CHAPTER SIX

Racket Therapy

by A.J. Kohlhepp

Get it together, I tell myself. Don’t show them what you are feeling right now…. I reach casually into the pocket of my pullover and pull out my phone. Nothing (yet) from Ollie.

“Anything from Ollie,” inquires Jean-Luc in a cool voice.

“No,” I blurt. “Just a text from the head pro at East Side.”

One of the operatives – the one who looks as if he ended up on the wrong end of a Cameron Pilley forehand -- steps forward to impart some information to his boss.

“East Side?”

“Yeah, the club where I train.”

Jean-Luc nods knowingly. No doubt he is aware of my father’s encouragement of my squash habit.

“And what news from ‘head pro’,” inquires Jean-Luc, bleding patience and patronization seamlessly.

“Nothing important -- an open slot this afternoon.”

“A lesson?”

“4 to 5 is wide open,” I read off of the screen, then direct it toward Jean-Luc in case he should desire visual confirmation of the least relevant factoid of a very strange day.

The other operative, this one bearing no marks of physical trauma except for the residual shuddering gasps that might come after a particularly grueling rallies against Nicol David, checks his phone and steps forward to confer with Jean-Luc.

“Excellent,” Jean-Luc murmurs to his henchman. Turning to me, he states, “I think perhaps you should take him up on it, Hayden.”

“Excuse me ?,” I expectorate. “I don’t see how squash is going to help right now.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” laughs Jean-Luc. “A little racket therapy never hurts… .”

*********************************************

A couple of hours later, having picked up my squash bag, guzzled two large lattes from Lavazza, and checked my phone three or four hundred times, I walk in the front door of East Side Squash.

“A little racket therapy” keeps ricocheting about in my head. How could Jean-Luc know that phrase?

“Hayden,” says Selena, the Sole Cycle sadist from behind the desk. “Haven’t seen you for a while,” she adds with a menacing grin. “Fancy a spin?”

“Um, no thanks. Just here for a little racket therapy.”

Selena raises an aggressively pruned eyebrow.

“A lesson with Hank,” I explain. “He had a cancellation.”

“Of course,” she smiles. “Need a towel?”

“Please,” I smile, and catch the plush towel she flings my way, nothing like the course cotton rags we tried to dry ourselves off with at St Exodus.

A quick change in the locker room and I head for the glass-walled show court. When I get there, I notice that the lights above the court are on, while those surrounding it have been dimmed. Unusual for a Saturday afternoon -- but maybe the mood lighting will help me focus.

Dropping my bag and pulling out my crimson Stiletto eye guards and Ion X-Force Cornett, I step through the open door.

There on the “T”, moving casually through a familiar series of strokes and steps, is a familiar physique. But not the one that I expect.

“Hayden,” he says warmly as he turns around. “I was wondering how long it would take you.”

“Ollie,” I stammer in disbelief. “How did – what about – “

Ollie chuckles, then pounds the black rubber sphere onto the boards. “You ready?”

More than he could ever know… . We hit in silence for a few minutes, relishing this pregnant pause that English call the “knock up.”

“Up or down,” I ask Ollie, about to spin my racket, hardly able to tell one from the other. The serve doesn’t matter much when we play, as I need to ratchet down my game a notch to keep him from losing hope.

“Down,” calls a remorseless voice from the dark void off the court, “but apparently not out.”

Onto the court steps none other than Jean-Luc, in a black Fila jumpsuit, flanked by his two associates in their standard issue suits and shades.

“Gentlemen,” he orders calmly. “Please escort the professor to the gallery. There is a certain matter I need to work out with Miss Vaughn.”

Ollie seems to be considering something foolhardy, but I will take my chances on the court.

“It’s okay, Ollie,” I reassure him. “You just be careful with these two.”

***************************************************

Eschewing the contemporary fad for 11-point scoring, we agree upon the traditional 15-point game from the hardball era.

Hardball indeed. The stakes for our single game are simple. If I win, Ollie walks; if I lose, then I have to make sure Ollie never walks (or sees the light of day) again.

“I am certain that your father would approve of this configuration,” observes Jean-Luc with a great deal of confidence. “Jack always enjoyed a structured risk.”

Jean-Luc is an aggressive ball-striker, but his shots get looser as the game draws on. And I am finding my rhythm now, playing my way into the match and thinking more about placement than points.

At 7-all, Jean-Luc is starting to perspire visibly, his dark clothes taking on a deepening sheen. He begins pausing between points to wipe his racquet hand on the glass.

Ollie sits nervously between them, elbows on knees and hands clasped together in front of his mouth. Every so often he will take them apart to clap or cheer.

As we hit 11 points each, Jean-Luc’s breathing has become ragged. It is clear that he is struggling under the physical duress of this contest.

On we play, Jean-Luc lashing out for reverses and hunting nicks, while I keep stretching him with soft drops and firm drives. Irving Johns, the poet laureate of St. Exodus, has said that you should never write about what you love, but I can imagine trying to capture this feeling in prose.

We are dead even, point by point. Jean-Luc has a game ball at 14-13, but I pull him back to 14-all with a delicate drop that he frames off of the forehand side, just clipping the tin.

“Set one,” he pronounces boldly, pride and athleticism masking extreme cardio-pulmonary distress. Good, I think…. Let’s end this now.

With a firm serve into his body, I put Jean-Luc on the defensive. He volleys aggressively, looking to end it with a nick, but the ball kicks out on my forehand side. Racket up and ready, I wait an extra split second before I trickle a boast toward the front left.

Jean-Luc pushes hard to the front and attempts the shot we are all trained to look for: the straight drop. I have seen this sequence so many times that I am practically on top of him as he makes his desperate play.

His drop is well angled but high, lacking finesse. I am onto it quickly and strike cleanly through the ball, driving it toward the backhand corner, where it caroms softly into the back wall, six inches up, then drops gently to the floor.

Jean-Luc, having extended himself in a frantic last effort, lies on the floor, angled awkwardly into the back corner. He does not move. Gasping for air and understanding myself, I place two fingers across his left wrist. No pulse. It’s over.

In my periphery, I can sense that Ollie has risen, as have the book-ends. A closer motion draws my eyes.

Stepping onto the court is a ghost.

“No need to play that last ball,” observes my father dryly. “He never cleared. It was a stroke all the way.”

A.J. Kohlhepp first picked up a squash racquet at Trinity College (before the Bantams’ perennial championships commenced).

An English teacher by trade, he has coached boys’ and girls’ squash over the past dozen years in addition to various other duties at Berkshire School (Massachusetts USA), where he resides about 100 meters from the squash courts, with his wife (a real writer) and children (beginning squashers).