The More You Ignore Me (15 page)

The injustice of it, how money meant for me had gone to some Serbian in leather pants, made me—I admit—feel bitter, and even more entitled, caused me to spew waspish comments at anyone and everyone, just like, I see now, Mother.

The betting circle on the felt was like a pie in the face.

The flop of the cards on the table was a box of my ears.

It was not right.

Someone, I thought then, should pay.

If anyone had cared enough to see how angry I became while gambling, they might have told me the only one really suffering for my sins was me, but mostly everyone just steered clear if I'd been out gambling, including, especially after the last divorce, Mother.

“Isn't the whole thing that the house always wins?” you ask.

“Not if you have a system,” I reply. “Not at blackjack.”

Do I remember when the toothless pamphleteer told me that Christ could help ease my bitterness and my sense of entitlement and my gambling problem?

Yes.

I told him to “get lost,” but on nights when I played my bad hands over and over in my mind until I couldn't stop seeing the king of diamonds flipping on top of my seven and five of hearts, my stack of chips pulled away by Mona's hot dog hands, I did think to call on a Christian oblivion to stop my mind from unspooling.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want
.

I tried it.

Repeated it in my mind over and over to crowd out the cards, but the problem was I did want.

I wanted more money.

I deserved it.

Next time.

Oh yes, all of those gambling nights came back to me as I sat there on the bleachers watching the flag-football game.

Things did become a bit blurry for me as the game wore on—I reached for my thermos of vodka and found it was strangely empty—but I did gather through the fog that it had been a closely fought but rather unremarkable display up until “the moment.”

With time running out and the gray shirts down only three points, thirty yards from the end zone, there came the “hike.”

A scrum.

I watched the arc of a wobbly pass as it fell through the mist into the arms of a man in a gray
T
-shirt who had huffed and puffed into the end zone.

A catch!

The huff-and-puff lump looked around, astonished at his good fortune in securing the “pigskin,” and then, because he had achieved something no mere spectator could have (I admit it), he danced.

He pointed his little fingers up and down, and he involved his android pelvis in the dance.

To my right on the risers, the knot of gray shirt partisans erupted in high fives at the sight of this score.

“No!” I yelled, leaning over to swat the fives away from completion, disgusted.
Injustice!

The other spectators, my compatriots, slumped and frowned along with me.

One patted me on the back and murmured wet reassurances into my ear.

Crumpled bills and cigarettes exchanged hands as we all began to “settle up”—I saw red all around me—but, oh ho, what was this?

Shouts from the field stopped us short.

Rico—lovely, justice-serving Rico!—was shaking his head and signaling a dead play, defiantly crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“No way, sirs!” he yelled. “The
QB
was down!”

He pointed back to where the
QB
stood sheepishly, hands on his hips, a flag forlorn on the grass beside him.

The gray partisans above and below cried out in protest, but rules are rules, so the players jogged back down the field to huddle up again.

I felt suddenly refreshed.

Sober.

“There are
rules!
” I screamed. “There is
justice!
When the
QB
is down, there are
consequences!
And Rico knows this! He recognizes! Mother, take heed!”

The game was over; the Blues won.

I don't remember exactly what happened next. I was so overjoyed that my mind raced in a fever as grumbling gentlemen in ponchos and army jackets stuffed my hands with money. I began then and there to truly admire and feel such an affinity for Rico.

My “gut” was inspired!

I tried to suppress a belch by ducking my chin and flexing my abs, but a dark rattle shot through my nasal passages and made my eyes sting.

Always partial to the game of Risk (my system: always take Kamchatka early), I saw the latest gambling scene on the quad as a negative image of a real war, with the old and “infirm” risking it all at the front, on the “ball field” in their blue and gray, battling for favor and pride, gentlemen of a certain age with bad mortgages, broken marriages, and kids who despise them, all dotting the fields playing these “games” to determine which group is the better (
UNION
vs.
CONFEDERACY
?), while the youths of the world looked on.

He enacted justice.

This, I thought, was a young man of the future!

A compatriot!

If I am not able to have Rachil, then by God, Rico should!

Elated, I followed him from the field onto the city bus (late, as always), and I observed him closely as he sank into his seat in contemplation.

I assumed, perhaps, he was thinking of how to solve the war—the one outside the city limits, the state, the county, the region, the
USA
, the continent—to seal it in time and give it over to reenactors and historians.

That is what I had been contemplating there on the bus, so I said aloud to all the passengers, “Develop an alternative energy strategy and let the indigenous sort themselves out. Simple!”

I believe Rico would have agreed with me, but I saw too late that he had a worn paperback in his hands and a nefarious set of headphones on his head.

If only he had turned back to talk to me then we might have come together to solve a foreign policy struggle that still plagues us as a country to this day, but he did not ask for my ideas on the subject. No one, in fact, had asked for my ideas on the subject, just my
tact
in not mentioning it to anyone—especially not on the bus!

But of course I have always refused tact!

I have, in fact, long advocated for the war.

Everyone I know has been horrified at my advocacy (I should share with you some of
THOSE
arguments, my
dears!), but to Rico, I see now, my advocacy surely would have made sense. (He would now, I'm sure, understand my position on the blog; one cannot be neutral in the conflict between freedom and oppression.)

He would see that I refuse to give tacit approval to oppression, that I have fought against it in whatever capacity I could throughout my life.

Rico would know instinctively that I clamor for a fight, a new narrative, a patriotism of the left that won't disdain the soldiers who protect it.

Later, while his City Parks basketball team practiced lay-ups in the gym, I sat in the bleachers reading aloud from Thomas Paine, did I not?

And when I drew up plays for the team as an extra help to the coach, I consulted this new “counterinsurgency” strategy, yes?

A glorious time!

I had felt once again like I was part of a country! And a team!

I could have been, if not great, then quite good at basketball, dear readers, so this is not just idle claptrap.

Up until ninth grade I was considered one of the top players in my class, an avid defender, an annoyance deployed by the coaches to harass the opponent's best scorer.

But my weakness, where I so desperately needed tutelage, was with my jump shot.

Oh sure, occasionally I would “stroke it” and hit numerous shots in a row during practice, such that my teammates would marvel at my ability and give me little pats on the behind.

But in games something happened. Some mania would overtake me.

Perhaps it was that I wanted my form to be perfect.

I'm not sure.

But I would catch a pass and—wide open!—square to shoot.

I would repeat the mantra I had made for myself: “Knees, elbow, wrist!”—shorthand for “bend at the knees; lock the elbow in; follow through with the wrist;
make the shot
.” but the game happened so quickly that I would catch the pass and chant my chant in a rush only to find my body could not keep up with my mind. (Or, maybe, that my mind could not keep up with my body?)

Nothing would behave.

My knees would dip too low, my elbow would creep out too wide, and my wrist would lock into place so the barely spinning orb would be sent into the ether, never to hit the backboard/rim apparatus.

Naturally I became an object of ridicule amongst my “peers,” and instead of taking me under his wing to tutor me in technique and strategy—I would have been such a pupil!—the incompetent hack of a coach
cut me
from the squad!

Crushed, I renounced the game.

For years I refused to even acknowledge a pair of sneakers on television.

They were dead to me.

Over time, yes, I came back to the game, but by then my prime had passed, my skills had atrophied, and my talent had gone fallow, all thanks to an ignoramus coach!

I have resolved not to let the same thing happen to the kids in my current location, who practice at the recreation center, but has anyone thanked me?

No!

In fact, they have had on numerous occasions the janitorial staff escort me from the facility!

Rico clearly felt bad about all of this.

I watched him let out a deep sigh a few nights later at the “Parkside Loco,” no doubt upset with himself he hadn't been more understanding about my “coaching” at the gym.

Shame tickled the back of his throat.

He made it to the shrimp “buffet” with his cleaning rag, but there he quite naturally gagged.

Flies buzzed.

I snuck over to him and whispered from behind my napkin as he adjusted the plates and forks:

“Did you know that Sartre said he never had a day of despair in his entire life?”

Rico made no indication that he heard me, though I said it repeatedly.

Flummoxed, I began chewing on my napkin, but then I saw that Rico must have indeed heard me, for he suddenly slipped away from the puce shrimp and walked downstairs shaking his head.

Parts of the restaurant were under construction, and a drop cloth and a can of paint had been shoved behind the creaky bathroom door just to the left of the stairs.

The smell of glue and sawdust swirled into my nostrils as I snuck to the door just as Rico closed it.

A draft wafted in from behind me as Rico undid his “Button Fly” shorts to urinate, but before he could unfurl a stream into the bowl, he tensed.

Looking back over his shoulder, directly at what had become my regular “observation crack” in the door, Rico suddenly stepped back with an impish grin on his face, causing me to inhale sharply and feel my heartbeat in my throat.

Had I been caught?

He took two steps to the corner, and—rather than press his face into the crack to confront me with his crazy eyes—he bent over to the paint can and stirring stick.

He popped open the paint can with his keys, then reached for his dangling genitalia.

Strange.

Was it part of his job?

Was he required to finish painting?

No.

Dear readers, he dipped the tip of his penis into the can of taupe paint.

It must have felt quite cool there on his (uncircumcised) penis, because he smiled a rather too large smile as he dunked his member in the paint like a “Long John” into coffee.

Then, waddling over to the sink—can in hand, penis in can—Rico smiled his crack-toothed smile ever wider and let out a hiccoughy giggle.

Giddiness began to course through my own crouched arteries as well.

What a marvel was this Rico!

The nervous system, indeed!

What would he do next?

With his left knee propped up on the sink and his right hand guiding his dripping, taupe penis, he spelled out, awkwardly (and, it appeared, a bit painfully), a word on the bathroom mirror.

At first I couldn't make it out, for his hunched frame blocked my view, but at last, after he gave a satisfied grunt
and slid back from the sink, I saw it—I knew he still carried the torch!—all was not lost!—“
R
-
A
-
C
-
H
-
I
-
L
-!”

The last of the
!
dripped down into the sink.

(Despair! Never in his life!)

The paint must have begun to sting his penis hole, because Rico had no time to admire his work before he began hopping back and forth on the balls of his feet.