America Lady Patty

I CAME from a nice high school in Florida. Seabreeze Senior High School. We were known as the Sand Crabs. When rival teams came out on the basketball court to confront our mighty hoopsters the stands roared out:

Whadda we eat?

CRAB MEAT!

CRAB MEAT!

CRAB MEAT!

I never played basketball, mainly because I was such a brute (I couldn't shoot) so I played football instead. The coach made me a split end, because, as I thought. I was fast. But when we had the big pep rally to start the season off, he explained to the fans why he put me out there by myself:

"Tim has B. O."

I FELT better when Patty, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks I had fallen in love with (she was and is beautiful) the spring before (I disappointed her) and who was now going with the co-captain (who went to barber's school every Saturday morning after Friday night games-60 miles away and 7 a. m., to boot), this co-captain Billy Morrison who was nicknamed "Porky" because he weighed 180 pounds in 6th grade, and who had worked as a bouncer at the Safari Beach Motel, which was the sin center for every spring vacation college-riot-party-guzzle ever since sixth grade (he threw out some 2nd string tackle from L. S. U. in 1963, the year they still had Paul Dietzel and the Chinese Bandits) yes, Patty, the sad-eyed girl, tough Southern dark-haired, drink away the blues, hard luck Patty with the Green Buddha whose stomach she rubbed for good luck every time she left the house. Patty with the burgundy cords, Patty who was as bored as I with Ship of Fools at the No. 1 Drive-In, lovely Patty with the moon-on her face, who dreamed of walking into every bar, getting smashed, in town the night she became twenty-one. Patty who chain-smoked, Patty who felt good for the first time in a long sad time because I was the first guy who treated her like a lady, to use her just right sounding words, me, the gangly, goofy, blushing, cowlicky, smartass, shynose sloppy lunch eater ... (the salad fell out of my mouth, Nancy. Patty's bouncy best friend, used to sit across from me every lunch period to watch the salad fall out of my mouth) the guy who didn't know how to dance, went to Catholic school while all my Little League buddies went to make-out parties, the guy who couldn't sit still or get roaring drunk with T-Bone LaCour every Friday night when I was 13 because my parents and I went to see, but not understand, the Florida Symphony, me, the Asst. Editor of the Sand Crab who wrote the lead story on "Homecoming" (the tag was," ... and the easy, floating ride home. Homecoming"), me, the mumbler, trip on girls' toes spratfalling yahoo who entered the polevault once that spring and cleared nine feet coming down, joints locked, like a pinwheeling walking stick, landing thirty feet beyond the landing pit and rolling over and over until I bumped into a car, which was owned by my friend Frank, who was sitting in the front with Nancy, and in the back seat was Patty, of all people, whom I worshipped from afar because of her beauty and sad eyes, whom I could barely talk to ("Uh, hi [smile, dig into the ground] there"), and I'd listen to how Coach King was trying to give her shit in study hall (write 2,000 times "I will study in study hall!"), how school meant nothing to her, she wanted out (Oh, so ahead of her time!), she wanted a car, she was mad at the goddamn world for treating her like shit, she was tragically powerless to escape from the bastards who were wringing her through this goddamn machine called school, slop jobs, idiots with pom-poms who wanted her to cheer for the goddamn basketball team when she had to help support her sister and forget that her father was gone, long gone by the time they left Ft. Leavenworth (goddamn Kansas) prison army base, forget the guys she'd fallen for who'd slugged her, Patty, who was smart but never read, who stood by traditions of the South, "Any niggers try to marry my kid I'll kill 'em, I swear to God I will. It's not right, black and white marrying like that. It's not meant to be, the Bible says so," and Patty loves the black people that she knows, she really does, or did ... does. Patty who loved to lie on the beach, who finally married Porky Morrison, who dropped school after he broke his leg on the first play (he kicked off) of the first game a few hours after that pep rally, because he wouldn't get a football scholarship, to become a full time hot damn barber! Patty who married Porky who has soft folds of white skin, a common affliction with old time crackers, which cracks in the sun so they don't go to the beach, now lazy Patty who loved to sleep (to forget). Patty who braved to God to let her and her mother alone, Patty and Billy who had a little girl before I got to Harvard, Patty who naturally had trouble with the birth so she and Billy wouldn't be able to have any more kids soon, gracious, lovely Patty said to me after the pep rally, while she was walking arm in arm with Bill (Porky) while Bill was still laughing about the coach's remark about the reason for putting me at split end, Patty looked me right in the eye and said:

"That was pretty shitty of Coach Hogan to say that. Besides, I know it's not true, I went out with Tim once." Beautiful lady Patty, who was walking arm in arm with Billy, who had dreams, maybe, at that moment, of mowing down tackles for real against L. S. U. in the mighty football stadiums of the South, with 50,000 sons-a-bitches booming for all hell to break loose, cameras focused on the gladiators, dreams of real glory not too far away-before that beady-eyed Cuban tackle for that slimy Catholic high school submarined him on the very first play of the season.