Hob Broun - Odditorium

“Wanna scrub my back, Coach?”

She stretched out this last word and Vinnie felt the warm, wet exhaust of her speech on his eyelids. Sweet Lord, did she really mean it? A genuine invitation? Could be, could be. The way her eyes went right to him and the skin went a little white at the crimped corners of her mouth. But not with all these others around. Impossible. They’d eat me alive.

For a few extra seconds Vinnie stood there just watching That’s-Mary breathe. Finally he said, “Really thanks, but I’ve got to go make some calls.”

The laughter he heard as he turned away had to do with something Tildy said about Roxie’s inability to go to her left, but Vinnie didn’t know that. He went down and across the hall to the room he and Pete were in. Sparn had finished his nap and was sitting up in his piped pyjamas playing cards with Ben Salem, the old gink who looked after the equipment, drove the bus, sold the tickets and umpired the games.

“Your old man is sharp as ever,” Benny said. “I’m about to lose the ranch here.”

“Don’t forget, I came into this game owing you ten acres of prime industrial parkland in North Miami.”

Vinnie opened a beer, propped himself against the edge of the dresser. “You’re playing for imaginary real estate, is that it?”

“Astute, boy, very astute. Real estate’s better than cash any day.” Sparn pushed the cards over for Benny to shuffle. “That reminds me, you ever get that book I sent you?”

“The one on condominium investments? Very interesting, Dad, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, we’ve been so busy. A lot of dates running.”

“We’re busy all right. Too damn busy. I don’t like it.”

“Now you want fewer dates?” Vinnie shrugged. “Make up your mind.”

“Don’t pout. I don’t like that either.” Pete turned palms up and Benny nodded, dropped the deck in his shirt pocket and got up.

“Maybe after dinner we’ll try some Hollywood rummy.”

“Wait, you don’t have to go, Benny. You’re as much a part of this organization as he is…. Now what I’m saying to you is that they’re stale. I see some lackadaisical play out there, you know what I mean? Lackadaisical play shows at the box office and that’s where we’re at right now. There are some things we need to get straight.

“People have to wake up to themselves. Maybe it’s just a matter of losing sight of our goals, I don’t know, but I want to get it straight and it may as well be right now — you round everybody up, Vinnie, and get them in here on the double. I want to have a skull session with these broads.”

“Dad, I don’t know if this is really the best time for a skull session. The girls need a little time to unwind.”

“Fuck that noise.” Sparn was out of bed and pacing now. The great General in his tent. And when the General gave an order … “If you have to, tell ’em dinner’s on me. Just get ’em in here.”

Vinnie stared down through the tear-shaped slot in the top of his beer can and saw the foaming darkness of a slow-moving underground river.

“Let’s wrap it up and bring it along, ladies.” Vinnie rolled into the explicit silence of Tildy’s room jangling the big key ring, as much a symbol of his authority as a Bantu chieftain’s fly whisk. “Pete’s called a team meeting. He wants to see you, like, yesterday.”

Heidi, who was flossing her teeth in the mirror, turned and primly expelled a particle of food into the wastebasket. “I don’t see why he can’t come on in here. Door’s right open for him.”

“That’s right,” Tildy said. “We were planning to just sit around here and smoke and read comic books till mealtime.”

“He’s only right across the street,” Vinnie said, but nobody smiled. They didn’t seem any happier when he told them Pete was offering to spring for dinner. Then That’s-Mary came out from the bathroom trailing vapor and took over for him.

“Go ahead, guys. I promise when it’s over, I’ll find someplace around here that serves lobster.”

That got them moving, but still not everyone was happy. As Wanda Watts filed past, she looked Vinnie up and down and jammed her afro pick half an inch into the wall. Maybe she didn’t like lobster.

Still pacing, Sparn chewed on a cellophane-wrapped cigar while his players found seats on the beds and on the floor between them. Then he folded his arms and made a very small bow in greeting.

“Before we get into anything else, I really would like to say how proud I am of the way you’re all getting along together. I respect that unity. It’s obvious to me that you girls have made some close and lasting friendships on this team.” Sparn’s pyjamas were dark under the arms. “I’m not going to say we’re like a family or any of that crap, but being effective on the field means rooting for each other and I think we all understand that.” Sparn looked around the room to see who had giggled, and became alarmed. “Wait a minute … I’ve got my outfield, I’ve got my infield. Where’s Flora? And M.J.?”

Vinnie counted cigarette burns on the dresser top; Ben Salem, cutting cards with himself over behind the teevee, started coughing as fast as he could. Evidently, Sparn was unaware or had forgotten the nature of the post-game activities Flora and her battery mate engaged in after a win.

It was Tildy finally who spoke up. “They’re in bed, Pete.”

“In bed? The hell they are. I’ll go find them myself.” And, nudging aside Vinnie, who tried to intercept him at the door, said, “There are no stars on this team.”

Sparn hurried to the opposite end of the hall where, as always, Flora had her separate accommodations, and tried the door. It was locked. But through it, as the sound of his knock subsided, he heard a bee-like buzzing, steady like a motor. A sort of electric vibrating sound.

When he got back, he told them all to sit tight and Vinnie would call out for some cheeseburgers.

Flora Pepper had always been athletic. Though small as a child, she could outrun her older brothers and beat them up if she felt like it. As a high school junior, she lettered in basketball, volleyball and track; and at an awards dinner honoring young champions from all over northeastern Ohio, broke the nose of the girl who beat her out in the voting for Sprinter of the Year.

There didn’t seem to be much else to do, so she became a Phys. Ed. assistant at her alma mater, Girls Normal High. She might still have been there leading calisthenics and breaking up fights in the lunchroom, had it not been for a chance Friday night pickup over the pool table of an Akron dyke bar known as Myrtle’s 5 & 10.

The woman’s name was Molly Joan Ulasewicz. She drank bourbon and ginger, and called everyone “bunny.” She wore a piece of chromed sprocket chain around her wrist. Flora fell deeply and irreparably in love with her after one night.

After three nights, she left Girls Normal and moved into Molly Joan’s ramshackle row house on the edge of Little Africa. While her lover wound armatures at an electronics factory during the day, Flora embarked on a rehabilitation program: rehanging doors, puttying windows, sanding the floors and laying down coat after coat of polyurethane. She blew her savings on a waterbed and a set of ritzy china. Pleasing Molly Joan became her exclusive focus, and for the first time in her life she felt calm and balanced.

But on the other side, things were not so rosy. Molly Joan quickly tired of this cozy householdry, the long evenings of beer and adoration. Flora was giving her claustrophobia. Restless and depressed, she fell into savage weekend benders, staring down bikers, and boot-camp studs in the toughest dives in town, vandalizing automobiles, sleeping it off at the bus station.