The Flex of the Thumb (2 page)

Sister Cecilia gave Vano a flier of coupons from Domino's Pizza. The rest of his mail she comandeered. There were 21 letters addressed to him, from professional teams, colleges and universities, newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television networks. She took all of them to his father's den where she secured them in a desk drawer. From the den came the sound of the phone tweeting and the answering machine kicking in.

Vano ate his breakfast while Sister ironed her Salvation Army blazer. She worked the iron deftly between the brass buttons. With his mouth full, Vano complained that his life was boring. He said, “The old man won't even let me pitch in one of the summer leagues.”

“We've been through this before; he's only trying to do what's best for your future. And please don't call him
the old man
. It's disrespectful.”

“My FATHer then. Is that better?”

“Much better.”

“My FATHer, my FATHer. It's almost a month since I graduated, and all I get to do is run laps and work out in the weight room.”

“Why don't you play some catch with Gomez?”

“I probably will, after supper. That's some cool shit for sure.”

“Vano, I asked you nicely about the blasphemy. Maybe when your father gets back from his business trip, you can ask him again about pitching summer baseball.”

“Why? So he can shoot me down again?”

“I know it's hard,” she consoled. Wearing the blazer, she inspected her appearance in front of the sideboard mirror. She suggested, “Maybe you could get involved in some volunteer activities.”

“Right. I think I'll run right down to the V.A. hospital so I can empty some bedpans.” He looked at Sister Cecilia, now lifting her chest to smooth the wool lapels. He wondered what she might look like if she lost 10 or 20 pounds and didn't wear such severe clothing. He wondered if she ever got horny or did her religion neutralize urges like that.

Sister ignored his sarcasm and hung the blazer away in the hall closet. She told Vano, “I've been cleaning out the attic. I found some old scrapbooks with lots of pictures of your mother. Would you like to see them?”

Scrapbooks
? But he couldn't think of anything better to do. “Sure. Why not?”

She took Vano to the dark attic, where he immediately smacked his head on an exposed beam. Rubbing his head and swearing, he tried to ignore Sister's protestations re his language. They began their examination of the photographs by looking at a shoebox full of snapshots of Vano's mother, in no particular order. School pictures, some of her working in the garden, even a few candids from the wedding reception. They were odds and ends which Vano found mostly boring.

But then there was the scrapbook with the paisley cover. There were some 20 pages or so of pictures which showed Vano's mother with a lot of hairy, bearded people in hippy garb. The gathering place seemed to be a camp or conference center.

Vano looked slowly at the scrapbook photos a second time, when suddenly the vibrations were upon him.
Did they come from the blow on the head
? Sister Cecilia was offering her interpretation: “I think these pictures go back to the sixties.”

Vano spoke through the resonance: “Do you remember the sixties?”

“A little bit,” answered Sister. “I graduated high school in '72. It was a time of protest. It was called peace and love, but I'm afraid it was mostly all about drugs and immorality.”

Vano couldn't hear all of what she said because the vibes were too strong. The two of them were now looking at a series of pictures of Vano's mother sitting beside a guy who looked like a holy man. He had flowing gray hair of shoulder length, and a pointed salt and pepper beard. His linen tunic had a squared neckline and plenty of beadwork.

Vano's vibes were like a reverberating gong. “Who is this person,” he asked, “who looks like a prophet?”

“There's no need to yell, Vano, not when I'm sitting right beside you.” Having lodged this mild complaint, Sister Cecilia attempted an answer to his question: “I don't know who he is. He looks like a holy man, but the Bible teaches us to beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing. He might have been some kind of occult guru. We can only hope and pray that he was a follower of Our Lord.”

Vano heard very little of this. The resonance was too firm and not inclined to abate.

The next thing he knew, he found himself behind the wheel of the Pulsar, his graduation present. Northeast on Highway 15, through a late-lifting fog and dissipating rings of resonance. He was on the way, though he may not have known it consciously, to Entrada College, a small institution of no reputation.

The outdated baseball field at Entrada was in a condition of deterioration, and so was the coach, Rip Radulski. Vano sat on the dugout apron with Radulski, whose rheumy eyes bore witness to his drinking history.

There were eight Entrada players shagging outfield balls and taking infield grounders in the hot sun. The school year was over and so was their season; they were merely working out on their own for summer league play.

“Did I know you were coming for a visit?” Radulski asked.

“Even I didn't know,” said Vano. “I just had this sudden urge. Sometimes I get these vibes that I can't understand.”

Radulski, who was thoroughly familiar with Vano's talent, said, “If I'da known you were coming, I could've made arrangements for the right kind of visit.” What he had in mind was the Garibaldi twins, who had tits out to here and a singular enthusiasm for
menage a trois
.

Vano said, “You're talking about an official visit, like an NCAA thing. I've never had one of those.”

“You haven't made any campus visits at all?”

“Nope, none.”

Radulski shook his head. “How many schools have contacted you?”

“I'm not sure. I think it's up in the hundreds. My old man screens all the college stuff. Sometimes lately I think about my mother; that's what happened today. My mother went to college here.”

“Entrada is your mother's
alma mater
?”

“I wouldn't know about that, all I know is she graduated here.”

In his imagination, Radulski suddenly cradled a vision of his baseball team with Vano Lucas perched on the mound. This piece of imagery left him short of breath and very thirsty. “I'm going to need a snort about now,” he informed Vano. “Excuse me.”

“That's okay.”

Radulski took a long, gurgling pull from a pint of Jim Beam. Then he asked, “Is anybody here with you?”

“I'm by myself. If my old man knew I was here he'd probably come unglued.”

“Your father doesn't know you're here?”

“Nah. He's in Houston on some kind of business. He always tells me not to waste my time thinkin' about college. I'll probably get a signing bonus between ten and twenty million before the summer's over, so I guess I can see his point. I think school's real boring, anyway. I hate homework.”

Even though Coach Radulski could see Vano's father's point too, he had had that glimpse in his mind's eye. He couldn't resist some small gesture which might be in his own best interest: “You don't want to overlook the value of a college education, though. It makes you a well-rounded person.”

“Oh yeah?”

“That's what they say. I could show you around the campus if you want. It's pretty small, so it wouldn't take long.”

“Nah, that's okay,” Vano told him. He was already growing weary of being here, now that the vibes were long gone. He looked out across the tacky, neglected playing field where the craters of stony turf were surrounded by tufts of lambsquarters, buckhorn, and other broadleaf weeds. He could imagine the measly crowds that probably showed up for Entrada home games.

After Radulski finished another modest snort, he screwed the cap back on his bottle. “Would you like to throw a few?”

“I don't think so. I didn't bring any shoes or anything. I just got this urge to drive up here all of a sudden. I get these like vibes sometimes.”

“You said that once. But it would be easy for me to get some equipment out of the gym.”

“No thanks. I guess I'm out of here.”

“I'll be in touch,” said Radulski. “I'll call you.”

“Don't bother. Every phone call goes through my old man's answering machine.” Then Vano drove back home.

Reggie Rose was president of Entrada College. Since he had held this position a little less than one year, he was still largely unclear about the duties of a college CEO.

Reggie was anal-retentive in the extreme when it came to his disposition; he liked his things well dusted and systematically placed. He owned a large range of state-of-the-art electronic pleasure gadgetry. He owned a high-tech IBM computer, a Sony VCR, and a great deal of digital stereo equipment which could be operated comfortably by a remote unit. His video tapes, CDs, and computer programs were alphabetized in custom-made oak racks.

He kept all his goodies dust free with his own feather duster. Fastidiousness was a way of life for Reggie Rose, who could spend an entire day cleaning tapes and records, dusting his mouse pad, labeling, and filing. He shampooed his dark brown hair daily, and wore it parted straight down the center of his scalp. His eyeglasses had hexagonal lenses and wire earpieces.

He had never been married, but there were two women in his life. The first was his secretary, Mrs. Askew. Reggie Rose did not like her; he found her officious. The second was his housekeeper, Bertie Kerfoot. She was a slob, and if there was one thing President Rose could not abide, it was a slob.

On this particular morning, Reggie had to deal with the disagreeable elements of both of these women.

He came down to the kitchen for breakfast.

Bertie Kerfoot was a terrible cook. For breakfast, she served him six stale Ritz crackers on a plate with a sprig of dead parsley, and a warm bottle of Dr. Pepper. While he munched dispiritedly, Bertie leaned against the kitchen counter, smoked a cigarette and stared at him.

“These crackers are pretty stale,” President Rose observed.

“We need to finish them off before they get
real
stale,” responded Bertie Kerfoot. “There's plenty left if you want more.”

Reggie declined. Then he complained that this was not a very good breakfast. Bertie said what she always said: “What do you expect from me? Perfect?”

This cavalier attitude toward cuisine was particularly repulsive to Reggie. He cherished good food. He loved to entertain friends at the finest restaurants in town. Sometimes, he liked to cook along with Julia Childs. Reggie could prepare steak
au poivre, cassoulet,
and beef
bourginon
.

Whenever Bertie cooked for him, she usually prepared milk toast, dried beef gravy on Saltine crackers, a can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti-os, frozen pizza rolls, or Spam
lite
.

While Reggie munched on his powdery Ritz cracker, his mind stubbornly tracked itself into the despondency of returning home late in the evenings from tedious meetings. He liked to relax in his den by turning on the late news. But just as soon as he did, here would come Bertie, shuffling in to join him. She always wore an old faded housecoat which kept falling open, and a hairnet; she had a can of Budweiser in one hand and a cigarette dangling from her lips. It wasn't pretty.

Then she would collapse on the couch. Her cigarette ash fell on the carpet, she belched repeatedly, she smacked her lips a lot. Loud. Then, after her custom, she would begin nagging Reggie to change channels so she could watch
A Current Affair
.

It was all ruinous to the tranquility of the late news, so Reggie rarely stayed up until the conclusion of the program. He would have given Bertie notice, but she went with the house. The house was furnished for the president, but so was the housekeeper.

Sometimes Reggie Rose dreamed that Bertie Kerfoot might drown in the bathtub, and then he could hire Mary Thorne to come and live with him and be his housekeeper. If he thought about this idea for very long, Reggie became very enthusiastic. Mary Thorne was indeed a
munchkin
.

“Or maybe it's a
liebchen,
” Reggie said aloud. “Maybe that's the word I want.”

“Are you speaking to me?” asked Bertie Kerfoot, with smoke streaming from her nostrils. Bertie was very skilled at smoking a cigarette all the way down without once removing it from her lips.

“Never mind,” said Reggie. He pushed away from the breakfast table and headed for the office.

Where the officious Mrs. Askew confronted him. She told him that the college was in desperate straits. It was, in fact, about to go under.

“Oh yeah?” challenged Reggie Rose. “Says who?”

“Says the board of trustees,” answered Mrs. Askew quickly. She dropped a thick book on his desk. “Here is their report.”

Reggie looked at the report. It was bound in a dark blue, semi-hard cover. He decided that it looked real boring and would not be any fun to read.

It would be fun deciding where to
place
it, however. He glanced around his opulent office. There were leather-bound books in floor-to-ceiling bookcases. He had a beautiful walnut desk and a slate coffee table. On the wall facing his desk, an expensive wood carving with letters in high relief spelled out the only principle of administrative leadership which Reggie Rose understood:

TO LEAD IS TO DELEGATE

Reggie decided the slate coffee table would be the best permanent home for the trustees' report.

“You want me to summarize the report for you?” asked Mrs. Askew crisply.

“Why don't you go ahead and do that? I sure wouldn't want to read it.”

Mrs. Askew was accustomed to this. Putting on her glasses, she began reading from her notepad: “The college's financial picture is very bleak. Endowments are exhausted, and no new revenues are being generated. Interest on investments is used up. Costs are being met from the principal. The General Revenue fund is depleted. If the college doesn't generate substantial new sources of revenue within the calendar year, we will have no choice but to close our doors.”