn’t handle. His eyes light up at that kind of talk, but of course that’s all it is. Since the marriage he’s lucky to make it out on dart night. Don’t get me started on that.

  Jimmy is tall, about my height, with brown hair he parts in the middle and a smile that goes on and off like a light switch. He carries his weight well, like an athlete, though each time I see him he seems to have a little more to carry.

  “Hi, guys.”

  We turn around. The first sight of Claire each week is a tonic. Scrubbed features, light freckles, milk in her eye. A heartland princess in the teeth of the big city. She gives us a kiss.

  “You look great, Claire. Feel hot tonight?”

  “Like always.”

  Don’t let her fool you. She may look sweet, but put a dart in her hands and Claire is a killer. She’ll be key tonight. You should see these Irish guys when they go up against a good-looking girl. Boy, do they lock up. We might be in McDougal’s, or O’Flannery’s, and all Claire has to do is shake her opponent’s hand and he starts to sweat. If the guy is getting any action at all, it clearly isn’t in her league. When she steps to the line to warm up he can’t keep his eyes off her ass. He’s a mess before the game even starts.

  In darts it doesn’t take a lot to knock you off-stride. An eighth of an inch turns a triple 20 into a triple 1. The guy gets behind early, still out of it, and then the ribbing starts up from his teammates.

  “Can’t beat a girl, lad?”

  “What’ll you have from the bar, Wally? A wine cooler?”

  Brutal. So then he starts to press, swearing between throws, his dart arm full of tension. Claire hits a big round and now the pressure is really on, and the peanut gallery turns it up a notch.

  “Whyn’t you tell us it was ladies’ night, Wally?” All of a sudden this A league darter can barely hit the board. Claire finishes him off and the guy slinks back to the bar, ruined for the rest of the evening. We’ve seen it a dozen times.

  Dave walks in humming the Notre Dame fight song. He puts his arms around the three of us, bringing our heads together.

  “Gentlemen. Claire. We WILL win it all. You know what I did last night?”

  No one offers a guess.

  “Think of the great fighters, before a fight.”

  “You slept alone,” says Jimmy.

  “I slept alone.”

  “You’re a martyr, Dave,” I say.

  “I am that. Though I’ll confess that since I swore off Catholic girls, the rotation’s been a little weak.” He turns to Claire. “I may be able to slip you in there.”

  She laughs. “I’ll pass.”

  “Okay. But that does mean Debbie’s going to have to go again on two days’ rest.”

  Claire shakes her head. “Tell me, Dave, where do you find these women?”

  “Claire, Claire.” Dave takes a long taste of his pint and winks at us. “They find me.”

  Tank and Bobby walk in together and join us at the bar. Tank kisses Claire and scowls at the rest of us.

  “I been thinking about this all day,” he says. “Didn’t get a lick of work done.”

  Tank was my roommate junior year. The fullback on the football team until he tore up his knee, then keg captain of his frat. He’s the only guy in New York who knows more about the Mets than I do. His perfect Friday night is a case of beer and a video of the ’86 Series. A solid dart player and a no-bullshit guy. Likes a head butt before every match, and as captain I oblige.

  Bobby would fit nicely under Tank’s arm. He’s five feet three and looks fourteen years old. Nearly cost us a playoff match a few months back by forgetting his license. We paid off the bouncer to get him in but no dice getting him a drink, and sober his game deserted him. We were lucky to squeak by. Bobby is a freak of nature. He can’t weigh more than 140 pounds but he goes beer for beer with any of us, and the damnedest thing is he never has to piss. We can’t figure out where it all goes. He jumps onto a barstool.

  “Okay, guys. Ante up.”

  Bobby is also the songmaster. He gets two bucks from each of us to load up the jukebox before a match. Dave held the job at the start of the season but lost our trust. He was liable to spring Madonna on us, or Loverboy. He played them back to back at midseason and we booted him. I speak up.

  “Before you go, Bobby. Everyone in close. Mason, a round of tequilas, please.”

  “Pep talk,” says Bobby.

  “Who do I kill, captain?” says Tank.

  “Give us the word, skip,” says Jimmy.

  “Put me in the mood,” says Claire.

  Mason pours them out.

  “Okay, guys,” I say, “I’ll keep it simple.” I look at each in turn.

  “Tonight we’re the ’69 Mets.” We raise our shots. “Bottoms up.”

  We toss them back, turn our glasses over on the bar and walk to the boards. We’re ready.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALL A CAPTAIN can ask is to have his ace on the line with a shot to win it. Come on, Jimmy—put the stake in these guys.

  An hour ago it didn’t look so good. The Hellions jumped on us early, winning four of six singles. We fought back in cricket to even the score, split the first two doubles 501 games and here we are—all tied up. Our big guns against theirs in one game for the Manhattan championship. A hell of a game it’s been, too. Jimmy and Tank have torn up the board but Killigan and Duggan have matched them dart for dart. Now, at the finish, all that stands between us and one hell of a party is the double 16 Jimmy is stepping up there to hit. He has no margin for error, because if he misses, Killigan gets his own chance to win it, and Sean Killigan hasn’t missed all night.

  I’m scoring the match. Chalking, we call it. From my spot next to the board I face the shooters and the two teams spread around the table behind them. The Drinkers stand to the left, Bobby and Claire on their chairs for a better view. Claire watches through her fingers and Bobby looks away, then back, then away again. Dave has his fist in the air, ready to yell. Tank, Jimmy’s partner, gives him a nod of encouragement and takes a big draw from his pint.

  Off to the right the Hellions stand together, silent. Even with a loss staring at him, Duggan’s face is a sneer. He looks at me, and when he sees that I see he flicks his eyes at jimmy, shakes his head, and draws a finger across his throat. I look back at the board. I could sure use a drink, but chalkers aren’t allowed one. Christ. Playing a tough game is bad enough. Watching it is murder.

  Jimmy steps to the mark. Most guys take a little extra time with the game on the line. Rub their shoulders, take some deep breaths. Jimmy is all business, though, and as he locks in on the target, my gut tightens with joy. He has that look to him, the one he gets when he’s really on. Staring so hard at the board I know he can’t see anything else. He pulls his arm back to throw and the rush hits me and it’s all I can do not to smile. Because I know, sure as gold, that Jimmy’s going to bury it. And when he does I’m the only one in the bar who doesn’t see it because I’m not looking at the board but at Duggan. His face and the roar of the gang tell me it’s in and I throw the chalk in the air and hell breaks loose.

  I rush to Jimmy but still I’m looking past him at Duggan, who slams his darts to the floor. Bobby, Claire and Dave come over the table and all of us meet at Jimmy. Over their heads I see Duggan shake off Killigan and the other Hellions and then his eyes snap up to mine, and better even than the trophy we’ll get for tonight is the sight of him. The blood wants through his face but there’s nowhere for it to go, and the hate coming at me from those yellow eyes is sweet to see. Tank joins the hug, we sway for a second, the six of us, and start to collapse, and just before we go down in a pile and Claire with her sweet smell drops in my lap, I give Joe Duggan a big horse wink.

  ALL HELLIONS HAVE LEFT the grounds now and the celebration is on. Stella saw the finish from behind the bar and comes round to hug
us all. Stella wouldn’t spot the Pope a beer but she springs for a round and sits down with us. Says of all her teams she likes us the best. Likes the way we were friends first, the way we pull for one another, the way we started at the bottom and stuck together. Of course, the fortune we spend in here doesn’t hurt. If our team ever went on the wagon she’d hear from her accountant in a week.

  I like to think of Stella Walker as the last of the old New York buildings. The facing has eroded a bit, the plumbing isn’t what it used to be, but she’s still a grand structure. And built to last. Her husband left her this place when he died ten years ago and she’s run it on her own ever since. She lives just across the street and walks over every morning to open up for the faithful crew of soaks who wait outside. You should see that crowd. One time as a lark Tank and I stopped in for a beer before work. Sitting at the bar at 8 A.M., drinking breakfast, were the same regulars we see every dart night. First time in my life I ever felt like a health nut.

  Stella herself doesn’t knock them back much anymore, except on Saint Paddy’s, but she’s still a sport. She might be seventy-fìve, but I’d rather spend an hour with her than with a lot of guys I know. She holds Jets season tickets and slips them to Tank and me when the weather turns too cold for her. Likes to gamble a little, too. Plays the ponies through Toadie and rides the casino bus to Atlantic City twice a month. Keeps a cribbage board behind the bar and deals a mean game. A quarter a point, and if you miscount your hand she takes the points herself.

  Stella likes darts best of all, though, and nothing makes her happier than watching her teams win. She’ll talk about tonight’s match for a month. She means it about our team, too. About liking us best, I mean. She’s fielded teams with better shooters, but none with our spirit and none with our loyalty. A lot of her squads change from season to season, put together not out of friendship but to win titles. If they fall short, the aces switch teams or even bars, lured to the White Horse by promises of free beer or to Sting’s to join a powerhouse, or just walking out in a huff after a row with teammates. Only we Drinkers have kept the same six from the start.

  Not that we haven’t been tempted. Jimmy has turned down a dozen offers to jump ship, and the Kettle, down in the Village, keeps promising the whole team five-dollar pitchers all season to come over. Through it all we buy Stella’s three-dollar Buds and stay put. Adam’s Curse is home, and you don’t leave home because the place down the street has better rates. Not to mention that as captain I’d have to break the news to Stella. I’d rather tell Dad I’m a fruit.

  Tonight we line up a round of prairie fires. Claire passes on hers, so we slide it down to Toadie, who damn near chokes on it. A prairie fire is tequila and Tabasco together in a shot glass. Hell going down and worse the next morning, but it gives you a charge. After we toss them back, Tank climbs onto the bar and leads the alkies through the Mets theme song. Then all us guys take off our shirts, draw the box score from the match on them, and give them to Stella, who signs each one with a flourish and promises they’ll be on the ceiling by the weekend. Stella shakes her finger at Dave when he offers Claire a hundred dollars to add her shirt to the pile.

  “None of that. This young lady is the best thing that ever happened to you boys. Be gentlemen.”

  To prove our manners we form a human ricksha and carry Claire around the bar to scope a good spot on the wall for our plaque. A little later, when she’s ready to leave, we see her to the street and serenade her into a cab with a chorus of “Duggan Takes It Up the Ass,” to the tune of “Camptown Races.” Back inside, the rest of us make a pact to defend our title and seal it with a second prairie fire.

  By midnight Stella is done in, and over her protests I walk her across the street to her place. I’m still shirtless but wearing my tie now. She feels heavy on my arm. I wonder about her sometimes. She seems to leave earlier and earlier these days, and is it me or is she losing the spring in her step? In the streetlight I glance at her face and for the first time she looks like an old woman. I ask how she feels and she waves a hand.

  “I’m all right, Tom. All the excitement just wears on me a little. Not that I would miss it …” She pats her chest. “It does the heart good.” She stops at her door. “Now you go on back, Tom. People will talk.”

  I turn but she touches my arm, her eyes sparkling.

  “I play canasta every month with Papa O’Shea, Tom—the owner of County Hell. For two years I’ve had to listen to how good his boys are. Thanks to you kids, I have bragging rights now.”

  Crossing back to Adam’s Curse I shake my head for ever worrying about her. That woman will give the toast at my wake.

  Back in the bar, Bobby waves me to our table in the corner.

  “Before I go, guys,” he says, “what do you say? One movie opening?”

  We all groan.

  “C’mon. It’s a good one, I promise.”

  Bobby may write ad copy for a living, but his passion is dreaming up opening scenes for movies. They just come to him, he says, and whenever one does we have to gather round while he recites it and then give it a rating. Thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Bobby knows enough to catch us when we’re in our cups. Loaded, they almost all sound good, though the next morning you can’t make any sense of them. We give him the green light.

  “Okay. Close your eyes.”

  We do.

  “A night scene. A farmer driving his pickup on a country road. No one and nothing around. He’s got a real beat-up face, depression-era, a tractor cap on his head. Probably illiterate, you’re thinking as you watch. He stares straight ahead, no expression. The only sound is a commercial on the truck radio, turned low. The farmer punches the ‘seek’ button and Pink Floyd’s ‘Have a Cigar’ is just starting. It plays most all the way through and still the farmer stares ahead, no change of expression. Suddenly, perfectly in sync, he joins in: ‘It could be made into a monster if we all pull together as a team.’”

  Everyone is quiet. Bobby looks around.

  “And?” says Jimmy.

  “That’s it. The farmer is silent again. The song finishes, he clicks off the radio, and all we hear are the crickets.”

  We all give it the thumbs-up.

  “If you ever do make that flick,” says Tank, “you better pass out plenty of weed.”

  By 2 A.M. the gang is down to Dave, Jimmy, and me, and Dave’s on his way out. “Great night, gentlemen. I’d stay but I have a midterm in seven hours. Jimmy—what are the chances you can bust out this weekend?”

  “None.”

  “Too bad. Tom, leave Friday night open if you win your bet.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got another trim plan.” He rubs his hands. “And this one is foolproof. You go home alone, you get your money back.”

  I laugh, “Just like the last time?”

  Every few months Dave comes up with a new plan. His last one had us booking into the Penta Hotel the weekend of a nurses’ convention. As Dave pitched it, “… four hundred horny girls. Every one of them on birth control, every one of them with a little knowledge of anatomy, every one of them looking for a good time.” Well, the best-laid plans … A quarter of them turned out to be guys, and most of the rest had thirty years or fifty pounds on us, or both. Once you threw out the married ones and the dogs, we were down to about ten prospects. Worst of all, Dave hooked up with a couple of them and I ended up back at the pad to give him some privacy.

  “Just hear me out, Tom. This time it can’t miss. Scout’s honor.”

  “Okay,” I say, thinking I’d like to see the troop that graduated Dave.

  “You know Chippendale’s?”

  “Sure. The male strippers. I think we’re a few situps away from being ready.”

  “Listen. Every Friday at midnight it turns into a regular bar. Guys can go too.”

  “So?”

  “Boy, you never took critical reasoning, did you? Hundreds of horny women stare at naked guys for hours. They whip themselves into a frenzy—tossing
their money, grabbing at loincloths, rushing the stage. Just when they’re ready to sneak into the ladies’ room and diddle off, in we walk. Straight, handsome, and eligible. What do you say?”

  This plan has two things in common with all Dave’s others: It’s completely outrageous, and going over the logic I can’t find any holes.

  “We’ll be fishing in a stocked tank, Tom. No chance we don’t land one.”

  “I’m there.”

  “Good.” He winks at Jimmy. “We’ll tell you all about it.”

  Dave salutes us and walks out into the night. Jimmy and I are the only customers left in the bar. The lights are down and Marley sings softly from the jukebox. Through my buzz I feel hugely at peace. I put out a hand.

  “You know how bad I wanted to win this one tonight, Jimmy. And you were a pistol. Thanks.”

  He shakes. “My pleasure. Duggan is a prick, isn’t he?”

  “The biggest.”

  Jimmy shakes his head and I know he’s thinking of Dave. “Jesus, Tom. The single life. It must be something else, huh?”

  “It has its rewards.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Here it comes. I can always tell when Jimmy’s got something on his mind, and it’s usually the same something. He got hitched right out of school, like I said, and a year later the bloom is definitely off the rose. Most nights he won’t go into it, but get him alone, with enough in him, and he’ll come clean. Another drink or two should do the trick.

  “Anything you want to tell me?” I ask.

  Jimmy pauses.

  “Nah. No talk of the front tonight—we’re celebrating. Mason, how ’bout some kamikazes, and two more pints.”

  He sips his beer and seems to be going back and forth in his head. We do our shots and the dam breaks.

  “It’s just this, Tom. You know, it even pisses her off that I’m here tonight. Not just because I’ll roll in at dawn, either. It’s the fact I’m out having a good time without her. Christ, I work hard. Is it too much to have a few beers with the fellas once a week?”