The Great Santini (38 page)

"Some of them are real nice girls," Ben said.

"Is that the voice of perfection?" Mary Anne said, cupping her hand to her ear. "Is that he that hath fed on honeydew? Is that my saintly, sugarcoated brother, projected hero of the first game? The patron saint of jump shots?"

"Let's pray for Ben's success in the first game," Lillian said, ignoring her older daughter.

They walked to the alcove in the front hall where the shrine was set up beneath the steps. Lillian lit two candles on either side of the statue of Mary. Then she knelt on the rug and motioned for her children to do the same. Ben and Karen knelt beside their mother while Mary Anne knelt behind them. The color in Our Lady of the Fighter Pilots' shawl was pale blue that changed hues in the flickering of the beeswax candles. Lillian prayed aloud, "Blessed Mother, thank you for my family. Thank you for their health, for their intelligence, and for their good humor. "With the last words, Lillian glanced back and smiled at Mary Anne who scowled behind her. "Tonight," Lillian continued," we ask your intercession when Ben Meecham plays West Charleston High School. Help him score a lot of points, play good, strong defense, and thread the needle with his passes. But most of all, help him to be a good sport, to hold his head high, and to make the Meecham family proud. We love you, Mary, and we love your Son."

"And let's beat the hell out of West Charleston High," Karen shouted toward the icon.

"Karen, I'm surprised at you."

"None of the girls in the sixth grade believe that Ben's on the team. They say they never heard of him."

"This is so ridiculous," Mary Anne said, removing her glasses and wiping them off with a Kleenex. Her eyes had a stunned, swollen appearance when she removed her glasses; they strained to make out shapes, to translate blurs. "I bet heaven has a few more important things going on besides a silly basketball game between Ravenel and West Charleston High. Like maybe a famine or two. Or a couple of wars. I'd like to remind this family that this stupid game is not the most important thing in the world."

"You're wrong, Mary Anne," Ben said. "God appeared to me last night in the shape of a glass backboard and said, 'In this sign thou shalt conquer and you, Ben Meecham, are to cut your oldest sister's throat with a dull machete to prove your worthiness.' So Mary Anne, if you'll just step to the kitchen."

"I've raised the two most sacrilegious children I know," Lillian said sadly.

"That's nothing, Ben," Mary Anne retorted. "the Virgin Mary appeared to me in the shape of a pom-pom . . ."

"Stop it!" Lillian shouted.

"They do this all the time, Mama. I try to stop them but then they start teasing me," Karen said.

"I've never teased you once in my whole life, so help me, God," Mary Anne said.

"Where's Dad?" Ben asked.

"Your father's meeting us at the game."

"Oh, no," Ben groaned," he's not at happy hour."

"Yes."

"That's great. That's just great. In fact, that's more than great. That's just fabulous."

"He promised to have just two drinks."

"He probably will just have the bartender fill up two washtubs and call that two drinks," Ben said.

"He promised," Lillian said, looking at her watch. "Let's go. We're on our way to beat the hell out of West Charleston."

*
          
*
          
*

"You going to the dance tonight, Meecham?" Pinkie asked.

"Im not sure," Ben answered.

"Who have you been dating, Meecham? I've never even seen you with a girl," Pinkie said.

"I've been sort of playing the field."

"Ansley's father told me that the night you dated Ansley was the first date you ever had," Jim Don Cooper said, pulling up his uniform pants.

"A lot he knows," Ben said.

"Why are you getting dressed so early, Jim Don?" Blease Palmer, a second string forward, asked.

"Because he always has to take an hour long shit before every game," Pinkie said.

"It helps me relax," Jim Don said defensively.

"They brought in a nigger band for the victory dance," Blease said. "Payin' 'em seventy-five dollars. It should be a swingin' night."

Art Bullard walked into the locker room, his long arms swinging back and forth, and a broad smile on his face. "Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen," he said in greeting.

"What are you showing your gums about, Art the Fart?" Jim Don asked.

"You haven't heard," Pinkie said. "He's got a date with Susie Holtzclaw after the game."

"Whoopee!" his teammates shouted.

"I may just park down by the river to watch those underwater submarine races," Art said.

"We know what you're after, ya ol' stud horse," Pinkie said.

"You're gonna have a hard-on this whole game," Jim Don said, smacking his oversize lips together. "Ol' Pinkie used to date Susie until she got tired of sucking on that birthmark of his."

"Don't say nothin' about my mark," Pinkie flared.

"Yeah, let's think about the game," Philip Turner said. He had slipped up to his locker quietly. No one had noticed or acknowledged his entry.

"I'd rather think about the treasures of Susie Holtzclaw's body," Art said dramatically. He then broke into a low, primordial litany. "Nookie, nookie, nookie, nookie," he began to chant. He closed his eyes reverently, danced in a circle, and raised his hands, as if in supplication to the gods who decided such matters. Pinkie and Jim Don began to clap in time with Art's voice. None of the players saw Coach Spinks standing in the doorway drinking a newly opened bottle of R.C. Ben saw him first.

"Hi, Coach," he said. Art froze on the "k" syllable.

"Good evening, Coach," Art said. "We were just discussing what kind of defense West Charleston might throw up against us."

"I told you boys I don't want this kind of talk before a game. All you boys think of is pussy. We got more important things to think about . . . like beating West Charleston High School. Now, I know all you boys got the hot pants cause I was young myself and I had to cut my horns like anyone else. But there is a time and a place for everything and this is no time to be screaming about some cheap piece of poontang. "He spat some R.C. into an empty, open locker, casting an acrimonious glance at Art. He took a long swig on the R.C., then continued his harangue. "I told you boys last year what to do when you felt your peckers getting hard. You got to think about your girl friends in a certain way. You can't think about them all dolled up in lace panties and satin, skimpy nightgowns. You got to think about them differently. Think about them with their hair up in curlers, no makeup on, squattin' on the commode and takin' a shit. That'll soften your pecker. Just think of 'em squattin' on the pot with a bead of perspiration poppin' out on their forehead, with them gruntin' and fartin' tryin' to get rid of a big one. Now the girls' game's about half over so let's start gettin' dressed for war. We're waging war tonight, men. We are playing West Charleston High School and they think they're coming down here to trounce the hicks. Well we're going to surprise the big city boys by cleaning their pipes real good. Get your uniforms on and get on over to the blackboard. I don't want to hear another word out of you."

When all the players had dressed, they assembled in a small alcove in the back of the locker room where the blackboard hung. Beneath the blackboard and to the left was a new whirlpool bath. The team members sat in the creaking, green folding chairs. Ben tied and untied his shoes over and over. Pinkie Taylor cracked his knuckles. Jim Don had disappeared to the toilet for his ritualistic pre-game excretion. The crowd, invisible but possessing a huge, menacing voice, roared its approval of a Calhoun girl's basket. Among the boys, tension exuded in a subtle musk, a glaze of perspiration under the arms, behind the knees, and in the hands. A whistle blew. The crowd jeered and the boys listened to the voice of the referee, faroff and muffled through the cinderblock wall, call a foul against a Calhoun player.

Then, the manager burst through the double doors that led to the court and ran breathlessly into Coach Spinks's small office. "Five minutes left in the girls' game, Coach."

"Thanks, Tommy," came the reply. "Get me another R.C.," he said, flipping the manager a dime.

A few moments later, Spinks walked to the blackboard, his eyes studying a 3 X 5 card filled with statistics. His face was businesslike, determined. A transformation had taken place. There was something noble in Spinks's face as he prepared to address his team, something military; this man Spinks, a generalissimo in the land of the jock, rising above himself and his R. C., above his coach's whistle and his small office, a speech forming on his lips, taken from storybooks and movies, and dogeared copies of
Sports
Illustrated.

But before he spoke he picked up a piece of yellow chalk and drew five X's and O's up on the board. He ran the X's through the offensive patterns the team had practiced repetitiously for two weeks. Spinks's chalkwork, with its sweeping, serpentine arrows and carefully crafted letters, was a genuine and delicate art. He had a flawless and very feminine handwriting that seemed detached from the man possessing it. But when he spoke it was in the harsh rhythms of coaches who had once been athletes who had failed in the same arenas they now presided over as adults.

"We are gonna stick to man-to-man no matter what kind of offense those sonsabitches throw at us. When I hold my arm up like this," he said, thrusting his arm straight upward, his fist clenched," I want you to pick 'em up all over the court. I want you to scramble assholes and elbows after them. When I stand up and hold my belt, I want you to slow the ball down. And when I grab hold of my nuts, I want the manager to run over with the jock powder, cause I'm gonna have a powerful itch."

The whole team laughed, pressure released like air from a tire. The buzzer sounded for a substitution.

"I want you boys to hit that court hungry. I want you boys to be starving. I want you boys to feast on some medium rare West Charleston High School asshole. I want us to win. Win. Win. Win. I want us to win big. I want us to make our school proud," he roared out, his voice surpassing exhortation. "I want us to make our parents proud, our grandparents proud, our first and second cousins proud, our poontang proud, and ourselves proud. Do y'all hear what I'm saying?"

"Yes, sir!" came the thunderous reply.

Suddenly, Coach Spinks's face mellowed. There was a dissociation of form and substance. His eyes glistened; his gaze became beatific. "Let us pray," he said and all the heads on the team dropped floorward as though they were puppets strung to the same wire.

"O sweet Jesus, we come again to ask your blessings and your forgiveness for our many trespasses against you and our fellow neighbor. We are playin' West Charleston High School tonight, Lord, but there's no need to tell you that since you knew about it two or three million years before I did. We ask, good Jesus, not that we beat West Charleston High but that we do our best before our God, our family, and our country. We do ask, Lord, if you see it befitting, that we score a point or two more than West Charleston even though I know that Coach Warners is a God-fearin' man and a deacon in the Baptist Church besides. But you know as well as I, Lord, he's one of the mouthiest so and so's that ever wore socks. I'm also aware, dear Jesus, that their players are all clean cut boys and also pleasant to your sight. We don't want to ask for anything special, Lord, but help my rebounders get off their feet. Help Pinkie and Jim Don control their tempers. Give Philip and Art a little more temper. And get Ben to quit throwin' those big city behind-the-back passes. And, Lord, please help this high school if I got to make any substitutions. My scrubs is good boys but they've been havin' a devil of a time puttin' that ball into the hole. The real thing I want to ask, Lord, is that all these boys make the first team in that great game of life. If they make mistakes, Lord, blow the whistle because you're the great referee. Call time out and bring them to center court for another jump ball. Don't let them go out of bounds, Lord. If they bust a play, make 'em run windsprints and figure eights but stay with 'em, Lord. Coach 'em all the way to the championship of life. A-men."

"A-men," the team echoed in relief.

"Now you boys sit here and think about the game," Coach Spinks ordered. "I'm gonna go out and watch the girls finish getting stomped," he said, walking from the blackboard.

Then he stopped and said in an afterthought," You know why I like to watch the girls' games so much? You probably think I'm watchin' the strategy used or something. But that's not it. Naw. I just love to watch all those titties bounce."

When he left the room and the double doors closed, Pinkie whispered," If those prayers get any longer, I'm gonna quit believin' in God."