“Go clean yourself up, Henry,” said Mrs. W. “Company’s coming.”
“I only have jeans,” I said.
“That’s fine. Shave and put on a clean shirt.” I went and did as told.
I came down and returned to the kitchen, where Ginny was stirring pots and looking at things, but looked like she was dressed for church. I was wearing Levi’s, a white button-down Oxford that may have been my father’s at one point but was starched and pressed, and Weejuns. I’d never worn them before college but the kids at school were wearing them and I don’t like to stand out.
“Hey,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “Did Aunt Maggie mention hollandaise to you?”
“Yes. But I said I don’t know how to make it.”
“Okay, I really, really like to cook but every time I try to make hollandaise it clabbers, so don’t be surprised if she asks you to make it.”
“I have no idea how to make it,” I said.
“She’s already melted the butter, squeezed the lemons and beat the eggs. She’s going to tell you so all you have to do is follow instructions.”
“Okay,” I said.
“She’s funny. She knows everything, but she has these quirks. She’s always trying to get somebody to work on hollandaise and gravy for her. I think she doesn’t think she can make them, so she won’t try and she’s always looking for somebody else to do it for her.”
“You look like a pretty good cook. You move around the kitchen like you belong here.”
“I do like to cook. But with sauces or roux I’m no good. I look away for just a second at the wrong time, and it’s ruined. Look, when she starts telling you what to do with the sauce, just follow her instructions.”
The doorbell rang and Ginny jumped up. “Pro’ly my ‘rents,” she said. She smiled briefly and ran to the door. Mrs. W. wasn’t present. I felt ill at ease but was aware that manners required that I greet her family, so I followed Ginny towards the door. They were all hugging when I got there, although surely they’d already had the opportunity to greet each other since she’d retuned to town. After a medium-number of seconds of embrace, Ginny turned to me and introduced me to them. “Henry, this is my mom, dad, and younger brother. Family, this is Henry. He seems to be Aunt Margaret’s favorite student ever.” They all smiled at me, except for little brother, who looked at me speculatively, the way an old man would a young stripling. They were all well-dressed. Ginny’s mother was wearing a broadly-pleated navy skirt with a matching brass-buttoned jacket over an ivory silk shell blouse, gold jewelry that was a little too much for me to take in on one look and high heels of some sort. Her father was in a navy suit, white buttoned-down Oxford cloth shirt like mine and a red striped tie of some sort. Little brother was wearing a blue blazer, bright red shirt, grey and red plaid wool pants, and some sort of tie. He was obviously looking for a friend and looked at me earnestly. I shook all their hands. I was woefully underdressed. At least I’d shaved.
At this point Mrs. W. came down the stairs. She was dressed like … what? In the seventies we all knew how to dress. How would you describe that sense? High school teachers all dressed like they were going to church, but “Sunday best” was different then. Mrs. W. was wearing a nice black suit and a snow-white silk blouse she didn’t wear every day, but she was still smoking a cigarette.
Everybody greeted everybody, and I concentrated on feeling severely underdressed. Even Ginny’s little brother, for whom Ginny demonstrated low regard, was better dressed than I was.
“Okay, we still have a few things to do in the kitchen,” said Mrs. W, and everybody understood she and Ginny were leaving. Mrs. W looked back at me as she left. “Henry, come with us,” she said. In the kitchen, she steered me to the stove and put me in front of the melted butter, lemon juice, and beaten eggs Ginny had pointed out. She handed me a fork, poured all the ingredients into a sauce pan, and lit the gas to low.
“Beat it up,” she said. I did. She dipped a finger into the mix and tasted.
“I think we’re okay,” she said. “As the heat comes up, the eggs are going to cook in this sauce. If you stop stirring for a second, were going to have lemony scrambled eggs. But if you pay attention to your stirring, we’ll have a nice sauce for the broccoli.” I started beating rapidly, as though whipping cream or scrambling eggs. “Not so fast. Just keep it all moving,” she said. “Slow and gentle with the heat and with the fork.” I slowed to a fast stir. “Good,” she said. “Keep the fork scraping the bottom of the pan. Otherwise the eggs will stick and make lumps.” I did as told. She went off and finished gravy, steamed broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Ginny cut dressing into squares, arranged the turkey on a platter, removed yams and rolls from the oven, and transferred rolls to a silver bread basket lined with a linen napkin. They looked at each other and nodded without saying anything, then moved it all out into the dining room in fewer trips than I would have thought possible. I kept stirring. My sauce was now pretty well thickened, a nice warm yellow color. It looked like it was about to start bubbling, which seemed like it might be a bad thing, so I turned off the heat but kept stirring. It looked like pretty much everything that was going to be served had been removed to the dining room, but there was an antique-looking oval bowl with a sauce ladle on the counter that was about the right size for the hollandaise, and the sauce looked done, so I poured it onto the bowl. I was just finishing scraping the sauce into the pan when Mrs. W came bustling back into the kitchen. “Sorry, Henry, I forgot all about you.” Then she stopped short when she saw the sauce in the bowl. She approached it cautiously, looked at it suspiciously, then opened a drawer, pulled out a teaspoon, and dipped the back of the spoon into the sauce. She looked at how it clung to the back of the spoon, then put the spoon in her mouth. “Henry, that’s perfect,” she said, with a worried look. “And you say you don’t cook?”
“No ma’am, not at all.”
“Well, I think you do now,” she said, taking the sauce from me and scraping it into a bowl. “Come on.” She marched into the dining room with the sauce and I followed. The table was splendidly set, with sterling flatware and cut crystal water and wine glasses and serving plates full of food everywhere. She sat me to her left and Ginny to her right. Ginny’s father was at the end of the table to my left, her mother was more or less across the table from me, and Ginny’s little brother was next to his mom (to her left and my right) across from Mrs. W and Ginny. A well-dressed woman with an enormous sapphire ring surrounded by lots of little diamonds on her right ring finger was at end of the table to Ginny’s right. I hadn’t seen her come in and wasn’t sure who she was. The turkey, no longer steaming but hot enough to emit a strong and delicious turkey aroma, was on a platter in front of Mr. McColl. As we sat, he held the chair for her mother, so I did the same for Mrs. W. She smiled at the unexpected courtliness but said nothing. After we were all seated, Mrs. W looked at Ginny’s dad and said “Gunner, if you’d do the honors,” and we all bowed our heads.
“Lord, for that which we are about to receive we thank You. Please bless this food to our bodies and our bodies to Thy service, Amen.” Everybody looked up and all of the steaming serving plates began to move. Mr. McColl began to slice the turkey with what must have been a very sharp knife, because the slices fell off neatly and perfectly. In my family growing up the turkey had generally been shredded more than carved, but Ginny’s dad seemed to have a real talent for it. Ginny’s mom, without asking, added food to his plate and passed each dish on to me across the table. There didn’t seem to be any question about what he wanted. Cranberry sauce in a molded shape was among the dishes rotating the table, and I didn’t remember seeing under construction. Mr. McColl neatly placed slices of turkey onto a smaller serving platter, arrayed as white and dark meat, with a drumstick and a wing, then passed the smaller platter to me. Ginny got up and removed the platter with the turkey carcass to a side table. He’d removed about half of he meat.
“Oh, my gosh, Aunt Margaret! We forgot the stuffing again!” and everybody at the table laughed.
“Happens every year,” Mrs. W smiled. Ginny returned to the kitchen and came back with a bowl and a long-handled spoon that my mother and sister would have referred to as a rice spoon, then scooped out five or six cups of stuffing from the bird and put it in the bowl. Her Father waited patiently, knife and carving fork in hand, while she did this. She handed the bowl to Mrs. W as she returned to her seat.
“Okay, Henry, you have to try this,” she said. I looked down at my plate, by now filled with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, broccoli with hollandaise sauce, cranberry sauce, and a buttery roll. There wasn’t much room. She took the spoon and nudged my broccoli towards my turkey to make some room and put a heaping steaming spoonful of stuffing on my plate, then plopped some on her own before handing it to Ginny on her right. “Give it a try,” she said. I did, and I have to say there’s nothing quite like it. One of the nice things about her dressing, which I had tasted a few seconds earlier, was that it was moist but almost dry and a little coarse. The stuffing had the good old cornbread, onion, celery and sage flavors but was much wetter, with a texture like grainy mashed potatoes, and a much meatier taste. It was wonderful, but of course so was the dressing.
“So, Henry, tell me about yourself,” said Ginny’s dad. Everyone around the table perked up a little bit without wanting to seem like they were paying attention, and Mrs. W smiled to herself. I couldn’t see Ginny. Ginny’s mom looked up at me with a vague look of interest and a half smile. I would much rather have been concentrating on the food while it was hot but couldn’t be rude.
“I’m in college. Mrs. Wertheimer was my favorite teacher at City High. I spent a couple of years between high school and college travelling around, and she was nice enough to help me with some financial things while I was doing that. She’s still helping me with my finances now that I’m in college. My mom and dad are in the military and are overseas right now, I think, so she was nice enough to invite me here for Thanksgiving.” Ginny’s mom frowned at Ginny. I was hoping her father had asked just to be polite and would now talk to somebody else before the mashed potatoes and gravy got cold.
“What are you studying?” he asked. Damn.
“Math and Physics,” I answered, holding my cooling forkful of gravied mashed potatoes. As soon as I answered I got some mashed potatoes into my mouth and shoveled in more while he was formulating his next question. They were really good mashed potatoes. Buttery and faintly salty without being either watery or heavy.
“What are your electives?” he asked. It didn’t seem menacing, exactly, the way he was questioning me, but it seemed oddly focused for a holiday meal. I think lawyers sometimes get interested in a line of questioning and find it hard to let it go.
“The only one that’s not standard is Greek,” I answered, slicing off a piece of cooling turkey and gravy.
“Why Greek?” he asked.
“I want to read the New Testament in the original. Plus I like Aristotle,” I answered. Mrs. McColl glared at Ginny, who didn’t seem to notice.
“What are you going to do with your math and physics?” asked her father, with a slightly different tone.
“Ginny, have you had a conversion experience or something?” asked her mother.
“No, Mom,” she answered. She rolled her eyes the way young women do when their mother asks them a question. “Henry’s not religious, and we’re not dating.” This comment brought me up short. I looked up, but no one was looking at me. They were all looking at their plates and glancing furtively at Ginny.
“I don’t really know,” I answered Mr. McColl. “I wasn’t even planning on going to college at one point, but decided to enroll because I got interested in Physics.” Everyone seemed to frown slightly at this.
“Henry was a professional pool player until last year,” said Mrs. W. “He got interested in subtle variations in the way the balls bounce off each other, and the table. As did Albert Einstein. As do … most physicists. At least the ones who aren’t completely caught with in quantum mechanics.”
Ginny’s father smiled. “What’s your game? Straight pool? Eight ball?” he asked.
“Well, I can play those, but most guys who play for money these days play nine ball,” I answered. The sweet potatoes were still warm. They had brown, caramelized edges and an almost crystallized sugary surface. Not sweet enough for dessert and oddly appropriate between bites of turkey and gravy.
“Now that’s surprising,” said Mr. McColl. “When I was in the service all the sharks seemed to play eight ball or straight pool.”
“The old-timers in pool halls say Texas express nine ball took off in the sixties as the money game. Action’s faster, accuracy’s more important,” I said. The broccoli was lukewarm, but the sauce was slightly tart and very creamy. Despite the fact that it was mostly butter, it didn’t taste buttery at all. The roll, on the other hand, tasted a lot like butter. “Mrs. W,” I said, “Are these City High rolls?” She smiled.
“Henry’s always been … frugal,” she said to the table. “I used to notice that all he had for lunch was four of the yeast rolls from the school cafeteria.”
“These are good,” said Ginny’s mom. “What’s the recipe?”
“Make Parker House Rolls and leave out the egg,” she said. “And Henry, these are the City High yeast rolls you liked only with butter instead of margarine.”
“Can I have another one?” I asked. She smiled and passed the basket.
“Henry also plays a game called rainbow,” Ginny announced. “I saw him play it one night.” I gave her a puzzled look.
“Rainbow?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, confidently.
“I don’t think I know a game called rainbow,” I said.
“You played it at Annie’s,” she said.
“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I played nine ball and then one game of cutthroat.” Ginny’s father laughed, and Ginny blushed.
“I knew it was some kind of trout,” she said, a little meekly for her.
“We used to go fishing in Montana every summer,” said her father. “Trout fishing. Ginny’s good at it. Rainbow and cutthroat are two different types of trout.”
“Ah. Well. That game made quite an impression on Ginny, and I’m sorry for scaring her, but it came out all right,” I said.
“So you usually win?” Mr. McColl asked me.
“Enough to make a living at it.”
“He lost one to Texas right before the cutthroat game for all that money,” Ginny said.
“True enough,” I said. “I lose some games, but that’s not exactly what I mean by ‘lose.’ I think I’ve won if I go home with more money than I came with.”
“Sensible,” said Ginny’s dad.
“Daddy, there’s nothing sensible about it,” Ginny said. Gunner smiled contemplatively and reached for another roll.
“Why did it make an impression on Ginny?” he said to me. “On you?” he said to Ginny. She thought. I dipped a bit of my roll through the detritus of my dinner, which included both good gravy and good hollandaise sauce. Delicious combo. I would prefer to have concentrated on the food, but had to answer her father’s question. Ginny was frowning at her plate and was obviously tired of discussing this particular subject.
“I was playing for money against a couple of hustlers,” I said.
“But you won” said her father.
“Yes, sir.”
Ginny looked up. “But he risked more than was … sensible,” she said.
“But he won,” said her father.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Yes, it does. Somebody who wins at a game of chance may have been just been … unusually well informed,” said her father. I laughed. “I take it you agree?” he asked me.
“Yes and no, sir,” I said. “That’s a good way of thinking about some forms of gambling, but I don’t think of pool as a game of chance.”
“How do you think of it then?” he asked, finishing the last of his mashed potatoes and the last of his turkey in a single forkful that left his plate completely clean. Very efficient, very tidy.
“It’s a game of skill, and if I do my job right, I can tell whether I’m more highly skilled than the other guy. And if I am, I’ll come out ahead.”
“And you were?”
“That night I was, yes sir. I knew one of them and the other had an … illogical idea,” I said.
“How much?” he asked.
“I won fifteen,” I said.
“Fifteen dollars?” he asked.
“No. sir.”
“Fifteen hundred?” asked Ginny’s mother. “Oh for heaven’s sake.” Mrs. W looked at me and smirked a bit. “I see Ginny’s point,” said her mother.
“But he won,” said Mr. McColl and the mystery woman, in unison.
“No one should gamble more than he can afford,” said her mother, “and no college student can afford to lose fifteen hundred dollars.” Mrs. W cocked an eyebrow at me, amused.
“Before I was a college student I played pool for a living full time,” I said. “I did okay at it. This was three to one against a guy I’d always beat and another guy I was pretty sure I could beat.” I shrugged. Mrs. McColl frowned, shook her head, and looked down. Ginny was frowning and looking into the distance. The mystery woman was smiling at me with her fork poised in the air as though it were a magic wand.
“So has the protector accepted you?” asked Ginny’s little brother, out of nowhere. Everybody looked at him. He was focused on me.
“Not so far as I am aware,” I answered, after a pause, while finishing the last of my second roll.
“But you’re familiar with the Yaqui way of knowledge?” he asked.
“No,” I said, deliberatively.
“So you say,” he said. “But you talk as one who is thoroughly familiar with the teachings of Don Juan.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“No,” I said, after a pause.
“Is this one of your strange Carlos Castaneda trips?” Ginny asked him.
“Yes, it is true that I refer to the Yaqui way of knowledge,” little brother said. Mrs. W looked concerned, mystery woman looked amused, Ginny’s mother looked confused, and Ginny looked irritated.
“Some cretin gave him a copy of The Teachings of Don Juan last year and he just won’t shut up about this Mexican mystic deal,” Ginny said. Everybody looked at him for a few seconds.
“Time for pie,” said Mrs. W. “Who wants coffee?” At that everybody rose to start cleaning the table. Mrs. W had a pot of coffee set to go, and the whole process of removing most of Thanksgiving from the dining room just took a few minutes. The pies were already in the dining room, one pumpkin and one mincemeat, and Ginny placed them in front of Mrs. W with a stack of dessert plates, a beautiful silver pastry server, and a porcelain bowl of whipped cream. Ginny’s father got up and left the room for a few minutes then returned with four small snifters of what was looked like brandy. While Mrs. W was cutting the pies he placed one snifter each in front of each of Mrs. W, his wife, and the mystery woman, then held one aloft as if to offer it to me. After I shook my head he sat down and put the glass net to his own fork. Mrs. W took orders for pie. I got a slice of mincemeat with a dollop of fragrant whipped cream on top. Without anything being said, Ginny got up and served coffee to her mother, father, and Mrs. W. She didn’t ask me if I wanted any, but then I didn’t. Once Mrs. W had her coffee, she picked up her fork and had a bite of pumpkin pie, which was everyone else’s cue to begin eating desert—no one had so much as picked up a fork to that point. Aside from saying how good both pies tasted, no one said much. My mincemeat pie was perfect, with a slightly crisp rich crust and whipped cream that may have tasted faintly of sugar and brandy. I have a love of mincemeat pie that surpasseth all understanding, and this was a distinctly wonderful mincemeat pie. If you’re not already on board about mincemeat, you can’t really understand.
As we finished our pie everyone looked around the table contentedly. Mrs. W finally sipped her brandy and was startled by it.
“Gunner, what is this?” she asked.
“Armagnac,” he said, smiling. “I brought it over Labor Day and hid it in your liquor cabinet.”
“It’s wonderful,” she said. Without saying anything, Ginny got up went in the same direction as her father had gone.
“Bring me a Scotch,” said the mystery woman. Ginny returned a minute later with a tiny thimble-sized intricately cut crystal glass of brandy for herself and a beaker of Scotch with a few cubes of ice for the mystery woman. Ginny sipped at her thimble and seemed to like it. Everyone seemed happy, but no one said much.
“Well Margaret, you’ve outdone yourself again,” said Ginny’s father.
“Why thank you, Gunner,” she answered. “Thanks for this excellent brandy.”
“The French know their brandy,” he said. Everyone sat around in a kind of stupor for a few minutes, not saying much, sipping drinks, hot and cold, and falling into a kind of reverie. It was both comforting and strange. I tried not to move around too much. Ginny’s little brother scowled a bit and looked around at the rest of us as though he had a hard time believing what he was seeing. He kid of raised his hands and opened his mouth as if to speak but then—
“Okay, time to clean up,” said Mrs. W. “Gunner, you and Henry go straighten out the television in the other room and we’ll figure out what to do with all this food.” Mrs. W. stood, then the rest of us followed, me a little tardily, except for little brother, who scowled. Ginny smacked him on the back of the neck and he stood, unhappily. “Okay, then,” said Mrs. W, and people began to move. Ginny’s father moved through the door towards the living room and kind of gestured towards me, so I followed. He went trough the living room and down part of a hall to a family room. By the time I got there he was turning on the TV, a big Magnavox console model. The Lions were playing the Bears.
“You sure you don’t want some of this?” he asked. “It’s good.” He was gesturing with his drink, but more interested in the television. He bent down to change the channel every few seconds before he found a football game. I was about to say “no sir” when he found what he was looking for. “Here it is,” he said. “Lions and Broncos. Both of them stink this year and have for years but I’ve watched the Lions play on Thanksgiving every year since we had a television.” He looked at me and smiled. “Tradition. Even if I don’t care about either team and don’t even much care about professional football. I’ve done it so long I don’t want to stop.” He looked back at the game.
“So you aren’t a fan of either team?”
“No. I kind of followed the Lions for a few years after George Plimpton wrote that book but I never really cared about them. And the funny thing about this game is that it almost always never matters. The Lions often seem to find a way to lose, and even when they win, the game usually doesn’t matter. But it’s always played on Thanksgiving, and my whole life, women have been shooing me out of the kitchen as soon as the meal was over. So I always go and check in on the lions. You really ought to try this Armagnac,” he said.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Scotch?”
“No, sir, I don’t drink.”
“Is this a religious thing?” he asked, a little earnestly. There was a commercial on, and he wasn’t distracted.
“No, sir. I’m not religious.”
“Are you in AA?” he asked.
“Am I in what?” I asked.
“Alcoholics Anonymous.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You’d know if you went o their meetings.”
“Alcoholics are volunteering for something?” I asked.
“Sort of. It’s complicated,” he said.
“They’ve formed a club?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “So why don’t you drink, if you’re not a Baptist?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been making money playing pool since I was much too young to be in pool halls. And a lot of the places I’ve played pool in also served alcohol. So I’ve played pool against a lot of people who’d been drinking. Some a little, some a lot. I’ve never met anybody who had consumed any amount of alcohol that I thought it improved their game, and of the people I’ve played drunk and sober, all of them played better sober.” Ginny’s dad watched the Broncos waste a few downs.
“Landry’s just not a class quarterback, you know?” he said, as he watched another Lions incomplete pass. He looked over at me. “If you don’t want to drink, that’s fine, but people are going to make assumptions about it all the time.
“So I’ve noticed,” I said.
“And I don’t need to question you as a possible suitor after my Ginny?” he asked, watching the football game.
“Mr. McColl, you have a wonderful daughter. But I’m really good friends with Mrs. Wertheimer. She helps me out a lot in all kinds of ways. If I dated your daughter, it might affect my relationship with Mrs. W.”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. McColl, without taking his eyes off the game, “Margaret’s a pretty smart old bird. You behave like a gentleman, she’ll forgive a lot. But it sounds like you pissed Ginny off with that pool game.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was a little surprised at that.”
“Her mother and I didn’t want her to be just another snooty stuck up Lookout Mountain GPS girl like all the Luptons and Probascos. So we gave her a really small allowance and encouraged her to play sports. We may have overdone all that. She seems to think that to be a good girl she has to be a jock who’s cheap as hell.”
We watched the game in silence. The Bronco, bad as they were, were pulling ahead of the Lions.
“Still and all, he said, after a few minutes, “$1,500 is a lot to gamble on a pool game. You can maybe see how a girl of modest upbringing would think that an extravagant wager,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Chapter 23A: A Day of Thanks Reposted. Let me know if the Greek comes through.
To foreshadow a bit, Thanksgiving at Mrs. W’s house was very, very nice, but her house wasn’t my home at that point. I wasn’t averse to it being my home, but when you move around as much as I did when I was a kid the concept of “home” has a more diffuse connotation than it would if you lived in one place, say, Wadley, Alabama, or even Chattanooga, for your entire life. I was more rootless than anyone in Mrs. W’s family, not as closely tied to the culture or the institutions or the people of Chattanooga as anyone else there. I was there not because I thought her house was home, but because Mrs. W was nice enough to invite me, and because I liked her, and because there wasn’t anyplace else where somebody was expecting me.
Ginny’s dad was waiting for us when we’d arrived at Mrs. W’s house. He collected Ginny and her luggage and left pretty fast. Walt lit a cigarette as soon as her car door closed, then he and Cisco pulled off into the night, the shiny Pontiac disappearing into an unusually warm November night. Standing outside, I couldn’t see much of Mrs. W’s house, but it seemed large and vine-covered, with a frame and shingle exterior painted some dark olive or brown. She greeted me warmly, of course, then when the others had left led me to a bedroom. The interior of her house was mostly warm varnished mahogany, with intricately cut mortise and tenon joints and carefully carved accents. It smelled like she’d just cooked cornbread. She had dark Oriental carpets on most of her floors, which seemed to be beautiful quarter-sawn oak. I’d never seen anything quite like it. She showed me to a spacious upstairs bedroom with two twin beds. Mission furniture. It was nice. Spare. Neat. Clean.
“Henry,” Mrs. W said, lighting a Benson & Hedges off of her Gates Zippo, “There’s nobody else with a claim to this room. I know you have family, but this room is open for you whenever you need it.”
An amazing offer.
“Now I’d love to catch up, but I’m tired. I had a glass of wine while I was waiting up for you guys and it’s put me right to sleep, so I’m going to go on to bed, although this is a little early for me.” It was about 10:00. “We’ll talk in the morning. I’m right across the hall. Your bathroom is behind me,” she said, from the bedroom door. “Good night, Henry. Good to have you here.” A few seconds later I could hear her door close across the hall.
I hadn’t brought anything to read except textbooks to encourage myself to study when the occasion arose. I found I wasn’t in the mood to study but it was too early to go to sleep. I opened the drawer to the night stand, and found two books: A leather-bound red-letter edition of the King James Bible and a smaller volume titled “Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.” The Greek New Testament. I opened to John. “Kατα Ιωάννινν.” I tried to read the first verse: “Έν άρχη ήν ό λογος, και ό λογος ήν προς τον θεον, και θεος ήν όλογος.” Even with just a few months of college Greek I could read that much, but the next sentence was harder. I put it aside and picked it up in English. Strange book. Pastor Leslie was right. It doesn’t tell the same story as he rest of the New Testament at all. As I have done before, I fell asleep reading it without getting up to brush my teeth.
When I woke up the next morning it was early. The house was cool and quiet. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. On the road, I would have made coffee, if there was a pot in the room, or gone looking for it. At college, I would walk up to the dining hall and eat bacon and drink coffee and look over my subjects until time for class to start. In Mrs. W’s house I had no idea who else was up at 6:30. I found the bathroom and brushed my teeth. As is the case with some old houses, none of the upstairs bedrooms had its own bathroom but all of them exited into a hall from which they all shared access to a common bathroom. Not modern, but not odd. I put enough clothing to present myself to the household and went downstairs.
The house was quiet and still, and I didn’t know my way around. I found my way through the living room and dining room to the kitchen, partly aided by the aroma of coffee. Mrs. Wertheimer was seated at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, looking at several three by five cards on the table in front of her. The floor creaked slightly as I came to the kitchen door and she looked up.
“Hey, Henry,” she said, happy to see me. She glanced up at the source of the coffee aroma, a 12 cup Hamilton Beach percolator. I followed her gaze, and you could see the coffee surging into the glass knob on top. Still not ready. “Looks like the coffee’s still got a few minutes to go,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Great,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“Not a lot. Looking at recipes and waiting for the coffee. I like to cook, but I don’t do it too much, so I look over the recipes before I start.” She looked down at her cards and took a drag. “Are you a dressing person or a stuffing person?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?” I asked.
“They’re the same thing cooked differently. We’re going to have cornbread and bread stuffing. Or dressing. Stuffing is the mix of breadcrumbs and vegetables and all stuffed into the turkey and roasted with it, dressing is the same mix cooked in a casserole dish. Both are good.”
“I guess we always had dressing, then,” I said.
“We’re going to have both, but if you’ve never tried stuffing you should have some,” she said. “Nothing like it.” She looked at her cards and smoked her cigarette. “Yams?” she asked, looking up.
“Of course.”
“Candied or whipped?” she asked.
“I think I’m a candied guy,” I said. “I mean, I like whipped sweet potatoes, but candied yams are a real treat.”
“Good man,” she said. She shuffled the cards again and took a drag.
“Do you prefer mashed potatoes or rice as a starch?” she asked.
“The dressing, or stuffing, is plenty,” I said. “Are you thinking of rolls?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m up early,” she said. “I think Thanksgiving needs to have good rolls, so I got up and started a batch of Parker House Rolls.” There was a large glass bowl filled with dough, covered with Saran-Wrap, near the oven.
“Don’t know Parker House Rolls,” I said.
“Lots of butter. A little sweet.”
“Like the rolls for lunch at City High?” I asked.
“Almost,” she said. “The City’s yeast rolls were made with margarine, but they were good.”
“They were good.”
“Sure they were,” she said. “I’ve got broccoli. Can you make Hollandaise?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Can you follow instructions?”
“I think so,” I said. Her eyes shot up to look at me over her glasses, then they softened speculatively. She took a drag from her cigarette.
“You don’t have much experience at that, I guess?” she asked.
“Maybe not.”
“It’s not so bad, you know, listening to what other people think.”
I thought about that for a minute. “I listen to you,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “I appreciate it that you trust me. But maybe you could be more trusting of people around you. Have you been making friends in college?”
I thought for a minute. “Well, there’s Stoney. I tried to be nice to Milton, but I think he took it the wrong way.”
“How did you try to be nice to him?”
“I bought a nine ball game. Kept him from being fleeced by a pro I know named Donnie.” She looked at her recipe cards for a few seconds. The coffee was done and I got up hefted the pot. There were several mugs in front of the percolator. “Coffee?” I asked. She looked up.
“Sure,” she said. “Black.” I poured her a mug, put it down near her, poured one for myself, and sat down again on my stool. “Thanks,” she said, absent-mindedly. She took a sip. “Okay, here’s the plan,” she said. “Turkey, stuffing, dressing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli with hollandaise, corn soufflé. Parker House rolls, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie. Good?”
“More food than I’m used to even on Thanksgiving,” I said.
“So I’m about to start cooking, and if Ginny shows up what’s going to happen?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Henry, don’t be obtuse,” she said. “Last time I saw you together she was hanging on your every word. Last night she was staying as far away from you as possible and mooning over that snob from Atlanta.”
“Yeah. Okay. It’s odd. She saw me play pool for some money. Maybe a lot of money. I know it seemed like a lot to her. She didn’t like it that I risked so much.” Mrs. W. nodded and thought for a few minutes.
“Her mom’s that way, too. Her dad’s been offered a job as general counsel of this railroad. The Union Pacific. Big company. Great job. Could make him, or them, millions of dollars. Winnie’s worried because he’s got a good job now and she doesn’t see why he’d consider giving it up.”
“What’s his job now?”
“He’s a partner at Miller & Martin.”
“A lawyer deal?” I asked.
“Yes. And he does well. But being general counsel of the Union Pacific would be a much bigger lawyer deal. But the job is in Omaha.”
“Nebraska?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“A long train ride from Chattanooga, especially as Chattanooga doesn’t have passenger rail.”
“Good point.” She smiled.
“Anything I can do to help with the Thanksgiving meal?” I asked, sipping my coffee.
“Maybe. Do you cook?”
“Not at all.”
“Never?” she was surprised.
“Sometimes I fried eggs for myself on Saturdays or Sundays,” I said.
“Because your mom was away?” she asked.
“No, because I liked them fried really, really hard, with a tough skin, and Mom thought that was wrong. I’d fry my eggs and she’d make toast.”
“Well, Ginny usually comes over a little bfore noon and helps.” She stood and handed me a black iron skillet with red and white hound’s tooth dish towel over it, then located a large Pyrex bowl. I lifted the dish towel and found a large, cool wheel of cornbread with one narrow slice missing. I looked up at Mrs. W. “Your job is to change that cornbread into tiny little crumbles in that bowl.” I shrugged and got to work. While I was crumbling, she took celery, onions, parsley and some other kind of green leaves out of the refrigerator and began to chop them, cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Chopping onions didn’t seem to bother her eyes.
“So what were you going to do with Ginny if you got her?” she asked. I thought for a few seconds about how to respond.
“I … I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I like her, I think she’s great, but I wasn’t looking to be her boyfriend,” I said. Mrs. W. thought about this for a few seconds.
“She’s pretty. Smart. Vivacious, athletic. Nice figure.”
“She’s absolutely delightful in every way,” I said.
“Henry,” she asked, with a surprised tone in her voice, “are you homosexual?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered, crumbling my cornbread with a sigh.
“It’s completely okay with me if you are,” she said, earnestly, looking at me and stubbing out her cigarette.
“No, ma’am. I don’t seem to think about women as much as most guys my age, but I don’t think about men. Not in that way, I mean.” She frowned a bit. “I’ve never had a girlfriend and don’t miss having one. I can’t say why. I’m just not motivated like that.” She went back to turning her onions into tiny little cubes.
“It’s true I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend or even chasing one. I guess I just assumed it was going on somewhere else.”
“No, ma’am. It’s not that I dislike girls, I’m just not motivated to pursue them.”
“What religion were you raised?” she asked.
“Disciples of Christ.”
“No religious guilt overlay?”
“No, ma’am. We didn’t talk about sex in church and I never got the idea that there was any part of it was wrong from what I heard on Sunday. One of the few times I made out with a girl was with the preacher’s daughter here in Chattanooga.”
“What brought that on?” she asked.
“Can’t tell you,” I said. “We were the only people in the balcony for the Christmas Eve candle-light service. She suggested we move to the back row and then all of a sudden we were kissing. Don’t know what was going on. She was a couple years older than me and was already off at college.”
“And you didn’t like that?” she asked.
“No, I did. It was great. I’m just not motivated to seek it out.”
“What an odd man you are, Henry.” The cornbread was reduced to a bowl full of tiny crumbles. Mrs. W. noticed this and handed me a half loaf of French bread and another glass bowl. “Turn this into little chunks. It doesn’t have to be as fine as you got that cornbread. It just needs to be small enough for the blender to grab it.” This meant nothing to me. I tore off a few small chunks.
“Like this?” I asked. She looked.
“That’s fine. Even a little larger would be okay,” she said. “Ever had sex with a man?” I was a little surprised.
“No ma’am,” I said, in what I must admit was an amused way.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Because it’s really okay if you have. I really couldn’t care less.”
“Thanks. I’m just not gay. No gay sex. No vices of any kind.”
“Henry, you’re a professional gambler.”
“Other than gambling.”
“I know this shows me to be limited and parochial but I don’t understand a red-blooded young man who’s not chasing girls. Or even boys. So you’ve never wanted to chase girls?”
“Hmm,” I said. I thought.
“Who was she?”
“There have been two I thought were really attractive. Both were attached to other guys. One you may know because she was a student of yours so I probably ought not to talk about her and the other is this red-head I run into in pool halls from time to time. Both seem like good company.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She pulled a heavy glass Oster blender from under the counter and took my French bread chunks from me. She put a small portion of them in the blender and pulsed it a few times. The chunks became smaller and smaller crumbs each time she pulsed.
“Molly?” she asked. She was guessing which one of her prior students I’d been interested in.
“No, ma’am.” I answered. She pulsed the blender again then poured the crumbs into the cornbread crumbs.
“Gwen?” she asked, as she added more coarse bread chunks to the blender.
“No, ma’am.”
“Sandy?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered. Unless I was mistaken, she was naming pretty, smart girls she could remember from my graduating class.
“Cherry?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No, of course not. How about another cheerleader, though, Cindy?”
“No, ma’am. She was smart, though. You know, my idea was to protect the identity of somebody you taught.”
“Linda?” she asked.
“Mrs. Wertheimer, I am uncomfortable with this line of inquiry.”
“All right.” She returned her attention to sautéing her chopped onions and celery. “Chop this,” she said, handing me a bunch of parsley, dropping a very large pat of butter into the skillet that had earlier held the cornbread. “You want to clip off the leaves but not get any stem, then chop it pretty fine.” I did my best to follow instructions. She had an enormous stockpot she filled with water and brought to boil while I was separating parsley leaves from parsley stems with a kitchen knife that was larger than I’d used before. She looked down at my cutting board and grabbed a handful of parsley stems, “excuse me,” she said, and dropped them into the stockpot along with two celery sticks, some carrots, and some bay leaves. She handed me a large brown onion, saying “Quarter this,” which I did, dark brown skin and all. She then dropped what looked like a bunch of chicken necks into the water and took a large, maybe 35 pound, turkey from the refrigerator. She sat it on the counter and reached up inside it and pulled out a turkey neck and a small plastic sack of organs. “You like giblets in your gravy?” she asked me.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Chopped heart?”
“And gizzard and maybe even liver,” she said.
“No, thanks, but if you like it…”
“No. Never liked gizzards or heart either one. This liver, though,” she said, looking at a dark purplish mass that more or less filled her hand, “It always seemed I should be able to make a good pate our of that.” I could hear the front door open and Ginny call out.
“Aunt Maggie,” she called out, cheerfully, as though calling across a canyon.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Mrs. W. called back, looking up expectantly. Ginny showed up in a few seconds and embraced Mrs. W. on her chair with a big hug. Ginny had a dress of some sort in a dry cleaning bag in her right hand. They smiled warmly at each other for a second and hugged again. I sipped my coffee, now lukewarm.
“Hello, Henry,” said Ginny, still hugging, without opening her eyes. “Aunt Margaret is the best aunt in the world.”
“I bet,” I said. “She’s sure good at everything else.”
“Why don’t you put that in my closet,” said Mrs. W., gesturing at her dress. “I’ve put Henry in the guest room, so you can use mine.” Ginny nodded, then thought.
“But you’ll need it,” Ginny said.
“I’ll use it when you’re done,” Mrs. W. replied. “You can be hostess if anybody shows up while I’m making myself beautiful.” Ginny smiled and gave her another one of those quick girl-hugs, then ran off.
“So this is all going to be okay?” Mrs. W. asked me.
“Yes ma’am.”
“How much did you gamble in that pool game?” she asked.
“I put up $5,000,” I said. She looked and laughed.
“So you won $5,000 on one game?” She was happy for me.
“No ma’am, we were playing Cutthroat, a three person game, so each of us put up $5,000.” She smiled even broader.
“So you put up $5,000 and won $10,000?”
“Yes, ma’am. If I don’t find a pool game this weekend I’m leaving $10,000 with you.”
“Well, Hell. Good job. You’re a very improbable college student, Henry Baida. You know, that pays for pretty much a year at college.”
“Ginny made this point pretty forcefully, but she misunderstood the wager.”
“How so?”
“People who don’t gamble or who don’t really like math mistake the amount you win with the amount you bet. Ginny’s convinced I bet $15,000.” Mrs. W. nodded and lit another Benson & Hedges.
“There’s a lot of that in my family,” she said. “We were shopkeepers from Potsdam who opened a delicatessen in Chattanooga. So my grandfather took that big risk by moving to the U.S., but then he went into the family business and sent back to Germany for a teenaged wife. Some risk, but some running back to the old ways too. But you’ll like Gunner.
“Gunner?” I asked.
“Ginny’s dad. Great trial lawyer once. Clarence Darrow back at the Public Defender’s office. Then went to the big, old firm and seems to mainly concentrate on railroads.
“What’s he gamble on?” I asked.
“He’s a trial lawyer.”
“So?” She thought.
“I think Gunner feels capable of judging the odds in pretty much any situation,” she said. I could hear Ginny bounding down the stairs, and almost galloping towards the kitchen.
“What’s to do? she asked, sitting on the stool next to me.
“Want some coffee?” Mrs. W. asked.
“Sure!” she said, and hopped up to pour herself a cup. “Henry?” she asked, looking at me. She looked me in the eye as she asked. The look was pleasant, but not ‘interested,’ so she’d made up her mind about me.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I think once a girl decides she’s never going to have sex with you she finds it easier to be around you, but I’m a guy and so have little insight on what women think, and I might have even less insight than most guys. Ginny unplugged the percolator, filled my coffee cup, then warmed up Mrs. W.’s, then put the percolator back on the counter and plugged it back in, to keep it hot.
“So where are we?” Ginny asked.
“Well, we have cornbread crumbles. I’ve sautéed onions and celery. Henry’s turned French bread into pieces the Osterizer can handle. I’ve got a turkey stock, or turkey and chicken stock, working. What do you think?”
“Yams?” asked Ginny.
“Sure. Although I’ve used the biggest pot for the stock.” Ginny got off her stool and started looking around in Mrs. W’s shelves and cupboards and found a large pot, although not as large as the stock pot. Ginny piled all of the yams on the countertop next to that pot and frowned at them. She searched briefly and found a paring knife and trimmed the small ends and protuberances from the yams, placing them in the pot as she did so. Trimmed, they all fit so she removed them, filled the pot half-full with water, put it on the burner and turned it to high. “Salt?” she asked Mrs. W., without looking at her.
“A little,” Mrs. W. answered. Ginny retrieved a carton of Morton’s from a cabinet, poured a small mound on her palm, then brushed it into the water with her other hand.
Then Ginny was looking for something to do. She noticed my bowl of bread chunks, took them from the table in front of me, and put a handful into blender, and pulsed them several times to turn the bread into crumbs. “All of them?” she asked Mrs. W.
“Well, most of them,” Mrs. W. answered. Ginny nodded. She poured out the crumbs in the blender into the cornbread crumbs, then put two more handfuls into the blender and pulsed it several times, until the bread chunks were bread crumbs. She looked at the water in the sweet potato pot. Not yet boiling. She pored the French bread crumbs into the cornbread crumbs then put another few handfuls of bread chunks into the Osterizer and pulsed them into breadcrumbs. The water had started boiling so Ginny dropped in the trimmed yams, one at a time but without any delay between. Mrs. W was looking off to the middle distance and smoking her cigarette. Just before the silence became awkward, she asked me a question.”
“School’s going okay, Henry?”
“Yes ma’am. Pretty much. I have this odd sense that the Math Department and the Physics department don’t get along.” She looked at her coffee cup for a few seconds, then looked at me as though wondering what to do with me.
“Yeah, well. There was a time when the Math people and the Physics people all got along. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed.”
“Why so?” She took a last drag off of her cigarette and stubbed it out.
“You’re new to Physics?”
“Well, I’m taking it for the first time.”
“But you don’t know particle physics or special relativity?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
“The divide had more to do with Physics than it did with Math,” she said. “We were all together until this odd thing that happened in 1935. Albert published this paper with Dr. Podolsky and Nathan Rosen about the entanglement problem—you’ll get to it and if you don’t I’ll explain it—but to really understand you need to know quantum mechanics and special relativity so ask me in a couple of years and I’ll tell you. It’s weird.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t like her not to explain things. Ginny and she were working together to make food. They seemed to flow together as though they had rehearsed cooking Thanksgiving cooking. Neither seemed to need to talk, it all just seemed to flow. Every now and then one would stop to ask the other a question—“How long for a 35 pound turkey?” or “Is that Aunt Leah’s skillet?” but mostly they communicated without saying much at all, the way sisters sometimes do. At about 3:00 Ginny excused herself and disappeared upstairs.
“Go clean yourself up, Henry,” said Mrs. W. “Company’s coming.”
“I only have jeans,” I said.
“That’s fine. Shave and put on a clean shirt.” I went and did as told.
Ginny’s dad was waiting for us when we’d arrived at Mrs. W’s house. He collected Ginny and her luggage and left pretty fast. Walt lit a cigarette as soon as her car door closed, then he and Cisco pulled off into the night, the shiny Pontiac disappearing into an unusually warm November night. Standing outside, I couldn’t see much of Mrs. W’s house, but it seemed large and vine-covered, with a frame and shingle exterior painted some dark olive or brown. She greeted me warmly, of course, then when the others had left led me to a bedroom. The interior of her house was mostly warm varnished mahogany, with intricately cut mortise and tenon joints and carefully carved accents. It smelled like she’d just cooked cornbread. She had dark Oriental carpets on most of her floors, which seemed to be beautiful quarter-sawn oak. I’d never seen anything quite like it. She showed me to a spacious upstairs bedroom with two twin beds. Mission furniture. It was nice. Spare. Neat. Clean.
“Henry,” Mrs. W said, lighting a Benson & Hedges off of her Gates Zippo, “There’s nobody else with a claim to this room. I know you have family, but this room is open for you whenever you need it.”
An amazing offer.
“Now I’d love to catch up, but I’m tired. I had a glass of wine while I was waiting up for you guys and it’s put me right to sleep, so I’m going to go on to bed, although this is a little early for me.” It was about 10:00. “We’ll talk in the morning. I’m right across the hall. Your bathroom is behind me,” she said, from the bedroom door. “Good night, Henry. Good to have you here.” A few seconds later I could hear her door close across the hall.
I hadn’t brought anything to read except textbooks to encourage myself to study when the occasion arose. I found I wasn’t in the mood to study but it was too early to go to sleep. I opened the drawer to the night stand, and found two books: A leather-bound red-letter edition of the King James Bible and a smaller volume titled “Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.” The Greek New Testament. I opened to John. “Kατα Ιωάννινν.” I tried to read the first verse: “Έν άρχη ήν ό λογος, και ό λογος ήν προς τον θεον, και θεος ήν όλογος.” Even with just a few months of college Greek I could read that much, but the next sentence was harder. I put it aside and picked it up in English. Strange book. Pastor Leslie was right. It doesn’t tell the same story as he rest of the New Testament at all. As I have done before, I fell asleep reading it without getting up to brush my teeth.
When I woke up the next morning it was early. The house was cool and quiet. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. On the road, I would have made coffee, if there was a pot in the room, or gone looking for it. At college, I would walk up to the dining hall and eat bacon and drink coffee and look over my subjects until time for class to start. In Mrs. W’s house I had no idea who else was up at 6:30. I found the bathroom and brushed my teeth. As is the case with some old houses, none of the upstairs bedrooms had its own bathroom but all of them exited into a hall from which they all shared access to a common bathroom. Not modern, but not odd. I put enough clothing to present myself to the household and went downstairs.
The house was quiet and still, and I didn’t know my way around. I found my way through the living room and dining room to the kitchen, partly aided by the aroma of coffee. Mrs. Wertheimer was seated at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, looking at several three by five cards on the table in front of her. The floor creaked slightly as I came to the kitchen door and she looked up.
“Hey, Henry,” she said, happy to see me. She glanced up at the source of the coffee aroma, a 12 cup Hamilton Beach percolator. I followed her gaze, and you could see the coffee surging into the glass knob on top. Still not ready. “Looks like the coffee’s still got a few minutes to go,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Great,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“Not a lot. Looking at recipes and waiting for the coffee. I like to cook, but I don’t do it too much, so I look over the recipes before I start.” She looked down at her cards and took a drag. “Are you a dressing person or a stuffing person?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?” I asked.
“They’re the same thing cooked differently. We’re going to have cornbread and bread stuffing. Or dressing. Stuffing is the mix of breadcrumbs and vegetables and all stuffed into the turkey and roasted with it, dressing is the same mix cooked in a casserole dish. Both are good.”
“I guess we always had dressing, then,” I said.
“We’re going to have both, but if you’ve never tried stuffing you should have some,” she said. “Nothing like it.” She looked at her cards and smoked her cigarette. “Yams?” she asked, looking up.
“Of course.”
“Candied or whipped?” she asked.
“I think I’m a candied guy,” I said. “I mean, I like whipped sweet potatoes, but candied yams are a real treat.”
“Good man,” she said. She shuffled the cards again and took a drag.
“Do you prefer mashed potatoes or rice as a starch?” she asked.
“The dressing, or stuffing, is plenty,” I said. “Are you thinking of rolls?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m up early,” she said. “I think Thanksgiving needs to have good rolls, so I got up and started a batch of Parker House Rolls.” There was a large glass bowl filled with dough, covered with Saran-Wrap, near the oven.
“Don’t know Parker House Rolls,” I said.
“Lots of butter. A little sweet.”
“Like the rolls for lunch at City High?” I asked.
“Almost,” she said. “The City’s yeast rolls were made with margarine, but they were good.”
“They were good.”
“Sure they were,” she said. “I’ve got broccoli. Can you make Hollandaise?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Can you follow instructions?”
“I think so,” I said. Her eyes shot up to look at me over her glasses, then they softened speculatively. She took a drag from her cigarette.
“You don’t have much experience at that, I guess?” she asked.
“Maybe not.”
“It’s not so bad, you know, listening to what other people think.”
I thought about that for a minute. “I listen to you,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “I appreciate it that you trust me. But maybe you could be more trusting of people around you. Have you been making friends in college?”
I thought for a minute. “Well, there’s Stoney. I tried to be nice to Milton, but I think he took it the wrong way.”
“How did you try to be nice to him?”
“I bought a nine ball game. Kept him from being fleeced by a pro I know named Donnie.” She looked at her recipe cards for a few seconds. The coffee was done and I got up hefted the pot. There were several mugs in front of the percolator. “Coffee?” I asked. She looked up.
“Sure,” she said. “Black.” I poured her a mug, put it down near her, poured one for myself, and sat down again on my stool. “Thanks,” she said, absent-mindedly. She took a sip. “Okay, here’s the plan,” she said. “Turkey, stuffing, dressing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli with hollandaise, corn soufflé. Parker House rolls, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie. Good?”
“More food than I’m used to even on Thanksgiving,” I said.
“So I’m about to start cooking, and if Ginny shows up what’s going to happen?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Henry, don’t be obtuse,” she said. “Last time I saw you together she was hanging on your every word. Last night she was staying as far away from you as possible and mooning over that snob from Atlanta.”
“Yeah. Okay. It’s odd. She saw me play pool for some money. Maybe a lot of money. I know it seemed like a lot to her. She didn’t like it that I risked so much.” Mrs. W. nodded and thought for a few minutes.
“Her mom’s that way, too. Her dad’s been offered a job as general counsel of this railroad. The Union Pacific. Big company. Great job. Could make him, or them, millions of dollars. Winnie’s worried because he’s got a good job now and she doesn’t see why he’d consider giving it up.”
“What’s his job now?”
“He’s a partner at Miller & Martin.”
“A lawyer deal?” I asked.
“Yes. And he does well. But being general counsel of the Union Pacific would be a much bigger lawyer deal. But the job is in Omaha.”
“Nebraska?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“A long train ride from Chattanooga, especially as Chattanooga doesn’t have passenger rail.”
“Good point.” She smiled.
“Anything I can do to help with the Thanksgiving meal?” I asked, sipping my coffee.
“Maybe. Do you cook?”
“Not at all.”
“Never?” she was surprised.
“Sometimes I fried eggs for myself on Saturdays or Sundays,” I said.
“Because your mom was away?” she asked.
“No, because I liked them fried really, really hard, with a tough skin, and Mom thought that was wrong. I’d fry my eggs and she’d make toast.”
“Well, Ginny usually comes over a little bfore noon and helps.” She stood and handed me a black iron skillet with red and white hound’s tooth dish towel over it, then located a large Pyrex bowl. I lifted the dish towel and found a large, cool wheel of cornbread with one narrow slice missing. I looked up at Mrs. W. “Your job is to change that cornbread into tiny little crumbles in that bowl.” I shrugged and got to work. While I was crumbling, she took celery, onions, parsley and some other kind of green leaves out of the refrigerator and began to chop them, cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Chopping onions didn’t seem to bother her eyes.
“So what were you going to do with Ginny if you got her?” she asked. I thought for a few seconds about how to respond.
“I … I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I like her, I think she’s great, but I wasn’t looking to be her boyfriend,” I said. Mrs. W. thought about this for a few seconds.
“She’s pretty. Smart. Vivacious, athletic. Nice figure.”
“She’s absolutely delightful in every way,” I said.
“Henry,” she asked, with a surprised tone in her voice, “are you homosexual?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered, crumbling my cornbread with a sigh.
“It’s completely okay with me if you are,” she said, earnestly, looking at me and stubbing out her cigarette.
“No, ma’am. I don’t seem to think about women as much as most guys my age, but I don’t think about men. Not in that way, I mean.” She frowned a bit. “I’ve never had a girlfriend and don’t miss having one. I can’t say why. I’m just not motivated like that.” She went back to turning her onions into tiny little cubes.
“It’s true I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend or even chasing one. I guess I just assumed it was going on somewhere else.”
“No, ma’am. It’s not that I dislike girls, I’m just not motivated to pursue them.”
“What religion were you raised?” she asked.
“Disciples of Christ.”
“No religious guilt overlay?”
“No, ma’am. We didn’t talk about sex in church and I never got the idea that there was any part of it was wrong from what I heard on Sunday. One of the few times I made out with a girl was with the preacher’s daughter here in Chattanooga.”
“What brought that on?” she asked.
“Can’t tell you,” I said. “We were the only people in the balcony for the Christmas Eve candle-light service. She suggested we move to the back row and then all of a sudden we were kissing. Don’t know what was going on. She was a couple years older than me and was already off at college.”
“And you didn’t like that?” she asked.
“No, I did. It was great. I’m just not motivated to seek it out.”
“What an odd man you are, Henry.” The cornbread was reduced to a bowl full of tiny crumbles. Mrs. W. noticed this and handed me a half loaf of French bread and another glass bowl. “Turn this into little chunks. It doesn’t have to be as fine as you got that cornbread. It just needs to be small enough for the blender to grab it.” This meant nothing to me. I tore off a few small chunks.
“Like this?” I asked. She looked.
“That’s fine. Even a little larger would be okay,” she said. “Ever had sex with a man?” I was a little surprised.
“No ma’am,” I said, in what I must admit was an amused way.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Because it’s really okay if you have. I really couldn’t care less.”
“Thanks. I’m just not gay. No gay sex. No vices of any kind.”
“Henry, you’re a professional gambler.”
“Other than gambling.”
“I know this shows me to be limited and parochial but I don’t understand a red-blooded young man who’s not chasing girls. Or even boys. So you’ve never wanted to chase girls?”
“Hmm,” I said. I thought.
“Who was she?”
“There have been two I thought were really attractive. Both were attached to other guys. One you may know because she was a student of yours so I probably ought not to talk about her and the other is this red-head I run into in pool halls from time to time. Both seem like good company.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She pulled a heavy glass Oster blender from under the counter and took my French bread chunks from me. She put a small portion of them in the blender and pulsed it a few times. The chunks became smaller and smaller crumbs each time she pulsed.
“Molly?” she asked. She was guessing which one of her prior students I’d been interested in.
“No, ma’am.” I answered. She pulsed the blender again then poured the crumbs into the cornbread crumbs.
“Gwen?” she asked, as she added more coarse bread chunks to the blender.
“No, ma’am.”
“Sandy?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered. Unless I was mistaken, she was naming pretty, smart girls she could remember from my graduating class.
“Cherry?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No, of course not. How about another cheerleader, though, Cindy?”
“No, ma’am. She was smart, though. You know, my idea was to protect the identity of somebody you taught.”
“Linda?” she asked.
“Mrs. Wertheimer, I am uncomfortable with this line of inquiry.”
“All right.” She returned her attention to sautéing her chopped onions and celery. “Chop this,” she said, handing me a bunch of parsley, dropping a very large pat of butter into the skillet that had earlier held the cornbread. “You want to clip off the leaves but not get any stem, then chop it pretty fine.” I did my best to follow instructions. She had an enormous stockpot she filled with water and brought to boil while I was separating parsley leaves from parsley stems with a kitchen knife that was larger than I’d used before. She looked down at my cutting board and grabbed a handful of parsley stems, “excuse me,” she said, and dropped them into the stockpot along with two celery sticks, some carrots, and some bay leaves. She handed me a large brown onion, saying “Quarter this,” which I did, dark brown skin and all. She then dropped what looked like a bunch of chicken necks into the water and took a large, maybe 35 pound, turkey from the refrigerator. She sat it on the counter and reached up inside it and pulled out a turkey neck and a small plastic sack of organs. “You like giblets in your gravy?” she asked me.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Chopped heart?”
“And gizzard and maybe even liver,” she said.
“No, thanks, but if you like it…”
“No. Never liked gizzards or heart either one. This liver, though,” she said, looking at a dark purplish mass that more or less filled her hand, “It always seemed I should be able to make a good pate our of that.” I could hear the front door open and Ginny call out.
“Aunt Maggie,” she called out, cheerfully, as though calling across a canyon.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Mrs. W. called back, looking up expectantly. Ginny showed up in a few seconds and embraced Mrs. W. on her chair with a big hug. Ginny had a dress of some sort in a dry cleaning bag in her right hand. They smiled warmly at each other for a second and hugged again. I sipped my coffee, now lukewarm.
“Hello, Henry,” said Ginny, still hugging, without opening her eyes. “Aunt Margaret is the best aunt in the world.”
“I bet,” I said. “She’s sure good at everything else.”
“Why don’t you put that in my closet,” said Mrs. W., gesturing at her dress. “I’ve put Henry in the guest room, so you can use mine.” Ginny nodded, then thought.
“But you’ll need it,” Ginny said.
“I’ll use it when you’re done,” Mrs. W. replied. “You can be hostess if anybody shows up while I’m making myself beautiful.” Ginny smiled and gave her another one of those quick girl-hugs, then ran off.
“So this is all going to be okay?” Mrs. W. asked me.
“Yes ma’am.”
“How much did you gamble in that pool game?” she asked.
“I put up $5,000,” I said. She looked and laughed.
“So you won $5,000 on one game?” She was happy for me.
“No ma’am, we were playing Cutthroat, a three person game, so each of us put up $5,000.” She smiled even broader.
“So you put up $5,000 and won $10,000?”
“Yes, ma’am. If I don’t find a pool game this weekend I’m leaving $10,000 with you.”
“Well, Hell. Good job. You’re a very improbable college student, Henry Baida. You know, that pays for pretty much a year at college.”
“Ginny made this point pretty forcefully, but she misunderstood the wager.”
“How so?”
“People who don’t gamble or who don’t really like math mistake the amount you win with the amount you bet. Ginny’s convinced I bet $15,000.” Mrs. W. nodded and lit another Benson & Hedges.
“There’s a lot of that in my family,” she said. “We were shopkeepers from Potsdam who opened a delicatessen in Chattanooga. So my grandfather took that big risk by moving to the U.S., but then he went into the family business and sent back to Germany for a teenaged wife. Some risk, but some running back to the old ways too. But you’ll like Gunner.
“Gunner?” I asked.
“Ginny’s dad. Great trial lawyer once. Clarence Darrow back at the Public Defender’s office. Then went to the big, old firm and seems to mainly concentrate on railroads.
“What’s he gamble on?” I asked.
“He’s a trial lawyer.”
“So?” She thought.
“I think Gunner feels capable of judging the odds in pretty much any situation,” she said. I could hear Ginny bounding down the stairs, and almost galloping towards the kitchen.
“What’s to do? she asked, sitting on the stool next to me.
“Want some coffee?” Mrs. W. asked.
“Sure!” she said, and hopped up to pour herself a cup. “Henry?” she asked, looking at me. She looked me in the eye as she asked. The look was pleasant, but not ‘interested,’ so she’d made up her mind about me.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I think once a girl decides she’s never going to have sex with you she finds it easier to be around you, but I’m a guy and so have little insight on what women think, and I might have even less insight than most guys. Ginny unplugged the percolator, filled my coffee cup, then warmed up Mrs. W.’s, then put the percolator back on the counter and plugged it back in, to keep it hot.
“So where are we?” Ginny asked.
“Well, we have cornbread crumbles. I’ve sautéed onions and celery. Henry’s turned French bread into pieces the Osterizer can handle. I’ve got a turkey stock, or turkey and chicken stock, working. What do you think?”
“Yams?” asked Ginny.
“Sure. Although I’ve used the biggest pot for the stock.” Ginny got off her stool and started looking around in Mrs. W’s shelves and cupboards and found a large pot, although not as large as the stock pot. Ginny piled all of the yams on the countertop next to that pot and frowned at them. She searched briefly and found a paring knife and trimmed the small ends and protuberances from the yams, placing them in the pot as she did so. Trimmed, they all fit so she removed them, filled the pot half-full with water, put it on the burner and turned it to high. “Salt?” she asked Mrs. W., without looking at her.
“A little,” Mrs. W. answered. Ginny retrieved a carton of Morton’s from a cabinet, poured a small mound on her palm, then brushed it into the water with her other hand.
Then Ginny was looking for something to do. She noticed my bowl of bread chunks, took them from the table in front of me, and put a handful into blender, and pulsed them several times to turn the bread into crumbs. “All of them?” she asked Mrs. W.
“Well, most of them,” Mrs. W. answered. Ginny nodded. She poured out the crumbs in the blender into the cornbread crumbs, then put two more handfuls into the blender and pulsed it several times, until the bread chunks were bread crumbs. She looked at the water in the sweet potato pot. Not yet boiling. She pored the French bread crumbs into the cornbread crumbs then put another few handfuls of bread chunks into the Osterizer and pulsed them into breadcrumbs. The water had started boiling so Ginny dropped in the trimmed yams, one at a time but without any delay between. Mrs. W was looking off to the middle distance and smoking her cigarette. Just before the silence became awkward, she asked me a question.”
“School’s going okay, Henry?”
“Yes ma’am. Pretty much. I have this odd sense that the Math Department and the Physics department don’t get along.” She looked at her coffee cup for a few seconds, then looked at me as though wondering what to do with me.
“Yeah, well. There was a time when the Math people and the Physics people all got along. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed.”
“Why so?” She took a last drag off of her cigarette and stubbed it out.
“You’re new to Physics?”
“Well, I’m taking it for the first time.”
“But you don’t know particle physics or special relativity?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
“The divide had more to do with Physics than it did with Math,” she said. “We were all together until this odd thing that happened in 1935. Albert published this paper with Dr. Podolsky and Nathan Rosen about the entanglement problem—you’ll get to it and if you don’t I’ll explain it—but to really understand you need to know quantum mechanics and special relativity so ask me in a couple of years and I’ll tell you. It’s weird.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t like her not to explain things. Ginny and she were working together to make food. They seemed to flow together as though they had rehearsed cooking Thanksgiving cooking. Neither seemed to need to talk, it all just seemed to flow. Every now and then one would stop to ask the other a question—“How long for a 35 pound turkey?” or “Is that Aunt Leah’s skillet?” but mostly they communicated without saying much at all, the way sisters sometimes do. At about 3:00 Ginny excused herself and disappeared upstairs.
“Go clean yourself up, Henry,” said Mrs. W. “Company’s coming.”
“I only have jeans,” I said.
“That’s fine. Shave and put on a clean shirt.” I went and did as told.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Chapter 23A: A Day of Thanks
Thanksgiving at Mrs. W’s house was very, very nice, but her house wasn’t my home at that point. I wasn’t averse to it being my home, but when you move around as much as I did when I was a kid the concept of “home” has a more diffuse connotation than it would if you lived in one place, say, Wadley, Alabama, or even Chattanooga, for your entire life. I was more rootless than anyone in Mrs. W’s family, not as closely tied to the culture or the institutions or the people of Chattanooga as anyone else there. I was there not because I thought Chattanooga was home, but because Mrs. W was nice enough to invite me, and because I liked her, and because there wasn’t anyplace else where somebody was expecting me.
Ginny’s dad was waiting for us when we’d arrived at Mrs. W’s house. He collected Ginny and her luggage and left pretty fast. Walt lit a cigarette as soon as her car door closed, then he and Cisco pulled off into the night, the shiny Pontiac disappearing into an unusually warm November night. Standing outside, I couldn’t see much of Mrs. W’s house, but it seemed large and vine-covered, with a frame and shingle exterior painted some dark olive or brown. She greeted me warmly, of course, then when the others had left led me to a bedroom. The interior of her house was mostly warm varnished mahogany, with intricately cut mortise and tenon joints and carefully carved accents. It smelled like she’d just cooked cornbread. She had dark Oriental carpets on most of her floors, which seemed to be beautiful quarter-sawn oak. I’d never seen anything quite like it. She showed me to a spacious upstairs bedroom with two twin beds. Mission furniture. It was nice. Spare. Neat. Clean.
“Henry,” Mrs. W said, lighting a Benson & Hedges off of her Gates Zippo, “There’s nobody else with a claim to this room. I know you have family, but this room is open for you whenever you need it.”
An amazing offer.
When I woke up the next morning it was early. The house was cool and quiet. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. On the road, I would have made coffee, if there was a pot in the room, or gone looking for it. At college, I would walk up to the dining hall and eat bacon and drink coffee and look over my subjects until time for class to start. In Mrs. W’s house I had no idea who else was up at 6:30, needed to brush my teeth, and didn’t know where the bathroom was. As is the case with some old houses, none of the upstairs bedrooms had its own bathroom but all of them exited into a hall from which they all shared access to a common bathroom. Not modern, but not odd. I brushed my teeth and put on enough clothing to present myself to the household and went downstairs.
The house was quiet and still, and I didn’t know my way around. I found my way through the living room and dining room to the kitchen, partly aided by the aroma of coffee. Mrs. Wertheimer was seated at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, looking at several three by five cards on the table in front of her. The floor creaked slightly as I came to the kitchen door and she looked up.
“Hey, Henry,” she said, happy to see me. She glanced up at the source of the coffee aroma, a 12 cup Hamilton Beach percolator. I followed her gaze, and you could see the coffee surging into the glass knob on top. Still not ready. “Looks like the coffee’s still got a few minutes to go,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Great,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“Not a lot. Looking at recipes and waiting for the coffee. I like to cook, but I don’t do it too much, so I look over the recipes before I start.” She looked down at her cards and took a drag. “Are you a dressing person or a stuffing person?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?” I asked.
“They’re the same thing cooked differently. We’re going to have cornbread and bread stuffing. Or dressing. Stuffing is the mix of breadcrumbs and vegetables and all stuffed into the turkey and roasted with it, dressing is the same mix cooked in a casserole dish. Both are good.”
“I guess we always had dressing, then,” I said.
“We’re going to have both, but if you’ve never tried stuffing you should have some,” she said. “Nothing like it.” She looked at her cards and smoked her cigarette. “Yams?” she asked, looking up.
“Of course.”
“Candied or whipped?” she asked.
“I think I’m a candied guy,” I said. “I mean, I like whipped sweet potatoes, but candied yams are a real treat.”
“Good man,” she said. She took a look at her cards and took a drag from her cigarette.
“Do you prefer mashed potatoes or rice as a starch?” she asked.
“The dressing, or stuffing, is plenty,” I said. “Are you thinking of rolls?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m up early,” she said. “I think Thanksgiving needs to have good rolls, so I got up and started a batch of Parker House Rolls.” There was a large glass bowl filled with dough, covered with Saran-Wrap, near the oven.
“Don’t know Parker House Rolls,” I said.
“Lots of butter. A little sweet.”
“Like the rolls for lunch at City High?” I asked.
“Almost,” she said. “The rolls they served at City were made with margarine.”
“They were really good.”
“Sure were,” she said. “I’ve got broccoli. Can you make Hollandaise?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Can you follow instructions?”
“I think so,” I said. Her eyes shot up over her glasses, then they softened speculatively. She took a drag off of her cigarette.
“You don’t have much experience at that, I guess?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“It’s not so bad, you know, listening to what other people think.”
I thought about that for a minute. “I listen to you,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “I appreciate it that you trust me. But maybe you could be more trusting of people around you. Have you been making friends in college?”
I thought for a minute. “Well, there’s Stoney. I tried to be nice to Milton, but I think he took it the wrong way.”
“How did you try to be nice to him?”
“I bought a nine ball game. Kept him from being fleeced by a pro I know named Donnie.” She looked at her recipe cards for a few minutes. The coffee was done and I got up hefted the pot. There were several mugs in front of the percolator. “Coffee?” I asked. She looked up.
“Sure,” she said. “Black.” I poured her a mug, put it down near her, poured one for myself, and went back to my stool. “Thanks,” she said, when I put the mug in front of her. She took a sip. “Okay, here’s the plan,” she said. “Turkey, stuffing, dressing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli with hollandaise, corn soufflé. Parker House rolls, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie. Good?”
“More food than I’m used to even on Thanksgiving,” I said.
“So I’m about to start cooking, and if Ginny shows up what’s going to happen?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Henry, don’t be dense,” she said. “Last time I saw you together she was hanging on your every word. Last night she was staying as far away from you as possible and mooning at that snob from Atlanta.”
“Yeah. Okay. It’s odd. She saw me play pool for some money. Maybe a lot of money. I know it seemed like a lot to her. She didn’t like it that I risked so much.” Mrs. W. nodded and thought for a few minutes.
“Her mom’s that way, too. Her dad’s been offered a job as general counsel of this railroad. The Union Pacific. Big company. Great job. Could make him, or them, millions of dollars. Winnie’s worried because he’s got a good job now and she doesn’t see why he’d consider giving it up.”
“What’s his job now?”
“He’s a partner at Miller & Martin.”
“A lawyer deal?” I asked.
“Yes. And he does well. But being general counsel of the Union Pacific would be a much bigger lawyer deal. But the job is in Omaha.”
“Nebraska?”
“Yes.”
“A long train ride from Chattanooga, especially as Chattanooga doesn’t have passenger rail.”
“Good point.” She smiled.
“Anything I can do to help with the Thanksgiving meal?” I asked, sipping my coffee.
“Maybe. Do you cook?”
“Not at all.”
“Never?” she was surprised.
“Sometimes I fried eggs for myself on Saturdays or Sundays,” I said.
“Because your mom was away?” she asked.
“No, because I liked them fried really, really hard, with a tough skin, and Mom thought that was wrong. I’d fry my eggs and she’d make toast.”
“Well, Ginny usually comes over a little after noon and helps.” She stood and handed me a black iron skillet with red and white hound’s tooth dish towel over it, then located a large Pyrex bowl. I lifted the dish towel and found a large wheel of cornbread that must have been cooked last night with one narrow slice missing. I looked up at Mrs. W. “Your job is to change that cornbread into tiny little crumbles in that bowl.” I shrugged and got to work. While I was crumbling, he took celery, onions, parsley and some other kind of green leaves out of the refrigerator and began to chop them, cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Chopping onions didn’t seem to bother her eyes.
“So what were you going to do with Ginny if you got her?” she asked. I thought for a few seconds about how to respond.
“I, I, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I wanted to be her friend, not her boyfriend,” I said.
“That’s odd,” said Mrs. W. “She’s pretty. Smart. Vivacious, athletic.”
“She’s absolutely delightful in every way,” I said.
“Henry,” she asked, with a surprised tone in her voice, “are you homosexual?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered, crumbling my cornbread with a sigh.
“It’s completely okay with me if you are,” she said, earnestly, looking at me and stubbing out her cigarette.
“No, ma’am. I don’t seem to think about women as much as most guys my age, but I don’t think about men. Not in that way, I mean.” She frowned a bit. “I’ve never had a girlfriend and don’t miss having one. I can’t say why. I’m just motivated like that.” She went back to turning her onions into tiny little cubes.
“It’s true I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend or eve chasing one. I guess I just assumed it was going on somewhere else.”
“No, ma’am. It’s not that I dislike girls, I’m just not motivated to pursue them.”
“What religion were you raised?”
“Disciples of Christ.”
“No religious guilt overlay?”
“No, ma’am. We didn’t talk about sex in church, and I never got the idea that there was any part of it was wrong from what I heard on Sunday. One of the few times I made out with a girl was with the preacher’s daughter here in Chattanooga.”
“What brought that on?” she asked.
“Can’t tell you,” I said. “We were the only people in the balcony for the Christmas Eve candle-light service. She suggested we move to the back row and then all of a sudden we were kissing. Don’t know what was going on. She was a couple years older than me and was already off at college.”
“And you didn’t like that?” she asked.
“No, I did. It was great. I’m just not motivated to seek it out.”
“What an odd man you are, Henry.” The cornbread was reduced to a bowl full of tiny crumbles. Mrs. W. noticed this and handed me a half loaf of French bread and another glass bowl. “Turn this into little chunks. It doesn’t have to be as fine as you got that cornbread. It just needs to be small enough for the blender to grab it.” This meant nothing to me. I tore off a few small chunks.
“Like this?” I asked. She looked.
“That’s fine. Even a little larger would be okay,” she said. “Ever had sex with a man?” I was a little surprised.
“No ma’am,” I said, in what I must admit was an amused way.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Because it’s really okay if you are. I really couldn’t care less.”
“Thanks. I’m just not gay. No gay sex. No vices of any kind.”
“Henry, you’re a professional gambler.”
“Other than gambling.”
“I know this shows me to be limited and parochial but I don’t understand a red-blooded young man who’s not chasing girls. Or even boys. So you’ve never wanted to chase girls?”
“Hmm,” I said. I thought.
“Who was she?”
“There have been two I really liked. One you may know because she was a student of yours so I probably ought not to talk about her and the other is this red-head I run into in pool halls from time to time. Both seem like good company.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She pulled a heavy glass Oster blender from under the counter and took my French bread chunks from me. She put a small portion of them in the blender and pulsed it a few times. The chunks became smaller and smaller crumbs each time she pulsed.
“Molly?” she asked. She was guessing which one of her prior students I’d been interested in.
“No, ma’am.” I answered. She pulsed the blender again then poured the crumbs into the cornbread crumbs.
“Gwen?” she asked, as she added more coarse bread chunks to the blender.
“No, ma’am.”
“Sandy?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered. Unless I was mistaken, she was naming all the pretty, smart girls she could remember in my graduating class..
“Cherry?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No, of course not. How about another cheerleader, though, Cindy?”
“No, ma’am. She was smart, though. You know, my idea was to protect the identity of somebody you taught.”
“Linda?” she asked.
“Mrs. Wertheimer, I am uncomfortable with this line of inquiry.”
“All right.” She returned her attention to sautéing her chopped onions and celery. “Chop this,” she said, handing me a bunch of parsley, dropping a very large pat of butter into the skillet that had earlier held the cornbread. “You want to clip off the leaves but not get any stem, then chop it pretty fine.” I did my best to follow instructions. She had an enormous stockpot she filled with water and brought to boil while I was separating parsley leaves from parsley stems with a kitchen knife that was larger than I’d used before. She looked down at my cutting board and grabbed a handful of parsley stems, “excuse me,” she said, and dropped them into the stockpot along with two celery sticks, some carrots, and some bay leaves. She handed me a large brown onion, saying “Quarter this,” which I did, dark brown skin and all. She then dropped what looked like a bunch of chicken necks into the water and took a large, maybe 35 pound, turkey from the refrigerator. She sat it on the counter and reached up inside it and pulled out a turkey neck and a small plastic sack of organs. “You like giblets in your gravy?” she asked me.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Chopped heart?”
“And gizzard and maybe even liver,” she said.
“No, thanks, but if you want it..,”
“No. Never liked gizzards or heart either one. This liver, though,” she said, looking at a dark purple mass that more or less filled her hand, “It always seemed I should be able to make a good pate our of that.” I could hear the front door open and Ginny call out.
“Aunt Maggie,” she called out, cheerfully, as though calling across a canyon.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Mrs. W. called back, looking up expectantly. Ginny showed up in a few seconds and embraced Mrs. W. on her chair with a big hug. They smiled warmly at each other for a second and hugged again. I sipped my coffee, now lukewarm.
“Hello, Henry,” said Ginny, still hugging, without opening her eyes. “Aunt Margaret is the best aunt in the world.”
“I bet,” I said. “She’s sure good at everything else.”
“Okay,” Ginny said, when they were through hugging. “What’s to do?”
“Want some coffee?” Mrs. W. asked.
“Sure!” she said, and hopped up to pour herself a cup. “Henry?” she asked, looking at me. She looked me in the eye as she asked. The look was pleasant, but not ‘interested,’ so she’d made up her mind about me.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I think once a girl decides she’s never going to have sex with you she finds it easier to be around you, but I’m a guy and so have little insight on what women think, and I might have even less insight than most guys. Ginny unplugged the percolator, filled my coffee cup, then filled Mrs. W.’s, then put the percolator back on the counter and plugged it back in, to keep it hot. It can’t have had much left in it.
“So where are we?”
“Well, we have cornbread crumbles. I’ve sautéed onions and celery. Henry’s turned French bread into pieces the Osterizer can handle. I’ve got a turkey stock, or turkey and chicken stock. working. What do you think?”
“Yams?” asked Ginny.
“Sure. Although I’ve used the biggest pot for the stock.” Ginny got busy looking around in Mrs. W’s shelves and cupboards and found a large pot, although not as large as the stock pot. Ginny piled all of the yams on the countertop next to that pot and frowned at them. She searched briefly and found a paring knife and trimmed the small ends and protuberances from the yams, placing them in the pot as she did so. Trimmed, they all fit so she removed them, filled the pot half-full with water, and put it on the burner and turned it to high. “Salt?” she asked Mrs. W., without looking at her.
“A little,” Mrs. W. answered. Ginny retrieved a carton of Morton’s from a cabinet, poured a small mound on her palm, and brushed it into the water with her other hand. She looked around in the cabinets to locate a chrome Osterizer blender with a heavy glass jar and placed it on the counter, then took my bowl of bread chunks, smiling briefly, and placed it next to the blender. She put two handfuls into the blender and pulsed it several times, until the bread chunks were bread crumbs. She looked at the water in the sweet potato pot. Not yet boiling. She reached under a counter as though she knew where to find things and pulled out a large Pyrex bowl, and without missing a beat poured the breadcrumbs into the bowl. She put another few handfuls of bread chunks into the Osterizer and pulsed them into breadcrumbs. The water had started boiling so Ginny dropped in the trimmed yams, one at a time but without any delay between. Mrs. W was looking off to the middle distance and smoking her cigarette. Just before the silence became awkward, she asked me a question.”
“School’s going okay, Henry?”
“Yes ma’am. Pretty much. I have this odd sense that the Math Department and the Physics department don’t get along.” She looked at her coffee cup for a few seconds, then looked at me as though wondering what to do with me.
“Yeah, well. There was a time when the Math people and the Physics people all got along. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed.”
“Why so?” She took a last drag off of her cigarette and stubbed it out.
“You’re new to Physics?”
“Well, I’m taking it for the first time.”
“But you don’t know particle physics or special relativity?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
“The divide had more to do with Physics than it did with Math,” she said. “We were all together until this odd thing that happened in 1935. Albert published this paper with Dr. Podolsky and Nathan Rosen about the entanglement problem—you’ll get to it and if you don’t I’ll explain it—but to really understand you need to know quantum mechanics and special relativity to get at it, so ask me in a couple of years and I’ll tell you.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t like her not to explain things. Ginny and she were working together to make food. They seemed to flow together as though they had rehearsed cooking Thanksgiving cooking. Neither seemed to need to talk, it all just seemed to flow. Every now and then one would stop to ask the other a question—“How long for a 35 pound turkey?” or “Is that Aunt Leah’s skillet?” but mostly they communicated without saying much at all, the way sisters sometimes do. At about 3:00 Ginny excused herself and disappeared upstairs.
“Go clean yourself up, Henry,” said Mrs. W. “Company’s coming.”
“I only have jeans,” I said.
“That’s fine. Shave and put on a clean shirt.” I went and did as told.
Ginny’s dad was waiting for us when we’d arrived at Mrs. W’s house. He collected Ginny and her luggage and left pretty fast. Walt lit a cigarette as soon as her car door closed, then he and Cisco pulled off into the night, the shiny Pontiac disappearing into an unusually warm November night. Standing outside, I couldn’t see much of Mrs. W’s house, but it seemed large and vine-covered, with a frame and shingle exterior painted some dark olive or brown. She greeted me warmly, of course, then when the others had left led me to a bedroom. The interior of her house was mostly warm varnished mahogany, with intricately cut mortise and tenon joints and carefully carved accents. It smelled like she’d just cooked cornbread. She had dark Oriental carpets on most of her floors, which seemed to be beautiful quarter-sawn oak. I’d never seen anything quite like it. She showed me to a spacious upstairs bedroom with two twin beds. Mission furniture. It was nice. Spare. Neat. Clean.
“Henry,” Mrs. W said, lighting a Benson & Hedges off of her Gates Zippo, “There’s nobody else with a claim to this room. I know you have family, but this room is open for you whenever you need it.”
An amazing offer.
When I woke up the next morning it was early. The house was cool and quiet. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. On the road, I would have made coffee, if there was a pot in the room, or gone looking for it. At college, I would walk up to the dining hall and eat bacon and drink coffee and look over my subjects until time for class to start. In Mrs. W’s house I had no idea who else was up at 6:30, needed to brush my teeth, and didn’t know where the bathroom was. As is the case with some old houses, none of the upstairs bedrooms had its own bathroom but all of them exited into a hall from which they all shared access to a common bathroom. Not modern, but not odd. I brushed my teeth and put on enough clothing to present myself to the household and went downstairs.
The house was quiet and still, and I didn’t know my way around. I found my way through the living room and dining room to the kitchen, partly aided by the aroma of coffee. Mrs. Wertheimer was seated at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, looking at several three by five cards on the table in front of her. The floor creaked slightly as I came to the kitchen door and she looked up.
“Hey, Henry,” she said, happy to see me. She glanced up at the source of the coffee aroma, a 12 cup Hamilton Beach percolator. I followed her gaze, and you could see the coffee surging into the glass knob on top. Still not ready. “Looks like the coffee’s still got a few minutes to go,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Great,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“Not a lot. Looking at recipes and waiting for the coffee. I like to cook, but I don’t do it too much, so I look over the recipes before I start.” She looked down at her cards and took a drag. “Are you a dressing person or a stuffing person?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?” I asked.
“They’re the same thing cooked differently. We’re going to have cornbread and bread stuffing. Or dressing. Stuffing is the mix of breadcrumbs and vegetables and all stuffed into the turkey and roasted with it, dressing is the same mix cooked in a casserole dish. Both are good.”
“I guess we always had dressing, then,” I said.
“We’re going to have both, but if you’ve never tried stuffing you should have some,” she said. “Nothing like it.” She looked at her cards and smoked her cigarette. “Yams?” she asked, looking up.
“Of course.”
“Candied or whipped?” she asked.
“I think I’m a candied guy,” I said. “I mean, I like whipped sweet potatoes, but candied yams are a real treat.”
“Good man,” she said. She took a look at her cards and took a drag from her cigarette.
“Do you prefer mashed potatoes or rice as a starch?” she asked.
“The dressing, or stuffing, is plenty,” I said. “Are you thinking of rolls?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m up early,” she said. “I think Thanksgiving needs to have good rolls, so I got up and started a batch of Parker House Rolls.” There was a large glass bowl filled with dough, covered with Saran-Wrap, near the oven.
“Don’t know Parker House Rolls,” I said.
“Lots of butter. A little sweet.”
“Like the rolls for lunch at City High?” I asked.
“Almost,” she said. “The rolls they served at City were made with margarine.”
“They were really good.”
“Sure were,” she said. “I’ve got broccoli. Can you make Hollandaise?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Can you follow instructions?”
“I think so,” I said. Her eyes shot up over her glasses, then they softened speculatively. She took a drag off of her cigarette.
“You don’t have much experience at that, I guess?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“It’s not so bad, you know, listening to what other people think.”
I thought about that for a minute. “I listen to you,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “I appreciate it that you trust me. But maybe you could be more trusting of people around you. Have you been making friends in college?”
I thought for a minute. “Well, there’s Stoney. I tried to be nice to Milton, but I think he took it the wrong way.”
“How did you try to be nice to him?”
“I bought a nine ball game. Kept him from being fleeced by a pro I know named Donnie.” She looked at her recipe cards for a few minutes. The coffee was done and I got up hefted the pot. There were several mugs in front of the percolator. “Coffee?” I asked. She looked up.
“Sure,” she said. “Black.” I poured her a mug, put it down near her, poured one for myself, and went back to my stool. “Thanks,” she said, when I put the mug in front of her. She took a sip. “Okay, here’s the plan,” she said. “Turkey, stuffing, dressing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli with hollandaise, corn soufflé. Parker House rolls, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie. Good?”
“More food than I’m used to even on Thanksgiving,” I said.
“So I’m about to start cooking, and if Ginny shows up what’s going to happen?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Henry, don’t be dense,” she said. “Last time I saw you together she was hanging on your every word. Last night she was staying as far away from you as possible and mooning at that snob from Atlanta.”
“Yeah. Okay. It’s odd. She saw me play pool for some money. Maybe a lot of money. I know it seemed like a lot to her. She didn’t like it that I risked so much.” Mrs. W. nodded and thought for a few minutes.
“Her mom’s that way, too. Her dad’s been offered a job as general counsel of this railroad. The Union Pacific. Big company. Great job. Could make him, or them, millions of dollars. Winnie’s worried because he’s got a good job now and she doesn’t see why he’d consider giving it up.”
“What’s his job now?”
“He’s a partner at Miller & Martin.”
“A lawyer deal?” I asked.
“Yes. And he does well. But being general counsel of the Union Pacific would be a much bigger lawyer deal. But the job is in Omaha.”
“Nebraska?”
“Yes.”
“A long train ride from Chattanooga, especially as Chattanooga doesn’t have passenger rail.”
“Good point.” She smiled.
“Anything I can do to help with the Thanksgiving meal?” I asked, sipping my coffee.
“Maybe. Do you cook?”
“Not at all.”
“Never?” she was surprised.
“Sometimes I fried eggs for myself on Saturdays or Sundays,” I said.
“Because your mom was away?” she asked.
“No, because I liked them fried really, really hard, with a tough skin, and Mom thought that was wrong. I’d fry my eggs and she’d make toast.”
“Well, Ginny usually comes over a little after noon and helps.” She stood and handed me a black iron skillet with red and white hound’s tooth dish towel over it, then located a large Pyrex bowl. I lifted the dish towel and found a large wheel of cornbread that must have been cooked last night with one narrow slice missing. I looked up at Mrs. W. “Your job is to change that cornbread into tiny little crumbles in that bowl.” I shrugged and got to work. While I was crumbling, he took celery, onions, parsley and some other kind of green leaves out of the refrigerator and began to chop them, cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Chopping onions didn’t seem to bother her eyes.
“So what were you going to do with Ginny if you got her?” she asked. I thought for a few seconds about how to respond.
“I, I, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I wanted to be her friend, not her boyfriend,” I said.
“That’s odd,” said Mrs. W. “She’s pretty. Smart. Vivacious, athletic.”
“She’s absolutely delightful in every way,” I said.
“Henry,” she asked, with a surprised tone in her voice, “are you homosexual?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered, crumbling my cornbread with a sigh.
“It’s completely okay with me if you are,” she said, earnestly, looking at me and stubbing out her cigarette.
“No, ma’am. I don’t seem to think about women as much as most guys my age, but I don’t think about men. Not in that way, I mean.” She frowned a bit. “I’ve never had a girlfriend and don’t miss having one. I can’t say why. I’m just motivated like that.” She went back to turning her onions into tiny little cubes.
“It’s true I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend or eve chasing one. I guess I just assumed it was going on somewhere else.”
“No, ma’am. It’s not that I dislike girls, I’m just not motivated to pursue them.”
“What religion were you raised?”
“Disciples of Christ.”
“No religious guilt overlay?”
“No, ma’am. We didn’t talk about sex in church, and I never got the idea that there was any part of it was wrong from what I heard on Sunday. One of the few times I made out with a girl was with the preacher’s daughter here in Chattanooga.”
“What brought that on?” she asked.
“Can’t tell you,” I said. “We were the only people in the balcony for the Christmas Eve candle-light service. She suggested we move to the back row and then all of a sudden we were kissing. Don’t know what was going on. She was a couple years older than me and was already off at college.”
“And you didn’t like that?” she asked.
“No, I did. It was great. I’m just not motivated to seek it out.”
“What an odd man you are, Henry.” The cornbread was reduced to a bowl full of tiny crumbles. Mrs. W. noticed this and handed me a half loaf of French bread and another glass bowl. “Turn this into little chunks. It doesn’t have to be as fine as you got that cornbread. It just needs to be small enough for the blender to grab it.” This meant nothing to me. I tore off a few small chunks.
“Like this?” I asked. She looked.
“That’s fine. Even a little larger would be okay,” she said. “Ever had sex with a man?” I was a little surprised.
“No ma’am,” I said, in what I must admit was an amused way.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Because it’s really okay if you are. I really couldn’t care less.”
“Thanks. I’m just not gay. No gay sex. No vices of any kind.”
“Henry, you’re a professional gambler.”
“Other than gambling.”
“I know this shows me to be limited and parochial but I don’t understand a red-blooded young man who’s not chasing girls. Or even boys. So you’ve never wanted to chase girls?”
“Hmm,” I said. I thought.
“Who was she?”
“There have been two I really liked. One you may know because she was a student of yours so I probably ought not to talk about her and the other is this red-head I run into in pool halls from time to time. Both seem like good company.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She pulled a heavy glass Oster blender from under the counter and took my French bread chunks from me. She put a small portion of them in the blender and pulsed it a few times. The chunks became smaller and smaller crumbs each time she pulsed.
“Molly?” she asked. She was guessing which one of her prior students I’d been interested in.
“No, ma’am.” I answered. She pulsed the blender again then poured the crumbs into the cornbread crumbs.
“Gwen?” she asked, as she added more coarse bread chunks to the blender.
“No, ma’am.”
“Sandy?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered. Unless I was mistaken, she was naming all the pretty, smart girls she could remember in my graduating class..
“Cherry?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No, of course not. How about another cheerleader, though, Cindy?”
“No, ma’am. She was smart, though. You know, my idea was to protect the identity of somebody you taught.”
“Linda?” she asked.
“Mrs. Wertheimer, I am uncomfortable with this line of inquiry.”
“All right.” She returned her attention to sautéing her chopped onions and celery. “Chop this,” she said, handing me a bunch of parsley, dropping a very large pat of butter into the skillet that had earlier held the cornbread. “You want to clip off the leaves but not get any stem, then chop it pretty fine.” I did my best to follow instructions. She had an enormous stockpot she filled with water and brought to boil while I was separating parsley leaves from parsley stems with a kitchen knife that was larger than I’d used before. She looked down at my cutting board and grabbed a handful of parsley stems, “excuse me,” she said, and dropped them into the stockpot along with two celery sticks, some carrots, and some bay leaves. She handed me a large brown onion, saying “Quarter this,” which I did, dark brown skin and all. She then dropped what looked like a bunch of chicken necks into the water and took a large, maybe 35 pound, turkey from the refrigerator. She sat it on the counter and reached up inside it and pulled out a turkey neck and a small plastic sack of organs. “You like giblets in your gravy?” she asked me.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Chopped heart?”
“And gizzard and maybe even liver,” she said.
“No, thanks, but if you want it..,”
“No. Never liked gizzards or heart either one. This liver, though,” she said, looking at a dark purple mass that more or less filled her hand, “It always seemed I should be able to make a good pate our of that.” I could hear the front door open and Ginny call out.
“Aunt Maggie,” she called out, cheerfully, as though calling across a canyon.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Mrs. W. called back, looking up expectantly. Ginny showed up in a few seconds and embraced Mrs. W. on her chair with a big hug. They smiled warmly at each other for a second and hugged again. I sipped my coffee, now lukewarm.
“Hello, Henry,” said Ginny, still hugging, without opening her eyes. “Aunt Margaret is the best aunt in the world.”
“I bet,” I said. “She’s sure good at everything else.”
“Okay,” Ginny said, when they were through hugging. “What’s to do?”
“Want some coffee?” Mrs. W. asked.
“Sure!” she said, and hopped up to pour herself a cup. “Henry?” she asked, looking at me. She looked me in the eye as she asked. The look was pleasant, but not ‘interested,’ so she’d made up her mind about me.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I think once a girl decides she’s never going to have sex with you she finds it easier to be around you, but I’m a guy and so have little insight on what women think, and I might have even less insight than most guys. Ginny unplugged the percolator, filled my coffee cup, then filled Mrs. W.’s, then put the percolator back on the counter and plugged it back in, to keep it hot. It can’t have had much left in it.
“So where are we?”
“Well, we have cornbread crumbles. I’ve sautéed onions and celery. Henry’s turned French bread into pieces the Osterizer can handle. I’ve got a turkey stock, or turkey and chicken stock. working. What do you think?”
“Yams?” asked Ginny.
“Sure. Although I’ve used the biggest pot for the stock.” Ginny got busy looking around in Mrs. W’s shelves and cupboards and found a large pot, although not as large as the stock pot. Ginny piled all of the yams on the countertop next to that pot and frowned at them. She searched briefly and found a paring knife and trimmed the small ends and protuberances from the yams, placing them in the pot as she did so. Trimmed, they all fit so she removed them, filled the pot half-full with water, and put it on the burner and turned it to high. “Salt?” she asked Mrs. W., without looking at her.
“A little,” Mrs. W. answered. Ginny retrieved a carton of Morton’s from a cabinet, poured a small mound on her palm, and brushed it into the water with her other hand. She looked around in the cabinets to locate a chrome Osterizer blender with a heavy glass jar and placed it on the counter, then took my bowl of bread chunks, smiling briefly, and placed it next to the blender. She put two handfuls into the blender and pulsed it several times, until the bread chunks were bread crumbs. She looked at the water in the sweet potato pot. Not yet boiling. She reached under a counter as though she knew where to find things and pulled out a large Pyrex bowl, and without missing a beat poured the breadcrumbs into the bowl. She put another few handfuls of bread chunks into the Osterizer and pulsed them into breadcrumbs. The water had started boiling so Ginny dropped in the trimmed yams, one at a time but without any delay between. Mrs. W was looking off to the middle distance and smoking her cigarette. Just before the silence became awkward, she asked me a question.”
“School’s going okay, Henry?”
“Yes ma’am. Pretty much. I have this odd sense that the Math Department and the Physics department don’t get along.” She looked at her coffee cup for a few seconds, then looked at me as though wondering what to do with me.
“Yeah, well. There was a time when the Math people and the Physics people all got along. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed.”
“Why so?” She took a last drag off of her cigarette and stubbed it out.
“You’re new to Physics?”
“Well, I’m taking it for the first time.”
“But you don’t know particle physics or special relativity?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
“The divide had more to do with Physics than it did with Math,” she said. “We were all together until this odd thing that happened in 1935. Albert published this paper with Dr. Podolsky and Nathan Rosen about the entanglement problem—you’ll get to it and if you don’t I’ll explain it—but to really understand you need to know quantum mechanics and special relativity to get at it, so ask me in a couple of years and I’ll tell you.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t like her not to explain things. Ginny and she were working together to make food. They seemed to flow together as though they had rehearsed cooking Thanksgiving cooking. Neither seemed to need to talk, it all just seemed to flow. Every now and then one would stop to ask the other a question—“How long for a 35 pound turkey?” or “Is that Aunt Leah’s skillet?” but mostly they communicated without saying much at all, the way sisters sometimes do. At about 3:00 Ginny excused herself and disappeared upstairs.
“Go clean yourself up, Henry,” said Mrs. W. “Company’s coming.”
“I only have jeans,” I said.
“That’s fine. Shave and put on a clean shirt.” I went and did as told.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Capter 22A: Traveling south for Thnksgiving
Cisco was from Atlanta, he was driving home for Thanksgiving, and the road from Nashville to Atlanta runs through Chattanooga, and he, being a nice guy, offered to drive me back to Chattanooga. I told him I was traveling with Ginny, and he said that was cool, and that he was also going to bring his friend Walt Gwinnett from some other dorm, a friend from high school. Everybody agreed we’d leave at about five on Wednesday. I was packed and ready to go, so when Cisco knocked on my door I picked up my suitcase and we left. When we got down to the parking lot, Walt was leaning against the car, in blue Blazer, blue Brooks Brothers button-down, khakis complete with alligator belt with monogrammed belt buckle, and Topsiders.
“Oh, hi,” said Walt, as though mildly surprised to see us.
“Walt, Henry. Henry, Walt,” said Cisco, unlocking the trunk.
“Walton Gwinnett,” said Walt, extending his hand.
“Henry Baida,” I answered, shaking his hand.
I’d never seen Cisco’s car before. It was a big black Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am without the optional gold detailing. It was clear he liked it. After I looked at it, he looked at me and cocked an eyebrow.
“The gold bird on the hood would have been too much for a guy like you,” I said.
“Damn straight,” he said, smiling, and tossed our bags into the not-so-big trunk. Walt held the door for me to get into the pretty small back seat. No coin toss, no discussion, I was in the back. Cisco started the car and backed out of the parking space. It had a big V-8, Glasspack kind of a rumble. It was already dark. Cisco pulled out of the dorm parking lot onto 21st Ave., then turned right onto Broadway. Walt looked at Cisco with concern.
“Why did you turn the wrong way?” asked Walt.
“We’re picking up a friend of Henry’s,” Cisco answered. Walt nodded idly and lit a cigarette with a metal butane lighter. “Roll down the window, if you’re going to smoke,” said Cisco. Walt’s expression indicated that he thought Cisco’s request to be an affront, but after a pause he complied and cranked down the window. Cisco turned onto Scarritt and found the front of Ginny’s dorm after a few minutes. Ginny was sitting out front, tweed jacket, knitted scarf, white blouse, blue jeans, dark blue Ferragamos, hair pushed back by a black velvet headband. Pretty girl. She didn’t know Cisco or his car, so when she looked at us, it was speculatively.
“Is that her?” Cisco asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Jesus H. Christ, she is lights-out gorgeous,” said Cisco.
“She’s cute,” I agreed. Walt looked up for the first time to see who we were talking about. Cisco cut the engine and hopped out, approaching Ginny directly, and with a smile. He extended his hand.
“Ginny?” he asked, extending his hand. I was sitting behind Walt, and I’d expected him to get out of the car to greet Ginny, but he made no move to do so, so I slid over to exit from the drivers’ side.
“Yes?” Ginny replied, shaking his hand, tentatively.
“I’m Francis. Francis Atwater. A friend of Henry’s.” He was saying this as I was clambering out of his car. Her shaking of his hand became more cooperative and friendly once she saw me. She smiled at him.
“Hey, Ginny,” I said. She looked at me speculatively and waved. It was the first time I’d seen her face to face since my last pool game. She wasn’t sure what she thought of me. Cisco picked up her bag, opened the trunk, made room for her bag, closed the trunk lid, then returned his attention to Ginny. He smiled and placed his hand on her back, cooperatively moving her towards her seat. He opened the passenger door, where Walt was still seated.
“Walt, this is Ginny,” he said. “Ginny’s going to be sitting in the front seat, so you need to move to the back.” Walt tried his best not to frown, and stood up next to Ginny and Cisco. He smiled a hollow smile.
“Hello, Ginny, I’m Walton Gwinnett,” he said, offering his hand. She shook it. He sat in the passenger-side back seat, somewhat heavily, without removing his jacket.
“Hi, Henry,” she said.
“Hey. Good to see you again.” She waved again and sat in the passenger seat. Cisco unhinged the front seat to allow me access to the back seat.
“I wish you were shorter,” I said.
“She’s so cute,” he answered, too softly for her to hear.
“Smart, too,” I said, and got in. There just wasn’t much room in that back seat. Walt frowned at me. Ginny got into the passenger seat before Cisco could get around to hold her door, so she was in before him. He got in, sat, put the key in the ignition, then turned to her and flashed that bandit smile. She almost gasped.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Uh-huhm,” she answered, nodding, captivated. That fast. Cisco eased the Firebird into West End traffic, then navigated his way over to I-24. Once on the freeway he gave Ginny another smile, not so bright as the first.
“So tell me about yourself,” he said. She seemed surprised he asked.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “I’m a sophomore at Peabody. I’m thinking I’ll major in Psychology or Math and get a teacher’s certificate and maybe be a teacher. How about you?”
“You like teaching?” Cisco asked.
“I don’t know, but I think so,” she answered. “Since I was a little kid I’ve been involved in sports, and I’ve always imagined how I would be coaching the teams I’ve been on.”
“What sports?” Cisco asked.
“I like them all, but I mainly play soccer and tennis,” she said.
“So you want to teach Psychology to high school students?”
“That’s the thing. Most high schools don’t have many Psychology classes, maybe one per semester. Peabody has a really good psychology program, but I’m not gonna find a full-time job as a high school psychology teacher so since I’ve always gotten good grades in Math, I was thinking that I could also teach that. Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking now.”
“Henry back there may be good at Math,” he said. I sat up. I hadn’t expected to be mentioned. Walt, who had not seemed to be paying any attention, looked at me laconically and cocked an eyebrow. “Last week I asked him what pi was and he gave it to me to five decimal places,” Cisco said. Walt shook out a Benson & Hedges menthol and was about to place it between his lips. Cisco, displaying a hitherto-unknown eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head talent, said “No smoking, Walt.” Walt made an irritated face and put his cigarette away. Ginny seemed to think for a few seconds.
“Henry took Math from my Aunt Margaret, so I expect he knows it,” she said. I looked up, and saw that Cisco was looking at me inquisitively in the rear view mirror. I nodded. “Sometimes Math isn’t the real question. But the fact that Henry can remember that pi to eleven decimal places just means he has a good memory. It doesn’t mean he’s smart. Don’t get me wrong, Henry,” she said, without looking back at me, “I know you’re smart in math. What if, though, being good in math,” and here she wasn’t talking to me any more, but to Cisco, “causes other problems?”
“What kind of problems does Math lead to?” Cisco asked.
“Accountancy,” said Walt.
“Ignore Walt,” said Cisco. “He’s acting like old money.” Ginny looked at him blankly.
“Careers are a bother.” She nodded as though that explained something.
“Maybe you get to understand something better than the people around you, but still they worry about you. Or you do things that worry them,” she said.
“Like?” Cisco asked.
“Sometimes people do things that people close to them, or around them, or friends of theirs, don’t understand. It can make you think about them … differently.” Walt looked at me.
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Cisco, looking at Ginny earnestly for the second or two traffic safety allowed the driver of a Firebird.
“Sometimes you get an idea about a person, and then they do something, so you get a different idea of them. Enough about me. What about you?”
“Those are great shoes,” Cisco said to Ginny. I couldn’t see them. She smiled and looked at her shoes, then straight ahead into the darkness of I-24, still smiling.
“This ride is only ten minutes old,” said Walt, to me, not loud enough for the front seat to hear.
“I know,” I said.
“What did you do? Fuck her sister?”
“What was that?” asked Ginny.
“Nothing,” Walt and I chimed in together.
“So?” he asked.
“So what?” I answered.
“Did you have sex with her best friend, or what?”
“Gack, no,” I said. “Nothing like that.”
“What are you guys talking about?” she asked.
“Nothing,” we both called out.
“So what?” he asked.
“I won a pool game,” I said.
“So?”
“I bet a lot on it,” I said.
“So?”
“She was worried I was going to lose,” I said.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
“What are you telling him, Henry?” she asked.
“Just guy talk,” I said.
“Don’t get distracted by the back seat, sweetheart,” said Cisco. “You were telling me the story of your life.”
“You’re being very … solicitous,” she said, still smiling.
“I’m just interested in people,” he said. Walt rolled his eyes and laid his head back on the headrest.
“Well,” she said, “I graduated from GPS. I was presented at the Cotton Ball, and most of the girls in my class are friends of mine, but I don’t like all that society stuff. I’m not a very girlie girl, but I think girls and women are important. I like sports but don’t like being called a jock.”
“Why not?” Cisco asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Hard to say. I don’t like labels. Like, I’m all in favor of women’s rights. I hope the E.R.A. passes. I don’t think women should be second-class citizens. But I just don’t like Bella Abzug or Gloria Steinem and would just rather find my own way.”
“It seems like you care pretty deeply about this,” said Cisco, giving her a brief, earnest look.
“Not really,” she said. “My mom and my dad both work and I never grew up with this subservient deal. Nobody ever told me I couldn’t do things because I was a girl. So maybe I didn’t grow up like everybody. But the fact that I think girls should be able to do whatever they want doesn’t mean I want to be Shirley Chisholm.”
“So what do you like about soccer?” he asked. She closed her eyes.
“The beautiful game,” she said. “When I was little, they played me on defense, because I was fast and didn’t have those small skills, those little toe-tapping deals that the coach’s kids had. But once I got to middle school and got on the all-star teams they moved me to forward and anytime a halfback could feed me a ball, I could take a shot. It really is a wicked game. You see the ball sailing through the air, you feel the people around you, and in slow-motion you see whether to head it, chest it, or kick it, and you make your choice and WHAM it slams back into real time and you’re fighting for the ball. It’s just wonderful.”
“I played soccer in high school,” said Cisco.
“Really? What did you play?” she asked.
“I was the goalie.” Walt shook his head dismissively and looked out the window.
“That makes sense, you’re tall,” she said.
“I don’t think I was as talented as you were,” said Cisco, at which Walt’s expression conveyed feigned outrage. Walt didn’t seem to think much of Cisco as a soccer player. “But you also played tennis?” Walt sat up.
“Yeah. Love it.”
“Were you good?”
“Well, I was All-State in Tennessee for three years,” she said.
“Excuse me,” said Walt. “Are you Ginny McColl?”
“That’s me,” she said.
“Jesus,” Walt said. “I saw you play Chrissie Evert in 1972. You damned near beat her.”
“Yeah, well if you’re talking about the Atlanta game, it was an exhibition match, and Chrissie wasn’t playing at her best. She was originally scheduled to play Billie Jean King, but then Billie Jean got worried she might lose and bailed at the last minute, and I just happened to be there.”
“And didn’t you show up at Charlotte and play mixed doubles with Ilie Nastase?”
“I played against him and Rosemary Casals, yes. Margaret Court had the flu, and Marty Reissen asked me to stand in at the last minute.”
“That was a great match,” he said. “You’ve got a hell of a ground stroke.”
“Thanks,” she said. “What took you to Charlotte?”
“I was in men’s doubles. I flagged out of the junior singles in the quarter-finals.”
“Who with? Doubles, I mean.”
“Charlie Owens,” said Walt. She smiled.
“I saw Charlie beat Pete Fleming. Great game. He then hit on me.”
“Sounds like Charlie.”
“I was sixteen.”
“Still sounds like Charlie,” said Walt. “Why aren’t you playing now?”
“Peabody doesn’t have a tennis team,” she said.
“Yeah, but we do, and we’re right across the street. The tennis courts are closer to your dorm than to mine. And several of the women on our team are from Peabody. I don’t know how it works, but if you’re interested, there’s a way for you to play for us, and I’d love to have you as a mixed doubles partner.”
“You’re on the team? The actual S.E.C. team?” she asked.
“Too soon to say,” he answered. “I’m going to try out. I was Georgia All-State and All-Southeast in high school, but I don’t really know if there’s a place for me as a freshman. But I’ve seen you play. With you as a doubles partner, I’d be … we’d be in for sure.”
“That’s very sweet,” she said. “I’d love to.”
“We’ll work it out on the trip back,” he said. “Numbers and all. You’re fit?”
“Not really. Last time I played was over a year ago.”
“Let’s start running together,” he said. She smiled.
“I had no idea you were such a star,” said Cisco, and smiled at her. She noticed.
“I like tennis,” she said.
“What else do you like?” Cisco asked.
“Math, psychology, shoes, soccer, Neil Young, turnip greens, and my Aunt Margaret,” she said.
“And what do you dislike?” Cisco asked. Walt frowned and sat back, aware he’d lost her, at least for the moment.
“Cold ketchup. Gold chains on men. Anchovies. Boiled okra, multiple choice tests, oysters, electric stoves, Scotch whiskey, and backgammon,” she said. “And gambling,” she added, as an afterthought. Walt glanced at me.
“Why gambling?” Cisco asked. Walt looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Sometimes people just gamble insane amounts of money,” she said. “It’s like a compulsion. Maybe like a disease.”
“Are you talking about Henry?” asked Cisco.
“Maybe a little,” she said.
“I thought he won that pool game,” said Cisco.
“He did, but that’s not the point,” she said.
“You were there?” he asked.
“Yes, I was,” she said.
“What happened?” Cisco asked. “Henry won’t talk about it and Milton seems to … exaggerate.”
“Milton?” she asked.
“Jimmy Milton. A guy from our floor. He was there,” said Cisco. Ginny craned around to look at me.
“He was the curly-headed guy sitting next toy you during the game. He smokes,” I said. She frowned slightly, not remembering him. “When Donnie and I went off with his uncle to work out how the money would be held, I asked him to stay with you until I got back,” I said. She shook her head, puzzled.
“I think you must be misremembering,” she said. “I think it was just me and Melissa from my Art History class that waited for you boys to get done talking in secret.”
“All right,” I said. She looked through the window into the darkness as Cisco eased around a semi on I-24. We all looked ahead in the darkness as Cisco merged back into the right lane.
“So tell me the story,” said Cisco, to Ginny. He’d scaled the personality backa few degrees and his tone was more measured. He wanted to hear the story. Ginny paused for a few seconds, twirling her hair. She crossed her legs in a funny way that put her left shoe on the dashboard, then nipped at her index fingernail with her front teeth.
“Well it was just odd,” she said. All I could see was the back of her head. “I knew Henry was a pool player, and we’re both from Chattanooga, and my Aunt Margaret really likes him, so a few weeks ago when this ΣAE from Memphis I know took me to this pace called Annie’s I thought that it would be cool to take Henry there. And so we decided to go to dinner at Elliston’s and then go play pool. I just wanted to see him play, if he was so good. And then when we got to Annie’s he knew people there, but it wasn’t like you know people in college. These people were all … hard, somehow. Even Melissa, who seems sweet as pie in class, she seemed to know this other set of rules.”
“Henry?” Cisco asked me, through the rear-view mirror.
“I met Melissa in Hixson, Tennessee a few years ago. I went to jail for getting in a fight with her boyfriend, a big bruiser whose name I forget. She wasn’t called Melissa, then. Everybody called her Rosie.”
“Why?” Cisco and Ginny asked together.
“They said she was a riveter. Also she has long red curly hair.”
“Looker?” asked Cisco.
“Beautiful,” I answered. Cisco nodded.
“Sorry, Ginny,” said Cisco. Ginny cocked her head and I could see she was frowning a little, as though she wanted to argue whether Melissa was beautiful or not. “So tell me the rest of the story.”
“Well, the boys started playing pool, and Henry takes over for this strange little guy he seems to know…”
“That was Milton,” I said.
“Who?” she asked.
“Milton. The guy we were talking about earlier.”
“Okay,” she said, a little hesitantly. “Then they started making bets. And every time they did, Melissa, who I would say was dressed a little trampy, would hop off her stool and scoop up the money, and I think maybe she was slipping it into her bra. I didn’t really want to look.” Cisco looked at me in the rear vie mirror. I nodded. Walt, who had given no indication he was paying any attention at all, leaned back his head and grinned at the mental image.
“How much?” asked Cisco.
“I don’t really remember,” she said. “Not much, at first.”
“Henry?” asked Walt.
“Milt was thirty bucks up. I bought his game for forty bucks.”
“Interesting,” said Cisco.
“He was playing a hustler I know from outside Chattanooga. Good player.”
“Sooo … You were doing Milt a favor?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Funny,” he answered. “That’s not the way Milt tells it.”
“He’ll play that game by himself some day,” I said. I could see Cisco smile in the rear view mirror.
“So what happened next?” Cisco asked Ginny.
“Odd being outnumbered by boys,” she answered
“What?”
“I have two sisters. I went to a girl’s high school, and played sports on girls’ teams. It’s just odd to be in a conversation where everyone else is boys. You keep veering off into odd directions.”
“Sorry. I want to hear the story,” said Cisco.
“Okay. Well, at first it was really outa’ sight. Henry dropped two twenties on the table and Melissa came over and scooped them up and I felt like, wicked cool, because I just wanted to see him play and here we were already in a big money game, although I wasn’t sure why Melissa got to keep all the money. But they all seemed to know her, for some reason, and then Henry won that first game, the forty dollar one, and I’m all excited, thinking ‘Jeez, he’s really good, and he just won forty dollars, which is a fantastic amount of money for winning a pool game,’ and then the guy he was playing wanted to play for four times that.” Her head sagged. “That’s an astonishing amount of money to gamble, I’m thinking,” she said. “I mean, that’s more money than some people make in a week.”
“Henry?” asked Cisco.
“Yeah, Donnie wanted to bet $160, but my money was all on the table, anyway. But I’d beat him three out of three at the Hixson Lanes.”
“Sorry,” said Cisco, to Ginny.
“Are you sure you want to hear my story?” Ginny asked. “Because it sounds like what you want to hear is me telling Henry’s story.”
“Yeah, fair enough,” said Cisco. Walt waved his head from side to side as if to express that he understood her point.
“So after that Henry lost. He seemed so good, but this other guy was better, and at one point Henry forked over $120 on top of $40 so he was gambling $160 on one pool game! It was just insane. And he won that but then the guy in the orange tee shirt doubled down on him again and he lost. He lost $320. That’s just insane.
“Why?” Cisco asked.
“$320 is as much spending money as I’ll need for the entire semester. To bet it all on a pool game is just … dangerous.”
“Yeah, but what happened next?” Cisco asked.
“Henry doubled down again. It was way past time to stop. But he put six hundred dollars down on the table. Have you ever seen a hundred dollar bill?” Cisco smiled.
“Not often,” he said.
“Well Henry had six of them. And that was only the start. The guy from Texas then said they should play this other game for $15,000.” Walt sat up and looked at me. I shrugged.
“Milton said it was Cutthroat,” said Cisco.
“I guess that’s what they said,” Ginny answered. “But it turns out Henry had $5,000 in his wallet, and he laid it down to make that bet. I was just stunned when I saw he was carrying around $600, I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that before. But then he laid down fifty hundreds. Fifty. I’ve never seen that much money before. It was bad enough that he had it on him. That he was betting it nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Why are you so worried?” Cisco asked. “It’s not your money.”
“I like Henry. I don’t like seeing him doing something stupid. I mean, he could have lost his entire education fund.” Walt glanced sideways at me. I shook my head.
“So how did the game go?” Cisco asked.
“It was awful,” she said. “Every time he took a shot, if he missed it, it might cost him $15,0000.” Walt looked at me. I shook my head no.
“So how many did he miss?” Cisco asked. There was a pause.
“I don’t remember,” she answered. Okay, this was fucked up. I hadn’t missed any shots in that last game, and that’s the game she was talking about.
“So who won?” Cisco asked. He knew the answer, but he was talking to Ginny.
“Henry won,” Ginny said. “But that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?” asked Cisco.
“It could have gone horribly wrong. Some chances you just don’t take.”
“He won a lot, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“From what I hear, it was like enough to pay for two years of college,” Cisco said.
“I suppose,” said Ginny.
“And he won,” said Cisco.
“Yes, but he shouldn’t have taken the risk,” she said, primly and confidently. There was a long silence in the car. After a few minutes Walt spoke up.
“I have a Jeep.”
“Yeah?” asked Cisco.
“I like to ride off-road. Nobody else at Westminster seemed to go for it, so I kept it to myself. But on weekends, I’d drive up just north or Atlanta and run around on dirt tracks through mud. Hell of a time,” said Walt. There was a pause of a few seconds.
“Don’t your parents belong to the Piedmont Driving Club?” asked Cisco.
“Yes, of course,” answered Walt. There was another awkward pause.
“Okay,” Walt continued. “So last year I got stuck in a traffic jam outside of Athens on 85. I wasn’t sure what caused the jam, but we were pointed south and traffic south wasn’t moving at all. I actually know that area outside Athens pretty well. My dad used to take me dove hunting not far from there. So I decided that waiting in the traffic on I-85 was getting us nowhere, so I decided to cut across the median, do a freeway u-turn, and pick up US 79 south, which I’d done many times when I was playing in lots of tennis tournaments. University of Georgia is p there and at the time I thought I wanted to go to Georgia and play on their tennis team. So whenever they sponsored a tournament, or even a clinic, I went. So I knew where I was and the median was no problem in a Jeep so I cruised across the median and headed north.”
Ginny was silent. “Okay,” I said, not sure where he was going with the story.
“I was dating a girl named Janie at the time,” Walt said. “Beautiful girl. Met her at a tennis tournament. She played for North Springs, third starter for singles and lead on women’s doubles. Gorgeous and smart.” Ginny looked at him as though she wasn’t sure she liked this story. “So I was driving my CJ, although you could have crossed that median in any passenger car. It was flat and grassy and dry, and so we headed back north on 85. Janie got wide-eyed and freaked out when I got on the median and said she couldn’t believe I’d done that. I didn’t get it and asked ‘Did what?’ and it turns out she was upset because I drove across the median! I resented this ‘cause I knew what I was doing, I mean I’d driven through mud flats and deep swamps and over big rocks so I was tres qualified to drive across a median strip, or to decide whether it was safe to drive across a median strip, in a Jeep, but I just pointed out to her hat I didn’t even have to shift to four wheel drive, that it was perfectly safe, and that I’d spent millions of hours driving through swamps and mud and dirt and wouldn’t have done it if I thought there’d been any risk at all. She asked me what woulda happened if we’d gotten stuck? She kept asking that over and over. She couldn’t accept that I actually knew what I was doing. She didn’t think the fact that I’d been right, that we gotten across the median with no trouble at all, meant anything. She was stuck on the fact that I’d taken a risk that she wouldn’t have taken. Because she woulda been uncomfortable driving like that herself, she didn’t think I should, either. The fact that I had more experience and was actually right cut no ice.” Ginny had her back to me but I could tell she was scraping her index finger across her incisors. There was a pause.
“But Henry could have lost fifteen thousand dollars.” I shook my head. Lordy.
“Henry?” Walt asked me.
“The most I could have lost was five kay,” I said. “It was like a fifteen thousand dollar bet only in one sense. And that’s not the way you think about it,” I said.
“Explain,” said Walt. I’m not sure how he got appointed moderator, but he did seem to be good at it.
“To me it was a five thousand dollar bet on two-to-one odds. I had to risk $5,0000 to maybe win $10,000. When I made that bet, I’d beat Donnie several times and Texas once. Two-to-one is pretty strong odds against people I’ve beat. For me not to make the bet, I figured either I needed to have a less than one in three chance of winning, which I didn’t, or it had to be more than I could afford, which it wasn’t.” Ginny opened her mouth as though to talk but Walt cut her off.
“So you only had five grand up?” Walt asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Only five grand?” Ginny asked. “Who has fifty hundreds in his wallet?” Walt looked at me.
“Yeah, well. Usually I don’t,” I said. “But you wanted to go to Annie’s, and I’ve played it before. Good-sized money changed hands last time I was there. It’s a lot cleaner now. Frat boys and sorority girls.”
“So you’re used to having five thousand dollars in you wallet?” she asked, as though I must be lying.”
“Yeah, sure. Not all the time, but, really, you know, I’m a gambler. Betting is what I do. And the most I ever won in a card game was at a party in New Orleans and I had to go back to my car for openers. I felt like I kid buying in to the grownup table. From then on, if I’m going somewhere I might play cards or pool, I take along some money.”
“Okay, so how much money do you have on you now?” she asked. I hesitated.
“Some,” I said, after a pause.
“Do you have five thousand dollars on you again?” she asked.
“No,” I said, carefully. I was aware that this answer, while accurate, was misleading, and might lead to trouble.
“Thank God,” she said. “Carrying around that kind of cash is just insane.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Wait,” she said, “How do you know you’re telling the truth?”
“I don’t have $5,000 in my wallet,” I said.
“Prove it,” she said.
“This is not going to go well, you know,” I said.
“You’re lying?”
“No, I’m telling the truth. You’re just asking about things that are none of your business.”
“Yean, I probably am,” she said, after a few second’s thought. She chewed her thumbnail more earnestly than was her habit and stared at the lane markers in the headlights. “I’ve never had much money,” she said, after another pause. “My parents are okay, money-wise, but they were determined not to spoil me. So I never had any. We lived on Lookout Mountain but I never had enough change to buy a Coke. So maybe I get worried about money faster than some people. If that’s the problem, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not the deal,” said Walt. I looked at him, surprised. “You’ve played tennis your whole life,” he said.
“And soccer,” Ginny nodded.
“But I’m guessing you’ve never bet on a game on either sport.”
“No, of course not. Nobody bets on tennis,” she said.
“Sure they do,” he said. “Bobby Rigs won a hundred grand betting on himself at Wimbledon. I saw him play a game against somebody in Savannah where he wore a dress, used a frying pan instead of a racket, and had a dachshund on a leash in his left hand the entire game. I heard the bet was for $1,500. He won. But that’s not the point. When you show up at a tennis tournament, you play whoever they tell you to play. When Henry shows up at a pool hall, he can decide whether he wants to play somebody or not, and if so, whether to bet, and if so, how much. It’s a different way of looking at a game.”
He had a point.
“I don’t gamble much at pool, but I seem to do okay,” said Cisco.
“Why do you think that is” I asked. He shrugged.
“It’s just luck,” he said.
“I’m going to guess you’re lucky at poker, too,” I said.
“As a matter of fact, it seems like I’m pretty lucky at cards, too,” Cisco said.
“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” said Walt.
I shook my head. “There’s no such thing as luck,” I said.
“You really believe that?” Walt asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Lookit. Cisco’s lucky with … that is to say, he’s lucky in … other ways, so people think of him as lucky. But the reasons he’s lucky at cards are the same reasons he’s lucky .. in other ways. He’s extremely pleasant and affable, and smart, but he doesn’t give much away. He smiles a lot, but you never know what he’s thinking. He’s good at reading all sorts of nonverbal cues. He picks up on subtle things that everybody else misses. He distracts … people with his charm, but he’s always aware of his opportunities.”
In the rear-view mirror I could see Cisco flash that pirate smile at Ginny. “Just playing hunches,” he said. I imagine she smiled back.
“But what about pool? He usually wins at pool, too,” Walt asked.
“As you so astutely noticed, winning at pool is mainly deciding when to play,” I said. “Every game of chance is also a game of skill. You can play pure chance, but nobody does. Nobody bets on one cut of the cards, or one roll of the dice. We bet on things where some skill is involved. And once that happens, you’re not playing against the odds. If I were betting against the odds, I’d never bet, because long-term, the odds always win. But I’m not betting against the odds, I’m betting against the other guy, and the odds may be harder on him than they are on me. I’ve spent a lot of time playing pool, and it’s been a long time since I saw somebody I was sure was better than me. But if I see that kind of player tomorrow night, I won’t bet. And I think what Cisco’s doing is just putting down the cue when he sees somebody else who’s good.”
“Hey, there’s always something else to do,” said Cisco. “I don’t play any game unless I think I’m going to win.”
“Never?” asked Ginny. “Why?”
“You ‘play’ a game,” Cisco answered. “Play is supposed to be fun. It’s not fun to lose.”
We cruised on down the interstate towards Chattanooga. I thought about games and play and risk.
I had $12,000 in my wallet. I’d been thinking I might borrow Mrs. W’s car and drop by a pool hall while I was in Chattanooga.
“Oh, hi,” said Walt, as though mildly surprised to see us.
“Walt, Henry. Henry, Walt,” said Cisco, unlocking the trunk.
“Walton Gwinnett,” said Walt, extending his hand.
“Henry Baida,” I answered, shaking his hand.
I’d never seen Cisco’s car before. It was a big black Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am without the optional gold detailing. It was clear he liked it. After I looked at it, he looked at me and cocked an eyebrow.
“The gold bird on the hood would have been too much for a guy like you,” I said.
“Damn straight,” he said, smiling, and tossed our bags into the not-so-big trunk. Walt held the door for me to get into the pretty small back seat. No coin toss, no discussion, I was in the back. Cisco started the car and backed out of the parking space. It had a big V-8, Glasspack kind of a rumble. It was already dark. Cisco pulled out of the dorm parking lot onto 21st Ave., then turned right onto Broadway. Walt looked at Cisco with concern.
“Why did you turn the wrong way?” asked Walt.
“We’re picking up a friend of Henry’s,” Cisco answered. Walt nodded idly and lit a cigarette with a metal butane lighter. “Roll down the window, if you’re going to smoke,” said Cisco. Walt’s expression indicated that he thought Cisco’s request to be an affront, but after a pause he complied and cranked down the window. Cisco turned onto Scarritt and found the front of Ginny’s dorm after a few minutes. Ginny was sitting out front, tweed jacket, knitted scarf, white blouse, blue jeans, dark blue Ferragamos, hair pushed back by a black velvet headband. Pretty girl. She didn’t know Cisco or his car, so when she looked at us, it was speculatively.
“Is that her?” Cisco asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Jesus H. Christ, she is lights-out gorgeous,” said Cisco.
“She’s cute,” I agreed. Walt looked up for the first time to see who we were talking about. Cisco cut the engine and hopped out, approaching Ginny directly, and with a smile. He extended his hand.
“Ginny?” he asked, extending his hand. I was sitting behind Walt, and I’d expected him to get out of the car to greet Ginny, but he made no move to do so, so I slid over to exit from the drivers’ side.
“Yes?” Ginny replied, shaking his hand, tentatively.
“I’m Francis. Francis Atwater. A friend of Henry’s.” He was saying this as I was clambering out of his car. Her shaking of his hand became more cooperative and friendly once she saw me. She smiled at him.
“Hey, Ginny,” I said. She looked at me speculatively and waved. It was the first time I’d seen her face to face since my last pool game. She wasn’t sure what she thought of me. Cisco picked up her bag, opened the trunk, made room for her bag, closed the trunk lid, then returned his attention to Ginny. He smiled and placed his hand on her back, cooperatively moving her towards her seat. He opened the passenger door, where Walt was still seated.
“Walt, this is Ginny,” he said. “Ginny’s going to be sitting in the front seat, so you need to move to the back.” Walt tried his best not to frown, and stood up next to Ginny and Cisco. He smiled a hollow smile.
“Hello, Ginny, I’m Walton Gwinnett,” he said, offering his hand. She shook it. He sat in the passenger-side back seat, somewhat heavily, without removing his jacket.
“Hi, Henry,” she said.
“Hey. Good to see you again.” She waved again and sat in the passenger seat. Cisco unhinged the front seat to allow me access to the back seat.
“I wish you were shorter,” I said.
“She’s so cute,” he answered, too softly for her to hear.
“Smart, too,” I said, and got in. There just wasn’t much room in that back seat. Walt frowned at me. Ginny got into the passenger seat before Cisco could get around to hold her door, so she was in before him. He got in, sat, put the key in the ignition, then turned to her and flashed that bandit smile. She almost gasped.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Uh-huhm,” she answered, nodding, captivated. That fast. Cisco eased the Firebird into West End traffic, then navigated his way over to I-24. Once on the freeway he gave Ginny another smile, not so bright as the first.
“So tell me about yourself,” he said. She seemed surprised he asked.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “I’m a sophomore at Peabody. I’m thinking I’ll major in Psychology or Math and get a teacher’s certificate and maybe be a teacher. How about you?”
“You like teaching?” Cisco asked.
“I don’t know, but I think so,” she answered. “Since I was a little kid I’ve been involved in sports, and I’ve always imagined how I would be coaching the teams I’ve been on.”
“What sports?” Cisco asked.
“I like them all, but I mainly play soccer and tennis,” she said.
“So you want to teach Psychology to high school students?”
“That’s the thing. Most high schools don’t have many Psychology classes, maybe one per semester. Peabody has a really good psychology program, but I’m not gonna find a full-time job as a high school psychology teacher so since I’ve always gotten good grades in Math, I was thinking that I could also teach that. Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking now.”
“Henry back there may be good at Math,” he said. I sat up. I hadn’t expected to be mentioned. Walt, who had not seemed to be paying any attention, looked at me laconically and cocked an eyebrow. “Last week I asked him what pi was and he gave it to me to five decimal places,” Cisco said. Walt shook out a Benson & Hedges menthol and was about to place it between his lips. Cisco, displaying a hitherto-unknown eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head talent, said “No smoking, Walt.” Walt made an irritated face and put his cigarette away. Ginny seemed to think for a few seconds.
“Henry took Math from my Aunt Margaret, so I expect he knows it,” she said. I looked up, and saw that Cisco was looking at me inquisitively in the rear view mirror. I nodded. “Sometimes Math isn’t the real question. But the fact that Henry can remember that pi to eleven decimal places just means he has a good memory. It doesn’t mean he’s smart. Don’t get me wrong, Henry,” she said, without looking back at me, “I know you’re smart in math. What if, though, being good in math,” and here she wasn’t talking to me any more, but to Cisco, “causes other problems?”
“What kind of problems does Math lead to?” Cisco asked.
“Accountancy,” said Walt.
“Ignore Walt,” said Cisco. “He’s acting like old money.” Ginny looked at him blankly.
“Careers are a bother.” She nodded as though that explained something.
“Maybe you get to understand something better than the people around you, but still they worry about you. Or you do things that worry them,” she said.
“Like?” Cisco asked.
“Sometimes people do things that people close to them, or around them, or friends of theirs, don’t understand. It can make you think about them … differently.” Walt looked at me.
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Cisco, looking at Ginny earnestly for the second or two traffic safety allowed the driver of a Firebird.
“Sometimes you get an idea about a person, and then they do something, so you get a different idea of them. Enough about me. What about you?”
“Those are great shoes,” Cisco said to Ginny. I couldn’t see them. She smiled and looked at her shoes, then straight ahead into the darkness of I-24, still smiling.
“This ride is only ten minutes old,” said Walt, to me, not loud enough for the front seat to hear.
“I know,” I said.
“What did you do? Fuck her sister?”
“What was that?” asked Ginny.
“Nothing,” Walt and I chimed in together.
“So?” he asked.
“So what?” I answered.
“Did you have sex with her best friend, or what?”
“Gack, no,” I said. “Nothing like that.”
“What are you guys talking about?” she asked.
“Nothing,” we both called out.
“So what?” he asked.
“I won a pool game,” I said.
“So?”
“I bet a lot on it,” I said.
“So?”
“She was worried I was going to lose,” I said.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
“What are you telling him, Henry?” she asked.
“Just guy talk,” I said.
“Don’t get distracted by the back seat, sweetheart,” said Cisco. “You were telling me the story of your life.”
“You’re being very … solicitous,” she said, still smiling.
“I’m just interested in people,” he said. Walt rolled his eyes and laid his head back on the headrest.
“Well,” she said, “I graduated from GPS. I was presented at the Cotton Ball, and most of the girls in my class are friends of mine, but I don’t like all that society stuff. I’m not a very girlie girl, but I think girls and women are important. I like sports but don’t like being called a jock.”
“Why not?” Cisco asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Hard to say. I don’t like labels. Like, I’m all in favor of women’s rights. I hope the E.R.A. passes. I don’t think women should be second-class citizens. But I just don’t like Bella Abzug or Gloria Steinem and would just rather find my own way.”
“It seems like you care pretty deeply about this,” said Cisco, giving her a brief, earnest look.
“Not really,” she said. “My mom and my dad both work and I never grew up with this subservient deal. Nobody ever told me I couldn’t do things because I was a girl. So maybe I didn’t grow up like everybody. But the fact that I think girls should be able to do whatever they want doesn’t mean I want to be Shirley Chisholm.”
“So what do you like about soccer?” he asked. She closed her eyes.
“The beautiful game,” she said. “When I was little, they played me on defense, because I was fast and didn’t have those small skills, those little toe-tapping deals that the coach’s kids had. But once I got to middle school and got on the all-star teams they moved me to forward and anytime a halfback could feed me a ball, I could take a shot. It really is a wicked game. You see the ball sailing through the air, you feel the people around you, and in slow-motion you see whether to head it, chest it, or kick it, and you make your choice and WHAM it slams back into real time and you’re fighting for the ball. It’s just wonderful.”
“I played soccer in high school,” said Cisco.
“Really? What did you play?” she asked.
“I was the goalie.” Walt shook his head dismissively and looked out the window.
“That makes sense, you’re tall,” she said.
“I don’t think I was as talented as you were,” said Cisco, at which Walt’s expression conveyed feigned outrage. Walt didn’t seem to think much of Cisco as a soccer player. “But you also played tennis?” Walt sat up.
“Yeah. Love it.”
“Were you good?”
“Well, I was All-State in Tennessee for three years,” she said.
“Excuse me,” said Walt. “Are you Ginny McColl?”
“That’s me,” she said.
“Jesus,” Walt said. “I saw you play Chrissie Evert in 1972. You damned near beat her.”
“Yeah, well if you’re talking about the Atlanta game, it was an exhibition match, and Chrissie wasn’t playing at her best. She was originally scheduled to play Billie Jean King, but then Billie Jean got worried she might lose and bailed at the last minute, and I just happened to be there.”
“And didn’t you show up at Charlotte and play mixed doubles with Ilie Nastase?”
“I played against him and Rosemary Casals, yes. Margaret Court had the flu, and Marty Reissen asked me to stand in at the last minute.”
“That was a great match,” he said. “You’ve got a hell of a ground stroke.”
“Thanks,” she said. “What took you to Charlotte?”
“I was in men’s doubles. I flagged out of the junior singles in the quarter-finals.”
“Who with? Doubles, I mean.”
“Charlie Owens,” said Walt. She smiled.
“I saw Charlie beat Pete Fleming. Great game. He then hit on me.”
“Sounds like Charlie.”
“I was sixteen.”
“Still sounds like Charlie,” said Walt. “Why aren’t you playing now?”
“Peabody doesn’t have a tennis team,” she said.
“Yeah, but we do, and we’re right across the street. The tennis courts are closer to your dorm than to mine. And several of the women on our team are from Peabody. I don’t know how it works, but if you’re interested, there’s a way for you to play for us, and I’d love to have you as a mixed doubles partner.”
“You’re on the team? The actual S.E.C. team?” she asked.
“Too soon to say,” he answered. “I’m going to try out. I was Georgia All-State and All-Southeast in high school, but I don’t really know if there’s a place for me as a freshman. But I’ve seen you play. With you as a doubles partner, I’d be … we’d be in for sure.”
“That’s very sweet,” she said. “I’d love to.”
“We’ll work it out on the trip back,” he said. “Numbers and all. You’re fit?”
“Not really. Last time I played was over a year ago.”
“Let’s start running together,” he said. She smiled.
“I had no idea you were such a star,” said Cisco, and smiled at her. She noticed.
“I like tennis,” she said.
“What else do you like?” Cisco asked.
“Math, psychology, shoes, soccer, Neil Young, turnip greens, and my Aunt Margaret,” she said.
“And what do you dislike?” Cisco asked. Walt frowned and sat back, aware he’d lost her, at least for the moment.
“Cold ketchup. Gold chains on men. Anchovies. Boiled okra, multiple choice tests, oysters, electric stoves, Scotch whiskey, and backgammon,” she said. “And gambling,” she added, as an afterthought. Walt glanced at me.
“Why gambling?” Cisco asked. Walt looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Sometimes people just gamble insane amounts of money,” she said. “It’s like a compulsion. Maybe like a disease.”
“Are you talking about Henry?” asked Cisco.
“Maybe a little,” she said.
“I thought he won that pool game,” said Cisco.
“He did, but that’s not the point,” she said.
“You were there?” he asked.
“Yes, I was,” she said.
“What happened?” Cisco asked. “Henry won’t talk about it and Milton seems to … exaggerate.”
“Milton?” she asked.
“Jimmy Milton. A guy from our floor. He was there,” said Cisco. Ginny craned around to look at me.
“He was the curly-headed guy sitting next toy you during the game. He smokes,” I said. She frowned slightly, not remembering him. “When Donnie and I went off with his uncle to work out how the money would be held, I asked him to stay with you until I got back,” I said. She shook her head, puzzled.
“I think you must be misremembering,” she said. “I think it was just me and Melissa from my Art History class that waited for you boys to get done talking in secret.”
“All right,” I said. She looked through the window into the darkness as Cisco eased around a semi on I-24. We all looked ahead in the darkness as Cisco merged back into the right lane.
“So tell me the story,” said Cisco, to Ginny. He’d scaled the personality backa few degrees and his tone was more measured. He wanted to hear the story. Ginny paused for a few seconds, twirling her hair. She crossed her legs in a funny way that put her left shoe on the dashboard, then nipped at her index fingernail with her front teeth.
“Well it was just odd,” she said. All I could see was the back of her head. “I knew Henry was a pool player, and we’re both from Chattanooga, and my Aunt Margaret really likes him, so a few weeks ago when this ΣAE from Memphis I know took me to this pace called Annie’s I thought that it would be cool to take Henry there. And so we decided to go to dinner at Elliston’s and then go play pool. I just wanted to see him play, if he was so good. And then when we got to Annie’s he knew people there, but it wasn’t like you know people in college. These people were all … hard, somehow. Even Melissa, who seems sweet as pie in class, she seemed to know this other set of rules.”
“Henry?” Cisco asked me, through the rear-view mirror.
“I met Melissa in Hixson, Tennessee a few years ago. I went to jail for getting in a fight with her boyfriend, a big bruiser whose name I forget. She wasn’t called Melissa, then. Everybody called her Rosie.”
“Why?” Cisco and Ginny asked together.
“They said she was a riveter. Also she has long red curly hair.”
“Looker?” asked Cisco.
“Beautiful,” I answered. Cisco nodded.
“Sorry, Ginny,” said Cisco. Ginny cocked her head and I could see she was frowning a little, as though she wanted to argue whether Melissa was beautiful or not. “So tell me the rest of the story.”
“Well, the boys started playing pool, and Henry takes over for this strange little guy he seems to know…”
“That was Milton,” I said.
“Who?” she asked.
“Milton. The guy we were talking about earlier.”
“Okay,” she said, a little hesitantly. “Then they started making bets. And every time they did, Melissa, who I would say was dressed a little trampy, would hop off her stool and scoop up the money, and I think maybe she was slipping it into her bra. I didn’t really want to look.” Cisco looked at me in the rear vie mirror. I nodded. Walt, who had given no indication he was paying any attention at all, leaned back his head and grinned at the mental image.
“How much?” asked Cisco.
“I don’t really remember,” she said. “Not much, at first.”
“Henry?” asked Walt.
“Milt was thirty bucks up. I bought his game for forty bucks.”
“Interesting,” said Cisco.
“He was playing a hustler I know from outside Chattanooga. Good player.”
“Sooo … You were doing Milt a favor?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Funny,” he answered. “That’s not the way Milt tells it.”
“He’ll play that game by himself some day,” I said. I could see Cisco smile in the rear view mirror.
“So what happened next?” Cisco asked Ginny.
“Odd being outnumbered by boys,” she answered
“What?”
“I have two sisters. I went to a girl’s high school, and played sports on girls’ teams. It’s just odd to be in a conversation where everyone else is boys. You keep veering off into odd directions.”
“Sorry. I want to hear the story,” said Cisco.
“Okay. Well, at first it was really outa’ sight. Henry dropped two twenties on the table and Melissa came over and scooped them up and I felt like, wicked cool, because I just wanted to see him play and here we were already in a big money game, although I wasn’t sure why Melissa got to keep all the money. But they all seemed to know her, for some reason, and then Henry won that first game, the forty dollar one, and I’m all excited, thinking ‘Jeez, he’s really good, and he just won forty dollars, which is a fantastic amount of money for winning a pool game,’ and then the guy he was playing wanted to play for four times that.” Her head sagged. “That’s an astonishing amount of money to gamble, I’m thinking,” she said. “I mean, that’s more money than some people make in a week.”
“Henry?” asked Cisco.
“Yeah, Donnie wanted to bet $160, but my money was all on the table, anyway. But I’d beat him three out of three at the Hixson Lanes.”
“Sorry,” said Cisco, to Ginny.
“Are you sure you want to hear my story?” Ginny asked. “Because it sounds like what you want to hear is me telling Henry’s story.”
“Yeah, fair enough,” said Cisco. Walt waved his head from side to side as if to express that he understood her point.
“So after that Henry lost. He seemed so good, but this other guy was better, and at one point Henry forked over $120 on top of $40 so he was gambling $160 on one pool game! It was just insane. And he won that but then the guy in the orange tee shirt doubled down on him again and he lost. He lost $320. That’s just insane.
“Why?” Cisco asked.
“$320 is as much spending money as I’ll need for the entire semester. To bet it all on a pool game is just … dangerous.”
“Yeah, but what happened next?” Cisco asked.
“Henry doubled down again. It was way past time to stop. But he put six hundred dollars down on the table. Have you ever seen a hundred dollar bill?” Cisco smiled.
“Not often,” he said.
“Well Henry had six of them. And that was only the start. The guy from Texas then said they should play this other game for $15,000.” Walt sat up and looked at me. I shrugged.
“Milton said it was Cutthroat,” said Cisco.
“I guess that’s what they said,” Ginny answered. “But it turns out Henry had $5,000 in his wallet, and he laid it down to make that bet. I was just stunned when I saw he was carrying around $600, I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that before. But then he laid down fifty hundreds. Fifty. I’ve never seen that much money before. It was bad enough that he had it on him. That he was betting it nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Why are you so worried?” Cisco asked. “It’s not your money.”
“I like Henry. I don’t like seeing him doing something stupid. I mean, he could have lost his entire education fund.” Walt glanced sideways at me. I shook my head.
“So how did the game go?” Cisco asked.
“It was awful,” she said. “Every time he took a shot, if he missed it, it might cost him $15,0000.” Walt looked at me. I shook my head no.
“So how many did he miss?” Cisco asked. There was a pause.
“I don’t remember,” she answered. Okay, this was fucked up. I hadn’t missed any shots in that last game, and that’s the game she was talking about.
“So who won?” Cisco asked. He knew the answer, but he was talking to Ginny.
“Henry won,” Ginny said. “But that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?” asked Cisco.
“It could have gone horribly wrong. Some chances you just don’t take.”
“He won a lot, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“From what I hear, it was like enough to pay for two years of college,” Cisco said.
“I suppose,” said Ginny.
“And he won,” said Cisco.
“Yes, but he shouldn’t have taken the risk,” she said, primly and confidently. There was a long silence in the car. After a few minutes Walt spoke up.
“I have a Jeep.”
“Yeah?” asked Cisco.
“I like to ride off-road. Nobody else at Westminster seemed to go for it, so I kept it to myself. But on weekends, I’d drive up just north or Atlanta and run around on dirt tracks through mud. Hell of a time,” said Walt. There was a pause of a few seconds.
“Don’t your parents belong to the Piedmont Driving Club?” asked Cisco.
“Yes, of course,” answered Walt. There was another awkward pause.
“Okay,” Walt continued. “So last year I got stuck in a traffic jam outside of Athens on 85. I wasn’t sure what caused the jam, but we were pointed south and traffic south wasn’t moving at all. I actually know that area outside Athens pretty well. My dad used to take me dove hunting not far from there. So I decided that waiting in the traffic on I-85 was getting us nowhere, so I decided to cut across the median, do a freeway u-turn, and pick up US 79 south, which I’d done many times when I was playing in lots of tennis tournaments. University of Georgia is p there and at the time I thought I wanted to go to Georgia and play on their tennis team. So whenever they sponsored a tournament, or even a clinic, I went. So I knew where I was and the median was no problem in a Jeep so I cruised across the median and headed north.”
Ginny was silent. “Okay,” I said, not sure where he was going with the story.
“I was dating a girl named Janie at the time,” Walt said. “Beautiful girl. Met her at a tennis tournament. She played for North Springs, third starter for singles and lead on women’s doubles. Gorgeous and smart.” Ginny looked at him as though she wasn’t sure she liked this story. “So I was driving my CJ, although you could have crossed that median in any passenger car. It was flat and grassy and dry, and so we headed back north on 85. Janie got wide-eyed and freaked out when I got on the median and said she couldn’t believe I’d done that. I didn’t get it and asked ‘Did what?’ and it turns out she was upset because I drove across the median! I resented this ‘cause I knew what I was doing, I mean I’d driven through mud flats and deep swamps and over big rocks so I was tres qualified to drive across a median strip, or to decide whether it was safe to drive across a median strip, in a Jeep, but I just pointed out to her hat I didn’t even have to shift to four wheel drive, that it was perfectly safe, and that I’d spent millions of hours driving through swamps and mud and dirt and wouldn’t have done it if I thought there’d been any risk at all. She asked me what woulda happened if we’d gotten stuck? She kept asking that over and over. She couldn’t accept that I actually knew what I was doing. She didn’t think the fact that I’d been right, that we gotten across the median with no trouble at all, meant anything. She was stuck on the fact that I’d taken a risk that she wouldn’t have taken. Because she woulda been uncomfortable driving like that herself, she didn’t think I should, either. The fact that I had more experience and was actually right cut no ice.” Ginny had her back to me but I could tell she was scraping her index finger across her incisors. There was a pause.
“But Henry could have lost fifteen thousand dollars.” I shook my head. Lordy.
“Henry?” Walt asked me.
“The most I could have lost was five kay,” I said. “It was like a fifteen thousand dollar bet only in one sense. And that’s not the way you think about it,” I said.
“Explain,” said Walt. I’m not sure how he got appointed moderator, but he did seem to be good at it.
“To me it was a five thousand dollar bet on two-to-one odds. I had to risk $5,0000 to maybe win $10,000. When I made that bet, I’d beat Donnie several times and Texas once. Two-to-one is pretty strong odds against people I’ve beat. For me not to make the bet, I figured either I needed to have a less than one in three chance of winning, which I didn’t, or it had to be more than I could afford, which it wasn’t.” Ginny opened her mouth as though to talk but Walt cut her off.
“So you only had five grand up?” Walt asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Only five grand?” Ginny asked. “Who has fifty hundreds in his wallet?” Walt looked at me.
“Yeah, well. Usually I don’t,” I said. “But you wanted to go to Annie’s, and I’ve played it before. Good-sized money changed hands last time I was there. It’s a lot cleaner now. Frat boys and sorority girls.”
“So you’re used to having five thousand dollars in you wallet?” she asked, as though I must be lying.”
“Yeah, sure. Not all the time, but, really, you know, I’m a gambler. Betting is what I do. And the most I ever won in a card game was at a party in New Orleans and I had to go back to my car for openers. I felt like I kid buying in to the grownup table. From then on, if I’m going somewhere I might play cards or pool, I take along some money.”
“Okay, so how much money do you have on you now?” she asked. I hesitated.
“Some,” I said, after a pause.
“Do you have five thousand dollars on you again?” she asked.
“No,” I said, carefully. I was aware that this answer, while accurate, was misleading, and might lead to trouble.
“Thank God,” she said. “Carrying around that kind of cash is just insane.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Wait,” she said, “How do you know you’re telling the truth?”
“I don’t have $5,000 in my wallet,” I said.
“Prove it,” she said.
“This is not going to go well, you know,” I said.
“You’re lying?”
“No, I’m telling the truth. You’re just asking about things that are none of your business.”
“Yean, I probably am,” she said, after a few second’s thought. She chewed her thumbnail more earnestly than was her habit and stared at the lane markers in the headlights. “I’ve never had much money,” she said, after another pause. “My parents are okay, money-wise, but they were determined not to spoil me. So I never had any. We lived on Lookout Mountain but I never had enough change to buy a Coke. So maybe I get worried about money faster than some people. If that’s the problem, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not the deal,” said Walt. I looked at him, surprised. “You’ve played tennis your whole life,” he said.
“And soccer,” Ginny nodded.
“But I’m guessing you’ve never bet on a game on either sport.”
“No, of course not. Nobody bets on tennis,” she said.
“Sure they do,” he said. “Bobby Rigs won a hundred grand betting on himself at Wimbledon. I saw him play a game against somebody in Savannah where he wore a dress, used a frying pan instead of a racket, and had a dachshund on a leash in his left hand the entire game. I heard the bet was for $1,500. He won. But that’s not the point. When you show up at a tennis tournament, you play whoever they tell you to play. When Henry shows up at a pool hall, he can decide whether he wants to play somebody or not, and if so, whether to bet, and if so, how much. It’s a different way of looking at a game.”
He had a point.
“I don’t gamble much at pool, but I seem to do okay,” said Cisco.
“Why do you think that is” I asked. He shrugged.
“It’s just luck,” he said.
“I’m going to guess you’re lucky at poker, too,” I said.
“As a matter of fact, it seems like I’m pretty lucky at cards, too,” Cisco said.
“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” said Walt.
I shook my head. “There’s no such thing as luck,” I said.
“You really believe that?” Walt asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Lookit. Cisco’s lucky with … that is to say, he’s lucky in … other ways, so people think of him as lucky. But the reasons he’s lucky at cards are the same reasons he’s lucky .. in other ways. He’s extremely pleasant and affable, and smart, but he doesn’t give much away. He smiles a lot, but you never know what he’s thinking. He’s good at reading all sorts of nonverbal cues. He picks up on subtle things that everybody else misses. He distracts … people with his charm, but he’s always aware of his opportunities.”
In the rear-view mirror I could see Cisco flash that pirate smile at Ginny. “Just playing hunches,” he said. I imagine she smiled back.
“But what about pool? He usually wins at pool, too,” Walt asked.
“As you so astutely noticed, winning at pool is mainly deciding when to play,” I said. “Every game of chance is also a game of skill. You can play pure chance, but nobody does. Nobody bets on one cut of the cards, or one roll of the dice. We bet on things where some skill is involved. And once that happens, you’re not playing against the odds. If I were betting against the odds, I’d never bet, because long-term, the odds always win. But I’m not betting against the odds, I’m betting against the other guy, and the odds may be harder on him than they are on me. I’ve spent a lot of time playing pool, and it’s been a long time since I saw somebody I was sure was better than me. But if I see that kind of player tomorrow night, I won’t bet. And I think what Cisco’s doing is just putting down the cue when he sees somebody else who’s good.”
“Hey, there’s always something else to do,” said Cisco. “I don’t play any game unless I think I’m going to win.”
“Never?” asked Ginny. “Why?”
“You ‘play’ a game,” Cisco answered. “Play is supposed to be fun. It’s not fun to lose.”
We cruised on down the interstate towards Chattanooga. I thought about games and play and risk.
I had $12,000 in my wallet. I’d been thinking I might borrow Mrs. W’s car and drop by a pool hall while I was in Chattanooga.
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