Well, some guys may need an engraved invitation, but not old Skimmer, so we slipped out through the glass doors and across the veranda and started down across the golf course, and Marsha said, “Have you ever played golf?” and I said I hadn’t, and the truth is, I hadn’t thought much about it at all, except that there didn’t seem to be any God-damn sense in it whatever, and I’ve heard my old man say that anybody who’d carry a bag of clubs around for miles hitting a little ball in front of him must have damn little to do and be queer in the head besides. Anyhow, old Marsha didn’t really care whether I played or not, or even answered her question, and neither did I, for that matter, because we both had something else on our minds that even my old man could see some sense in now and then. We went quite a way across the grass to a big tree and sat down under the tree and began to kiss and fool around, but the wind whipped in under the tree, and it was cold as hell, and before long I could hear her teeth rattling together and feel little goose pimples all over her skin.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Let’s go find the car,” and to tell the truth, I was ready to go almost anywhere myself to get out of that damn wind, and under the circumstances, that probably gives you a pretty good idea just how damn cold it was. We went back across the grass at an angle to the parking lot and down a row of cars until we came to the Buick, and Marsha said, “This is it,” and I started to open the door, but damned if old Tizzy hadn’t locked it, the skinny bastard.
Marsha stamped her foot and said, “Oh, that damn Tizzy!” and I said, “What the hell would he want to do a thing like that for?” and she said, “Oh, that’s just like him, he doesn’t give a damn about anyone else as long as he’s got the keys to get in himself in case he gets that drippy Marion to come outside.”
Anyhow, the cars on both sides kept the wind off of us, and we stood there and did a lot more kissing and fooling around, and it wasn’t so bad after all, but not as good as it might have been, and Marsha said we’d been gone so long someone might miss us and we’d better go back, and so we did, but no one had missed us at all, and we might as well have stayed outside all the rest of the time we were there as far as I could see, except that it was pretty damn cold.
As a matter of fact, though, we finally got on a sofa out in another little room that was almost as good as outside, besides being warmer, the only trouble being that you had to be sort of careful and not do too much and be ready to pretend that you were just sitting there talking if anyone else came in. Marsha kept telling me how I was just what she’d always wanted, the strong type that always knew just what he was after and wasn’t like all these other guys that seemed so juvenile, and I said she was just what I’d always wanted, too, and she said she knew there wasn’t anything on earth that could keep us apart, now that we’d found each other, and altogether it was damn good stuff, in spite of being largely bull, and it didn’t seem like any time at all before one of the old dolls from the bar came in and said we had to get the hell out of there and go home.
It was about midnight then, but we didn’t go home but went to an owl diner in town instead and had sandwiches and stuff to drink and listened to the juke box. When it got time to leave, I decided I’d better pick up the check, because if I kept letting old Tizzy do it someone might get the idea I was a God-damn deadbeat, or something, so I did, and old Tizzy said I didn’t have to do it and let him pay half at least, but he didn’t insist very hard, damn him, and it cost me a dollar and twenty-eight cents with tax. We got in the Buick again and started off, and old Tizzy saying, “Well, now, how shall we work this?” and I knew what he was getting around to was, should he take me home first or Marsha, and the idea was that, either way, he didn’t want us around to cramp his style when he took Marion home.
If there’d been any way to louse him up, I’d have done it, just for locking the door of the God-damn Buick, but there wasn’t any way that I could see, so I said, “Why don’t you just let me off at your house with Marsha and then I’ll walk on home,” and he said, “Oh, you don’t want to walk clear across town this time of night,” and I said, “Sure I do, I like to walk,” and so he said well, have it your own way, which I intended to, and he drove up to his house and let us out in the driveway.
I walked Marsha up to the front steps, and we stood there in the dark and kissed and fooled around some more, quite a bit as a matter of fact, and she said, “I wish I never had to go in,” and I said I wished she didn’t either, and she looked up through her lashes and gave this little laugh and said, “Better yet, I wish you could come in and stay all night,” and I said I sure as hell wished I could, too, but that it would be a damn hot day in January before we ever got her old man to see it the same way. She said that was right and fathers were a hell of a problem when you came right down to it, and then we loved each other up pretty good for the road, because she was getting shivery and goose pimply again, like on the golf course, and so was I, to tell the truth, and besides, old Tizzy would be getting back any minute and it was time she was getting in.
I went home to bed, and I lay there thinking about what a hell of a big difference this God-damn crazy game of basketball had made in everything, and how the difference might even have been a little bigger by this time if only the weather had been warmer, but there was always another time coming up, and I began to get the idea that maybe I had something really big by the tail, a hell of a lot bigger than old Bugs or I had ever thought, and God only knew what might come of it if I really kept at it and worked it for all it was worth. I was just about to go to sleep when I remembered the change from the fin that was still in my pants pocket, and I got up and got it and stuck it in the toe of my shoe, because it would’ve been just like the old man to sneak in and go through my pockets to see if I’d really taken the fin and had anything left, the sneaky son of a bitch.
Well, if you were around at the time and read the sports page, you’ll remember that I went through with this basketball stuff, just like I decided to, and really made a big thing of it. I got my picture in a lot of papers in other towns, even, and stories about how I was the best damn sharpshooter anyone had ever heard of, and I guess I must have been, at that, because I was high point man in the league all season and wound up after it was all over being high point man in the whole God-damn state. In the league, every team had to play each other twice, home and home, which means once on each other’s court, and old Mulloy really sweat out the game we had to play on their court with the team that damn near beat us on ours, and he was a genuine pain in the tail, the way he kept pointing us for that particular game, as he called it, and trying to juice us up with his corny crap that was supposed to be psychology or something.
It turned out that he did all his sweating for nothing, anyhow, because we beat them on their own court easier than we had on ours, and from then on we just coasted in and were league champions going away. I kept going out with Marsha all this time, and I’m not going to say a hell of a lot more about it, except that she was a real classy doll who always knew just what the score was, and that the weather wasn’t always as God-damn cold as it was the night we had the party at the Country Club.
After all the leagues in the state had finished playing and had a champion, they divided the state into regions, and all the champions in each region played each other in what was called regional tournaments. It happened that it was the year to have our particular regional tournament in our own gym, and that was a break for us because a team usually can do a little better on its home court, and the school really made a God-damn production of it. We had these big pep rallies in the auditorium, with the cheer leaders and the band there and everyone going crazy, and old Mulloy was really in hog heaven, and you’d have thought to hear him talk that the bastard had won the championship all by himself. Every day on the sports page of the paper there was a big black headline that said ALL THE WAY, FELLOWS, and when we finally got around to playing the games, it seemed like everyone in town except my old man and old lady tried to get in the God-damn gym, and I’m bound to say that it got out of hand and pretty God-damn silly, all in all, but it was all gravy for Skimmer any way you looked at it, and who the hell was I to complain?