The Fundamentals of Play Read online

  “So, what are you saying—he’s not with Kate?” I said finally. Even considering the way he left Chatham—kicked out a year before graduation—I had never doubted they would be together as soon as they could. Chat was—well, I suppose the nice way of putting it would be to say that Chat was more practical-minded.

  “Heading to Europe with Granny, you mean?” he said.

  “No, of course not. But after—”

  “In Manhattan, George?” Chat interrupted. “Kate’s going to stay in the city, you know. Can you really picture Nicko with a New York desk job?”

  I shrugged, more annoyed.

  “So do you want to say hi or not?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to see Nick.”

  With a great roar Chat got the car in gear and pulled it out into traffic. “Sister lives in East Haven.”

  “His sister?” It struck me as preposterous that Nick had a sibling, had relations. To me he existed as a solitary player: have foul-weather gear, will travel. If anything, in my naïveté, I thought of him as part of Kate’s extended family.

  “Oh, yes,” said Chat, and it was then that I discerned the merry hint of malice in his voice. “Don’t you know Deb?”

  Knowledge of the woman’s existence, so strange to me initially, was to prove the mildest disturbance of the day.

  It was a tiny brown house, one floor—the kind of place that hardly merits its freestanding existence. We parked next to a Plymouth Duster abandoned at the edge of the driveway. The hood of the car was propped open, exposing rusted guts. For a moment we didn’t move, just sat with the windows open, looking at the water, twenty yards away. Then Chat got out and slammed his door and I followed him. There wasn’t a breath of air, or a cloud, or the tap of a halyard or the cry of a gull, just the sun beating on the tar. Beside the house a little dinghy resting on a dolly had been stripped of its mast and left, bow to the ground. I walked over to it and propped up the bow on a pair of cinder blocks. A line of scum had formed around the tanks.

  Chat peered through the sliding glass doors to see if anyone was home. He gave them a rattle, a couple of bangs. “Nicko, guy! Nicko! Open up! It’s Chat!”

  No one answered, so we went down to look at the water.

  It is always that way with water. If you come anywhere near it, you will eventually walk closer and closer to it, to touch it, if you can. Even the driveway tar spilled over toward the little strip of beach, in a futile Tantalus grasp to quench its thirst.

  From the right side of the cove, where the tar extended, a ramp led down to a long dock; I figured Nick would have set it all up. The tide was all the way out, remarkably far, and the ramp hung like a broken limb, snapped and dangling at an angle unknown to nature. It smelled like low tide, too—pungent, briny—the unmistakable scent of insidious things at growth. Where the water had receded, a layer of algae had settled on the tar, and a candy-bar wrapper had stuck there. Chat and I clattered down the ramp to get a better look out the cove.

  The Sound had turned to a bowl of reheated soup, as it does in summer. The surface was flat and rippleless as far as you could see, except for the spot, about fifty feet off the dock, where a massive rock broke cruelly through the water. Someone had stuck a stake in the middle of it with a long fluorescent tape hanging from the end to mark the obstruction when the tide filled.

  Chat slipped a foot out of his loafer and tested the water. “Oh, God,” he said. “It’s warm.”

  “I guess nobody’s around,” I said.

  We were turning to go when I saw the Boston Whaler. The boat was tied to a cleat at the end of the dock. I wouldn’t have noticed it, except that when a tiny swell rolled beneath us, she listed back to the end of her tether and the bow was exposed. The entire fore half was completely smashed, both lights blown, the nose crumpled flat: a head-on collision.

  “Total no-air day,” intoned a voice above us, and I jumped.

  Nick was perched like a gargoyle on the top of the ramp. He seemed to have materialized out of one of the streaks of humidity in the air.

  We shielded our eyes from the sun.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, barely audible, “whadda you know?”

  “Jesus Christ!” said Chat, jovially.

  From the dock Nick looked to be holding his side, like a runner with a cramp, and it wasn’t until we were beside him that I made sense of the posture. His left arm was in a sling, and the sling was blue, the same color as his T-shirt, so that from a distance the two materials blended together.

  “Nick,” I said. I was awfully glad to see him.

  “Georgie Len … Georgie P. Lennie P.—” He broke off into paroxysms of giggles. If possible, he was even thinner than before, thinner and browner, except for the top of his head, which was making a tentative gesture toward blond. His feet were bare, and he stood balancing on the outside of his soles, trading one foot for the other. “Tar’s ouchy,” he let on.

  “Nick, Christ, let me tell you how George and I spent last night. So these three Holyoke girls were up all summer—Mount Holyoke, you know, girls’ school—they come up to Hanover begging for action, right? And George has his eye on one, and I’ve got my eye on another, but first we’ve got to take care of Number Three.” Chat launched into an account of our last-ditch attempts with the girls, only to come to a premature close, enervated, stopped dead by the heat.

  “How very nice,” said Nick, after a pause that lasted just long enough for me to realize he was stoned out of his mind.

  “So you’re still living here, Nicko?” Chat said.

  Nick shrugged with his good shoulder. “Till Deb kicks me out.”

  “It’s not too bad,” Chat asserted, as if he were correcting Nick.

  “Yeah …”

  “No, Nick, it’s really not. Hell, George and I would be thrilled with this. Waterfront view, eh, Nicko?”

  Nick gave the giggle again as the three of us contemplated the water. Four or five pastel houses were crowded above the far side of the cove. In the distance, somebody with a hell of a lot of ambition was paddling a kayak toward Long Island.

  “There’s not—there’s actually not tons of stuff going on here,” Nick said. He tested the sling arm, extending it ever so slightly until he grimaced.

  I felt spooked all over again, and I glanced back over my shoulder at the Whaler. “You guessed it,” Nick corroborated. “I just got my cast off yesterday.”

  “God, that’s awful.”

  “Ran right into Halftide Rock.”

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “Not much.”

  “God,” I said again. “When did it happen?”

  He concentrated. “Must have been … oh yeah, it was Fourth of July.” With an effort he focused bloodshot eyes on me. A thought seemed to have occurred to him from far away, something profound or original, and I had, for a moment, a pleasant sense of expectation. Then Nick said, with the most enthusiasm he had yet displayed, “Hey. Do you guys want to go inside and smoke a little?”

  It was a mess inside of beer cans and dirty dishes, clean clothes piled in heaps metastasizing into dirty clothes piled in heaps; plastic cups and playing cards. It was just like any fraternity house, except that on top of the familiar reek of vomit and beer and cigarettes, there was a sickly sweetness that didn’t belong, as if a commercial air freshener had recently been sprayed through the room, stronger even than the salty sea scent that followed Nick around. A particularly rank odor emanated from one of the couches, and I saw Chat hesitate before settling Indian-style on the floor.

  “So you like my digs?”

  “Oh, yeah, Nick,” Chat affirmed. “You’ve got a great place here.”

  At that Nick looked up from lighting his bong and gave me one of his priceless grins, a grin that comprehended all the fantastic ironies of this hemisphere and the next. “Whadda you say, Georgie Len?”

  We had each taken a couple of hits when from down the hall there came the incongruous sound of a child crying. Presently the door to th
e room swung open and a little girl in a diaper toddled in. She had brown curls with bows clipped to them. Babbling, she toddled to the end of the room and began to bang on the glass doors in a monotonous rhythm. Before I could begin to make sense of this apparition, it was succeeded by another: an obese woman in gym shorts and a bikini top who appeared on the other side of the glass. In one hand she held a bag of groceries, while with the other she banged savagely on the doors. The whole house seemed to shake.

  “Lemme in, Nicko, goddammit!”

  Nick got up in slow motion to open the door. I thought half-stonedly, And now we have come to the entertainment part of the afternoon.

  “Nice fuckin’ baby-sitter you ah! Yasit here gettin’ stoned with yafriends, do fuckall for Katie-Lynn!” She heaved the groceries off onto Nick and with a display of exertion caught the child up from the floor. Nick paused barely a moment before letting the bag slide out of his hands and onto a broken desk.

  “Day’s a baby! Day’s a baby! Fuckin’ ice cream’ll melt!”

  The woman’s body was blanketed in one of the cruellest sunburns I had ever seen. Livid red flesh seemed to burst from her entire being. She was an oldish young woman of about thirty, with a massive head of blond hair springing defiantly from black roots.

  “Fuckin’ move yerass!”

  Nick seemed not to have heard, his lips atwitch, amused by something only he could see.

  “Deborah Beale?” inquired Chat, rising from the floor. “Are those your dulcet tones I hear?”

  An expression of fear or delight seemed to freeze the woman into place. She hid her red face behind the baby, then came out for a peek. “Oh, my gawd! Chattie Wethers!” She looked as if she were going to cry. “Chattie Wethers! Chattie fuckin’ Wethers!”

  “Hello, darling,” said Chat. He kissed her forehead. The little girl started to cry. “Fine, then, yagoin down, yagonna learn a lesson!” The toddler was viciously deposited on the floor, and Deb stood staring, overcome, at Chat, a hand to her mouth, her legs crossed as if she had to go to the bathroom.

  “Lemme lookitya! Lemme lookitya!”

  “Look all you please. Go on—get your fill.”

  I must have moved or done something to draw attention to myself, for all at once the woman seemed to become aware of my presence. She looked away shyly toward Nick. “Havin’ a party without me, eh? Shoulda known, shoulda known! After all I done for you, right?” Deb held up a fist in mock threat. I stared at it blankly before remembering myself and struggling belatedly to my feet. Like many obese women, she had perfectly manicured nails.

  Chat introduced us, but she was too shy to shake hands. Instead she leaned over and took the baby’s hand and waved it at me. “Say hi, Katie-Lynn. Say hi to the nice boy. Nicko, the goddamn groceries, I tellya!” But now she was yelling uselessly, from habit or shyness; Nick had vanished into the back.

  She and Chat settled companionably on one couch. “You boys up to no good, eh, Chattie?” I took a tentative seat opposite; the idea of the ice cream melting was driving me insane.

  “Why, Deb—”

  She cackled loudly. “Nicko’s the same way. You know what I say, ‘While the cat’s away.… ’ While the Kate’s away, ha-ha! While Kate’s away—whoopsee!” She indicated me with a toss of her head. “He a friend-a Katie’s?”

  “I’m afraid he is, Deb,” said Chat judiciously. “A very old friend.”

  “Yeah?” She looked directly at me. “You know Katie Goodenow?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  She seemed to weigh the evidence. “What’s ya name again?”

  “George,” I said, clearing my throat. “George Lenhart.”

  Deb looked from me to Chat, suspicious, as if a joke were being played on her. “Yeah? Mine’s Deb.” As she spoke she redid the child’s bows, taking them out one by one and smoothing the little pieces of hair over her fingers. “Deborah Moore. Used to be Beale. Still oughta be, the fuckin’ a-hole!” She looked reproachfully toward the hall when she said this, and for one sickening moment I forgot where I was and thought the woman was Nick’s former wife.

  “Language, Deb!” Chat said reprovingly.

  Deb made a face at him, sticking out her tongue, and cracked herself up. I laughed, too, to be polite. “Yanice kid,” she told me. “Excuse my French, but I’m talking about this one’s father.”

  “Her father?”

  “Yeah. Split. Bastard lives over here in Pawanis. You know Pawanis?”

  I shook my head.

  “No? You sure? You ever go to the mall?”

  “Yes, George, don’t you ever go to the mall?” said Chat.

  I felt myself turning red. “Sometimes I find it can be useful,” I stammered.

  Deb shrugged. “It’s not that great,” she said. “Only reason I go is it’s close. And they got Kid ’n’ Caboose now, and Katie-Lynn loves Kid ’n’ Caboose. Don’t you, Katie? Don’t you, Katie-Lynn? There! You got all your bows, girl! And now you’ll be a little heartbreaker!” She held the child out proudly. Against my better judgment I glanced at it, and I happened to meet its eyes. I couldn’t look away fast enough. Their expression was intensely bright, almost feral; she had pierced ears and looked the “little lady.”

  “Ya wanna hold her?”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” I said.

  “It’s okay—g’head. She won’t bite.”

  Blanching, I opened my arms and drew the child into my lap. “Hello.”

  Chat was trying to suppress his mirth. He sat himself down in front of Nick’s paraphernalia to pack another bowl.

  “She’s a—cute little girl. You said her name is …”

  “Katie-Lynn.”

  “Hi, Katie-Lynn.”

  “It’s like Katie plus Lynn. You like it? It’s a combination of my two favorite names.”

  “Very pretty.”

  Katie-Lynn’s mother smacked her hands down on her thighs. “Fuckin’ A!” she yelled. “I fagotaget cigarettes!”

  “You shouldn’t smoke, Deb,” said Chat, languidly inhaling. “Not with the baby.”

  “Fuck you!” Deb leaned over and punched him in the chest. Chat coughed, laughed, then gave himself up to a full-on coughing fit. “You always did fuckin’ cough,” said Deb.

  “George,” gasped Chat, “help me!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Deb said good-naturedly. She groped around in her bursting handbag and a fist came up, clenched around a handful of bills. “Dannit! Will you lookit this? I’m poor already!”

  “You’ve got to budget, dear—”

  “Stick it up your ass! Three, four … Wait a minute: secret stash! I always have my secret stash.” Her other hand felt inside the bikini top and removed a twenty, which Deb held up triumphantly. “They nevalet me down!” she cried, cupping her enormous breasts. “Neva-yet!” I felt a small cold hand finger my watch. “Ha-ha! You wanna go on a beer run wit me up the deli and get cigarettes while we’re at it, Chattie?”

  “In a sec,” said Chat. He took another hit and laughed. “Where’s Nicko? Contemplating the universe?”

  “Conaplating his ass!”

  “Kate come around much?”

  “Every time she does she trashes shit!”

  “How often would you say she came?”

  “Who gives a shit?”

  “Well, George and I—”

  “Come awun, I wanna go up the deli and get a carton of cigarettes. I wanna get cigarettes! Now, Chattie, goddammit!”

  “All right, all right, give a man a chance to recover.”

  “Pansy-ass!” shouted Deb. She dragged him to his feet.

  “Excuse me, but …?”

  Deb laughed down at me, the angry sunburn undulating across her massive chest. “Yasicka Katie-Lynn? Yasicka Katie already?” Deb plucked her kid from my lap. “Yajust like her fatha!”

  The moment they were gone, I stood up and dug out the ice cream from the bag of groceries and took it into the back. The tub was sweating and sagging from the heat. I put
it into the freezer.

  Nick was standing at the kitchen table fiddling with a piece of line. The table was covered in nautical hardware, pulleys and shackles and the long elegant rudder of an Olympic-class dinghy.

  “Georgie Len,” he said, taking in my presence anew. He had always been a little like this, like a kid you played peekaboo with. Every time you showed up, Nick would look glad to see you, whether he had seen you ten minutes or ten months earlier. He had his own inner timetable, and he functioned according to it alone.

  “So Kate graduated,” I said.

  “Yeah.” He stared at the array of hardware. “Pass me that shackle, will you?”

  I passed him the fitting, and he spun it several times in his hands to see where it stuck.

  “She’s moving to New York, so we’ll probably just see each other on weekends. Maybe … every third weekend.” He sounded as if he were quoting someone.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Me? I’m going to do an Olympic campaign, Georgie Len. Soon as I get the funding.”

  He was distracted for a moment, thinking, perhaps, about the force of a thirty-knot puff on a two-foot spar. There was the same entrancing economy to his movements that I remembered, and it struck me, as it often had before, that a hundred years ago he would have been a soldier or a sailor—a sailor, same as he was now, except doing two years before the mast; that he might have ended up a hero out of the sheer dexterity of his limbs. Except that he had been born into a generation that required of its youth no service. There was no place on earth, really, for people like Nick. And I thought with a sinking feeling of the office job that awaited me in the fall, and then again for good in a couple of years, and of all the years it would take to find out if the possibility of middle-aged comfort was worth it. Then Nick looked up and giggled, that little inward giggle. He kept chuckling to himself until finally I said, “What?”