The Black Knight Squash Fiction League Match #2 EAST SIDE A Collaborative Novel Chapter One
"You've been coming in now, what, like two years?" Hank said. "It gets to where it's an insult, to be honest."
Jerry, red in the face, turned from the T and took off his protective goggles. "Come again?"
"You can't hit three
balls in a row down the wall," Hank said. "Why do I even take your
money? At least a hundred times, I've told you to lead with the butt of
the goddamn racquet."
"Well I apologize
then," Jerry said. "I didn't realize my performance meant that much to
you. The lessons, I enjoy them, they take the edge off my day is all."
Hank felt stupid. "I'm sorry man, it's not you."
Jerry said, "You done for the night? After me?"
"Nah, I got a seven and an eight. Unfortunately."
"Will a drink get in the way?"
"Fine," Hank said.
The table in the club
lounge overlooked East 86th Street. People were pouring up out of the
subway and bracing themselves against the February cold snap.
"My favorite window on
the world," Hank said. "See that newsstand? You'd see Mick Jagger there
sometimes trying to quick-browse the magazines until the guy said
something, just like everyone else. He was a member here back then."
"Jeez, really?" Jerry said.
"Lot of history in this place," Hank said. "Someone could write a book. There's things would have to be left out of course."
"There always are. But like what?"
"Like the guy once who
showed up from the airport and got a teaching job on the spot, because
of the New Zealand accent. He couldn't hit the ball much better than
you, but that didn't matter. Guy's name was Pike. He eventually worked
his way through the 10 am round robin, woman by woman."
"You're kidding . . . What happened to him?"
"Ah, they threw him
out. Not before a husband confronted him one day on Court 3. He's
resurfaced a couple times at different clubs. Just like I'll be having
to do."
"Wait a minute, what?" Jerry said.
"You didn't hear they sold the place?" Hank said. "Big corporate transaction, got a mention in the Times."
"Wow, no. They gonna run it the same then, or what?"
"When I started here we
had fifteen courts. We're down to six, on account of first the Nautilus
craze and then the yoga and other insanity taking over. Still, the six
we have, they're like gold . . . Answer your question, no, fuckers are
bulldozing it."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Jerry said.
Hank finished his drink. "No you're not," he said. "You're in real estate. You'd do the same thing."
"You're right, I probably would. But as an outsider this feels wrong on so many levels. They've closed on it?"
"It's in escrow. May is
when we're supposed to be cleared out. Year, year and a half, you'll
have a sparkling condominium tower gracing the sidewalk."
The Tuesday evening
business league matches were winding down, and players were filtering
into the lounge. Some of them were out of shape, but everyone seemed
upbeat. Hank noticed Yvette talking to a young guy at the bar. He'd
given her a couple of lessons and was impressed with her focus, the way
she looked him in the eye and listened and then ran her ass off. He
wondered a few times what might be underneath the surface.
Jerry said, "What happened when the husband confronted that guy Pike?"
"It was interesting,"
Hank said. "The husband was a big bodybuilder type guy. I was doing
some sprints on Court 7 and heard this commotion, the guy shouting.
Then it was over."
"The guy clocked Pike?"
"No, Pike clocked the guy. Out cold. EMS, the works. Wiry little dude, but he had a fury to him."
"Dang. And that was it then for the wife, no more round robins?"
"No, she was back the next morning. In fact she's still a member, you see her around."
"Oh."
Hank said, "I gotta go.
Next lesson's on me. I was out of line saying you can't even hit the
ball down the forehand wall. Even though it's true."
"Forget that, I deserved it . . . Listen, why don't you think about coming to work for me?"
"You mean your office, on Lex?"
"Yeah, there, out on the island, a little Westchester, whatever."
"Jeez, even thinking about shifting gears like that after all this time . . . but what would I be doing?"
"You know, property
management type stuff. More or less. There are some unique incentives.
You can start part-time, see how it goes."
Hank realized he didn't
know much about Jerry, despite sitting in his box at a Jets game and
attending a Labor Day party at his spread in the Hamptons. He did know
the guy grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in Brighton Beach with the
train rumbling past and rattling the windows every few minutes, and
that he had a degree from City College.
"I appreciate it," Hank said. "For the moment, I'm going to stay put and help this place die peacefully."
"You know what?" Jerry
said. "Let me take a look at that. Maybe there's a way to screw 'em up
somehow, file some shit, who knows?"
"Jerry, these are corporations, they know what they're doing."
"Like I said," Jerry said.
Hank lived in a
five-story walk-up on Third Avenue and 25th Street. On brisk nights he
liked to walk home - it was a little over three miles but it went by
quickly, and his mind loosened up.
He'd fallen in love
with the sport as a teenager twenty-two years ago in Gainesville,
Florida, when he heard an unusual sound coming from an outdoor cement
court at Chapman's Park and went to investigate.
Now he was thinking it
would be good to have a farewell reunion, people who passed through the
club over the years. There were so many though - how would you set
something like that up?
At 75th Street three
women were getting into a cab in front of a bar called McKeown's. One
of them looked like Kate. Hank was tired and half a block away and it
couldn't be, but it sure looked like Kate.
__________ This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events
or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
