Racing the Rain (21 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“So. Think you can handle it?”

Cassidy could not pretend to be surprised. His JV team had often run much the same offense just because of the personnel they had on the floor and the fact that Cassidy didn't really need help bringing the ball up. They often found themselves with four big players and Cassidy. Dewey hadn't put in an offense that took advantage of that fact, so he just called one of the big men a “strong guard” and told them to run their regular offense. Stiggs and Cassidy quickly figured out how to use the extra forward, and they had basically come up with their own version of a 1-3-1.

Jim Cinnamon was now telling him that they were going to make that familiar formation their official offense for the next season.

“What I need to know, Quenton, is whether you think you can be our point guard?” he said.

After an 18–2 season and leading the JV team in scoring and several other categories, Cassidy had left his nerdy persona behind. Humility had never been his strong suit, and he was already developing an affinity for intentional mixed metaphors.

“Does a one-legged duck swim in the woods?” Cassidy said.

Coach Cinnamon gave him a strange look. “Afraid I don't follow.”

“I mean,
yes, sir
!” said Cassidy.

T
his was shaping up to be a pretty darned good summer despite the fact that Cassidy had what he thought was the most grueling and thankless job in Citrus City.

With no small amount of silent cussing, he got two heavily laden carts through the automatic doors and out into the ferocious heat and humidity of the commissary parking lot. It was payday and the place was packed with military wives and their squalling progeny, and the women always left the place with at least two grocery carts loaded to the scuppers with Pop-Tarts, Froot Loops, and Cheez Whiz.

Cassidy pushed one cart with his right hand while dragging the other one behind with his left. His customer, a young Filipina woman, had her hands full with a five-year-old girl who was blowing a steady stream of soap bubbles, and a three-year-old boy running around in a harness at the end of an honest-to-God leash.

Dog-boy eyed Cassidy suspiciously. He was wearing a little jumper embroidered with a happy-looking Dutch child and the legend
BUSTER BROWN
. Cassidy winked at him, causing him to widen his eyes with alarm and reach for the water pistol in the little plastic holster he wore around his nonexistent hips.

“Freddo, what did we talk about already?” said the mother.

Freddo pouted unhappily at his mother, whom Cassidy was just now noticing was actually pretty attractive. Freddo looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“What was it, Freddo?” she said. Freddo slumped in defeat, taking his hand off his six-shooter.

“NO 'QUIRTING!”

“That's right, baby, no squirting until we're in the backyard again.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” Cassidy told her out of the side of his mouth. Actually, he might not have minded a quick dousing, since he was sweating like a field hand as he maneuvered both carts through the blistering asphalt hell of the parking lot. Other bag boys whooped at him as they raced back to the store pushing empty carts. You had to go through a complete rotation, like a batting order, to get to be the lead bagger, the one who got the tip—if any. Everyone else pitched in and bagged like maniacs to help get their buddy out the door, not out of altruism or any sense of esprit de corps, but because the faster they got rid of the guy in front, the faster their turn came up.

Stiggs went flying by, riding his cart like a skateboard. He held up two dollar bills and waved them in Cassidy's face.

Damn
, Cassidy thought. He had had just one cart, not even full at that, and he got two bucks! Must have been an officer's wife. Enlisted men's wives were the stingiest, but noncoms usually weren't too bad. Cassidy hoped his customer would pick up a hint from Stiggs's elation, but she seemed intent on reining in the dog-child, who was groaning mightily and straining at the end of his leash toward a parked 1932 Harley-Davidson seventy-four-inch flathead motorcycle that was still clicking and pinging as it dissipated heat.

“Don't let him . . .” Cassidy started, but it was too late. Dog-boy, completely helpless in the powerful spell of the machine, had fetched up at the end of his retractable leash but still had just enough room to reach out and touch the object of his fascination, the bright chrome exhaust of the elegant machine.

It took a second to register, but when the circle of synapses in Freddo's little nervous system had finally completed the loop, the kid went wild.

“WAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” He held his already blistering fingers up accusingly to his mother, crying so hard that for a moment he went completely silent as he tried to catch his breath for the next round.

Cassidy's heart sank as he tried to calculate how much extra time this was going to cost him before he could get back into the rotation.

The little girl was wholly unconcerned, happily tending her bubbles. The mom, at least, wasn't completely losing it. Apparently this was not Freddo's first experience with interesting objects that caused pain, and Cassidy was beginning to appreciate the undeniable utility of that harness.

By the time they got to the car, a de rigueur 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon, the woman had downgraded Freddo from panicky screaming to simple loud crying. Cassidy, dripping sweat now, had to clear out a space among the toys in back—Fanner-50 cap pistols, Etch A Sketch tablets, Little Princess coloring books, 112-color Crayolas, Slinkies, Silly Putty, Hot Wheels, Easy-Bake Oven, Doctor Who's Astro-Ray Dalek Gun, not to mention uncountable loose Lincoln Logs, dominoes, and Pick-up Sticks.

Goaded by Freddo's continued wailing, Cassidy loaded the groceries as fast as he could, and when he came to one heavy bag full of frozen stuff, he got a brainstorm and took the time to dig through the bag and locate a box of Popsicles. At his suggestion, the mom took a Popsicle and had Freddo hold it in his poor little burnt fingers. Whether out of real relief or mere distraction, he seemed somewhat mollified and the wailing was reduced to intermittent whimpering and finally to exhausted snuffling.

A favorite phrase of Cassidy's own mother's came to mind when she was especially exasperated with him:
I hope you have ten just like you.

All loaded finally, the mother got behind the wheel and looked up at Cassidy with gratitude, then backed out and drove off. Cassidy stood, forlorn and unbelieving, watching the little station wagon pull away. A good solid half hour of blood, sweat, toil, and tears, and he had absolutely nothing to show for it.

Maybe she looked in the rearview and took pity on him. For whatever reason, the brake lights flashed on, the station wagon came to a stop. Slowly at first, then gaining speed, the car backed up all the way to where Cassidy stood with his two empty grocery carts.

His heart soared like a hawk!

The window rolled down, a brown, braceleted arm extended. Cassidy reached his hand out and she dropped the coins in. She drove off without a word as Cassidy looked down. Resting in his glistening palm were two shiny liberty head dimes.

* * *

The commissary itself was air-conditioned to a fare-thee-well, and since he worked there every day but Sunday, Cassidy suffered from a more or less permanent summer cold. On weekdays Randleman had a job as a fry cook at the Burger King on Dixie Highway, and Stiggs had lucked into a high-paying job with a plumbing contractor, soldering copper pipes. It was hard work, but he made real money, which his father made him deposit into an account at Citrus City First Federal.

But they all quit work at four
P.M.
and were at the base gym by four forty-five, about the time the servicemen started drifting in for their pickup games.

Stiggs was skinny as ever but had shot up to almost six six, and he had springs for legs. The weight room in the gym had a heavy-duty squat station, on which the three of them did three sets of half-squats every day after their games and drills. They did one set of eight or more reps with relatively light weight, one set of six reps with moderate weight, and one set of three or four reps with as much weight as they could tolerate.

Despite his thin frame, Stiggs could handle more than two hundred pounds on his final set. He could now stand flat-footed under the rim and dunk the ball one-handed. Randleman outweighed Stiggs by twenty pounds, but he could jump almost as high. And he was particularly good at maneuvering his sturdy frame underneath the boards.

Cassidy could now, with a running start, grab the rim one-handed and hang on like a monkey, though the coveted dunk still eluded him. He could occasionally slam home a volleyball, though, and that gave him great status in certain quarters.

Perhaps the best thing about coming into their own as ballplayers was the way the trio had slowly, almost imperceptibly, begun to be accepted by the gym regulars. They even had their own base nicknames.

“I pick Moose,” said House, pointing to Randleman, who moved over to his side.

“I'll take the kid,” said Ron Lefaro, pointing to Cassidy.

“Man choose Hot Shot,” said House. “Got two shooters now. I take Stretch.”

Stiggs joined House. They clearly had the rebounds. The rest of the candidates were divvied up. All three of the boys had been picked before any of the older players, but they weren't surprised anymore when that happened.

The games went on most of the afternoon, and to Cassidy's surprise, his team won most of them. Or more correctly, Lefaro
figured out
a way to win most of them.

“I don't get it,” Cassidy said, resting in the bleachers during a break. “We got almost no rebounding whatsoever.”

“Right,” said Lefaro. “So what do you do?”

“I don't know,” said Cassidy. “Punt?”

“No. You avoid creating rebounds.”

Cassidy looked at him.

Lefaro slapped him on the knee. “You don't miss, Hot Shot! Just don't ever miss!”

Randleman had his mother's car, so they drove over to the cafeteria afterward. Cassidy got two cheeseburgers, two donuts, and two Cokes. Stiggs got a banana split, Randleman a tuna sandwich and potato salad. They inhaled it all so fast they sat at the Formica table afterward looking at each other and breathing hard, like they had just come off the court.

“Hey, I just realized something,” said Stiggs.

“What's that?” Randleman said from under the table, where he was retying his Converse lowcuts.

“All three of us are going to start next year!”

“Shhh!” said Cassidy. “Don't put your mouth on it. Don't you dare put your mouth on it.”

A
ll three of them started every game.

At the end of March they were 26–3 and ranked seventh in the state. They came back from the state tournament in Kernsville licking their wounds, but it had been an amazing season.

And because the first of April felt like summer already, Trapper Nelson proposed a tank dive trip in celebration; also, he had some people who had requested certain tropical fish—Trapper rarely did anything for pleasure alone. Jim Branch had loaned them his twenty-two-foot Aquasport with its commodious dive platform, so they cruised along for once in unaccustomed luxury.

Cassidy sat on the cushioned built-in seat in front of the center console while Trapper steered from behind. Cassidy looked down at his legs and was dismayed at how blindingly white they were in the morning sunshine. He tried to remember the last time he had done much of anything outside. Last summer? Basketball had rendered him a subterranean creature, peering painfully into the unfamiliar sunlight with pale vestigial eyeballs.

Beach houses and low-slung motels dotted the beaches of Singer Island before the larger structure of the Colonnades resort hove into sight.

“Wonder if Old Man MacArthur is at his favorite table in there counting napkins and salvaging catsup,” Cassidy yelled back over his shoulder.

“Don't knock it until you've made a few million yourself,” Trapper called back with a laugh. “I can tell you from personal knowledge he is a tough guy to do business with.”

Strange, thought Cassidy. What kind of business a famously tight animal trapper would have had with the famously tight tycoon? He knew better than to ask.

They traversed the rough water at the opening of the Palm Beach inlet, where the sheltered waters of Lake Worth flowed into the wild Atlantic. They took a couple of chilly spray showers over the bow, enough to raise gooseflesh on Cassidy's fish belly legs, but in a few rough minutes they were past it.

“Sorry 'bout that,” yelled Trapper.

Cassidy waved it off.
“No importa.”

More elaborate houses went by now, seaside “cottages” with eight or ten bedrooms and barrel-tiled roofs, the winter digs of America's generationally wealthy. They passed former ambassador to Cuba Earl E. T. Smith's place, then old Joe Kennedy's compound, perhaps close enough together, Cassidy thought, for the lovely Mrs. Smith to traipse across in a housecoat to trouble Rose for a cup of sugar.

When they got to the Breakers, Trapper took them close to shore, then turned and headed straight out into the Gulf Stream, looking over his shoulders for his landmarks. Cassidy stood up to help.

“What is it, the leftmost cupola of the Breakers and that church steeple?”

“Right, we've almost got it now. Then we veer off and pick up the TV antenna on that white house and the middle of the water tower.”

It was a mysterious business, locating a precise section of sea bottom by triangulating points on land, but Trapper was good at it, and he never forgot his triangulation landmarks once he knew them. The water went from light aquamarine to dark aquamarine to, finally, the purple of the Gulf Stream.