The Scent of Celluloid

The Scent of Celluloid

          Johnson Parkey worked out in the open in the heat of the day, which of course would have been insane, except that was when and where he could get at the tourists to sell them the colourful native crafts – masks and jewellery – that he and Cerisse, the Mother of His Children, made. He couldn’t afford to keep a stall in town, so he walked up and down the beaches at the Royal Park and Jammisson Empire resort hotels, calling out softly, “Traditional native masks and bracelets – my woman braid your hair” continuously in a soft voice that he hoped wouldn’t attract the resorts’ private security guards, most of whom were his cousins, anyway.

          For tourists who asked discretely he could also find spliffs for sale, although he didn’t smoke himself. Smoking was not the road to Rio.

          As he meandered back and forth through the rapidly reddening beach-clad bodies to the inspirational non-stop sound of the surf he dared, from time to time, to dream. He dreamed of the Olympics.

          When the sun began to set and the tourists deserted the beach for their air-conditioned rooms or the outdoor bars, where bored bands played the Calypso music of the 1950s whilst putting on a cheerful front, Johnson walked wearily home, where Cerisse, the Mother of His Children, would have fish and rice ready – along with a cold beer – at the table underneath the cashew tree behind their shack.

          When he was finished with his food and drink he asked Major and Blair, his school-age children, about their schoolwork, bounced little Cameron around on his lap till he was giggling hopelessly, then counted out the money he’d need for the evening and gave the rest to Cerisse, the Mother of His Children.

          After handing over the money he kissed her, went to the privy, picked up the little bag with the palm trees embroidered on it that he’d woven himself, and set off down the lumpy road at a brisk walk.

          The Palmlands Club took up the entire first floor of a building from the 1920s that ran the length of the block. The ground floor was shops, most of them empty and boarded up, but Palmlands itself was brightly illuminated and already, so early in the evening, rattling with its special noise.

          Formerly the Starlite Ballroom, the room had been abandoned for decades before Howard Oswald had resuscitated it, painted over its garish and fanciful decor with a uniform grey, and installed 48 ping pong tables. Sure, he’d put in three pool tables, too, and sold bags of banana and sweet plantain chips, fried beef balls and such, and also soft drinks, beer, and a local rum of doubtful legality, but the main focus was table tennis. Howard had a thing for it

          Over time Howard had communicated his vision to the local people and eventually seven to eight hundred of the locals had become ping pong fanatics. His tables were booked solidly most evenings from soon after sundown until past midnight. When Johnson climbed the stairs and made his entrance it was almost eight. Despite the four big, slow ceiling fans with their long, rattan blades the tropical air inside hung heavy with the scent of celluloid from dozens of ping-pong balls being whacked around. The rattle of the small, flat bats hitting balls was almost oceanic in its white-noise effects.

          The club ran premiere, championship, challengers, social, under-20, under-18, under-16, and masters leagues and tournaments for singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Palmlands also hired tables out to unaffiliated players. The matches on these tables often involved vigorously dangerous wagers.

          Johnson crossed the expanse of the hall, keeping to the window lanes and away from the games, greeting people almost every metre of the way, to a table at which his older brother, Hadlee, was engaged in an intense match with Wilma, a short, particularly dark young woman with what looked like a boxer’s or weightlifter’s musculature. They were evenly matched, but in the end Hadlee stole the match from her.

          “How you stay, Hads,” Johnson sorta murmured under his breath.

          “Everything is everything,” Hads chirped back, and then they spent about two or three minutes in an intricate multi-phase handshake. Wilma expressed her desire to rehydrate with beer and slipped away in a vapour of goodwill.

          Johnson looked around the room. “Flaco really gone be here?”

          “He call from Cancún airport lunchtime. I think he be keen.”

          Johnson nodded. He took one of his custom-made Japanese table-tennis bats from his bag and Hads produced a ball. They began batting it back and forth in a lackadaisical warm-up.

          An enormous man in a sweat-stained, formerly yellow guayabera shirt sauntered around the floor toward them from the bar. He wiped his forehead and the grooves between the sides of his nose and the sides of his mouth with a bright green handkerchief. “Nacio just phoned me,” he said. “They’re on their way here from the airport.”

          His name was Botham. He was much younger than he looked, as if his massiveness were a burden.

          Johnson just grunted.

          “You should get you a phone, man.”

          “Can’t afford me no phone toys. I got mouths to feed.”

          “Mebbe after this match you can splash out on one.”

          “Mebbe.”

          “How much you bring to put on yourself?”

          “Five Manleys.”

          “Mouths to feed, is it?” He grinned, showing what seemed to be an almost-abnormal number of extremely white teeth. “Why should I back you, me yout’?”

          “Because you know who’s gonna win.”

          More people began to gather around the table. It was all about side bets. Money-winners usually gave the players they backed a tip – fifteen or twenty percent of winnings. A kid ran to get Johnson a can of coconut water.

          Flaco and his entourage arrived and made a grand entrance. There must have been at least a dozen of them, both well-dressed backers and menacing hangers-on.

          Flaco, hawk-nosed and shiny-haired, with skin the colour of dark golden rum, was almost petite. He was two or three inches shorter than Johnson, who was no giant, and incredibly thin. Johnson had always thought about knife blades when he’d seen him before. He was wearing shiny black-green-and-red warm-ups. Everything but the eagle on the cactus.

          “Johnson.”

          “Flaco.”

          They bumped fists.

          A European tourist couple who’d been at the next table consulted their watches and stopped playing. They gawked, fascinated. The guide had told them that the ping pong was where the evening action was for the locals. They’d thought this more than odd, but had stopped by for a giggle, unprepared to witness this performance, and were as delighted as children at a marionette show.

          Flaco and one of his hangers-on began to warm up at the table the tourists had just vacated. Johnson stripped his skaties off down to the athletic shorts under them and began warming up seriously against both Hads and Wilma. He was quick, of course, and began to concentrate on not concentrating, of stripping his consciousness of everything but the ball and the bats on the other side of the net. His own would take care of itself.

          Wagers began flashing rapidly amongst the onlookers in Jamaican and Spanish and sign language. Botham put up Johnson’s paltry $5,000 Jamaican and more than a few ten and twenty-thousand bets of his own; both Flaco’s people and the locals unpeeled and flashed their bankrolls. Some agreed to a few side bets on the total number of points, who’d hold the most serves, and things like that. The tourists got into the spirit and put some money up themselves.

          Two of Flaco’s entourage helped him off with his sweats – Nacio, his chief offsider, a man who oozed elegance in a tan linen suit and cream-coloured open-collar silk shirt, took his jacket, and a young woman in cut-offs and a shiny-silver designer top helped with his sweatpants. She took the jacket from Nacio and held both garments to her face, breathing deeply, as he danced and flexed a bit in his black-green-and-red shorts and singlet.

          The match’s first game was a haze for Johnson. The league and tournament matches continued unabated throughout the rest of the expansive Palmlands hall. The mixed sensations of the non-stop white popping noise and the pong of celluloid became a shimmeringly funky backdrop to the big-money match.

          Flaco was tricky and subtle and hard to read, but Johnson maintained his exclusionary focus. The rallies were long. The first game went on for 45 minutes before Johnson was able to wear Flaco down to win 24-22. By the time they’d rehydrated and the second game began Johnson was deeply into the zone. He pulled out to a 10-6 advantage, needing only one point to win the match.

          Dreams of Olympic glory wafted through his head, visions of crowded stadiums cheering him and big, muscular Rio Carnival women tempting him flashed before his eyes. Flaco made a comeback and tied the score. Johnson cursed himself and tried to refocus, but that effort distracted him enough to keep him just off his game, even though Flaco had developed a heavy hand and was tending to hit the ball a bit too hard. Johnson overhit the ball in unconscious mimicry once too often himself. Flaco took the game on a Johnson overhit, 16-14.

          They again went to their patches of the bench between the games, Flaco almost popping with confidence. He peeled off his sweat-soaked singlet, exchanged it for a towel from the woman in the cut-offs, towelled himself down briskly, gave the towel back to the woman, accepted a fresh singlet from Nacio, and quickly downed a bottle of some Mexican energy drink with a Spanish brand name.

          Johnson sank onto the bench and accepted a can of coconut water from Hads. He’d only brought the one singlet, but liked the sensation of it sticking to his body. He knew what he had to do and he knew he could do it. He was better than Flaco could ever be when he was in the zone, plus he knew that Flaco’s macho energy drink was going to make him continue to overhit. He reckoned it would be a good idea to try to keep Flaco in one place and to run him as little as possible. Johnson listened to the Palmlands white noise, breathed in the scent of celluloid. He could feel himself edging into the zone and let himself submit to the loss of self.

          The third game was a walkover. Johnson was in the zone. Flaco was over-stimulated. Johnson kept the ball tight on his opponent, accompanied by random changes in speed, spin, and angle with which he let himself surprise even himself. Frustrated, Flaco tried to blast himself out of trouble, which didn’t work. Flaco hit the ball past Johnson’s end of the table in the air to wrap things up at 11-6 for Johnson.

          Jamaican dollars, Mexican pesos, and greenbacks changed hands. The two tourists were thrilled. Johnson shook Flaco’s hand before taking off his singlet and pulling on his shirt and skaties. He felt totally munted, barely aware of where he was, other than at the vortex of Palmlands’ singular sound and smell. Botham handed him a large wad of frackles, which he stuffed into his right front pocket uncounted.

          Making sportsmanlike and surly and gloating noises, as the case may be, the match’s three dozen or so participants, family, friends, and spectators began edging in an amorphous lump for the stairs. At the top of the stairs, Johnson, who was somewhere near the middle of the group, stumbled woozily, recovered his balance, and then tripped arse-over-elbow and fell unevenly down the stairs to the ground floor, taking a half-dozen or so people down with him into a tangled ruck at the bottom.

          Johnson felt his mouth fill up with blood. It tasted like one of those semi-uncooked steaks that the tourists love; the bloody smell obscured the aroma of celluloid. This was nothing, though. His hand hurt. Somewhere on the tumble to the ground someone had fallen hard, probably with a foot or something else ungiving, across his right hand.

          Dazed, he allowed Hads and Wilma and Botham and one or two others help him into a sitting position. He blinked his eyes rapidly, both to clear his head from what was probably a small concussion and to wish away the tears. He didn’t want them to see that he’d begun crying. “My hand,” he said. “My hand,” as his mind watched his Olympic dream fly away.

          They woke up old Doctor Kerr to set his hand, the town having no late-night emergency services. It was at Doc’s surgery that he discovered that someone had picked his pocket for all his money at some time during the hubbub. It must have been about 80,000 Jamaican dollars. Doc had said something about specialist treatment to get his hand back to how it was. That would cost more than just $80,000 Jamaican, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

          Johnson’s head began to clear as Botham drove him back to his shack in his three-year-old Ford, and he remembered that he’d been walking next to Nacio at the top of the stairs, and that they’d bumped together when he’d first stumbled, and that – but it didn’t matter. Rio had always been just a dream, anyway.