10.1 – A Gridiron Zero

Marge came to drive Marty and Susie home from summer camp in her smelly Toyota pickup, which was beginning to look rather beat up from life in the boonies.  While the other kids were getting into in big, shiny cars, the two deprived urchins slinked inside a dirty toy truck with a cracked windshield, and a clothes hangar for an antenna.  They tried to breathe as little as possible, because the cab was saturated with the acrid stench of cigarettes.  After being away from the smell for a week, it was like riding home in an ashtray.  Marge was distracted about something having to do with Tim, and brooded all the way back to the Rusty Bucket Ranch, where everything was different but nothing had changed.
 
Krishna had produced a new litter of kittens in the spring, and by now they were pretty frisky.  Tim was working on one of his cars in the driveway, which was beginning to look like a graveyard full of half-finished projects.  Pippin slouched in his Army jacket on the couch in front of the TV, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  The Animal Witch was yelling from across the creek.  She was desperate to complain to somebody about something, but Otter was passed out in his teepee, and Rabbit was at work.  At least Krishna was glad to see Marty and Susie again, and followed them around the yard with her silly, stuttering meow, while the kittens frolicked gaily among the ferns and butterflies.  It was a delightful, natural scene, and it outraged the Animal Witch to distraction.

She sometimes waited in her yard, staring across the creek suspiciously, until someone appeared to whom she could rant about the exploitation of animals.  She was convinced her neighbors were operating a kitten mill in their house, with pregnant cats chained inside small filthy cages.  The family’s new strategy was to ignore her completely, as if she didn’t exist.  That totally unhinged her gate, causing her to stomp furiously up and down the banks of the creek, gesticulating wildly as she screamed at the top of her lungs.  “Hey!  I said, Hey!!  How dare you ignore me!!  I’m standing right here, you insolent brats!!”  Marty and Susie had to turn their backs so they wouldn’t be seen laughing.  The kittens were afraid of her, and hid under the deck.  Eventually the Animal Witch wore out her voice, scuttled back inside her shipwreck, and made frustrated banging noises.

With high school just a few weeks away, Marty thought about Lisa a great deal, and called her often – but not enough to be considered desperate.  They chatted amiably at first, describing their lives and how much they missed each other.  After a couple of weeks, it was harder to find things they had in common.  Lisa would be entering high school too, and was already being pulled away from the memories they shared.  Marty began to notice that he was always the one to call.  To pique her interest, he told her that he was trying out for the freshman football team (even though he’d never played organized football before).  Tryouts and practices were next week, and there was less than a month of summer left before school started.

Marty wasn’t exactly sure what he and Lisa had in common, but he knew he wanted to share more of it.  She wasn’t a “real” girlfriend, but more of a “summer fling,” a “camp crush,” or some other unsatisfactory surrogate.  He became infatuated with the idea of developing an intimate relationship with someone, in whose warm embrace he could rest his insecure heart for a very long time.  Julie could tell her little brother was mooning, and teased him good-naturedly, assuring him that high school was full of amorous opportunities.

“What’s her name?  Did you kiss her”” Her eyes sparkled conspiratorially.  Marty was guarded – this was the most interest she had shown in him since the divorce – but he was hopeful for a sympathetic ear.

“Of course we kissed,” he scoffed, as if smooching was a normal daily occurrence, like brushing his teeth.

“Ooh!  Smarty Marty’s got a girlfriend!”  Her curly hair bounced with glee.

Marty rolled his eyes, realizing he dared not confide his deepest feelings to his sister.  He may as well plaster them on a billboard, for all the discretion she promised.  “She’s not my girlfriend. And don’t call me ‘Smarty Marty’ at school, okay?”  Julie would be a senior that year, and he was wary of the schoolyard legends about hazing freshmen.

It was true that Marty’s feelings were getting deeper.  He was exploring previously unfathomable complexities of emotion.  The world was such a beautiful place!  The trees in their yard primped and preened in the sunlight, showing him signs of more-than-human affection he’d never noticed before.  Rays of sunshine slanted softly through the cinnamon-columned redwoods, with exuberant friendliness.  He stopped and smelled the flowers, and empathized with their longing.  The natural beauty of the setting expanded his heart, and he began to explore poetry. 

One day, he rode his bike down to the tiny branch of the Marin County Library next to the post office.  The librarian there was a very likable old woman, who was probably the slowest-moving human being alive.  She was a pleasant, grandmotherly type, with bright eyes, and skin that reminded him of an Egyptian mummy.  Her internal clock ran at the speed of paint drying.  “Old as the hills, and twice as dusty,” as Otter would say.  Marty picked out some sappy Dickenson and Shelley volumes, with a couple of science fiction novels for cover.  Her red-rimmed eyes glowed with youthful reminiscence when he placed the books on her counter.  She knew which books he was there for.  The wrinkles in her face slowly twisted and reformed into what could only be a smile, like a spoon stirring thick taffy.  From deep in the recesses of her inner dialog, an idea was taking shape and had to be put into words.

“Y-you must be in love,” she squeaked with offbeat delight, as if her voice was a seldom-practiced instrument that badly needed tuning.

Marty hastily put his library card on the counter, wanting to get away as soon as possible.  “No, I’m preparing for high school English.”  He smiled with strained decorum, secretly horrified that it was so easy to tell what he was feeling.  The air inside the small room was stiflingly hot and musty with old paper smells.

Her eyes twinkled from behind crepe paper eyelids.  “I was young once, you can’t fool me! ‘For love is like immortality’ – to quote the young lady from Massachusetts.”  She smiled very kindly, and Marty realized he was in the presence of a great, romantic soul.  Unnecessarily embarrassed, he desperately wanted to be elsewhere – and fast.  His face was hot, and must have been as red as Burns’ rose.

“I – I’ll let you know how it turns out.  The English, I mean.  I gotta go, I have to – um, do something.”  He stuffed the books in his backpack and gave a little wave, as if to a young child, and burst out the door into the fresh air.  I’m such an idiot!  He beat himself with his own familiar whomping stick as he rode away.  How on earth am I going to talk to girls about love if I can’t even share my feelings with a sweet little old lady who loves poetry?

Alas, his burgeoning font of romance had to be set aside for the rigors of freshman football tryouts.  Not only was Marty intent on impressing Lisa (albeit from afar), but he expected that high school sports would be a great way to make some friends before school started.  He’d gotten a letter in the mail about how to prepare for his first year at Sir Francis Drake High School, and when the tryouts for various sports would be held.  On the big day, Julie gave him a ride to the football field in her patchwork VW hatchback, rattling off lots of insider tips about teenage society, and how to behave when other kids were watching (mostly so he wouldn’t embarrass her).

The tryouts were very informal, and the would-be gridiron heroes divided themselves into two groups: the jocks who were confident they’d make the team, and the misfits (like Marty) who wondered why they had even bothered to show up.  He weighed 125 lbs. soaking wet, and at only five foot four inches, was one of the smallest boys on the field.  The coaches spent most of their time with the jocks, slapping their backs, striking manly poses, and stridently blowing their whistles to organize calisthenics.  They conducted vigorous tests of football-related skills, like running, catching, and throwing.  Marty had never played more than flag football at any school before, and barely knew the rules.  When his turn came to run the 40-yard dash, he was happy to demonstrate one of his few physical skills: he could run very, very fast.  The coach looked at his stopwatch, astonished.

“You there!” he waved over the skinny kid with the torn blue jeans.  “What’s your name?”  Coach Connor had short, curly hair, and a perpetually stern look on his face, with lumpy jaw muscles that abused chewing gum, and biceps that bulged in his shirt sleeves.

“Marty White, sir.”

“Run that again for me, will ya?”

Marty had always been unusually fast for his size, even though he had leg problems as a young child, from being born six weeks premature.  He spent the first month of his life in an incubator, and wore casts on his legs for several more, in an attempt to straighten out his deformed legs.  When he learned how to walk, he had to wear special orthopedic shoes that he hated, and scuffed them intentionally whenever his parents weren’t watching.  His knees were so loose as to be nearly double-jointed, and he liked to run as fast as his skinny legs could propel him, as soon as he was allowed to wear ‘normal’ shoes.  He simply concentrated on taking steps faster and faster, until his feet whirled and barely touched the ground, like the Road Runner cartoons. “Beep! Beep!” he said as he crossed the finish line.

Coach Connor didn’t get the joke, peering at him blankly, then called over his assistant, and showed him the stopwatch.  “That’s the fastest time since I’ve been here,” he said plainly, looking Marty up and down.  “We’ll have to put some weight on you, though.  Go get some pads.”  He sent the skinny kid over to a row of boxes, where a few other misfits were picking through the leftover equipment after the jocks had taken all the best gear.  Marty grabbed some stained pants that had been chewed on by a goat, a set of floppy shoulder pads made for an octopus, and a helmet that was big enough for a horse.  He looked like a junk heap by the time he got everything on.  The shoulder pads wouldn’t stay on straight, and clattered when he walked.

The candidates lined up for the hundred-yard dash, in full gear.  A handsome athlete next to Marty smiled in a friendly way, amused at his appearance.  He had brand new cleats on, and Marty looked down, ashamed for his ragged Converse sneakers with holes in their toes.  “Ready!”  The coach blew his whistle, and Marty took off like a jackrabbit, churning his legs over and over, oblivious to the pads that clacked and flapped, the pants that slipped down, and the helmet that bounced and turned sideways.  He wondered where everyone else was, and straightened his helmet to look around when he reached the end zone, thinking he had jumped the gun.  “Eleven-point-five seconds!” Coach Connor yelled, and the wheezing jocks gaped with wide-eyed wonder at the long-haired hippie freak who could fly like the wind.  “Get yourself a haircut, son, and you’re on the team!”  Everybody laughed, and just like that, Marty was accepted into the fearless fraternity of football teammates. 

After tryouts, those who were invited to the first practice gathered inside the locker room, and Marty naturally gravitated towards some of the others who looked like him.  Rob was a loud, ruddy-faced boy with long hair, and he hung out with Dave, who was equally under-groomed, but quiet and serious.  They lined up, gave their names, addresses, and phone numbers to the assistant, and were handed a practice schedule.  Rob and Dave both lived in Fairfax.  Marty was the only one from ‘over the hill’ in the San Geronimo Valley and didn’t know anybody else.  The jocks stayed with their own kind, and combed their hair neatly before leaving the locker room.  A small group of girls was gathered outside, and Marty noticed that some of them followed the good-looking jocks like puppies.  Not one even batted an eyelash in his direction.  They probably think I’m the water boy, or the younger brother of somebody more important, he sighed inwardly.

He had no ride home, and planned to hitchhike, so he hung out with Rob and Dave as they sat on the bleachers and chain-smoked cigarettes while waiting for their ride.  They were joined by Terry, another future lung cancer patient, who also lived in Fairfax.  The four rookies talked about things that made them appear tough and worldly wise, and discovered they actually had a lot in common.  When Rob’s dad picked them up, he drove Marty as far as White’s Hill, which was a good spot from which to catch a ride to the Valley.  Kids hitchhiked a lot in those days – it was a great way to meet people, and it was never very long before some old dairy rancher, or a hippie in a V.W. bus, pulled over and told you to hop in.  The former would usually rant about ‘the gummint,’ and the latter might sometimes offer Marty a hit off a joint.  If Coach Connor could only see me now, Marty mused as he inhaled from a sticky doobie, with Led Zeppelin assaulting his eardrums.

“Been dazed and confused for so long it’s not true…
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you…”