Advantage Disadvantage Read online

  “Hi Jamal. Welcome to the show,” Frank said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Jamal responded.

  “I’ve had a chance to visit you this summer, and talk to your dad – he’s a great guy, by the way.”

  “He is.”

  This made Elizabeth sad. She clenched Scott’s hand and squeezed it hard, feeling left out.

  “So how you think your team is going to do this year?”

  “We’re going to be improved. We are starting three seniors, and we’ve worked pretty hard this past summer.”

  “I know that’s right. Several nights, during the heat of summer, I watched your team sweating up and down the court at the Olgesby summer league.”

  “Mr. Worrell, I also think that we have a great experienced coach who had a game plan for each match in the summertime.” Jamal said to throw a compliment toward Coach Venturi.

  “You play in a good conference in the suburbs. There are five or six good teams scheduled to play East End twice. How is your team going to fare?”

  “If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best of the rest.”

  “Wow, you’re saying all of the right things – flattery to your coach, paying homage to your opponents, you like your teammates. Anybody else?” he asked with a laugh.

  “Yes. I would like to thank my mom and dad for each of their sacrifices that allowed me to learn how to play basketball on travelling teams, and stuff like that. They almost never missed my games.”

  ‘What a great kid you are! Your parents must be extraordinarily proud of you.”

  “I hope they are,” Jamal said.

  “Believe me kid, they are! We are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will ask Jamal about his college plans.”

  The commercial rolled. The production assistant came over, wiped Jamal’s brow, and gave him a sip of water. Frank reassured Jamal that he was doing great. Elizabeth felt much better after Jamal gave her a “shout out” as well. Scott was happy that the player spoke well of his summer preparations too. After sixty seconds, Frank’s show came back on.

  “Before we end the program, I want to ask our guest, Jamal Imari of East End High School, if he’s close to making any decisions as far as his college plans go ... where are you? Can you tell the viewers which colleges you are considering?”

  “Mr. Worrell, I can do better than that.”

  “Oh shit!” Scott screamed at the TV. “Don’t do it, Jamal.”

  “Mr. Worrell, with the help of my dad I’ve made my decision …”

  Jamal unbuttoned his cotton shirt and pulled it off, fully exposing his EPSU jersey. “I will be attending Eastern Pennsylvania State University! I signed the letter of intent today.”

  “Tell us why you picked EPSU, Jamal.”

  “Well, the athletic director is committed to rebuilding into a powerhouse in its conference. Yet, I will have the chance to get serious playing time during my first year. It’s a great school, too.”

  “OK, folks. You heard another exclusive here. We had another scoop tonight! One of the last unsigned top area players beats the NCAA freeze date and Jamal Imari commits to Eastern Penn State University tonight on our show. Wow. Read about Jamal Imari and other high school stars every day in the Windy City Daily. Good night everybody…I’m Frank Worrell and I’ll see you in a high school gym near you” closed out Frank.

  Scott Venturi sat in shock. Elizabeth did not understand the impact of what just happened. She was feeling maternally fulfilled that her son did such a great job on television. To her, his announcement was exciting, but Scott knew what it really meant.

  “Didn’t he do a great job…for his first TV appearance, Scott?”

  “Yes” Scott said quietly. “Jamal was good.”

  “What’s wrong, then?”

  “I think Marcus got his revenge. Don’t you get it? Jamal and Marcus promised me that they would wait until after the season to commit to EPSU. It was my best chance to get the coaching job – forcing a package. Your husband and Jamal just screwed me out of that job. I’m finished – my last chance at a college job, completely fucked.”

  “You can’t blame Marcus. In his eyes, you ended all chances of him and me getting back together. Maybe this is a little payback,” Elizabeth surmised.

  “Elizabeth. You are so matter of fact about this. I have dreamed of becoming a college coach for more than ten years. I left a wonderful job in Tolono to put up with so much Chicago crap…and I have nothing. I knew there was something wrong when the EPSU recruiter stopped returning my calls last week.”

  “I guess we can’t make plans to move to EPSU, right. This was my dream too! What will we do? What does this mean for us?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Your dream … this is your dream? It is always all about Elizabeth, isn’t it? I’m disgusted and I gotta go,” Scott said as he stormed out of Elizabeth’s house.

  On a night when her son did so well, she felt lonely and abandoned. Her dreams of moving out of town with Scott evaporated. She lay down on the couch and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-five. The Bridge

  “Red,” Bobby G. said on the phone, “do you know about Calumet Fisheries?”

  “Yeah Jack. I’ve been there” he replied.

  “Let’s have dinner tonight, and review the progress of our plan.”

  Calumet Fisheries was a largely undiscovered dive on the southeast side of Chicago. It had been serving deep-fried seafood delicacies and freshly smoked fish to its patrons since 1928. Located along the banks of the Calumet River, it had a unique ambiance. This carryout only restaurant included two buildings on the side of the 95th Street Bridge over the Calumet River. There was a phone booth on the corner, a relic of the pre-cell phone world of the past. In the main building, customers selected from many high-quality deep-fried options or pieces of smoked fish such as sable, white fish, and trout. The seafood was breaded, uncooked and pre-measured in Chinese take-out containers waiting to be deep-fried. Other fish occupied a deli-style glass showcase. They sold weird, off-brand cans of pop. A take-out only place like this could hold about fifteen people at a time, insufficient for the Friday night dinner crowds. The smoke house was down near the funky water of the Calumet River. Every Tuesday, they hung hundreds of pounds of fish on huge hooks to be smoked. A hot bonfire was set ablaze inside this building of mixed wood to add a wonderful taste to the fish. The door sealed the room as the fire raged inside the small building. Workers went in a day later and carted the freshly cooked fish back to the main carryout building.

  Boats towing barges rolled-by every twenty minutes shuttling the rust belt steel industry of southeast Chicago and Hammond, Indiana. Sometimes, the water quality was so bad on the river that it actually spewed more smoke than the fish smokehouse. The view of the river was dull green water rushing past rusted steel reinforcements on the embankments. It was funky. Fish had not lived in the filthy river in at least fifty years. Occasionally, the towboat captains tied down near Calumet Fisheries and walked past the smoke house to get some fried shrimp or scallops. It could have been a very competitive entry in “The Best Food in the Worst Setting” contest. Cars parked uphill, ascending toward the huge bridge going over the water. Large garbage barrels occupied every two-car lengths accommodating about ten automobiles. Those who could not wait until they got this food home would eat in their cars overlooking the ulta-polluted Calumet River.

  Bobby G. waited for his partner in his Advantage/Disadvantage plot to arrive. This was one of his favorite places on the south side of Chicago to eat. He smelled the wooden-laced smoked fish as he left his car. The ugly, green river and the broken rocks serving as landscaping from the carryout building disgusted him. Bobby G. was getting antsy because his partner had been late. Suddenly, Frank Worrell walked into the place locals called “the Bridge”.

  “I didn’t know that reporters get down with real peeps in a place like ‘the bridge’,” Bobby G. said.

  “After losing all that moolah to yo
u betting on those lousy Bears, I can’t even afford to eat here,” he quipped.

  “You are a terrible football gambler, I must agree.”

  “Ha! Fuck you, you asshole” replied Frank. “Last year, I should have made a killing. I should have known that the Bears still did not have a good starting quarterback. What was I thinking?”

  “Last year, Holmes? And the year before, and the prior year, and the one before, and the one before that – pick your losses. You could not pick your nose if your face hosted a football game! But I do appreciate your bets, like all the other patsies…”

  Frank despised the bookie that gobbled up his money. He certainly was mad that he ever got involved betting on pro football games, but even more than the losses, he hated the condescending tone of Bobby G.

  “Hey I didn’t come down here to get insulted by a lowlife like you,” replied the irritated sportswriter. Frank was outwardly joking but inside the rage was burning.

  “Don’t be sore. Your fortunes might change soon. I am going to help you win your money back,” Bobby G. told Frank trying to lower his temperature. “You had a nice scoop, by the way, getting the Imari kid to commit to college on your show.”

  “He’s a damn good kid. He’s gonna surprise a lot of college coaches next year. He should have gone to a big program. The Illini were sleeping on this one, he should be playing in Champaign.”

  “Did you know that I am partially responsible for helping him,” Bobby G. asked.

  “Just like you helped me bet on football games?” Frank sarcastically shot back, not forgetting about his betting losses.

  “I owed a favor to Jamal Imari’s dad. So, I introduced him to his first NAU coach, Detective Battle. That’s where the kid learned his game.”

  “Detective T.J. Battle?” Frank wondered.

  “Yeah, that’s him. He’s developed so many decent area players through his NAU team,” said Bobby.

  “Anyway about Calumet Fisheries, I love this place. My parents started coming here when they lived on the southeast side of Chicago,” Frank replied.

  “That’s funny. I always thought that Jews and Muslims aren’t supposed to eat seafood and pork.”

  “Well, I guess the religious ones came here for the smoked fish. You know what movie was filmed here?”

  Bobby G. was stumped.

  “Next time you see the “Blues Brothers” you’ll see them jump this bridge as the road splits to let a boat through. It is early in the film. It took them one week to film it. The owner served food to the production crew the entire time.”

  “Frankie,” Bobby G. inquired, “how’d you know so much bullshit about stuff?”

  “In this case the original owner, Leonard, was my dad’s best friend. How do you know so much about your shit?”

  Just to agitate Frank one more time Bobby G. said, “I know more about trivia bullshit than you know about the National Football League.”

  “You are a dick! Are you here to meet anyone else?”

  “Just you, Red”

  “Ok Jack, let’s get some shrimp and scallops and make sure we are on the same page.”

  Frank Worrell agreed to go along with Bobby the Greek’s plan to get back his gambling losses. They reviewed the plan sitting on the hood of Frank’s car while they munched down the Calumet Fisheries delights. The Advantage/Disadvantage Plan had the following elements:

  Frank would use his Windy City column to underestimate the East End Team in the pre-season and half way through the regular schedule.

  Bobby G. would make lots of money betting on the underrated East End team early in the season. Frank would wrongly keep the team off his area “Top Twenty” teams. Unlike other bets, Bobby G. would not lay these bets off to the gangbangers. Other teams’ action booked, but not any East End action.

  As the season progressed, Bobby G. would start to bet against East End because the point spread would swing against them as they win more and more games. Again, he would take only “homers” bets on East End games. Frank would support this effort by moving East End up in the polls with a sharp ascent to convince everyone that East End was better than they really were.

  At the end of the season, Bobby G. would select a game that a then-over-rated East End team could not cover the point spread. On this game, Bobby G. would make his killing by betting against the gangs as well as the homers. Prior to the game Frank would support this effort by writing articles extolling the greatness of East End, making everyone believe that the team could go all the way to the state championship.

  “Bobby G. or Jack or whatever the hell I’m supposed to call you - wait until you see my preseason issue. This year the paper wanted a huge pullout section, more thorough than anything we have produced before. As we discussed, East End is absent from my Top Twenty list. I do not even list them as a team to watch. There are pages upon pages of specific team coverage listed by conference. I am forecasting East End finishing fifth out of eight teams. My credibility on this one is going to take a hit – but I’ll be right on most of the other ones.”

  “When you and I split the bounty, you are not going to give a shit about your credibility. Cold cash gives your street cred, bro’.”

  “How much do you think we’ll make in the end?” asked Frank.

  “Red, my friend. Your take could be around a cool half a million bucks if all goes well.”

  “All I can say is, viva the Advantage/Disadvantage Plan,” he said as he raised his NeHi Grape can of soda to toast the kickoff of their partnership.

  Chapter Twenty-six. O Captain, My Captain

  The Windy City Daily’s pre-season edition did not sit well with Coach Venturi. He wanted his team to gain respect, but East End did not even make the top twenty area teams. He was so angry he called the newspaper and spoke to Frank Worrell.

  “We deserve more respect that this,” said the coach.

  “You sure didn’t show it this summer. Under 500, against some lousy teams,” replied Frank.

  “We are going to surprise a lot of people this year. Apparently you will be amongst them,” shouted Scott as he slammed the phone down.

  Frank knew Coach Venturi would not like being overlooked in his Top Twenty, but if it motivated the team to do better, then the Advantage/Disadvantage Plan with Bobby G. would be even more successful. Frank felt a little guilty after speaking to Venturi. He called the paper’s Editor In Chief, Nancy Kapist and tried to vent a little bit.

  “Nancy, this is Frank. I need to see you right away. Let’s check out the stars tonight.”

  “Frank, we can’t. My husband is in town,” she lied. She was tired of Frank’s whining and childish intimacy needs.

  “Being around you is the only thing that keeps me going in this job!”

  “It can’t be that bad, right?”

  “I hate this frickin’ job; I’m just not going to do it anymore,” he threatened.

  “Hey, did I tell you how much Chairman Arthur loved the pre-season pullout? He told us that it set an advertising revenue record for any pullout section at Windy City ever. I will be able to help you. Just be patient, hunny. Maybe we can look at the stars next week when the big guy’s gone?”

  “You’re just stringing me along. If you wanted to help me professionally, you would have done so already.”

  Frank finally had his epiphany and confirmed that Nancy used their affair to keep him at the paper. She probably did not have any romantic interest in him, he reasoned. Frank knew that leaving her husband was completely out of the question. Understanding the big picture, finally, he felt cheap and manipulated. The redeeming feature was his anticipation in getting money back in the Advantage/Disadvantage scheme with Bobby G.

  On the eve of the start of the basketball season, Jamal scheduled a meeting with Coach Venturi. Jamal knocked on the Coach’s office door shortly after practice. Coach Venturi was making copies of the Windy City Daily prep basketball poll to post on the boys’ lockers for motivation. He showed a copy to Jamal.

 
; “Do you believe we are not even in the Top Twenty?”

  “No, Coach. We are better than that.”

  “Damn right, Jamal. I hope the entire team shares that confidence.”

  “We all do, yes sir.”

  “Jamal, it’s your dime. You called this meeting. I assume you are here as the Captain?”

  “Yes, Coach. The team is in a great frame of mind. We are ready for this year, but the players asked me talk to you about something that’s bugging most of us.”

  “So you are speaking for the team. Go ahead, Captain Imari.”

  “Well, since you arrived, our team is expected to wear cotton shirts and ties during game days at school and on the team bus to away games. I want to ask you if you are flexible about this rule.”

  Coach Venturi replied, “These team rules are in place to bond the team beyond practice in front of the student body, and to demand respect when we arrive at other schools”.

  “Yes coach, we sort of get it. But it doesn’t inspire most of East End’s students, and the players hate wearing clothes their fathers would wear.”

  “Jamal, let me ask you something. You know why I have the rule in place; you know how important team unity is. If you were me what would you do?”

  “Coach, I offer this up respectfully. If I were you, I would allow the team to wear during game days a t-shirt with our team’s motto and colors. We would stand out with the student body, but not look like old men. On the buses to away games, if I were the Coach, I’d still require the team to wear shirts and ties.”

  “Mr. Imari, Captain Imari. I am so impressed with your approach. The team did right in selecting you to represent them. You seem to have carefully considered all angles on this policy and you offer an excellent solution and compromise. OK, I will ask the booster club to order shirts for the team for game days. Maybe your mom will help pick something out for the team. However, for away games, it is ties on the buses. Do we have an understanding?”