We were friends again. We spent hours talking about everything but football. It was then that he told me that Mary Anne was coming in three days for a visit. As he said it, his face looked softer and his eyes were warm.
The only thing that happened in the three days before Mary Anne showed up was that we won another game. As usual, Sven sat on the end of the bench, a blanket draped over his head like Joe Louis’ towel. Marty left the number one boys in for all but the last three minutes of play. The papers were beginning to notice little old Chemung more every Saturday. We won by a criminal score again. I counted the kids carried off the field — kids from the other school. I knew there wouldn’t be any more heart in their game that year.
Sven got Mary Anne a big room in the Walner Hotel and had me in for a drink before dinner. I took Hilda. I liked Sven’s choice — a tall, Irish gal with blue-black hair, good shoulders and brave, straight eyes. We sat around and talked about the town and the school and screwball classroom scenes where the seventeen-year-olds were being forced to compete scholastically with guys of twenty-five who were digging in with dogged determination.
Then Mary Anne said, “And how is the All-American Swede making out with his ball game?”
“Cut it, honey!” he said sharply.
She had a puzzled frown on her face. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it slowly. Her eyes looked angry. Then she saw how the happy lines in Sven’s face had sagged away, saw the bleak look in his eyes. I knew she’d have some things to say after we left. I polished off my drink and left with Hilda as soon as I could.
Sven stopped at the room later in the evening to pick up his toothbrush. His jaw was set in a hard, firm line. He didn’t look easy to talk to, but I said, “Did you tell her about it?”
“I told her that I couldn’t get along with the coach.”
“That’s not the truth.”
“It is the truth.” He slammed the door as he left.
When I was certain he was gone, I ran down the stairs and phoned Mary Anne at the hotel. I said, “Hello. This is Western the guy who was up in the room. I want to talk to you without Sven knowing about it How about it?”
Her voice was warm, and yet uncertain “I guess I’d like to.”
“Is he going to classes tomorrow?”
“As far as I know?”
“See you in the hotel coffee shop at nine-thirty.”
She agreed and I walked slowly back up to the room. I still didn’t know what to say to her. It was just that she had something in her eyes, something in the way her head was set on those good shoulders that made me feel she’d know the answers.
I found her sitting on one of the benches along the wall. There was a fresh cup of coffee in front of her on the maple table. I told the waitress to bring me one, and then made light conversation until she had brought it and gone away. I noticed that Mary Anne had some new little wrinkles between her eyes. They had grown there overnight.
I told her the whole story, as I had seen it; told her about the pin and finding out about the Cross; told her what he had said. As I talked, she looked squarely at me and I still liked her eyes.
When I stopped talking, she looked down at the coffee and stirred it slowly. She took some tentative sips. “I don’t know what to say, Tom. I know why he did it. I can understand why he did it. They might have... hurt him badly. And he couldn’t take a chance on losing everything we’ve planned on.” She smiled at me and said, “You know, a wife is supposed to be a hostage to fortune.”
“But it’s wrong. The guy’s got guts. You know that. He tries to act as though he doesn’t care, but it’s feeding on his insides.”
“I know,” she said softly, “his letters have been... odd...” She paused and looked over my shoulder, her eyes widening.
Something grabbed me by the back of the neck and practically lifted me out of the chair. I twisted around. It was Sven. His face was dead white, and his eyes were gray slits. His bunched fist looked as big as a bushel basket.
“Thought I’d find you two together. Thought you’d stick your big nose in my business,” he said, without unclenching his teeth.
He started to slip the big fist back a notch before unwinding on me and Mary Anne snapped, “Sven! Sit down!”
I guessed from the way it stopped him in midair that it was the first time in their short married life that she had used that tone on him. He stopped as though someone had stuck a gun in his back. We sat on either side of her. Her eyes blazed.
“Stop and think why he’s meddling in your business. Stop being so stupid.” He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut in on him. “He’s apparently the only friend you’ve got here. He told me what happened. You’re wrong, Sven. Now don’t interrupt me. I married a man, and if he’s going to stop being a man just because I married him, then I don’t want him. If you start hedging the risks just on account of me, you’ll do it all your life and life will be dull. I can take anything the world dishes out to us — everything except being wrapped in cotton. Now please go up to the room. I want to talk to Tom a few minutes. I’ll be right up.”
They stared at each other and I saw every atom of stubborn resistance given him by his Polish and Swedish ancestors swim up into his eyes. His face was like a rock. She stared at him, and I couldn’t see her face, but I guessed that there was love and fury in her dark eyes.
I saw him waver and then saw the slow grin crack his face into a maze of wrinkles. He stuck out a big hand and ruffled her black hair. “Okay, boss,” he said, and walked out of the coffee shop, toward the lobby.
“Mary Anne,” I gasped, “wouldn’t it have been kinder to slug him with a club?”
“He’s my boy,” she said, with a nice grin. “He’s just got rocks in his head. He’ll be okay now, but you have to give him the chance.”
It took me about thirty seconds to figure out the way to do it. I didn’t want to handle it that way, but it was all there was. I walked off, remembering the small glow in her eyes that said, “Thanks.” It made me feel less badly about the job that had to be done.
I found Marty playing gin rummy with Moe, the bandage and rubdown man. I kibitzed the game silently until I made Marty nervous. He couldn’t cheat so easily with me watching.
Finally he said, “That’s enough for me, Moe.” He stood up and stretched his big frame. Moe gave him eighty cents and walked away.
He sounded irritated as he said, “And what cooks with the boy reporter?”
I sat on the bench where it was still warm from Moe, and Marty sat down near me. I gave him a cigarette. “You’ve heard of the power of the press, haven’t you, Marty?”
“Hope to tell you. You busted me out of my last ball job with it.”
“I got a little favor to ask, Marty. I want you to put Stockwitz in as a first-string end. Next game.”
“You’re nuts, Western. The guy’s yellow.”
“I don’t think so.”
“And who the hell are you?” he demanded belligerently.
“Just a jerk newspaper guy with a story home in my desk. A great big old football history of the great Marty Dorrence. I’m calling it, ‘The Butcher Comes Back to College.’ It tells all about that kid you killed, and it tells about the pro pool racket and then it has a lot of comments about the boys you’ve put in the hospital so far this year with your big score mania. And it tells about that end with the busted leg that you ignored. I’ll get it into some big sheets and I bet they don’t even let you finish out the year. You won’t be able to land on the cheapest team of any kind in the whole country. I can’t vouch for Russia or the Argentine.”
I leaned back and took a cool drag on my cigarette. I didn’t feel so cool inside. It was dirty and I knew it. He stared at me for a time, and his eyes looked hurt, older. He tried to sound mad, but his heart wasn’t in it. I let him pop off for about five minutes before I interrupted him.