The Mine (12 page)

"Well, what do you girls think of our glorious abode?" Ginny asked.

"I like it," Katie said.

"Me too," Grace added. "I'm not sure I care for the leaky faucet in the bathroom, but I do like my bedroom. Are you sure you don't want to move downstairs, Linda? I'll let you have the room if you want it."

"No. I'm fine." Attired in denim overalls and down on her knees, Linda retrieved essential cosmetics from a hastily stuffed box of toiletries, knickknacks, and other small belongings. "I saw a big spider in your room this morning and one is enough for me."

Ginny scanned her surroundings for a makeshift ashtray and found one in a porcelain coffee mug sitting on a windowsill. She took a puff and glanced at the occupants of the sofa.

"Linda and I were just talking about Joel Smith. What do you two think of our mystery man? Katie? You didn't make much noise Saturday."

"That's because Linda made enough for a marching band," Katie said.

"Yes, she did. She was a one-woman percussion section," Ginny said, drawing a smile from Linda. "But what do you think of Joel?"

"I like him. He is much different than most boys at school – more polite, better looking, better smelling!" Katie said. "He needs a wardrobe consultant though. In his case, the clothes don't make the man."

Grace and Linda laughed.

"What about you, Cinderella?" Ginny asked, turning to Grace. "I saw you talk to him for a few minutes – more than a few minutes, actually. What were your impressions?"

"I thought he was nice."

"Just
nice
?" Linda asked. "Good Lord, Grace. Just because you're engaged doesn't mean you have to check your opinions at the door. I know you have more to say."

"Very well," Grace said. She looked at her interrogator thoughtfully and spoke in the measured cadence of a first-year foreign language instructor. "I thought he was pleasant and articulate and intelligent and refreshingly well-mannered."

"You're impossible!" Linda scolded.

"He did have a nice smile."

Katie giggled and nudged her couch-mate with a foot. Grace smiled and answered with a kick of her own. Linda shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Don't mind Linda," Ginny said. "She's already voted five times on the matter."

More laughter.

Ginny's wide grin grew wider. She loved these moments. They were why she had moved into a dilapidated house with three disparate personalities rather than ride out her final year in a sterile sorority or live alone in a lavishly appointed apartment.

Yes, they were talking about men, the insipid topic
du jour
of college women from coast to coast. But they were doing so in a way that brought out their delightful differences. When Ginny saw Grace's carefree smile, she could not help but think of the timid, grief-stricken creature she had roomed with her freshman year. She looked forward to discussions that drew her sheltered friend even further out of her shell.

Linda continued her assault of the box, throwing what she needed now in a paper bag and what she might need later into a smaller box. When she found a photographic reminder of Disastrous Relationship Number One, she smiled, tore it up, and continued on her way.

"You three can tease me all you want. As long as I get to see him again, I frankly don’t care," she said. "Just promise me you won't let him get away, Ginny. The next time you and Tom go out, it's a double date. OK?"

"I promise. But it may be a while. Tom is going salmon fishing this weekend and he's taking the boy wonder with him. Next week they may go on safari. Who knows?"

Ginny snuffed out her stub, stood up, and tiptoed around a minefield of cleaning supplies, half-opened boxes, and assorted junk Linda had scattered across the floor. She picked up a pair of striped boxer shorts, stuck between the pages of one of the redhead's textbooks, and held them up.

"I won't even ask," she said, drawing out each word.

The cats on the couch purred.

After flipping the underwear to its apparent custodian, Ginny pushed several boxes to the wall, making a path as she went, and strutted into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a broom, a dustpan, and resolve.

"It's time to get busy, girls. Let's make this house a home."

CHAPTER 30

Typically quiet on Wednesdays, the Mad Dog barked up a storm on June 18. By six thirty, every booth, barstool, and pool table had an occupant, and every occupant had something to say. Some rehashed their workdays or summer session classes but most vigorously debated whether a scrawny upstart from Pittsburgh could beat the legendary heavyweight champion of the world.

Two waist-high console radios, one borrowed for the evening, occupied strategic positions in the public area of the campus watering hole, while two tabletop models sat at opposite ends of a twenty-five-foot bar. Set to the same station, the four radios pushed sports commentary out of high-fidelity speakers.

Joel Smith and Tom Carter, ties loosened and sleeves rolled, settled into a booth near the borrowed console and studied dinner menus. The junior salesman pulled out a wad of bills and placed them on the table.

"Tonight's on me," Joel said. He hoisted a draft beer and smiled at his friend. "I figure it's the least I can do for all that you and your family have done for me."

"Thanks. But like I said the other day, it's no big deal. Don't waste money on me. If you're going to blow your paycheck, do it on a dame," Tom said. "I'm not going to kiss you good night for a hamburger."

Joel laughed.

"Well, in that case, pay for your own dinner!"

Tom grinned and looked around the tavern. At least twenty people had passed through the door since the salesmen had claimed the last available booth. Most crowded around the bar and asked if the fight had started.

"So are you going to tell me what this is really all about? You have something up your sleeve. I can feel it."

"I do," Joel said. "But just be patient and enjoy yourself. I guarantee you are going to have fun tonight."

"Whatever you say, sport. You're the man with the plan."

After the waitress took his order, Joel glanced at a table on the far side of the dim, smoky room and noticed two men in uniform join two others in civilian garb. The pair in street clothes teased their friends about their private stripes but in a manner that was unquestionably respectful.

"Do you ever think about the war?" Joel asked.

"I think about it all the time. Don't you?"

"No. Not really."

"You should. Things are getting pretty hot in Europe. I don't see how we stay of out it," Tom said. "Hell, two hundred students here just took their draft physicals and some hadn't even graduated. You don't make people do that unless you think they'll be needed, and needed soon."

"Aren't you still covered by a deferment?"

"Not anymore. My 1-D became a 1-A on Saturday. I'm fair game now." Tom sipped his beer and gazed at the bar. Even standing room was in short supply. "You are too, I imagine. You're not even in school. The Army would love a strapping lad like you."

"Yeah," Joel agreed. "I guess they would."

If they knew I existed.

Joel purged the awkward, unpleasant topic from his mind and eyed the waitress as she fiddled with the volume control of a console radio ten feet away. He found it difficult to hear the broadcast through the sound of patrons laughing, greeting, and talking. But he knew from modulations in the announcer's staccato voice that the opening bell was near. He smiled at Tom, picked up a twenty-dollar bill, and slid out of their booth.

"What are you doing, Joel?"

"I'm getting the party started."

Joel straightened his tie and walked to a nearby table, where he snagged an unoccupied chair and waited for a drop in the decibel count. When he got it, he stood on the chair and introduced himself to eighty strangers with a two-fingered whistle.

"Good evening, folks. My name is Joel Smith. I don't know much about boxing, but my friend Andy Jackson does," he shouted as he waved the bill high over his head. "And Andy Jackson says Conn goes five. Any takers?"

* * * * *

Joel got his takers, four in all. The two privates and their civilian buddies threw in five bucks apiece. They talked the party closest to Joel and Tom into switching tables to better keep an eye on the clown with the whistle and the twenty dollars he had put into play. The foursome, however, spent less time watching Joel than taunting him in the first two rounds, as Joe Louis, winner of his last twenty-five fights and forty-nine of fifty as a professional, dominated Billy Conn with a series of hard rights to the body.

"You want to pay now or pay later, big mouth?" a wiry private named Ricky said. "Nobody goes five rounds with the Brown Bomber."

Joel ignored the rabble at the table and several others who passed by to gauge the mood of the big bettors. He finished his second beer and smiled at his fellow diner.

"Having a good time?"

"I'd be having a better time if I didn't think you were risking a week's pay just to impress me. You don't owe me a thing, Joel. This is reckless."

"Patience, my man, patience. Good things come to those who wait."

"Unless they wait more than a week to pay off a bet," Tom said. "Then they get the shit pounded out of them across the street."

Joel laughed. Tom didn't have Adam Levy's biting wit, but he was definitely a funny guy. He thought about his old friend and what
he
might have done had he followed Joel into the mine and back to 1941. There was no doubt about it. He would have definitely taken advantage of opportunities like this.

The betting parties grew quiet in the third and fourth rounds as Conn, thirty-five pounds lighter, began to land punches and keep the champ at bay. But noise and tension returned in the fifth when Louis hit the light heavyweight challenger with thunderous body shots and left hooks to the jaw. Conn barely survived the round. He staggered to the wrong corner at the bell.

"Lucky son of a bitch," Private Ricky said.

Joel surveyed the room and saw that the dearth of takers to his bet had nothing to do with aversions to gambling. Piles of small bills and coins formed centerpieces at several tables, including the booth behind him, where four men in letterman sweaters tried to augment their summer income with pennies from heaven.

As the broadcast gave way to an advertisement, people crowded around Joel to see the whistler collect his cash. But rather than gloat at the conquered and run with his winnings, Joel attempted to draw others in. After stacking four new fives on top of his twenty, he slid out of his booth and spoke to anyone willing to listen.

"I can see from the money in this room that I'm among kindred spirits. So let's make this interesting." Joel poured a third beer from a pitcher and sat on the edge of his table. "I have forty dollars here. I'll give it all to the first person who puts five on Louis to end this in the sixth. Heck, I'll even throw in another ten. Five for fifty. Come on, gents. You can't get that kind of action in a cathouse!"

Several people rushed forward with fives, but Joel took the Lincoln from Private Ricky. Stung from defeat in the first bet, he relished a rematch.

"Don't think for a minute you're going to walk out of here with that pile, smart-ass," he said. "I'll stay here as long as it takes."

Ricky's civilian friends stood at his side and sneered at Joel, while the other private, named Lloyd, kept his seat and quietly assessed the competition. Sensing a trick, he studied Tom and looked for a clue but found none. The son of Melvin and Sandra Carter had his face in his hands.

* * * * *

Ricky did not win his bet – nor did his two slovenly dressed buddies in rounds seven and eight or four better-dressed football players in rounds nine through twelve. At the sound of each round-ending bell, Joel Smith, sports trivia extraordinaire from the age of jumbo screens and fantasy football, added cash to the pot, restated his terms, and scoured the Mad Dog for another sucker. They were as plentiful as P.T. Barnum quotes at a convention of used car salesmen.

To make the wagers as appealing as possible, and draw tens instead of fives, Joel threw in more of his own money and even some of Tom's. The recent graduate had gone from putting his face in his hands to putting his dollars on the table. By the time Round 12 had come to an end, the man with a plan had netted eighty bucks.

Conn too had exceeded expectations. Punching more and dancing less with each round, he had put Louis on the defensive. Repeated blows to the head had sent the champ to his corner where his trainer treated him to the reviving aroma of ammonia. The noise at the Polo Grounds and in the Mad Dog was deafening and decidedly in the favor of the challenger. Noting the shift in sentiment, Joel put a hundred dollars in his hand and held it up for the benefit of anyone with an open wallet and a useless mind.

"I've got one more bet in me, people, one more," he shouted. "And this time I'm putting my dough on Louis. I'll put a hundred bucks against twenty that the champ ends this now, this round. Who wants to win their fall tuition?"

Tom's smirk vanished. He hastily slid out of the booth and pulled Joel aside.

"What the hell are you doing? You have these dopes on their heels. Don't blow it now by getting careless. Louis may not make it another second."

"Where was that faith I saw a minute ago?" Joel smiled and put his arm around his skittish companion. "I said I'd show you a good time tonight and I will."

Nearly a dozen sheep stepped toward the slaughter with twenties in their hands. Joel again evaluated the prospects and tried to determine who had families to feed and who did not. Once more, he went to the well.

"Much obliged, private. Good luck to you!"

By the time the thirteenth round began, more than thirty customers, brimming with alcohol-fueled cheer, crowded around the console near Joel and Tom's booth to take in two things: the final minutes of the best heavyweight fight in years and a potentially serious exchange of legal tender. Every punch and counter punch called on the radio whipped the listeners into a frenzy. One patron screamed hysterically and pounded the console with his fists, while several others paced frantically.