A Fistful of Fig Newtons (4 page)

“Big Al.” Umbaugh tilted his string-bean six-foot, six-inch, one-hundred-and-five-pound frame forward slightly, bending in the middle like some intellectual praying mantis, a faint sardonic smile playing over his sallow features. “It must be truly satisfying, in a deep primal way, to smash the Iowa line to smithereens, to crush Ohio State’s vaunted All-American halfback into the dust of
the gridiron, to be a modern gladiator: fearless, indestructible, impervious to defeat.”

A flicker of confusion clouded Big Al’s tiny bb eyes.

“Uh … yeah. Well, the bastard give me the knee in the first quarter, so I hadda get the son of a bitch.”

Both Goldberg and I listened to this exchange with rapt attention. Umbaugh could be on dangerous ground. One treads softly around a rutting mastodon.

“Well, you certainly did get the, as you say, bastard. I happened to be passing through the student lounge on my way to the library at the very moment the TV set was displaying the scene of his vainglorious departure from the game, on a stretcher borne by four of his humiliated teammates. The roar of the crowd as the ambulance left the arena was certainly thrilling and, I might add, not a bit too soon. Ohio State tends to get a bit cheeky, eh?”

Big Al moodily chewed the butt end of the salami, its string hanging forlornly out of his mouth and into the rough stubble of his granite jaw.

“Yeah, well, he shouldna tried comin’ through me after givin’ me that knee. Them dumb fuckers never learn.”

“By George, that was well put.” Umbaugh smiled admiringly at Big Al’s clever mot. “I’ll have to remember that. I was rather relieved, though, that after the operation they announced that he would probably walk again. In time.” Umbaugh smiled benevolently.

“Yeah, well, I figured since he was only a sophomore, the dumb jerk didn’t know no better, so I went easy on him.”

“I, for one, admire you, Big Al, for letting that fool Snake Hips off so easily. True charity. Even he must be grateful that you let him off with only a cracked pelvis, a few shattered ribs, and maybe a crushed spleen.”

Big Al’s steel-blue bbs flickered as he appeared to study Umbaugh intently. My God, I thought, if Big Al senses that he is being put down, all three of us could go the way of that Ohio halfback in an instant.

“Hey, Big Al …” I asked bravely, trying to change the subject, “do you always wear your jersey with the number and everything around like that?”

“Nah. Only around the dorm. I can’t get no T-shirts that fit. They all rip down the back.”

His grass-stained red-and-white jersey with its spectacular “76” had been cut off to give breathing room to his hairy, bare midriff.

But Big Al was not about to be put off by any clever conversational feint from the likes of me. His ball-bearing eyes continued to stare steadily at Umbaugh.

“What you say your name is, huh?” He leaned forward, his cordlike muscles rippling, playing like sleek dolphins over his shoulders and mighty back.

“Ah … Umbaugh is the name. Umbaugh. The name has an interesting derivation. Back in the early twelfth century—”

Big Al cut him off in mid-prattle with a furious animal snort. “Umbaugh! I t’ought I knew that name. Yeah. You’re the horse’s patoot that wrote that dumb fuckin’ letter to that stupid newspaper.”

A spasm of mortal fear gripped my guts. Of course, it was Umbaugh who had written that sardonic blast which had appeared in
The Crimson Bugle
, our despised student newspaper. Entitled “Athletics–Boobs’ Paradise,” it had rocked the campus:

Big Al stood, his crew cut lightly brushing the ceiling of my cell, his steady gaze, unblinking, bored deep into Umbaugh. My God, he’s gonna charge, I thought wildly.

Goldberg cringed next to my bureau. He appeared to be counting the knobs studiously. Umbaugh cleared his throat.

“I confess, Big Al. It was indeed I. However, I meant it only in jest. As an exercise in Swiftian humor and satire, I …”

“Can the crap.” Big Al certainly had a way with words. “That Jane what-the-fucks-’er-name, she some broad yer shackin’ up with?”

For a fleeting instant I had a brief vision of the prim, virginal authoress of
Pride and Prejudice
sneaking off into the night with Umbaugh for a little hanky-panky.

“Or more likely you’re a friggin’ fag.” Big Al sucked sullenly at his beer can.

“Jane? Oh, of course, you mean Jane Austen. I suppose one could say, metaphorically, we have been ‘shacking up,’ immersed as I have been in her work for three years now, preparing for my doctoral thesis, entitled ‘Irony–the Last Bastion of the Beleaguered Mind.’ I suppose you might say that …”

Struck by a sudden thought, he paused.

“By George, that is good. ‘Shacking up.’ I must tell Dr. Bloom-buster that one, he’ll—”

“You goddamned eggheads are a royal pain in the butt. The trouble with you dumb shitheads is that not one of you ever could beat nobody at nothin’, and you can’t stand nobody who can so you go around blowin’ off.”

A river of sweat poured down my back. The evening had taken a nasty turn.

It must have been just about then that Umbaugh decided to close the trap. It’s hard to tell. All I know for sure is that Umbaugh said nothing for a long, tense moment. The rain drummed steadily on my window. Goldberg appeared to be trying to draw a cloak of invisibility around his blubbery hulk.

Finally, in a low voice, Umbaugh answered Big Al’s charge:

“That theory perhaps has some validity, Big Al, but then, on the other hand, there are those who believe that deadly combat is the very soul of Man and that we all have it.”

Under my breath I hissed, “Careful, Umbaugh, careful …”

“Every man,” Umbaugh continued in an even voice, “has his own game, where he is a killer, and …”

“What the fuck do you know about games, you skinny piss-ant?” It was then that Umbaugh struck.

He casually extracted a large, flat blue-and-white box from his T-shirt breast pocket. With cool deliberation he removed a silver-wrapped lozenge from the box, unwrapped it, and popped its contents into his mouth.

Goldberg, obviously trying to ease the tension in the room, squealed nervously, “Hey, Umbaugh, you got candy!”

“Not exactly, Goldberg. I am merely indulging in a Boomo-Lax tablet.”

Boomo-Lax, the legendary laxative that billed itself as: Tastes like a fine French bonbon; yet has the action of a Hand Grenade.

Goldberg, the human garbage disposal, could not pass this up.

“Hey, gimme one. They taste like chocolate, don’t they?”

“I believe the phrase is ‘a fine French bonbon,’ ” Umbaugh answered, licking his lips appreciatively. “Say, would you gentlemen care to join me in a bit of a contest? A game, if you will.”

Big Al immediately rose to the challenge. Since tot-hood he had won everything in sight, bashing and thundering over countless opponents throughout the years. He could not allow Umbaugh’s challenge to pass.

“What kinda game? You wanna arm wrassle or somepin?” His eyes suddenly blazed with the fierce hot light that had withered the soul of many a defensive back.

The thought of Umbaugh’s matchstick arms cracking merrily under the onslaught of 76’s concrete biceps made even Umbaugh laugh.

“Oh goodness gracious, no! The contest I propose involves true intestinal fortitude.”

“You mean guts?” Al snorted. “You mean guts, you skinny twerp?”

“You could say that,” Umbaugh answered calmly.

I was to find out, shortly, how truly he spoke.

Goldberg, who had been busily licking the interior of the Fig Newton box for any odd crumbs, asked, “What kind of game?”

Umbaugh drew himself to his full height, his thin milky body with its knobby knees and sunken chest looking a bit like a hat rack wearing a too-large T-shirt.

“It’s quite simple, actually. I have forty-nine tablets of this delicious Boomo-Lax left in this package, having already eaten one, which I will throw in as a handicap. We will pass the package from hand to hand, eating Boomo-Lax tablets in turn, and the last man left in the room wins. It is as simple as that. Of course, we will allow three minutes between tablets, under the international rules.”

“Of course,” I said, “rules are rules.”

“You tryin’ to say, you skinny bastard, that you can eat more of them dinky chocolates than I can? Me?”

Al, who had never refused a challenge in his life, was not about to begin now. Goldberg, on the other hand, had motives far simpler. He never turned down the chance to eat anything, unless it had hair on it and crawled. I, however, was like one of those poor yaps who gets sucked into a bar fight and begins swinging wildly at everything in sight, only to wind up with a broken hand from hitting the gum machine and thirty days in the can. Not only that, but I thought I saw a way out of what looked like was going to develop into a truly bad scene.

“Fifty dollars, Big Al. To make the game more sporting. I propose a gentlemen’s wager of fifty dollars each, the winner takes all.”

Big Al, his face suddenly wreathed in the same smile of
Christian charity that had once graced the visage of Mighty Casey at the bat, chuckled evilly.

“You’re on, sucker.”

Numerous alumni had seen to it that Big Al never had to worry where his next supply of cash was coming from. It was said that twice monthly a Brinks truck delivered his “incidental expenses,” with two armed guards carrying heavy sacks. Linemen of his ilk don’t come cheap in the Big Ten.

Goldberg, sure of victory, recklessly joined the fray: “Count me in.”

Well, what could I do? A man has his honor, and after all, I can eat chocolate with the best of them.

“Okay, deal the cards,” I barked with the assurance of Henry Fonda sitting in on a poker game with Jack Palance. “I’ll bet fifty bucks out of my next GI check, which I get in ten days.”

“The game is afoot, men. I now declare Time is in.” Umbaugh’s manner had become formal, almost Victorian. He consulted his watch carefully and then passed the box of Boomo-Lax to Big Al.

“Take one tablet, pass it on to the next contestant, and then finally around to me, the dealer.”

Big Al grabbed a silver cube and popped it into his maw, chomping ferociously. He spit out the wrapping defiantly.

“What a stupid game. Jee-zus!”

Goldberg took his hungrily, and I followed suit. By God, they did taste like a fine French bonbon. Umbaugh, with great delicacy, unwrapped his tablet and began sucking daintily.

“One round, players, has been completed.”

“Hey, they’re good. Hey, they’re really good. Can I have two on the next round?” the Human Garbage Can asked happily. I could see that he, too, was relieved that combat had been averted.

“Now, now, we must have rules. One per round.” A minute passed in silence as the tension rose in the arena.

“Round two.”

Umbaugh passed the box to Big Al, and it quickly made the circuit.

“Hey, this is dumb. I could eat the whole goddamn box. What kinda dumb game is this?”

Big Al was chafing at the bit. He wanted more action. He was about to get it.

After the third round I noticed that a crowd had begun to gather at the door, which had been left ajar by Umbaugh, for reasons we were about to learn.

“Get ’em, Big Al!” a freshman wearing a red-and-white beanie yelled.

“Courage, Schuyler. Steady on.” A willowy English major in a chartreuse silk robe cheered on his favorite.

Umbaugh passed the box on its fourth trip. The crowd grew. Rumors had spread throughout the dormitory that a thrilling athletic contest was going on in 303 and that Big Al Dagellio was being challenged by a nerd from
The Literary Quarterly
. Hoarse shouts of encouragement, bursts of applause echoed in the hall. Catcalls; huzzahs. Betting between spectators had broken out. Partisanship was rampant. I was pleased to note that I had my share of backers, no doubt the result of the time that I had eaten an entire meatloaf in the campus cafeteria on a dare. I was not without qualifications.

Naturally, the heavy favorite was Old 76. It was known via the sports pages that he daily breakfasted on two three-pound sirloins and a dozen and a half eggs (sunny side), seven yards of country link sausage, and two gallons of homogenized milk. We all remembered vividly a photograph which had appeared the year before in the Chicago
Tribune
showing Old 76 at the Festive Board. The caption had read: Athlete devours entire turkey for Thanksgiving.

Of course, Goldberg’s sickening gustatorial adventures were well known. I must admit that few put their money on Umbaugh. Unfortunately, the crowd usually backs favorites, often to its sorrow.

Eighteen minutes into the game, just after our sixth Boomo-Lax, Goldberg, suddenly and with no prior symptoms of distress,
lurched to his feet, swayed for a moment like an elephant in a hurricane, let go a mighty, quavering belch, and made a staggering leap for the door. The crowd roared, and parted like the Red Sea. Goldberg thundered down the hallway, his shower clogs making a mighty clatter. As he ran, a high thin moan accompanied him.

The sanitary facilities for the third floor were at the far end of the hall. The crowd bellowed a mighty cheer as Goldberg just made the door, in a skidding turn, and hurled himself from sight.

“Many are called; few are chosen,” Umbaugh smiled thinly. “One down, three to go.”

Big Al snorted. “I know’d plenty of blubbery guys like that before. They never last. Gimme another one a’them little bastards. They ain’t bad.”

“Round seven.” Umbaugh passed the box to Big Al. He swallowed his tablet, after a quick chew.

“Umbaugh, y’better quit while yer ahead,” he rasped.