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[the Earl of Whirl]

Thanks.  I am enjoying typing these parts out as it forces me to slow down and appreciate his work.  We are now ready for the big confrontation!

[the Earl of Whirl]

page 106......

I had at last come together with the greatest fighting top I had ever seen.  It had an oily, heavy, solid feel, a nice comfortable heft like, say, a Colt snub .38 Special feels to the hand.  I had already decided to call it Wolf.

I pedaled furiously through the twilight toward Cleveland Street.  The showdown had begun.  I knew it.  And somewhere in his lair, Scut Farkas must have known it, too.

That night after supper, under a dim yellow light bulb in the basement, next to the looming furnace that dominated the underworld below our house, i carefully wound my best top string around Wolf for the first time, pulling each loop hard and tight so that it lay flat against the preceding one, until finally Wolf was cocked and ready for action.

The string itself is highly important to a genuine expert.  I preferred the hard, green, twisted cord that knotted solidly and got a good bite on the side of the top.  This type of string was not easy to use, but once the technique was mastered, nothing could come near it.  I had long since outgrown the standard wooden button for the end of the string, using instead a thin, one-inch mother-of-pearl button stolen from my mother's sewing basket.  There were three extras stashed away in my dresser drawer for emergencies.

[Sabaspin]

I enjoyed this story immensely. Had not heard of it till it was posted here. Would love to find a print copy.

After listening how Scut Farkas and his top are described in the story, could'nt help my mind  thinking of Tom Waits song Big Black Mariah, it has nothing to do with the story, but the  voice and attitude of the song would fit prefectly with the image of Scut  and Meriah coming to destroy your top.

[the Earl of Whirl]

the bottom of 107 and top of 108

Deliberately and meticulously, I set Wolf down on the concrete floor for the first time.  We were made for each other, just the way Mariah was made for Scut.  The personality of tops is an odd thing.  Mariah spun with an angry ferocity, a carnivorous drive that was despised and feared by everyone who had the bad luck to see it in action.  Wolf, on the other hand, was steadier, giving off a note higher in pitch than Mariah but in some ways even more deadly.  Mariah was a hot-blooded animal; Wolf, a cold-blooded, snakelike.  It would be an interesting meeting.

Again I laid the top precisely on the mark I had made, getting the feel of it, gradually letting myself out, feeling the full flush of rising excitement and mounting confidence as I gradually mastered the sinister Wolf.  For two weeks, every night, Wolf and I practiced together in the basement.  I had decided to not show him to anyone until we could take on Farkas.  No telling what might have happened if Farkas had heard of the existence of Wolf, and my plans, before I was ready to really give him a battle.

In public I began throwing my weight around with second-string tops, until the word slowly began to spread throughout the gym, the auditorium, the homerooms; till at recess time I could always draw a small claque of fans goading me on to belt some poor kid's top into the boondocks.

from page 109 and 110...........

Since the day Farkas had publicly humiliated me, he no longer even deigned to note my topwork.......

It was Friday.  I knew that today would be the day.  Somehow you know those things.  It had rained all night, a hard, driving, Midwestern drenching downpour.  Now, as I toyed with my Wheaties, I could feel the edge of danger mounting within me.

and the bottom of 111...............

At last on the playground, I began my carefully thought-out scheme.  "Hey, Kissel, how 'bout a little action?"  My top, the second-string orange one, whistled out and landed with a click on the asphalt.  "How 'bout it, Kissel?"

"All right, smart guy," he said, "take that!"  His greeen top narrowly missed mine, bouncing on the asphalt and then settling down into its pedestrian buzz.  Quickly I scooped up my top, wound it up and let him have it.  His green toy careened drunkenly into the gutter.

and on page 112............

"Sorry, Kissel, I just can't control it."  I put my top back into my pocket, saying loudly: "There's no good top men around here, anyway.  Let's get up a game of softball."  I had made sure that before any of this happened, Grover Dill was in the throng.  I knew only one thing could happen after such an outrageous remark.

Sure enough, not five minutes had passed - in fact, we were in the middle of choosing up sides for the softball game - when a tremendous wallop from behind sent me sprawling into a puddle.  Instantly the mob surged forward.  Looking up from the mud, I saw Farkas holding Mariah casually in his left hand, while spinning his greasy black top string like a lariat in his right.  It whistled faintly.

"Get up, ya chicked bastard." 

[yollector]

don't stop now !

[the Earl of Whirl]

bottom of 112 to 113........

He quickly wound the the string around Mariah and flicked it high into the air, catching it on his palm as it came down.  She spun efficiently on his hand for a moment before he closed his talons over her.

"Come on, get up."

Slowly I arose, pretending to be contrite.  "What's the matter, Farkas?  What did I do?  Gee whiz!"  A low snicker went through the multitude.  The recognized the signs, the old familiar signs.  To a man, they had uttered those words themselves from time to time.  They enjoyed seeing other in the trap.

"Get out ya top."

"My top?"

"GET IT OUT!"

A few drops of rain had begun to fall, and it seemed to grow darker by the second.  By now the crowd had grown, until we were ringed by a motley circle of non-committal faces.  Every kid on the playground was in the crowd.  The word was out.  Farkas was getting someone, and Farkas demanded an audience.  Nervously, I pulled out my poor doomed orange top.  There was no hope for it once Farkas zeroed in his sights.  I had carefully planned this sacrifice.

page 114.......

"Spin jerk."

I wound my orange top tightly, dug my feet as hard as I could down on the asphalt.  Using my underhand sweep, fast and low, I laid her down a good 15 feet away.

Farkas half crouched, Mariah digging into his grimy thumb, the rusty metal washer he used for a button jabbing out between his fingers.  His arm jerked down and out, the string snapped, black Mariah struck.  That is, she missed, by less than an inch.  The two tops spun side by side for a moment until I darted forward, scooped mine up and backed off.  Before me, black Mariah sat toadlike, growling moodily, while Farkas watched with ill-concealed contempt.

I decided to go in for the kill.  Again my arm dropped, the orange top streaked out, heading straight for black Mariah's vitals.  It was a good shot.  Farkas knew it.  He snarled low in his throat.  The crowd murmured excitedly as my orange top cracked smartly against Mariah - but wobbled off weakly among the feet of the onlookers.  Mariah did not budge.

"Spin it again, ya chicken bastard,"

Farkas picked up Mariah and waited for my next move.  I knew this was it.  I had missed my chance.  But then, I wasn't counting on this poor top.  My big move was on the way.

I spun.  Then, with his accustomed sardonic ease, the showboat attitude he always displayed when picking up a scalp, Farkas neatly cracked my top into kingdom come, the deadly spike sending up a thin spray from the wet pavement..................

page 115.................

Farkas casually picked up Mariah, turned his back on me and, followed by Dill, started to walk away, the crowd parting before them.  It was now!

[the Earl of Whirl]

continuing on page 115............

My hand whipped down into my back pocket, quickly snaked Wolf out into the open, and in the twinkling of a moment, I had him wound and instantly laid Wolf down hard and solid.  Its high, thin note, steady as a dentist's drill and twice as nasty, cut through the falling rain and stopped Farkas in his tracks.  He turned and stared for a long instant.  His eyes seemed to widen and he actually, for a moment at least, appeared to grow pale - but even more baleful - as he recognized Wolf for what it was.  Between us, the silver-gray top sang tauntingly.  I didn't say a word.  Wolf said it all.

The crowd, sensing that something had happened, became hushed and tense.  Somewhere off in the south a mutter of thunder rumbled and stilled.  Casually, Farkas wound his top string about Mariah and, without a word, laid it down with a hard, vicious, overhand, cracking shot that missed Wolf by the thickness of a coat of paint.  The two tops spun together with no daylight between, Mariah's bass rumbled blending with the shuddering whine of Wolf in an eerie, angry duet.

and on to page 116..............

Quickly I picked up Wolf, and this time, with all the force I had, I went in for the big one.  A silver-gray streak, Wolf blurred out before me.  The crowd gasped audibly.  Scut peered sharply down at Mariah as Wolf screamed toward the coup de grace.

I couldn't believe it!  Moving like a shadow over Mariah, Wolf missed by the thickness of a hair.  Instantly, with a cackle, Farkas gathered in Mariah and, with a guttural laugh, sent her down the rails to finish off Wolf.  I had seen him really angry at an opponent before, but nothing like this.  I was afraid to look, half turning away - but the roar of the crowd told me that, incredibly, Mariah had missed!

It was my turn now.  For once in my life, my nerves were like steel.  This time, with infinite deliberation, I aimed and carefully let fly, a little high, with more lift, a more deadly trajectory.  Wolf rose and came down like a fiend of hell, swooping out of the sky like some gray eagle.  But at the last impossible instant, it actually seemed to change course in mid-air, grazing Mariah slightly and skittering off into a puddle.

Again and again we attacked each other, first Wolf, then Mariah.  Over and over we drove at each other's vitals.  Something was happening that slowly began to dawn first on Farkas and me and then on the crowd.  Incredibly, these two tops seemed to be afraid of each other.  Either that, or they were somehow, in some way, mysteriously jinxed.

[the Earl of Whirl]

page 117............

My arm ached.  Farkas paused only to blow his nose on his sleeve before going back to the attack.  It was growing darker; and it became obvious to us that at this rate, neither of us was going to scalp the other.  The two insane tops, grimy, covered with mud, leaped like live things - ricocheting, leapfrogging, hovering over each other, behaving in a way that no top before or since has ever acted.  They hated each other; yet they seemed to be in league.

Dill, like all good toadies, tried everything he could to snaffle Wolf, kicking up mud when I spun, going even to the extent of nudging me violently on two occasions, hoping to tip the balance.  Farkas was game but growing angrier and fiercer by the second, until finally he grabbed Mariah up from the scratched and scarred battlefield, looked at me with a long, searing gaze of hate and finally said, in a low voice:

"OK, ya chicken bastard.  Let's play keepers."

Keepers meant that one kid would own both these tops, if his top could drive the other out of a circle made on the concrete with chalk.  It was the final test of topping.  Farkas was gambling Mariah against Wolf.  Dill quickly drew a lopsided circle on the concrete sidewalk that paralleled the asphalt.  The hard surface was perfect for keepers.

"You go first," Farkas commanded.

Under the rules of the game, you were not allowed to strike your opponent's top directly, so it really didn't matter who went first.  The tops themselves fought it out, walking each other around the circle until one or the other was pushed out.

(just two more pages)

[the Earl of Whirl]

page 118........

I spun Wolf - little realizing for the last time.  It whistled out in a low arc, landing fair in the center of the circle.  I put as much power on the spin itself as I could, cracking the string with a hard, flat snap.  Wolf spun, waiting for Mariah, its spike ringing sharp and hard.  Farkas spun Mariah, and the two tops hummed within an inch of each other.  Slowly they walked, closer and closer, as the crowd closed in.  Closer and even closer, then finally - tick...tick...tick - they touched.  Locked in mortal combat, first Wolf and then Mariah, then Mariah and then Wolf, ticking humming in rising and falling cadence as they edged toward the dreaded line.  Which would go out first?

For a few minutes it seemed as though Wolf was doomed, but then, righting itself, it shouldered Mariah closer.  Impossibly, the two seemed to pick up speed as they spun.  Angrier and angrier they grew, until suddenly, with a lunge, the two tops smashed together, both reeling in tandem in a mad, locked, spinning embrace together over the line and out of the circle.  The rain, falling steadily, pattered down on the two hazy forms in the misty air.

Farkas, sensing victory, shouted: "YOURS IS OUT!"

He darted forward.  The two tops continued to struggle and together they toppled over the curb, into the gutter, clicking, snarling crazily in the fast-running water, sending up sharp rooster tails of muddy foam.  I moved as fast as I could to defend Wolf.

[yollector]

I cant wait !!!!!!!!!!!!!
   RFC

[the Earl of Whirl]

page 119............

Suddenly, it was all over.  The two tops, locked in mortal combat, disappeared down a sewer from which rose a deep roar of rushing water.  They were gone.  Never before had any of us seen tops behave like this!

Farkas, his face white, his eyes glazed, stared down into the raging flood through the grille of the drain.  Then, without a word, he arose and, followed by Dill, walked off down the street in the rain.  I knew I would never see Wolf again.  But somehow I knew that neither Wolf nor Mariah were finished.  They would go on.  I don't know why I knew this, but I did, and I still do.

The crowd broke up into small knots.  The great top days were over at Warren G. Harding School.  A few weeks later, I rode over to the other side of town, looking for the Total Victory.  One time, months later, I thought I saw it, but it turned out to be a place where they sold stuffed animals and rocking chairs.  Off and on, for a while, I continued my search; but I never found it again.

[ta0]

Thanks a lot Mike for transcribing the key parts of this great short story.
Here is the artwork from the original publication in Playboy:



I think in the movie Farkas looked meaner.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Ohhh!  Thanks for that picture.  I do not remember that at all.  There is a possibility that I might remember some other pictures from that publication but I do not remember this one!

Yes, in the movie the bad guy was MUCH meaner looking.  Lug Ditka was the main bad guy in the movie and he was terrific (in my humble opinion).  I have always wanted to dress up like him and go around challenging and scaring other top spinners (perhaps this could be a Halloween theme party among top spinners some day).

I also felt like the ending to the top battle was much different than in the story.  I think I remember Ralphie saying something like "a tie?  That all ended in a tie?"  I will have to look at the movie again.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Warren G. Harding school here I come! 

My son wants to go to a concert for Erasure (anyone heard of this band from yesteryear).  It is in Chicago.  I will only go if he lets me stop in Hammond on the way so I can throw a couple tops at this famous school.  We will see how this works!!!

[the Earl of Whirl]

I tried my best to wait a bit after nationals to talk about this.  My son and I made it to Warren G. Harding school.  It is southeast of Chicago in Hammond, Indiana.  The current school is new and very nice looking with a neat fenced in  playground.  We drove around the block a couple times to get the "ambiance" of the area before going in the building.

I introduced myself right away and tried to calm them down so they didn't think I was too creepy about this whole thing.  I figured they had oodles of people stopping by all the time, especially with the building popularity of the My Christmas Story movie.  It turns out that they don't have many stop by at all.  And they never have anyone stop by to talk about top spinning! 

The school Jean Shepherd attended was two buildings ago.  Also, those buildings were closer to the front of the property where the school sign is.  That is now a large grassy area and the new building is farther back in the lot.  I tried to be as open and honest as possible about what we wanted and I even asked for permission to throw tops near the sign in the front (which was a good 200 meters or so from the building and the playground).  When the secretary said she would have to ask the principal I began thinking of how we could get a couple of quick shots in with a top if they said no.  This seemed like something Jean Shepherd would have appreciated.

Of course, there was no problem.  We got some throws in.  My son took some pictures and maybe I can figure out how to post them.  I threw a black Spintastics that I painted (Mariah), a Monarch, a wooden Toycrafter, a plastic Duncan and a wooden Alan Gray.  I also had an old Schreiber from Walter that I threw.  I figured that those tops would represent quite a few backgrounds as they battled.

One final comment.  I asked if there was a picture or plaque or something on the wall of the school to honor Jean Shepherd.  The receptionist said "No.  The kids are all so young.  None of them know anything about him or the movies.  We do have kitchen ladies who dress up like My Christmas Story characters at Christmas time but that's about it."