Richard Ford - The Sportswriter

Suddenly the picture flicks and another cliff-diver stands staring down at his frothy fate. CBS has given up.

Elvis Presley trots into the kitchen door again, jingling his little diamond collar, and sniffs the air. He is uncertain about me, and who could blame him?

Lynette is right behind him, her eyes sparkly and furtive but full of good cheer. “Elvis Presley ’bout runs this whole family.” She taps Elvis Presley lightly with her toe. “He’s fixed, of course, so you don’t have to worry about your leg. He idn’t but half a man, but we do love him.”

Elvis Presley, sits in the doorway and stares at me.

“He’s something,” I say.

“Doesn’t Vicki seem like she’s worried to you?” Lynette’s voice becomes cautionary. Her bright eyes are speculative and she crosses her arms in absolute slow motion.

“She seems just fine to me.”

“Well, I thought maybe since you all went to Detroit, something unhappy’d happened.”

So! Everybody including Elvis Presley knows everything, and wants to turn it to their own purposes, no matter how idle. A full-disclosure family. No secrets unless individuals make decisions for themselves, which runs the risk of general disapproval. Vicki has obviously told an aromatic little-but-not-enough, and Lynette wants filling in. She is not exactly as I want her to be, and as of this moment I transfer fully back to Vicki’s alliance.

“Everything’s great that I know of.” I admit nothing with a smile.

“Well good-should, then.” Lynette nods happily. “We all just love her and want the best for her. She’s the bravest ole thing.”

No answer. No “Why is she brave?” or “Tell me what you make of Everett?” or “In fact, she is seeming just the least little bit peculiar all of a sudden.” Nothing from me, except “She’s wonderful,” and another grin.

“Yes she is now,” Lynette beams, but full of warning. Then she is gone again, leaving Elvis Presley in the doorway, frozen in an empty stare.

In the time it takes Vicki to come back with the mallets, her brother Cade comes pushing through the front door. He has been out back tying down a tarp on his Boston Whaler, and when I shake his hand it is rock-fleshed and chilled. Cade is twenty-five, a boat mechanic in nearby Toms River, and a mauler of a fellow in a white T-shirt and jeans. He is, Vicki has told me, on the “wait list” for the State Police Academy and has already developed a flat-eyed, officer’s uninterest for the peculiarities of his fellow man.

“Down from Haddam, huh?” Cade grunts, once we’ve let go of each other’s hands and are standing hard-by with nothing to say. His speech does not betray one trace of Texas, where he grew up, and instead he has developed now into full-fledged Jersey young-manhood with an aura of no-place/no-time surrounding him like poison. He looms beside me like a mast and stares furiously out the front window. “I useta know a girl in South Brunswick. Useta take her skatin in a rink on 130. You might know where that is?” A snicker and a sneer appear on his lips at once.

“I know exactly,” I say and sink my hands deep in my pockets. Indeed I’ve watched my own two precious children (and once my third) skate there for hours on end while I hugged the rail in estranged admiration.

“There’s a Mann’s Tri-Plex in there now, I guess,” Cade says, looking around the room as if perplexed by getting into this embarrassing conversation in the first place. He’d feel much better if he could put the cuffs on me and push me head-down into the back seat of a cruiser. On the ride downtown we could both relax, be ourselves, and he could share a cruel joke with me and his partner — amigos in our roles, as God intended. As it is I’m from an outside world, the type of helpless citizen who owns the expensive boats he repairs; the know-nothings with no mechanical skills he hates for the way we take care of property he himself can’t afford. I am not who normally comes for dinner, and he’s having a hard time being human about me.

My advice to him, though unspoken, is that he’d better get used to me and mine, since I am the people he’ll be giving tickets to sooner or later, average solid citizens whose ways and mores he’ll ridicule at the risk of getting into a peck of trouble. I can, in fact, be of use to him, could be instructive of the outside world if he would let me.

“Uhn, where’s Vicki?” Cade looks suddenly caged, glancing around the room as if she might be hiding behind a chair. Simultaneously he opens his thick fist to display a piece of silvery, tooled metal.

“She’s gone to get croquet mallets,” I say. “What’s that?”

Cade stares down at the two-inch piece of tubular metal and purses his lips. “Spacer,” he says and then is silent a moment. “Germans make it. It’s the best in the world. And it’s a real piece of crap’s what it is.”

“What’s it to?” My hands are firm and deep in my pockets. I’m willing to take an interest in “spacer” for the moment.

“Boat,” Cade says darkly. “We should be making these things over here. That way they’d last.”

“You’re right about that,” I say. “It’s too bad.”

“I mean, what’re you gonna do if you’re out on the ocean and this thing cracks? Like this.” One greasy finger fine-points a hairline fissure in the spacer’s side, something I’d never have noticed. Cade’s dark eyes grow hooded with suppressed annoyance. “You gonna call for a German? Is that it? I’ll tell you what you’d do, mister.” His eyes find me gazing stupidly at the spacer, which seems obscure and unimportant. “You kiss your ass goodbye if a storm comes up.” Cade nods grimly and pops his big hand shut like a clam. All his feelings are pretty closely positioned into this conceit — the strongest chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and he’s resolved never to be that link in his personal life, where he’s in control. This is the central fact of all tragedy, though to me it’s not much to get excited about. His is the policeman’s outlook, mine the sportswriter’s. To me a weak link bears some watching, and you’d better have replacements handy in case it goes. But in the meantime it could be interesting to see how it bears up and tries to do its job under some bad conditions, all the while giving its best in the other areas where it’s strong. I’ve always thought of myself as a type of human weak link, working against odds and fate, and I’m not about to give up on myself. Cade, on the other hand, wants to lock up us offenders and weak links so we’ll never again see the light of day and worry anybody. We would have a hard time being good friends, this I can see.

“You been to Atlantic City lately?” Cade says suspiciously.

“Not in a long time.” X and I went on our honeymoon there, stayed in the old Hadden Hall, walked on the boardwalk and had the time of our lives. I haven’t been back since, except once for a karate match, when I flew in after dark and left two hours later. I doubt Cade is interested in this.

“It’s all ruined now,” Cade says, shaking his head in dismay. “Hookers and spic teenagers all over. It useta be good. And I’m not even prejudiced.”

“I’d heard it’s changed.”

“Changed?” Cade smirks, the first sign of a real smile I’ve seen so far. “Nagasaki changed, right?” Cade suddenly flings his head toward the kitchen. “I’m hungry enough eat a lug wrench.” And a strangely happy smile breaks over his tragic big bullard’s face. “I’ve got to go wash up or Lynette’ll shoot me.” He shakes his head, appreciative and grinning.

Suddenly all is good cheer. Whatever troubled him is gone now. Atlantic City. Weak links. Faulty spacers. Spies. Criminals he will someday arrest and later want to joke with on the long ride downtown. All gone. This is a feature of his outlook I have not expected. He can forget and be happy — a real strength. A good meal is waiting somewhere. A TV game. A beer. Clear sailing beyond the squall-line of life. It isn’t so bad, when you don’t think of it.