“Sit down and shut up.”
“Yes sir,” said Shrimp, with a smile toward Dick Fontana. He liked putting Short Circuit on, liked inquiring after his health, just to see Short Circuit light up.
The project for the month was the wiring of a large star to be hung on the face of North Antor for Christmas; beside it would go two large electric candles. Shrimp went to his assignment at the tip of one of the golden flames, which took up most of the long shop table. He liked the smells here too, of stripped insulation and bare wire, and of the occasional burnt-out circuit, a faint electrical smell he associated with Short Circuit himself, as if the teacher were wired, right up to his bushy eyebrows.
Short Circuit did not have to tell anyone to begin work. His paddle was prominently displayed on a nail hammered into the wall behind his desk. It hung there, waiting. Beside it hung a more decorative paddle, which his students had wired up with twinkling colored Christmas bulbs and presented to him in years past. Now, as during every Christmas season, it was plugged in and winking at them, red, green, and blue.
Shrimp settled down, lost himself in the work; he enjoyed finding his way through the connections, and would not have minded becoming an electrician’s assistant. Instead he would be given the opportunity to work at the button mill, standing on a box at the assembly line, where the noise made you deaf in two years.
“Hey,” said Dick Fontana softly, “check it out . . .”
Shrimp looked up. Miss Lee was entering the shop. She was in charge of the Christmas pageant, which would take place beneath Short Circuit’s star and candles, and she found the need to talk to him about it for a few minutes every day, which caused the ex-wrestler to leap from his desk, eyebrows riding up and down.
“Yes, Miss Lee, good afternoon. Say good afternoon to Miss Lee, boys.”
A rumble of greeting filled the shop, as all eyes fixed on her tweed skirt, blue silk blouse, and high heels. Miss Lee was no spring chicken, and her dark hair was streaked with gray, but she had a body and she liked to flaunt it. Why hadn’t somebody married her, that was the question you could waste a lunch hour on. But a cold expression sometimes came over her, making her attractive face go suddenly severe and filling it with impossible demands; she taught math, and she could be cranky about it. Still, she was a good-looking woman and it made you wonder what she was doing at a manual trade zoo like North Antor. There was rumor that she’d taught at a better school and been caught copulating with a fullback on the roof, but this was just a lunch hour story that changed every time you heard it. Nonetheless, there was something odd about Miss Lee—a sexy spinster in a schoolful of garage mechanics.
She crossed the shop floor with long graceful strides, high heels clicking on the tile, her blouse moving gently and suggestively—a special treat for Electric Shop 4, and you knew she knew it, from the faint smile on her lips and the way she seemed not to see anyone, or feel the hungry looks that covered her as she walked past the benches.
Short Circuit led her to the window, and they stood there together, looking out to where the pageant would take place, on a platform being constructed by Hammerhead’s junior class. Miss Lee bent over the windowsill, and her skirt rose up revealing thighs enclosed in the soft sheen of stockings. Short Circuit rocked backward on his heels, head swiveling for a better view of the pleasant sight, and before he could stop himself, Shrimp called out, “Five hundred volts, Mr. Smith!”
Short Circuit spun around, eyebrows twitching. He stared at Shrimp for one long moment, then said, “Take my paddle off the wall.”
Fear shot through Shrimp’s small frame. No one could drive you home like Short Circuit Smith. This was a man who formerly ran opponents’ heads into ring posts. Each day after school he worked out in the gym with dumbbells. He had caused Tony One-Punch to buckle. What’s he going to do to me, reflected Shrimp as he walked slowly toward the front of the room and stopped alongside of the hanging paddles. “Which one?” he asked, a stupid smile on his face. He reached for the Christmas paddle, the lights winking gaily at him. “The other one, Spondoni,” said Short Circuit Smith, and turned toward his visitor. “Excuse me, Miss Lee, this won’t take long.”
Shrimp waited, still smiling stupidly as Short Circuit came toward him. “Let’s position you just right, Spondoni, for maximum liftoff—”
A few laughs rippled through the shop, and Shrimp understood. He’d be laughing if some other guy was getting it. When you were bent over with your ass on the launch pad, it was funny—until the moment of destruction.
Short Circuit angled him so that he was looking toward Miss Lee, into those soft doe-eyes of hers, so dark and shining. Her gaze was fixed on him, with an expression he couldn’t fathom. Was she smiling, just faintly, as Short Circuit prepared him for orbit? Her hips were resting against the windowsill, spreading just a little, tightening her skirt around her, underwear visible through the thin fabric. Her eyelids blinked gently, and he felt the hush descend in the room—Short Circuit was winding up.
CRACK!
Excruciating pain shot through him as he spread forward on the desk and his face contorted. Just don’t give me another one
CRACK!
He knocked his forehead down on the desk, fighting back the cry that was shooting through him. He twisted sideways and saw Dick Fontana, Dick’s eyes cold, rage-filled and fixed on Short Circuit. Shrimp tried to unbend, but his legs were trembling and he couldn’t let go of the desk. He looked at Miss Lee, and the same faint smile was still on her lips.
* * *
That night Shrimp did not sit down, but it didn’t matter, for he spent the time on his feet shouting with the rest of the school, as Dick Fontana scored thirty points against Winfield Academy. “Go, Dick, go!” Shrimp held to the balcony railing, shaking his fist and calling to Fontana, who was running all over the fancy Dans from Academy, hotshots who were going to become lawyers, doctors, and other things that no one from North Antor would have a chance at—except Dick Fontana. There were big-time scouts in the gymnasium tonight, everybody knew it. “Go, Dick, ram it down their throat, baby! Show them what you can do!”
Dick Fontana turned in the air, the ball arcing from his fingertips. Shrimp leaned over the railing, putting his will into the shot, helping the ball on its way.
“Shrimp, we don’t want to lose you—” Tony One-Punch drew him back, as the ball snapped smoothly through the net.
“Way to go, Dick, way to go, baby!”
When the game was over, Shrimp swarmed with the crowd outside in the winter darkness. The Academy bus was waiting and the students of North Antor were rocking it back and forth, jeering their defeated rivals. The Academy players sat coolly inside, with their cheerleaders to console them. Tony One-Punch, carried away by victory, drilled a punch into the bus window, spidering the glass, behind which the Academy star center sat, still just staring coolly down, his lips quietly saying, “You’re an animal.”
“The animals kicked your ass,” snarled Tony, and wound up again. Shrimp pushed in closer to the action, for the Winfielders weren’t pushovers, and he might be needed; he’d developed some good low moves necessary to someone his size. As he went into his fighting crouch, a hand came on his shoulder. He spun around, ready to bite, and found himself looking up at Dick Fontana.
They pulled away from the crowd, onto a quieter street, and continued down it, the noise from the gymnasium fading behind them. “You had a great game,” said Shrimp. “You drove those fruits through the floorboards.”
“They were easier than I thought they’d be.”
“They weren’t easy, they were tough. But you were a whole lot tougher. The way you went up on that guy—” Shrimp went into a jump shot, springing his four foot eleven inches into the air, so that Dick could see what had gone on tonight. Shrimp came down bouncing, and felt twinges all over his backside. He rubbed it tenderly, across the welts Short Circuit Smith had raised.
“How’s your assbone?”
“I’ll be standin’ for
a while. Did you see the way he drilled me? The sonofabitch practically ran across the room.”
“He came all the way around on you.”
“I’ll come all the way around on him. I’ll drop a tv set on his head from fifty up some night. He won’t get away with paddling me.”
“They always get away with it,” said Dick Fontana softly.
“Short Circuit was showin’ off for Miss Lee. And she stood there smilin’ while he blasted me.”
“She’s hot stuff.”
“She’s a hot piroshki sandwich. I’ll get her someday too.”
They walked along the Strip, where the serious drinking was done in a string of smoky dives, neon buzzing outside them, advertising the local beer. Then the streets grew darker, leading to the railroad tracks and the warehouses, where rows of tractor trailers were parked. The smell of the river was near, green and polluted by the mill where Shrimp figured he’d be working after graduation. “I hear there were scouts at the game, you hear that?”
“I heard, but nobody came to talk to me.”
“They will, baby. They’ll be around. You’ll be playin’ in the Ivy League.”
They crossed the river on the rickety slats that formed the walkway over slow water carrying a green moon on its back. On the other side of the bridge was their neighborhood, mostly coal miners’ houses, flooded by the river every spring. They walked through the dimly lit thoroughfare, the moon reflected now in a series of water-filled potholes. Through the windows, Shrimp saw the familiar sights—wallpaper peeling off, bare light bulbs hanging in the middle of a room where kids were screaming and a radio was blasting.
Dick’s house was falling apart, the shingles cracked and peeling off, the front porch sagging toward the ground. Mrs. Fontana was in the kitchen, a baby on her shoulder, as she stirred pots on the stove. A line of wash hung behind her in the kitchen, and Shrimp saw a pair of basketball trunks, North Antor-colored.
Dick pushed through a rusty creaking gate. “See you tomorrow. Sit down easy.”
Shrimp continued along the muddy sidewalk. “You creamed them, baby. You’re on the way. All-state center.”
He walked on, along paths he knew in the dark, from yard to yard. He moved quickly, easily, small figure crouched as he tunneled through an open hedge. The victory of the evening was in him, the screams and cheers still sounding; the swift motion on the court was in his own step now, as he leapt from the hedge, spun, shot an invisible ball through the air. “We creamed them, baby, we blew them away.”
He was in his own yard now, beside a rusty old Dodge that’d been there since before he was born; he moved past the derelict vehicle, through a tangle of dead weeds and grass. The two-room little house ahead of him was dark except for the glow of a tv screen. He went through the back door and found the old man on a couch in the kitchen, toes sticking out of tattered socks. A cloud of smoke wreathed his head and a bottle of gin was on the floor beside him. “How’s it goin’.”
“OK,” said Shrimp. “Dick creamed Academy.”
“Atta boy,” said the old man, and poured himself another drink.
* * *
Shrimp climbed up the stairs of the special bus the school had chartered, one of several that were pointed toward the capital for the state championship game. The team had gone on ahead, had been there a whole day already, to have some practice on the playoff court. Shrimp’s bus held the North Antor band, the cheerleaders, and anyone else who could squeeze in. Room was made for Shrimp in the back, and he sat down, holding his lunch bag. “We’ll be comin’ back with the trophy,” he said to his compatriots—Tony One-Punch, Jimmy Jaboola, and Frankie Plunger, who’d made certain they too were riding with the cheerleaders.
The cheerleaders led the bus in singing the school songs, and they sang all the way, hour after hour; Shrimp felt a magical excitement, felt victory in the air—they were going to be the state champs. Tony One-Punch and Frankie Plunger danced in the aisle, pulling the captain of the cheerleaders from her seat and spinning her around. Her skirt flew up, her pink panties showed, and everyone shouted hurray. Shrimp joined the dance, tried to get his head under her skirt, and she laughed, pushing him away. “We’re gonna win!” yelled Shrimp, rolling down the aisle in a ball for her. “We’re gonna win big!”
* * *
The Palestra was mobbed, every seat in the house filled, and every exit crowded with spectators. North Antor was just coming onto the floor, and Shrimp felt that it was himself out there on the floor in shiny costume, under the big lights, the focus of the whole state on this North Antor team which had come out of nowhere to challenge the big powerhouse schools. They’d beaten them all, with just one more to go—one last victory and they’d be kings.
“Give us an N, give us an O—”
The cheerleaders were on the floor, waving their pompoms, and North Antor was running through their warm-up weave, ball snapping smoothly from hand to hand. “Dick’s looking good, he’s on tonight, look at that hook shoot.”
“Here come the—”
Here come the cats from Phillie, man. Look at the size of those motherfuckers.
The championship team from the other half of the state sailed down the court, black bodies tall and fast, ball flying between them. Their center leapt at the net and jammed the ball down through it with the force of a cannonshot.
* * *
Shrimp’s bus got back home at midnight, emptying at the front gates of North Antor. Shrimp walked on from there, cutting down through the coal company’s vast yard, past the great breaker in shadow against the moonlit sky. The huge coal piles were dark hills, through whose valleys he passed, threading his way along unmarked trails. The coal company faced the river and he crossed it by the railroad bridge, from tie to tie over the open rushing water.
The neighborhood was dark now, the only light coming from Dick Fontana’s house, and he saw Dick inside, sitting alone at the kitchen table. He tapped on the window and Dick got up and came out onto the porch. Shrimp looked up into the tall center’s tired face.
“Fuck it, man.”
They sat on the sagging porch railing and looked out toward the river. Beyond it was the coal breaker, with the moon attached to the top of it like a night-shift light, illuminating the long chutes. “The scouts talked to me after the game. I got three offers.”
“Way to go.”
Dick rocked back on the railing, a long slow breath escaping him. “That center of theirs was something else.”
“Hey, you rammed a whole bunch of shots down his throat.”
“He rammed a whole bunch more down mine.”
“The guy was a freak. A regular freak of nature.” Shrimp lowered himself from the railing. “He buys his clothes at a store for giraffes.”
“He’ll make it to the pros.”
“For one reason only, his old man was a pogo stick.” Shrimp paced along the railing. “Did they make you a money offer?”
“Money and a car.”
“So you can kiss this town goodbye.” Shrimp stepped down off the porch. “I’ll see you in Miss Lee’s class tomorrow. We’ll snap her garters for her.”
He left Dick standing on the porch, figured he wanted to be alone now, to think things through, to consider his future, and forget the defeat. But we almost made it. We were right there at the top.
He walked through the backyards of the neighborhood, past the silent, weather-beaten old buildings. The defeat was still with him, and it was real, while victory was now fading back into dreamland. They called us the Cinderella team. How about that. The Cinderella team.
He knew now that they’d never been meant to win it, that the dream had been beyond their reach right from the start, and it felt like his own fate had been bound up with the Cinderella team, that if they’d won he wouldn’t have had to go to work in the pillow factory and breathe feathers all day. But North Antor had to lose, and he would have to breathe chicken feathers and itch all over his body for the next fifty-five years. Because that w
as the way things worked out in the real world. But he couldn’t help wondering about those other people, the ones for whom the dream world was the place they laid claim to. That, finally, was the other side of the tracks.
He went over the low fence, into his own backyard. The house was dark except for the glow of the tv screen, showing its usual bent picture, with everybody’s head two feet long. He walked in and found the old man on the couch, covered in newspapers.
“How’s it goin’.”
“We lost.”
“Atta boy.” The old man lifted his bottle and drank a little toast.
* * *
A shadow hung over the school, the halls gloomy, voices low. We had it made, thought Shrimp, as he entered Miss Lee’s class, the first one of the day. We were Cinderella.
He looked around, saw Tootsie Zonka, captain of the cheerleaders, and her eyes were red from crying. He’d rolled down the aisle of the bus for her just a night ago, and seen her pink panties, but that’d been in dreamland, never to be gotten back. You had one chance for the state championship, and then it was the button mill, the pillow factory, or the sewer works.
“Hey, Tootsie, cheer up, you looked great out there.”
She glanced at him and smiled, but her eyes were far away, still in dreamland, still with what was supposed to have been—herself carrying the trophy for the whole school as they held their victory celebration in the North Antor gym.
Miss Lee entered the room, and paraded to her desk, skirt whispering as she walked, perfume floating over the first few rows. Losing the championship meant bodunkus to her, Shrimp was sure of that; she never went to any of the games, was only interested in her own sweet self. She sat down, crossed her legs beneath the desk, and class began. Shrimp looked at her crossed legs, not really caring much about them today, just looking out of habit. She was a good-looking old doll, but so what? We had the state in our hands, had that gleaming trophy in reach. He saw the trophy in his mind, a clear white pedestal with a bronze figure on top of it, holding a basketball in the air. The figure was himself, all four foot eleven inches of him.