He showed Wally the rack. It was a big iron frame hanging above the pin deck on a counterweight, with ten round cups in it laid out in the triangle. You picked the pins up out of the pit, two at a time, by the necks, and dropped them into the cups, and when all ten were loaded you pulled the handle, and the rack came down and set them on their spots and lifted away again. If there was deadwood after the first ball you had to clear it by hand, and leave the standing pins where they were, and then you jumped back up on the perch.
"Up on the perch," Augie said. "Feet up. Always. Before the next ball. I don't care if your nose itches. I don't care if the Pope walks in. You hear the ball coming, you're up, and your feet are up, because a sixteen-pound ball and ten flying pins will break your shins like breadsticks. I lost a pinboy that way in '49. Not lost lost. He's fine. He walks funny. He's one of the Knights, you'll meet him. Ask him about his shins and he'll talk for an hour."
"How do you know when the ball's coming?"
"You listen." Augie cocked his head. "You'll learn it. Ball on wood has a sound. You'll hear it in your sleep."
At eight-fifteen, the door at the top of the stairs opened and Russ Kubiak came down them very slowly, one hand on the rail, wearing jeans and the Brewers jacket and a pair of Nike sneakers with the swoosh peeling off one side. He had a mark on his cheekbone, a yellowish-purple shadow the size of a quarter, which he had tried to cover with the collar of his jacket and then, apparently, given up on.
"You're late," said Augie.
"Bus."
Augie looked at the mark on his face. He looked at it for a second too long. Then he said, "Lane two. Wally's got lane one. Pay attention, I'm only showing you once."
He showed Russ once. Russ listened with his hands in his pockets, nodding as if he already knew all of it. He did not look at Wally. Wally did not look at him. They climbed up on their perches at opposite ends of the pit, with a thick wooden partition between them, and sat there with their sneakers dangling, and waited.
The Saturday Morning Knights arrived at eight-thirty in a body, like a small, slow parade. There were seven of them. They wore matching purple shirts with gold lettering that said KNIGHTS on the back and Pulaski Lanes on the front, except for one, Stosh Wojcik, who had lost his shirt years ago and wore a purple cardigan instead. They carried their bowling balls in bags that were older than Wally's mother. They were all talking at once. One had a cane he leaned against the ball return, and another, a thin man with a hearing aid in each ear and a face like a dried apple, walked with a stiff, swinging, bow-legged gait that made Wally think immediately of shins.
"Fresh meat!" this man shouted down the lane, delighted. "Augie! You got fresh meat!"
"Leave 'em alone, Hank."
"Boys! Hey, boys! You keep your feet up, you hear me? You know what happened to me? Nineteen forty-nine—"
"Hank."
The first ball came down lane one at eight thirty-seven.