16
Spare Me A Thought
Alex walked next to the bag that rolled itself inside with him as they both entered a wide building.
The glass doors swung open to him and the self-wheeler heading inside a long row of alleys that sprawled in front of them. Balls were thrown down the narrow synthetic runways to automatic machines that snapped to attention as soon as the invaders took out some of the ten soldiers standing at the end of it.
Alex traded his button-up for an orange jersey with his name tagged onto the back like some street punk went to town on his shirt. To the right of his field of view was several neighboring lanes with enclaves of people where homogeneously-colored shirts are discussing with each other while cracking a few lines of small talk to people of different-colored shirts.
Kevin noticed the last orange-shorter heading their way.
“Sorry about the lateness. I didn’t know we were supposed to start early—“
“It’s okay, Alex.” One of the four orange-shirts seated near the ball return nudged toward the green-shirted team. “They’re one short. We just came early.”
“Easy for you to say, Mikey.” Kevin pulled Alex’s bag from the top of the ramp that led to their elevated seating area just in front of the ball rack. “Yeah, we know you made a 240 average and made us all look weak.”
“Well, his scores are our scores. Better than having whiffed a fast eight in the ninth.”
“Ouch. Sick burn. Missing pins is not how you win.”
Alex retrieved his tape and loaded his equipment onto the return.
“So they are shooting spares this week?” Mikey pointed to Mister Sanchez seated next to him as the green team hurled their shots at the lone pin standing guard on the deck sixty feet away. “Try not to miss corner pins and lose matches?”
“We have solid spare shooters. We’ll get it done.” Sanchez let out a hearty laugh while looking at Alex. “We’re playing the tournament this week, right? League secretary says it’s $150 per person.”
“Round-robin?”
“Yeah,” Mikey chimed in. “High pinfall wins over five games.”
“I guess we have to line up some matches then.”
“Will the final come on a Friday?” The orange-shirted person closest to the foul line looked on as Alex’s shot whizzed right and sent pins flying but left two on the deck.
“Yeah. You don’t have work on a Friday, I heard.” Sanchez laughed again.
“Your ball is not reading well. Skated too much, didn’t curve at all.” Mikey heckled Alex before heading back to the captain. “Look at these people on the other side, throwing strikes.”
Another laugh.
Alex flew his blue shiny plastic ball out of his hand and the two pins flew to the back of the pit behind the deck they once stood as the machine swept.
“Let’s how Sanchez muscle the tenth. Anchor material.” Alex steps back into the chairs.
“If I could throw it good.” A loud rumble echoed from the far end of the lane just next to them. “They carry, pins gets swept, and then what-have-you— they win!”
“You can stay right. With the play field being shredded, stay away from the action.”
Sanchez looked over to a slip marked “Tournament Entry” and laughed.
“You throw Alex a Sarge Easter and tell him to stay straight! We got 25k above our heads.”
“Next week?” Alex took a metal bevel and worked on the ball itself, allowing his voice to bounce off the sheen of the orb.
“Yeah. They are laying down strips so, either it’s 170 or 240.” Mikey nudged at Cranker Chris. “Look at him taking everyone’s oil down there and throwing it six hundred revs. If you get near him, we are gone.”
“Just let the thing skid so it enters correctly.”
Mikey punches a strike in front of them.
“This thing’s for 25, right?” Alex puffed as he checked the scoreboard as the pinsetter machine moved. “220 pace. We can keep this up.”
“You sound like you need it.” Kevin’s voice froze Alex’s bevel.
“No. It was for our own purposes. 5k each, I deem it comfortable.” The monotonous motion of scraping at the ball kept him talking.
“Don’t mind me.” Kevin took the seat next to person working on the ball as Sanchez is up next for the approach.
“Let’s try to get this thing to move correctly.” The purple swirls made it a little uneasy for Alex. “Then we talk the cash.”
“We can talk the cash any time.”
He stuffed his bevel back in his bag, and took out some black tape to flatten it inside the thumb hole.
“Need a new ball? Something Angel-related? Was it the third job?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This third job is as easy as they come.” Alex gave the ball an inch of air to spin it around, and finally put his eyes on his teammate. “They are paying for our expenses, we now live in a big house, and we get free meals. Cost is not an issue.”
“You don’t care about the prize, usually. You just wanted to nail the tenth and have Angel in the air before we take the hardware.”
“Mmm.” Alex cleared out the thumb hole with his canister of compressed air with the swiveling snout.
“Your confidence has always been the up-and-up. Come on. It’s just an eight-spare. Strikes are cheesecake factories for you.”
“Can we get the five thousand before we talk? I want you to focus for all of us.”
“I’ll cut you a deal if you promise to tell.”
“Gladly.”
“Yes sir, Mister Fritz.” Kevin took the approach. “I’ll get Sanchez to throw you a new layout for your arsenal. I’ll take the center.”