One Over X News

Seventy Two

It was the summer of my impending liberation, except that I was already free. It was a time of personal discovery even though I had been exploring for all my life. I was 16, the magical age. I could not wait to have my license to drive even though I had already been driving for more than nine years.

There was hardly anything that was simple about my adolescence. By the time that I was fourteen I was living alone in my own apartment… with my parents’ blessing. The arrangement was a necessity. I did not feel that I could get a quality education in the school system that I had attended for elementary school. So my having a place of my own had nothing to do with a falling out with my parents. Many may have assumed that; they assumed wrong. Certainly my parents and I did not agree on everything but they trusted my judgment. In the summer of 1972 I seemed pretty mature for my age.

For two years I had cooked and cleaned for myself. I saw to it that there were no complaints and that I lived my private life as inconspicuously as possible. There was probably some legal provision that I was violating that would have led some nosy party or another into filing charges against my parents for child neglect in that I was a minor living alone. So I tried not to call any undue attention to my situation.

I was anything but neglected. My mother came to check up on me periodically, unannounced and at random. My mother prepared food for me from time to time but even if she was not there she always ensured that I always had good food that was easy to prepare. She did my laundry to a large extent even though I was also taking care of that from time to time. Living in an apartment really was a pretty good test and invaluable experience without being cut loose completely.

Despite enduring the wild hormonally driven mood swings that any young man my age had to experience, I was very careful. I did not have friends over and certainly no young ladies. I had not violated my parent's trust. I had never even let on to anyone that I lived alone. It simply was no one's business. I had never invited any adults to my apartment. So as far as anyone knew my parents were separated and I lived with my mother who worked late into the evening and left early in the morning. I never told anyone that was the case as that would have been a lie. I have never been good at lying. I never dissuaded that rumor, though as it was no one’s business.

In the spring of 1972 I was so eager to get my driver's license as soon as possible that I signed up to attend a summer session of the driver's education course. I was so desperate that I was going to take the class during the first summer session, even though Mr. Smith the assistant principal and chief disciplinarian of the high school was the instructor. I had no fear of driving or of the course for that matter. To me it was a completely futile but legally required exercise. I had grown up on a farm. I could hardly remember a time when I could not operate farm machinery to include tractors, combines and also my father's trucks.

Even so I respected motor vehicles. I had known several people that had died as a result of careless operation, whether their fault or not. My 'Uncle' Bill had died in a car accident only a few years before that and the memory of the funeral was still fresh enough in my mind to make me wary of the responsibility of controlling a car.

Once the course began, I rode my bicycle the five miles from my apartment up what I felt had to be the steepest hill in the vicinity and to the high school. After class, my group was the first to practice driving the vehicle. I volunteered to be the first to drive and almost immediately Mr. Smith realized that I already knew how to control a vehicle and judge distance. So he relied upon me to drive both to and from the less traveled country roads where the others could practice the fine art of controlling the car and keeping it on the road.

Early on, I was the one that drove in the city and on the freeway whenever there was the need. As the other drivers’ developed their skill I drove less and less often. Mr. Smith explained to me that he was not ignoring me but that he already felt confident that I could pass the examination. He wanted to ensure that everyone in the course passed the tests.

Although I was in pretty good shape from riding my bicycle everywhere that I went, it was still a stiff early morning challenge to peddle up the quarter mile at a 40% grade that one big hill represented. Although it was fun riding back down that hill in the afternoon there was certain finality to the decision of taking on that descent. I knew that once I committed I would not be coming back up that hill until the next day.

Along the top of the hill was a ridge that roughly traced the northern most edge of and ancient river valley. The ground along the ridge was roughly level, so I could ride my bicycle almost anywhere that my stamina could sustain; even into the edge of the city that was five miles away.

For the first couple of years that I lived on my own my bicycle was my means of getting around. It was the vehicle of my limited freedom. I had even been known to ride all the way home, to my parents’ farm that was over fifteen miles away. The route there was all less traveled country roads and gently rolling hills until I reached South Charleston. Even once I was in town the traffic was still fairly light and posed little real danger.

Riding a bike in Springfield was much more challenging. The traffic was heavier, so I avoided the main roads and rarely ventured past the shopping center on the south side of the city, where there were some specialty shops, one that specialized in models cars and airplanes, a variety store, a music store, a department store, two competing grocery stores and a bookstore that besides paperbacks and magazines also sold comics, cold sodas and chewing gum.

Early on in the summer of 1972, after school I either rode into the city or I simply went home to my apartment. Even so, each morning after negotiating the hill and each afternoon before enjoying the exhilarating experience of how gravity could make my bicycle accelerate, I would ride past a house with a fairly large yard that occupied a corner of a small cluster of homes that had bonded into a neighborhood. The homes were arrayed around an intersection that crossed the micro-community. Every afternoon it seemed that there were neighborhood kids playing wiffle-ball in that large yard on the corner. I had ignored them for the better part of a month. Why should I notice? What did I have in common with any of them?

Still as I rode past everyday I sort of noticed how much fun they seemed to be having. What did I know about such fun? There were kids ranging from eight to fourteen, both boys and girls. When I was their age I was working on the farm all summer long or playing afterward until sunset, all alone in the woods behind the first house that I remembered of my youth or along the creek behind the new house that we had moved into when I was ten. For me there had seldom been any other kids my age for me to call friend let alone play with them.

I didn’t know at the time why I did it but one day I finally stopped my bicycle and stood astraddle of it just watching. That probably wasn’t the first time that I saw her but it was the first time that I noticed her. I don’t know, being perfectly honest I may have noticed her before but I never seemed to have time to get a really good look at her. I sort of kind of hoped that she was pretty. My bicycle between my legs, and having all the time to take a good long look at her, I was not disappointed. She was very pretty. As everyone paused the game to gather ‘round me for introductions I learned that her name was Annie.

In subsequent days I stopped again and again, finally turning it into a daily ritual. I'd like to think that the reason why I stopped was that I wanted to have one last summer of childhood. I wanted to do all the things that I had missed out on when I was really a kid…well a little younger anyway. I was on the verge of entering the real world of doing things that were increasingly less child-like. I would like to believe that my sensibilities were torn between being a child and becoming an adult in that insufferable time of confusions and frustration, angst and embarrassment known as adolescence.

As much as I like the sound of all that, the truth was that I stopped every time for the same reason that had compelled me to stop that very first time. I had a vision and in my hormonally charged state I could not resist the desire to want to spend as much time as possible looking upon her while trying not to appear interested for fear that it might be perceived as a leer.

Annie was raven-haired, blue-eyed, kind of lanky but really very pretty. She was only two years younger than me but at that time it was an incomprehensibly vast gap in age. She would be a freshman the ensuing fall at my high school. I would be a junior. I might as well have been twenty five for all the hope I believed there might be in dating her.

As the summer progressed I became very familiar with every one of the neighborhood kids but I paid special attention to Annie. I wanted to know everything about her. I even thought about her when I was riding my bicycle to or from school, eager with the prospect of seeing her even if for a moment in passing. I looked forward to playing with the kids, but it was really because I wanted to be around Annie.

It occurred to me that once I had my license and my own car, I would be driving to school and even past her house everyday. When I mentioned it she immediately thought that was very cool in that I was going to be driving soon and even suggested that sometimes I might give her a ride to school. She said that she hated riding the bus because she had to get up too early as her house was one of the first stops. Of course coming home she was one of the first stops as well and that was a good thing. It was the going to school in the morning that she dreaded but riding the bus in general was a drag.

I don’t know why I had even begun the general conversation except that I was probably trying to gain her attention and impress her. I was not in control of my hormones and very inexperienced with matters of semi-intelligent conversations with girls. Just like every other girl that I had ever spoken to, she made me stutter. I used to stutter a lot when I was 5 years old. It was something I had learned to overcome by the time that I was six. Still, when she was around I reverted to stammering and fumbling around for the right words to say.

She had the wholesome beauty of a good girl, a very good girl. Even after she had played wiffle-ball all afternoon I never nothing that she smelled bad at all. She had the face of angelic beauty, a face that I knew my mother would approve of. Even so all sorts of other thoughts flashed into my mind. I averted my eyes whenever there was any thought of anything else but pressing my lips to hers. I tried not to notice how her pert breasts were developing, and especially how her nipples pressed against her tight white cotton tee shirt. Her thin but shapely legs seemed to end somewhere around her neck. I appreciated her striking appearance but could only manage a few stolen stares and furtive glances. I did not want to be caught drooling and babbling like an idiot while trying to explain.

“Do you think that is possible?” she asked and even though I knew that I had heard the question I could not seem to salvage what she had said prior to it. I had simply missed it.

“Uh, anything is possible,” it seemed safe to take refuge in a cliché.

She smiled broadly, “Great then. Of course you will have to meet my parents and get their permission. But once they know you I am sure they will be okay with it.”

Her promise not withstanding my mind raced, leaping to many false conclusions. What ever was she talking about? Oh, yes, her riding the bus and how she hated that, especially in the morning.

“Are they home now?”

“My mother is but she will still want to ask my dad.”

I nodded as I finally understood.

“He doesn’t get home until after dark.”

“I see.”

All throughout that summer, I didn't understand all the conflicting emotions that I was feeling and certainly did not understand what I was beginning to feel for Annie. To that point she was the prettiest girl that has ever even acknowledged that I existed. In my own self-deprecating, unconfident way I doubted that she could ever really like me. I reasoned that she was perhaps unaware just how pretty she was. Maybe my status as a junior added major bonus points that compensated for the undeniable truth that I was a total geek and general proof that the God of creation had a pretty good a sense of humor.

My attraction to her had a lot to do with the magic and innocence of that fabled summer of 1972. It was before the Munich Olympic Games, before the terrorists had taken some athletes from Israel hostage, all contributing to the further politicizing of the Olympics, the end of the innocence of the Games that had begun with the protests in Mexico City in 1968. It was before Watergate had become a household word synonymous with scandal, and the ruination of the ‘checkered’ political career of a sitting President, a President that would win reelection in the fall by a landslide of near record proportions only to be run out of office because of the lies that were allowed while on his watch. Was he that paranoid of George McGovern?

None of the events going on around me were more important than the few things that mattered to me for that one special summer. I wanted never to see those days end. My favorite song was by a band from Cleveland, Raspberries ‘Go All The Way’ written and sung by Eric Carmen and it was the second most popular song in the nation ac cording to Billboard Magazine. My favorite TV Shows were ‘M*A*S*H’ and ‘All In The Family’. My Favorite Baseball team was the Cincinnati Reds, of course and I even believed that after the Cincinnati Bengals beat the fabled 1972 Miami Dolphins in a pre-season game that they stood a good chance of winning the Super Bowl that year.

In the larger context I was unaffected by anything that went on in the larger world that summer. To me life was all about me getting my license and playing with the kid in the neighborhood which, more importantly meant that I could spend some quality time being close to Annie. As the summer wore on the two of us spent even more time together, off to ourselves, talking. Sometimes I would not get back home until almost dark. A few times I walked her back home after it was getting dark. Then finally her father was pulling into the driveway just as I was getting ready to ride my bicycle home.

Her father offered to give me a lift back to my place and though at first I declined he insisted. It would have been rude for me to persist against the offer. It was the most uncomfortable few minutes of my young life. Her father asked me about my mother and father and how many brothers and sisters I had. He wanted to know if I planned to go to college. He wanted to know a lot about me, in fact. I suppose it was natural, though.

He pulled into the parking lot outside my apartment. “Is your mother home?”

“I don’t expect her until a little later.”

“I see,” he said. “So, Annie tells me you will be driving soon.”

“Yessir.”

“She mentioned that you offered to give her a ride to school in the mornings.”

“Yessir, I did.”

“Well, I am a little skeptical. No offense, but you don’t have much driving experience.”

“I have been driving for a very long time. I operated the machinery on my dad’s farm. I drive his trucks around the farm.”

“That is not experience driving on the roads.”

“I have been driving on the roads ever since I got my permit. I am very careful. You can ride with me sometime if you want. I know you want to protect Annie. I respect that. I would never do anything that would put her at risk.”

“That is what I wanted to hear,” he said. “Maybe we can get together sometime before school starts in the fall and go for a drive, after you have your license.”

There was a good deal that I had learned just from the line of questioning during that father/suitor interrogation. Annie had been discussing me at home, at least a little bit. Maybe she really was attracted to me after all. It didn't know how much of the attraction the fantasy that I represented was. There was mystery of the unknown, the older man thing - even if I was still mostly a kid and only a couple of years older. I didn't want to think that it was anything that shallow that I was an upper classman and I knew all the secrets of the high school thing. Frankly I knew no secrets and I barely fit in myself.

Still there was a special coolness of possibilities that she sensed, maybe through association she might become popular. I was a junior after all. Just being seen with me would make her immediately cool amongst her peers. The fact that I was also on the football team would only serve to elevate her stock in the pecking order of her class. Having never paid attention to any of that because I was well outside of the fray of popularity, I mostly ignored the potentials that she saw that might benefit her personally if she were even friends with me, let alone maybe dating me even if only for a while just to establish the reality of the relationship, if for no other reason. However even if all that I ever did for her was give her rides regularly to and from school just so she didn’t have to ride the bus to school, then she would be elevated into the status that few freshmen know and few others even bother to pursue as it was a lofty goal to live amongst the elite.

I was always the shy guy. In the course of the summer she had done quite a lot for bringing me out of my shell. Even so I hadn’t done much more than establish a bit of a friendship and it had really taken all summer even to do just that.

After the driver’s education class was over and I had received my license, I would stop by her house in the evening on my way home from football practice. My parents had given me a fairly new car to drive, my mom’s old car which was less than a year old; it was in great condition though, a gold Chevy Camaro with matching gold interior. Annie and I would sit out on her front porch or out on the hood of my car and talk until it was dark. All the time her parents or her siblings were either around us or conspicuously watching us from the front porch or via furtive glances through the curtains, embarrassing her but reinforcing that they loved her and would not idly stand by and permit me to take advantage of her, if that were my intention.

As promised her father went out for a ride with me, at night, driving after dark which was probably the sort of driving with which I had the least experience. We drove and as we drove we talked, a little about me but a lot about Annie. He wanted to make sure that I understood that he loved his daughter more than anything else in the world except for maybe her siblings. She was his first baby, his oldest. “Annie is a lot like her mother. The first time I saw her mother I lost my heart,” he confessed. “Maybe that is how you feel about Annie. I don’t know. It is just that Annie has her whole life ahead of her and she needs to have every opportunity to reach her fullest potential.”

“I understand that,” I said. “I don’t know what may happen. Right now we are friends. I like talking to her and being with her. She has the prettiest eyes, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“They come from her mother. I assure you that I have noticed,” he laughed.

“I want the best for her. I would never want to get in the way of her future. But it is pretty early in a relationship, you know. Maybe I am part of that future. It is still pretty early, too early to tell. She is young. So am I really. I mean I am young but she is even younger. Who knows what will happen? If I can help her I will but I will not stand in the way of what she wants.”

He nodded and was generally satisfied with what I had said and gave his permission for me to pick up his daughter and drive her to school.

I really was always a perfect gentleman with her. I had known her all summer but had not even kissed her, not even on the cheek. It was not that I didn’t want to. Every other second I wanted to. I did not want to violate her personal space. Also I feared the spurn of rejection. I did not want to permit my true feelings for her to be prematurely exposed, even though she probably suspected how I felt. Females seem to instinctively know those things; guys never realize that until they are a lot older.

The end of the summer of 1972 approached; school was about to begin anew. As I had promised, a few minutes before school was to start I picked Annie up at her house. When I arrived, she was actually ready and waiting which impressed me. As we drove she nervously commented on the music that we were listening to on the radio, Bill Wither’s ‘Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone’ - a song that I had not really paid, much attention to but she obviously liked, or at least said that she did.

We drove into the school parking lot. She said something about how cool it was, driving to school and not being driven to school by her parents. Apparently that mattered in the realm of social perception. At that point in my life those sorts of things were largely lost on me. I was a non-conformist. Despite my quiet demeanor I was a very different person whenever I wrote. I was the outspoken editor of the high school newspaper. I wrote editorials with a sometimes very liberal leaning, while at other times I might take what would be considered a very staunch conservative point of view. I wrote about whatever I cared about and defended my point of view even if most students that bought the school newspaper ignored my editorials.

It became clear tome as we parked in the parking lot that Annie had her own agenda that first morning. I was her willing if unwitting ally in establishing her new social image. She confessed some of her perceived protocol to me in her telling me that I needed to walk with her into the lobby. I had no issue with that at all. We both needed to go there. Once inside the lobby she even asked me if I could show her where freshman orientation was, which I suspected was a ploy for me to linger with her until her friends and especially the cool crowd from Possum Woods saw that she was hanging with an upper classman. What was coincidental to me but apparently very cool for her was that Jerry, the junior starting quarterback on the football team came up to us and asked me if I had seen Mark, one of our mutual friends from the team. I took a moment to introduce Annie to Jerry, doing my part to support her effort to fit in with the cool crowd. Jerry, as always a class act smiled at her and even talked to her for a few moments, asking her which middle school she had come from. The mere fact that the starting quarterback of the football team had spoken to her elevated her even further in her self esteem if not the social pecking order of her freshman class. This first day at school had already exceeded her wildest dreams in terms of establishing her case for the level of popularity that she sought but had previously never realized.

I escorted her to the gymnasium where the orientation was always held. It was a very close to the entrance only a few feet across the lobby and took all of ten steps for us to get there. At the door I paused. “I have to get to class,” I said.

“Do you have lunch first or second session?”

“First.”

“Sorry, I have second.”

“I know; upper classmen always have first session. Hey, I’ll see you in passing I’m sure. Meet me here in the lobby after school, “I’ll give you a ride home before practice.”

“Thanks,” she said, “But I am trying out for the freshman class cheerleading squad.”

“Wow, that would be great.”

“Yeah, well I could wait for you after practice.”

“Yeah well that would be pretty late. I never paid any attention to the try outs before but maybe you wouldn’t have to wait long.”

“I can do homework or something while I wait.”

“If that is what you want to do. Make sure it is okay with your mom and dad.”

“Oh, it will be,” she flashed a smile and then surprising me completely she stretched up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek.

“What’s that for?”

“Because,” Annie said. “Just because,” she said punctuated with a wink.

“Be careful. I might start liking that.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing,” Annie looked serious but her eyes belied the amusement that she really felt.

“That wasn’t a complaint,” I said, almost drowned-out by the sounding of the first bell.

“I’d better run,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the field house after practice.”

“You’re that confident they’ll pick you?” I called out after her

“If not I’ll still wait for you,” she said walking backwards until she bumped into Mr. Smith’s back. “I’m sorry,” she said as she turned toward him.

“Hurry along,” Mr. Smith said as he glanced my way and caught me waving to Annie. I was not sure whether he smiled at me. Somehow Mr. Smith’s face didn’t contort all that well to express a smile.

I turned with the intention of heading to my first period class but immediately bumped into Mark, as he was arriving fashionably late. “Hey now!” he said.

“Did you see Jerry?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “He found me in the parking lot. So who is this cute freshman he said he saw you with?”

“Oh, Annie,” I said as I started on toward our homeroom. “She is someone I met this summer.”

“Oh really, is cradle robbing your new hobby?” Mark asked as he followed me to where he had to also go.

“She is only two years younger than me,” I protested. “Besides we are mostly friends.”

“I was just kidding,” Mark chuckled. “And by the way, from my experience there is nothing about being mostly friends with a girl. You either are dating or you are not.”

“Well from my experience you can be friends.”

“Then you lack enough experience.”

“Well, that may be the case but still I am friends with Annie.”

“And if you could…well, don’t tell me that you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, bull…,” then lowering his voice to a whisper, he completed. “Bull shit and fallback in it!”

“The thought has crossed my mind, of course.”

“Yeah, you see. I know. Guys are guys and girls are girls. You cannot deny what you are.”

“Let’s just say that in the interest of…well whatever, I am resisting temptation.”

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t right, not for her anyway; she’s still a kid, mostly.”

“Like you aren’t?’

“I am a little more advanced. That is all.”

“Well, they say that girls mature faster than guys.”

“And you believe that?”

“I don’t know,” Mark admitted. “I mean, I am more mature, I think; at least in some ways.”

“Or you are deluded.”

“Well, that is also possible, I guess,” Mark replied as he flashed a brief smile that seemed about as forced as his condescending to even be present at school at all.

“You have been reading too many forums,” I said.

“Well at least I read the magazine,” Mark paused at the door to the homeroom that we had finally reached.

“That is until the pages stick together,” I responded.

“Hey, there is always next month’s edition,” Mark laughed as he followed behind me into the room.

“You boys are running kind of late,” Coach Rucker said as he saw us enter.

“Sorry, coach,” I said. “It is the first day of school and all that. You have to say hello to fiver hundred people.”

“You really know five hundred people?”

“Yeah maybe I do.” I said, “Sort of anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it; I get it. It isn’t like you haven’t seen each other all summer. Find seats gentlemen and keep the conversation it to a dull roar.”

Mark laughed as he sidestepped down the aisle past Moose and Beefy, “Whatever happened to that rule against you guys sitting next to one another?” He complained. “Wasn’t that some sort of safety hazard?”

“New year; new rules,” Moose responded

“Oh yeah. That’s right,” Coach Rucker said, “You boys are supposed to sit on opposite sides of the room.”

“Ah Coach,” Moose protested.

“Hey it is for the general good,” Mark said. “That much tonnage in one place might collapse the floor!”

“What do you think is so funny?” Beefy asked in response to my laughing.

“Oh nothing, Sir Loin,” I said bowing as if to royalty.

“Sir Loin.! I like that,” Mark chuckled as he ‘gave me five’ in response.

“Hey, hey,” Moose protested. “That’s my friend you’re talking about.”

“Gentlemen,” Coach Rucker shouted over the din. “…and I use that term loosely. Take your seats, and save the taunts and jeers for the playing field.”

“Taunts and jeers?” Mark asked as he looked to me. “Did we do that?”

I responded with a shrug.

“Some people might think that it is strange to hear a coach talk that that, but not me. I know that he didn’t mean it,” Mark said. “I know that he doesn’t even know what it means so how could he mean it?”

“I assure you that I know what it means,” Coach Rucker countered.

“Uh, I think he heard you,” I whispered to Mark.

“Do you think so? I wasn’t sure.”

“I think Coach has been reading again.”

“Naw, say it ain’t so.”

“For that, you two boys have to give me some extra laps tonight,” Coach Rucker said.

“Aw, Coach,” I protested.

Beefy laughed.

“And you boys too,” Coach Rucker directed at Beefy and Moose.

“We’ll give you a head start,” Mark said. “We’ll still lap you 2 for 1.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of the two of them chasing you boys,” Coach Rucker suggested.

“I like that idea,” Moose said.

“You would,” Beefy protested. “Now shut up before you give him any more wild ideas.”

“What do we get if we catch them?” Moose asked.

“What does it matter?” Mark asked. “It ain’t gonna happen anyway.”

“You ain’t all that fast. Otherwise you’d be a starter,” Moose said. “And my grandmother is faster than you, Williams.”

“That’s what I heard,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Moose asked.

“You didn’t bring the diagrams?” Mark asked me. “How many times do I have to tell you to bring the diagrams of Moose chasing his grandmother, otherwise Moose won’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, you boys can just keep going on and on about it until I have you running all night. I don’t care. I have no life,” Coach Rucker said to the general amusement of everyone in the room. “Now everybody sit down and be quiet.”

The intercom interrupted for the daily announcements. The subject of the day was, of course the usual ‘welcome back to school’ sort of thing. There would be open club membership for the next few mornings. Clubs were not all that important perhaps but they were an excuse not to serve time in homeroom, so most people joined clubs.

The purpose of homeroom on the first day was for the assignment of new lockers. The football team, marching band and returning cheerleaders already had lockers assigned to them as they had been used to store their personal belongings during the August practices. Since my homeroom consisted mainly of football players, we had nothing to do in homeroom but sit around and attempt to talk quietly, which is very hard to do when everyone in the room is also doing just that. Eventually everyone tries to talk louder than everyone else and then, chaos reigns until the authority figure, Coach Rucker in this instance, intercedes with threats.

At the conclusion of the morning announcements, everyone was released to their first classes, except for anyone that had physical education, as the gymnasium was being used for freshman orientation. Anyone having physical education had to report to the cafeteria and join those that were already in the over-crowded study hall. It was the same every year, nothing ever changed except as the sizes of the incoming classes were increasing, there was less room each ensuing year.

Like everyone else, I went about the routine of the day: go to this classroom for an abbreviated session, get the seating roster straightened out, the assignment of books and first homework assignment. Invariably the later came just as class was being dismissed. Most of my teachers had the good sense to not even attempt anything remotely resembling teaching. The first day of school in each classroom was a social outing as much as an organizational meeting. The process served as a dry run-through of the class schedule that would prevail throughout the ensuing school year.

By the time that the end of my last class came about, I was eager for the day to be over and done. Even so I had football practice and afterwards while everyone else headed in to the field house for showers, Mark, Moose, Beefy and I had to run the dreaded extra laps, five miles worth. I blamed Mark’s smart mouth for the laps even though I was somewhat guilty as well. Even so, the coach let us run our laps on the track, which had a fringe benefit. The cheerleaders were practicing on a part of the field while the marching band was practicing at the other end.

The faculty supervisors were also holding tryouts for the freshman cheerleading squad. So each lap that I ran I received an encouraging wave and a friendly smile from Annie as she nervously awaited her turn before the senior Varsity cheerleaders that served as judges.

Mark was faster than I was but what I lacked in speed I made up for in stamina. After a while he would slow down and my steady pace would eventually close the distance. Then again, I was running with a bit more resolve. Maybe I was showing-off, just a little bit. I knew Annie was watching. I do better when I have an audience…well except for stumbling when I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing. It was not easy running laps on a cider track in football cleats.

Early on both Mark and I had lapped Moose and Beefy, and as Mark had eventually pulled away from me, he still had not lapped me. As he slowed down I was closing that distance. Still, as Mark and I were on our last few laps, each time we lapped Beefy and Moose, it was as if we were raw meat and they were hungry bulldogs, expending energy to hasten their pace until the futility of the effort was evident. They could not keep up with us.

I pulled out a little ahead of Mark prompting him to pick up his pace and that compelled me to run faster until each of us was running as fast as we could. It turned into a sprint, if anyone can sprint after running 20 laps. As the two of us rounded the last turn and stumbled through the imaginary finish line of the place that we had started, Brice the equipment manager that Coach Rucker had appointed to count our laps certified that we were finished and that Moose and Beefy still have nine more laps.

I beat Mark to the field house door just as Coach Ellison was coming out to yell at us to hurry up. He gave us a bye as he continued on to the edge of the track where he vented on Moose and Beefy for ruining his evening plans.

Even after we had finished showering and dressed, the freshman cheerleading tryouts were still underway. I said goodbye to Mark and headed to the grandstand to take a seat on the bleachers and wait for Annie. She had already taken her turn but had to remain until all the other girls had finished.

I had never paid much attention to the doings of the cheerleaders. I generally felt that selection had as much to do with popularity as talent. At any rate there seemed a good deal of political intrigue about who was and who was not selected. Those that were not selected were usually allowed to sit in the cheering block which served as something of a consolation, perhaps. Even though Annie and I had discussed her desires to be a cheerleader I did not really understand the relative importance to her. She thought it would be fun. She really wanted to make the squad so that she would have a better chance next year when she would try out for the Varsity squad. Even if she was selected for the reserve squad, they performed with the Varsity squad during home games and sometimes traveled with the Varsity squad to the away games at school that were close by.

I really didn’t know what the outcome would be. Of course I hoped that she would be selected but I was mentally preparing to console Annie in the event that she was not. Not everyone could be a cheerleader and there were thirty-five girls trying out for the eight positions on the freshman squad.

The worst part of it was that everyone would go home not knowing who was selected. They would come to school tomorrow fully expecting to be a cheerleader, bringing their shorts and shoes for practice just in case. Then around the end of school the final list would be posted, for all to see. For some it would be cause for celebration while for the majority it would be disappointment.

I was grateful that there had been only a few remaining to try-out. When they were finished, the faculty advisors had a brief meeting with everyone to explain the selection processes and when and where the names would be posted. As I descended from the grandstand, Annie came running across the track toward me, and taking me a little by surprise I staggered backwards a step or two as she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me. “Do you see me?” she asked.

“As much as I could,” I said. “You did well from what I could tell, I said but then I noticed that Mrs. Hines was observing us and even though I waved to her she promptly looked away.

“What’s that about?” Annie asked as she noticed

“Oh, well it’s sort of a long story. She doesn’t seem to like me all that much. She tried to ‘blackball’ me from selection for National Honor Society.”

“Why would she do that?”

“We have never gotten along well,” I admitted as I started walking toward the parking lot, Annie at my side. “I hope she doesn’t hold it against you. You had nothing to do with any of that. It is ancient history, really.”

“Well, I hope not,” Annie said, pursing a smile.

“If you don’t get selected, then it might be my fault.”

“We’ll never know,” Annie said. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ll be in the cheering block. I’ll practice and try out again next year.”

“That sounds like a good plan. I think you should be selected. You are just as good as any of the others and better than most,” I said and as a result she rose up on her toes and kissed me on the cheek.

There was an uneasy silence between the two of us as I gave her a ride home. We usually talked, at least a little bit and usually about nothing important. But she did not seem to be in the mood. I walked her to her front door and said good night to her. Even then she only said good night. But as I turned to step down from the front porch, she opened the door and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Of course I replied.”

I was really tried and just hadn’t realized it until I was on my way back to the apartment. For all the conditioning of the past few weeks, running an extra five miles had worn me out. When I got there, I turned on the TV and watched the tail-end of the evening news while I called my mother to check in with her that I was in for the evening. I hung up the phone an listened to the a news story regarding the stress that the ‘Baby Boomers’ were putting on institutions, something that would continue even until ‘Baby Boomers’ retired. I was only sixteen, yet they were talking about how bleak the future might be for me in another forty nine years?

I had already grown well past weariness of the implicit blame put upon me and my generation for how crowded the world had become. Yes, I was a member of the ‘Baby Boomers’ and was sick and tired of hearing about it. It was through no fault of my own that I was part of the stresses on public institutions, the population explosion and the crisis of overcrowding everywhere. I understood what had happened after the Second World War and then again after The Korean War. It was natural and a very human reaction for a couple after having been separated for many months and sometimes years. For a few years, people had been all about making babies. It was what people did a lot of before the masses owned televisions.

I considered that after The Vietnam War finally came to an end there might be another period of increased birthrate producing another baby boom. Still, it seemed to me like times had changed. The war was unpopular and it had polarized the country to a very large degree. When soldiers returned home they just weren’t appreciated in the same way as those who had fought in the previous wars. It was as if the soldiers were blamed for the war. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Rarely ever does a soldier start a war.

As silly as it might seem I decided that the television factor might weigh into that equation as well. There were other things for people to do at night than just snuggle and arouse one another to the point that they started making babies. There was effective birth control and a general awareness of the population explosion. It just seemed unlikely that there would be a post war baby boom in the 1970’s

I considered the future; it seemed a little bit scary to me. There would be greater overcrowding of the cities and the raping of the land to build more and more houses, shopping centers and such. As a result there would be less farm land to support the population. There would be a greater use of fertilizer to increase crop yields, and more chemical run-off in the water system that we would need for drinking. It was going to be really bad when the people that were my age got around to having children. At least that was why I was scared of the future.

I remember thinking that sometime in the mid 1980’s we should be sending a manned mission to explore Mars. We would probably need to do that because we would need another planet to occupy. I remember wanting to be an astronaut so that I could maybe be the one tapped to be the first to go.

As scary as the future seemed it was still all about limitless potentials. I really could have been anything that I wanted. It was only the fall of 1972 and all that I had before me were choices.

I turned off the TV and went into the other room. I put on some music and stretched out on the couch. I had thoughts of Annie every other second. It had been no different all summer long. But as I closed my eyes, I tried to picture her face in my mind, how her eyes twinkled whenever she laughed at something silly I had said.

I wondered if my father had pictured my mother in his mind when he was my age. His time was at the end of the great depression. He had gone away to work for the for government projects in the mountains. When that was over, he had returned home to marry my mother. A year later they had a baby boy, my brother. They had nothing but one another. They lived in a chicken coop on the farm where my father worked.

In the 1940’s and 1950’s my parents had not been separated by war. My father was a farmer and as the result of having lost an eye in an accident, his impaired vision as much as his line of work had prevented him from being called to serve in time of war. Maybe the reason that I knew my father at all was that he lost his right eye. Had he gone off to war he might never have come back. I might not even be alive. There are no accidents, really. It all happened just as it was supposed to.

I resented being lumped together with the entire group called the ‘Baby Boomers’. It is my generation but the circumstances of my being alive were somewhat different. It really should not have mattered to me but it did.

It was a sobering thought but I knew that I stood a very good chance of being drafted in a couple of years. Every year there was a lottery, the kind that everyone had to play but that no one wanted to win. According to the birthdates that were selected young men were drafted. Because of deferments and rejections, they first hundred or so dates drawn were definitely called, and many of the next hundred as well. I wondered what I would do when my time came. If I enlisted I could choose the branch of service. Maybe that was the best way to do it. It was just that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to serve.

I loved my country. It was just that it didn’t seem like I would be fighting for my country, not really. The threat of world communism seemed far away and a nebulous enough thing that I could never imagine an invader reaching our shores, not with all the military power and sophisticated hardware we had at our disposal. I supposed that it was only fair that I would have to serve, though. It was just that I was afraid of dying.

I tried not to think a lot about that but it was there, always there in the background of my life, like the odor of cooked fish that lingers even after the dishes are washed. It wasn’t as if anyone could escape news about the war. It was a huge issue and the source of animated public debate and protests on college campuses. The Presidential election would likely hinge on the public’s majority perception of the best man to lead us out of war in an honorable way. Even so there was a draft and my only hope of deferment was attending college. In that way I could extend the inevitable out a few years and maybe by then the war would be over.

In the fall of 1972 I really did not want to fight and maybe die in some far away jungle. It was a fear that was reinforced every night with graphic clarity on the evening news broadcast that petrified me. It was a fear that I might die before I even had much of a chance to live.

I had purposely avoided discussing my apprehensions with my father. He had generally supported the aims of the military efforts abroad and felt that it was better to fight the communists in Southeast Asia than to have to fight them here at home. On several occasions I had overheard him stating his point of view to others. I figured that when the time came, he would support my decision to go to college, so that I could become a military officer, perhaps but he would expect me to serve my country when it came time for that. I felt that I knew my dad very well.

Everything that I was doing was directed toward my going to college. I had to go to college. My life might depend on it. My future certainly did. I had selected college prep classes. Even if I really didn’t want to go to college it did not matter. I did not have much of a choice. So it seemed like something I needed to do. It was something that my parents and teachers expected me to do.

The reality of the moment was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life. I was sixteen. I had a girlfriend, sort of. At least I thought of her as a potential girlfriend and our relationship seemed to be heading in that general direction. I spent a lot of time thinking about her whenever I wasn’t with her and she seemed to like me so I guess she was my girlfriend already even if there was nothing official between us. I had not given her my class ring to wear.

It was just funny how everything had fallen into place. I had decided to take driver’s education in summer so that I could get my license as soon as possible. Because I was riding my bicycle to and from school I met Annie. Because I had my license by the end of the summer, I was driving her to school. Everything made a lot of sense when I thought about it. It was all cause and effect.

I had made some sacrifices for the sake of my education as had my parents. My parents lived in a much less populated portion of the county. The high school there was smaller and so the class sizes were also smaller but the revenue base was also less so it was a relatively poor school. I had decided that my education would suffer if I remained in that school system and that had caused me to move into an apartment.

One of my two older sisters had paid tuition to attend the same school that I was now attending but the school board had subsequently banned tuition students. The school was too crowded already. Moving into the district and living in an apartment was the only way that I could hope to get the best education possible.

Annie had not figured into any of the planning. How could I have ever foreseen meeting her or anyone else for that matter? Suddenly she figured into almost everything that I was planning. Maybe that was being a little premature. I had only known her for a few months, after all. What did I know? There had been a few other heart-throbs over the course of my brief lifetime but despite the intensity of feeling at this or that time, it was not even close to the way that I felt about Annie. She really was the very first girl that I had ever thought about having a future with, future as in making my plans around the eventuality of being with her.

I knew that my parents would not approve of such thoughts. To them I was too young. I had my whole life ahead of me and I knew they would tell me that I needed to get my education first, and then worry about settling down. There would always be time after my education was completed. Really the settling down part was not what I was even considering at all. I just wanted to be close to Annie, so that we could talk, go places together, be friends first so that we would at least always have that. I only had two years left, even less really before I had to make some really important decisions that would affect me for the rest of my life.

I was thankful that the first week of school was not even a week at all. It had begun on the Wednesday after Labor Day. Despite the coach’s insistence that we have practice on Saturday morning, I was very happy that it would soon be the weekend. I had thought of revealing a few of my secrets to Annie, maybe even driving her to South Charleston and show her where I had grown up and where my parent’s farm was. Then I thought better of it. It was a little early in the relationship yet. There would be time later on. Besides I wasn’t sure what she would think of my parents or what my parent’s would think of her. I suspected Dad would like her and that mom would think that she was not good enough. At any rate they would both conclude that I was still too young to be dating, of that I was certain.

When I awakened it was light outside. In a panic I realized that what I couldn’t believe, that I had fallen asleep on the couch with all my clothes on. I scrambled to my feet and looked at the alarm clock that I had forgotten to set. A wave of relief rushed over me as I saw that I was not all that late at all. It was really only five minutes past when I would have normally gotten up anyway.
I showered and ran a razor over my face – I called that shaving even though I could have done it without a razor blade for all the good it really did to my sparse blond beard. I put some bread in the toaster to brown while I finished dressing. I turned on the TV as I walked past it and listened to the weather report as I poured out a glass of orange juice and then applied some margarine to my toast. When I had finished, the simple breakfast, I washed the saucer, glass and table knife that I had used and then went back to the bathroom to brush my teeth and drag a comb through my still damp hair. I flicked off the bathroom light and as I passed the TV, I turned it off. I grabbed my car keys from my desk and I flicked off the kitchen light and checked to make sure I had not left anything on before heading out the door.

It was going to be a very long day for Annie, I thought as I drove to her house. When I stopped to pick her up I wondered if she had even been able to sleep what with the anxiety and anticipation of perhaps making the cheerleading squad. I was experiencing some anxiety of my own. I was even considering seeing Mrs. Hines. I had a class third period that was beside her classroom. My next class was across the hall. I could easily stop in there and have some words with her, relegating our differences to the past. It was just that I did not know how Mrs. Hines would perceive that.

The faculty advisors had only veto power over the cheerleader selections as the senior Varsity cheerleaders graded each contestant’s performance. Still they did the counting of the votes. It wasn’t that I suspected Mrs. Hines’ integrity but I had never thought all that highly of her. Judging from her actions back in the spring, that feeling was still mutual.

The problem was a gross lack of mutual respect. She really was the only teacher that I had ever had problems with. All of my other teachers seemed to like me and invited my participation and comments in class. Only Mrs. Hines had an issue with me. Only she had ever told me to shut up, something that I did not allow anyone to do to me. It was disrespectful and unprofessional of her and I knew it. It had been an open invitation for me to counter attack. Everyday of my freshman year we had a mini-war in full public view of the other students in the classroom.

On the drive to school Annie did not say much of anything at all. I even tried to engage her in conversation about a recent Stevie Wonder song that was playing on the radio and how I thought it was an amazing technological achievement in recording. The previous day we had talked about music. I was really into music back then. I dreamed of playing bass guitar for a major rock band; in a few months I would even join a small garage ensemble called Thrush.

When we arrived at school I opened the door on my side of the car but Annie just sat there. “You don’t want to know, do you?” I suggested.

“I keep telling myself it is not important but it is,” she said staring off into space. Then she turned and met my eyes directly in a way that she never had before. “Do you really think I was good enough to make the team?”

“Yes, of course you were.”

“I mean really?”

“Annie, it is a very flawed and highly political process. I don’t know if you will be selected. By all rights you should stand as good a chance as anyone else because you are that good. Sometimes that doesn’t matter as much as whose daughter you are,” I closed my door for fear that someone might overhear what I was saying. “Look, I tried out for baseball when I was freshman. I wanted to be a pitcher. I had a good fastball and I even could throw a curve and a change up. I have been into baseball for all my life. I had studied it as a science. I also studied the mechanics of hitting the ball. I was a good pitcher and a good hitter. There was nothing that I wanted more than to make the team. I was the last one cut from the roster.”

“Why did they cut you?”

“I don’t know. They never tell you. Jerry the quarterback you met yesterday is a pitcher on the baseball team. He has a really mean fastball, but it is only a tad faster than mine. His curve sucks and his changeup is wild at times. But he is a coach’s son. Don’t get me wrong, Jerry is a good athlete. He is also a good friend; but I was a better control pitcher at the time. Even he would admit that. In the past couple of years he had gotten better with his control so he is probably a better pitcher than I am, especially since I have not been practicing.”

“You never tried out again?”

“What was the point? I was a pitcher. I sucked at every other position. I could hit Jerry’s best fastball, though. I jacked it pretty far too. He knows that I hit his best. He respects that.”

“That is all that matters.”

“Yeah, it really is,” I said. “Competition between guys and girls is very different I think. I mean I am okay with Jerry being a better pitcher. I mean his fastball was killer-fast back then and has only gotten faster. That was what the coach wanted. I understood that. But Jerry and the coach both knew that I hit the best fastball. I probably still can.”

“So you should have made the team.”

“You weren’t listening. I was a pitcher. Other than that I have played right field, which is like the place they traditionally put the least important player, because left-handers hit there. Most hitters are right-handers. There was no room for me. There were five pitchers on the team already and all of them were good. My only thing was that I had better control over the off-speed stuff than Jerry. He threw a much faster fast ball. In high school baseball fastballs is what the pitching game is all about.”

Annie shook her head.

“Last spring I tired out for tennis. I made it though two cuts and was cut only at the very end. Coach Peters told me that I was a very good tennis player but he only had so many positions. He had kept me around because despite my unorthodox style of leaping and diving for the ball, I could actually return Randy’s best stuff. Randy was the guy that placed in the State Tournament last year. He is at Princeton now, on a full athletic scholarship.”

“I know there is a point to all this. It is just that somehow I am missing it,” Annie said.

“My point is that even though I wanted very much to be on the baseball team I didn’t make it. There was some politics and such but the guys that they selected were good athletes and competent players. That happens. Tennis, well frankly I am amazed that I even went as far as I did because my sister taught me how to play tennis only a little over a year ago. She took a class at college for her physical education requirement. I was elated that I almost made the team.”

Annie smiled, “You are trying to tell me that if I don’t make the cheerleading squad that it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh I am sure it matters, somehow or you wouldn’t have done it. It doesn’t change who you are or how hard you work at everything that you do. Did you do the best that you could do?”

Annie laughed, “You are incredible. You sound like my dad!”

“It’s a guy thing perhaps. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“I messed up, okay. It was a little thing. I don’t even think they noticed. But who knows? It was something I can do ten times out of ten but that one time because I was nervous or whatever…”

I nodded.

“I didn’t make it, did I?”

“I don’t know and neither do you. They don’t ask for my opinion anyway.”

Annie laughed.

“I’m sure the other girls made mistakes too.”

Annie nodded.

“You only have to beat 27 other girls.”

She laughed. “Yeah, only just that.”

“Were you better than half of the girls?”

“Yes, of course I was.”

“There you are, then. You were up against 13 or 14 girls. The odds just improved.”

Annie smiled. “Okay, okay, I feel better,” she said as she opened the car door. “Thanks,” she added. “However it was intended, that probably helped.”

I exited the car, but she was already heading toward the lobby. I got my things together and took my time. Coach Rucker was really okay with guys showing up for homeroom a couple of minutes late just not strolling in ten or fifteen minutes after the first bell.

I tried not to think about Annie’s situation. But it was always there in the background. Then, all during my third period class I debated the merits of talking to Mrs. Hines. My efforts could help or hinder Annie’s selection, all depending on how it was perceived. Maybe it was already too late. Maybe the choice was carved in stone so anything that I did would be wasted effort. Even so shortly after the period bell rang, I was outside Mrs. Hines’ classroom door knocking.

“Come in.”

As she looked up she seemed a little bit surprised that it was me. “Mrs. Hines,” I began what I had rehearsed several times in my mind.

“Yes,” she interrupted and broke my rhythm as well as the train of my though.

“Uh, well I…I had something rehearsed.” I started to wing it. “Here is the gist of it. I owe you an apology,” I said, and that was a complete deviating from my script. I had never intended to just come out and say that. In truth I did not feel that I owed her much of anything in the way of an apology.

“Really, how is that?”

“There was a time in my freshman year that I was wishing that you would just die,” I admitted. “That was wrong.”

She actually laughed. “Maybe you intend that I would be flattered by that.”

“No, I was wrong. Regardless what went on between the two of us or the enmity that I felt toward you and whatever it was that you felt in response, you were trying to teach me and I was interrupting that process. I didn’t appreciate the method, perhaps. That is why I apologize.”

“So, now you think you understand.”

“I understand it; I still don’t agree with it.”

“I see,” she said as her eyes bore a hole through me.

“Look, I am not going to continue to hold the grudge I have borne for the past couple of years. You are a good teacher and you care about your students. I have friends that think you are a great teacher. I won’t go that far, not yet anyway. It is just that I have never seen it that way. It was my problem, maybe.”

“It got out of control,” Mrs. Hines admitted. “As a teacher I should not have lost control. You pushed me that far. Maybe I resented that. That may be why I would not vote for your candidacy for National Honor Society, but despite the rumors I did not black ball you or even threaten to do that. I know that you are a good student. You are very smart, maybe even too smart for your own good sometimes.”

I lowered my eyes.

“You’d better get to your next class.”

“I know. It is just across the hall.”

“It was convenient for an apology, then.”

“I’ve done a good bit of growing up lately.”

“I noticed. I saw that you have a girlfriend.”

“In that Annie is a friend and she is a girl, yes. I care about what happens to her. There is nothing beyond that. At least not yet.”

“That is as far as some relationships ever evolve,” Mrs. Hines said. “You know, you are an enigma to me. You are not popular or at least you do not hang out with the ‘in’ crowd. You seem to get along with just about everyone but you are not in this group or that. You are a football player but I would never call you a ‘jock’. You do very well in your classes but regardless your self image you are not really a ‘nerd’, either.”

“I am an outsider. That is why I don’t fit in. I fit in where I can fit it.”

“Maybe so,” Mrs. Hines said. “You friend that is a girl is very pretty. That may go a long way toward your overall acceptance; especially if she makes the cheerleading squad. I don’t think it matters to you personally whether she makes the squad but just that it is something that she wants and so you want it for her too. You aren’t her friend because of what it could gain you in popularity. However, she may be using you in order to get what she wants.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care to believe that but even if it is true, I don’t think it matters much to me.”

Mrs. Hines laughed. “That is exactly what I would expect from you.”

“Am I that predictable?”

“Perhaps not,” Mrs. Hines said. “It is just that I have learned to expect the unexpected where you are concerned.”

I laughed. “I am glad we had this talk,” I said.

“Me too,” she said with a broad smile.

I turned toward the door, and then turned back, “You wouldn’t know whether she made the squad.”

“She is that important to you. You come before me baring your soul, apologizing for the past misunderstandings and everything, just because you want to know whether she made the squad.”

“Well I admit that I like her and I wouldn’t mind the relationship evolving further. I t is just that the suspense is killing me and I can’t even imagine what it is doing to her.”

“Even if I knew I couldn’t tell you, yet.”

I nodded and again turned toward the door, just as the warning bell sounded.

Mrs. Hines called out after me. “You were perhaps concerned that what was between us might get in the way;” even as I had already exited the room

I peered around the door frame and back into the room. “I do not want to impugn your personal integrity. It was more for me than anything else that I came here. It is long past time that we settle things.”

“You realize that I have no power over the selection. I can only veto selection and only for reason, such as grades.”

I nodded.

“I hope you realize that I would never suffer someone else to even the score with you. I am not like that.”

“I hoped that was the case,” I said, then for a third time I tired to leave.

“As a matter of fact, I thought she did very well,” she said.

I turned back, “Thank you.”

“Stating the truth does not require an expression or gratitude in response.”

“You know what I mean.”

Mrs. Hines chuckled. “You are unique. I’ll never meet another one like you.”

My last class was closer than Annie’s to the bulletin board where the names of the selected freshman cheerleaders were to be posted. I tried to arrive at the bulletin board before she could. But she had received a hall pass to go to the restroom and by the time that I got to the bulletin board those that had been selected was already old news.

I waded through the crowd that formed before me and mostly under me, as I was much taller than the thirty-odd freshman girls that had an interest in the names posted on the board. I thought that I would see Annie struggling toward the front, and perhaps I could have wedged through to get her closer just to see. But she was not even there.

I finally reached the list and confirmed what I had expected. I went outside and drew a deep breath of fresh air. It was really still late summer but for some reason I could taste the impending fall in the slight breeze. I had to get to practice. I had hoped to see Annie, somewhere before hand.

I walked out to the field house and there she was, leaning against the wall. “You saw?”

“Yeah, I saw. Congratulations are in order.”

“I’m shocked. I schmoozed a hall pass out of Mr. Stevens to go to the restroom and I sneaked a peek. I had to look at the names like five times before it registered.”

“You were the first one on the list, the highest score!”

Annie smiled. “I’m scared, a little bit, anyway. I mean I thought about all this and how great it would be to be chosen and, well the reality of it is that it is a lot of hard work being a cheerleader.”

“Yes, it is. Anything that is worth doing entails from work.”

“I mean I sort of knew all that but maybe I always expected to get close but never succeed.”

“Then you are better than you think you are.”

“Maybe so,” Annie looked directly in my eyes. “You thought I’d fail.”

“The odds seemed tended toward that conclusion. Sometimes the world is not fair, regardless how good you were. I am relieved that you were better than the world and the odds. You could not fail.”

“We will spend a whole lot less time together now.”

“It makes the time we can spend together all the more valuable.”

“I mean I was thinking about being a cheerleader for the wrestling team, too. I mean, that way I will already be a Varsity cheerleader in one sport even before tryouts next year.”

“That sounds like a wonderful plan.”

“Except that I know nothing about wrestling,” she admitted.

“I know a little. Besides Mark and I were thinking about joining the team. Coach Ellison has been after us for two years now.”

“That would be very cool,” Annie said. “I mean we could go together to meets and tournaments.”

“First things first; you have to be the best freshman football cheerleader ever.”

She laughed, and then said, “Okay.”

“I have to get suited up for practice. I’ll see you afterwards. Whoever finishes their practice first waits in the stands.”

“Of course,” she said, and then blinked her enchanting eyes as she presented me with her best and most memorable smile.

Friday was a typical Friday both in school and on the practice field. In a couple of weeks Friday would be game day. Only the reserves would be practicing and it would be a light practice at that. They had Saturday morning games for the most part.

I went through the routine of the day just as the previous two days, stopping at Annie’s house to give her a ride to school, and then going through this class and then that class until the day ended and I saw Annie for a few moments between school and each of our practices.

It was after practice that there was deviation from the norm. I asked Annie if she wanted to go for a pizza. Of course she needed to ask her mother’s permission and so she called from the pay phone at the field house. Having received her mother’s blessing, we drove to a place that I knew on the north side of Wittenberg University’s campus. I knew the place because the day I had received my license, I had driven up to campus and my sister and a couple of girls from her sorority accompanied me there to share a pizza in celebration of my accomplishment.

As we arrived we could see that the place was busy. It was Friday night, after all. I hadn’t even thought that there might even be an issue with my being there and wearing my school’s letter jacket. The place was apparently a hangout for Springfield North. As we walked it I could feel the room silence. Even so I was not going to leave. It was a public restaurant. Even so, after we had placed out order there appeared to be nowhere to sit, it was as if everyone had spread out so as to fill the three or four empty booths that we had noticed when we had arrived.

I could tell that Annie was uncomfortable. I really didn’t need to put her through any of this. So I returned to the counter and changed the order to go.

“We’re taking it home?”

“No,” I said. “Hey, you want to meet one of my sisters?”

“Your sister?”

“Actually both of them are within three miles of this place,” I laughed. “Okay you have a choice. You have Joy who have a house a few minutes north of here. Then there is Jean who is a member of a sorority on campus, and she is a bit closer.”

“You have a sister who goes to Wittenberg?” Annie asked with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“I have never been to a sorority.”

“Jean it is then,” I said. I went back to the counter and ordered two more large pizzas. Then in response to Annie’s inquisitive stare, “You can’t go into that sorority with only one pizza.”

When the pizzas were done we picked them up and left, apparently to the satisfaction of the patrons. Once we were in the car again, I continued, “I am sorry about all that. I had no idea that North hangs out there. They have very good pizza though.”

“It smells great,” Annie confirmed.

“Ah, you are hungry. Go ahead and sneak a slice.”

“I can wait.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well,” she laughed. Then she shook her head, “I will wait.”

“It is fairly close,” I promised. And with a right turn and a few moments later a left, we had arrived in the sorority parking lot.

I hurried around the car to Annie’s side and took the pizzas from her lap so that she could get out of the car. We walked together to the front door.

“Open it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure. They all know me,” I promised.

Annie pushed the door open and I stepped inside the foyer. One of my sister’s sorority sisters that had been sitting in the living room reading a book called upstair, “You’re your brother is here!”

She came out of the room and smiled first at Annie and then me.

“It is Grace, isn’t it?”

“You remembered.”

“Grace, this is Annie.”

“It is a pleasure, Annie,” Grace shook her hand. “Put the pizzas here,” she indicated a small table beside the stairs.

In moment my sister and her roommate Frannie came bounding down the stairs. Upon seeing Annie standing next to me, Jean pulled up short. “Oops,” she said.

“Jean, this is Annie, Annie this is my sister, Jean.”

Jean extended her hand as she approached and Annie shook it.

“Wow,” Jean said, “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

“Well, I met Annie over the course of the summer. Yesterday she made the freshman cheerleading squad! So we were going out to celebrate. But the pizza place up the street…”

“Oh I should have warned you,” Jean said. “That is like a big hang out for North when school is in session.”

“We found out,” I said. “Anyway I brought some pies.”

“And you always tell me he is heartless,” Frannie complained to Jean, and then winked at me.

“I don’t even know who’s in the house right now,” Jean complained.

“I figured some of the girls were out at parties or on dates.”

Jean laughed, “Yeah just all us wallflowers still lingering.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“So Annie,” Jean looked at her, “What in the world do you see in my little brother?”

“I don’t know. He is funny sometimes and he is nice to me,” Annie said.

“He has you fooled then,” Jean said with a laugh. “No, I am just kidding. He is a good guy.” Then she turned her attentions to me, “I never figured you had it in you,” she said. “You have a girlfriend that is a cheerleader?”

“Hey,” I protested. “Can we keep the crap to a minimum? Annie doesn’t know you well enough to know the way the two of us are or how we joke around.”

“We have a strange and somewhat dysfunctional family,” Jean explained.

“You should see these two when they get going. It is hysterically funny,” Frannie said as an aside to Annie.

Annie nodded indicating that she understood what was going on.

“Take the pizzas downstairs to the kitchen and I’ll roust everyone that is in the house,” Jean told me.

There were a grand total of seven people in the house, including Annie and I, so there was more than enough pizza to satisfy everyone. As we sat there enjoying the pies, Jean took the liberty of making me seem more like a real person than anything I could have ever done. She told a couple of stories from my childhood, one concerning my summer of being ‘Catman’, wearing blue knit pajamas, a red cape and a black cat mask. The other concerned my trying to play basketball when I was in junior high school, and how funny I was. According to her I was so uncoordinated that I usually sat on the bench. But then a game was so out of hand that the coach put me into the game regardless because the outcome was already a certainty.

It seemed as if I was obvious to the score. I tried to take the ball away; I tried to pass the ball off to the best shooter. I racked up three fouls within a minute. Then after one of my team had shot the ball, it bounced off the back iron and down toward where I was, just as I was falling back from the contact of having tried to jockey for position under the basket.

“There he was,” Jean described. “He was lying flat on his back as the ball landed on his chest. All he could do was throw the ball at the basket. Anything else would have been traveling. He tossed the ball toward the basket and it went through, nothing but net. It was the only points he scored that whole season.”

Annie laughed.

I lowered my head, shamed by my own flesh and blood. “So this coming here was not a good idea after all.”

Again Annie laughed. “You too are so funny.”

“Okay okay” I countered. “Lest everyone here think that I am the only weirdo in my family, let me tell you a story about Jean.”

“Oh, I know what is coming,” Jean protested.

“Yeah but no one else does.”

She bowed, “Okay, whatever.”

“Jean had to memorize a poem for school and she just could not seem to do it. There she was trying to remember it, crying her eyes out because she kept making mistakes. She has trouble memorizing things,” I said.

“She still does,” Frannie revealed.

“Anyway there she was reciting that verse about ‘what would it be like to go up in a swing, up in the sky so blue…, and every word she missed she would scream - ‘I will never learn this.’ And all the time there I was walking around reciting the whole thing. I was four years younger but I could do it without error.”

“Which only made me even crazier,” Jean added.

Annie laughed, “I’m sorry that is pretty funny though. My little brother is sort of like that. Everything comes easy for him. Me I am okay as long as I study. He doesn’t have to study.”

“That’s just like him,” Jean said.

“Well,” I said as I stood. “I think that I promised to get you home before ten and it is nine thirty,” I said.

Annie nodded, offering her hand to Jean, “It was good to meet you.”

“Same here,” Jean said, “And God bless you if you can put up with him.”

Annie reached out and squeezed my hand. “Thanks for bringing me here; this has been a lot of fun.”

We migrated back upstairs and out the front door, then around the house to the back parking lot and finally my car. It was dark and even though I was not all that experienced at driving after dark, there would be very little traffic. I felt certain that I could get her home safely within the time limit.

We arrived in her driveway with a minute to spare and I walked her to the front door.

“This was really fun. Thanks,” she said.

“I’m sorry it wasn’t what I had planned but I don’t know it was cool. You met Jean.”

“I like your sister.”

“Yeah well that was not required but I guess I like her too.”

“Of course you do,” Annie said.

“Well, I have practice in the morning,” I used that as an excuse from any further discussion regarding my sister, even though I was not really all that tired.

“Am I going to see you tomorrow?”

“Probably, but it may be later. I had to do a couple of things with my dad.”

She nodded, and then turned to go into her house. At he door she paused, “Call me in the morning, after practice.”

I shrugged, “Okay, if you want me to.”

Even though school had been a mild nuisance to me since it had begun on Wednesday, I had some homework. It was nothing major and it was mostly review from material I had learned in the spring of the previous school year. Football practice first thing Saturday morning was an issue for me especially since despite the general tardiness of the starters, Coach Rucker said absolutely nothing to them which upset not only me but the other seventeen members of the team that had made to practice on schedule.

Of the starters only Jerry was there on time. To his credit and as evidence of his leadership abilities when the other starters showed up he did what Coach Rucker did not do. Maybe the coach expected that out of Jerry. I never pursued that question. It was just that Jerry chastised all of the other starters the same way. He also said that he would personally see to it that the team members that came to practice on time played in the opening game as starters.

"You mean you aren't going to let any of us start?" Beefy asked.

Jerry looked him squarely in the eye. "As far as I am concerned no one on this team is any better than anyone else. But some showed a good deal more desire today and those players deserve to start."

"Okay," Beefy said. "I gotcha. So, I sit out the first play and then I come in."

"You stand the risk of losing your position,” Jerry said. “All of you do. YOU ARE NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK YOU ARE. None one on this team is indispensable, not even me. I was here and time and you all were not. All of you have let me down. You have to earn your way back to starting. As far as the game goes, you will not play in the first quarter, none of you will. After that it is up to the Coach to make the calls. Everyone that showed up on time today is elevated to fill the opening left by each of you.”

"The coach will never go for that."

"He will or else I will not start."

There was silence as a response.

"I don't know, maybe you guys think it is going to be easy for the first game. I can tell you this. We have teams gunning for us this year. We have a chance at getting ranked in the state."

"We won't be ranked if we start the second string," Moose chimed in.

"We can't win if we don't have the discipline to perform as a team," Jerry responded. "If we lose the first game, then so be it. That is the choice you made, not me."

"How is it my choice?" Beefy asked.

"You couldn't make it to a mandatory practice on Saturday morning. You chose to sleep in. None of the rest of us that made it here on time felt any better about waking up early to get here on what would normally be a day off, a day that some of us could sleep in."

Again there was silence.

Jerry drew a deep breath then spoke. "As far as I am concerned it is all wide open. No positions are locked. There are no starters. You got that?"

"But the coach..." Moose began.

"This is our team, all of us, even the people that you think you are better than. At least they have the desire. I will take someone with the desire over someone that is over confident any day. The coach is here to teach us and train us. He even told us that we are a team and we run our own affairs. Well this is the discipline aspect of running our affairs. It is not fair to everyone else on the team that you guys show up late and expect to still have your status. It would undermine authority."

"Your authority," Moose countered.

"Yeah and you all elected me to be your team captain, so it is a conferred authority. And with that authority the weight of what I say carries the coaching staff's support. If you want me to get Coach Rucker out here to enforce that I will but I am telling you we have to police ourselves and be a cohesive team if we are ever going to have a great season. There are five teams on the schedule that could knock us off if we are not on our game. There are three others that we don’t know very well. We could lose eight games. We have to depend on one another. The second and third strings have to perform when called upon. Right now, from what I am seeing, the first string is the weakest link. Your minds are not right."

"Well, I for one am sorry I voted for you," Moose said. "I thought we were friends."

"Moose, if you want to base friendship on the basis of my accepting your flagrant disregard of rules, then so be it. You disappointed me. If you cannot live by the rule then quit the team."

"You're serious?"

"Yeah you are going to be a disruption and a problem. You either tow the line or leave."

Moose started to walk off the field but Beefy and a couple of others tugged at him, begging him to listen to what Jerry was saying.

"I'd rather win with you than struggle without you but that is your choice," Jerry said.

"Okay, maybe I was stupid voting for you," Moose said. "But I voted for you. I have to listen, I guess. I don't agree but..."

"You don’t need to agree. You have to be a member of the team to participate that is all I am saying. Today you and the others that thought they were starters have not demonstrated the leadership necessary for that status. You will in the future. I am certain of that; but maybe not all of you. Some of the others are hungry."

Moose nodded and then looked to Beefy before looking at the others that were far too mealy mouthed to even speak up. "Anybody that wants to quit the team do it now," Moose said. "If you stay and complain I will personally kick your ass."

Jerry smiled then shook Moose's hand and they embraced as two warriors resolved to take a common course naturally would.

I left the practice feeling a lot more confident about our ability to function as a team. Even though the Saturday practice had been a nuisance, it had produced certain clarity in the roles of the team leaders and served to bond each of us to the common goal. Maybe that was what Coach Rucker had intended.

After I had showered and dressed, I stopped by Annie's house. It wasn't like we had anything planned but I figured that instead of calling I would stop by. "I'm going to my dad's farm," I said.

"Oh okay."

I handed her a slip of paper, "This is the number there."

She first looked at the slip of paper and then to me. "When are you coming back?"

"I may spend the night there. If so, I'll be back tomorrow sometime. I will call you."

Annie nodded.

"If you want to come with me you can meet my dad. This is as good a time as any."

Annie looked at me with the stark horror of the cold realization of the implied facts that we might even be close to being at the point of meeting my dad. Yes, I had already met her parents but that was largely to get their permission to give her a ride to and from school. For some reason, in her mind her meeting either of my folks was a completely different thing.

As she seemed scared to death of that prospect, I relented on pursuing the matter. I had envisioned a nice afternoon outing, going to meet my dad on the farm and afterward stopping in South Charleston's one and only pizza parlor for some personalized attention to our culinary desires. But Annie, for whatever reason was in great trepidation of the encounter. I figured that given some time she would be ready. Maybe it was still a little too soon for her. I gave her the benefit of doubt and all the time that she would ever need. I knew my dad. I might need to prepare her a bit for my mother but my dad would be just fine.

After I left Annie's house I drove directly to the farm. I unloaded the accumulated laundry that I had not had time to do myself and with it hanging in a bag slung over my shoulder, I walked into the house.

When I entered the house, mom was in the kitchen, where she was most often. Dad was 'watching' an apparently uninteresting college football game that involved Ohio State and one of the 'Little Eight' in the Big Ten. As Woody Hayes had already coached the team to a 35 to 0 lead my dad was fully reclined in his chair and snoring through Curt Gowdy’s play by play.

I passed by my dad as quietly as was possible considering the load of laundry that I wielded. Mom quietly acknowledged me, reiterating that I needed to separate whites from colors, as if I had not already heard that a gazillion times.

Between loads I talked with my mother, about serious things. It was the first time that I had really ever told her about Annie. I had already told her that I liked a girl named Annie. I had liked girls before: Connie, Sharon, Kristy, Cindy, Karie and Deanna were only a few names in the procession that had not amounted to much. So maybe mom though Annie would turn out to be much the same.

Dad awakened shortly after I had finished drying my clothes and I was in the process of folding them. He wanted to know who won the game, of course.

"Who do you think?" I asked.

Dad smiled. "How much?"

"It was 55 to 7 or something like that."

"The second team let the other team score," Dad said with disgust.

"It was Northwestern, dad. Ohio State could have played second team all game long and still won."

My dad chuckled, and then reiterated his case for why he thought I should attend Ohio State for my college. Other than getting passes to home games I did not understand the logic. Maybe he wanted me to be on a team that the legendary Woody Hayes coached. In the fall of 1972, Woody was not the loose cannon that he would later seem to be. He was a winning coach with one of the best win-loss records in history and a well regarded and very well respected Buckeye.

It was nearly evening by that time and my dad was telling me that he had to go to the barns and feed the cattle. It was a task that had been one of my shores back when I had lived at home. Apparently it was something that he now did out of necessity. I felt compelled if not obligated to offer my help. Dad seemed pleased to have the help and so we each donned jackets and set out by truck to hit the various barns to feed his cattle.

We reached the first barn after only a bare minimum of conversation. Dad wanted to know how I thought my classes were going to be, if they were hard or not. I explained to him that it was still too early to tell but that so far they seemed easy enough for me.

"Good," he said. "You need to get the best grades that you can. Always work as hard as you can and the world cannot beat it," he said, in reiteration of something that he had told me time and again. Satisfied he exited the pickup truck and headed toward the barn. I hurried to catch up to him.

He climbed up the ladder into the hay mow first and I followed, each of us sharing the responsibility of breaking bails of clover, alfalfa and timothy hay into the feeder trough below. Dad looked at me and then said something that has hung with me forever afterwards, “Life is the responsibility of what I have to do. Otherwise they would die."

Dad waited for me to descend the ladder from the mow and then he followed. I had dropped a bail of hay to feed Patsy, my horse. She seemed appreciative, even though there had been times in the past when we were not the best of friends at all, like the time she had decided to jump Massey Creek and left me airborne above it, defying gravity but only for an instant.

In the interim, Dad had returned to the pickup and restarted the engine, making sure the cab was warm again, something that I appreciated as it was getting a little chilly. When I had reentered and closed the passenger door behind me, it felt very good to feel the warm air issuing from the vents.

Dad backed up the truck and turned out of the barn lot and onto the lane, the taking another turn he headed toward the road, "Mom tells me you have a girlfriend."

"She is a friend and a girl."

"Good. That was what I was telling your mother. She was worried that you might get all tied down to a relationship and it would ruin your future." Then he paused and I got out opening the gate so that he could drive through.

When I had reentered the relatively comfortable heat of the truck's cab, I intended to reveal the truth. "Dad, in all honesty Annie, the girl that I like is very different for me. Still, I think I am in love with her."

"Oh," Dad said.

"You were supposed to tell me that I am too young."

"You are sixteen. I was sixteen when I met your mother and I fell in love with her."

"I see."

"It can happen, regardless intentions to the contrary. What does she look like?"

"She had dark black hair, shoulder length, and piercing blue eyes. If she is not perfect then she is almost."

Dad smiled. "Your tastes in women are a lot like mine, then."

"I think you'd like her. I mean how could you not? She is pretty and smart. Mom, well she would hate anyone I'd ever bring home."

"How can you say that?"

"Because it is true."

Dad laughed, "Well you never know about mom."

"You know I am right."

Dad shrugged.

There was a long and enduring silence between the two of us until we reached the furthest barn for feeding.

"You know, a funny thing about your mother," dad began. "She always wanted a boy. Your brother probably would have been an only child if he'd lived. Then there were the girls and finally you. She doesn't want anything bad to ever happen to you. No mother would but with her it is even more so."

"I know that dad."

"Well, she wants you to have the best of everything. That's all. So yeah, she might not approve of someone that you like. You have your whole life ahead of you anyway. It is probably still too soon to be getting serious about someone."

"I think about Annie all the time."

"But do you love her."

"I think so."

"When you know so, then it is time to start thinking seriously," dad said. He sighed as he began the climb up the ladder to the hay mow and I followed. When we had finished breaking the bails and filling the trough, he turned to me and asked, "You haven't messed around with her?"

"No dad," I said, understanding what he meant.

"Well good. You have known her all summer and you have never, well…she is a good girl then. You know we never really had a talk about any of this. I figured you knew a lot already but maybe you need to hear what I have to say on the subject. I think it is better if you can to save yourself for your wife."

The subject was at least as uncomfortable for dad as it was for me but he was talking and I was not.

"I know the times have changed," dad continued. "Attitudes change but people don't. And what is right is still always right. There is a lot of trust that has to exist between a man and a woman before they share themselves with one another. Without that trust there is only a shaky foundation for a relationship. That's why there is marriage. It is a man and a woman pledging trust in one another before God, family, and friends. It is hard to break promises made in front of everyone you know and before God as well."

I nodded my understanding.

"It is hard. You are tempted all the time to satisfy your immediate desires. It is very bad when you are as young as you are and not experienced in controlling your urges. Your body fights against you," he said. "If you give into it once it is harder to resist it the next time. It is always easier just to give in to the temptation. It doesn't make you a bad person it just means that in a moment of weakness you gave in to your desires. But whatever you do affects both you and the girl. Maybe you think you love her but really it is just the desires that you feel and then afterwards when the urge is appeased you feel different about her. Afterwards maybe she feels more strongly about you than you do about her. That is why it is so important that you know one another and trust one another."

I knew my dad was wise and I had always respected him for telling me what he believed to be the truth. Until then I had thought that marriage was unnecessary. I thought that what went on between a man and a woman was a private matter and it did not require any public pledges. But suddenly I saw that dad had thought a lot on the subject and maybe he had something in evidence that I had not considered before.

"There will be girls that tempt you a lot,” he continued. “…and some of them just want to go from man to man. It is hard to ignore a woman if she is putting it right in your face. If you can't keep yourself, then at least protect yourself," dad finally added. "You wouldn't wade through a swamp without you boots on, if you know what I mean."

"Dad!"

I'm serious."

"I know; I know."

As we walked back to the pickup, I felt like I had left the truck a boy but now was returning as a man. Somehow dad had given me the gift of wisdom, a way of understanding what was right and what was wrong. Still it didn't settle the urgency that I was feeling toward Annie. I felt that if I did not cultivate a relationship with her that I might miss out on knowing the only woman that was right for me. Still, how did I know she was right for me? I was attracted to her. But dad was right. I did not know whether it was love, not yet anyway.

Maybe it was more so the pressure that I was feeling, that I would be grown-up soon and either going off to college but eventually entering the military and going far away to fight in a war that made no real sense to me. The prospect of those heavy decisions smothered me in the quiet times at night.

I took a deep breath, and thought about broaching the subject but could not.

"I have given you a lot to think about," dad said.

"Yeah, but not the answers to everything," I responded.

"What is on your mind?"

"I am afraid of growing up."

Dad laughed at first but then thinking better of it he added, "You'd not be human if it didn't scare you."

"I'm afraid of going away to war."

The smile disappeared from his face, replaced by the emotional effects of his own concerns regarding the matter. Finally after a fairly long silence he began, "You know I love this country. I think this is the greatest country on Earth," Dad said. "I would have given my life defending her if it had been offered to me. But that was a different time and the cause was a lot clearer. I'm not sure I would fight in Vietnam and I'm glad I don't have to make that choice. I think what we set out to do was right but somewhere along the way all that got sidetracked and the politicians took over and muddied the issue to the point that no one knows what is right anymore. What I do know is that a lot of very brave men are dying over there everyday. Maybe they are doing whatever they had to do or maybe they are being patriotic. I am not sure and maybe neither are they. They come home and people are spitting on them and burning the flag in front of them, a flag that they and their friends fought to defend. That is just not right. People hardly ever agree on everything but disagree with the policies not the people that were doing what they thought they had to do. Soldiers do not make foreign policy decisions."

I was quietly considering what dad was telling me but maybe in my silence he sensed more of what I was feeling inside that I realized.

"Whatever you decide," Dad continued, "I will support you. If you want to go away to Canada even, I will respect your decision because I know you and you do what you think is right."

I don't know whether it was his words that shocked me or that he came out and said it so bluntly. He had obviously been wrestling with the issue and even though it did not do much to determine the course of action that I would take in the future, he had left the decision to me. Somehow that removed a lot of the burden.

As I drove back to the apartment, I decided that I needed to talk to Annie. Maybe I was forcing things and we were getting too serious too fast. Maybe I was afraid of hurting her, something that I would never want to do.

When she came out to sit with me on the edge of her front porch, she seemed pensive or even moody. It was a side of her that in all the few months that I had known her I had not yet seen.

"How was your dad doing?" she asked.

"He is fine."

"Good."

"I told him about you."

"And..."

"He gave me a lot to think about."

She sighed.

"I know I care a lot about you. I think about you all the time. It is just that I don't want to ever hurt you and I want to make sure...well, I'm not sure right now."

"Is that why you don't tell me the truth?"

"I always tell you the truth."

"Do you live with your mother?"

I paused. "Uh," then paused again. "I can't, uh..."

"There is a rumor around school that you live by yourself," she said. "You parents aren't separated or anything like that..."

"They aren't separated or divorced.”

"Oh, well you told me that they were."

"I didn't tell you that."

"Yes, you did."

"Annie, I didn't. Maybe you assumed that but I am certain that I never told you that."

She leaned back on her hand. "So they are still together."

"Yes," I said.

"And you live alone."

"It is not really like that but yes, I am alone most of the time."

"What is it like then?" Annie asked.

"I wanted to come to this high school. My sister graduated from this school. She paid tuition. I did not have that option. I moved into the district. I didn't want to keep mom away from dad so I live alone, mostly. Mom comes to check on me every now and again and she makes sure I am okay. She calls me every night if I don't call her."

"She checks up on you."

"Yeah, she does. It isn't like I have any opportunity to have wild parties or things like that...not that I would anyway."

Annie laughed.

"It wasn't like I was lying to you. It is just I can't really talk about things like that, not to other people anyway. It is probably illegal or something."

"You told me."

"Yeah, I did but that is different."

"How is that different?"

"Because I know you won't tell anyone else."

"You do?" she smiled and her eyes brightened as she asked.

I nodded. It was odd. I did trust her. It wasn't even something that I had to think about. I just knew it would be okay. She was that sort of friend to me.

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Thanks," she said as she stood up. "It's getting late."

"Yeah, it is."

"Do you want to get up early tomorrow and take me to church?'

"Church?" It wasn't the concept was strange but that it was unexpected. In all the time that I had known her, she had never mentioned that she went to church. In retrospect it made a lot of sense.

"Yeah, church. You know, steeples, crosses," she laughed.

"I know churches,” I smiled, "Yeah sure. That would be different."

"Pick me up around eight, okay?"

"Sure," I said and I turned toward my car. It was funny how much different the world looks at night but the thought struck me especially so at that moment. It had been quite a day, really. It had also been quite a summer and the fall was already promising to be at least the most interesting of my life. I turned back just in time to see Annie close the door behind her. Her siblings were peering around the edge of the curtains. I smiled as I realized that they love her that much. I wondered if I would feel that intensely toward her.

E

posted by Unknown @ 3:44 PM