Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

Ego is a part of sport, a part of any endeavor where a human being wants to excel. Basketball is a team sport. A player needs to keep that ego in check, in the service of the team. Many a coach has spent a sleepless night trying to figure out how to make a team player out of a talented selfish egoist.

One other thing Irena, a good observer, picked up: Tammy and Andrew spoke to one another only when necessary. As hot as the friction was between Jenny and Tammy, the space between the assistant coach and Tammy was frigid.

After practice, after the girls showered, Irena visited the equipment room, then patiently walked through the two levels of the building. She also went back to the basketball court to familiarize herself with the setup.

As she was walking around the aisle behind the topmost row of seats she heard snow slide on the roof. She noticed, as had Pewter, that a little trickle of water, just a small bit, wiggled down the back wall.

40

Saturday, cold and clear, exhilarated the Reverend Herb Jones not because of the weather but because the carpet men actually showed up. The white van doors slid open with a quiet metallic noise. The two men shouldered the heavy rolls of carpet and floor protector, the cushy rubber pad placed under the carpet. They returned for a five-gallon drum of powerful glue as well as a few carpet tacks for those difficult corners.

In a fit on Friday night, the Reverend Jones had torn up all the old carpets. He had had to vent his anger on something. The carpet men, JoJo and Carl Gentry, brothers, happily carted out the old and since the Reverend Jones tipped them they wedged it into the back of the van to haul to the dump later. Otherwise the good pastor would have had to haul it himself or pay someone else to do it. This was easier and JoJo and Carl always liked pocket money.

"Inbred." Cazenovia sat on the stairway above the communion wafer closet.

"Oh, Cazzie, you're mean. Just because JoJo and Carl don't have chins doesn't mean they're inbred." Elocution had heard enough Cazzie theories on bloodlines to last forever. The point was always the same: cats are better genetic specimens than humans.

Saturdays, sermon day, made the Rev, as Harry called him, tense. He'd find a myriad of things to do to delay writing the sermon, then he'd finally sigh, surrender, and sit down at his desk. Once he was in the middle of his task he enjoyed it. It was getting there that was so hard.

The bare floor felt odd under his shoes as he squeezed into his desk chair. JoJo decided they'd do Herb's office last.

The color, a rich forest green, was quite attractive and Matthew surprised Herb by paying extra, out of his own pocket, for a simple mustard yellow border inset four inches from the edge. Once down it would be very handsome.

The carpet, precut at the factory, proved easy to install. The men made a few adjustments but technology had invaded their craft, too.

The vestibule, finished in an hour and a half, looked splendid. The two cats tested it.

Cazenovia kneaded the carpet, smelling of dye and glue underneath. "M-m-m, what fun."

"Don't get any in your claws or he'll pitch a fit. For a preacher, he can swear when he has to." Elocution smiled as she, too, worked the carpet.

"It's bad manners to give orders to your elders." Cazenovia pulled up a thread of carpet, dangling it in front of the slender cat. "I'll drop this in front of you." Her eyes glittered.

Elocution ignored her as she listened to JoJo and Carl carry the padding down the hall to the closet containing the communion wafers. They propped up the rolled padding on the foot of the wide stairway behind the closet. As they slopped down glue, the brothers laughed, talked about friends, turkey season, the new pro-football league which both thought would bomb.

"Hey, it's twelve o'clock. No wonder I'm hungry." Carl checked his square Casio watch.

"Let's go to Jarman's Gap." JoJo cited a local eatery.

"JoJo, you're on." Carl laid his brush, full of rubber cement, across the top of the five-gallon drum which he closed first, gently tapping the lid so it wouldn't be on too tight.

"Brush will be useless." Carl pointed to the dripping bristles.

"I'll get another one out of the truck. I'm too hungry to care." He wiped his hands on his overalls. "I'll pay for it."

"Yeah. Yeah." Carl closed the box of carpet tacks, placing his small hammer next to the box and five-gallon drum.

Hunger must have clouded their minds because they grabbed their coats without realizing they'd left a section of floor exposed, full of glue, in front of the communion closet. Perhaps they forgot, or perhaps they figured they could sand it off if it hardened by the time they returned.

Cazenovia and Elocution watched them leave.

"Bet the skinny one could eat you out of house and home," Cazenovia remarked of JoJo.

"Yeah. It's quiet in Poppy's office. Think he's having a brainstorm?" Elocution loved Herb.

"Let's see."

He looked up as the two cats walked into his office. "Hello, girls."

"Hello. The carpet looks good as far as it goes," Cazenovia replied.

"Epistle, Romans chapter thirteen, verses eight through ten and Gospel Matthew chapter eight, verses twenty-three through twenty-seven. I'm torn. Do I take my sermon from Romans, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' or do I take it from Matthew? That's such a great story about Christ calming the seas. 'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' They're both so complex, so many levels of meaning." He looked down at his cats, now at his feet. "'Course, I never know what people will hear. Some hear nothing. Others hear a rebuke. Someone else finds comfort. But each parishioner usually believes I am talking only to them. Well, I am." He smiled, warming to his subject. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus practiced His sermons with cats. Our Lord loved all creatures but surely He must have loved cats best."

"I should hope to holler." Elocution blinked and smiled.

"You know, I'd better check the closet. Tomorrow is communion and Charlotte didn't get in to work Friday. She usually checks the supply." He stood up.

"I'm outta here." Elocution burnt the wind scrambling out of the office.

"Dope!" Cazenovia called after her. "You look guilty as sin."

Elocution ignored her, gracefully leaping up and over the exposed rubber cement part of the hall and clutching onto the side of the stairwell. Deep claw marks attested to the fact that she had done this before. She pulled herself up, squeezing through the banisters, hopping over the rolled padding, then raced up the stairs. She'd hide up there until the tempest blew over.

Cazenovia meowed prettily as Herb stepped into the hall. "Look at the vestibule." She took a few steps toward the vestibule then returned to her human.

He paused then walked out to the vestibule. "Hey, this looks good. You think so, too."

"I love it when you understand." Cazenovia rubbed against his pants leg while she purred.

"That border-such a nice finishing touch. I'll have to be sure to write Matthew a thank-you." He folded his arms across his chest, smiled then turned to go back down the hall, his rubber-soled shoes quiet on the new carpet.

He stepped over the large roll of carpet at the edge of the vestibule. This would be used in the hall. He didn't look down as he walked to the closet and he stepped right into the rubber cement before he realized it. The other foot slopped into it, too.

Cazenovia prudently remained where the vestibule connected to the hall. She saw him wobble a minute and then he tumbled over. Now his hands were in it. He pulled up one hand, the goo stringing out like a fat spiderweb off his fingers. He tried to reach a banister but couldn't. With all his might he yanked the other hand out of the ooze, which was affixing itself to his rubber soles.