Joe gives bad count, Frazier wins Olympic Gold in ’64, Rumble in the Jungle, Thrilla in Manila—and some obscure questions Rob had for Rourke about Sam Langford’s blindness and Stanley Ketchel’s murder. I stared out the window, letting everything that was said turn otherworldly, like a foreign language. I leaned onto Rob’s shoulder, and he leaned back, giving me a little more. It was nice, him knowing I needed a little more.
The Stephen Talkhouse is a roadside bar named after a Montaukett Indian who walked all over Long Island. According to legend, Talkhouse could walk to Brooklyn and back in a day.
“I believe his name was Pharaoh,” Powell told us one time when we were fishing for fluke in Shinnecock Bay. Actually, Powell was fishing; Jack and Denny and I were tying knots and spearing sand eels, or just hanging quietly over the side, trying to spot the large fluke Powell called “doormats.” “Or maybe Faro, with an F,” he speculated as he cut the engine, and we drifted into the shallows. Powell liked skinny water. He said it gave fish the chance to ambush the bait.
“Not much was recorded back then, and what was recorded was not carefully recorded, seeing as how we were experts in the language of record but they weren’t. The only time we adopted native words and ways was when it came time to buy their land. A couple blankets and a dog for thousands of acres. We liked those terms fine.”
Powell cast out, hipping smoothly up into one shoulder, the hook touching down like the soft cluck of a tongue. In his wallet was an Indian Status card. Though he has Nanticoke blood on his mother’s side, on his father’s side he’s white. He’s the first to admit that the crimes of his paternal ancestors afforded him advantages for which many of his mother’s ancestors are ineligible. “Plumbing, for starters,” he’ll say.
The Nanticokes were tidewater people who believed all things possess a unique spirit. The Nanticokes are. They still exist. I wrote about the tribe for seventh-grade social studies. I’d interviewed Powell’s sister Esme on the phone from her home in Salamanca, New York. She’s married to Jim, an Iroquois. Coach Peters, who was teaching history that year, gave me a B for improper sourcing—which he spelled sorecing. When my mother saw the graded paper, she called a meeting.
“The purpose of the assignment, Mrs. Ruane,” said Mrs. Schmidt, the middle-school principal, “was to encourage encyclopedia use.”
“The purpose of an encyclopedia, Ms. Schmidt,” my mother said, “is to assist those who have limited access to reputable information. Encyclopedias are hugely reductive. Their scope is confined to the interests of the publisher and its constituents. They should be used as supplemental, not primary references, which is exactly how my daughter has used them—that is, pursuant to point of view.” In her most serious tone, my mother added, “I want it to be a matter of record that I consider that gym teacher to be as qualified to teach academics as he would consider me to teach football. If you intend to promote white supremacy, I suggest that you go out and find some whites who are, in fact, supreme.”
The next day Coach Peters sent a note saying that my grade on the paper had been changed to an A. Mom sent a note back. Your lesson has proved invaluable. Let the B stand.
Two bouncers sat slumped like vultures on the wooden ramp that led to the Talkhouse. I wondered if I would have a problem getting in—Kate was eighteen, but I had six months to go. Rob placed his hand on my lower back and escorted me up the ramp. Rourke came next, then Kate and Mark, lagging behind. “What are the damages?” Rob asked, spreading his wallet.
“Five bucks a head,” one guy said. The lump in his neck journeyed unevenly. The second bouncer leaned to get a better view of me. Rob threw a shoulder to block him.
“Relax, man,” the guy told Rob, and then he said, “Hey, Scorpio!”
I peered over Rob’s shoulder.
“It’s me.” He swatted his chest. “Biff.”
“Oh,” I said. The hitchhiker. “Hi.”
He seemed glad to see me, which was nice. No one ever seemed that glad to see me. Three other people squeezed past, paid the cover, and went in. Sounds of the bar swelled out in a dull ruff, then night silence again.
“I didn’t recognize you,” he said. “You know, with the legs.”
“How’s rugby?”
“I just got back from San Diego. I played