Reuben touches Sam’s shoulder and Sam glances up at him. Indy rides the crook of his father’s arm and Pearl is at his side.
“Good luck,” Reuben says, and Sam reaches up to grasp his father’s hand.
Reuben shakes Rick’s hand too and Rick grins at him, at Pearl, and tickles the arch of Indy’s foot in her soft leather-soled booties.
Sam watches them moving to the upper bleachers. They stop to greet Rick’s mom and dad.
There can’t be more than twenty blacks in the whole county. While everyone knows the Woodses—as a cop, Lonnie is everywhere day in and out, and Fern runs childbirth classes at the hospital as well as working a regular shift in the maternity ward—after five years’ residence, they remain somewhat isolated. Sam sees Pearl straightening her spine and putting on her most dazzling smile for Fern Woods, who jumps up to kiss the air next to Pearl’s face. Fern never seems to realize the way her mouth tightens at the sight of Reuben and Pearl together but Sam’s sure Pearl has noticed. It didn’t keep Pearl out of Fern’s LaMaze class and Fern was there for Indy’s arrival but still—the two women remain at arm’s length.
Indy bounces on Reuben’s arm, recognizing Fern, who goes all gooshy over her. The baby dives for her, Fern catches her with delight and Pearl laughs with them. Maybe Indy would yet make the two women friends.
In the locker room, Bither is flying up his own ass from nerves. He roams around, yammering, in nothing but his jock.
Rick looks up from taping his left ankle. “Somebody give Mouth a ‘lude. He don’t shut up soon, I’m gonna need one myself.”
Bither hops onto the bench next to Rick and makes an armpit fart.
Sam applauds. “That’s talent, Mouth.”
Bither beams. “Hey, Sambot, you get a good feel of the Mutant? Is it true her puss is as bald as her head?”
Woods groans loudly amid an outbreak of jeering and prurient laughter.
Todd Gramolini hoots and raises his voice to announce the question to the whole locker room. “Mouth wants to know if the Mutant shaves her muff.”
“Mohawked,” Pete Fosse shouts.
“You must have been drunker than me,” Tim Kasten puts in. “Her twat’s as bald as Michael Jordan’s skull.”
“No it isn’t.” Matt Michaud is dramatically puzzled. “She’s got bush from her belly button halfway to her knees.”
“And a tattoo on her ass,” someone else calls.
“Yeah,” Fosse elaborates. “It says This End Up, with arrows pointing both ways.”
Sam hauls up the tongue of his left sneaker and holds it firmly while he laces the shoe. This kind of crude bullshit starts to get tacky for him when girls get named. It makes him uncomfortable if only because they could be talking about his sister—probably do when he’s not around. He tries not to be paranoid but is resigned to the likelihood the old scandal about his mother is also sometimes a subject for lewd derision, and even more likely, his father’s marriage to Pearl and the baby eight months later. It makes him dislike the Mutant even more.
The boys line up to give the girls congratulatory high fives for their 49–43 win as they leave the floor. Grinning, Sam extends his hand to the Mutant. She pauses, rolls her left hand over ritually and gives him a finger. He looks at it and shakes his head.
“Good game,” he says.
She thrusts out her chin. “Fuck you very much, Your Holiness.”
Her coach is suddenly behind her. “Gauthier, I heard that.”
The Mutant looks back over her shoulder as she skips away toward the locker room.
“Break a dick, guys,” she says.
Her coach slams past the boys, screeching, “Gauthier!”
The boys break up, displeasing their own coach. But they go out loose and stay that way.
Though the Rock’s center grins up at Sam from just six feet tall, he is a solidly built kid, a junior who knows his job well. He wears rec specs and a mouthguard and has two fingers, dislocated in practice, taped together on his right hand. His name is Lucas Priest and he is related to half of Greenspark as well as most of Castle Rock.
Like Sam, Lucas is a junior volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. In previous summers, they have worked an occasional multiple-alarm house fire, major automobile accident or search-and-rescue together. They like to rank each other about their tastes in music—Lucas listens to country. Between junior and senior high, Lucas even made a serious attempt to convince his parents to let him live with an aunt in Greenspark so he could be on Sam’s team. The two boys give each other double fives so exuberantly the crowd laughs.
By the third quarter, the Indians have a substantial lead. Sam goes out of the game to allow Fosse, the backup center, to get a good workout. It’s fun to watch Lucas break out and rally his discouraged guards. Pete is momentarily flummoxed. Woods, Gramolini, Bither and Kasten pull together to compensate but Pete is trembling like a winded horse at the end of the quarter. Coach calms him down. Billy Rank goes in for Rick, who has simply run out of gas. There is a momentary wobble in the defense and Lucas drives past Pete to lay in a clean shot. Like a gymnast, Lucas tumbles over Billy trying to claim the rebound. Todd Gramolini gets a hand on the loose ball and pivots off balance, only to find the Rock’s Lennie Clutterbuck waiting to steal it and lob it back in for three. Coach calls out Pete and sends Sam back in. Trusting him, Billy steadies and relaxes again and The Big Machine kicks into overdrive, taking down Castle Rock 70–58.
Outside it’s colder than the gulag but the windows on the girls’ bus start rattling down and the boys are showered
