teeth. But it's dumb to subdivide things that way. Carrots nourish the body and all the extensions of the body. It's carrots for wholebody harmony.'
'She's into carrots pretty heavy,' Vera said.
'How you chew them's important. You sort of project your jaw outward and then chomp down hard. You're supposed to think of the numeral seventeen while you're chewing them. The numeral seventeen is a numeral of immortal life. Raw vegetables have a linkup with certain forms of numerology.'
'I don't know how Zapalac's teeth could chew anything,' Myna said. 'They're so small and tiny. I picture him eating a lot of soup and a lot of strained foods.'
'Tell them about daddy's thumbs,' Vera said.
'Don't remind me please.'
'Our daddy had these gross thumbs. They were huge. They were immense, Gary. And they were so ugly they'd make you physically sick just to look at them. But we used to sneak little looks anyway and we were always afraid he'd catch us.'
'Then he'd bite you with, his horse teeth,' I said.
'Gaa.'
'Talk about something else,' Esther said.
'Remember his thumbnails? They were brownish yellow. They didn't have any pink at all. They were scab colored.'
'Oh God please,' Esther said.
'It was real scary being anywhere near those thumbs. They were horriblelooking things. And he liked to use his thumb to pick his nose.'
'Oh please no.'
'We're here to comfort each other,' Myna said.
After the picnic I went to my room. Bloomberg, wearing shorts with little slits in them, was on his bed, turned to the wall, asleep. After a while I was called to the telephone. I assumed someone in my family had died. On the way to the phone I wondered who it might be, which death would cause me the most grief, whether it was an accident or natural, and whether I would have to go home for the funeral if it was just an uncle or aunt. Then I picked up the phone and heard my mother's voice.
'How's your laundry?' she said.
'Fine-how's yours?'
I wasn't particularly relieved that no one had died. When we were finished talking I returned to my room. Anatole was on his back. His body rose and fell through a tidal sleep. I spent the afternoon looking out the window. That evening we went down to a team meeting. Tweego and Hauptfuhrer yelled at us for our performance of two days before, our sixth game. We had won 2710 but it had been our worst game by far. We lost the ball four times on fumbles. Bing Jackmin missed an extra point and three field goals. The defensive unit wasn't aggressive, giving up just ten points only because the opposition was so pathetic; we knew it wouldn't be much of a contest when we saw their quarterback wearing number 78. Garland Hobbs didn't show much either. He threw only long passes in the first quarter, as if a sustained drive was too much trouble, and he missed his first six and then got intercepted before Creed placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke softly into his face. All these thing we were reminded of as we sat in the long low stone room under Staley Hall. Coming up was Centrex, the game that would make or break the season. In six games we had scored 246 points and given up 41. It didn't mean a thing if we couldn't win the next one.
'You got five days to get ready,' Hauptfuhrer said. 'This isn't Snow White and the seven dwarfs you're facing this time. This is a bunch of headhunters. They like to hit. They have definite sadistic tendencies. This isn't another humpty dumpty outfit. This is a squad that's big and mean. You people got a long way to go in meanness. You think you're mean but you're not mean. Centrex is mean. They're practically evil. They'll stomp all over you. It'll be men against boys. You better execute out there. And you better play mean. They're headhunters. They like to humiliate people. That's their stock in trade. You better get ready for the worst.'
'Let me tell you about their head coach,' Tweego said. 'I know Jade Kiley. I've known him for years. I know every wart on his hide. And he's mean.'
'You better believe it.'
'And his boys are mean.'
'They're quite a contingent,' Hauptfuhrer said. 'They like to hit.'
'A Jade Kiley team likes to hit. That's been his trademark down the years. I've known Jade Kiley I don't know how long. His teams have always liked to hit. Jade Kiley doesn't let you put on a uniform unless you like to hit. Jade Kiley teams are hitting teams.'
'They like to humiliate people. They're quite a contingent.'
'You got your work cut out for you,' Tweego said. 'You got five days to get ready. We can help you get ready but we can't play the damn game for you. We can take you right up to kickoff. Then you're on your own.'
'They'll stomp blue shit out of you,' Hauptfuhrer said.
Creed didn't make an appearance. As the season progressed he had become more remote. We saw him only at practice and at the games. He no longer had his meals with the squad. At practice he stayed up in the tower or sat alone in the last row of benches in the small grandstand section used during the baseball season. During the games he remained in one spot on the sidelines, right at the midfield stripe, letting his assistants make all the decisions and control the flow of players. He seemed to be losing weight and he moved slowly now, with a slight limp.
When the meeting ended Raymond Toon and I went up to his room to watch television. I wanted to look at the replay of a game between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings. It was a little early but he turned on the set anyway and we watched a program composed of film clips of hurricanes, tornadoes and avalanches. It was one of the most fascinating things I had ever seen. Raymond, stretched out in his chair, nearly spanned the walls.
'What do you think?' he said. 'Can we beat them?'
'I'm watching this.'
'They'll be tough. We've had it too easy all year. It'll make them seem that much tougher. But I guess all we can do is go out there and do the best we can. The man upstairs decides these things.'
'Who do you mean, Toony?'
'The man upstairs,' he said. 'It's up to him what happens. All we can do is use our talents to the best of our ability. We can run, we can block, we can tackle, we can kick the ball and catch the ball. If the man upstairs decides we don't deserve to win, then we won't win. Gary, I'm a substitute tackle. I've done all I can to earn firststring status. I play my heart out every time I get in there.
Maybe I'm not mean enough. That's a criticism that's been leveled at me more than once. I know I try my best. I go all out on every play. I give one hundred and ten percent just like Coach demanded of us back last summer. It's like the notion of valuation in the hard market, Gary. Practitioners link the measurement of earnings magnitude to the need for assessing the variability that's expressed in the multiplier rate. This way you avoid doublecounting the risk allowance. But I can't crack the starting lineup. And if the man upstairs wants it that way, that's good enough for me. He has his reasons.'
'What are they?'
'I wouldn't even try to guess, Gary. I just know they're good reasons. But they're probably beyond our scope.'
'Toony, this shit about the man upstairs. Is the man upstairs supposed to be synonymous with God or what? Because either way it's an outmoded concept. It's a concept that's incredibly outmoded. It makes absolutely no theological sense.'
'Don't try to get me in a discussion,' he said.
John Jessup walked in then, Raymond's roommate. The game came on and we all watched it, marveling at the pros, how easily they did the things we stumbled over. In slow motion the game's violence became almost tender, a series of lovely and sensual assaults. The camera held on fallen men, on men about to be hit, on those who did the hitting. It was a loving relationship with just a trace of mockery; the camera lingered a bit too long, making poetic sport of the wounded. We laughed at the most acrobatic spills and the hardest tackles and at the meanness of some of it, the gang tackles and cheap shots. We laughed especially at the meanness. After about ten minutes Raymond turned down the sound so he could practice his sportscasting. Jessup leaped for the set and turned the sound back up.
