Monday, August 03, 2009

A Brief Interlude Part 1

His face was flush as little beads of sweat slowly evaporated down the sides of his head. He knew that he would be sore in a few different places tomorrow. Perhaps he had had one to many beers he thought to himself as he slowly crouched over the ball return fan, twiddling his fingers as though he were a magician. He always liked the feeling of the cooling fan that sat between the twisted rods of metal and multicolored bowling balls. It was almost time for the glow in the dark bowling to begin. This was the third game of the night. Everyone was tired but he wanted to keep going. He was sure some of his friends did too. Others were bored, but he didn't care, he knew that his two closest friends were still having fun and that's all that mattered to him. That and the fact that he would win all three games if he managed to pull off a miracle in these last three frames. The ten spot frame. Sometimes you got two rolls, sometimes you got three. He needed all three and that meant a strike or a spare to lead off. Could it happen. He reached over to grab his ball. James had always tried to pick a ball that nobody else would use. It was a really strange sort of OCD thing. It didn't bother him that hundreds of people before him had shoved their sweaty, dirty, booger picking fingers into those three slots, it mattered right then and there that he be the only one to use the ball. One of his compatriots had insisted on using his ball throughout the third game despite it being an obvious mismatch. James glowered at him with a deathly intent each time Marcus picked up his ball. When this occurred James also became really tense with the irrational fear that the ball would somehow never come back, that his game would somehow be off. If he lost this game surely it would be Marcus' fault. He walked forward slightly, leaned over and with both hands turned the ball over so that he could place his hand and fingers in the proper position. The ball wasn't particularly heavy this time around, only ten pounds. The middle finger fit well, but the index finger was loose and the thumb was a little tight. It made for a few unusual rolls that led to his falling behind in the game. That and the beer. Beer always made the game more interesting, but while more pints seemed to improve the games of his friends, James' game always suffered. There was a very distinct beer to bad frames ratio such that the number of bad frames increased exponentially for each beer that he had. He stood at the back line with his feet close together and a slight bend at the knees. His torso flexed slightly forward and his shoulders were elevated. He pulled the ball up towards eye level and gazed down the lane at the ten white pins. He noticed the slight bumps and grooves that ran in random patterns down the lane. He stood there for a few more seconds taking in everything that was going on around him. The DJ was in an eighties kind of mood throwing out one hit wonders like an LA radio station lunch hour. He could feel his friend's eyes on his back with their light chattering slowly reaching his ears. The groups bowling on either side of him were much more rambunctious. Lots of high fives and grunts from one gorilla to another and drunk girls who would no doubt have their friends holding their hair over a toilet later that night. He laughed to himself, took a deep breath and began his motion forward pulling the ball behind him and launching it forward down lane just off of the middle. The lights went off, the pins lit up in the arriving black light. The rest of the night had begun.