Chang-Rae Lee - Aloft

"Somebody give Mr. Battle there a drink," Richie says, already waiting at his baseline. "Nobody's going to croak here today."

Kenton comes and gives me a bottle of spring water, and says, with a hand on my shoulder, "You okay?"

I nod, finishing the bottle in one quick pull. He gives me another, this time advising me to drink it slow. When I look into his eyes I can see how he's seeing me, as a bedraggled pathetic heap, a veritable old man, which maybe I am but I'm not (but maybe I am?), and though Donnie is in jeopardy and I'm losing my ability to perspire, it's this that really shakes me, halts my breath.

Richie says, "What the fuck, Kenton, you nursing him now?"

"Jes bein a good water boy, boss," he says in a thick pick-aninny accent, which gives them all a good laugh, including Richie.

"Well let's move it along, son."

Kenton yessuhs, and I mutter "Thanks, buddy" to him, and as he hands me my racquet in exchange for the empty bottle he says in a voice so low I can hardly hear him, "Play low to the forehand."

I don't acknowledge him, of course, because I can hardly manage anything more than the basics, but when play resumes I think about what he said and begin doing it, hitting short cut shots to Richie's forehand whenever he's well back, which normally wouldn't be recommended against a solid net player like Richie but is strangely effective, as he seems to have some trouble handling a shortish ball on that side, resulting in flabby groundstrokes that are long and out, or, if in, I can hit back hard. Maybe Kenton has played enough with Richie to have learned this tendency, but after yet another short ball that Richie has to scuttle forward for I realize perhaps the reason why: it's his left foot that leads that particular shot, his left foot broken in youth by The Stank. Maybe it plain hurts when he lunges on it, or maybe it's a phantom hurt (which can be just as disturbing, if not more), but the fact of the matter is, it's working for me, not just for cheap and easy points but also because he's at last clearly tiring, no longer trying to run down every ball. So I keep cutting and then pouncing, and somehow winning, and although I'm feeling a little wooden in the legs I'm really zipping my strokes with this newfangled racquet, hitting the ball with a ferocious pace Richie is obviously unaccustomed to, and not at all liking. With my mounting success his colleagues and their s.o.'s have begun to cheer each of his points, even Kenton barking for Richie with feeling (we can all act in a pinch), but it's no matter; eventually the score is 6–5, Richie still in the lead, but I've got him at triple break point and I step forward practically to the service line and Richie implodes, jerking both serves into the bottom half of the net.

"Fuck!" he shouts, tossing down and kicking his racquet, and then turns to his hushed gallery. "You can clap for him, for chrissake. He's goddamn playing well enough."

So they do, and with what I detect is an extra measure of appreciation for my helping to make this something other than your standard boss's brunch, not to mention the fact that they would always gladly pay good money to see Richie suffer a substantial hit to his ego, if not bottom line. But none of it matters, because in my game focus I just now notice that Rita has been watching at courtside, maybe for a whole game or two, her face still sour for this endless intrusion, for my once again (I can anticipate her now) thrusting myself in the center ring of everyone else's business and pleasure.

"Why don't you two call it quits now," Rita says. "You're tied and we've had our fun."

"The fun's not over," Richie says, testing his racquet strings against his heels. I'm sitting on the ground, trying to stretch my legs, which are feeling suddenly hollowed out but calcified, these toppled, petrified trunks. "Come on, Jerry, get up, let's do it."

"Why do you want to do this?" Rita says, to us both. Maybe only I can tell, for she's not yelling or gesticulating and her expression hasn't changed, but she's really very angry now, practically livid. I know because her chin is noticeably quivering, something that happens to most other people when they're on the brink of crying. But she's far from that.

"Don't you see how disgusting this is? You really have to take away each other's toys, don't you? It's vulgar, Richard. And Jerry, let's be honest, you can't afford to lose your plane."

"Hey now…"

"I'm not talking about just money. What would you do without it? What, Jerry? Come on, tell me. What are you going to do?"

It's an excellent question, exactly the kind of query I get all the time from my loved ones, thoroughly rhetorical but also half holding out for some shard of the substantive from yours truly, some blood-tinged nugget of circumspection and probity.

But maybe just not right now, as I'm wondering myself how I'm going to unsticky this wicket I'm on, despite the 6—all tally I've worked, for my legs (are they mine?) feel absolutely inanimate, dumb, these knobby flesh logs that might as well be deli-catessen fodder, glass-encased in the chill.

"I can't get up," I say to Rita. "I can't move."

"Cut the horseshit, Jerry," Richie says. "You've had enough rest. Come on. Your serve starts the tiebreak. Then we serve in twos. First one to seven."

"I really can't, Rita," I say. "I'm not kidding."

Rita quickly approaches, kneels down beside me.

"Are you serious?"

"Everything just froze up."

"Both legs?"

"Yeah. But in different parts."

Rita turns to Richie, who's now coming to inspect. She tells him, "Okay, that's it, Richard. He's all cramped up. He's probably totally dehydrated. Game's over."

"Hey, if that's what he wants."

"That's what's going to happen," Rita says, firm and nurselike.

"I guess I'll start taking flying lessons," Richie says.

"You can't do that," she says. "You can't take his plane because of this."

"I'd rather not, but I will. You were inside when we agreed to the rules."

Rita looks at me as though I've descended to yet another circle of stupid-hell, and I can only, lowly, nod.

She says to him, "Richard. Don't be a jerk. Just call it a tie and Jerry can go home and everybody will be happy."

"Listen, Rita, you're completely missing your own point about toys. That's exactly right. There's no purer pleasure. So would you butt out right now, okay? Jerry and I made an honest wager with clear guidelines, and Jerry himself will tell you that if I were in his shoes, or in my own, to be exact, he would be doing the same thing. Ain't it so, Jerry?"

Of course I don't want to, but I have to nod, because he's absolutely right, even Rita knows it, I'd be righteously slipping that fat Ferrari fob on my mini — Swiss Army knife keychain before even helping his skinny ass up off the deck.

"I can't stand this," Rita says, using my thighs as a support to stand. It hurts, but sort of helps, too. The cool touch of her hands. She doesn't say anything, but just picks up her straw handbag (the one I brought back for her from the Canary Islands, with a heart cross-sewn into the weave) and just walks away, traversing the lawn straight to the carriage house, where she rumbles her banana mobile to life. For the whole time we watch her, neither Richie nor I saying a word, though I wonder if what he wants to say to her is just what I want to say, which isn't at all original, or earthshaking, or even romantic; it's the most basic request, what a guy like me who always has plenty to say but never quite when it counts, wants to say most often: Don't go. And as I mouth it, she whirs her car backward on the driveway and into the street, and then, with a bad transmission jerk, rattles off.

Richie says, "Okay, Jerry, now that that's done, what the fuck are you going to do?"