Reddite quoe sunt
Caesaris Casari et quoee sunt
Dei Deo. Ibi jacet lepus.
Janotus
de Bragmardo
Billy
Kidd was so impressed with my rusty football skills that he asked me to
substitute for his absent partner, as a playing coach, in their business,
The Piedmont Sports Club.
The
founding partner of the Sports Club, who received sixty percent of the revenues
against Kidd’s forty percent, was visiting Medical Schools on the East Coast
and would soon be leaving the Sports Club to attend
Billy
offered me his own position. He became
took over the senior partner position and paid himself sixty percent. There were about forty boys who attended
regularly and the parents paid four dollars per meeting. The juniors, who were from six to nine years
old, played soccer from three to four in the afternoon and the seniors, who
were from ten to twelve years old, attended from four to five and played
football.
Since
we had virtually no expenses, except for their daily refreshments of Cool Aid
and potato chips, it worked out to about sixty dollars a day for me. The income was tax free because they had
reached an agreement with the parents not to report the four dollars on their
income tax returns. Sixty dollars a day
was almost twice what I was clearing for an average night of cab driving. Since the club met three days a week it
amounted to a hundred and eighty dollars a week for six hours work. He said the job would be available for
certain in the fall and that I could start right away and work
for at least a month. Naturally, I
accepted.
We
got to
The
kids began to show up. They came in a
wave of Mercedes Benzes, old vans, BMWs, beat up
sports cars, Jeeps and station wagons. A
Rolls Royce pulled over to the curb and a chauffeur got out and opened the door
for a fat little blond boy. After the
Rolls disappeared, a Lamborghini appeared, followed closely by a DeLorean. I had seen
DeLoreans on TV but it was the first one I had seen
on the street. I tried not to look
impressed. The DeLorean
was followed by a red Corvette convertible, which was followed by a boy on a
moped who delivered a younger boy.
The
boys were dumped off by mothers who were fat, thin, tall, short, pretty, ugly,
matronly, cow-like, skag-like, got-rocks-like,
sensitive looking, prettier-than-Bess-Myerson-at-twenty, uglier than sin,
matronly, bull-dikish, whorish. One looked like a saint delivering a carload
of devils and a couple of them looked like whores dumping their little bastards
off for a few hours, so they could grind out a few bucks in peace and
solitude. But none of them looked really
needy.
The
men looked like fugitives from the business world or playboys getting rid of
their girlfriend’s kids for an hour.
There were a handful of colored servants who drove cars that looked like
mine and Kidd’s, which were parked too conspicuously, I thought, in front of
the field.
The
boys streamed onto the field and ran in large circles kicking up dirt like
ponies on an Andalusian plane. It was clear that soccer was their game and
that it was our job to form them into an ordered herd, a choreographed charge
that would bring order to chaos.
Afterwards they would drink Cool Aid and stuff their faces with potato
chips and be shuttled back to their mansions.
We
chose teams as a prelude to an act of faith in the ordered herd. In the middle of choosing sides, seven year
old Samuel Merritt IV stomped to the sidelines and screamed, “I absolutely refuse to play if Jimmy
La Rue is going to be on my team.”
He
folded his arms and stuck out his chest like an impervious umpire and turned
his back on us. Billy followed him like
an outraged manager. Order was being
destroyed. I remembered that his father
was worth a hundred million dollars.
One
of the bigger kids called out, “Don’t worry Sammy, he never plays
anyways. He just always goes up on the
hill and picks grass.”
Jimmy
La Rue agreed, and there was melancholy concern in his voice, “Yeah that’s all I do anyway.”
Sammy
yelled back, “I
don’t care. He has to agree to be on the
other team anyway.”
The
other team captain yelled,
“Alllll right. We’ll take him if you’re going to be like
that. But we don’t want him.”
Jimmy
added, without self-pity or anger, almost scientifically, as a sociologist
might,
“Nobody does.”
I
asked him, “What’s
so interesting about the grass?”
He
seemed to be thinking, trying to find a way to use my interest in him to his
advantage. A little blond kid, whose
arms were covered with woolly, white hair said with a jaunty smile, and
philosophic resignation,
“He just likes it.”
No
one laughed or even snickered. They were
detached, as if they were contemplating an a priori truth. Sammy trudged back to the field with Billy at
his side. Billy yelled, “OK, next pick.”
Randy
said, “It’s got
to be our pick then.”
Sammy
screamed, “No
way Jose!! That wasn’t part of the
deal.”
His
back arched like an angry monkey’s and it was obvious that he was getting ready
to kick seven-year-old-ass or head for the sidelines again. One of the kids
said, “Give it
to him Randy. It’s the only way were
going to get any PEACE.”
The
word “PEACE” rose from ancient depths and echoed around us until I could see
his father sitting in his easy chair at home, trying to read the newspaper and
glaring at his son.
Randy
whined, “Awwwwww right. But
just this one more time and that’s final.”
One
of the kids was trying to hide behind Billy.
Sammy said, with a grin on his face and pretending not to see the kid who
was hiding behind Billy,
“Ok, we pick Bobby Carpentier.”
Bobby
came out from behind Billy and gave his brother Randy a horrified look. Randy wailed, “Oh God!! You CAN’T pick Bobby. He’s my brother. I mean what next??”
Randy
looked around for sympathy. Billy said,
sharply, “I
told you that’s got nothing to do with it Randy.”
“Yeah,” Sammy agreed and echoed, “that’s got nothin’
to do with it. What is this anyway?”
Randy
yelled, “It’s
not fair, that’s what it IS.”
Sammy
brayed back, “Oh
Gawwwwww.”
“Gawl Darn,” Randy
answered, his voice breaking, and wheeled around and began muttering to himself
as he marched off to a safe distance where we couldn’t hear the words clearly
but we knew that he was muttering, “fuck,” “shit,” “piss,” “asshole...” He kicked the dirt and began to circle back
towards the group and his face was red and it looked like he might start to
cry. His father was worth a couple
million dollars but that was chicken feed in
Sammy
pretended to conceal a diabolical grin.
I said, “Hey,
what’s going on here? Comon’ Randy. You guys can beat the pants off Sammy’s
team. Don’t worry about it.”
I
was the new guy. Sammy glared at me
malevolently and Randy allowed himself to look slightly relieved. A few kids found the courage to look at Sammy
with scorn.
Randy
answered me, “Well,
he’s got my brother.”
I
said, “So
what. Your brother will probably try to
help your team anyway. So who cares.”
They
all laughed. They weren’t used to
that. Kidd was a hypocrite like their
other servants. Randy looked at Kidd for
a cue. But Kidd just bared his wolf-teeth
in a defensive grin and the kids turned to me.
“Let’s
play ball,” I
yelled and finished the sentence to myself,
“you little bastards.”
“We
haven’t finished choosing up sides yet,” Randy said with a malicious smile.
“Oh,
that’s right,” I
answered but thought, “What difference
does it make?”