Dan Wakefield - Going All the Way - A Novel

It was better in the shade with a beer and a newspaper. He could memorize batting averages and standings, which was another way of keeping the bad shit from taking over your mind, and also he could watch the guys playing their games and horsing around, which was especially active and funny because there were always some good-looking girls around the Beemers and the guys got a charge out of showing off. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, Sonny would have done it himself if he knew how and wouldn’t just look silly instead of agile and tough and daring.

In the keep-away game it ended up that everyone was chasing Jocko Beemer with the beach ball and he took the damn thing up a tree and Gunner climbed after him and knocked the ball out of his hands and there was a big pile-up on the grass with everybody diving in, a mass of arms and legs and screams and friendly curses, healthy young guys in the open air having themselves a ball. Old Man Beemer and Sonny looked on and smiled.

After everyone untangled from the pile-up, dirty and grass-stained and breathing hard and laughing, Kings Kingley let go a big belch and said it was beer time. Kings was five years or so older than the rest of the guys and he already had quite a gut on him, but he still wore his bathing trunks low, so the gut slopped over the elastic waist. He still hung out with the guys just like he was still fresh out of college himself, fresh from winning his varsity letter in football at Wabash. It seemed stranger because he looked even older than he was; he was one of those guys who get the very thinning hair and the big gut early in life. He had married a Theta from DePauw who hailed from somewhere in Illinois, but he was always leaving her and the kid and running up to the lake, hoping to find a big bash, maybe even some action. At night he wore his old white sweater with a block W, but he wore it backward, the W on the back instead of front, as if to show it didn’t mean a damn thing to him it was just a sweater to wear, that’s all.

Some girls from a couple cottages down wanted to go water-skiing, and so the Beemers and Chuck Berback and a couple of buddies of Jocko Beemer’s from the Phi Delt house at I.U. took their beers and went out to the Chris-Craft with the girls. On the back of the boat, in those gold letters formed in an arc, it said, “Beemer’s Better,” and you didn’t know whether it meant the bakery stuff or the boys or everything Beemer, but it probably was true. Jamie Beemer was the oldest brother, he was in Sonny and Gunner’s class. He was never a star but he played reserve ball and everyone admired his guts because he got right in there and mixed it up even though he was a skinny and fairly frail-looking guy, and he was in all the best clubs and everything. Jocko Beemer was two years younger, and he was a star all the way around, not so much because of his actual physical ability but because he was one of those natural-leader guys. He was fairly short, but he had this chin that sort of jutted out and very clear blue eyes, and you just had confidence in him. You saw him walk out in a field, and you said, “There’s my quarterback.” He was the kind of guy Sonny always wanted to be; maybe every guy does.

Gunner didn’t go out in the boat, even though he liked to water-ski and, of course, was damn good at it. He could do the trick where you shake off one ski while you’re actually skiing, and balance yourself so you keep standing up and riding on the other ski, even though the boat is going like hell and making turns so you have to go over the waves that are stirred up. Gunner stopped and asked Old Man Beemer if he wanted another can, and Mr. Beemer said no he was fine, thanks, and Gunner said, “Way to go!” and clapped a hand on the old guy’s shoulder. The guys all treated him like that, like one of the boys.

Gunner had brought out new beers for Sonny and himself and he sat down under the tree and said, “How goes it, man?”

“Fine, I’m fine,” Sonny said, feeling like shit.

“Nothin’ like a little fresh air and sun,” he said, pleased his remedy seemed to be working. “How long were you out today—in the sun?”

“Couple hours.”

“Tomorrow you can do three.”

“Great,” he said, like it was a real treat. He really appreciated how Gunner was trying to help, and didn’t want to act like it wasn’t doing any good. He had felt guilty about Gunner leaving town and leaving his girl behind just to try to help Sonny out, but Gunner had insisted he wanted to do it, that in fact it was a good thing for him to get away, too. He said Marty’s mother was making life miserable for her about spending all her time with a shaygetz , and they might as well take a break, try to let the old lady cool off a little. Besides, Gunner said the last letter from Artists Unlimited didn’t seem so worried about his wasting his talent as about collecting his dough. It had ended by saying, “You may hear a knock on your door anytime; our representatives will be dispatched immediately if you don’t honor the enclosed debt by return mail.” A knock on your fuckin door! It was the Mail Order Gestapo after his ass, Gunner said, and he was taking it on the lam.

Gunner popped him a cigarette and took one for himself.

“You gotta learn to enjoy things more,” Gunner said.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, you must think you’re a real prick or something. Shit, man, you got a lot on the ball.”

“Shee-it.”

“Shee-it me no shee-its, buddy. I mean it. You got your photography. You got a way of explaining it to other people, too. Like you did with me. You got guts, even though you’re no big jock. You stuck by me, even when you might have got clobbered a couple of times. And Marty thinks you’re an attractive guy. No shit. Christ, so maybe you’re not Joe Stud, you’re a good guy and you’ll find a good girl. There aren’t many Joe Studs anyway, mostly there’s a lot of guys with big mouths who think they’re Joe Stud. You got to be able to like your self . Ya know?”

“Sort of,” Sonny said. He felt embarrassed and wondered if he could ever feel that good about himself.

There was suddenly a loud series of honks, the three longs and three shorts, that was sort of like a signal back at Shortley, among the Big Rods mainly but then copied by almost everyone—there wasn’t any law against honking that way, even if you weren’t in the big clubs or anything—and this old red Studebaker came charging right into the yard like it was plunging right into the lake. It stopped with a screech, just past Old Man Beemer’s throne-chair. On the side window of the car was a Budweiser sticker that said, “Y’all come—Bring Bud.”

Sonny was just as glad of the distraction; he hadn’t known what to say about Gunner’s advice.

Gunner cupped his hands and called, “Heeeey, Wheels baby!”

Wheels Conzelman had come to Shortley after getting kicked out of some military academy, and he didn’t know anyone and was too small to be a jock and not very coordinated, but his old man was an executive with some big national firm and had a lot of bucks and bought him that red Studey for his sixteenth birthday, with the hitch that if Wheels flunked out of Shortley or got kicked out or didn’t graduate, the car got taken away. Of course, he was known to his old man as Richard, which was his real name, but he got known around school for the car. At first the Big Rods made fun of him, but then he started letting them use the car and taking them places and also driving them on dates, which was very useful because not many guys had their own car and couldn’t get the folks’ car all the time and so they sort of took Wheels in even though some of them joked about his having a “four-wheel personality,” but Wheels didn’t give a shit, he even said it about himself, and he didn’t seem such a bad guy at all. Just like Sammy Katzman joked about being a Jew, Wheels joked about his four-wheel personality, and if you joked about something like that, people accepted you more. He did flunk out of college his freshman year, but that wasn’t part of the deal about the car, and besides right away he enlisted in the Marines and you could hardly take the car of a U.S. Marine away from him.