Blind Your Ponies (41 page)

Maggie closed her eyes. She was shutting him out. Mervin let go of her hand and stood.

“I’ll let you rest now.”

“You’ll let me die now, don’t you mean?” she said, opening her eyes. “Maybe you already did that thirty-five years ago.”

Mervin sucked it up and picked up his hat.

“Good-by, Maggie.” His voice trembled.

“Good-by, Paint.”

He nearly lost his balance leaving the room and closing the large door gently. Carl stood by a window with another man. Mervin waved a hand for his brother to follow him and then he walked down the corridor away from the others. When Carl caught up with him, Mervin turned and gathered himself, straining to hold back stampeding wild horses, with every nerve ending in the attack mode, his fists swelling hammer heads.

“She told me what you did to her back then. And now it’s too late to do anything about it. But hear me well, you sonofabitch. Don’t ever let me catch you anywhere around Willow Creek,
ever,
or I will do to you what I would have done to you the night you raped Maggie in your pickup!”

“Now just wait—”

“You killed us, our life, Maggie and me. You are no longer my brother. May you rot in hell for what you did! I would kill you in the blink of an eye if it would bring Maggie back.”

Mervin turned for the elevator and the way out. His legs felt weak and he couldn’t catch his breath and the hospital corridors seemed to blur. When he found his pickup, still in the No Parking space, he fled out of town. He didn’t know where he was going, the road was awash in his eyes, he feared the veins in his head would burst.

He had given up on her, he had thrown it away because he was a proud, selfish bastard. Where do you go? What do you do when you’ve had your chance at life and you’ve thrown it away and when you’ve seen it go to ruin and loss? He was driving away again, away from Maggie, away from his life, from his love.

He drove aimlessly. He prayed to God there was forgiveness in her last words, the affectionate nickname she used to call him.

She had called him
Paint.

Sam arrived at the gym before anyone else on Saturday After-noon. Without turning on a light, he stood at the edge of the shadowed court. This would be their final game in this building, and an unexpected nostalgia engulfed him; the season had passed so quickly. From here on they would hold off the inevitable demise that defeat would bring to their fragile and faultless fraternity, the dissolution of their season, and their once-in-a-lifetime comradeship. They would never play here again.

A
PHOTOGRAPHER FROM
Three Forks set them in a pose under the south backboard: Olaf in the middle, flanked by Tom and Curtis. Rob and Pete and Dean knelt in front. Sam stood on the outside next to Tom. Miss Murphy and Scott smiled from the other side, next to Curtis. All the players wore their bright new uniforms. They bantered and laughed as the thin, birdlike man in an undertaker’s attire fussed and aligned them with painstaking care.

“Thanks for letting me shave this morning, men,” Sam said, revealing a slight smile on his face. He had realized the no-shaving-until-they-lost was a short-lived and corny gimmick.

“We didn’t want you looking grubby for the team picture,” Rob said.

“Don’t move, don’t move,” the photographer said. “You there, the boy on the outside, turn your head a little to the left.”

Curtis turned his head slightly, and Sam figured the man was trying desperately to conceal Curtis’s ears.

“We lost because we didn’t want Miss Murphy to have rug burn all over her face,” Pete said.

“What makes you think I’d have it all over my
face
?” Diana said.

That shut them up for a while as they pondered her meaning. Sam fought off a blush with his own interpretation.

When their uniforms were hung neatly on coat hangers and the team was
ready to leave, Sam had them sit on the bench in the little rectangular locker room. Diana leaned against the cinder-block wall near the doorway.

“Get something to eat and be back here by six-thirty.” He paused. “You played well last night. I’m proud of you. You didn’t get beat.”

Some of the boys exchanged glances.

“I got outcoached. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

Sam took a breath and tried to push his missing glasses up on his nose.

“Tonight is the last game of the regular season. We’ve come a long way since that first game. You’ve all worked hard. Now there’s one thing I want you to think about. What will you remember we accomplished after this team picture was taken when you gaze at it in twenty or thirty years? You have the opportunity to write that memory. I hope you write one that is wonderful and shining and full of joy.”

The team spontaneously huddled around him and joined hands with both coaches and Scott.

“Win! win! win! win! win!”

Nine voices bombarding the concrete walls, seeping through the cracks out into the cold February Afternoon and dispersing into thin air, like their odds of winning in the days to come.

T
HE
S
HIELDS
V
ALLEY
boys came to the wrong town on the wrong night. They’d have done better to have stayed at home. The local fans filled the bleachers on the east side of the gym and spilled over onto the west side with only a small contingent journeying from the Shields Valley. The loss at Gardiner and the losing season hadn’t seemed to discourage many Willow Creek fans as in the past five years. What was it about these boys? Was it Olaf they came to see? Sam was baffled. He couldn’t help but notice that Claire Painter was in the bleachers without Mervin, something else he’d never seen.

Once the game got under way it turned into a party. The fans shouted and cheered and displayed emotions that had been in mothballs for many tedious years. The team played the way Sam knew they could and though it was only by five points, the boys won their final game on the home court with class.

While Dean proudly pushed his sister around the gym, babbling to her
about the game and rolling her toward the basket as though going in for a layup, Sam caught Sally Cutter pulling on her coat beside the bleachers.

“I’m glad you were able to come,” Sam said. “I know it means a lot to Dean.”

She nodded wearily. “Thank you for the tickets.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, we always have a bunch we give out to some of the players’ families. Does Denise enjoy the games?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, becoming more animated than Sam had ever seen her. “She loves to come and watch the boys.”

“Well, she’s a great fan. I hope she can come to the tournament. She brings us good luck.”

“Oh, I don’t think we can do that.”

“Don’t worry about transportation or tickets or any of that. If she’s able, we want her there.”

“That’s mighty kind of you.”

“And we’d like Dean’s father to come, too.”

“Oh, I don’t think he will. He’s kinda funny about some things.”

Dean wheeled Denise to where they stood, and Sam gazed down into her disarming face and smiled.

“I’m glad you were here tonight, Denise, you helped us win. We need you.”

She tilted her head and twisted her soundless mouth.

Sam had an overwhelming desire to scoop this helpless child out of her hopeless chair and wrap her in his arms, promising her that they all would win. He stood frozen for a moment. Then he knelt in front of her chair and dared to venture into her sailing blue eyes.

“We really need you,” he said.

She exuded a brightness with her bearing, through her skin, as if from some light deep inside. Then her mother wheeled her away.

D
IANA HAD GONE
ahead and saved a table for them in the crowded Blue Willow. When Sam arrived he noticed small outbreaks of euphoria and optimism regarding their chances in next week’s tournaments. It reminded Sam once more of the indestructible longing to win in the human breast.

Diana looked up from her game book as Sam slid into a chair. She’d ordered his favorite hamburger but he still couldn’t eat the homemade French fries.

“How’s this for balance,” Diana said. “Rob seventeen, Pete twenty-one, Olaf fifteen, Tom thirteen, Curtis one, and Dean didn’t score. Have you ever thought what it would be like if we had two or three more players?”

Sam set down his hamburger and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Yeah, have I ever, especially now with tournaments. But they complement each other so well: Tom’s muscle, Olaf’s height, Rob’s consistency, Pete’s dash, Curtis’s work ethic, and Dean’s hustle. It’s like they’ve each filled a hole in the puzzle, like they each found his role.”

“But they have to play the entire game with little or no rest,” Diana said.

“Yeah, that’s their Achilles. We should have brought twins over from Norway.”

Andrew, navigating through a constant flow of well-wishers, came to the table.

“You two deserve a tremendous amount of credit. Imagine it! We hadn’t won a game in ages and tonight we’ve won our
fourth.
”

“Thanks, but that’s where the credit goes.” Sam nodded at the boys, crowded around the red player piano as Olaf pumped out “Auld Lang Syne.”

“How did you get the board to buy new uniforms?” Diana asked.

“There wasn’t time for a formal meeting,” Andrew said. “Though we’ve taken in more revenue from the last six games than anyone can remember. The uniforms were from an anonymous donor.”

“They got here just in time,” Sam said. “Thanks for getting it done.”

Andrew glanced around the dining room and into the tavern side.

“Look at these people,” he said, “they’re excited and looking forward to the tournaments. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone in this town wanted to admit there even
were
tournaments? All it ever meant was two more humiliating defeats.”

“Don’t forget, friend, it could still mean two more humiliating defeats,” Sam said.

Andrew leaned between the two of them and regarded Sam. “Sam, do you really believe that?”

“With those uniforms, who could beat them?” Sam said, trying for a cheerful note in his voice, unwilling to admit the inbred pessimism that warned him against painful expectations.

Grandma Chapman barged through the front door and scrambled her way to the team, speaking frantically. The boys jumped up and headed for the door. Sam intercepted her in the crowd.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Parrot got outside. I can’t find him, he’ll die in this cold.”

“Hey! Yo!” Sam shouted.

The crowd hushed and listened.

“Grandma’s parrot got loose outside. It’ll freeze out there. Let’s go help her find it!”

He pulled on his coat and pushed through the door, followed by Diana and almost everyone in the inn. They fanned out, covering the neighborhood around Elizabeth Chapman’s house. With only the few streetlights it was difficult to see. Gradually a number of flashlights began beaming into leafless trees, sweeping rooft ops, and tracing power lines. People stumbled through yards and along fence lines, searching under cars and atop buildings, shouting to one another throughout the town. The temperature had fallen to below zero, and after a while, many of the searchers gave up and retreated to the warmth of the inn. Sam pushed through the front door.

“Anyone find it?” he said.

“That bird is frozen solid,” Vera said.

“It couldn’t last long out there tonight,” Axel said.

“That thing should have died a long time ago,” Hazel said.

“It’s probably headed for South America,” John English said.

Gradually the Blue Willow filled again, and then Grandma came in, trembling with the cold and grief.

“Anybody see him?” she said. She swiped her dripping nose.

No one answered.

“You stay in and warm up some,” Hazel said. “You’ll catch your death out there.”

“He might still be alive,” she said and turned to go.

“Let’s warm up a bit,” Sam said, “and we’ll go at it again.” Sam helped her into a chair and Axel brought a steaming cup of Coffee.

“I have to get back and look,” she said.

She was about to stand, when Pete and Olaf scrambled through the door.

“Did you see him?” Grandma asked, tears filling her eyes.

Pete kneeled beside his shivering grandmother and opened his coat. A familiar squawk emanated from somewhere around his chest.

“Ooooohhhh, you
found
him, you
found
him!”

She gently lifted the parrot from inside Pete’s jacket and cuddled the bird to her breast. A cheer arose from the cluster that had crowded around Grandma and the boys.

“No,
we
didn’t find him,” Pete said when the noise subsided.

“Who did?” Grandma said.

Olaf opened his jacket and Tripod stuck his head out, content to remain next to the warm body of his Scandinavian host.

“Tripod?” Grandma said.

“Yeah,” Pete said happily. “I figured he always kept track of Parrot like his lunch. So I let him out of the house and he went bouncing all over the place.”

“Where was the bird?” Sam asked.

“In Bremer’s old outhouse,” Pete said.

Everyone laughed. Sam thought he should’ve known.

“Tripod led us right to him,” Pete continued. “I’d have never looked in there. He must have gone in through that little moon on the door.”

Applause arose from the happy group and Olaf held the three-legged cat aloft. The cheery bunch spread out, filling the tables and crowding the bar, more alive and boisterous than before. Diana, standing beside him, looked into Sam’s eyes and nodded at the door.

“I’m cold. Let’s go light a candle.”

He leaned toward her and kissed her on the forehead.

“Coffee and Pepsi on the house!” Axel shouted.

“Up your ass,” Parrot shot back.

Grandma smiled through chattering teeth. But she’d been had. Now everyone in tarnation knew how much she loved that flea-bitten, foul mouthed bird.

Sam paused at the table, still trying to keep their love affair from the full-blown winds of Willow Creek gossip by letting Diana leave alone for home. He had come to care about these people deeply over the years, and he hoped, as he witnessed the frivolity from this night’s winning, that they weren’t setting themselves up for the wrenching and inevitable loss to come.