42

Bowling II

It is Saturday night, no Odessa, just the three of us and after dinner Pops says, Let’s go bowling. Mama sits up straight in her chair before I can say, Yeah, let’s go, let’s go tonight, right now. Let’s get out of this house and go somewhere where there are more interesting things to do, let’s let’s. Mama says before I can say that, How many beers have you had Nate? I don’t care how many beers he’s had, he can still bowl and I’ll get one of those little balls, the lightweight ones and Pops will help me roll it down the lane.

Mama says, We’ll go for a line, that’s all. Pops says, What’s the rush? Scags can come too, which of course I had already planned, the thought had never entered my mind that they would leave me behind.

We go to the bowling alley and it is full of the smack and clatter and rumble of big black balls traveling very fast down the alley and knocking over lots of pins. I stand on a seat and watch everyone, see that funny walk to the line, the arm stretched out, a ball rolling, rolling, will it knock those white pins down?

Pops gets the lane and the shoes and the balls, Mama goes with him. I go to our lane and sit down waiting. I see a boy from my school with his parents, a silly boy I really don’t know, he leaves his parents and runs to me. He has a funny grin on his face when he comes over and says, What happened to your hair? I reach for my head as if something had happened, but of course, it is just my new short style and I say, Do you like it? Ronnie shakes his head yes and I say, Good, I did it for you. He giggles and runs back to his parents. I wait for Pops.

He has a pair of shoes for me and when I put my feet in them they feel hard and uncomfortable as if they were made out of wood. We go looking for a ball. Mama picks one for herself and says, This’ll do, but Pops tells Mama it’s too heavy, pick a lighter ball. Pops loves to bowl. Pops loves to make the pins fly and he whistles the opening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony because it sounds like the collision of ball and pins.

He picks a really light ball for me. He tells me to put my fingers in the holes and hang onto the ball. It fits. It’s just right and I run in my shoes to where Mama sits tying up her shoes that look funny on her feet, that make them look bigger and thinner. Pops goes up first and takes a practice ball. I have perfect form, he tells me. He takes those funny steps and crosses over himself and the ball flies in the air and lands halfway down with a shudder like thunder and the pins all go down. Perfect, he says. Mama goes next. Pops goes to get a beer. He turns to her and asks if she’d like a beer but she makes a face at him and starts to say something and then he’s gone.

Mama takes a practice shot. It rolls fast and hard on the wooden floor and then the pins explode as she hits that magic spot where the pins have no choice but to all fall down. Then it’s my turn and I want to wait for Pops but Mama says she’ll help me so we walk together down the line. I roll my ball, which naturally goes in the gutter and wiggles slowly all the way down. Oh Scags, she says, touches my cheek. She hasn’t done that in a long time.

Pops returns with two bottles of beer. Mama says, I told you I didn’t want one. They’re for me, he says and sets them in the little holes in the desk where he starts scoring, writing our names on the scoresheet as if we were really good at this.

Pops says, Scags you’re first. Go pick up your ball and aim for the sweet spot. I hold the ball up to my nose and see the point the curve makes and take big steps, big steps, and get to the line, let go of the ball and I do this over and over. When it is my turn and every now and then I knock over five or six pins. Mama bowls about as good as Pops. He tells her to join a bowling league. He says, Bev, you could join a league and really improve your game. I don’t want you to think, Pops says, that you’re not good now, but it would be a little exercise and socializing simultaneously, a night with the ladies—Nate, Mama says, just bowl, will you?

Pops gets up and I see him hold onto the chair for a moment and then he’s steady, gets his big black ball, holds his hand over the fan that dries it and he does his perfect motion. He gets a strike. Pops stands staring at the downed pins. He doesn’t move until Mama says, Nate, you got a strike. How do I score this? He walks away from us toward the bar and gets another beer.

We play three lines. My fingers are all black and sticky. Mama gets better and better. Pops shows her how to keep score and I wait my turn to bowl but I think I am too little for this game. Maybe if Pops showed me better what to do or even Mama. Well, she did, but she doesn’t know the finer points of the game, Pops says, as he swallows down another cold beer. Mama and I try hard. Pops doesn’t seems to have to try. Sometimes after he gets a strike he yells too loud and then he misses all the pins for two or three tries. Then he gets angry.

When we finish the third line, Mama says, That’s enough. I’m glad. We take off our bowling shoes and Pops has trouble counting the money to pay for everything. Mama tells Pops he has to give her the car keys. When we go to the car, Pops gets in back with me and puts his head in my lap. It is heavy and sweaty. I smell beer. I don’t like it.

Pops is quiet as Mama drives out of the parking lot. Maybe he’s asleep I think and run my finger down his nose. He catches my finger and holds onto it. Pops says to Mama, You know we could have had some fun if you’d loosened up a bit. You know we could go dancing every night if you were more romantic. We could have another child, if you weren’t so afraid of me.

Nate, Mama says, this is not a good time to go into all of that. Well, when would be a good time? We could talk later, Mama says. Pops says, You know you’re not the only woman who finds me attractive. Plenty of women would like to be with me. Why only yesterday I was in Boomer’s apartment and the cleaning woman said, Oh, Mr. Morgenstern, you’re such a nice man, won’t you be the father of my child? One of the secretaries in the building where I work, going up in the elevator, she practically got down on the floor for me—Nate, Mama says, I told you this isn’t a good time.

He raises himself off my lap and hangs over the seat. He starts punching Mama hard in the arm until she says, Stop it Nate. What do you think you’re doing? I say, Stop, stop, stop to both of them. Pops turns to me as if he didn’t know I was in the car, as if he hadn’t been resting his head in my lap. He sits back. Mama pulls our car into the driveway. Pops puts his hands over his head. He says, I don’t know what’s happening to me. Mama is crying. I can hear her. She looks in the rearview mirror at Pops. I wish Pops would just be himself again, and put me on his lap, take me for a ride at night, let the wind come racing through the window and we’d be laughing and singing. We would drive so fast and I would learn how to drive in the dark.