Volleyball Gods

You're gonna grovel!"

"Well, ah---"

"You're finished!"

"I, ah---"

"You might as well stick a fork in yourself, 'cause you're done, bud, you are dooooone!"

Indiana Hov is on a rampage. Stomping his size 13s, spilling Coors on the pile carpet, rocking the whole wheelbase of a Ford Chieftain motor home. Poodle the promoter is twitching. A tiny nervous pulse at the corner of his eye. He's sitting at the dinette, behind a mound of empty cans. Hov's looming over him, shooting at Poodle with his index finger and thumb, like a kid playing guns. Only Hov's not playing guns. He's playing life. What he's shooting is L for loser, L for anyone who isn't as tall and tan and talented as he, anyone who doesn't get laid as much as he, anyone at all who can't sky high over a net and whip arm snap wrist smack palm, wail a 12-ounce ball so it blurs and then bounces in the sand.

This is Indiana Hov, Tim Hovland, Mr. Southern California. Six feet, five, 200 pounds. Blond, blue-eyed, perfectly jawed. Overwhelming choice for best buns on the beach. Twenty-five years old, $100,000 a year. Playing volleyball.

But he's not playing today.

"No waaaaaay!"

Indiana Hov is on strike.

"No money, no Hov" is what he told Poodle, the promoter of two-man pro beach volleyball. Then he told him, "Eat shit and die." Put Frick and Frack against Larry and Moe in the finals of the world championship. Put your mother out there. Hov's not touching sand. Not without double the purse and player sanction of all events. Not until you open the books on this pop stand. Say no? Righ-ti-o. You don't need Hov, he don't need you.

My beach, my girl, my way, fuck off.

"Now get the hell out of my motor home!"

Poodle isn't budging. He's just as stubborn as Hov. Last time they tangled, Poodle earned his nickname. Hov threw him into a swimming pool at a motel in Fort Lauderdale. Poodle tried to retaliate and ended up splat on his back on concrete. Someone said it reminded him of a poodle attacking a great Dane. Then, as now, on this Friday morning in September, the first day of the 1984 Jose Cuervo World Championship of Beach Volleyball, Poodle is trying to make Hov remember who's in charge. It was his idea to turn two-man into a professional sport. He created Hov. He created the volleyball gods. Without him, they'd still be playing for fun.

And besides, even without Hov, even without the other top gods, Poodle has 17 teams signed to play in his tournament. Seven thousand fans are already in the bleachers at the Seaside Lagoon in King Harbor, Redondo Beach. And the bikini contest hasn't even started yet.

Poodle doesn't have to listen to Hov. Right now, the sponsors are behind him. They have a one-year contract with Poodle, so they have no choice. They've refused to negotiate with the players. They're backing Poodle all the way, so Poodle is staying put. It's not really Hov's motor home, anyway. It belongs to A.M.C./ Renault, one of the sponsors of the tour. Hov is Renault's spokesplayer. In Hov's mind, though, he's here in the motor home, so it's his. He commandeered it because walking around in the hot sun, carrying a picket sign, doesn't suit the defending world champion.

Problem is, it doesn't suit the sponsor, either. Two hours ago, Wally the Renault rep got so pissed over the players' strike that he threatened to take the keys to Hov's Turbo Fuego. The car---like the personal appearances, per diems, flight allowances---is part of Hov's contract. But so is playing volleyball. The big boys from Renault were supposed to be flying in for this one. The motor home, the cases of Coors, the $20-an-hour bimbo in the custom bikini with Renault's logo, the ones to watch, printed across the ass---all of this was for the bosses.

But the players had to go and strike. And Wally had to phone the pale, flabby bosses in Detroit---on the very weekend that the United Auto Workers had closed 13 General Motors plants---and tell them that the players here had walked out, too, that the barefoot guys who go to the beach for a living were marching around with semiliterate signs, shooing away fans, playing Solidarity Forever on a boom box.

Wally didn't dare tell them what Hov had done to Andy Fishburn. Wally had guaranteed Hov personally when he sold the sponsorship. Hov's responsible, he told them. Hov's got a degree in public relations from USC, he told them. How could he tell them now that when Fishburn, a former world champion himself, decided to cross the picket line and play, Hov had threatened to piss in his Gatorade and to fuck his wife, then hocked the biggest, greenest lugie that anyone had ever seen onto the windshield of Fishburn's car? The fact that Hov had a Renault towel wrapped around him when he did this didn't help, either.

So Wally threatened to take the car.

And Hov ran to the Fuego, kicked in the turbo and roared off, not to return until he'd hidden the car in a garage in an alley six miles away.

By the time Hov returned to make peace with Wally, to let Wally make peace with him, Wally had downed two double Dewar's and had started on the Coors. Hov took a seat in the motor home, started helping with the beers. Things were calming down.

Until Poodle came in, sat down at the dinette and said, "Look, Hov, can't we talk about this thing like adults?"

"No waaaaaay!"

•

Poodle's real name is David Wilk. A former PR major and student-body president at Cal State Northridge, Wilk, 34, started professional two-man volleyball in 1976 as a promotion for Beach Volleyball magazine. He and his partner, the magazine's circulation director, advertised a two-day event, put up $5000 in prize money, drew 30,000 fans. Following their success, they left the magazine, formed Event Concepts, went into volleyball full time. By 1984, they had built pro beach volleyball into 13 tournaments and 500,000 fans in six states, from Florida to Hawaii, with a total purse of $200,000. Such sponsors as Cuervo, Renault, Miller High Life, Coppertone, Honda and Hobie were climbing all over one another to give money, to take part.

By 1985, Event Concepts and Poodle Wilk were gone. Poodle the promoter was hanging up on long-distance calls from a national magazine. But the tour is still on, handled now by Group Dynamics, Inc., of Santa Monica and Tokyo, a proven international PR concern. The tour has been expanded to 15 dates with the addition of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Wildwood, New Jersey. The total purse has been raised to close to $300,000. Depending upon whom you ask, the reason for Poodle's ouster was the players' strike, the work of an ambitious lawyer or a sudden change of allegiance by the sponsors, after the 1984 season, from Poodle to the players.

In any case, the strike was the beginning of the end for Poodle, the beginning of a new beginning for the tour. Although Renault is now out, Bollé eyewear and G.M.C. will come aboard, and the other top sponsors are hanging in, looking forward to bigger exposure from a more experienced firm. Group Dynamics has handled Virginia Slims Tennis and Paul Masson Marathons and Volvo All-American Tennis. The owner of the firm, Jack Butefish, was a founding owner of the Quebec Nordiques and of the International Track Association. His firm has handled accounts for Union Oil, Philip Morris and Seagram's.

It was only a matter of time before Poodle had to fall. Like a smalltime agent who found himself a superstar in a honky-tonk, he had created a monster. At first, the gods were happy: Someone was providing a crowd and a little money. Beat a pitcher of beer all to hell. But as the young years of the tour passed, the gods started realizing that they could demand as well as accept. They started realizing that two-man pro beach volleyball was more than just a game. It was the symbol of a lifestyle, the California lifestyle, the American Dream of the Eighties.

Hold a tournament and here they come, straight from the Pepsi commercial, disposable income on parade. Two together on roller skates and two more riding skate boards, joggers in Norma Kamali and heavyhanders in Speedos, BMX bicycle tricksters and Fuji 12-speeders with sheepskin saddles, each more beautiful, more tan, more blond or bunned or legged than the next. This is Southern California, Oneida of our times, capital of the kingdom of I. A place where headphones don't disturb conversations and cars never get dirty. A place where people don't care "How ya doin'?" but always notice, "Ya lookin' great!"

String up six volleyball nets and offer some money, and you can have it all packaged to go. Zoom the horizon---a powerboat race. Pan the middle distance---a regatta of sloops. Cut close to the crowd---a guy from Playgirl interviewing potential centerfolds. A crew from Honda making commercials about scooters. A radio jock playing Trivial Pursuit, giving away Coke visors and Frisbees as prizes. A Coppertone-sample girl rubbing some Number 2 on a pectoral. The bimbo from Renault doing her crotch-to-camera-lens back bend, telling everyone within earshot that she also writes prose, poetry and songs. A guy with a ring in his left nipple guzzling beer. A giant balloon bottle of Cuervo Gold swaying in the breeze atop the refreshment stand. Cut, cut, cut to the California lifestyle, all of it under a sky as blue as tinted contacts, on a beach as rocky-fine as cocaine, next to an ocean as stirring as a Jacuzzi.

All of it because Poodle Wilk and his partner knew a product when they saw one. "It couldn't lose," Wilk had said back in September in Redondo, at the Cuervo world championship, a time when he was happy to talk to reporters. "It's free admission. It's at your favorite beach. You've got great-looking athletes, great-looking girls who come out to see the athletes and guys who come out to see the girls. It's a day in the sun; you go for a swim, you drink a beer. It's the same thing these people would be doing anyway, but they've got a giant party going on all around them. And besides, you have some great volleyball, some amazing athletes."

The athletes, of course, never have ordered things this way. To them, the marketability hinges on the game. To them, beach volleyball is a test of strength and skill. A contest like tennis or golf, played by talented athletes. In high school, Hov was named first-team all-Los Angeles in football, basketball and volleyball. He was Southern California's Athlete of the Year as a senior, beating out football 49er Ronnie Lott. Hov could have been quarterback at Nebraska, strong forward at Houston. He could have been on the 1984 gold-medal U.S. Olympic volleyball team. In fact, he was on the team for a while. But the coach wouldn't let the guys play on the beach. He imposed a curfew. Then he took some of the team to Utah in the dead of winter for Eastern-bloc training techniques. Hov was training in Ohio at that time, but for three weeks, the boys from California climbed rock faces, slept in igloos, went without food. They got cold. This period was the end of Olympic hopes for Hov and several others. The newspapers called it a "personality conflict."

During the winter, Hov and some of the others play indoor volleyball in Italy. Last year, Hov was M.V.P. of that league. Playing as an amateur, on a team sponsored by a sportswear manufacturer, he made 40 grand, plus free car, meals, room, athletic-club membership. Hov's partner, Mike Dodd, also played in the Italian league for a year. Although Dodd, like the rest, grew up playing volleyball on the beaches, his first choice of sport was basketball. He played college ball at San (continued on page 138)Volleyball Gods(continued from page 124) Diego State, was drafted in the eighth round by the N.B.A. Clippers. Also on the tour are Karch Kiraly, M.V.P. of the gold-medal U.S. Olympic volleyball team, and Steve Timmons, another Olympic standout. Steve Obradovich, known as O.B., the Beast, played wide receiver on USC's 1977 Rose Bowl team. He tried out for the Dolphins.

These are athletes of some standing. Volleyball is a great sport. No one's arguing that. But the hook of the sport is the lifestyle. That's what the sponsors are banking on. That's what Group Dynamics is banking on. And that's where the gods' talents really lie. Hov and Dodd and O.B. and the rest are Southern California, high priests of the way Madison Avenue tells us we should live---cars and women, beach and beer, board surfers and orange pop. Hov has no books in his condo in Manhattan Beach. He has two magazines. Both have his picture on the cover. He reads the sports pages and the financial pages and throws the rest of the paper away. He doesn't own a watch. He doesn't wear shoes. Some days he gets out of bed and rides his bike. Some days he sees his broker. Some days he plays tennis. Some days he goes to lunch. Some days he practices volleyball. Some days he does two of those things. All of Tim Hovland's time is Miller Time. He'd be a great commercial.

The lifestyle, of course, is not new. The Beach Boys and Annette Funicello were telling America about it years ago. But it's only lately that it's scuffed its thongs across the continent and become an aspiration. Just the thing America needs for the Eighties---a remake of Happy Days, set at the beach.

The root of the lifestyle is a four-by-four, ten feet high and stuck in the sand. Volleyball posts began appearing on the beaches of Southern California in the Thirties, a California interpretation of a Depression-era pool hall. But the lifestyle as we know it really blossomed in the happy vacuum of the late Fifties, early Sixties. They had volleyball gods back then, too, amateur ancestors of the modern, professional kind. They lived in vans or under piers or at home with the folks if allowed. They made a little money picking up returnables on the beaches or slinging hash in the diners. They were the classic beach bums, later the classic beach hippies. They drove their cars onto the beach. They roasted wienies, played cards, necked. The surf pounded, the girls squealed, bongos were heard on the breeze.

But mostly what they did, along the Coast from Sorrento to Long Beach, was play two-man volleyball. They played it from dawn until dark, honing the art of the dig, the pass, the spike, eating sand for nothing more than the thrill. There was an occasional trophy, a first-prize pitcher of beer from the Sorrento Grill, a dinner from the Wharf.

Guys such as Ronnie Von Hagen, 62 open-tournament wins, never won a nickel for greatness. Von Hagen didn't drink, smoke or chase women. His parents gave him vitamins for Christmas. He lived to do nothing but play volleyball. Yet, a half mile from the beach, nobody knew his name. He couldn't have cared less. Von Hagen and the rest played to keep center court for the next game, to feel the hard throb of being best.

These days, the volleyball gods sweat only for money, for the hard throb of being paid, being recognized, being loved. Top players are watching the stock market and investing in real estate. They're negotiating personal-appearance fees with sponsors who want to beefcake up their images. Like the old-timers, they don't have jobs. But they aren't living on returnable RCs. They're living on purses and interest and per diems. Hov is no Moondoggie. His condo isn't made of palm fronds.

His world view may be. He bets his dick, "no small wager," that "70 percent of the people out on the beach know me. Maybe even 70 percent of the whole South Bay know me. When I started wearing striped trunks, everybody on the beach bought striped trunks. I switched to plaid and now everybody's got plaid. I own the beach, me and Mike and Karch and those guys. We own the beach. We're like gods, fuckin' gods, fuckin' goooooods!"

But hear Hov's declaration and you detect a little grit in the ego. This is why he and the rest of the major gods struck the Cuervo world championship, why they tried, and eventually succeeded in, ousting Poodle. As Hov and the rest know well, they may be recognized in their little world; they may be making money and setting trends in swimwear. But their lives aren't like Jimmy Connors'. They have their flights to tournaments paid for, but they always go coach. They get some free meals now and then, but usually from a local diner, The Kettle. A few of the local bouncers know them, but they still have to stand in line in L.A. Hov and Dodd rate free cars, but none of the rest do. Of the 70 to 100 top professionals, only a dozen do nothing but play volleyball. The other ones have jobs. Not that the gods care that the other ones work. More to the point, it makes them look bad. How much credibility is there in beating a waiter and a house painter in the world finals?

What they want is to see volleyball become a real professional sport. They want management that can get them Life magazine, ABC Sports, millions of dollars, instead of Volleyball magazine, a German documentary, thousands of dollars.

There is a chance, as years pass, that the gods will get what they're after. One day soon, perhaps with the help of Group Dynamics, ABC will find the beach and America will discover that many of the best players in the country weren't even on the Olympic team, that they were down the Coast an hour or so from L.A., playing two-man for money. And when that happens, when more than just the cultists know their names, gods like Indiana Hov will know that they sat out a world championship for good reason.

For now, though, Hov and the rest will have to wait and see. They'll have to be content with excelling at the lifestyle. For now, says O.B., the Beast, they'll have to be content with "getting to know an astronomical amount of people and everybody knowing who you are . . . keeping your name in the papers . . . having all these people watching me with my shirt off, jumping high and hitting hard, entertaining them, showing them how this game should be played. . . .

"We might not have the illustrious careers of tennis players," says O.B., the oldest god at 30. "We don't get to travel around in Rolls-Royces; we don't get rental cars or penthouse suites. We're still kind of rough and vagabonds. . . .

"But still, basically, without volleyball, I'm just another good-looking guy."

•

"I'll bet your neck is pretty sensitive. Like, if I did this, you'd get goose bumps."

Indiana Hov feathers a finger down the girl's neck. She arches her shoulder and purrs, then pulls away.

"I know who you are," she says.

Hov smiles ultrabright. Scrapes a toe. "Yeah. I'm Tim Hovland."

"You're the one on those commercials for---"

"I'm a volleyball player. A professional."

"Oh, yeah, that's right. My little sister has your picture in her room. She's in love with you. . . . Those other guys---they're players, too, right?"

The girl is pointing to 12 large humans who line a wall in the bar, loom there like the skyline of Century City. They are here on Wednesday night, two days before the Cuervo championship, following an important meeting to affirm their commitment to the strike. The meeting started an hour late, lasted 30 minutes and (continued on page 192)Volleybal Gods(continued from page 138) concluded with a resolution to go to the bar.

Outside Orville & Wilbur's, valets park the cars, and inside, it is crowded, as always, with ferns and brass and reproantique signs and people with tans. A live band plays oldies. Three guys in the bathroom are offering free toots if you'll buy. They'll take a personal check or offer a ride to a moneymatic. Two men in ties discuss Johnny Carson. Two girls in dresses discuss at-home bikini wax.

The players have been here 15 minutes. Already they're landscaped with girls. The girls pose just so: chin raised, one foot balancing on the heel of an open-toed pump, one hand resting on a hip. They smile, widen their eyes, giggle. They throw their hair back a lot. The players stand with their arms crossed. The talk is about MTV, automobiles, cable TV, tennis, movies, going to the beach, getting wasted and, of course, volleyball. Whenever one of the girls looks away from the player she's talking to, checks to see how her friends are doing with the other players, the player she's talking to looks down, checks to see how the girl's tits are doing.

An important concept: Here in Manhattan Beach, you call them girls. Fifteen miles down the Coast from L.A., in the heart of the heart of the lifestyle, there are no women, and there are none in this bar, except, perhaps, for the older lady in a pants suit who looks like someone's mother visiting from back East. Here, a place that residents gleefully call the herpes capital of the world, "I'm active!" is a greeting and Alan Alda might as well be the Ayatollah. Men are men. Girls are volley dollies, fringe bennies or, more universally, trim.

Girls are measured in numbers. Guys don't fuck, they notch. They build numbers. A few years ago, Hov tried to count. Lost track at 300. Numbers like that require a strange sort of selectivity: This one has a good face, so she's notchable. This one isn't so pretty but has great tits, so she's notchable. This one does laundry; this one likes to cook. This one looks bad in a bathing suit but good in clothes, so she's a wintertime notch.

Notch and tell. That's the name of this game, and the girls play it as well as the guys. Singles bar at the mailbox, in the parking lot, on the sit-up board. Any time, day or night. Sniff. You hear so many stories, you start to believe that some percentage must be true. While the gentlemen on the East Coast are whining and dining, these guys with the blow-dried hair are notching. They're notching in the toilet. Notching with a few friends watching from the closet. They're bringing home a notch, notching, passing the notch to a roommate. The roommate notches and then passes her to a third. The third guy takes her away for the weekend. This may happen more than once with the same girl. That's what they say, anyway.

Spend a few weeks out here and you begin to realize that people aren't going to restaurants or record stores to eat or buy records. They're going in search of notch. They're not running and biking and lifting for health. They're doing those things so their calves will look good when they angle their feet on the heels of their pumps. So their biceps will strain at the sleeves of their T-shirts. So the numbers on the Manhattan Beach notch exchange will be forever bullish.

Hov hunts notch on the theory of space invasion. Say anything just to enter the bubble of a girl's awareness---just to get her to focus on the product. The product has been on the cover of U.S. News & World Report. It's been July on a calendar. If she doesn't buy, one of the next ten or 15 will.

Tell her her neck is probably sensitive. Ask her if she really needs to eat that whole plate of Nachos herself. Offer to help her lose some calories. Guess her bra size. Ask if she'd like a drink: "May I buy you a cocktail?" And if she counters with a smirk and a line of her own, something like, "I have a daughter your age," riposte quickly with, "I'll buy her a cocktail, too."

They have some kind of style, these volleyball gods. Standing there against the wall of the bar, on this Wednesday night before the most important tournament of the season, they are an awesome group.

There is Sinjin Smith, world champion in 1979, 1980 and 1982. Great name. Lives at his mom's house, in a separate addition in the back. Trophy shelves run the circumference of the little room, the centerpieces of which are the 1979 N.C.A.A. volleyball-championship trophy---he was M.V.P.---and a king-size bed. On the back of his door is a Levi's-jeans advertisement, poster size, featuring Sinjin Smith.

Sinjin is managed by the high-powered Nina Blanchard and Ford agencies. He has modeled in GQ, Vogue and Playboy, has done television commercials for Woolite, Alberto VO-5, Coppertone and Arrow Shirts. He appeared in an episode of Magnum, P.I. as Tom Selleck's two-man-volleyball partner. Sinjin's body washed ashore shortly after the first station break. Two years ago, Sinjin was the billboard boy for the Milk Advisory Board. There he was, two stories tall, all over California, bare-chested in tennis shorts, with a woman draped over his shoulder. The message: Milk---it Does a Body Good.

Jon Stevenson wears his hair like Prince Valiant. Has the most devoted groupies of anyone on the tour---an entire family in Clearwater, Florida. When Stevenson comes to town, the family puts him up at their home, feeds him, gives him a van to drive. The family has a son who wants to be just like him. The father is always saying to Stevenson, in that Florida drawl that all the players mock, "Why don't you take Jeffrey here down to the schoolyard and do some one-sets with him, give him a few pointers? Just as a favor now, hear?"

Stevenson and the other players can't stand the family. They invite young Jeffrey to parties that don't take place. They feed the mother's home-cooked dinners to the dog under the table. But they always go back.

Missing from the group tonight is Andy Fishburn, the one whom Hov will later assault with lugies. Fishburn thinks the strike is stupid, that they've come pretty far in eight years, that the rest of the players don't understand business.

Fishburn understands business. He is a project manager for Barclay Hollander Corporation, the real-estate-development firm that drained Marina del Rey and introduced condominiums to Southern California.

Fish played his college volleyball at Stanford and Yale. He looks like Robert Redford. Once, he went to Magic Mountain with his wife. Six women asked if he was the actor. He does resemble him, only Fish is prettier---upturned nose, no moles. Fish has some Hollywood in him, though. His grandfather directed the original version of Ben Hur. His grandmother played Maid Marian in the original Robin Hood.

Also absent are Gary Hooper, who works in his father's insurance and brokerage firm, and Dane Selznick. Selznick owns two surfboards, drives a chocolate-brown Eldorado, models and acts in movies and commercials. He played the medic for a team of girl football players in Oklahoma City Dolls.

As always, O.B. is here. He is a former world champion, and the players respect him. He is the personality on the tour, the John McEnroe of two-man pro volleyball. Wherever they go, the local press writes a story about him, even though he hasn't won a tournament since 1981. When O.B. makes a bad play, he bites the net. When he doesn't like a ref's call, he pulls down his trunks. In the finals of the 1983 world championship, he and his partner had game point on Hov and Dodd, but for some reason, O.B. felt the need to hit an easy set with his head instead of his palm. The crowd cheered. They won the point but lost the game. But people remember that head. Just as they remember the time he stopped a match, called over a waitress and ordered one of those tropical drinks with an umbrella garnish.

Dodd is talking to Karch. Both of them have new flattop hair styles. Karch is probably the best player on the tour, but in general, the Olympic players are not as good on the beach. The two-man game requires more all-round skills than the six-man indoor version. In six-man, players are specialized. There are spikers, setters, blockers. They play on a fast floor. On the beach, two players have to have all the skills, have to cover the same size court on a slower surface.

Also present are a few of the lesser gods. Under any other circumstance, they'd be rated L for loser. Earlier this season, at a tourney at Santa Cruz, two of the losers had made reservations a year in advance for an ocean-front room at the Dream Inn. Hov and Dodd had made no reservations. They landed in a motel two miles away. So they drove to the Dream Inn and liberated the room from the losers---just told them to leave. They vanished.

Tonight, this Wednesday before the Cuervo world championship, and for the course of the planning of the upcoming strike and the eventual switch to Group Dynamics, the losers are included. The cool guys are clapping them on their backs. Someone has to make the picket signs and write the press releases and find a Xerox machine. In exchange, the gods have allowed an invasion of the nerds.

The losers are loving it. As Hov and the rest of the gods engage in their various space invasions, one of the losers, 5'8", brown hair, adenoid problem, gets up his new courage of association and approaches two beautiful girls.

"How you doing, girls?"

No answer.

"May I buy you girls a cocktail?"

"No."

"I've already got a drink."

"Well, then how about some dinner?"

"No."

"Thank you, no."

"I'm a professional volleyball player. What do you girls do?"

"We work."

"Downtown."

"Oh. . . . Well. . . . Would either of you girls care to fuck?"

•

Mornings at Manhattan Beach belong to mothers, tan but not so beautiful anymore. They wear shorts over their scant bikinis. Their towheaded children play naked on blankets by the volleyball net. It is Thursday, the day before the Cuervo world championship. There's a group of six women rotating games on one court, four more on another, two alone on another, waiting for their game to begin. The group of six plays twice a week. The same six, more or less, have been coming here for five years for two-woman volleyball, housewives getting together for the South Bay version of mah-jongg, bowling or tennis.

Above the courts, people play body mania on a concrete boardwalk called the Strand. They jog, bike, skate. They have deltoids. It's not like back East. There's no such thing as "You have to know me to love me." On the beach, you can't wear a bulky sweater to hide your flab. The ten extra pounds are harder to ignore. Here, there are no fat people. Here, in a town two miles square, there are, by informal count, ten places to pump iron and only one bookstore. The marquee at the Manhattan Beach Health Club advises, there's a problem when people think you're over 40 and you really are. The weekly tabloid is called Easy Reader.

Off the Strand, a cramped line of mansions and then a sharp rise in the land. The slopes are stippled with cracker-box houses, peopled with stewardesses who live in efficiencies for $600 or $700 a month, salesmen who live in illegal converted garages. Lots of stucco, balconies, windows, weathered wood. Take a look inside. Just the necessities---tubes, tunes, beds. A heap of running gear in the corner. Beer and Gatorade and lunch meat in the refrigerator. Cars are parked everywhere on the narrow streets, on the sidewalks, on the postage-stamp lawns. Except for a handful of vintage Americans and quite a few jeeps with surfboard racks, most are lifestylemobiles: Hondas, Porsches, Zs, BMers. The cars head north in the mornings and south in the evenings, back and forth from livelihood to life.

There is some industry around Manhattan Beach. TRW and Hughes are nearby, as are several refineries and a pottery factory. But mostly, during the day, the feel is deserted village. Echo of waves, hum of neon, tinkle of bicycle bell. Nice.

Soon, at lunchtime, the beach will fill with car pools of men breaking for two-man volleyball. The students will come after that, planting their surfboards in the sand, playing a few games before the waves come up, and then the men will return again about five. Most of the day, the eight courts here off Marine Avenue will be busy, as will thousands of courts up and down the Coast.

But at the moment, on this Thursday morning, the beach belongs to the mothers. They've stopped playing volleyball to sing Happy Birthday, give out cookies to the kids.

Nearby, Hov and O.B. are sitting in the sand. Hov is bouncing a volleyball on his knee. O.B. is running sand through his hand. They've already decided to strike, but they're here to practice, because they figure the minute Poodle hears that they've decided not to play, he'll cave to their demands. Turn the books, the money, the whole pro circuit over to them.

The gods are used to getting their way. They surround themselves with people who will give it to them. Hov's father, who lives 15 minutes north, cooks him breakfast. His mother does his laundry. O.B.'s wife does those things for him. His family lets him work a flexible schedule in their restaurant so it won't interfere with his volleyball. Both Hov and O.B. get stock tips from fans. Two days ago, Hov bought Phillips Petroleum on a tip. This morning, it is up five points. Another fan has taken Mike Dodd under wing. Dodd's got a condo among his numerous investments in Manhattan Beach, a fortune in a town where an old house is usually demolished before a new one can be built.

Right now, though, the problem is getting up some games, and no one can help them with that. There are two college guys---amateur players, losers---sitting five feet away. Hov and O.B. would rather sit than play with them. Another god is bound to show soon.

"Jesus," says Hov, looking over at the birthday party. "These women really breed."

"Mother cows," says O.B.

"They play every Wednesday."

"Today's Thursday."

"Oh."

"Where is everybody? Nobody comes to the beach anymore."

"Yeah, everybody's working, I guess."

"I shoulda worked today," says O.B.

"Stop bitching. Taking a day off is the best thing in life for you. Only thing better is not working at all."

"I just can't believe there's nobody here. In the old days, I'd go up to Sorrento at 9:30 in the morning. Von Hagen and all those guys would be there. They'd play all day long. Play every game. Ten, 12 games. Play until dark. . . ."

"So they were stupid."

"They'd play with anybody. Hacks, girls, anybody. Just kept touching the ball. That's why Von Hagen and those guys were so good."

"Fuck. None of those guys would be any good today. They wouldn't make shit for dollars. We'd eat'em and swallow. . . ."

As Hov and O.B. talk, a third loser joins the two others. Fifteen minutes later, there comes a fourth. They start a game.

Hov and O.B. sit.

Then Hov says, "You hungry?"

"I could eat."

"We can always come by later and see if there's some games."

"Fuck, there's nobody to play with anymore, anyway."

•

"Would you pose in the nude?"

"Nope."

"Not even for money?"

"Nope."

"For a quarter of a million?"

"Nope."

"Do you have a lot of money or something?"

"Yep."

By Sunday, the last day of the 1984 Cuervo world championship, the guy from Playgirl has enlisted the aid of the bimbo from Renault. She's had quite a lot to drink, is deviating from the written questions for potential Playgirl centerfolds. Her license plate, by the way, says flashhh. It's framed by a plate guard that says chains required, whips optional. She has a two-year-old daughter at home with a sitter. Her husband sells cars. You can look, but you can't touch. That seems fine to the correspondent from Playgirl. He's apparently taken her up because he doesn't want potential centerfolds to think he's a fag. The two are bounding from hunk to hunk on the outskirts of center court. Somehow, amazingly, the bimbo keeps her balance, even on spike-heeled sandals in sand. At the moment, though, she's kneeling on the edge of a blanket at Andy Fishburn's feet. Fish, the god who crossed the picket line, is not interested in being a centerfold. Last night, his wife had their first baby. Right now, he's waiting to play and win the finals of the world championship.

All around them, there's an event going on. The bikinis, the beer, the nipple rings and the regatta of sloops in the distance, the balloon bottle of Cuervo Gold sagging a bit after three days of boogie max. No one seems to care that the gods didn't play. No one seems to care that none of the semifinalists were seeded. They gave a tournament without the gods and people still came.

In droves. Thirty thousand people over three days. All the gods could do was stand outside the fence at Seaside Lagoon with picket signs that said, where's the money? and fuck event concepts. Occasionally, one of the gods would observe how small the crowd was this year. Occasionally, Hov would come out of the motor home to pick a fight, shoot a few Ls at the losers who had crossed the line to play. He kept saying the same thing: "Every time I see you at the beach from now on, I'm going to be all over you. You're going down, bro. Doowwwnnn! Every time I see you, you're dead. Deaaaaaaaad! You're a fucking scab for life."

Hov's father, C.O., came by to sit with Hov in the motor home. C.O., a semiretired school-supply salesman, was getting disgusted with Indiana Hov, with the strike, with Hov's rampage. "If you're going to drink, drink, and if you're going to talk, talk, but you can't do both at the same time," C.O. advised him several times. Hov's brother, a personal-injury attorney, also advised him to cool it. He figured Renault had grounds for breach of contract.

To this, Hov said, "In one ear and out the other. Doesn't register a twinkle." Then he opened another beer.

Meanwhile, the other gods milled around the entrance to Seaside Lagoon, telling some fans that "the best players in the world are not participating in the tournament today," flipping the bird to other fans who said, "What are you striking for, smaller bikinis and free beer?" A representative of the Abused, Battered Children's Foundation of Marina del Rey stopped by to pitch the players. He was offering five grand a player---minimum---for participation in his own event, the Abused, Battered Children's Pro Celebrity Volleyball Tour.

Some fans did leave when they saw that the gods were on strike. First, though, they asked the players questions and stood real close, patting their backs, basking in solidarity with the movement, in familiarity with the gods. Other fans hung around outside the fence with the players. These were mostly adolescent girls. The players said things to them like, "Hey, honey, want to suck some cock?" and "Come take a look at my Trousersaurus rex." To this the girls giggled and rubbed more Coppertone on their backs.

At one point, a fan with a bunch of cameras came by. He wanted to take their picture. The players told him to fuck off. He said, "But this is a gathering of the best players in the world in one place."

"You're damn right, bro," said one of the players. "Let him take the picture."

Conservatively, 14,000 of the spectators were on hand for the naming of Miss Jose Cuervo. The 1984 Penthouse Pet of the Year was the chief judge. More than a few of the fans commented that she was fat. She had a pimple on her thigh that could be seen three rows back. But the contestants weren't bad. Even the players laid down their signs and sneaked inside to watch Sylvia Adams (who said, in response to her question, that she would take a good-looking man and two cases of Cuervo Gold if she were stranded on a desert island), Beverly Bunn, Marissa Mendoza and Strawberry Frehoff compete for the $1000 in prize money. Strawberry wore a leopard bathing suit. Her aspiration, she said, was to get into real estate. She had the second-largest tits in the group, but the one with the largest had a bit too much stomach. Strawberry won the prize.

By today, Sunday, the number of gods has dwindled. The teeny-bopper trim is absent---something about two of them and a god in a shower at a party last night. The boom box and Solidarity Forever are gone, too. The picket signs have been stuck, unattended, into the Cyclone fence. Wally the Renault rep is home with his wife. Hov and Dodd are here, as are Karch and Sinjin and O.B. Hov still hasn't picked up a picket sign, but he has hoisted quite a few Coors. Between Hov and the bimbo, four or five cases have probably been drunk. That doesn't include last night. Hov went to Orville & Wilbur's, then left and went to a massage parlor to visit a Japanese friend, then came back to Manhattan Beach and hit two other bars, then returned to Orville & Wilbur's. Just about closing time, he hooked a notch. Her face wasn't too great; her tits weren't too great. She probably didn't look too great in a bathing suit and she certainly didn't look great in her sun dress. But she bought the product. She was notchable.

Hov really started going at the Coors yesterday afternoon, after Poodle the promoter, feeling that he had broken the strike and assured his continued position as king of the gods, had set the record straight on who was an L for loser.

It began after some of the players had realized that Poodle wasn't going to cave to their demands, that the 1984 Jose Cuervo World Championship of Beach Volleyball was going to be played without them, that someone else was going to win the $22,000 purse. When this had sunk in, a group of the volleyball gods went to Poodle and begged him to start the tournament over again, to let them play. Hov even came out of the motor home to hear the verdict.

"No waaaaaay!" is what Poodle said.

After he said that, Poodle had leaned back, fluffed his curly hair, screwed his small, dark eyes into the big blue ones belonging to Indiana Hov, Mr. Southern California. He let Hov twitch a moment, then said, "Be happy for yourselves. You stood up for your principles. Don't regret it. I stood up for what I believed in, too. I'm going to do what I gotta do, too. This strike will serve a useful purpose. Maybe after this we'll see we need each other, that we have to work together, that we can't screw each other."

To this, Hov had said, "Money talks, bullshit walks." Then he walked away. Poodle had won. Or at least it appeared that way. Hov wouldn't be world champion twice in a row, at least not this time. His sponsor was mad at him, might even file suit. And worse, Hov had heard through the grapevine that Dodd, his partner, had called the Olympic coach to discuss getting back onto the national team. Hov knew now that the strike was dead, that the players would be back out on the sand next week for the last tourney of the season, the Miller Tournament of Champions in San Diego. He knew now also that ABC and Life and the rest were still a dream away. It appeared, as he walked away from Poodle, head lowered, thongs scuffing, that tears were welling in his eyes, though that could have been just a reaction to the bright sun after all that time spent in the motor home.

Then, all of a sudden, Hov stopped and bellowed:

"I got it. I got it. I goooooot it!"

The players gathered.

"We can put on our own tournament!"

"Yeah. Like an exhibition," said Dodd, warming. "Like 'Come on out and see the best players in the world practicing!'"

"Yeah."

"All right!"

"We'll show them some real volleyball!"

"I don't know about this, bro," said O.B. "This could really piss off the sponsors."

"Fuck them!"

"Yeah," said O.B. "But what if nobody comes?"

"You don't think the fans would come see us?"

"Who the fuck will know to come?" said Jon Stevenson. "Poodle and those guys advertise for weeks before the tournaments. They spend all this money on radio and newspaper ads and stuff."

"So what?" said Hov.

"What, you think the fans are gonna get our vibes and know to come?" said Stevenson.

And so there convened another council of the gods, and so Indiana Hov's last-ditch solution was put to a vote and defeated unanimously. Even Hov voted against it. Then he went back to the motor home.

And now it is Sunday, and the finals of the world championship are about to be played without him. Hov is once again in the motor home. Only this time, he's alone.

"I don't know," Hov is saying between drags on another Coors. "At this point, I'd say Event Concepts has pulled it off. The people are going to show up because of the beach party. It's nothing compared to normal, the caliber isn't near the same, but the people are here. . . .

"I worked very hard to get where I am. I find when I work hard, then I usually win. There has been an occasion when something has gone wrong, when somebody has played better. But that's rare. And once I lose to someone, I guarantee I won't lose again.

"Never again.

"No waaaaaay!"

Outside the motor home, on the beach, a tall man wearing a gold chain is kicking around in the sand, scoping the beer, the buns, the games. He has a folder under one arm that says Group Dynamics, Inc. His name is Jack Butefish. He's making notes on a little pad. One thing he's written is Discontent. Another is Recognition/Cash. A third is HOV. The last he's circled three times.

He knows a god when he sees one.

"Some days he sees his broker. Some days he plays tennis. Some days he goes to lunch."

"Notch and tell. That's the name of this game, and the girls play it as well as the guys."