Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Hoiman and the Solar Circuit
By Gordon Dewey
_They lifted Hoiman's scratch, thus causing him to lose much smoosh. So he grabbed his bum and hit the high orbit._
* * * * *
Pay day! I scrawled my Larry Maloney across the back of the check andhanded it to Nick, the bartender. "Leave me something to operate on,"I told him.
Nick turned it over. "Still with the _News_?"
The question was rhetorical. I let it pass without swinging at it. Iwas mentally estimating the total of the pile of tabs Nick pulled outof the cash register, like a fighter on percentage trying to count thehouse. I didn't like the figure it gave me.
Nick added them up, then added them again before he pulled some billsout of the money drawer and said, "Here's thirty skins. Your rentdue?"
"This'll cover it. I'll do my drinking here."
I went over to a booth and sat down. I lit a cigarette. I smoked. Andwaited. Presently Sherry, tall, dark and delicious, decided I wasmaking like a customer, and strolled over. "Would you like a menu, Mr.Maloney?" she trilled.
"Larry to you," I reminded her. "No menu. Bring me a steak. Big.Thick. Rare. And a plate of french fries. No salad. Bread and butter.Coffee."
She managed at last to pull her writing hand out of mine, and I had torepeat the order. Unless it could be turned into money, Sherry'smemory was limited strictly to the present instant.
She put in the order, then brought me a set-up. I let my eyes go overher, real careful, for maybe the thousandth time. No doubt of it--thelassie had a classy chassis. If she just wouldn't yak so damn much.
_It looked as though Hoiman's Bum would be rememberedon Mars._]
"Did you see the matches last night?" She didn't wait for my answer,just went on with the yat-a-ta. "I spent the whole evening just gluedto my television set. I was simply enthralled. When the HorribleHungarian got the Flying Hackensack on--"
"Standing Hackenschmidt, Sherry!"
"--poor little Billie McElroy I wanted to--to scratch his eyes out."
I pointed out that McElroy weighed in at two forty-one and had gone onto win the match. Sherry never heard me.
"And the way the Weeping Greek kept hitting the other fellow--theannouncer said he was throwing Judo cutlets."
"_Cuts_, not cutlets."
"But aren't Judo cutlets illegitimate?" The barest hint of a puzzledfrown tugged at her flawless brows as she poured ice water into myglass.
"The word," I repeated, "is _cuts_. And the blow is not illegal." Igave my eyes another treat. What a chassis. And _what_ a mind."Anything these days, so long as you don't kill your opponent, islegal in wrestling."
Suddenly we had company: a little man who made scarcely a sound as heslid into my booth and sat facing me. "Rassling, yet," he said, inbitter tones. "What a woid. Dun't be saying it." He helped himself toa cigarette from my pack lying on the table, and put the pack in hispocket. He lit the cigarette, using my lighter, which he held a momentlonger than necessary before replacing it--regretfully--on the table.
He inhaled deeply. "Rassling!" he repeated. "Leave us not discuss it."
* * * * *
He was thin, haggard, unkempt, and his brown suit--in which the chalkstripes were beginning to blend with the background--was threadbare.He needed a shave, and his fingernails were dirty. He was vaguelyfamiliar. The beady little eyes flicked up at me, and all uncertaintydissolved.
"Oh, no!" I said. "Not you. Not--"
He exhaled a great cloud of smoke. "Hoiman Katz," he said, in dejectedtones. "It is me, again. The same as like always, only not so better."He sighed.
Sherry's tongue had been shifting from one foot to the other, waitingfor an opening. "Are you a wrestler, Mr. Katz?" she asked brightly.
Hoiman half rose from his seat, and the cigarette dropped from his laxmouth. Then he slumped down again, spread his hands, shrugged, andsaid, "Now I esk you!"
Sherry said, "I guess not." Then, "Shall I bring you something?" Hereyes were on me as she asked. She hadn't worked on Vine Street for sixyears without learning the ropes--about people at least.
I nodded.
Katz was waiting for the nod. He licked his lips. "I'll have a--"
"Planet Punch?"
"No. I'll have a--"
"Solar Sling? Martian Mule?"
Hoiman's eyes squinted shut, and he winced eloquently. "Martian!" hegroaned. "With rassling, too! Bring me a bottle of beer. Two bottles!"After a moment he peered cautiously through slitted lids. "Is shegone?" he whispered. "Such woids. Rassling. Martian. Better I shouldhave stood in Hollywood."
I laughed. "What's the matter with wrestling, Hoiman? Last I heard youwere managing a good boy--what was his name?"
"Killer Coogan? That bum!"
I had to do some thinking back. "Yeah," I said, "that's the boy.Started wrestling back in the fifties. Good crowd pleaser. Took theJunior Heavyweight Championship from Brickbuster Bates. Had a trickhold he called the pretzel bend--hard to apply, but good for asubmission every time when he clamped it on. Right?"
"Okay, so he won some bouts with it. But that was twenty-five yearsago. He's slower, can't use that holt any more. We ain't had no mainevents for a long time, and my bum is a big eater, see?"
"So?"
"So Hoiman Katz is not sleeping yet at the switch. He's got it uphere." A grimy forefinger tapped his wrinkled brow. "I says, Hoiman,if we don't get it here, we gotta go where we _can_ get it."
Sherry came back with Hoiman's two bottles of beer, and my steak andfrench fries. The steak was a dream, and the french fries were acrisp, rich golden brown that started my mouth watering.
Sherry wanted to talk. I waved her down, and she went away pouting. Ifthere was a story in Hoiman I wanted to get it without interference.
He was pouring a second glass of beer. His beady eyes swivelled up tomine, then quickly away. "You want I should tell you about my bum?"
I mumbled something through a mouthful of good juicy steak.
Hoiman sighed, reminiscently, and a grimy paw swooped into my frenchfries. I moved them to the other side of my steak platter.
We woiked all up and down the Coast, (Hoiman said). My bum took allcomers. Slasher Slade had his abominal stretch. Crusher Kane had hisrolling rocking horse split; Manslaughter Murphy had his cobraholt--but none of those guys had anything like my Bum's pretzel bend.He trun 'em all, and they stayed trun.
That was fine. All through the fifties, and the sixties we made plentyscratch. Maybe it slowed down, but we was eating regular. In theseventies my bum was slowing up. I shoulda seen it when he startedmissing his holt. That leaves him wide open, see? And twict the otherbum moiders him.
That was recent--they was just putting in regular passenger service onthe space lines, so you could buy tickets to the Moon, or Venus orMars. Depended on whether you was ducking a bill or some broad.
By this time my bum is getting pinned to the mat too regular, andwe're slipping out of the big dough. I counts up our lettuce one day,and I says to my bum, I says, Ray, I says, you and me are going to theMoon.
So what if they didn't have a rassling circuit there yet, I tell him.Just leave it to your uncle Hoiman. We'll make our own circuit.
I figured that the ribbon clerks wouldn't be
taking space rides forawhile, and if we went to the Moon we'd find some bums there who couldgive my bum a good bout, but not fast enough to toss him.
So we went there.
Hoiman's eyes, looking into the past, had lost their beadiness. He'dshifted his third glass of beer to his right hand, and his left,seemingly of its own volition, had found my plate of french fries. Thepile had dwindled by half, and tell-tale potato crumbs were lodged inthe whiskers on Hoiman's unshaven chin. Neither beer nor potatoes inhis mouth seemed to matter--he went right on talking at the same rate.
It takes me two weeks, (Hoiman continued), to ballyhoo up a bout, lineup another bum, fix up the ring and hall