Fortunately, Marty had a perfect outlet for his anger: the football field. In his first game back from his knee injury he played some cornerback to cover for Mike, who was nursing a sore shoulder. His job was to hurl himself at a pulling guard who was twice as big as him, and turn the ball-carrier back inside where their linebackers would be waiting. That was how it got drawn up in the locker room, but Marty was so small he just bounced off the loping gorillas and got tromped on for his audacity. He was more effective on offense, where he could run around the lesser primates like a freak of evolution. Unfortunately, the wide receivers thought that blocking might mess up their hair, so there were always some defenders to push him out of bounds. It was fun to watch the dismay of the beefy linemen as they dragged their feet in wet cement trying to catch him!
The opposing team was tough, and it was a low-scoring affair, until the Coach daringly called a flea-flicker play in the final seconds. The team had practiced it several times, and were excited to give it a try. It was code-named the “hook and ladder,” where the tight end went about ten yards and turned around underneath the coverage. Meanwhile, the halfback (that was Marty), circled around the backfield, and was offered a fake handoff by Barney, the quarterback. The defense dismissed him as out of the play, and went after Barney, right before he threw to Fred, the tight end, who caught the ball and long-lateraled it to the sidelines just before everyone tackled him. Marty saw the astonished looks on the faces of the players on the other team’s bench as the ball was coming right at them, and they prepared to catch it. “Whoosh!” he zoomed past in a blur, and snatched the perfectly timed ball out of the air, racing down the very edge of the field at full speed. It worked perfectly, and he sailed across the goal line untouched, as the clock ran out. The crowd went berserk, and the cheerleaders jumped up and down, shredding their pom-poms like puppies on caffeine. The rival players were stunned and defeated, and threw their helmets to the turf. Marty’s teammates mobbed him in the end zone, and for one shining moment in a sea of happy faces, he felt as glorious as a sailboat in the sun.
Most people have at least one illumined moment in their lives; a spark in time when they feel a pure sense of purpose and mastery. For some it comes during sporting events, when the fates conspire to trick you into thinking you’ve got it all figured out. How sad it would be at the time, if you were aware that would be the pinnacle of your experience; the highest achievement in your lifetime, and by comparison everything else would be second-rate. Marty looked around out of instinct, scanning the crowd for a familiar face, but as with most of his accomplishments, nobody from his family was there to see it.
After Marty’s athletic feats of heroism, his popularity surged around campus. Other students strove to catch his eye and smile, and their greetings were free of ridicule. A few of his new admirers were female, but the pretty ones he fancied still avoided him because he was a “bleacher creature.” His long hair, acne, and thrift store wardrobe didn’t help, either. Still, when he heard some of the football players were having a party, he decided to see what the popular kids did for fun. He showed up with Fred and Barney as “the touchdown trio,” and carefully observed how jocks played their social games. The iconic quarterbacks and fluffy wide receivers just stood around, tossing their blow-dried bangs and holding court with the flocks of cooing cheerleaders jostling at their feet like pigeons. The big linemen stayed in the kitchen and ate all the snacks. The younger, lesser known players gathered around the punch bowl, wishing it was beer.
“I wish this was beer,” said Mike unnecessarily for the fifteenth time. Like a prayer at a church, it was an oblation for anyone who got within drinking distance and found out that yes, it really was fruit punch. They waited for some time, just in case somebody might spike it and put them out of their misery, but apparently that was not a contingency for which anyone had planned. Neil Sedaka mocked them with his Laughter in the Rain, and Mike spoke for all the dearly disaffected party people when he announced, “This is lame, let’s go get wasted.” Marty looked around for some reason why he should stay and “learn the moves” that would make him popular with the girls, but the guys who did that all looked so phony. He couldn’t see himself playing congenial charades, and considered it a waste of creative energy. Besides, the music wasn’t just lame… it was so crippled it was on disability! Even though the grapes floating in the punch bowl were probably sour, the bleacher contingent was more than willing to walk to Mike’s house in the rain. There was an unexpected consequence of disrespecting a social gathering full of cheerleaders and jocks, however, and leaving with all the stoners cemented Marty’s low position in the school’s caste system for quite a while.
Eventually, Marty made some new friends in high school, but what he really wanted was a pretty girl to be his best friend. If he had any hope of achieving that goal, he needed to find a way to increase his popularity on his own terms. As an experiment, he composed several silly sonnets about the football team and coaches, and before his English class started, he’d cover the blackboard in the back of the room with chalky prose. These were epic, satirical verses in the manner of MAD magazine: parodies of classic children’s poems like Wynken, Blinken, and Nod. The hapless characters were recognizable players and coaches, and his elegies were well-received in good humor. Even Mr. Adams, the fussy, hard-to-please English teacher liked them, and he was a drunken poet himself when he didn’t actually have to sit upright in front of a class for 50 minutes. Marty unveiled a new tome after every game, as a kind of narrative account of the football season. When he wasn’t writing, he was drawing cartoons. Back at the ranch, he’d get stoned on whatever weed Pippin or Otter left lying around, and stimulate bursts of creativity that consumed hours the way a fire burns oxygen. He discovered a talent for focusing the energy of the high (which normally dissipated for stoners), and used it to produce original humor. At the very least, he entertained himself immensely, but others seemed to enjoy his work, too. He cultivated his image as the mysterious beatnik artist, and gained percentage points in the polls among the highly desirable 14- to 15-year old female demographic.
There was one girl in particular who reflected on Marty’s artwork in a different way than others. She was always one of the first to read his “jock poetry” in English class. She reminded him of Lisa, with her slender wrists, narrow shoulders, and coquettish mannerisms. Where others guffawed at his cartoons or poems with the shallowness of consumerism, she actually thought about them, and tried to plumb the hidden depths of his art.
“I like how you drew that,” she said one day when standing next to where Marty posted a picture of the football coach. “He looks like a fascist with the medals and his chest sticking out.” That was just the effect he was trying to achieve (in more ways than one), and he was duly impressed with her acumen. “My name’s Caroline.” She offered a pale, birdlike hand that was small and warm.
“Thanks, I’m Marty.” His creativity regarding what to say to a girl was not as well developed as his sarcastic lampoonery.
“I know that,” she grinned, then looked away suddenly when she noticed Marty was smitten. A state of infatuation was not very difficult to induce in the poor boy’s heart, and he was a sucker for any girl who could hold his gaze for more than a moment before looking away. In his ardor, he usually interpreted their reticence as shyness instead of dismissal. That fundamental and tragic error in reading social cues would trip him up throughout high school like shoelaces that wouldn’t stay tied. He spent the rest of the period dreaming of sweet Caroline; trying in vain to keep Neil Diamond out of his head.
After class, Marty asked if he could walk her home. (She conveniently lived nearby, but he was prepared to walk several miles if necessary.)
“But it’s only third period!” she laughed nervously.
“I mean after school, of course.” She hesitated, so Marty closed the deal. “Where can I meet you?” His heart was pounding in his ears like a bass line.
“Um, here, I guess.” She half-smiled in a noncommittal way, and walked off briskly. Her body language said she wasn’t interested, but Marty’s foolish heart didn’t speak body lingo. He spent the rest of the day fantasizing about the pretty girl who appreciated his art, oblivious to his fate.
At last the final bell rang, and Marty planted himself in the agreed-upon spot like a land mine. It seemed to take forever for her to come along the hallway, but luckily he was near her locker so she had to pass by. Her face indicated she hoped he wouldn’t see her, which he interpreted as an attractive modesty. His vanity and high hopes were about to get taken for a ride. Or a walk, as it were.
Caroline held her books close to her chest like a protective shield as the two of them scurried down the lane away from school. She was walking so fast she was passing other kids. “Hey, slow down, what’s the hurry?” Marty interrupted a stream of talking about himself to offer an observation on her mood. “You look so sad.” The words just came out, and he immediately wanted to grab them and stuff them back into his mouth.
She stopped, and he bumped into her. “I can’t really do this,” she looked pained to say, as if she were a soap opera actress being asked to donate a kidney.
“Do what?” I’m just walking you home.” The piñata of his rapture burst open, and turned out to be empty.
“I can’t be seen with anyone,” Caroline spoke mysteriously to the lamppost as if she were in a spy movie, then turned away abruptly. “I have to go.” She tossed her perfumed curls (forlornly, Marty thought, which sparked a wayward delusion of encouragement), and used her thin but shapely legs to hustle down the sidewalk. Away from him.
“What was that all about?” Marty asked the lamppost accusingly, as if it had told her something to cause this, but it could shed no light on his gloom. It was only three-thirty in the afternoon, but it was already getting dark in his mind. Caroline studiously ignored him from then on, which was far worse than telling him to piss off.