Флетчер Флора - The Hot Shot

Well, she took the Buick back up that gravel road like a bat out of hell, and I thought more than once that she was going to smash the damn thing up and kill us both, but to tell the truth, I didn’t much give a damn. When we got back to town, she asked me where I wanted her to drop me, and I remembered that I still had old Bugs’s dollar to spend, so I said, “Oh, just drop me off uptown somewhere. I think I’ll loaf around a little.” She let me off right in front of her old man’s bank, which seemed sort of ironic or some damn thing like that, and just before she pulled away she turned and said as if it was just something she happened to remember at the last second, “Oh, by the way, Skimmer, a bunch of us are having a little party at the Club after the game Saturday night, and I wondered if you’d like to go with me.”

“What club?” I said, not that it made any difference, because I intended to go, whatever damn club it was, and she looked surprised and said, “Why, the Country Club, of course,” like what the hell other club is there?

“Oh, sure, the Country Club,” I said. “I thought maybe you meant some kind of special club or something. Anyhow, I’d be glad to go.”

She said swell, and she’d meet me outside the locker room after the game, and then she drove away, and I wanted some cigarettes, so I walked down to Dummke’s to get them. Old Gravy was sitting on a high stool behind the counter reading the Sunday funny papers, and he looked up at me when I came in and said, “Well, well, if it isn’t the God-damn hero. Getting his name on the sports page and everything.”

I said, “Just cut the crap and give me a pack of gaspers,” and he looked shocked as hell and made a big red O with his stinking mouth and said, “Don’t tell me a big athlete like you smokes cigarettes,” and I said, “Ha, ha, you think you’re pretty God-damn funny, don’t you?”

Usually you could needle the greasy bastard into blowing his lid right away, but this time he didn’t get mad at all, but just laughed and tossed the gaspers across the counter and said, “You know, that basketball racket’s got possibilities. You get good enough, you might be able to make a big thing out of it for yourself.”

I thought about old Marsha and me in the front seat of the Buick, and I said, “Maybe I’ve already made a big thing out of it,” and his little eyes got all narrow and still all of a sudden, and he said, “What the hell you mean?” and I said, “That’s none of your damn business.”

Then he laughed again and gave me the change from Bugs’s dollar and said, “Well, I read in the sports page how you made thirty points your first game and twenty-six your second game, so you must be pretty good. After you get a little sharper, you come around and see me, and maybe I can do a good thing for you, and you can do a good thing for me at the same time,” and I said, “I wouldn’t put you out if you were on fire,” and went out.

I still had seventy-seven cents to spend, and I thought about going around to Beegie’s again, but I decided not to go because there was a chance of running into old Bugs there, and besides, to tell the truth, I didn’t get much of a bang out of Beegie’s any more, so what I did was go to a diner for a hamburger and bottle of coke and then to a movie. It was a corny movie, and this doll who was supposed to be such hot stuff wasn’t half as good as Marsha, and Marsha had got more done in the front seat of the Buick for free than this one did in a dozen fancy joints with rich guys all over the place offering her diamonds and fur coats and all kinds of stuff for it. After the movie I went home and started thinking about how I could get hold of some dough for the party Saturday night, because you’d sure as hell have to have a pocketful to go to the damn County Club, and I had exactly seven cents left out of Bugs’s crummy dollar.

That week old Mulloy really worked the hell out of us, and he kept talking about what a tough game it was coming up on Saturday, and how we’d have to be a hell of a lot better than we’d been yet to win this one, because this team was really a sharp one that could beat half the colleges in the country, and altogether he laid it on so God-damn thick you knew it was a pack of damn lies and just a trick to scare us into working all the harder. Old Tizzy and I were getting our business down better all the time, and we got so we could tell by the blink of an eyelash just which way the other one was going to jump, and old Mulloy puffed and blew about what a classy combination he’d made out of us, just like it was all due to nothing but his crummy coaching, and the truth is, whatever caused it, we were slicker than grease.

Along about Tuesday evening I was walking home late, and I was still trying to think of a way to get my hands on at least a fin for Saturday, and who should I meet over on my own side of town but old Mopsy on her way home from the grocery store. I hadn’t seen her to talk to since that night when her old man and old lady had gone to the movies, and she said, “Hi, Skimmer. How come you haven’t been around to see me lately?”

I had a good reason, of course, namely that you don’t eat hash when you’ve got roast beef, but I tried to make it easy on her and said, “Oh, I’ve been pretty busy with basketball and all,” and she said, “You’re really getting to be a big star, and I’m proud of you,” and I said, “Well I guess I’ve just got a knack for it,” which, like I’ve said before, was the way it was.

We kept walking along, and pretty soon she said, “How would you like to come over to my house Saturday night after the game? We could pop some popcorn and listen to music and have some fun.”

“Your old man and old lady going to be home?” I said, and she said they were, and I said, “Then how the hell we going to have any fun?”

She said, “You oughtn’t to say things like that, Skimmer. You sound like you never thought about anything else,” and I said, “Is there something else to think about?” and she said, “Do you want to come, or don’t you?” and I said, “No, as a matter of fact I don’t, because I’ve got a date to take Marsha Davis to a party at the Country Club.”

You could see it knocked her for a loop, me just tossing it off that way, and she got sulky and said, “I guess now that you’re a basketball star and running around with someone like Marsha Davis, you won’t have any more time for me,” and I said, “I guess maybe I won’t.”

“Well,” she said, “you don’t need to think I care,” and I said, “I don’t give a damn whether you care or not, and besides, you ought to be glad I don’t come because you’re so damn determined to save it, and if I was hanging around you might be tempted to spend it.”

That really fixed things up swell, that made everything just fine, and at the next corner she turned and went over a block just to get away from me, and damned if she didn’t go home and tell her old man what I’d said, just like she’d told on old Bugs when he tried to sneak a feel. The first I knew about it was when I got home the next evening, which was Wednesday. The old man was in the living room when I got there, and he said, “What the hell’s this I hear about you talking filthy to Mopsy Beacon?”

He sort of took me off guard, to tell the truth, and my damn tongue wouldn’t work right, and all I could say was, “Filthy? What the hell you mean, filthy? Who says I been talking filthy?”

“You know damn well what I mean,” he said, “and you know damn well who says so. Mopsy’s old man says so, that’s who, so don’t bother to tell any damn lies about it, and I can tell you I’m getting damn tired of having someone like old man Beacon jump me every time I turn around about some damn dirty thing you’ve been up to.”