The Proud
Dart
I cost two hundred and ninety-eight
bucks, new. Before tax. Actually, that was for the set of three of
us. But don’t you worry, Old Thrower made that money back,
many times over.
He put a stout lock on the box so nobody could mess with us by, for example, shaving a 16th of an ounce off our bodies or by clipping a 32nd of an inch off our fletching. You may not think that’s so important. But it would most likely make the difference in many a tight contest.
We played on the other side of the dart board, you see. Not the big, fat bulls-eye side that Thrower could hit with his left hand, blindfolded while drinking his tenth beer. We played the serious side that looks like a cut pizza pie. Each wedge has a number and a tight little section in the middle of it that scores double the number.
We played a dollar a point, most of the time. I suppose you big spenders don’t think that sounds like much. Think again. Our game was 501. The idea of the game was to score backwards from 501 to zero. You had to hit zero on the nose by scoring a double. If you busted under zero, you had to go back to where you were before your turn started.
Figure ten games a nights add in the side bets and you get my drift about why getting caught tampering with another guy’s darts could get you a set of broken fingers.
I am sure you’ve already guessed that Thrower was an all-star dartster. He bought us on his twenty-eighth birthday. That’s the prime age. He had the experience to play smart and his hand-eye coordination was still good enough to execute the plan. Most of all, he had the will of a champion and the time and devotion to practice the way a winner must practice, which is by playing, over and over again, day after day, week after week, throughout the dart season.
Thrower’s home tavern was McGinty’s over on Oak Street across from the Sears Home Improvement Center. I hear it’s gone now. In fact, I hear both buildings have been torn down to make way for an Olive Garden parking lot.
Thrower’d slip over to McGinty’s Bar and Grill five, often six nights a week. What roaring good times we had! When Thrower swung through McGinty’s front door, old Bobbie the B would draw his first Bud Light of the evening and slam it down full-and-foaming on the bar before the door closed on Thrower’s behind.
You may have heard some guys accuse Thrower of sand-bagging. Not so. It’s true he never scored well, early on in the evening. They thought he was trying to suck people into bigger bets, then, when the money was right, start making every shot, every time.
Take it from me, Thrower was never a sandbagger! On the other hand, It’s true, he did need three or maybe four beers to get his motor running right. I could feel it happen. All of a sudden, he’d start to hold me as light as he’d hold a baby bird. Then his arm would start cranking back and forth at the elbow as smooth as the camshaft on a Rolls. One, two, three pumps and I’d be sailing toward the target like a diving hawk.
Don’t take what I’m about to say wrong. As long as there’s a feather on my tail, I’ll always be the first to say Thrower was good, make that great, no ifs, ands nor buts about it. But don’t sell me short. I came by my steep price tag honestly.
You have to realize that a dart goes from hand to board in the time it takes to say “Thwack!” Back then, I was in great physical shape. I could actually dodge to either side by as much as an 8th of an inch in that split of a split-second. It even amazes me when I think about it. I never knew a dart that could move more than a 16th of an inch before I cam along. Of course, I’m off the circuit now, so I don’t know what the new guys are doing. Maybe they’re beating my record. Maybe not.
My point is, this is no nuance I am talking about. I’ll give you a for instance. One time when Thrower was at the line, everything is riding on his final throw. The crowd is standing on both sides of the throwing lane screaming at Thrower — whether they were for or against us. With a kind of Jackie Gleason flourish, he shifts me several times from his right hand to his left hand than back again. Finally, he sights down the barrel of my body so intently it makes me shiver. The room goes so quiet I can hear McGinty’s beer cooler motor humming under the bar.
Thrower pumps his arm once. And again. And go! I am away. Well. I immediately realize I am sailing for the sixteen and we need a double seven to win. The double seven is about 3/32 of an inch on the other side of the wire between it and the sixteen. I spin clockwise to my right and pull my nose up to jump the wire. “Thwack!” I am standing there quivering, just inside the wire in the double seven!
The place goes crazy. “Bud for everyone!” Thrower shouts. He was the man of the hour. But if I may say so myself, we should not forget I was the dart of the hour.
Beside the nightly one-on-one games, Thrower anchored McGinty’s team in the county-wide Bud’s Bar, Grill, Inn and Tavern Dart League sponsored by, you guessed it, Bud Lite.
I am proud to say I was the anchor man’s anchor dart. He put a little black dot on my behind so he could be sure it was me when all the chips were on the line.
I’ll never forget the last game of the regular season that last year. If we beat Duffy’s Inn, we would go to the state capital for the statewide tournament to win the coveted cut-crystal championship stein.
It’s an away game and we are Duffy’s most hated rival because we always beat them. So Duffy’s is wall-to-wall Duffy rooters and McGinty boo-ers, all floating along on a river of beer.
The game is down to the wire. We need 20 points to win. If we don’t get them on this turn, it would be a miracle if the Duffies didn’t win. And neither Thrower or I believe in miracles.
Thrower is at the line, five beers in and working smooth as a quartz watch. His first throw scores a double three. The next is a six.
Now we have to get the double four. Thrower empties his beer and hands it off to a teammate for a refill. He takes the refill, blows off the foam and takes a man-sized slug. Then he exhales loudly, belches softly and steps to the line.
Everyone in the place stops breathing. In the silence, I realize that Duffy’s beer cooler motor sounds exactly like McGinty’s.
Thrower cocks his arm and sights over the top of my fletching, down my barrel and then down the length of my point. A whole year of hard playing and beer drinking is on the line. But you’d never know it looking at Thrower. His grip on me is fork-tender. He is as relaxed and steady as a spring stroll in the park.
His eyes flick from me to the board, from the board to me, then back to the board. He pumps once. He pumps again. And with that last, smooth cock of the arm, flicks me sailing — for the double thirteen!
Oh, holy Jesus! At least the double four is just to the left! I have my work cut out for me! In the time it takes for you to say “Thwack,” I counter-clockwise my spin toward the double fours. I’m in overdrive! And looking good! When — there — is — a — sudden — feather-rattling —clink— at the end of my tip.
It can’t be, I say to myself. It’s a million-to-one against! But it is! I have hit the wire that separates the thirteens from the fours, dead on.
My tip bounces right out from under me. I drop like a dead bird. A crack between two floor boards races up to meet me. My spin is gone, so I have no control! I fall, nose first, right into that crack, burying my point all the way up to my barrel.
Of course, the Duffies go nuts when they realize their team will win.
I call for help, but with all that noise, all I get is a mouthful of peanut shells. Than some big, fat Duffy backer backs right over me. The heel of his shoe hits my barrel and bends my tip at least four degrees off center. Talk about a bad night!
When Thrower finally found me in amongst the peanuts and spilled beer, he picked me up and sadly held me in both hands. With the disappointment of losing and then the sight of my poor broken schnoz, I thought he might lose it. But he was a champ, right to the end. He shook hands all around and his lips smiled and smiled. But, I have to tell you, the smile never reached his eyes. Not once.
Next day, Thrower vised me up at his work bench and set about fixing me. He has the fingers of a surgeon. He pried a little here. Twisted a little there. Tapped on one side and then on the other. Finally, my crooked little beak was as straight as new. He finished the job by honing my point back to its original sewing-needle sharpness, using the finest 4/0 grade emery paper.
I felt whole and healthy and good as new. Thrower packed me up with my two teammates and we set out for McGinty’s.
He tried. I must give him that. He gave it his all. Still, he lost five games in a row by the worst scores he’d ever posted since we had worked together. Cost him in the neighborhood of five c-notes. You’ve probably heard it said so many times it seems like just a cliché: in any game of skill, you have to have a superhuman confidence in both yourself and your equipment. The problem was me. Or, better said, Thrower’s lose of confidence in me.
I was flying as true as I ever had in my life, I swear I was. Spinning left, spinning right, up and down. Whatever he asked, I did. I’d never been in better form.
But Thrower couldn’t make himself believe it. He couldn’t relax and just let fly. That’s the secret in darts, of course. But his grip was too tight. His arm muscles, too rigid. Even his stance was too tense — even after six beers.
Well, that was it. Our days as reigning champions were over. Maybe it was just age and fate catching up with us. But I still think my broken beak had a lot to do with it.
t was about that time that Thrower got a big promotion with a lot of new responsibilities down at the cabinet shop. He had to cut his schedule at McGinty’s from five nights to two or, more and more often, only one night a week.
Before I fully realized what was happening, there was a Mrs. Thrower in the picture. That left no time at all for McGinty’s.
Not so long after that, it was time to move out of McGinty’s neighborhood to one with better schools. Junior Thrower was on his way.
I suppose the movers thought we were just kid’s play darts. At least, that’s the way they treated us. They didn’t even lock our case when they threw us into an old cardboard box with a bunch of pots and pans, some steak knives, a waffle iron and four of Mrs. Thrower’s childhood Barbie Dolls. On the way to the truck, the cardboard box broke open and we tumbled out.
Our case opened and my two teammates fell into a sewer grate, unnoticed. When I fell, I used my flying skill to at least avoid the sewer and land in Thrower’s tool box which was sitting there open because he was taking apart the dining room table so it would fit in the truck.
For the longest time, Thrower thought I was lost with my two teammates. Then one day he found me in the bottom of that tool box. When he did, he checked the dot on my behind and started howling with laughter. I think it was happiness. I was a sight. I was covered with tool oil and as grit-dirty as the piece of emery paper he used to sharpen my nose in what seemed to me to be an eternity ago.
He gave me a quick brush-up and tossed me at the cork board in his new basement workshop. I landed with my smartest “Thwack!” He chuckled. But then he pulled the chain on the light and clumped upstairs and everything went black with the slam of the cellar door.
There wasn’t even a beer cooler motor to keep me company. I began to think of myself as a has-been. I’m not proud of it, but I began to feel sorry for myself. During those first few years after the move, Thrower was really busy with his new job and his new family. Yet he still dropped in on me once and a while. Of course, it wasn’t all just to see me. Usually he spent the time at his workbench assembling a toy or framing a picture or fixing stuff.
One Christmas, a couple of years ago, he was putting a wagon together for Junior Thrower. He used me to hold the instructions up on the cork board so he could read them while he worked. See? I’m still holding them up for him.
Time just marches on, doesn’t it? I guess you noticed the specks of rust showing up on my barrel. It’s the humidity down here.
I have to admit my tip won’t hold a point the way it did when I was younger. But I still weigh exactly 27 grams, fully loaded. And, if I comb them just right, I can still hide the fact that some of my fletch feathers are turning gray.
Hey! I’m still on the top side of the turf, by god. That’s good, isn’t it? Thrower still makes it down here, once in a while. I like it best when he brings along a bottle of beer to sip on while he works on whatever project he’s got going.
Ah, the smell of that beer! The memories flood back. For just that little while, I don’t see myself as this queer-looking, rusty old cork board stick pin that I’ve become. I hear the roar of the crowds. I feel the thrill of my tip pointing true and my barrel steady on the mark, the air rushing through my feathers as I spin on home.
And for that precious moment or two, I am one proud dart again.
