Topdog / Underdog (4 page)

(Rest)
50 for the phone leaving 134. We put aside 40 for “med-sin.”

 

The price went up. 2 bucks more a bottle.

 

We’ll put aside 50, then. That covers the bills. We got 84 left. 40 for meals together during the week leaving 44. 30 for me 14 for you. I got a woman I gotta impress tonight.

 

You didnt take out for the phone last week.

Last week I was depressed. This week things is looking up. For both of us.

 

Theyre talking about cutbacks at the arcade. I only been there 8 months, so—

 

Dont sweat it man, we’ll find something else.

 

Not nothing like this. I like the job. This is sit down, you know, easy work. I just gotta sit there all day. Folks come in kill phony Honest Abe with the phony pistol. I can sit there and let my mind travel.

 

Think of women.

 

Sometimes.

All around the whole arcade is buzzing and popping. Thuh whirring of thuh duckshoot, baseballs smacking the back wall when someone misses the stack of cans, some woman getting happy cause her fella just won the ring toss. The Boss playing the barker talking up the fake freaks. The smell of the ocean and cotton candy and rat shit. And in thuh middle of all that, I can just sit and let my head go quiet. Make up songs, make plans. Forget.

(Rest)
You should come down again.

 

Once was plenty, but thanks.

Yr Best Customer, he come in today?

 

Oh, yeah, he was there.

He shoot you?

 

He shot Honest Abe, yeah.

 

He talk to you?

 

In a whisper. Shoots on the left whispers on the right.

 

Whatd he say this time?

 

“Does thuh show stop when no ones watching or does thuh show go on?”

 

Hes getting deep.

 

Yeah.

 

Whatd he say, that one time? “Yr only yrself—”

 

“—when no ones watching,” yeah.

 

Thats deep shit.

Hes a brother, right?

 

I think so.

 

He know yr a brother?

I dunno.

 

Hes a
deep
black brother.

 

Yeah. He makes the day interesting.

 

Thats a fucked-up job you got.

 

Its a living.

 

But you aint living.

 

Im alive aint I?

One day I was throwing the cards. Next day Lonny died. Somebody shot him. I knew I was next, so I quit. I saved my life.

The arcade gig is the first lucky break Ive ever had. And Ive actually grown to like the work. And now theyre talking about cutting me.

 

You was lucky with thuh cards.

 

Lucky? Aint nothing lucky about cards. Cards aint luck. Cards is work. Cards is skill. Aint never nothing lucky about cards.

I dont wanna lose my job.

Then you gotta jazz up yr act. Elaborate yr moves, you know. You was always too stiff with it. You cant just sit there! Maybe, when they shoot you, you know, leap up flail yr arms then fall down and wiggle around and shit so they gotta shoot you more than once. Blam Blam Blam! Blam!

 

Help me practice. I’ll sit here like I do at work and you be like one of the tourists.

 

No thanks.

 

My paychecks on the line, man.

 

I got a date. Practice on yr own.

I got a rendezvous with Grace. Shit she so sweet she makes my teeth hurt.

Link, uh, howbout slipping me an extra 5 spot. Its the biggest night of my life.

 

 

Lincoln gives Booth a 5er.

 

Thanks.

 

No sweat.

 

Howabout I run through it with you when I get back. Put on yr getup and practice till then.

Sure.

 

Booth leaves. Lincoln stands there alone.

He takes off his shoes, giving them a shine.

He takes off his socks and his fancy suit, hanging it neatly over the little wooden chair.

He takes his getup out of his shopping bag. He puts it on, slowly, like an actor preparing for a great role: frock coat, pants, beard, top hat, necktie.

He leaves his feet bare. The top hat has an elastic band which he positions securely underneath his chin.

He picks up the white pancake makeup but decides against it.

He sits. He pretends to get shot, flings himself on the floor and thrashes around.

He gets up, considers giving the new moves another try, but instead pours himself a big glass of whiskey and sits there drinking.

Much later that same Friday evening. The recliner is reclined to its maximum horizontal position and Lincoln lies there asleep.

He wakes with a start. He is horrific, bleary eyed and hungover, in his full Lincoln regalia.

He takes a deep breath, realizes where he is and reclines again, going back to sleep.

Booth comes in full of swagger. He slams the door trying to wake his brother who is dead to the world.

He opens the door and slams it again. This time Lincoln wakes up, as hungover and horrid as before.

Booth swaggers about, his moves are exaggerated, rooster-like. He walks round and round Lincoln making sure his brother sees him.

 

You hurt yrself?

 

I had me “an evening to remember.”

 

You look like you hurt yrself.

 

Grace Grace Grace.
Grace
. She wants me back. She wants me back so bad she wiped her hand over the past where we wasnt together just so she could say we aint never been apart. She wiped her hand over our breakup. She wiped her hand over her childhood, her teenage years, her first
boyfriend, just so she could say that she been mine since the dawn of time.

 

Thats great, man.

 

And all the shit I put her through: she wiped it clean. And the women I saw while I was seeing her—

 

Wiped clean too?

 

Mister Clean, Mister, Mister Clean!

 

Whered you take her?

 

We was over at her place. I brought thuh food. Stopped at the best place I could find and stuffed my coat with only the best. We had the music we had the candlelight we had—

 

She let you do it?

 

Course she let me do it.

 

She let you do it without a rubber?

 

—Yeah.

 

Bullshit.

I put my foot down—and she
melted
. And she was—huh—she was something else. I dont wanna get you jealous, though.

Go head, I dont mind.

 

(Rest)
Well, you know what she looks like.

 

She walks on by and the emergency room fills up cause all the guys get whiplash from lookin at her.

 

Thats right thats right. Well—she comes to the door wearing nothing but her little nightie, eats up the food I’d brought like there was no tomorrow and then goes and eats on me.

 

Go on.

 

I dont wanna make you feel bad, man.

 

Ssallright. Go on.

 

Well, uh, you know what shes like. Wild. Goodlooking. So sweet my teeth hurt.

 

A sexmachine.

 

Yeah.

 

A hotsy-totsy.

 

Yeah.

Amazing Grace.

 

Amazing Grace! Yeah. Thats right. She let me do her how

I wanted. And no rubber.

 

Go on.

 

You dont wanna hear the mushy shit.

 

Sure I do.

 

You hate mushy shit. You always hated thuh mushy shit.

 

Ive changed. Go head. You had “an evening to remember,” remember? I was just here alone sitting here. Drinking. Go head. Tell Link thuh stink.

(Rest)
Howd ya do her?

 

Dogstyle.

 

Amazing Grace.

 

In front of a mirror.

 

So you could see her. Her face her breasts her back her ass. Graces got a great ass.

 

Its all right.

Amazing Grace!

 

Booth goes into his bed area and takes off his suit, tossing the clothes on the floor.

 

She said next time Ima have to use a rubber. She let me have my way this time but she said that next time I’d have to put my boots on.

 

Im sure you can talk her out of it.

 

Yeah.

What kind of rubbers you use, I mean, when you was with Cookie.

 

We didnt use rubbers. We was married, man.

 

Right. But you had other women on the side. What kind you use when you was with them?

 

Magnums.

 

Thats thuh kind I picked up. For next time. Grace was real strict about it. Magnums.

 

While Booth sits on his bed fiddling with his box of condoms, Lincoln sits in his chair and resumes drinking.

 

Theyre for “the larger man.”

Right. Right.

 

Lincoln keeps drinking as Booth, sitting in the privacy of his bedroom, fiddles with the condoms, perhaps trying to put one on.

 

Thats right.

 

Graces real different from them fly-by-night gals I was making do with. Shes in school. Making something of herself. Studying cosmetology. You should see what she can do with a womans hair and nails.

 

Too bad you aint a woman.

 

What?

 

You could get yrs done for free, I mean.

 

Yeah. She got this way of sitting. Of talking. That. Everything she does is. Shes just so hot.

We was together 2 years. Then we broke up. I had my little employment difficulty and she needed time to think.

 

And shes through thinking now.

 

Thats right.