Читать книгу Tale of the Taconic Mountains - Mike M.D. Romeling - Страница 12

It was an old bowling alley but a clean one. That was one thing Gil Brady made sure of always. Times might be hard but he was damned if he was going to let the place get seedy and smelly like a lot of those dives he’d been in over the years. Brady made it his business to know how other bowling establishments were doing in other towns and he wasn’t impressed. BRADY’S BOWL was better than the lot of them if he had to say so himself and he frequently did. It was just his damn luck to be in Cedar Falls, a town that was sinking like the proverbial lead pipe and he couldn’t do diddly about it.

These were Gil Brady’s usual morning thoughts, and this fine morning was no exception as he sat hunched over the snack bar with his second cup of coffee growing cold in front of him. He always came in at six o’clock even though he didn’t open till eight. Never mind that the breakfast and coffee business had faded to next to nothing; there were still a few early customers and he couldn’t afford to lose any chance to make the cash register ring. Besides, he liked the quiet of early morning and having the whole place to himself just to think, and maybe even mentally pat himself on the back a little bit. Even now, when times were rough, he felt the pride—almost surprise—that he had built this place and made it work for so many years. From below, he could hear the muffled hum of the furnace, the same furnace he’d put in when the building went up almost twenty years ago. He had learned how to service the furnace himself, and after all this time, he still managed to coax a seventy-four percent efficiency rating out of that old baby.

He looked up at the clock. In fifteen minutes or so Gail would be coming in to get the kitchen fired up for breakfast. Whatever else you might say about Gail, she brought in customers. Long practice, and her innate ability to make the best of a bad situation, led her to banter and laugh, and listen to the woes and the stories of the customers in such a way as to suggest she had a heartfelt interest in whatever was on their minds. They never suspected, when they left her generous tips, that she drove into work each day with a single thought: whenever she finally got her son through college, she’d be out of this joint and out of this shabby town like a runaway truck. Of course she’d see to it that there was a good replacement to take over for her. This old coot she worked for deserved that much, even if she did give him a hard time every chance she could.

Gil heard the door open and then slam shut. “Ya know, Gil, you might get a few more people in here for breakfast if you didn’t stink the place up first thing in the morning with that putrid cigar smoke.”

“Good morning to you too, Gail. We’re low on Half & Half. Better mix in some regular milk and make the coffee a little weaker. No one will know the difference.”

“That’s why we worry so much about you Gil; you’re always thinking.”

Brady chuckled and crushed the cigar stump into the ashtray, making sure it was not completely out, just to irritate her. As she walked by she poured the rest of his cold coffee on the smoldering cigar and gave Gil a glancing blow across the side of his head. “Go bowling and stay out of my way today; I’m in a lousy mood.”

“Good, so am I.”

Brady walked out of the snack bar and picked up the bag that contained his red bowling ball and shoes. He went behind the shoe counter, where the smell of feet always lingered no matter how much disinfectant he sprayed in the shoes. He turned on alley number one and two, then listened fondly to the always inviting sound of pins knocking around as they were set up for his first roll of the day.

This was the other reason he was in the habit of always coming in early and perhaps the secret of why this place even survived in a dying town. Gil Brady simply and truly loved bowling; always had. And even though he bowled in two of the evening leagues each week, the three games he rolled every morning were the highlight of his day. He would only light two lanes because it left the rest of the room in the dark and he could fantasize that he was bowling under the bright TV lights like the pros. He still watched the pros whenever he could. The show was no longer carried by a major network but instead had been relegated to ESPN on Sunday afternoons, hopelessly vying with NFL football. No doubt some football fans flipped over to the bowling during commercials, but Brady stubbornly watched the whole show when he could, even when the Green Bay Packers were playing. Besides, the Packers were nothing special now, not since the Vince Lombardi days had ended.

Brady always bowled better during these morning sessions than he did in the evening leagues where he averaged only around 175 over three games, maybe having one game over 200 on a good night. The leagues were too distracting with the shouting and the beer and the possibility that he might be called away at any time to handle this or that problem. But in the mornings, with his coffee and his cigar and his make-believe, he flirted with a 200 average. It felt so damn good that it made up for a lot of others things that didn’t always feel so good, like his body sometimes, or his non-existent love life, or his business that he loved instead. Trouble was, he felt he couldn’t really crow about his scores to anyone, except sometimes to Gail who might inquire how he was doing when he would come back to the snack bar for another cup of coffee. How could he be a mediocre league bowler week after week and then claim lamely that he was a lot better when no one was looking? Either people wouldn’t believe him, or they’d razz him about it until he tightened up and started bowling even lower scores at night. Best to let it be.

With another three good games behind him that morning, Brady rested for a while at the snack bar, trading a few more insults with Gail before the first breakfast customers would be coming in. Then he would need to get busy with any number of things that awaited his attention. There were the lanes to clean and oil. And he oiled the lanes to strict PBA standards too. He might be out here in east bejesus nowhere land, but he went by the book. No one was going to roll cheap strikes on Gil Brady’s lanes; no inflated big scores. Then there were the three new balls to drill in the small workshop behind the kitchen. And then, worst of all, a ton of paperwork that is the scourge of the small businessman unable to hire accountants or lawyers like the big boys. No one but old Gil to keep the goddamned tax vultures and insurance assholes paid and off his back. Lately, there were more than a few days when Brady felt he was getting too old and tired for all this anymore.

Still, if the physical demands of his business were becoming troubling to him, the emotional toll exacted by his dwindling business gnawed at him far worse. For years, when BRADY’S BOWL had been doing well in a small but reasonably prosperous town, and bowling had been on an upward spiral, he had formed his plan. It was a good plan that he had fought hard to believe in, even as eventually he saw it disappearing before his very eyes, until now it lay crumbled in the bitter dust of impossibility and regret. The plan had been fed and nourished by his long association with the books of Ernest Hemingway. Gil Brady might seem like an unlikely reader, but a life-long battle with insomnia had made him one. And when he discovered Hemingway, he was carried away to the bull rings of Spain, to the deep sea fishing spots off the Florida Keys, to the snow-capped mountains of Africa, and every other exotic locale this great but troubled writer had taken his generations of readers. Often Brady would awaken in the early morning hours and read propped up in bed until he became regretfully aware that daylight was finally peeping through the cracks of his drawn curtains and he would have to put the book aside for another day’s struggle. Hemingway was Brady’s kind of guy, and Brady was determined that someday he would see these places and do these things himself. And thus the plan: to make enough money to sell BRADY’S BOWL at age fifty and be on his merry way to adventures most people only dreamed of in their brief moments of longing, if they even had time for those.

Brady looked at the remains of his last cup of coffee and sighed inwardly as he contemplated the wreck of these dreams. Hell, he’d be lucky to keep this place going; lucky if he didn’t end up having to take a god-awful job somewhere for the rest of his life; lucky if he didn’t end up roaming the grounds of some loony-bin rather than roaming over the green hills of Africa or the snows of Kilimanjaro. Maybe Hemingway had gotten it right when he put the gun to his own head.

It wasn’t just that the town was dying; times were changing too. There was this damn health craze these days that had everyone out jogging and biking and going to health spas and drinking goddamn carrot juice till they pissed orange. It was hardly chic these days to be sitting on your ass waiting to take your turn at the bowling lanes amid the cursing, the crashing of pins, and the thick tobacco smoke. Brady liked the joggers least of all. They would come in after a run and nurse a lousy cup of coffee for forty-five minutes while they talked together about the bean salad and cottage cheese and soy curd dip they were planning for lunch. Sometimes they were chintzy enough to ask for nothing more than a lousy glass of water. That disgusted Brady to the point where he had installed a water fountain just inside the door. The only compensation was that some of the women looked real fine with their wet tops clinging to their breasts. But on the other hand, there were those who smelled real bad from a long way off, and worse than that, had huge icky sweat stains on the seat of their pants.

And now, with the school closed down, Gil didn’t even have the late afternoon leagues for the kids anymore. By the time they were bussed all the way back from Bennetsville, it was too late to bowl. That was too bad because Brady truly liked kids and they liked him after they got over their first scary impression of the burly craggy-faced man with the cigar butt in his mouth. They came to learn that he was on their side and even if they couldn’t leave tips, he would make sure Gail got their cherry cokes and chips just as promptly as she hustled beers during the evening leagues when the men’s eyes slid up and down her tight skirt between frames. And if he saw a kid with a too heavy ball or with his shoes on the wrong feet, he would set things right quickly and quietly without embarrassing anyone. For the smallest kids he would put up gutter guards so that no matter where the ball was thrown, it would travel all the way down the alley and knock over at least a couple pins. Sometimes he devised contests that would make all the kids winners of some trifling prize that cost him next to nothing but left the kids beaming and anxious to come again. After all, these were tomorrow’s adult bowlers, assuming there were to be enough tomorrows for Gil Brady. So it was important to give the kids a feel for the wheel. He was trying now to organize a Saturday morning league for them but the trouble with weekend leagues was that families were often off doing other things, and that resulted in a lot of no-shows. So far the kids were only signing up by fits and starts.

Brady put his coffee cup down on the counter with a bang; it was time to get on with the day...but wait...there was one more reason he came in so early each day, one more thing he liked to mull over in the solitary early morning hours. It was just an idle fantasy of course; just a harmless little mental game. He was sure it was harmless because it was never shared; certainly would never be acted upon in real life. Brady equated it with the old proposition about a tree falling in the woods where no one could hear it. And if no one could hear it, then there was no sound at all...right? Besides it was just a little fantasy head-game; no harm done and, after all, he was a decent man. Frequently he told himself he would quit the game. Yet he found it curiously difficult to do so. It was like trying to quit smoking or quit eating those damn little cherry pies he kept stocked at the snack bar. Even when he didn’t indulge in the game, the craving remained and then the pictures would start to flash uninvited across his mind later in the day when he no longer wanted to play the game. They were such sweet pictures too: a check in his hands and his fishing boat floating lazily off the Florida Keys amid rippling waters and waving palm trees. But let it be said again—Gil Brady was a decent man, a proud man. He would simply never consider burning the place down. Not really.

Still, what the hell, Gail was back in the kitchen banging pots and pans around and no one had come in for breakfast yet. And so now, despite his intention not to, he began the mind-game. Just this once. Tomorrow he would refrain. What was the harm? There were a couple ways he could go about it. He could do it himself of course. Everyone knew his equipment was old; how surprising could it be if an electrical fire broke out in the middle of the night? The building was on the outskirts of town and it was unlikely anyone would notice the smoke and flames before it was too late. He could pick some night when the ghostly fog rose from the river and hid everything from sight. He was a licensed electrician which authorized him to work on his own equipment and so the insurance bastards couldn’t screw him on that point. Problem was, he loved this place like a child; could he really raise his own hand against it? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it would be better to hire the job out, and he had some ideas how he could do that too. He’d been around, had met a lot of different kinds of people in his life, some a lot nicer than others. If he did it that way, he might even find that he would change his mind at the last minute. But should his change of heart prove too late to stop it, why then he could always tell himself he had tried, that it had all been a horrible mistake. Tragic really. Despite his best efforts to halt it, the worst had happened. Yeah, that might make it rest a lot easier on his mind when he was later drifting under tropical sunshine in that fishing boat of his...and the cold beer...and maybe even a sun-tanned woman with inviting eyes...

He could hear footsteps coming from the kitchen. It was time to let these pictures flicker out. Spring hunting season for wild turkeys was opening next week. He would get himself up the mountain in the early mornings and play that game instead of this one. Because after all, he was a decent man.

The revolving door swung open from the kitchen and Gail’s nose twitched as she gave him a curious look. “Still sittin’ here? Cigar smells marvelous. What are they doing these days, wrapping them in rat skin?”