Everything on the Line (19 page)

And now the Buckeyes recover a fumble in their own territory and can’t advance the ball on their first three downs and there’s one second left in the game and their only option is to send freshman sub John Gabelino out there to kick what would be a school-record 67-yard field goal under the direst of circumstances and that’s what they do and frosh Gabelino’s knees are shaking not so much from fear as from the fact that the thermometer now reads five below zero and the snap is good and the kick is airborne and it might have the distance but it’s starting to hook and 105,749 fans are standing and going ballistic and
doink!
the ball hits the left goalpost and ricochets down and hits the crossbar and dribbles excruciatingly slowly across the bar and finally drops…
over it!

And the Ohio State Buckeyes have pulled this one out of their cloacal aperture to prevail, 34-31, and Ohio Stadium is absolute bedlam and the roar exiting the frozen throats of the OSU horde can be heard all the way in Pataskala and West Jefferson and the ghost of Wayne Woodrow Hayes is hovering over the stadium and, exposing the gap between his two front teeth, the legendary coach is smiling contentedly.

Ira Spade leans over to Jack and whispers in his ear the famous quote uttered almost a century ago by then-assistant Buckeyes coach, Lou Holtz:

The people of Columbus are great. They’re behind you 100%, win or tie.

Jack Spade understands the lesson taught to him by his father, the same lesson as always, the lesson that losing is never an option and that winning is the Great American Dream. He understands that his father is talking about Ohio State but even more about him and the Australian Open, and he understands how important it is for him to win this upcoming major and to beat Ugo Bellezza and to be number one and he wants to smile at his father and show him that he gets it and that he appreciates the sentiment but he can’t right now because his entire face is as frozen as the Arctic tundra.

* * *

The bristles of Ira Spade’s black mustache are as stiff as those of a brush suffused with two-day-old paint.

It is Sunday morning, November 26, the day after the OSU-Michigan game, and Ira and Jack are in the middle of a furious practice session in the brand-new indoor Kenny Road Tennis Club, a “bubble” shaped like a giant triple igloo and reinforced with minimal insulation. Ira has instructed that the thermostat be turned down to 40 degrees and it is minus fifteen outside, which explains the spiky nature of his subnasal growth.

To Ira’s delight, Jack is freezing in this arctic environment yet gritting his teeth and being stubbornly determined in spite of it.
Mission accomplished.

The workout is proceeding swimmingly, and frigid Jack is on fire. As proficient and savvy as Ira Spade is on the tennis court, for the first time ever he is finding it difficult to keep up with his supremely talented and possessed young charge: Mr. Spade is no match for Mr. Hyde.

“Listen here, you sonuvabitch,” Ira barks during a break, the frozen spikes of his mustache protruding outward, like a great white shark’s upper row of teeth. “This Bellezza kid? He’s gonna be tough, and I mean
tough
. He’s got a helluva game and he’s proven how great and tough he is time and again. And right now, looks like you two are neck and neck. But guess what. You are
tougher
! You think I brought you out here in this freezing goddam Ohio weather for nothing? Listen, when you get Down Under to Melbourne, where it’s gonna be over 100 frigging degrees, this’ll feel to you like you were in San Diego. Anyway, I’ll be goddamned if we’re gonna let Bellezza bypass you and be the best ever. That honor was reserved for you, and you alone, y’hear?

“Now, I heard something about this kid’s having a soft spot. He’s apparently interested in poetry and art and all that sissy stuff, y’know? It’s all a buncha crap, and besides, how can a softie Italiano like that
be better than you
? And to top it off…
he can’t even frigging
hear
! Well, we’ll show him! You and I are gonna go down there to Melbourne and show him what America’s all about, and who’s a
real
winner. That’s all that matters, so just remember all those quotes from good ol’ Woody Hayes when you’re bashing this Bellezza kid’s brains in.

Ira is spent and beginning to lose all feeling in his extremities.

“Okay, nice workout today, let’s hit the showers,” he says to Jack.

A nearly frozen Mr. Hyde is slowly transforming himself back to Dr. Jekyll and throws a towel around his neck. “Yep, we’ll show him,
and
how
!” Jack says to his father. “I’ll never disappoint you.”

As father and son trudge painfully to the men’s locker room, Ira is thinking about the huge goddam Norman Brookes Trophy that will be awarded to the next Aussie Open men’s winner, the mammoth silver bowl planted on top of a pedestal and with the characters 2052
JACK SPADE
engraved in silver below.

Jack is thinking about the last four words that came out of his mouth.

* * *

It is 11:59
P.M.
on Sunday evening, November 26
th
, the day after the OSU-Michigan game, and Avis Spade is all alone in her Manhattan apartment, in her son Jack’s bathroom.

It is November 26
th
, the day Avis Spade was born, and her globe-trotting husband and son have once again forgotten to call her from the road to wish her a happy birthday.

It has been quite a day for Avis, spent alone doing errands and reading and making phone calls and sending e-mails and working out at the gym, but mostly sitting by the phone and waiting for
the call
.

And now her birthday is nearly over and the Cinderella hour is almost upon her, and she is sitting on the floor of Jack’s bathroom, a room she spends almost no time in because of her respect for her son’s privacy, yet here she is, her back leaning against the tiled wall, her mind racing with thoughts that are not good at all.

She is thinking about how the entire day has gone by without a peep from Ira and she can understand that maybe, but why can’t Jack, her only child, break away from his father for just one tiny minute and make a simple phone call? and she has through the years learned to tolerate the loneliness but has never quite gotten used to being
forgotten
and she is also thinking about the dreadful visit she got in the early afternoon today from Odi Mondheim and how he told her he just came to talk a little business and how that sounded strange since he always does his business with Ira and never with her so why is he here?

And she is thinking about how Odi looked at her with that funny, twisted look and how he approached her, like Uriah Heep with those beady little eyes and rubbing his hands together, and then about how the short, fat, bald, chinless Odi Mondheim with the Dick Cheney sneer actually
touched her hand!
and how she withdrew it immediately and let out a shriek that sent Odi fleeing the apartment, like a rat in the attic munching on a stolen wedge of cheese is frightened away by a sudden noise, and she is still feeling the touch of his hairy, pudgy little hand on hers and is filled once again with revulsion and disgust for Odi and now, many hours later, for her very life.

Avis Spade is sitting here, all alone on Jack’s bathroom floor, lost in her gloomy thoughts, and in the palm of her left hand is a large number of small white oval pills, two dozen perhaps, just sitting there in her motionless hand, and she is still deep in her lugubrious thoughts and a single fat tear forms in her left eye and freezes there.

On the sink nearby is an empty pharmaceutical bottle with a white label, on which are typed the words:

XANAX 4 MG TABLET

GENERIC FOR: ALPRAZOLAM

14

Strine Opn

TSUM RIN MELBN N STOIM FUHTH STRINE OPN, MITE! Or, in non-Australian English: “It’s summer in Melbourne and it’s time for the Australian Open, mate!”

It is January of 2052, summertime for Aussies since the seasons Down Under are Upside Down, and it is indeed Australian Open time in the south of the state of Victoria, and also time for yet another expected major showdown between the two most dominant twenty-one-year-olds of all time, Ugo Bellezza and Jack Spade.

Xoitment zin the air, because potentially it will be the sixth consecutive year Jack and Ugo will have met in the finals of the Aussie Open and, incredibly, the sixteenth major finals they will have contested (they’ve never met at Wimbledon). For five years now, each player has been trying to establish some daylight between himself and his rival, but so far to no avail, both Ugo and Jack having racked up an improbable ten majors apiece.

And here they are in Melbourne, city of beautiful old parks and gardens, the Yarra River running through it, Victorian buildings and modern skyscrapers intermingling. In abso-bloody-lutely gawgeous ol’ Melbn they are, and there are shrimps on the barbie and cricket balls and Aussie rules footballs in the air, and crikey and bugger me dead it’s bloody hot in here, so crank up the egg nishner, Melba, and how ya goin’? and no problems, mite, and g’dye and scona bee a Gloria sty, yep, sure
is
going to be a glorious day, and bloody oath, seems like every fair dinkum Aussie, every Sheila and every Joe is in a pub now throwing back an amber fluid, a coldie, probly a Swan’s or a Grumpy’s or a Piss Weak or an Emu Bitter or a Red Ant or a Tooheys New, mite, and some even have a gutful of piss, they’ve throw down one too many stubbies, I reckon, and some even have the wobbly boot on, and it seems like every fair dinkum Aussie’s bendin’ the elbow and knockin’ back a tinny, that is, ’cept for those old girls, those mums outside in the bloody heat pushing their little ankle biters in prams, holy dooley and stone the crows!

* * *

Ugo and Giglio are chatting in a far corner of the men’s locker room a few hours before Ugo’s opening match against the promising Thai prodigy, Paradorn Siributparapathpornpongnonthaboonpot.

“And one more thing,
ragazzo
, before you take the court,” Giglio signs to Ugo. “Never forget your history. Remember where you are now, and respect the game the Australians have played since the days of the great old coach, Harry Hopman. Remember that the temple of their wonderful tennis has always been based on the great pillars of fitness and sportsmanship and camaraderie. Remember also that although they have produced some of the greatest singles players ever, players like Bromwich and Sedgman and Hoad and Rosewall and Laver and Emerson and Newcombe, they have also come in magnificent pairs, demonstrating their unselfishness and strategic brilliance. Quist and Bromwich, Sedgman and McGregor, Hoad and Rosewall, Rose and Hartwig, Cooper and Anderson, Laver and Fraser, Emerson and Stolle, Newcombe and Roche, Alexander and Dent, McNamee and MacNamara, the Woodies… So just go out there, like you always do, with empathy in your heart and sportsmanship in your spirit, and make not only Italy, but also Australia proud!”

* * *

“Now, go out there and beat that Russian sonuvabitch!” Ira shouts at Jack inside the rented Mercedes 2900SLR-VX before his son’s first-round match with Igor Pakalenko. “Last time you two played, you didn’t have your usual killer instinct and you let him get that game in the second set that prevented you from bageling him. I want you to go out there and win ugly and manhandle him and rip him apart. And never forget your history: Win or—”

“Die!”
Jack says, partly because he believes it and partly to placate his father.

As they walk to Rod Laver Arena for Jack’s match, Ira is thinking about how big this major is and maybe just maybe how it is the first step in Jack’s journey to claim the number one spot all for himself and not to have to share it anymore with that deaf Italian kid and how he, Ira, is on the threshold of giving meaning,
real meaning
, to his life.

Jack is thinking about how much he wants to please his father, this man who has given him so much, who has wanted him to succeed so much, to whom he owes so much, but also about how this very same man has stifled him and frustrated him and prevented him from living a normal life and having a girlfriend and now he is thinking back on his entire existence and on all his missed opportunities and on what he hasn’t been allowed to do, like go to a regular school and date and have friends, and all that he has sacrificed because of his father’s obsessive insistence on his becoming the best tennis player in the history of the planet.

* * *

Festive is what Melbourne Park—formerly Flinders Park—is now, on this men’s semifinals day, despite the fact that this is the hottest January since 2028, checking in at 109 degrees and a sizzling 123 on court, which is so hot you could fry a googie on it.

But no problems, mite, this is the Strine Opn and Bloody Nora the capacity crowd of 14,958 in Rod Laver Arena is keen as mustard and the stands are a sea of floppy hats and cheeks painted with the red-white-and-blue Aussie flag with the Union Jack and the six stars and the national colors of green and gold are displayed on bare chests and T-shirts and flags and fans and banners and almost to a person the fans are cheering like bloody hell for their mite, countryman Lance Donald, who is surprising Jack Spade early on with his nearly flawless playing.

“So, mite, didja put the Jack-and-Jill in Donald’s Gytoryde?” Aussie drug dealer Malcolm Iagowicz whispers out of the left corner of his mouth to Odi Mondheim in their box seats.

“Now, just who do you think you’re dealing with here, Mal?” Odi whispers back, winking. “Of course I put the pill in his drink.”

“So just loik I toldja,” the Aussie continues, “when the stuff in the Jack-and-Jill dissolves and mixes with the electroloytes in the Gytoryde, it’ll produce feelings of nausea and disorientytion in Donald, but that’ll take a good and proper two hours’ toim to kick in. So your boy better keep her goin’ a bit.”

For the next two grueling hours, to everyone’s surprise and delight, Jack Spade’s semifinals opponent, third-seeded Aussie Lance Donald, forges a shocking lead of two sets to one.