Hanger Stout, Awake! (50th Anniversary Edition) by Jack Matthews

Author:Jack Matthews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: American Literature
Publisher: Personville Press
Published: 1967-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

16.

All the way back from Rigolo's I was thinking of how surprise Pete and Bo and Dean Fetz would be that I hadn't bought nothing. I would just explain to them that I didn't see exactly what I want, and I don't believe in wasting money.

Then for a while I thought of Penny and what Jim Boynton had told me about her. I could see her face when I close my eyes. Just like that day I was hanging from the grease rack, and when Mr. Comisky had said, One minute is over, I had seen Penny's face there before me, because my eyes are closed.

I hadn't had any more visions since then, even though I had hung over three and a half minutes on the rack the day before. Nobody was around to bother me then and I could concentrate. Even though I am not ticklish or sensitive when it comes to Bo jabbing me in the ribs with his finger while I am hanging from the grease rack, I still don't like for him to be around when I am hanging.

It was after dark when I pulled up to the station, and there were three cars at the pumps. Bo and Dean Fetz were pumping for two of them and Pete was inside the garage, lifting the dip stick out of a '64 Olds.

When Pete saw me, he didn't even ask me if I got anything, like I thought he would do. He just said, There was a long-distance phone call for you, Hanger. You're supposed to call back. The number's in there on the pad.

I look on the pad and it said I was supposed to call Operator 2 at Rushville, so I did, and she put me through to a Millford number, and it was Mr. Comisky again.

Clyde, he said, how is the hanging?

Pretty good, I told him.

What is your best? he ask me.

Three and a half minutes, I said.

He was quiet a minute, and then he says, Was that from the grease rack? And I told him it was.

Good, he said. You should be able to beat that on a regular bar. Don't you think? I mean, you can grip a regular bar, but you can't really grip that grease rack. Not like you can a bar.

I told him that was possible, so he said he wanted me to come down to his place in the afternoon on the day of the meet if I could get off.

I went and ask Pete, and he said yes, I could have that afternoon off if I wanted it. He told me that between now and the minute I went into the army, I could call my own shots and have any time off I wanted.

So I told Mr. Comisky and he said that was fine. Then he told me how to get to his place near Millford, and told me not to eat too much, on the day of the match, but have plenty of strength anyway. Also to do all the hanging I could so I would be in tiptop condition.

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