Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

Sonofabitch! Whack! Whack! Whack!

“Go down with it! Lay off it! Step in the bucket and pull!”

She smiled, and her eyes were big brown muffins.

“Oh, that last batch of swings felt sweet. How many little boys have you lured to the ball field?”

“Dozens. I had to learn to play ball or starve. My daddy’s Little League team, the John Deere Tractors, won one state and two local championships.”

Quinn debated with himself as he came to the verge of doing something really stupid.

“You still need fixing,” she said.

“I was afraid you were going to discharge me. Greer, you scare the hell out of me.”

“And you make me hot,” she said.

“Nobody from Grand Junction gets hot.”

Quinn’s apartment was a very desirable two-bedroom flat, but it didn’t brag. It was startlingly tidy, jammed with books and filled with touches.

“That’s Mal’s bedroom at the end of the hall.”

“Hmmm.”

“His daughter comes in often. When she does, she sleeps on the air mattress in the living room.” Nice. It was covered with an embroidered bushkashee spread, and every place was inundated with fuzzy and leather pillows.

“You could use a few mirrors. We can’t have an alcove without mirrors. Hark, what’s this? Madame Butterfly, La BohemeT she said, thumbing through his LPs.

“My buddy, Carlos Martinez, taught me this.” “Mozart, Glenn Miller, Satch. Neat, but no Beatles?”

“The beginning of the end of music in this century.”

“I hate to say it, but I agree. Between the frantic tribal ritual and the pot and an obvious lunatic shrieking at you; hey man, maybe you and I are not tribal. Had many girls here?”

“I’ve got them marked off and graded on a calendar somewhere. I’ll see if I can find it.”

“I want something serious to drink,” she said.

“I keep a few bottles for the priests.” He opened the cabinet. Ah,

here was something to shiver her timbers. Lemon Hart, a Polish paint remover sold as liquor. Plunk, plunk and some grenadine so she wouldn’t have heart failure. Greer, cowboy style, said, “Here’s lookin’ at you, pardner.”

Her eyes widened as she tore to the sink and filled herself with water.

“You son of a bitch!”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, taking a nip of the Lemon Hart and purring, “Ahhh, smooth!”

She threw her arms about him. “Oh, boy, you’re fun. You should have seen that hairy Iranian left tackle I had to do a bio on.”

“Best seat is on the mattress,” Quinn said. “It’s also the safest. I don’t make passes. I just put on my Sunday best manners and wait to be invited.”

Greer flopped on her back and stretched in every direction as he fixed her a sweet, humane gin and tonic. “I feel wonderful. You got a rich daddy?”

bo-so.

Quinn fixed some of the little pillows around his back to full comfort. Greer sat up, tried her new drink, then tucked her knees under her chin and wrapped her arms about them.

“So, where do you go from here?” she asked.

“Into my senior year. I’m a Maldonado junkie for sure. Aside from his class he does a semi-private ethics course with four students. He has a great way of explaining the human condition in relationship to civilization and Eros. And you?”

“Me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just a skinny ole gal from Junction on a pit stop en route to New York. I’m going to the top in the media. I’m going to be a boss, a giant. I was born with all kinds of wigglies driving this little engine. Maybe Professor Maldonado can explain them to me next semester.”

“You try to shock people with your jock talk. What are you covering up?”

“Ninety-eight pounds and a lot of other wigglies, horny ones. Next year is my dirty year. I’ve read every book and seen every porno flick I can get my hands on. Let me say, I do not exactly come chaste. Unfortunately, there have always been cowboys practicing roping and branding. Anyhow, there was enough of an appetizer in it to tell me good things are ahead.”

“Well, lucky guy.”

“Could be you,” she said.

“Include me out,” Quinn replied.

“Uh-uh. Every day a new day and a new way. We’ll buy out all the candles in Boulder, incense, mirror the nooks, clothing fit for a whore, tattoos. I’m having a one-year blowout before I go conquer New York.”

“You’re really a friggin’ nutcase,” Quinn said.

She flung her arms about him. “I know! And I know something else.

You’ve got a thing for that Maldonado chick.”

“Come on, stupid. She’s only sixteen years old.”

“But oh, my. You ought to see her watching a ball game.”

“Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

The “I’ll call you” macho talk didn’t last long. Quinn was annoyed that Greer didn’t show up for practices and a game where he hit three doubles, one to each field.

He caught a glimpse of her in the deli in the company of a tank-topped beanpole crowned with a bush of hair that could give shade to a regiment. He was the star of the basketball team. It occurred to him that an animal like Greer was the ultimate colorblind woman; in fact, she might just pursue her curiosity. Quinn always ended his sermons to himself with, she ain’t nothing but misery.

The ball club played a respectable .500 season. Quinn O’Connell became a .294 spray hitter, moved from eighth to second in the lineup.

As a matter of fact, the professional A-team out of Bakers* *

field tried to woo him for the summer. Coach Boy held his breath and put on his hound dog look.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Quinn told him. “I owe my dad a big summer’s work, and I want to get reacquainted with the ranch.”

“You coming back for a senior year?”

“Funny. Professor Maldonado lives down the road from me, but I’ve got to come to Boulder to hear his lectures. I kind of think I’ll be back.”

“The skinny broad?” Coach Boy grunted.

It hit! Quinn shrugged. “Her game is just a game. Big mouth trying to cover little boobs.”

“They called it cock teasing when I was a young man,” Boy said.

The conversation ended with Quinn holding a pair of trembling hands down by his sides.

He saw her alone again cuddled in a chair in the reading room of the Norlin Library.

“Howdy, pardner.”

“Oh, hi there. Sit down, it’s public.”

“I was hoping you’d see what your student did in the last three games.”

“I saw you. You hit nine-for-fifteen against the best pitchers Missouri and Kansas had. God, if Colorado had one more pitcher.”

“Why haven’t I seen you, Greer?”

“Same reason I haven’t seen you. I felt so good and open with you, I guess I went over the edge. I painted you a picture of a tawdry whore, and actually, all I want to be next year is a tawdry whore. I thought it could be kind of crazy with us but.. .”

“What?”

“What! Hey, Quinn, you got it all going for you with that handsome, steady, skilled silence and you ain’t Elmer Fudd, not with the titles on your bookshelf. You’ve got a few dozen girlie tricks up your sleeve, but you’re just not as loud about it as I am.”

“Movies, Friday night?”

“Why don’t we pass?” she said.

“Are you ashamed of yourself or something like that?” he asked.

“Feel silly.”

“Christ, woman, I envy you from head to toe. The way life bursts out of you and puts bright colors on everything around you,” Quinn said.

“You stealing that from some poet?” she replied.

“Movies, then?”

“No.”

Quinn gnashed his teeth to head off in some different direction. He was trying to decide which. A frustrated fist on the table brought “shhh” and “ahem” from around the library. His squealing chair brought the required raised eyebrows from the librarian.