Bump up against the door! "Henry!" Suddenly afraid: a mistake! "It's hot, Henry!" Wkump whump!
Take it easy, he cautioned himself, but his heart was beating wildly when he opened the door. Lou plummeted into the room bearing garlicky perfumes and a great disk of wrapped pizza. "It's dripping!" he cried and made for the kitchen table.
"No!" Henry cried. "The game!" He grabbed Lou's elbow roughly, pulled him up short. "Here! the stove!" He swept away the coffee pot as Lou brought the platter swooping down.
"Whoo!" gasped Lou. He looked at his dripping hands, then around the kitchen for something to—
"Here, wash in the sink there," Henry said. "I'll get soap and a towel."
In the bathroom, he dropped the soap. Why was he so nervous? Lou alone in there, careening around, he could do anything. "It's a good one, Henry!" Lou called.
Lou charged forward to meet him halfway, dripping water. Henry lunged forward, bound Lou's hands in the towel. Lou's eyebrows arched in astonishment. "Henry, is something. .?"
"No!" Henry forced a loose laugh. "It's just that I was dozing sort of when you came, and you know how a sudden noise can make you jump, I'm still sort of. ."
"Oh," Lou smiled. "I'm sorry, Henry, only it was hot and—"
"Say, it does look good!" Henry said, unwrapping it. Oregano and burnt cheese odors rose up and pleased him greatly. Must be hungry at that. Nothing since those sweet rolls. "Do you want to play a round of the game first, or…?"
" Better eat it while it's hot," said Lou, looking for a place to throw his overcoat. Henry reached forward, but too late.
The coat went sailing over the back of a chair, sent a hurricane ripping through the league on the table. Lou leaned hugely over the pizza to breathe it in, eyes tracing its contours, judging its parts, studying its limits, as though deciphering a treasure map. "Boyoboy! Am I hungry!"
"I'll get a knife."
"Where'll we…?" Again his eye fell on the table. "Do you think we can make a space?"
"I've got it all set up," Henry said. "Do you mind using a couple extra chairs for tables instead?"
"No!" he smiled, rubbing his hands. "Getting cold out," he remarked, "but it's good for the appetite."
Henry sliced the pizza into segments, obeying its special geography. Oils and juices oozed and bubbled. Herbs spackled the surface. A rich one with onions, sausage, mushrooms and a St. Andrew's cross of pepperonis. Lou Engeclass="underline" the ubiquitous special customer. He placed half of it on the middle chair arranged by Lou, opened beers. "Ah!" said Lou, reaching for a slice. "Mmm!" said Henry, sinking his teeth in. They both laughed slyly, chewed appreciatively, drank beer, ate some more. "Great!" "Mmm!" "Feast!" "World of flavors!" "A symphony!" "Ha ha!" "Banquet, Henry!" "Mmm!" "Should've bought two or three." "Still another half." "I'm ready!" "More beer?" "You bet!" "Work of art!" "You said it!" "Out of this world, Lou!" "Those mushrooms — mmm! Can't stop!" "Why try? Be merciless!" "Onions, too — sweet!" "Paradise!" "Mmm, that's right — wonder if Adam and Eve could get pizza?" "If they couldn't, Lou, they were right in getting out!" "Ha ha! you (licking fingers) said it! Is there (tipping back to drain) — ah! — any more beer?" "Lots of it!"
It was a large pizza, enormous in fact, Henry had never seen one as big, and as they neared the end of it, they ate more slowly, drank more steadily. Should get to the game, but an animal satisfaction was on him like a thick blanket, and it seemed criminal even to move. It was Lou, in fact, who brought it up: "What's that up there on the wall, Henry?"
"The Team Standings Board. It shows where the teams are. I made it myself."
"The teams?"
"Well, it takes a little while to explain, Lou." He belched, drank beer, trying to remember how it was he'd practiced it. For one thing, he hadn't meant to begin with the Team Standings Board. "See, the game, well, it's a whole baseball league. Eight teams. Rosters, twenty-one guys—"
"Guys?"
"Players. Names. All the teams play each other and I keep the—"
Lou looked disappointed. "I thought this was a game that two could play, you know, like pinochle or Monopoly or something."
"No reason why not. You take one team and I take another."
"Okay," he said, popping suddenly up out of his chair like a blimp cut loose. "Let's go! Batter up!"
"You sure you don't want to know more about the… the rules?"
"I'll pick it up as we go along." At the table, he stared down on the heaps of paper, as though not quite perceiving what all that had to do with a mere game.
Henry washed at the sink, feeling uneasy. It was the way he wanted it, wasn't it? Not exactly: inexperience was one thing, complete and disinterested ignorance another. "Don't you want to wash your hands?"
"They're all right." Lou wiped them absently on his pants. He'd found the different charts and was shuffling through them.
"They're not as complicated as they look," Henry said with a weak laugh, drying his hands.
"I hope not." Lou picked up the dice, fingered them, then tossed them down. He searched the chart. "S if PR/LO; Others Ret S 1B" He scratched his head, looked down at the dice.
"That's the special chart for stealing second base," Henry explained. "If the runner trying to steal is a pinch runner or the lead-off man in the line-up, he makes it. Otherwise, he returns safe to first. Here, these are the charts for—"
"I don't know if I'm going to be able to figure all this out, Henry," said Lou frankly. He seemed ready to drop the project, but instead he sat down and began patiently to read more of the charts. He rolled again, compared the result on the different charts. "How do you know which one to use?" he complained.
"Well, see, there's nine charts because there are six different player categories. A pitcher can be an Ace or a Rookie or a Regular, and so can a hitter. I mean, he can be a Star—"
"How do you know that?" Lou was staring at him as though to say he must be kidding.
"There's a mark by his name. The Rookies come up, well, see, each year—"
"Year?"
"I'll explain that, Lou. Just wait a minute. Each year, at the end, the eight pitchers with the worst earned-run averages get retired or sent to the minors — they can come back — sometimes, I mean, if they're not too old—"
"Too old!" Lou blinked. "You know how old. .?"
"There's a chart for that, see. . here it is. That's for
Rookies when they come up, tells how old they are. When they're forty, they have to quit, or before if they drop into the twenty bottom batters or eight bottom pitchers — I mean, unless they're still a Star or an Ace at forty—" He could see Lou wasn't with him any more. "Look, don't worry about that part of it now. There's three kinds of batters, three kinds of pitchers. Rookies have a few advantages over Regulars, and Stars and Aces have advantages over Rookies. So there's nine charts, one for every possible combination, Ace-to-Star, Ace-to-Rookie, Ace-to-Regular, and so on, for the Rookie and Regular pitchers. Anyway, pretty soon you get it all memorized and you don't have to worry about this part of it."