Anyhow, to make it short, we went through the tournament like a dose of salts and were regional champions as well as league champions, and I was voted most valuable player by the God-damn coaches, and that didn’t leave anything but the state tournament, where all the regional champions played each other, to wind it up. The school had a big outdoor rally to send us off, and they had these crazy God-damn snake dances through the streets and a hell of a big bonfire on a vacant lot uptown, and old Mulloy made a stinking speech about how wonderful it was to have such support and how no team can get anywhere without everyone behind them and urging them on to victory, and it wound up with an old wooden building catching on fire, and it looked for a while like they were going to burn down the whole God-damn town.
After a while I got tired of it and looked around for old Bugs to walk home with, but I couldn’t find him, and then I decided I’d walk around to Dummke’s and get a package of cigarettes before I went, because we were leaving on the bus the next morning for the town where the tournament was going to be played — you probably remember it was a town called Stockton — and I figured I might not have a chance to buy any afterward. When I got to Dummke’s, it was someone besides Gravy behind the counter, and he gave me the gaspers without any lip, and the two cents change from the two-bits I gave him, and I was on my way out the door when Gravy came out of the back room and said, “Hey, kid, what’s the hurry?”
That struck me as pretty God-damn fishy right away, because always before I couldn’t be in a big enough hurry to suit him, but I just stopped and looked at him and said, “Who the hell’s in a hurry? I got my God-damn cigarettes, and I’m leaving, that’s all,” and he showed all these stinking white teeth all over his greasy face and said, “Don’t be like that, kid,” and I said, “Like what?” and he said, “Always with a Goddamn chip on your shoulder. Why in hell don’t you relax once in a while? How’d you like a coke on the house?”
If I’d had any doubt about him being up to something, I sure as hell didn’t have any after I heard him say that, because any time Gravy Dummke gave anything away, even a lousy coke, you could be damn sure he was looking at it as an investment of some kind, but to tell the truth, I was curious to know what it was he had on his crummy mind, and besides, I didn’t have any objection to the coke, either.
“Well, thanks all to hell,” I said. “A whole God-damn nickel coke? You sure you can afford it?”
His fat face smoothed out the way it did when he was about to flip his lid, and his little eyes got mean for a second, but then he found his teeth again and shrugged and said, “Always kidding. Damned if you ain’t the greatest God-damn kid for a joke I ever saw,” and I went back, and he got a bottle of coke out of this crummy cooler he had at the end of the counter and took the cap off and handed it to me. I lit a cigarette and started drinking the coke, and he said, “Ain’t it against the rules for guys on the basketball team to smoke?” and I said, “Screw the rules. Besides, what the hell business is it of yours?”
“None,” he said, “but I’d hate to see the star of the team kicked off the night before the state tournament started,” and I said, “That’s a laugh. That God-damn Mulloy wouldn’t kick you off for murder if he thought it might make him lose a game,” and he laughed and said, “Well, you’re safe, then, because I guess they wouldn’t have much chance without you,” and I said they sure as hell wouldn’t, and he said, “That leaves you in a pretty good position, kid, you know that?” and I said, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” and he said, “Why don’t you come on in the back room and talk it over. I hate to see a smart kid not taking advantage of his opportunities,” and to tell the truth, I thought it was just some of Gravy’s nonsense, but then I thought it wouldn’t cost me anything to listen at least, so I went.
The back room was a crummy dump a little bigger than an outdoor privy with a dirty window looking out on the alley and a few tables and chairs scattered around where the Goddamn penny-ante bastards that hung around Gravy’s could play pinochle and poker and different card games, and there was no one there but Gravy and me. He told me to take a load off my feet, which I did, and he sat down in another chair across the table from where I sat, and he asked me if I wanted another lousy coke, and I said I didn’t, and he said, “Jesus, kid, you’re really getting to be somebody. Every time I look at a God-damn sports page there’s your name or picture or something, and to tell the truth, I never dreamed all the time you been coming in here for cigarettes that you’d be such a big shot basketball player.”
I hadn’t dreamed it myself, as a matter of fact, but I wasn’t telling him that, so I said, “You can just skip the crap, Gravy. You didn’t ask me to come back here just so you could pin a medal on me,” and he laughed again and said, “You’re a pretty smart kid. That’s one thing I always knew, even if I didn’t know you were going to be a big star and everything, because I can smell a smart kid a mile away,” and I said, “So I’m a Goddamn marvel or something,” and he said, “Not quite. Not yet, anyhow. Even a smart kid’s got to learn the ropes. For instance, I bet you don’t know just how big this basketball thing can be. A lot of money changes hands on basketball games, kid, even high school games,” and I said, “Well, if you’ve been riding our God-damn team, you ought to have a potful,” and he looked at me for quite a while with his face smooth and his nasty little eyes half asleep, and then he said, “Oh, I’ve been getting my share. Have you been getting yours?”
I thought about how everything had changed after I’d started playing the God-damn crazy game, about Marsha and going places I’d never gone before and everyone thinking I was a regular ring-tailed wonder, and I said, “I’ve been doing all right,” and he said, “Oh, sure, a few stinking kids setting you up to cokes and hamburgers and a few girls flipping their tails in your face because they think you’re a lousy hero, but I’m talking about the long green, kid, the folding stuff, the stuff that counts. How much of that you been getting?”
I said, “You know damn well they don’t pay you anything for playing basketball at school,” and he said, “Sure, I know it, but that wouldn’t keep a smart kid from taking care of himself,” and I said, “You give me a pain in the ass, if you want to know it, because you’re always acting like a big shot and blowing about all the lousy money you got, but as far as I can see you’re just a small town jerk running a cigar store, and I never saw you with more than a fin in your hand in my life.”
I stood up then and was going to get the hell out of there, but he dug down in his stinking pocket and pulled out a wad of bills that would’ve choked a mule, and he peeled off five of them and laid them on the table, and they were all tens, and I stood there looking at them.