Venus Drive

Beautiful Game

Gary gets to pick a park. A nice gesture on the part of the state. Or is it the city? Gary studies the list, picks one far from home. Last thing he needs is a neighbor, a friend, family even, seeing him in some kind of get-up, coveralls, a neoprene vest, poking around with one of those trash-poke sticks.

The kids from the school, say, with their frisbees, their dogs.

It would get around.

It’s hard enough this woman at the desk knows what he’s done. Maybe she’s from a bootstrap family, foreign. Here’s Gary, lucky to be born a citizen, wasting his good fortune. All he can do now is try to set things straight.

He’ll start with the park.

He has some days before he’s supposed to report. He stays home, drinks O’Doul’s, shoots cocaine, watches the tube. It’s non-alcoholic, the O’Doul’s. Gary bought a case of it by mistake. They don’t mark things properly anymore. Still, it’d be wrong to pour it down the sink.

They have a tournament on TV, football, the other kind, countries, flags. He finds a team to follow, a side, Cameroon. So far, a Cinderella story, the color man says. But how does Cinderella end? Does she win? Gary hopes so. Something will happen to him if Cameroon loses. Maybe it’s stupid, reminds him of all the stupid people he always thought himself positioned against, but here he is: a rooter. It is not a good epoch for position-taking. How long is an epoch? Maybe he can wait it out.

He goes out at sundown, after the games, buys some bagels, cigarettes. This morning’s bagels marked down. A man stands near the bagel store. His legs are in leggings. Blanket strips? He’s bleeding from the mouth.

“They took my teeth!” the man says.

“They’re just getting started,” says Gary, gives the man a buck.

At the bank machine, Gary doesn’t check his balance. Better to leave it to the gods. Someday the machine will shun him. Why know when?

Gary had a band back when that was a good idea, toured the basements of Europe in a bus. The Dutch dug it best. The Dutch got the put-on underneath the hurt, the howl. Gary’s not sure he would get it himself anymore. This was years ago, before the whole thing got big, and small again. Now it’s gone. The tradition is gone. The kids at the school, they hardly even know that really famous group, the one with the singer who killed himself. The singer in Gary’s band killed himself, too.

The drummer quit, went to divinity school.

Now Gary likes to tell people at parties how he works with kids. It explains him, his shoes, his age. The only parties he goes to are those his mother gives. He talks to the children of his mother’s friends, younger people, yoga, the big new job, no stains on their teeth. He doesn’t really work with kids, either. He works near them, odd jobs, errands, the elevator, recess guard. The kids wave, say his name. Kids are precious, priceless.

Gary has a price.

He just lowers it a lot.

The thing is, all Gary did was try to stick up for the cart guy. Sweet guy, cart outside the synagogue, always the freshest stuff: squash, cucumbers, fruit. The older cop was hassling him, the rookie hanging back.

“Officer,” said Gary to the rookie, “what’s this about? A permit?”

“Fuck off.”

Gary was uptown to meet someone, a buyer. A tiny deal, a taste, a favor, bagel money while school was out. The buyer was nowhere.

“I pay your salary, officer,” said Gary.

“I doubt it, pal.”

The older cop banged the cart guy down on a tomato crate. The cart guy was talking in a bootstrap tongue.

“Hey, Turkey, you from Turkey?” said the older cop. Gary eyed the gun on his hip.

Maybe it was a test from God, see if Gary would stick up for the cart guy.

Maybe it was that Gary once played a little football, American. Tactics, crackback, spear.

He put his hand on the shoulder of the older cop.

“Lay off of him,” said Gary.

Clothesline, clip.

Gary was on his belly, cuffed. The rookie was in his pockets. “Well, well, what have we got here, Mr. Solid-Fucking-Tax-Paying-Salary-Payer Prick?”

Lock-up was winos unzipping, pissing on the walls. A boy Gary knew from a bulletproof bodega crawled under a bench and slept. There were dozens of them there in one cell. Hands cuffed at their bellies, they filed out for bologna on bread. He befriended a French kid, a student, busted in some club, a ketamine sweep. The French kid was here on a grant to study business. Catch you with K in Tokyo, the French kid said, and they do a number on you with a sword. Or maybe it was Malaysia. Either way, it was no time to be a student.

One guy, he went for a fit, a seizure, right there on the cell floor. The rest of them stood around, hands clasped together like a prayer meet. Smart guy, thought Gary. Get yourself a bed, warm food. The guards figured him for a fake, though. They were not dumb men, not for here. They kicked the faker in the buttocks, the back. The French kid nudged Gary, said something in French.

They got juice, more sandwiches. Gary gave the French kid a look. He was sorry about the cheese, American cheese, jail cheese, the whole thing.

“How did I ever get here?” said Gary.

“A big van,” someone called out.

They led him through some corridors, took him before the judge. It felt like early evening but there was little in the way of evidence. There was a box painted on the courtroom tiles. “Defendant Stand Here” was painted in the box. A short man, maybe hoping to pass his dark sneakers off as shoes, pinched Gary’s arm.

“Just tell me, did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“That’s what I thought.”

The defender faced the judge, said something in English. Felonies, misdemeanors, mitigations. The prosecutor, handsome in a good tan suit, spoke the same words in a different order. Gary tried to follow the exchange but he was beat. He could smell the stink coming up from his boots.

The judge rubbed his gavel.

The bailiff buried his key in Gary’s cuffs.

A woman at a window handed Gary a carbon receipt. It listed what the cops had taken from him at the station house, laces, a lighter, some lip balm, a pen. He waited for her to slide his things across the counter in a big envelope. Probably manila. He had a constitutional right to his lip balm back. He waited a while.

“Get out of here,” she said.

Fucking Cameroon. Why can’t they concentrate? They pound the ball upfield, get an open net, shoot wide into the stands. Their captain looks much older, slaps them around. It does no good. Their coach, a Croatian, walks the sideline in a windbreaker. Gary gets out his atlas, looks up Cameroon. Symbols for goods and resources, coffee, oil, lumber.

The Cameroon captain goes up for a header. The ball slants in for a goal.

“The glass slipper continues to fit!” the color man says.

But wouldn’t the glass shatter with the girl’s first step?

Gary goes to the kitchen for another O’Doul’s. When the O’Doul’s runs out, he’ll get some real beer, but right now there’s a principle at stake.

Gary’s mother calls Gary.

“Are you coming to my thing on Saturday, Saturday afternoon? It’s for Mrs. Lily’s daughter, Lorraine. She just got her masters in social work. It’s a little gathering. You two will have a lot to talk about with your job and all. Oh, and her mother says Lorraine’s a big fan of your music.”

“I don’t make music anymore,” says Gary.

“You know what I mean. How are you, honey? You sound a little blue. Are you blue? Did you find any summer work?”

“Maybe. It might start Saturday.”

“Really? Saturday? Doing what?”

“A city job, with kids.”

“Great, Gary. That’s great. But please try to get out of it for Saturday. I’ll give you the day’s pay. I really want you to come to my party. I really want you to say hi to Lorraine.”

“I’ll try,” says Gary.

“Try and make it more than try,” says his mother.

Gary had a feeling his best friend was going to blow his head off, but what are you going to do? The guy had always said that suicide was the plan. He said it the way some people mention the possibility of law school, vague and determined at the same time. Those people usually did go to law school. They saw themselves as lawyers all along. This guy just happened to see himself as dead.

Divinity school, though, that surprised him. It wasn’t that the drummer seemed godless, just kind of vapid, dumb. Gary got offers from other bands, but only the minor, imitative ones. It would have been like playing in his own tribute group.

Gary figures he’ll be fine when he gets over the idea of devotion. There was that morning in Rotterdam a man and a woman got down on their knees in the street. They took him up to their room, gave him dope to smoke, played his music for him as though this time he would hear it anew. The man pulled tablature of Gary’s songs from a cold oven, his file drawer.

“Your band is one of those bands,” the man said, “in a few years, forget it. Legends. People will see, separate the wheat from the chafe.”

“What about now?” said Gary. “And you mean chaff.”

“Now is different story,” the man said. “There is still a lot of chafe.”

Besides, he’s sick of rock. He likes kids. He’s shooting a lot of cocaine, sure, but that’s just because he’s off for the summer. This bust, though, it bothers him. Community service? What community? The cop and the cart guy? The man with no teeth? This city is just a lot of brickwork and stonework and people bearing down on nothing at all.

He remembers the last time he saw Lorraine Lily, a few winters ago. A tag-along, sweet, with tits. Maybe he could knock off the death trip, get clean, get clear, with Lorraine. Benefit from her training.

“Last licks,” he says out loud, pulls the plunger back, eases the needle home.

Neuron, axon, penalty kick.

Now the Africans are leaping into each others’ arms, sobbing, falling to the field, grabbing the turf.

“This carriage isn’t going to turn into a pumpkin anytime soon, I’ll tell you that,” the color man says. “In years to come we’re going to look back on this. This moment will become legend.”

“What I hope,” says another announcer, “is that moments like this will help promote international brotherhood through the majesty of the athletic endeavor.”

“Well put,” says the color man, “and well-hoped. But let us not forget that this is just a game.”

“But a hell of a game!”

“The beautiful game. You can see why from the slums of the far-away slums to the war-torn fields of warring lands, this is the world at play.”

“So simple, yet so complex.”

“A dance and a battle in one.”

“You fucking idiots!” Gary says to the screen, but it feels forced, as though he is just some man watching TV.

Maybe Lorraine is religious, thinks Gary, the inner roar of his ears on the wane. I could learn the words. I could sing of God.

There is one last O’Doul’s.

One day Gary chaperoned a field trip to the city’s science library. The kids unpacked their knapsacks and set to work. Gary loitered in the stacks, found a book about barbed wire. It had sketches of every variety, maybe named for the rancher who first knotted it that way. Scutt’s Clip. Corsicana Clip. Brotherton Barb. He thought he could do something with this, something creative, but he didn’t know what. Maybe a song with all the names of barbed wire in it. It would be good not to explain.

There was one boy in his charge they said might be trouble. It was a private school, so no one ever put it quite like that. What they said was that Vernon was a genius.

Now the boy sat alone at a silver table.

“Hey, man,” said Gary. “What’s wrong?”

“My homework,” said Vernon. “My fucking homework. I don’t want to do it right now.”

“I know where you’re coming from,” said Gary.

“Sure,” said Vernon.

“No, really,” said Gary.

“I bet you couldn’t even do my homework.”

“It’s not about whether I can do your homework. It’s about a feeling.”

“What a pile. Look at you. You’re not even a real teacher. What happened to you? I bet you’re over twenty.”

“I’m thirty-one.”

“See,” said Vernon. “If I’m anything like you at your age I’m going to kill myself. What do you think of that?”

“I think you ought to save yourself the hassle and do it now,” said Gary. “I was at a faculty meeting and your name came up. Turns out you’re not a genius, after all.”

“Liar,” said Vernon, but his voice wavered, and in a moment he was crying. Gary went back to his book. He felt terrible but harbored a secret hope that this moment would count for the genius as a minor scar. Someday Vernon would be accepting a prize at some institute and self-doubt would flare up in the guise of Gary, leering.

They are waiting for him at the park station uptown. He sees the trash sticks leaned up in a bucket. A woman ranger in a tight uniform leads him to a bench where some others sit. There are reams of flyers and boxes of envelopes piled on the floor. The flyers announce a summer program for kids, nature walks, rollerblading, marine biology by the lake.

“Are you still hiring for this?” says Gary, holding the flyer up.

“Oh, good,” says the ranger, “I was worried we wouldn’t have a comedian today.”

“No, really,” says Gary, “I’m qualified.”

“Fold,” says the ranger.

The others are younger than Gary, not white. Kids from nearby.

“You got a car?” says one of them, who has announced himself as Junebug.

“No,” says Gary.

“Well, if you did, what car would you get? A Lexus, right?”

“A Gremlin,” says Gary.

“A what?”

“It’s a cool car,” says Gary. “Like in a fucked-up way.”

“Gremlin? What’d you do, anyway?”

Gary tells them about the cart guy, the tomato crate, the cop. He doesn’t mention the cocaine.

“Hey,” says Junebug to the ranger, “Qualified Gremlin here threw down with a cop.”

“Well, he better not try any of that shit with me,” says the ranger. “I’ll put my foot in his ass.”

They fold flyers until noon, break, fold again.

“What about the garbage?” says Gary, finally. “Shouldn’t I go out into the park with one of those sticks?”

“Why, looking for a weapon?” says the ranger. She gives Gary a mop and points him to the toilet. The seats are gummed, the tiles caked with boot tracks.

“When it sparkles, you can go,” she says.

Gary sees the man with the leggings outside the bagel store.

“How’re the teeth?” calls Gary.

“What?”

“The teeth?”

“Look,” says the man, moves in, as though about to show Gary his mouth. “I’m not your homeless. Got it, fucker?”

Gary goes up to his place for a clean shirt. When he comes back down the man is sitting on a grate, cinching a seabag.

“No hard feelings,” the man says.

Gary holds out a buck and the man waves him off.

“I have other offers on the table right now,” the man says.

The bus is packed going over the bridge. Gary presses his head on the tinted window. He stopped at the bank on the way to the bus. The gods of the machine have wearied of him. The buyers are off at their bungalows, yoga retreats. He will have to borrow some money from his mother again.

It’s hot on the bus and everyone wears short sleeves except for Gary. He picks at the few tiny flecks of blood on his shirt with his fingernail.

Gary’s mother hugs him at the door.

“You look like you got some sun today. Out with the kids?”

“Yeah.”

His mother hooks him on his arm’s tender spot, guides him across the room. A group is gathered near the bay window, pouring whiskey.

“Boy, am I glad you came.” Today his mother has that almost dazed expression which, along with the featherings at her mouth, people take for mirth. “These people are drips. Put on any music you like.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” says Gary.

“Hey, there’s Jacob Gelb,” says his mother. “Remember him?”

Gary looks at the man, tall and tan, easy with his body in casual silk. Gary has that flicker of thought that comes along with his mother’s house: I wonder if I’ll turn out like him when I grow up. But Gelb is a few years younger. Gary remembers once putting worms in his hair, or firing an air pellet at his nuts, something senseless and maybe not forgotten.

“A drink?” says Gary’s mother.

“Just water.”

“Good for you.”

Gelb keeps a plastic cup aloft with his foot, his loafer. A woman sways down near him in a goalie pose, dangles her fingers out.

“Hey, Jake,” Gary calls. “Been watching the Cup? How about that Cameroon?”

Gelb looks up without missing a tap.

“Those guys are gone. Knocked out this morning, or last night, or whatever. My money’s on the Netherlands. The Goudas.”

Gelb kicks the cup into the fire place, throws his arms up, mugs, mimes the frenzy of thousands.

“I’d trade it all in for one good run at goal,” says Gelb. “When I have to go to Europe for work I just order up food and watch the leagues.”

“So cosmopolitan,” says the woman. “Going to a foreign country to watch sports on TV.”

“I go to make money. I watch sports to clear my head.”

“Same here,” says Gary.

“You’re Gary,” says the woman. “I’m Lorraine. I heard what happened to your friend. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ve never heard your music, but people say it’s really interesting.”

“Oh,” says Gary. “I’m not playing anymore, anyway.”

“What are you doing?”

“Working with kids. Disadvantaged.”

“Wow, that’s great,” says Lorraine.

Gary tells her all about his little brothers Vernon and Junebug, their eventful day in the park, the nature walks, the craft hour. They talk for a while, mutual friends, traumas of youth. Lorraine writes Gary’s number in a day book stuffed with business cards.

“I’m going to call you,” she says. “I want to call you.”

“That would be great,” says Gary.

A few days later she does. Gary is poking around for a vein. The vein is always right next to where you think it is. You have to dig hard. Work hard, dig hard. The blood dries in jagged curves around his arm, his wrist. Scutt’s clip.

Lorraine leaves a long message with several numbers at the end of it. He is going to call her back, tell her he needs to go away for a while, get well, but his well-hoped hope is that she will wait for him. There is something special there between them. It’s hard to see, but it’s there. The proof that it’s there is that you can’t quite see it.

Now, crowd sounds.

Dutchmen kiss the pitch.