“Jesus,” he murmured. “Willya look at this?”
Soon I sensed it wasn’t Howie’s safety that was in jeopardy; it was mine. The people with the painted faces were up in the cheap seats. I swore again I saw a white face amid the green. Then the sun shifted and ended my view.
“Play ball!” someone shouted.
MY SHORTS NEARLY FALLING DOWN, I STOOD ACROSS A NET FROM MIKE Fitzgerald and Thor Ludwig. In early middle age, the first was curly-haired and wiry, the second blond and lanky. Both looked like they’d been awake since the late seventies.
I was apparently Howie’s doubles partner. Or someone resembling me was. I heard an announcer shouting at the crowd.
“The Terrible Rebel and the Mighty Thor … face Howie Romaine and Ray Romano!”
There was a pause of confusion, as the audience realized that I wasn’t the popular comic. The correction soon came.
“Movie critic Ray Milizano!”
The two tennis champs approached the net, to shake our hands. The sun went behind a cloud, and I squinted past them, at the stands. Now all the painted faces seemed green. Was I losing my mind?
As my hand was pulled and pumped by one, then two—surprisingly powerful—grips, I felt my heart lurch. The white face was now visible, sitting in a more secluded seat.
Neither of our opponents paid any more attention to me.
“They still love ya, Howie,” Mike Fitzgerald said, a multimillionaire still affecting a lower-class New York accent.
“Our ovation was only, how do you call it, so-so,” Thor added, a multi-linguist still affecting a foreigner’s unease.
“Ah.” Howie shrugged it off. “They just feel sorry for me.”
“No, I’m telling ya,” Mike said. “You ought to reconsider this retirement thing.”
“Take it from me,” Thor agreed. “It’s important to keep having, what’s the word, discretionary income.”
Howie pooh-poohed this, putting a brutal grip on my shoulder. “I’m gonna be in trivia collectibles from now on. Just like Roy here.”
Both of the former sports stars looked at me, incredulous. Who was I to be dictating the future of the great Howie Romaine? Howie was starting ever-so-slowly to blame me for his situation, I thought, and now he had his friends’ help.
“Well,” Mike said, disgustedly, “he must have something going for him, that’s all I can say.”
The announcer, impatient with all the schmoozing at the net, blared again.
“The Terrible Rebel …” he repeated, comically, “and the Mighty Thor will play …”
The crowd chuckled as Mike gave one of his trademark scowls at the booth. This had struck fear in his opponents twenty-five years ago; now it was just shtick that brought a big laugh from the crowd. Then Mike yelled his old catchphrase, now a parody of his youthful rage: “You’re kiddin’ me!”
The crowd went wild. One fan wasn’t laughing, though. Far above us, I thought I saw the clown-face man make his fingers into a gun. Then he pulled it back and took a stylized shot at me.
What did I fear most: being humiliated or killed? In this arena, I now feared both. I remembered that Stanley Kubrick had replaced Anthony Mann as director of Spartacus.
Howie unkindly gave me the coin to toss for serving rights. I spun it nervously across the net, hitting Mike in the ear. The crowd gave a comical whooo, but Mike’s face showed me his anger was no parody.
“Sorry,” I said, but couldn’t be heard above the din.
Because Mike had been injured, he and Thor got to choose. They served first. I was sent to the net by Howie, who patted my butt—painfully—with his racket, much to the crowd’s delight. I stood there, my attention diverted to the stands. The man from the Honda was fumbling in a bag. Or was it a woman with her purse?
“Bend your knees!” Howie called to me, convulsing everyone.
I did as he told me, with an old, buried sense memory of day camp. Across the net, the German, innovator of the modern booming serve in tennis (I later learned), was winding up. He was out of practice, clearly stiff, and he stopped midtoss several times.
“You’re kiddin’ me!” Mike yelled at him now, getting more laughs.
The man in the stands was pulling something out of his bag. Then a latecomer crossed his path, blocking my—and his—view.
Then a bullet landed at my feet.
It wasn’t a bullet, it was a ball. What was probably Thor’s weakest serve ever hit like machine-gun fire near my sneaker, sending me backward with a shout of horror. The ball pinged off the court and flew at full-force into the stands.
“Fifteen-love!” the announcer yelled.
Mike and Thor high-fived each other. I turned with an apologetic shrug to Howie, but he was busy betraying me to the crowd.
“ ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’ ” he crowed his own catchphrase at them. The resulting hysteria made Howie grin broadly, his face growing even redder.
“Not since Elliot has Howie had such a foil!” the announcer cried, comparing me to Howie’s sitcom pal.
Thor was bouncing his ball low to the ground, in anticipation of another blast. The man in the stands now sat directly above his shoulder, a dangerous dot. Something was gleaming in his hand, I was sure. He was starting to raise it, to aim it.
Then, excitedly, someone stood up in front of him.
I didn’t see Thor serve. I was hit in the face, in the left cheek. I went down like a dancer in a cruel ballet.
