That afternoon at practice, we didn’t do anything but take turns shooting free-throws and tossing the ball around and stuff like that because we never went at it very hard the last practice before a game, and afterward we all went in the locker room and sat around on the God-damn hard benches while old Mulloy drew diagrams of plays and stuff on a blackboard with a piece of chalk. To tell the truth, I couldn’t see much sense to it, because once we got in a game we hardly ever used any of the plays but just ran like hell and banged the damn ball at the bucket, but I guess it made old Mulloy feel important to go through all that bull just the same. He’d be talking along about something, and all of a sudden he’d point his damn finger at someone like he was ready to pull the trigger, and he’d say real fast, “What would you do in these circumstances?” and then he’d go on to tell the circumstances, and whoever he’d pointed at had damn well better know what he was supposed to do or else get chewed. You could see from the way the bastard acted that it made him feel important as all hell, a real hot-shot coach and all that, but like I said, we hardly ever went in for any of that fancy crap in a game, and what’s more, he didn’t seem to give a damn whether we did or not, and all he’d do then was jump up and down on the God-damn bench and yell, “Run, run, run!” until you wanted to poke him right in his stinking mouth.
After he finished with the chalk-talk, which was what he called it, he started in with the old pepper crap, and that was even worse. The idea was to get us all steamed up over the game and ready to go out and give our all for the dear old school and such bull, and he began by telling us what a tough team this was we were going to play, and how we’d have to play like we’d never played before if we hoped to beat them, and at first he hadn’t had much hope, to tell the truth, but now he was sorry as hell he’d had so little faith, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it and say right out he was sorry, and he knew we weren’t going to hold it against him, or let him down, and he wasn’t going to say anything more about it, not a Goddamn word, but he knew we were going out there tomorrow night and win this game, and all in all it was just about the sloppiest crap you could ever hope to hear.
When it was all over and he let us go, I went over to old Tizzy Davis, because there was something that had been bothering me, and I wanted him to put me straight, but I hardly knew how to bring it up. I’d thought about it some and had decided that it would be best to be just sort of casual, so I said, “By the way, Tizzy, about this thing at the Club tomorrow night. I forgot to ask Marsha what the guys generally wear,” and he said, “Oh, these things are just little informal brawls. Most of us just wear something like what we ordinarily wear to school,” and so that was all right, a big relief, as a matter of fact, and if he’d said anything else I’d have been right up that old creek without a paddle.
I fooled around the house almost all day Saturday and started out for the school about two hours before time for the game to start, and the old man was home at the time and said, “Where the hell you off to now?”
“I’m off to school to play basketball, if you want to know, that’s where I’m off to,” I said, and he said, “I thought I told you to quit that God-damn foolishness,” and I said, “Who the hell pays any attention to what you say?”
“I’ll damn well show you who better pay some attention to what I say,” he said, “and I’ll tell you something else right now. You get home here early tonight and don’t go lousing around Beegie’s pool hall or bumming the streets, and I don’t want any other old bastard like old Beacon telling me you been talking filthy or doing some other God-damn thing to shame your family.”
I laughed right in his fat face and said, “Shame my family! If that’s not a belly laugh I never heard one. What the hell could I do that would shame this lousy family? Just tell me what I could do, and what’s more, I probably won’t be home until one or two o’clock, or maybe even three, because I’m going to a party at the Country Club.”
He looked at me and said, “Don’t be trying to impress me with any of your God-damn lies, because I know you’re a damn liar and wouldn’t tell the truth if you were getting paid for it by the hour,” and I said, “Who the hell’s trying to impress you? I don’t give enough of a damn about what you think to even bother thinking up a lie for you, and if you don’t believe I’m going to the Country Club, it’s all right with me, and you can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”
He kept on looking at me, and I could tell he was beginning to believe I was telling the truth, and then he began to laugh sort of soft with his big sloppy beer-belly shaking up and down, and he said, “Well, damn! Ain’t he getting to be a big-shot, though! A regular God-damn plutocrat, going to the Country Club and everything!”
He kept on laughing that way, like he thought it was a hell of a good joke on the other people who went to the Country Club, which maybe it was, come to think of it, and I turned and started to leave again, but he stopped me before I could get out the door, and he’d quit laughing all of a sudden. “By the way,” he said, “where the hell you getting the money to go to the Country Club?” and his eyes were narrow and pretty mean, and I could see that he was remembering the fin that had disappeared from his stinking pocket, so I said in a hurry, “Who the hell needs money? You so God-damn ignorant you don’t know that a guest of someone whose old man is a member doesn’t have to pay for anything? I’m going with Marsha Davis, and no one has to pay for anything because her old man’s a member.”
Well, that part about my going with Marsha Davis really broke off in him, and he sat there gawking at me with his nasty mouth hanging open, and I got out before he could close it and start in on me again. I walked across town to the high school, and all the rest of the team were already in the locker room when I got there, because I’d lost so much time jawing with the old man, and old Mulloy was pacing up and down like a God-damn cat on hot rocks.
I got into my suit and sat down on a bench, and outside in the gym you could hear all the maniacs raising hell and giving fifteen rahs for this and that, and the band was playing these snappy marches that make you lose what little God-damn sense you might have had to start with, and it got into you a little, at that, even though you knew you were a creep for letting it and should have had your tail kicked up between your shoulders. Just before time to go out on the floor, old Mulloy got out in the middle of the locker room and raised his arms like some evangelist or something who was trying to get everyone to pay attention, and when we were quiet he still didn’t say anything but just stood there with his shoulders sort of stooped a little like he was tired as hell, and the silence kept stretching on and on until you wanted to jump up and yell at him, for Christ’s sake, and then finally he said in this low, tired voice, “Fellows, this is where I get off. I’ve done my best for you, I’ve taught you all I know, and now it’s all up to you. All I’m going to say is, I know you’re going to get out there and give me all you’ve got.” Then he turned and walked off to his crummy little office in this God-damn awful silence that was like a damn funeral or something, and his shoulders were stooped this way that seemed to say that it was all pretty damn hopeless, and he walked like every step damn near broke his back, but he wasn’t fooling me any, and I knew it was just a corny act that was supposed to get us all juiced up and ready to run our guts out just to show him we could beat this other team, and probably he’d read about some big college coach doing it sometime or other, because, as a matter of fact, I don’t think he had the brains to think of it all by himself. I’m bound to say it worked with the rest of the team, though, the God-damn spooks, and when old Mulloy was gone they all jumped up and started banging each other around, including me, and saying, “Let’s go, gang! That’s the old pepper, gang! Let’s show Coach we can do it! Let’s get this one for old Coach!” and I thought, Horse manure! I’ll get it for old Skimmer, that’s who I’ll get it for.