Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

There was the click of metal all over the plane. It was the last sound Hugo heard for a long time, because he fainted.

He was awakened by a sharp pain in one ear. The right one. The plane was coming down for a landing. Hugo pulled the curtain back and looked out. They were under the cloud now, perhaps 400 feet off the ground and there were lights below. He looked at his watch. They were nearly three hours late.

“You better make it a good one,” he heard a man’s voice say, and he knew the voice came from the cockpit. “We don’t have enough gas for another thousand yards.”

Hugo tried to clear his throat. Something dry and furry seemed to be lodged there. Everybody else had already gathered up his belongings, placidly waiting to disembark. They don’t know how lucky they are, Hugo thought bitterly as he peered out the window, hungry for the ground.

The plane came in nicely and as it taxied to a halt, the captain said cheerily, “I hope you enjoyed your trip, folks. Sorry about the little delay. See you soon.”

The ground hit his feet at a peculiar angle when he debarked from the plane, but he had told Sylvia he would look in at her place when he got back to town. Sibyl was away in Florida with her parents for the week, visiting relatives.

Going over in the taxi, fleeing the harsh world of bruised and defeated men and the memory of his brush with death in the fogbound plane, he thought yearningly of the warm bed awaiting him and the expert, expensive girl.

Sylvia took a long time answering the bell and when she appeared, she was in a bathrobe and had her headache face on. She didn’t let Hugo in, but opened the door only enough to speak to him. “I’m in bed, I took two pills,” she said, “I have a splitting—”

“Ah, honey,” Hugo pleaded. There was a delicious odor coming from her nightgown and robe. He leaned gently against the door.

“It’s late,” she said sharply. “You look awful. Go home and get some sleep.” She clicked the door shut decisively. He heard her putting the chain in place.

On the way back down the dimly lit staircase from Sylvia’s apartment, Hugo resolved always to have a small emergency piece of jewelry in his pocket for moments like this. Outside in the street, he looked up longingly at Sylvia’s window. It was on the fourth floor and a crack of light, cozy and tantalizing, came through the curtains. Then, on the cold night air, he heard a laugh. It was warm and sensual in his left ear and he remembered, with a pang that took his breath away, the other occasions when he had heard that laugh. He staggered down the street under the pale lampposts, carrying his valise, feeling like Willy Loman coming toward the end of his career in Death of a Salesman . He had the impression that he was being followed slowly by a black car, but he was too distracted to pay it much attention.

When he got home, he took out a pencil and paper and noted down every piece of jewelry he had bought Sylvia that fall, with its price. The total came to $3468.30, tax included. He tore up the piece of paper and went to bed. He slept badly, hearing in his sleep the sound of faltering airplane engines mingled with a woman’s laughter four stories above his head.

It rained during practice the next day and as he slid miserably around in the icy, tilted mud, Hugo wondered why he had ever chosen football as a profession. In the showers later, wearily scraping mud off his beard, Hugo became conscious that he was being stared at. Croker, the taxi-squad fullback, was in the next shower, soaping his hair and looking at Hugo with a peculiar small smile on his face. Then, coming from Croker’s direction, Hugo heard the long, low, disturbing laugh he had heard the night before. It was as though Croker had it on tape inside his head and was playing it over and over again, like a favorite piece of music. Croker, Hugo thought murderously, Croker! A taxi-squadder! Didn’t even get to make the trips with the team. Off every Sunday, treacherously making every minute count while his teammates were fighting for their lives.

Hugo heard the laugh again over the sound of splashing water. The next time there was an intra-squad scrimmage, he was going to maim the son of a bitch.

He wanted to get away from the locker room fast, but when he was dressed and almost out the door, the trainer called to him.

“The coach wants to see you, Pleiss,” the trainer said, “Pronto.”

Hugo didn’t like the “pronto,” The trainer had a disagreeable habit of editorializing.

The coach was sitting with his back to the door, looking up at the photograph of Jojo Baines. “Close the door, Pleiss,” the coach said, without turning around.

Hugo closed the door.

“Sit down,” the coach said, still with his back to Hugo, still staring at the photograph of what the coach had once said was the only 100 percent football player he had ever seen.

Hugo sat down.

The coach said, “I’m fining you two hundred and fifty dollars, Pleiss.”

“Yes, sir,” Hugo said.

The coach finally swung around. He loosened his collar. “Pleiss,” he said, “what in the name of Knute Rockne are you up to?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Hugo said.

“What the hell are you doing staying up until dawn night after night?”

Staying up was not quite an accurate description of what Hugo had been doing, but he didn’t challenge the coach’s choice of words.

“Don’t you know you’ve been followed, you dummy?” the coach bellowed.

The black car on the empty street. Hugo hung his head. He was disappointed in Sibyl. How could she be so suspicious? And where did she get the money to pay for detectives?

The coach’s large hands twitched on the desk. “What are you, a sex maniac?”

“No, sir,” Hugo said.

“Shut up!” the coach said.

“Yes, sir,” said Hugo.

“And don’t think it was me that put a tail on you,” the coach said. “It’s a lot worse than that. The tail came from the commissioner’s office.”

Hugo let out his breath, relieved. It wasn’t Sibyl. How could he have misjudged her?

“I’ll lay my cards on the table, Pleiss,” the coach said. “The commissioner’s office has been interested in you for a long time now. It’s their job to keep this game clean, Pleiss, and I’m with them all the way on that, and make no mistake about it. If there’s one thing I won’t stand for on my club, it’s a crooked ballplayer.”

Hugo knew that there were at least 100 things that the coach had from time to time declared he wouldn’t stand for on his club, but he didn’t think it was the moment to refresh the coach’s memory.

“Coach,” Hugo began.

“Shut up! When a ballplayer as stupid as you suddenly begins to act as though he has a ouija board under his helmet and is in the middle of one goddamn play after another, naturally they begin to suspect something.” The coach opened a drawer in his desk and took out a dark-blue folder from which he extracted several closely typewritten sheets of paper. He put on his glasses to read. “This is the report from the commissioner’s office.” He ran his eyes over some of the items and shook his head in wonder. “Modesty forbids me from reading to you the account of your sexual exploits, Pleiss,” the coach said, “but I must remark that your ability even to trot out onto the field on Sunday after some of the weeks you’ve spent leaves me openmouthed in awe.”

There was nothing Hugo could say to this, so he said nothing.

“So far, you’ve been lucky,” the coach said. “The papers haven’t latched onto it yet. But if one word of this comes out, I’ll throw you to the wolves so fast you’ll pull out of your cleats as you go through the door. Have you heard me?”

“I’ve heard you, Coach,” Hugo said.