The Promise by Tony Birch Page B

Major’s stopwatch the golden-brown girl stepped up to the line and offered Bunga her hand. He screwed his nose up at her.
    â€˜What do you think you’re doing? Only registered players are allowed to come to the lag line. Piss off back to your girlfriend.’
    â€˜Piss off yourself, fuck-face. I am the player.’
    â€˜You can’t be the player. You’re a girl.’
    â€˜Yeah. I’m a girl. Not that you’d know. And I’m the player, so let’s get on with it.’
    â€˜This is bullshit.’
    He called on Dr No for a ruling.
    â€˜Hey, Doc. They must be stalling for time or something. Tell her she can’t play.’
    An argument broke out between the teams and some in the crowd as Dr No went to the rulebook, with Bunga looking over his shoulder. Fatman pulled him aside.
    â€˜Who cares that they’ve fronted with a girl? Kick her arse and it’s over.’
    Bunga focused his good eye on Fatman.
    â€˜Are you fucken kidding me? I’m not playing a girl. ’Course, I’ll beat her. So what? Any of us could beat her. I’ll cop shit over this for years.’
    Dr No went through the book twice before announcing to the crowd that there was ‘no rule or sub-clause governing the sex of a player’.
    He ordered both players to the line.
    I’ve thought about what happened next many times. Sometimes I almost convince myself that the whole day was a dream; there was never any beautiful girl with golden-brown legs; and there was no grand final held at our ring. Whenever I find myself overcome with doubt I’ll ask Fatman or Scratch if they remember the final game of the CMC that year the same as I do. They do, although Fatty remembers her legs being even longer and browner and more golden. For a reason that escapes me, Scratch claims not to recall her legs at all. But he is sure that she was able to play equally well on both sides of her body, and could shoot left- and right-handed, a rare skill in competition marbles.
    With Bunga continuing to complain to Dr No, the girl won the lag and chose to shoot first. She catwalked around the ring, picking off alleys with ease, for the following ten minutes. Those who weren’t fixated on the game were hypnotised by her legs, including Dr No, who was wiping his brow with a damp hankie. After taking out four alleys in a row, the crowd was cheering for her. By the time she’d knocked out eight marbles people were going crazy. When she was down to the last alley standing, a black eye, which according to marbles folklore was a curse upon the shooter, the crowd was silent.
    In possibly an act of desperation, or an involuntary nervous twitch, Bunga dug a hand into his jeans pocket – the one with the hole in it – and reached for his lucky foreskin. But of course, there was no foreskin to be found. All he could do was revert to religion and began praying for a miracle, by way of a Hail Mary, as the girl hunched on the far side of the ring.
    I forgot all about Bunga and the game that was at stake. I smiled at her and peeked a look at her thighs as they caught the sun. She winked at me and played her kill shot. The taw slammed into the black eye with so much power the marble split in two. I’m sure I saw smoke rising from the ring. The Ken team and their supporters went wild and the runts threw their arms around her. One of them tried squeezing her tits.
    According to the rules, Bunga was entitled to shoot at a second set-up. If he could miraculously match her lockout, a sudden-death shoot-out would decide the winner. But he was already beaten and he knew it. He dropped his favourite marble in the dirt without playing a shot and walked away from the ring without looking back. Fatman and Scratch ran after him, but I disloyally hung around for the presentation, hoping to talk to the girl. The winner’s trophy was awarded and the team were hurried back onto their bus before a fight broke out; another