C= Bowling

"Bowling"

"What do you say to those who say that your bowling alley is symbolic,
that it represents the heart of darkness in the town? "

"It's just a place where they go bowling. "

Interview with Frank Naples,
GQ magazine, May 1999

It wasn't as though there was another bowling alley within five miles,
so there was no need to make a song and dance about it. The sign simply
said, in cherry-red letters, "Moreover Bowling Alley". It did the
job.

Inside it wasn't much fancier. Buttercream and pale orange bucket
seats, nine lanes, the little arrows mostly scuffed off with use. There
was a bar and Nick moved between this and squirting the spray-can into
the shoes. Tonight was an easy night, everyone here had their own
shoes, and all of them were drinking Bud, which required no work to
speak off. Except Sam Morning that is, who was drinking White Russians
as always, or what he accepted as a White Russian in this backwater
town, which was vodka and cold milk.

As always, Sam watched the bowling. He didn't want to risk his wrists,
he was careful of such things. He also felt that watching gave him an
air of danger. He was getting through the White Russians tonight,
having blown his big chance just four days ago in this very bowling
alley.

That business in the past had been forgotten and the boys from upstate
had told him that there might be some action for him, if he were to do
them a favour. Two of the boys had told him to meet them at the bowling
alley, a quiet night. They had some business to do with him and his
friend Marty.

As usual, the balls made a thumb-thumb-thumb noise as they went down
the lane, it was relentless. Sam pressed the glass to his face, it was
good and cold and the milk in it was helping to settle his
nerves.

Sam was wearing what the town called his fancy shoes, two-tone brogues;
a well-cut suit and a tie that had a plump generous knot. He knew that
real gangsters didn't dress this way anymore, they were all leisure
wear, Hilfiger tracksuits and Nikes. But it made him feel good to look
this way. As always, his hair was held in place with pomade, which
Stewart from the barber shop had sniffed the air and said, "That
goose-fat on your hair ? "

He'd get his. Him and that dumb limper he had sweeping the floor for
him. Moron didn't even have enough sense to get out of the way of a
fish. Sam didn't know how he was going to get back on his feet, after
fouling up the way he'd done, but he knew there was a way.

Billy came up to the bar, asked Nick to take him some Buds out of the
cooler. Three cold and one warm, for Luke, who hated them cold as he
suffered bad from hiccups. Carmine was bowling for his team,
high-fiving and mocking the other team. For someone not from the
States, he'd really embraced the bowling culture. The others were
Stewart, with his fast mouth and Luke, the spineless cop with a mop of
brown curly hair.

While Billy stood there, he put one foot up on the mock-brass rail at
the bar, his false foot. The leg of his trousers came up a little and
Sam could see the artificial limb, not the right colour. It was the
colour in paintboxes called 'flesh', but it wasn't like flesh at all,
it was a dark pink, maybe with a little orange. Billy's other leg was
like a plucked chicken, almost white.

"Alright Sam ? " said Billy, who didn't mind anybody at all.

Sam nodded, lifted his glass in what he felt was a noble, perhaps even
jaunty, manner.

Billy took the beers back over to the boys, who sorted through them
quickly, handing Luke the warm one. None of them cared much for Luke,
him being the law and all, but they felt sorry for him, what with his
wife being stuck in that chair. And besides, they had an opening on the
team anyway.

"I was at Ray Buick's the other day, " said Luke.

"What you have ? " asked Stewart, and he and Billy clinked their
bottles in the air and laughed fiercely.

"Lobster, " said Luke, who didn't much like to joke, "It was damn fine.
Picked me a beauty. Had my eye on it for a while. I was hoping he'd
still be there. "

There wasn't any sort of menu at Ray Buick's Famous Lobster Pound (the
name indicating that there was another lobster pound in the town,
Josie's). There was a concrete swimming pool, slightly heated, in which
fresh lobsters swam. The customer went to Ray, told him which one they
wanted, and Ray would cook it up right there and the customer would eat
it sitting outside at a wooden picnic bench. He'd mostly get his
lobster from the fishermen who caught right close to the bay, but
sometimes from slightly further out.

"I reckon he must have been one of Glenn's, " said Luke, "I sure could
taste the deep on him. That salt sinks in, you know. "

Two of the others looked at him, but Stewart just took a pull at his
Bud.

"Your turn Stewart, " said Carmine, nervously. He was the only man
wearing a bowling shirt, which he wore somewhat awkwardly, "They've got
a nose in front, don't let them pull away. "

Stewart found his ball, resting on the black rubber belt that drove the
balls around, rolled it until the holes were face up and then picked it
up, neat and walked to the edge of the lane.

"What you think you're doing, talking about Glenn like that ? " asked
Billy angrily, while Carmine tugged at the bottom of his cream-and-navy
bowling shirt, trying to get it to sit right.

"Sorry, " said Luke, "I plain forgot. "

How could Luke forget a thing like that, forget that Glenn, who owned
the Whale and Sail, a little boat-hire yard and a glass-bottomed boat
that he'd take people out on, to see the whales; forget that Glenn had
taken Stewart's wife ? Forget that Stewart had been his bowling buddy
for years, that they'd gone hunting together, forget that Stewart had
cracked one of Glenn's ribs with that ball he'd just knocked down eight
pins with ?

And allowing for Luke to forget all that (after all, his wife had been
shot), he oughtn't to have forgot that he was the one had to pull
Stewart in, lock him up for the night to simmer down. It wasn't really
any sort of punishment. Luke had simply pulled the television and a
chair over, so that the two of them could watch the basketball together
and drink Wild Turkey out of Garfield mugs.

Sam watched Stewart finish up, the game was close. He had a little
money riding on it, whether "Carmine's Mirandas" would have the beating
of the "Cookie Monsters", the men from the factory. He couldn't do much
these days without some money riding on it. Without a little risk, life
was pointless.

He couldn't help thinking about that night, being told in the parking
lot by the two out-of-towners that his partner had to go. Marty had
been shooting his mouth off in Boston bars, talking about how he was
connected, how he knew about hits and heists that had gone down.

He was, they said, a liability. Take him out, they said, pressing a gun
wrapped up in a duster on him. Do this for us, and we'll put you in a
position.

Sam had been all set to do it. He'd never killed anyone before, but he
was no fool. He knew that the powder he shifted from time to time had
claimed a few lives along the way. But he felt he owed Marty a bit of
pleasure first. He didn't want to kill him out in the lot. Have the
game they came for, then he'd do it. The out-of-towners agreed. They
liked to bowl, and made themselves a little side-bet with Sam as to
which of them would do better. As always, Sam didn't play, but sat
nearby, with his White Russian and ugly lump in his jacket
pocket.

"Nice bowling, " said Luke awkwardly, as Stewart came back and picked
up his beer. This was just like him. He was going to make things worse
now, by apologising for mentioning Glenn, put Stewart on the spot
again.

Stewart picked up a towel and dried his hands, although they weren't
damp at all. Ever since he'd had that photograph, he had felt a sort of
calmness, a stillness. It was like he wasn't waiting for it anymore. It
had come and he could manage it.

"Say, " he said, "What do they make bowling balls out of ?"

The others turned to look at him.

"It's a simple question, " he said, catching the gaze of each of them
in turn, "We come here three times a week, we throw what, forty times
every time we play. What are they made of ? "

There was a shiftiness amongst them, like teenage boys in a locker-room
talking about sex. There was a guilt that they didn't know. For all
they knew, the balls could have been rock, like the ones Fred
Flintstone played with.

Billy picked his up and squinted at it. He couldn't take a run-up
anymore, but he moved easily enough. Everyone said you could hardly
tell, unless you looked closely. Which was why everyone kept looking
closely, every single day, to see if they could tell. The ball skewed
wide, knocking down just two side pins.

There was a groan from his team.

"I was thinking too much about the damn ball, " he apologised.

Sam was listening to this, wondering if there was money in it. He stood
up and wiped the bottom of his glass with the square paper towel Nick
put under it, the way he liked it. He moved over there.

The whole mood had changed. The game was a side-show now, to the main
event. Stewart, who didn't have to bowl again until after Carmine and
Luke was sitting with his ball beside him, turning it, smoothing it.
Carmine and Luke were tapping at the green balls on the rack, listening
to the noises they made, hefting the weight of them.

"Can't be glass, " said Luke, "They'd shatter. Maybe some special kind
of cement. "

"Cement ? " said Stewart, "Ain't like no cement I've ever seen or
poured. "

Sam sat himself down with them. He moved, as always, like a cat, slow
and deliberate but with a sense that he could move quicker if he had
to.

"I know what they make bowling balls out of, " he said.

Damn Marty. Damn his lucky fluke. Strike after strike after strike. Sam
had never seen him play that way. It hadn't endeared him any more to
the out-of-towners. One of them kept coming over to Sam, saying "I'm
sick of this guy. He's disrespecting us, crowing about his strikes,
saying he's gonna bowl the perfect game. Go give the boy behind the bar
fifty bucks to lose himself for an hour. "

The strikes had kept coming and so had the whispers, "Do it, do it now.
While he fumbles for the ball, just step to him and shoot him in the
head. Two shots."

Do it, do it.

Sam had still had no objection to killing Marty. If that's what it
would take, then that's what it would take. He was lucky to have this
chance at all, after the whole mess he'd made when he started out. He
just wanted Marty to die happy, to go with the Perfect Game. Two more
balls and he'd do it.

"It's off, " whispered the bigger of the two men, the next time he'd
come up to Sam, one more strike from Marty later, "We'll deal with this
ourselves. And we won't be talking with you again. You punked out on
us. "

Marty knocked down six pins with his final ball. Four pins off the
Perfect Game. He turned around laughing to Sam, shrugging his
shoulders. What are you gonna do, he said, next time I'll get it.

"It used to be rubber, " he said, to Carmine and his Mirandas, "Way
back when."

Billy thought of the ball bouncing down the lane like that crazy
powerball he'd had back at school, mad angles and speed. You couldn't
keep track of where it might go.

"The top bowlers use balls made out of special stuff - neoprene or some
such. But these balls here, the ones you schmoes use. They're made of
polyester. "

Stewart laughed, "That's a good one Sam. You had me thinking there that
you really knew it. "

"I do, " said Sam, quietly, his fingers at his tie.

"Polyester, " said Stewart, taking hold of Carmine's bowling shirt by
the hem, "This shirt is polyester. "

"Hey, " said Carmine, offended, "Don't decry the shirt, my friend.
"

"Fifty bucks, " said Sam, "Fifty bucks says I'm right. "

"I'll take a piece of that, " said Billy eagerly, pulling out some
money from his pocket. Sam noticed with distaste that Billy kept his
money on the false side of his body. Still, it was money.

They were all confident. A hundred bucks made its way onto the table,
held in place with an empty bottle of Bud.

One of the factory workers came across. "Hey, " he said, "You guys here
to bowl or what ? "

"Listen, " said Carmine eagerly, "This man here, he say bowling balls
are made out of polyester. "

"Like his shirt, " said Billy.

Carmine spread his hands, palms up, "Like A shirt. Not this shirt, but
A shirt. He's bet us fifty bucks. "

The guy from the factory whistled. Sam raised an eyebrow. He'd thought
these losers were only good for fifty, but now they'd drawn a
crowd.

When all the money was down, they looked at each other. "How we gonna
prove it ? "

This was a question, none of them had thought of it.

"Go ask Nick, " suggested Sam.

"Oh yeah, " said Luke, "You've been sat there with him all night. The
two of you could be in it together. "

"Okay, " said Sam, "Then you go over there, find out who his supplier
is. Then you ring and ask them. "

"Suppose he lies to you ? " said Billy, instantly regretting having
made the suggestion.

"I've taken him at poker many times, " said Sam, "He's not much of a
cop, but he's a worse liar. I'll tell. "
The supplier's details were duly obtained, but when Luke made the
telephone call, it was only an answer-machine. It was agreed that Nick
would hold onto the pot and they would come in noon tomorrow and find
out.

When Stewart went to bed, he took the photograph out of his pocket, two
people obviously in love, captured unknowingly under the iron bridge.
He put it on the pillow where his wife used to sleep and felt at ease.
Knowing made it better. But he couldn't stop thinking about how
something like a bowling ball could possibly be made from the same
stuff that made shirts.