Dixie stared at me without speaking, which was a relief. The Lancaster Tap was only half full. There were faculty-looking people having an early dinner, and a few parents with children dining out family style. It was the kind of place that would fill up later as the college kids came in to drink. There was only one booth full so far, at the opposite corner of the room. Drinking tequila with a Corona chaser, the kids were relatively subdued. As their ranks swelled I assumed they'd get noisier.
Dixie said, 'How many times your nose been broken?'
'Several,' I said.
The waitress came over to our table. She looked like Knute Rockne.
'You want to order, Coach?'
Dixie shook his head. 'Not yet, Lila.'
'That scar tissue around your eyes?' Dixie said.
I nodded.
'You used to fight.'
I nodded.
'Any good?' I nodded.
'Ever fight anybody I ever heard of?'
'Joe Walcott, once,' I said. 'In the Garden. He was way past it, and I was just coming along. They threw me in to give Joe an easy one.'
'And?'
'It's one of the times my nose got busted.'
'Did he have an easy fight?'
'Easier than I did,' I said.
'How much you weigh when you were fighting?' Dixie said.
'Hundred ninety-two.'
'How much you weigh now?'
'Two oh one.'
'Stayed in shape,' Dixie said.
'Yeah.'
'I fight it all the time. I'm down to two twenty-five now, but it's a struggle.'
I nodded. Dixie picked up his menu and began to study it. I looked at mine.
'Mixed grill's good here,' Dixie said.
I nodded. The waitress returned and took out her order book.
'Mixed grill, Coach?' she said.
'You bet, Lila, and another Coke.'
She wrote it down eagerly and looked at me like I shouldn't dawdle. I ordered a club sandwich.
Lila lumbered off with the orders.
'You think I didn't see the column in the Collegian? Dumb ass kid writes it, what's his name?'
'Barry Ames,' I said.
'Yeah, Ames' Games he calls it. Thinks he's Roger Angell.'
'Most people aren't.'
'This jerk isn't,' Dixie said.
'So you knew there was talk of point shaving,' I said. 'You talk to the players?'
'I told them, 'Boys, anyone says that to you, you let me know, and I'll nail his ass up on the door of my office.''
'You didn't ask them if it was so?'
'I tole you,' Dixie said. 'It ain't so.'
'Dixie,' I said, 'somebody's got to ask them.'
Dixie tilted his head back and let the ice cubes drain from his glass into his mouth. He crunched them with his teeth and rolled the fragments around in his mouth for a minute and then talked around the ice.
'We beat Syracuse Monday and we take the Conference championship. The playoffs come up in another week. Our first eight are as good as anybody's and we got one legitimate All-American. We don't get hurt and we could go the whole way. We don't have the stud in the middle, but Dwayne offsets that considerably.'
Lila came back and slapped a green salad down in front of Dixie. It was sloshed with orange-colored dressing. Dixie swallowed his ice.
'You mind?' he said.
