Stuart Dybek - I Sailed with Magellan

“Cubs down two to one. Banks just hit one.”

“Drabowsky still pitching? You know where he’s from?”

“Ozanna, Poland,” Zip says like it’s a stupid question. “He’s throwing good.”

“You bet on him?” Joe asks. When he raises the shot glass, his hand is so shaky that he has to bring his mouth to the glass.

“I don’t bet on baseball,” Zip says.

“Hit me again, Mr. Zip. And one for yourself.” From a roll of bills, Joe peels a twenty onto the bar. “What are you drinking, Masked Marvel? Zip, give Zorro here a Hamm’s-the-beer-refreshing.”

Zip sets them up, and the three men sit in silence, looking from their drinks to the ball game as if waiting for some signal to down their whiskeys. Their dark reflections in the long mirror behind the bar wait, too. Teo glances at the mirror, where a man in a blue Hummingbird mask glances back. He knows the guy in the sunglasses beside him is mob, and can’t help noticing that Zip has gone tensely quiet, unfriendlier than he’s ever seen him. It makes him aware of how Zip set the samurai sword within reach, and of the message from the Spanish pigeon.

On the TV, Jack Brickhouse says, “Oh, brother, looks like a fan fell out of the bleachers,” and his fellow sportscaster, Vince Lloyd, adds, “Or jumped down, Jack.” Brickhouse, as if doing play-by-play, announces, “Now, folks, he’s running around the outfield!” and Vince Lloyd adds, “Jack, I think he’s trying to hand Willie Mays a beer!”

“That’s Lefty!” Teo exclaims.

“Lefty? Lefty Antic?” Zip asks. “You sure?”

“The sax player. He’s my neighbor.”

“Here come the Andy Frain ushers out on the field,” Brickhouse announces. “They’ll get things back under control.”

“Look at him run!” Teo says.

“Go, Lefty!” Zip yells. “He ain’t going down easy.”

Without warning, the TV blinks into a commercial: “From the land of sky blue waters …”

“Shit!” Joe says, “that was better than the fucking game. Guy had some moves.”

“You know Lefty, the sax player?” Teo asks Zip.

“Hell, I got him on the wall,” Zip says, and from among the photo gallery of softball teams with ZipIn lettered on their jerseys he lifts down a picture of a young boxer with eight-ounce gloves cocked. The boxer doesn’t have a mustache, but it’s easy to recognize the sax player. “He made it to the Golden Glove Nationals,” Zip says. “Got robbed on a decision.”

“That southpaw welterweight from Gonzo’s Gym. I remember him from when I was growing up,” Joe Ditto says. “Kid had fast hands.” He raises his shot glass, and they all drink as if to something.

“Well, back to baseball, thank goodness,” Jack Brickhouse says. “Vince, it’s unfortunate, but a few bad apples just don’t belong with the wonderful fans in the friendly confines of beautiful Wrigley field.”

“Best fans in the game, Jack,” Vince says.

“They didn’t want to show him beating the piss out of the Andy Frains,” Joe says.

“Lefty’s good people. Hasn’t put Korea behind him yet, that’s all,” Zip says.

Until yesterday, Teo couldn’t gimp on his bum knee into the Zip Inn without wondering how Zip could put behind him the war that took his arm. Now he knows. Zip hasn’t.

“Hit me again, Mr. Zip,” Joe says. “A double. And get yourself and Masked Man, here.” Joe turns Teo’s shot glass up.

Teo turns it back down.

Joe turns it back up. “Hey, mystery challenger, we’re having a toast.” Joe props Lefty’s photo up against a bottle of Hamm’s. “To a man who knows how to really enjoy a Cubs game.” This time, his hand steadier, Joe clinks each of their glasses.

“Gimme a pack of Pall Malls, Mr. Zip. So, what’s with the mask?” Joe asks Teo. “Off to rob a savings and loan? A nylon’s not good enough? Goddamn, you got the whole outfit here,” he says, examining the tights that Teo hasn’t stuffed back into his bowling bag. “You one of those street wrestlers on Cinco de Mayo or something?”

“Used to be,” Teo says.

With his long-neck beer bottle, Joe parts Teo’s open shirt to get a look at his tank top. “Who’d you fight as, the Blue Titman? Jesus, Mr. Zip, check the boobs out on this guy. That’s some beery-looking bosom you’re sporting, hombre. They squirt Hamm’s? This might be the best tit in Little Village.” Joe lights a smoke, offers one to Teo, who refuses. “Mr. Zip, hit me again, and Knockers here, too,” Joe says. He’s holding Teo’s glass so that Teo can’t turn it over. Zip pours and Joe takes a sip of beer. Then his hand snakes along the bar and into Teo’s bag of pretzels. Joe munches down a pretzel, and his hand snakes back for another, except this time it snakes inside Teo’s shirt for a quick feel before Teo pulls away.

Zip appears to be busy rinsing out a glass.

“Ever go home after a hard day’s wrestling and just spend a quiet evening getting some off yourself, or does there have to be a commitment first?” Joe asks. “I’m just fucking with you, friend. I used to love to watch wrestling when I was a kid. I didn’t know it was a fake. You know, I didn’t mind finding out Santa Claus was bullshit, but Gorgeous George and Zuma the Man from Mars — he wrestled in a mask, too — that hurt.”

“It’s not always fake,” Teo says.

“What fucken planet are you from? How do you think Gorgeous George could have done against Marciano? Would you consider a little private contest that wasn’t fixed?”

“I don’t wrestle anymore,” Teo says.

“See, but this may be my only chance to say I wrestled a pro. I’m just talking arm wrestling here,” Joe says, and assumes the position, with his elbow on the bar. “We’ll wrestle for a drink, or a twenty, or the world championship of the Zip Inn, whatever you want.”

“I’m retired,” Teo says.

“Come on,” Joe says, “beside experience you got forty pounds on me. If your friend Lefty can jump out of the bleachers and take on the Andy Frain ushers, you and me can have a friendly little match. Mr. Zip has winner. Left-handed, of course. You can referee, Mr. Zip, and hey, that little matter of business for today, let’s forget it. Another time, maybe. Who you betting on, or do you not bet on arm wrestling, either?”

“Twenty on El Kohlrabi,” Zip says.

Teo looks at Zip, surprised.

“Purely theoretical,” Zip, says, “but you can take him.”

“Purely,” Teo says, and smiles, then leans his arm on the bar and he and Joe Ditto clench hands.

“Una momento, ” Joe says. He removes his sport coat and folds it over his gym bag, takes a puff of Pall Mall, then drops to the floor and does ten quick push-ups with a hand clap after each. “Needed to warm up.”

Teo removes his shirt to free up his shoulder. Both men, now in tank tops, clench hands again. Joe is still wearing his sunglasses, and his half-smoked cigarette dangles from his lip. Zip counts one, two, wrestle! and they strain against each other, muscle and tendon surfacing along their forearms. Joe gives slightly, then struggles back to even, seems to gain leverage, and gradually forces Teo’s arm downward.

The crowd at Wrigley is cheering, and Jack Brickhouse breaks into his home-run call: “Back she goes, back, back, way back …”

“Goddamn, come on, luchador, ” Zip urges; his left hand slaps the bar with a force that sends the red clothespin flying off the sleeve folded over the stump of his right arm.

Gripping the edge of the bar with his left hand and grunting, Teo heaves his right arm up until it’s back even, but his surge of momentum stalls. He and Joe Ditto lean into each other. They’ve both begun to sweat, their locked hands are turning white, arms straining, faces close together, separated by the smoke of Joe’s dangling Pall Mall. “My friend,” Joe says from the side of his mouth, “you smell like pigeons.”