Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“In my day we played on our feet. Your generation played the game on your toes. And now it’s a game played in the air.”

“It’s true.”

“And I swear the rules are different.”

“Well, the three-point shot—”

“Of course, but that’s not what I mean. They routinely commit what would have been a traveling violation, but you never see it called. If a guy’s driving to the basket it doesn’t seem to matter how many steps he takes.”

“I know. There’s a rule, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

“And they’ll turn the ball over when they’re dribbling. Double dribble, that used to be, and you lost possession. Not anymore.”

“I like the three-point shot, though,” Kevin Parmalee said.

“Improves the game. No question. But only at the pro distance. The college three-pointer is too close.”

“It’s ridiculous. And yet the college game’s more fun to watch. It’s not as good a game, but it’s more exciting.”

They went onchatting comfortably until play resumed, then fell largely silent and watched the action on the court. The visitors narrowed the gap in the third quarter, and with three minutes to play only six points separated the two teams. Then the Knicks surged, and led by fourteen when the buzzer sounded.

On their way out the son said, “Well, they made a game of it. It was never close, but you wouldn’t have known that from the fans.”

“They beat the spread,” the father said, “and that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. It could have gone either way until the final seconds.”

“You figure that many of the people here had money on the game?”

“Probably more than you’d think, but that’s not the point. We’re New Yorkers, Kev. When we root for a team, we don’t just want to win the game. We want to beat the spread.”

“And we did, so hoorah for our side.”

“Amen. It was a good game.”

“And God knows the price was right.”

“You told me who gave you the tickets, but I forget. One of the senior partners?”

“No, one of Joe Levin’s clients. He gave them to Joe, and Joe thought he could go and then couldn’t, which was why the whole thing was as last-minute as it was.”

“Terrific seats.”

“Well, some corporation pays for them, and lists them as a business expense. So they didn’t cost us anything, and they didn’t cost anybody else anything, either.”

“That’s the way it ought to be,” Richard Parmalee said. “I made a reservation at Keen’s, not that I think we’ll need one at this hour on a weeknight. That sound all right to you?”

“As long as it’s on me.”

“Not a chance.”

“Hey, I asked you out, remember?”

“You got the tickets, I get the dinner check.”

“The tickets were free, remember?”

“So’s the dinner, as far as you’re concerned. You’re not going to win this argument, Kevin, so don’t even try.”

The headwaiter greeted the older man by name and showed them to a table in the grill room. Richard Parmalee ordered a single-malt scotch, neat, with water back. Kevin ordered a Mexican beer.

“I was reading an article on malt whisky,” he said, “and halfway through I decided I owed it to myself to develop a taste for it. Then I remembered that I never liked hard booze, and I especially don’t like the stuff you drink. Laphroiag?”

“No one ever mistook it for mother’s milk,” the older man conceded. He took a small sip and savored it, as if tasting it for the first time. “I’m not sure I like the taste myself,” he said. “I appreciate it, but that’s not the same thing, is it? All in all, I’d have to say you’re better off with beer.”

“I’d probably be better off with orange juice.”

“Chock full of vitamin C. But you don’t drink much, do you?”

“No.”

“I have a drink every day, but it’s an unusual day when I have a second. Which I guess makes this an unusual day, come to think of it, because I had one at my club this afternoon, and here I am having a second. Two drinks in one day, and only five or six hours apart at that.”

“I’ll call AA.”

They ordered the same meal, steak and salad. The restaurant’s ceiling was festooned with white clay pipes, each reserved for a particular patron, and over coffee the father said, “I almost asked him to bring my pipe.”

“That’s right, you have a pipe here, don’t you? I have a faint memory of you smoking it after dinner.”

“It must have been the first time I brought you here. After a game, I suppose.”

“St. John’s — Iona. St. John’s won, and if I worked at it I could probably remember the score. I was fifteen, and I remember deciding that when I grew up I’d have a pipe of my own here.”

“If you were fifteen then I would have been forty-one. So that may well have been the last time I smoked that pipe, because I was forty-two when I quit. Your grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I threw my cigarettes in the garbage. I had some pipes, although I rarely smoked them.”

“I don’t think I ever saw you smoke a pipe aside from that one time right here.”

“As I said, I rarely did. But I threw them out along with the cigarettes. And I gave away all my lighters and cigarette cases, including a silver Ronson that my father had given me. I figured he’d given me plenty of other things, I didn’t have to hang on to it for sentimental reasons. You’ve never smoked, have you?”

“Not tobacco.”

“Then what... oh, marijuana. Do you use it?”

“I did in college, and for a year or two after. I was never into it that much. Mostly just at parties. I haven’t smoked it in years, and I haven’t even smelled it, except on the street. I don’t go to that many parties, and when I do there’s never anybody lighting up a joint in the corner.”

“I suppose I assumed you tried it in college, although I can’t remember giving much thought to the subject. It wasn’t around when I was in college. Oh, it must have been, but I wasn’t aware of it and certainly didn’t know anybody who smoked it.”

“So you never tried it.”

“I didn’t say that. Your mother and I both tried it a few times in, oh, it must have been ‘sixty-seven or — eight.”

“I was five years old. Were you and Mom hippies? You should have turned me on while you were at it.”

“Hippies,” the father said, and shook his head. “The first time we smoked nothing happened. Our friends, the people who turned us on, swore we were stoned, but if we were we didn’t know it, so what good was it? The second time we both got high and it was very nice, though I can’t say I remember what exactly was nice about it. But it was. And then we smoked once or twice after that, and one time your mother became very anxious, and when it wore off we agreed this wasn’t something we wanted to waste our time on.”

“Mom got paranoid?”

“That’s as good a word for it as any, and how did we get on this? Pipes on the ceiling, we’re a long way from pipes on the ceiling. But I had a hell of a time quitting cigarettes, so I don’t think I’ll call for my pipe and my bowl.”

“Did you smoke when you were playing basketball?”

“Not while I was out on the court. But that’s not what you meant. Sure, I smoked. I was a kid, and kids are stupid. I heard smoking would cut my wind, so I tried it, and I didn’t see any difference, so I decided they were full of crap. What did I expect, that the first cigarette I smoked would add three seconds to my time in the hundred-yard dash? Still, I was never that heavy a smoker when I was playing. After I graduated, that’s when the habit took off.”

“Neither of the girls smokes,” Kevin Parmalee said.