2007-Eleven (7 page)

Snap, crackle, pop.

Next I know, I’m in the back of a cargo van, howling like Lon Chaney, a radio blasting at my ear. I’m drooling all over myself, and my hands are tied behind my back. Who knows what he slipped me? It might have even been more booze. Anyway, I make a conscious decision: I decide to pass out.

I wind up on a couch, one of those vinyl Kmart jobbers that you have to peel yourself off of. I’m handcuffed, and Baldy sits in an easy chair reading
U.S. News & World Report.

“Welcome back, Mr.
Sims,”
he says when I begin to struggle. “Here, let me free your precious wrists.”

Well, I take this bullshit from nobody. Each afternoon I do 120 push-ups, fifty sit-ups, and jog in place for ten minutes. Plus, I have what doctors call a hypertense adrenal gland, which means piss me off and I’ll bend your spine like a stick of Wrigley’s. When Baldy uncuffs me, my right fist lashes out at his chin. Bingo. My knuckles throb, and I wait for him to drop. He doesn’t. Baldy grins, retreats a step, and swishes his foot so close to my nose I smell Desenex in the after-breeze. That’s enough for me. I make another decision: to fake a dizzy spell and collapse to the couch. Baldy sprays something into a Bounty towel and thrusts it to my nose. Snap, crackle, pop.

This time when I wake up, I check things out before peeling myself off the couch. It’s a hotel suite, à la Casa de Sleaze: termite-stained wallpaper, the carpeting greasy enough to skate on, Magic Fingers with the directions printed in three languages. And in the next room, I can’t believe my eyes: Bathed in a sea of lights is
The Game.

Table hockey. You played it as a kid. Everybody has. But this is no ordinary game. It’s built into an oak table the size of a coffin, with twelve hand-painted men—United States vs. Russia—crouching in their serpentine grooves.

Such a game could be owned by only one man, I figure. And he’s mad.

When I met Shinnick, he was a scrawny, introverted college freshman programmed for law school by his father, a right-wing senator from Nevada. His face was a skull sprayed with blue cheese. I mean
ugly.
Ratty brown hair spilled down to his shoulders, and he dressed in the only tie-dyed alligator shirt I ever saw—like a Deadhead young Republican. But Shinnick’s eyes were what you remembered; they were red around the edges, burning, and they pierced you like gamma rays. His eyes were gateways to a soul I never could fathom.

Shinnick’s first roommate came up with a nervous
twitch and left school after a month. The second one jumped from the roof of Lawrenson Hall. There was no third. You always heard voices in Shinnick’s room, yet nobody came and went. Across the hall, we kept to ourselves. But one night over Easter recess when the place was almost empty, there was a rap on my door. Shinnick stood there smiling at me, his eyes like drills.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Look. I gotta study—”

“I wanna show you something.”

His room stank of socks. Blankets were hung from the ceiling to form corridors and coves, turning his room into an intricate maze of partitions. In the center was a hockey game under an industrial-strength spotlight. We played. He won. As I got up to leave, his eyes flared at me. “Who’s the better man?” he screamed. “Who’s the winner? Say his name aloud, loser! Say the name!”

“Norman Bates,” I remember saying to myself.

But I returned the next morning. We played into the night, with Shinnick winning most of the games. “Who’s the conqueror?” he’d scream. “Say the name for all to hear! SAY IT!” When he neared victory, he’d whistle “Taps” and giggle in tones that I now equate with sexual frenzy. After several tries,
I won a game, and as he stomped about the room, I shouted at him to say my name. “Louder!” I said. “Louder!” He refused to let me leave, and we played until our hands blistered.

A rivalry developed, then an obsession, then a sickness. For hours we battled each day. A defeat would send Shinnick brooding, cursing at his men in a helium squeal that could be heard throughout the dormitory. After several weeks, my neck began twitching spasmodically. I began to shout at my acrylic players, to whistle “Taps” and speak in voices that unnerved my own roommate—may he rest in peace.

For two years Shinnick and I fought for a mythical title about which only a handful of people knew.

I was
Mister Hockey.

That was twenty-five years ago.

So I sit there, alone, waiting for Shinnick. Minutes, perhaps hours. Then a door opens behind me.

“Zo, dey gall you … Misder Haw-gey.”

My jaw drops. His image fills the doorway: nerd glasses, black cotton hair, the Nerf-ball body expanding with each breath.

“You!” I shout.

Kissinger.

“A game, Mr. Zimz?”

I’m speechless.
Kissinger.
In retrospect, my silence is disgraceful. I voted for Barry Commoner in 1980 and scrawled “Antichrist!” in the
Saturday Review
at the library. Here’s
Henry Kissinger,
and I can’t even talk.

“You!”

He sits across from me, extracts from the vest pocket of his black suit an ebony puck, and flips it disdainfully to center ice. With a flick of his wrist, his right wingman backhands it into my goal. A red light flashes behind my net.

“I apologize for our ways in condakding you, Mr. Zimz. I truzt dat de ends shall jusdify de minz.”

“You!”

Kissinger flicks another puck onto the board and rams it into my net in a fluid motion. Decent shot. Red light. He looks up smugly.

“You wand do know—why de kidnabbing? Well, dere are mundane matters of zeecurity.

“Power, Mr. Zimz, creates prison bars, no matter how foolish dey zeem. As the dramatist Schiller once zaid, ‘Against ztupidity, de gods demzelves condend in vain.’ ”

I feel sick. The door opens behind me. It’s Baldy, sunglasses and all.

“You mean … play
 … you
?”

Kissinger sighs condescendingly and stands.

“Perhaps not, Mr. Zimz. Perhaps not. Let me apologize for dis ill-conceived challenge.” He flips a bill onto the board. “Here’s five hundred dollars for your time. I’m sure it’s more dan adequate combensation. Buy yourself a ‘Misder Hawgey’ crown and wear it at home.”

He’s at the door when my glands explode. His smile does it. It’s the sneer you get from rich brats in elevators. I fling the puck at him.

“Play!” I shout.

Kissinger closes the door and cackles. I feel manipulated. He turns and sits, sips a glass of water, strikes his chest, looks to the ceiling, forms a perfect circle with his mouth, and expels a gaseous lunch.

“Excuse me.”

“Sure.”

“A ztitch in time, Mr. Zimz.”

“I understand.”

“Game to den?”

“Play!”

Baldy drops the face-off. Kissinger’s center man sweeps the puck to his right defenseman, who retreats out of my wing’s reach. Kissinger stills the board and positions each player strategically. He waits. One minute. Two. My stomach churns. I
clutch my goalie. Three minutes. My hands are shaking. Four. My leg pumps wildly. Finally, I look up. He’s staring at me.

“I think … Mr. Zimz … I shall score … right … 
NOW!”

Boom boom.
He fires, bouncing the puck off his right wing into the left side of my goal.

“One,” he says.

Baldy drops the face-off. Kissinger controls, positions his players, and waits. One minute. Two. My back aches. This is hell.
Boom boom.

“Doo.”

“Time out!” I stand to stretch. Baldy offers a glass of water, which I refuse. He apparently interprets this as a sign of mistrust and puts the glass to his lips. As Baldy swallows, I notice the gleam of a gun barrel inside his belt. I pee my pants.

Kissinger takes the face-off.
Boom boom.

“Three.”

“I CAN COUNT”—and then my adrenal gland speaks—“FAT BOY!”

Kissinger snorts and bares his teeth at me.

“I truzt, MIS-DER HAW-GEEE”—he spits out my title caustically—“your offense is sharper dan your tongue.”

He’s got me. I slobber an apology, then say something
ill-timed about the board being more waxed than I prefer. Kissinger groans.

“As Schumacher zaid, ‘Alibis only zatisfy dose who make dem.’ ”

Baldy drops the face-off. Kissinger controls. One minute. Two. I’m dizzy.
Boom boom.

“Four,” he says, yawning.

“IS THAT YOUR ONLY SHOT?” I’m crying now. “SOME OFFENSE! HAVE YOUR FLUNKY DISH OUT TEN STRAIGHT FACE-OFFS! IS THAT HOW YOU WIN? HOME JOB, FOR CHRISSAKE! HOME JOB!”

He’s rattled. Baldy blushes. The next face-off is mine. I slide the puck to my wing man, set him up, and shoot—but it’s smothered by Kissinger’s defense. My timing is off. Kissinger clears to his wing and rams a shot on my goal.
Bam bam.

But my goalie is
there!
It’s blind luck. Kissinger tries to conceal a squeal. He misses the jam rebound.

“KICK SAVE!” I shout. “THE CLEAR!” Kissinger spins his center man wildly. I slam the puck up ice. “SHOT! … SCOOOOOOORE.…”

His red light flashes. Kissinger slaps the board angrily. I’m on my feet, shaking my fist.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER, EH? A LITTLE
SLOW ON THE BOMBER BUTTON THESE DAYS?”

He glares at me menacingly.

“You are MOZT ungind, Mr. Zimz.”

True. I blubber an apology that neither of them acknowledges. Kissinger takes the face-off and
boom boom,
bangs in a ricochet. The red light flashes. He lunges across the board.

“HOW IS DAT,
MIS-DER HAW-GEEEE?”
Balls of spittle whistle past my face. “DE BOARD DOO WAXED?” He imitates a baby’s whine. “DOES THE BEER SLOW YOUR HAND? DOES BARRY COMMONER DESIGN YOUR DEFENSE?”

Still glaring at me, he sheds the coat. His Arrow shirt is soaked.

“Play!”

The next volley seems endless. Kissinger grunts with each move; I scream at my men. “PUCK LEFT! … LOOKIT HIM SWEAT! … SHOT … STICK-SAVE! … CLEAR … SHOT!” And finally: “GOOOOOOOOAL!

“TWO!” I shout.

We play for hours. I score, he scores, me, him, me, me, him,
me, him … I
SCORE,
I SCORE AGAIN!
We’re tied at nine.

Now Kissinger’s smile is cracked. His nose runs. A vein has tightened along his forehead. He plucks at his shirt to cool off. I’ve choked off his ricochet shot. Baldy has downed three pitchers of water. After three blasts at my goal, Kissinger loses the puck and, in a mental lapse, slaps the board. In that moment I clear it to my center man.

A one-on-one shot.

There’s nothing he can do but wait.

I sit there.

One minute.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Sensing victory, I whistle “Taps.” Kissinger’s neck begins to twitch.

“DEAR GAWD, NOD THAD!”

I shoot.

Goal.

But
it bounces out.

I’m up and screaming. Kissinger claims the puck must stay in to count. I overturn the table. Kissinger calls me a “dunderslug.” I shout, “Fat boy!” Suddenly, we’re on the floor rolling.

I feel a vise grip around my ribs, and I’m flung to the couch. Hitting the vinyl, I feel a hardness in my hand. It’s Baldy’s gun. His jaw drops. Kissinger
gropes to his knees and goes motionless. We stay like that a while.

“It’s Shinnick, right?” I wave the gun. “SHINNICK PUT YOU UP TO THIS, RIGHT?”

Tears flow down Kissinger’s cheeks. For the first time, I see the bags below his eyes, the dried rivers running across his cheeks. It’s a face that has seen death.

“Pull the drigger,” he whimpers.

Baldy approaches, smiling in a fatherly way, and slowly removes his glasses. Behind them are gamma rays.

Faces change, bodies change, but
eyes
are
eyes.

A flash of shoe leather. Snap, crackle, pop.

I wake up on a bench in Grand Central Station with five hundred dollars taped to the palm of my hand. My jaw is the size of a grapefruit. I wander until my head clears, then go to Bernie’s to contemplate transmissions from Mars.

L
ook, all I’m saying is thatched roofs, for fuel efficiency, consistently outperform gingerbread. The foliage traps heat in winter and cools you down in summer. In Bimini, you see this stuff everywhere.

Gimmie a break. This place looks like a dead Chia Pet. Man, this pig is living in a Mother Goosin’ haystack.

Hey, he’s a pig. Whaddaya expect? Aluminum siding? You ever eat pig?

Negativo. I don’t do swine.

C’mon—bacon? You don’t like bacon?

Imitation bacon bits, sometimes. Way I see it, a wolf lowers himself by eating hog. Me, I’m partial to poultry.

Hey, did he say there’s three of them? You think we need shotguns?

C’mon, man. We’re wolves. They’re pigs. What’re they gonna do? Whip us with their curly tails? By the way, you hear about Harry? Word has it Woodsman chopped off his head over that Red Riding Hood situation. They say he ate her gramma and was eyeballing her in the bedroom, but then this guy runs in, swinging his ax and screaming like Chicken frickin’ Little. Whacked the brother’s head clean off. Now, I ask you, is that right?