The other girls in front of the mirror are suddenly very quiet; there is a lot of interest in this question.
The Mutant’s chains puddle neatly in her palm and her face is naked. Again she narrows her eyes in a simulation of arousal.
“We fuck like beasts,” she announces, touching one breast and shivering. “Every chance we get. When he takes me”—she crosses her arms over her breasts—“we know nothing but our incendiary passion.”
There is an outburst of laughter even Nat can’t help joining.
24
The Mutant is getting hacked but good. Double—and sometimes triple-teamed by the girls from Helsinki in this rematch with the Raiders, she is drawing a disproportionate and occasionally savage offensive effort.
“I’m blind, I’m deaf, I wanna be a ref!” Sam chants derisively at the officials and instigates wholesale editorializing from the bleachers.
Eventually a foul is called and the Mutant goes to the line and can’t get it in the hopper. Her foul-shooting is still off. From the floor she shoots on the move effectively. She compensates for her poor foul-line work with a flurry of rebounding and assists—it is the most generous game he has ever seen from her. After a particularly tricky play, she shoots him a look of triumph.
When Sam offers her his palm as the girls, leaving the court, pass the boys coming onto it, she doesn’t hesitate. High-fiving him, she calls out, “Come on, people!” and both boys and girls roar their response.
The Helsinki boys come out aware that Dyer’s Mills has shoved a nasty stick into the cogs of the Big Machine. Foremost in all their minds is the question of whether the Indians can pull it together again outside of practice. In the first few minutes, Greenspark is shaky from nerves. Kasten twists an ankle and Coach sends in Joey Skouros. As if Skouros is the vital piece in the puzzle—not the last one, but the one that pulls the jigsawed picture together—Greenspark is suddenly whole and working together.
For Sam, sheer relief releases him into the slipstream of the game. He soars on the warm thermals of smoothly executed plays, everything concentrated in the instant. He comes to earth again toward the end of the third quarter and, as Bither goes to the foul line, signals Coach that he wants relief.
Pete Fosse crouches briefly at the scorers’ table and then stops Sam as he approaches the bench.
“Who’s your man?” Pete asks.
Sam stares at him in disbelief. “Where’s your head?” He shoves his face into Pete’s. “You should fucking well know who!”
One of the officials is approaching.
“Styles,” Coach calls.
Wide-eyed and sweating, Pete stares at Sam. He is too stunned by Sam’s fury to dare to breathe.
“Why don’t you see if you can figger it out?” Sam snarls and strides past him.
“What—?” Coach begins.
“Fosse doesn’t know who he’s guarding,” Sam says. “He hasn’t got his head in the game. He shouldn’t be in there.”
Coach’s mouth tightens as he glances toward Fosse, gone red and sullen. “I’ll coach this game, if you don’t mind. Siddown.”
Sam slumps into his chair and reaches for a water bottle.
Fosse founders in traffic, trying to figure out who he is supposed to be guarding. Seeing Pete’s confusion, Gramolini signals impatiently toward Number 35.
Next to Sam, Coach snorts and crosses his arms. “You keep your head in this game, Sunny Jim. You’re going back in about ninety seconds. Be prepared to stay in too. Mr. Fosse is gonna take some serious lessons in bench-sitting from me.”
Soon Pete is surprised by Coach’s hook, and as Sam passes him to reenter the game, Sam tells him clearly, “You’re on three-five, asshole.”
Pete reddens again. Coach points him into the seat next to him and drops a heavy hand on the back of Pete’s chair.
Outside the lockers the Mutant in her fringed headrag and full chains struts the corridor, to the amusement of her teammates, as well as exiting Raiders and cheerleaders from both schools. They go out into a winter night gone suddenly mild and sweet, and the roof is off the sky. From the Helsinki buses and a parking lot full of vehicles, opened windows emit a cacophony of clashing music and raucous young voices.
“Need a ride?” Sam asks, in the midst of the others.
The Mutant slings her gear at him.
“The question is, do you?” she drawls.
Sam reddens and the others laugh.
Ignoring him, she strolls toward the truck.
He tugs his forelock, adjusts his burdens and shuffles after her in the guise of her faithful chauffeur.
“I have to work,” he tells her as he keys the ignition. “I really do,” he insists and realizes he is telling this lie to himself. “How’s your foot?”
She shrugs.
“You hung in there almost the whole game,” he goes on. “Your stamina’s really improved.” The compliments bring only silence. “You mad at me?” he finally ventures.
“No.” She twists her body toward him, kneeling on the seat. “Nat asked me if you and I had something going on.” Adopting the smoldering narrow-eyed poise of the locker room, she tells him what she said.
Vintage Mutant; he loves it. Sam wipes tears of laughter from his eyes. “Jesus. Fuck like beasts?”
“They didn’t believe me,” she says, sinking back against the seat. “I knew they wouldn’t.”
Glancing at her, Sam hardly believes it himself. He feels like two people, the one he used to be and the one who goes to the Mill with Deanie Gauthier.
He clears his throat. “I could be a little late.”
He stares at the swirling cartoons on the wall over the mattress. Now he sees the influence of that painting she showed him. Not that her cartooning is that much like it but it has some of the same stuttering expression of movement and a mechanization of the figures too. She draws herself in different sizes, sometimes smaller than the figures with whom she interacts, sometimes larger. Sometimes it’s only parts of her that change in size, in proportion to the rest of her
