Thomas Disch - 334

Shrimp, who was studying the backs of her property deeds to see how many more houses she could get by mortgaging the odds and ends, explained the exchange system between the two schools.

“Isn’t this what she was being so giddy about last spring?” Milly asked. “I thought another girl got the scholarship then.”

“Celeste diCecca. She was the one in the airplane crash.”

“Oh!” Milly said, as the light dawned. “I didn’t make the connection.”

“You thought Shrimp just likes to keep up with the latest plane crashes?” Boz asked.

“I don’t know what I thought, Trueheart. So now she’s going after all. Talk about luck!”

Shrimp bought three more houses. Then the racing car sped past Park Place, Boardwalk, Go, and Income Tax, to land on Vermont Avenue. It was mortgaged to the bank.

“Talk about luck!” said January. The talk about luck continued for several turns round the board—who had it and who lacked it and whether there was, outside of Monopoly, any such thing. Boz asked if any of them had ever known anyone who’d won on the numbers or in the lottery. January’s brother had won five hundred dollars three years before.

“But of course,” January added conscientiously, “over the long run he’s lost more than that.”

“Certainly for the passengers an airplane crash is only luck,” Milly insisted.

“Did you think about crashes a lot when you were a hostess?” January asked the question with the same leaden disinterest with which she played at the game.

While Milly told her story about the Great Air Disaster of 2021, Boz snuck around behind the screen to revise the orzata and add some ice. Tabbycat was watching tiny ballplayers silently playing ball on the teevee, and Peanut was sleeping peacefully. When he returned with the tray the Air Disaster was concluded and Shrimp was spelling out her philosophy of life:

“It may look like luck on the surface but if you go deeper you’ll see that people usually get what they’ve got coming. If it hadn’t been this scholarship for Amparo, it would have been something else. She’s worked for it.”

“And Mickey?” January asked.

“Poor Mickey,” Milly agreed.

“Mickey got exactly what he deserved.”

For once Boz had to agree with his sister. “People, when they do things like that, are often seeking punishment.”

January’s orzata chose just that moment to spill itself. Milly got the board up in time and only one edge was wet. January had had so little money left in front of her that that was no loss either. Boz was more embarrassed than January, since his last words seemed to imply that she’d overturned her drink deliberately. God knew, she had every reason to want to. Nothing is quite so dull as two solid hours of losing.

Two turns later January’s wish came true. She landed on Boardwalk and was out of the game. Boz, who was being ground into the dust more slowly but just as surely, insisted on conceding at the same time. He went with January out onto the veranda.

“You didn’t have to give up just to keep me company, you know.”

“Oh, they’re happier in there without us. Now they can fight it out between themselves, fang and claw.”

“Do you know, I’ve never won at Monopoly? Never once in my life!” She sighed. Then, so as not to seem an ungrateful guest, “You’ve got a lovely view.”

They appreciated the night view in silence: lights that moved cars and planes; lights that didn’t move, stars, windows, street lamps.

Then, growing uneasy, Boz made his usual quip for a visitor on the veranda: “Yes—I’ve got the sun in the morning and the clouds in the afternoon.”

Possibly January didn’t get it. In any case she intended to be serious. “Boz, maybe you could give me some advice.”

“Me? Fiddle-dee-dee!” Boz loved to give advice. “What about?”

“What we’re doing.”

“I thought that was more in the nature of being already done.”

“What?”

“I mean, from the way Shrimp talks, I thought it was a—” But he couldn’t say “fait accompli,” so he translated. “An accomplished fact.”

“I suppose it is, as far as our being accepted. They’ve been very nice to us, the others there. It isn’t us that I’m worried about so much as her mother.”

“Mom? Oh, she’ll get along.”

“She seemed very upset last night.”

“She gets upset but she recovers quickly, our Mom does. All the Hansons are great bouncers-back. As you must have noticed.” That wasn’t nice but it seemed to slip past January with most of his other meanings.

“She’ll still have Lottie with her. And Mickey too, when he gets back.”

“That’s right.” But his agreement had an edge of sarcasm. He’d begun to resent January’s clumsy streaks of whitewash. “And anyhow, even if it is as bad as she seems to think, you can’t let that stand in your way. If Mom didn’t have anyone else, that shouldn’t affect your decision.”

“You don’t think so?”

“If I thought so, then I’d have to move back there, wouldn’t I? If it came to the point that she was going to lose the place. Oh, look who’s here!”

It was Tabbycat. Boz picked her up and rubbed her in all her favorite places. January persisted. “But you’ve got your own … family.”

“No, I’ve got my own life. The same as you or Shrimp.”

“So you do think we’re doing the right thing?”

But he wasn’t going to let her have it as easy as that. “Are you doing what you want to? Yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s the right thing.” Which judgment pronounced, he turned his attention to Tabbycat. “What’s going on in there, huh, little fella? Are those people still playing their long dull game? Huh? Who’s going to win? Huh?”

January, who didn’t know the cat had been watching television, answered the question straightforwardly. “I think Shrimp will.”

“Oh?” Why had Shrimp ever …? He had never understood.

“Yes. She always wins. It’s incredible. The luck.”

That was why.

He was going to be a ballplayer. Ideally a catcher for the Mets, but lacking that he’d be content so long as he was in the major leagues. If his sister could become a ballerina, there was no reason he couldn’t be an athlete. He had the same basic genetic equipment, quick reflexes, a good mind. He could do it. Dr. Sullivan said he could do it and Greg Lincoln the sports director said he had as good a chance as any other boy, possibly better. It meant endless practice, rigid discipline, an iron will, but with Dr. Sullivan helping him to weed out his bad mental habits there wasn’t any reason he couldn’t meet those demands.

But how could he explain that in half an hour in the visitors’ room? To his mother, who didn’t know Kike Chalmers from Opal Nash? His mother who was the source (he could understand that now) of most of his wrong ways of thinking. So he just told her.

“I don’t want to go back to 334. Not this week, not next week, not …” he pulled up just short of the word “never.”

“Not for a long time.”

Emotions flickered across her face like strobes. Mickey looked away. She said, “Why, Mickey? What did I do?”

“Nothing. That’s not it.”

“Why then? A reason.”

“You talk in your sleep. All night long you talk.”

“That’s not a reason. You can sleep in the living room, like Boz used to, if I keep you up.”

“Then you’re crazy. How’s that? Is that a reason? You’re crazy, all of you are.”

That stopped her, but not for long. Then she was pecking away at him again. “Maybe everyone’s crazy, a little. But this place, Mickey, you can’t want to—I mean, look at it!”