Hob Broun - Odditorium

Dad just loves these unannounced visits, Vinnie thought. The bastard. Not much of a show; no wonder he isn’t paying attention.

How Vinnie dreaded the arrival of the old man. It always came at the wrong time. Not last night, when they’d been up against a decent factory team and had pulled in close to a grand, but today, on a crappy Little League field across from a laundromat against a squad of local “All Stars” (a disheveled group Vinnie had recruited in bars and union halls at ten bucks a man). The uniforms they wore came out of a cardboard box in the back of the Cougarettes’ bus and fit badly. The crowd was sparse and abusive.

Dad is going to shit a brick, Vinnie thought. I just know it.

Sparn was motioning him over with emphatic swoops of the hand. Vinnie tried to hide under the brim of the sun helmet, but it was too late.

“Good game, huh? A little dry, Dad? Want a brew?”

“How we doing on them? What kind of deal are you getting?”

Vinnie turned around to cheer through cupped hands. “Let’s bring another one home, Roxie. Show us some chili pepper up there.”

Sparn rapped him on the top of the helmet with his ball-point. “I’m talking to you, Vincent. What I called you over here for is I got to know how many posters you put up last night?”

“Well, see we’ve been running low on posters and I thought, you know, not to spread yourself too thin and all, so I …”

“You’re low on posters? So for Christ’s sake tell Dolly about it and we’ll get some more printed up. What the hell do you think I have you call in for every night, if not so we can stay on top of this thing? Do you read me? Let’s communicate, okay?”

“Right, Dad. I’ll let you know.”

“Great. Beautiful. Let’s stay in goddamn touch on this stuff.”

Vinnie kicked the dirt, but was inwardly relieved when Roxie Vasquez bounced into a double play to end the inning. Just one more to go, he thought, and we can get out of here.

The room Tildy and Roxie shared was the only one with operational hot water. It was filling up with funky, gritty bodies.

“You better watch your ass, girl.”

“Turn your fuckin’ face around.”

There was some scuffling going on in the shower line. After an eighty-mile bus ride, with windows open since the air conditioning was out, the Cougarettes’ collective mood was right nasty.

“How’d you like to eat this shampoo bottle, Wanda?”

Wrapped in a couple of towels, Tildy sat at the head end of the bed turning the pages of a newspaper. Roxie was cross-legged at the other end, searching for tunes on a transistor radio and wedging cotton between her toes before applying a fresh coat of nail polish.

“You just sitting there, Frenchie. You want to use my hairbrush or something?”

“I’d probably break it.” Tildy spoke without looking up from her paper. “Haven’t touched this hair in years. That’s the secret to these great curls.”

“You ought to brush once in a while.” Roxie shook her head. “You could get spiders living in there.”

According to the souvenir program, Roxie was a pearl diver from Corinto, Nicaragua. Actually she could not swim a stroke and came originally from Oakland. One night she had beaten Vinnie up outside a bowling alley and Pete Sparn, on one of his surprise visits at the time, had been so impressed that he fired his left fielder on the spot and gave Roxie the job.

“I can handle a bat, no problem,” Roxie said. “I used to be a bouncer at the Hoja Roja in Modesto.”

That’s-Mary, who was late for everything, came dancing through the door in slippers and a chenille robe. Beer from a paper cup sloshed on her hand as she shimmied to the back of the line.

“Gimme some more volume, Rox. I’m in a party state of mind.”

“When haven’t you been in a party state of mind?” Tildy asked. “You ought to retire from ball and move to Vegas.”

“Thinkin’ about it, thinkin’ about it … Come on, Roxie, make it loud … ‘Heart’s desire creates love desire, goin’ higher and higher….’ Woo, will you look at that. I just greased these hip joints this morning.” That’s-Mary slanted forward on the balls of her feet and shook her ass as if it was on fire. “I’m a tiptop bebop can’t-stop butt-monger.”

“All right, T.M. Get down with it,” somebody shouted from the front of the line.

“If you don’t watch that beer, Mary, I’ll be all over your butt like two miles of wet cement.”

That’s-Mary patted the wet spot on Wanda’s back. “No harm in a little beer. You’re headed for the shower, ain’t you? We’re all headed for the shower. Hell, we ought to bust on in there and have us a shower party, all of us together.”

“I ain’t into no freak scenes,” Wanda said flatly.

Up front, there was growing concern about the hot water supply. They were kicking on the door and yelling. Heidi, who was the youngest and so absorbed with hygiene that she changed panties after every meal, had been in the bathroom for almost ten minutes now.

“Open up, Heidi!”

“Give somebody else a chance, huh? You think we don’t sweat just like you?”

Tildy threw down her paper and stood up; the top towel came loose and her conoid breasts popped free, still wrinkled and pink from the steaming water. “Everybody’s welcome to shower in my room, but not with this mess going on. If you can’t cool down and stop acting like babies, I’m gonna throw everybody out.”

“That’s fine for you. You already had your shower.”

Vinnie, who had been lurking in the hall for some time hoping for a quick flash in the crowd of tit or bush, stepped inside rattling the keys that hung from his belt. “Let’s work it out, ladies. What’s the problem?”

Tildy made no effort to cover up. “The problem, Vinnie, is this dog-shit motel you booked us into. If we had more than one shower, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Vinnie, who could not look at her, feigned interest in the swap-meet landscape painting on the wall. Autumn in Vermont, just like mother used to make.

“We’re working on it,” he said.

“Mm-hmm.” Tildy pulled a T-shirt over her head. “‘We’re working on it.’ You should have that tattooed across your chest.”

“Aww, don’t be so hard on Coach. His daddy’s been after him all day long as it is.” That’s-Mary, who had bobby-pinned the empty beer cup to her hair as a party hat, twirled over to Vinnie and threw her arm around him. “Let’s have some fun, Coach. Wanna play a game with me?”

Vinnie smiled up at her. She’s always so nice to me, he thought. No matter what. That’s Mary.

It was he who had given her the name. During their first season, Pete had arranged to lease the team bus for a nominal cost with the understanding that free parking-lot tours would be conducted at each game. Patrons were encouraged to avail themselves of a photo opportunity, posing with Flora and the others in front of the sparkling Scenicruiser. One afternoon, at a youth camp outside Cairo, Illinois, Vinnie was conducting an old bat and her three grandkids through the vehicle, demonstrating the multiple settings of the reclining seats, the individual ventilation controls. He was about to throw open the door of the heavily chromed, ultraviolet-flush restroom, when he noticed a figure slumped across the rear seats. After a bottle or two of Tokay and a veal parmesan po’boy, the then Mari-ellen LoPinto had crawled onto the bus, passed out and vomited all over herself while asleep. The bat reeled back, pressing a hanky to her face and shooing the kids down the aisle.

“Gee, I’m … uh, uh … that’s Mary,” Vinnie stammered in explanation.

Now, coming in to score, she would jump on the plate with both feet, spread her arms and shout, “That’s Mary!” Pete Sparn liked her grasp of show biz. He called her “That’s” for short.