James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“First Corinthians, ten, thirteen,” Bob Wier said, gazing mournfully out the window into the noonday glare. “ ‘God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.’ ”

“Amen.” The Colonel laughed.

Bob Wier closed his eyes. “ ‘But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.’ ”

“Will you relax, Reverend?” J.J. said. “Fuck.”

“Bob’s afraid one of these girls will recognize him from Sunday school,” said the Colonel.

“Lord have mercy.” Bob Wier laughed nervously. “Would it have killed you guys to go to Applebee’s?”

“I’ll bet the professor’s never been here before,” the Colonel said.

“No,” said Paul, barely paying attention. At the moment his cerebellum was at war with his medulla oblongata. His lizard brain was watching a particularly long-limbed young woman with boyishly bobbed hair bouncing towards them on her padded shoes; she was athletically balancing a cork-lined tray with a pitcher and four frosted glasses on it over her head, one-handed, which had the effect of pulling her cut-off tee tighter against her breasts. Meanwhile his cerebellum was trying to pretend that he was in a foreign country where he needed to play along with the local customs so as not to offend anybody.

“Methinks the professor’s blood is up,” said the Colonel.

Paul glared at him. “Quit calling me that,” he was about to say, but he was interrupted by the arrival of the long-limbed waitress. Beaming at them all, she set the brimming pitcher one-handed on the table and lifted one of the frosted glasses from the tray; it was already full, with a wedge of lemon squeezed over the rim.

“Which of y’all had the Sprite?” she sang, and Bob Wier speechlessly waggled his fingers. Extending one long leg behind her, she reached all the way down the length of the table to set the Sprite in front of him. Her tee pulled tight across her supple back, and Paul and J.J. caught each other looking. Only the Colonel maintained any degree of suavity, and even he, Paul noted, cast a discreet glance along the filmy curve of the waitress’s shorts. Then she straightened, and all the men at the table breathed out.

“I’m Stony,” she said, with a beauty queen’s smile, setting out the three empty beer glasses. “Have y’all decided what you want?”

The four men fumbled open their menus.

“Do y’all need a minute yet?”

“No,” said the Colonel.

“Yes,” said J.J.

“Umm. .,” said Paul.

“Mmph,” said Bob Wier through a mouthful of Sprite.

Stony winked at them and pivoted away. “I’ll come back in a sec.”

J.J. twisted in his seat to watch her go. Bob Wier gasped and wiped the back of his hand across his lips. Over the edge of his bright menu, Paul caught the Colonel watching him watching Stony’s retreat. He dropped his eyes.

“Nobody’s putting a gun to her head, Professor,” murmured the Colonel.

“What?” muttered Paul.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking.” The Colonel smirked at his menu. “You’re thinking the lovely Stony does charity work with the homeless in her spare time. It spares you from the guilt over the tingling in your loins.”

The Colonel was once again annoyingly close to the truth. Even as his lizard brain throbbed for Stony’s world-class midriff, Paul’s forebrain was trying to tell him that “Stony” was the waitress’s nom de service; that her real name was Zoë; that she was only working here until her Fulbright money kicked in and she could leave for Paris to study French women’s labor relations at the Sorbonne. Or better still, she already had a NEH grant to work here undercover to study the lives of all the other Fulbright scholars who were working their way through graduate school serving BBQ chicken wings to goggle-eyed middle managers. He felt his face get hot.

“What’s the harm in admiring a nubile young woman?” The Colonel closed his menu definitively and slapped it on the table. “After all, it’s only natural. It’s what she’s engineered for. Hell, son, it’s what you’re engineered for.” Still looking at Paul, he reached along the table and pressed his finger to J.J.’s jaw, pushing him roughly around to face the others.

J.J. flinched. “What the fuck?”

The Colonel lifted the pitcher one-handed and poured a beer. “The professor here knows exactly what I’m talking about.” He pushed the glass in front of J.J. then poured another glass and pushed it towards Paul. “Are you a sporting man, Paul?”

Am I a Jew? wondered Paul. Am I a sporting man? What’s he getting at?

“In my experience,” said the Colonel, pouring himself a glass, “even your radical Marxist college professor enjoys a bone-crunching gridiron display.”

“I’m more of a baseball fan,” said Paul, instantly regretting

it.

“Of course you are!” cried the Colonel. “It’s the national sport of intellectuals. The complexity of it, its fascinating geometry and mathematical precision. Its uncertain pace, its longueurs punctuated by moments of passion and high performance.” He took a hearty sip of beer and ran his tongue along his upper lip. “Gives a fellow a lot to think about.”

Paul lifted his own beer to avoid having to say anything.

“But consider your real sports for a moment, Professor.” The Colonel fixed him with his bright gaze. “Your violent sports. What’s the point of each and every one of them?”

Paul, swallowing, only lifted his eyebrows.

“I’ll tell you,” said the Colonel. “It’s to get a little pellet of pigskin or cowhide or rubber past all the other men on the court or the gridiron, into that tight, narrow spot at the end of the field. Which is then the occasion for a moment of pure, blissful, mindless ecstasy. A moment, in other words, of release.”

Paul dived into his beer again. It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes. Somewhere in officer training school, the Colonel had read a chapter from Freud. If he knew the sort of thing my ex-wife wrote about in her theoretical work, Paul thought, his balls would shrivel and retract into his scrotum like landing gear.

“Football, basketball, hockey, even golf — it’s what they’re all about,” continued the Colonel. “Get that little piece of yourself into the hole. It’s what we’re all competing for, isn’t it?”

“Huh!” gasped J.J., with a puzzled smile. He understood that something lubricious was being talked about, but he wasn’t sure what.

“It’s about, it’s about building character,” stammered Bob Wier, trying to get in the game.

“Hey, wait a minute!” J.J. sat up straight. “A baseball’s a little white pellet—”

“Yes, yes, yes.” The Colonel waved his hand dismissively. “Perhaps you weren’t listening, son. Baseball’s for intellectuals.” He might as well have said, baseball’s for pussies . “Consider your catcher, squatting with his legs open like a woman, that big, soft mitt between his legs—”

“I was a catcher,” said J.J., sounding wounded.

The Colonel sighed and turned his gaze to Paul again. “What do you know about evolution, Paul? The reverend here believes there’s no such thing.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Bob Wier. Paul lifted his beer again to avoid having to answer.

“Every person in this room is engineered for the preservation of the species.” The Colonel took another sip and licked his lip again. “Do you know why young J.J. here stares at Stony’s breasts? Do you know why you do?”

“Because they’re fucking amazing?” J.J. glowered over his glass. He was still pissed about the catcher thing. “Fuck, even an intellectual can see that.”