Nine Inches

Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Perrotta
him. “ Th at’s all you can do.”
    Th e previous fall, a guy named Joe Funkhauser, the father of one of our high school football players, got into an argument with an opposing player’s father in the parking lot a ft er a bitterly contested game. Funkhauser beat the guy into a coma and was later charged with attempted murder. Th e Funkhauser Incident, as the papers called it, attracted a lot of unfavorable attention to our town and triggered a painful round of soul-searching among people concerned with youth sports. In response to the crisis, Tim had organized a workshop for Little League coaches and parents, trying to get them to focus on fun rather than competition, but it takes more than a two-hour seminar to change people’s attitudes about something as basic as the di ff erence between winning and losing.
    “I don’t blame your team for being spooked,” I said. “Not a ft er what Lori did to them last time. Didn’t she set some kind of league record for strikeouts?”
    Carl’s grin disappeared. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Jack. Th e strike zone’s down here. Not up here.” He illustrated his point by slicing imaginary lines across his stomach and throat.
    “Right,” I said. “And it’s six points for a touchdown.”
    “I don’t mean to be a jerk about it,” he continued, “but I thought you were making some questionable judgments.”
    “Funny,” I said. “ Th ey’re only questionable when they don’t go your way.”
    “Just watch the high strikes, that’s all I’m saying.”
    Tim kept smiling sti ffl y throughout this exchange, as if it were all just friendly banter, but he seemed visibly relieved by the sight of Ray Santelli, the Ravens’ manager, returning from the snack bar with a hot dog in each hand.
    “Just got outta work,” he said, by way of explanation. “Tra ffi c was a bitch on the Parkway.”
    Ray was a dumpy guy with an inexplicably beautiful Russian wife. A lot of people assumed she was mail order, despite Ray’s repeated claims that he’d met her at his cousin’s wedding. He ran a livery business with his brother and sometimes kept a white stretch limo parked in the driveway of his modest Cape Cod on Dunellen Street. Th e car was like the wife, a little too glamorous for its humble surroundings.
    “It’s those damn toll plazas,” observed Tim. “ Th ey were supposed to be gone twenty years ago.”
    Before anyone could chime in with the ritual agreement, our attention was diverted by the appearance of Mikey Fellner, wielding his video camera. A mildly retarded guy in his early twenties, Mikey was a familiar fi gure at local sporting events, graduations, carnivals, and political meetings. He videotaped everything and saved the tapes, which he labeled and shelved in chronological order in his parents’ garage. Th is was apparently part of the syndrome he had — it wasn’t Down’s but something more exotic, I forget the name — some compulsion to keep everything fanatically organized. He trained his camera on me, then got a few seconds of Santelli wiping mustard o ff his chin.
    “You guys hear?” Carl asked. “Mikey says they’re gonna show the game on cable access next week.”
    Mikey panned over to Tim, holding the camera just a couple of inches from his face. He wasn’t big on respecting other people’s boundaries, especially when he was working. Tim didn’t seem to mind, though.
    “Championship game, ” he said, giving a double thumbs-up to the viewing audience. “ Very exciting.”
    LITTLE LEAGUE is a big deal in our town. You could tell that just by looking at our stadium. We’ve got dugouts, a big electronic scoreboard, and a padded out fi eld fence covered with ads for local businesses, just like the pro teams (that’s how we paid for the scoreboard). We play the national anthem over a good sound system, nothing like the scratchy loudspeaker they used when I was a kid. Th e bleachers were packed for the championship game,

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