Chapter Four
Somebody to Love
We met when I knocked her into the next millennium on the gridiron. Say what? Yeah, what indeed. It was the last regular season game in my senior year. We had won State the previous year and the expectations of the student body and hot toddy fueled alumni were running high. The season to date had been up and down. Our starting quarterback had been caught smoking a non-tobacco product with the assistance principal’s sixteen year old daughter at the Homecoming dance. Back then, those types of things were frowned upon. Needless to say, he had been put in an extended timeout. His replacement, Zack Landrum, was high on enthusiasm, energy, Jesus, and academics. Unfortunately, his throwing arm was about as accurate as an Ohio winter weather forecast.
We were down by five with twelve seconds left in the fourth quarter. It was raining cats and icing dogs. The fog was thicker than my Aunt Ethyl’s cataracts. The football felt like a hockey puck. Visibility was down to about a gnat’s eyelash. Any part of my outer or inner wear that wasn’t soaked was frozen. The heat of the locker room and the cheerleaders therein was beckoning like the Sirens of Pereshpone (see, I stayed awake a few times in English class). The only thing driving me and my fellow Fighting Weasel Warriors was our collective abject hatred for the Whitehall sissies across the line of scrimmage. With the exception of football, they beat us year after year like the proverbial red headed step child in every competition from basketball to ping pong to yodeling to the spelling bee. Ok, we didn’t really yodel. But if we had, they would have beaten us by one tenth of a decibel and never let us forget it. Oh, we hated them. Football was the one thing we had over them and we never wanted to let it go.
Our last play had been a thirty yard rumble by Tom Butrall, our two hundred and eighty pound fullback. We, at first, called him Tom Brutal which eventually got shortened to Tank. The name Tank accurately described his running speed and style. I think Tank more passed out than got tackled after about twenty-five yards. The sissies on his back actually held him up for about five more before they all fell into a brown heap of snarls, wheezes and cussing around the Whitehall thirty-five. I grabbed the closest zebra shirt I could find and bellowed, “Time out, dude” into his ear. We quickly huddled up to plot our last attempt at what would result in either the sweetest of victories or total humiliation. No pressure.
“Ok, ok, we got this in the bag. Everyone pumped and ready to bring glory to Fairview and God almighty?”
“C’mon, Zack. I’m frigging freezing here. Just heave the frigging ball somewhere in my frigging direction one frigging time? Don’t throw it to the frigging coach, the frigging water cooler or somewhere into Bum Frigging Egypt. Ok? Just throw it the frick to me. And the rest of you idiots, knock those ugly frigging dudes on their frigging backsides. Let’s win this frigging thing and get the frick out of here.”
Tank looked at me like I was a frigging Martian. “Frigging? Really?”
“Look, I reserve the real “F-word” for real men and the real times that deserve it. The way you girls have played so far, you should be happy you got ‘frig’ instead of ‘fudge.’”
“Dude.”
Without warning, Tank took a mighty swing with one of his outsized ham hocks and slapped Zack right between the weasel’s eyes on the side of his helmet. Ice flew and I could swear I saw the helmet crack. Then the most amazing thing happened. A glassy eyed Zack stood straight up, walked to the line and in the strongest of voices that I still hear crystal clearly in my dreams to this day proclaimed, “On one. Let’s win this frigging thing.”
I managed to find the one yard of good footing left on the field and was off the line like a stuck pig at the snap. I heard, more than saw, the defensive back slip as he tried to back pedal. I suddenly found myself running toward the end zone with no one in sight. Had it been a clear seventy degree fall afternoon, Zack would have missed me by fifteen yards. But the combination of him having his bell rung and not being able to see beyond the icicle at the end of his nose miraculously enabled him to throw the ball on a rope right to me at the five yard line.
In full stride looking over my shoulder through the soupy muck, I spotted what was either a large bird or the football about ten feet away dropping from the heavens right on top of me. I didn’t give a hoot about what it was, I was going to catch it or die trying. That frosty pigskin landed perfectly in my hands. My heart soared as I snapped my head around toward the goal line. My soaring heart and time stopped as I stared into the biggest, bluest, most beautiful pair of fully panicked eyes that I have ever seen. Before my brain could process this new input, I ran full on into some soft creature in a god awful uniform and literally fell head over heels. To avoid killing this delicate being, my cat like reflexes kicked in as we headed toward the turf. As my one hundred eighty-five pounds of pure muscle forcibly melded with her one hundred ten pound soaking wet tight hot frame, I stuck my right arm out in the best Heisman stiff-arm fashion, planted my palm in the muck, and managed to land on top of her without crushing her like a bug. Her Whitehall band hat had flown off. She had half a flute stuck in her hair, her eyes screwed shut and the football clutched in her hands. She moaned, opened her lids, dialed up a million watt smile and, with a killer twinkle in her eye, quickly shoved that Wilson pigskin under my arm. She then whispered in my ear perhaps the sexiest thing I have ever heard, “Touchdown.” Before the hoards descended, I helped her to her feet.
“Are you OK?”
“Never better.”
My teammates were about ten yards away in full gallop. I quickly glanced at the ball in my hands and asked, “Why?”
As we both started to disappear under a mad pile of wild Weasel Warriors and fans, I heard her shout, “Because Whitehall is a bunch of sissies.”
I may have been teetering a second earlier, but now, even buried under a bunch of sweaty hollering crazy maniacs, I fell completely and utterly like a ton of bricks hit by a wrecking ball. For the first time, I was hopelessly, with no hope of redemption, in love.
Juiced by adrenaline and the sting of Cupid’s arrow, I channeled my best Incredible Hulk, threw bodies off of me, jumped up, did my end zone boogie and spiked the ball while bellowing, “Touchdown!” The love of my life joined me in a mud spraying dance of pure joy. It was certainly one of the top ten best moments of my life to-date. My teammates settled from bedlam to rowdy craziness just enough for me to look at them and holler at the top of my lungs, “Whitehall sissies suck!”
After the screams from the crowd, my teammates, the press, my love (more like moans), the Whitehall players (more like crying – those sissies) had long faded away, there were several things I learned:
The Whitehall band had gotten confused in the fog and yuck and had lined up on the goal line a tad bit early for their victory march (such sissie nerds - with one exception, of course).
The name of my princess was Cindy Copeland. She was really a good flute player. More on that later.
Cindy had broken up with the starting Whitehall half-back a week earlier. This was a major contributing factor to her sharing the Whitehall sissieness vision held by one hundred percent of Fairviewians.
Dad’s “golf as life” lessons taught me that honesty is the best policy. But, when God has an angel perform a miracle that totally grinds your most hated opponent into the dust, Dad’s advice takes a very rare day off.
And last, but certainly, not least:
When surrounded by your teammates in the end zone, never shout out what you feel before checking to be sure that no one in the general vicinity is holding open live microphones for both the stadium public address system and WESL – the 10,000 watt AM Squealing Voice of the Fairview Weasel Warriors.
After my six week parent imposed house detention for public potty-mouthedness, Cindy and I began dating hot and heavy. The separation had certainly made our hearts and “horns” grow fonder. As you can easily guess, this was the
start of a beautiful relationship. Of course, she was the beautiful part. She loved playing flute in the band (Fluter? Flutie? Flutiest?). Seeing her blow across it with her steady but soothing warm breath issued from her full pink lips as she crinkled her perfect button of a nose and half closed her big blues in seductive concentration all framed by her honey golden blond locks cascading around her gorgeous face and flowing down around her soft shoulders to gently caress her bursting to be free… Ok, enough of that. You get the idea. If I continue thinking these thoughts in this darn position I’m in, I’ll probably sprain something.
We dated (kids, we called it “going steady” back then) for the rest of my senior year. I’ll spare you the details. If you are truly interested in reading about holding hands during moonlight walks in the park, see the latest in romance trash (I only know that because Cindy had every one ever written). If you want to delve into the intricacies of hormone fueled back seat groping in a Ford Wagon, see the complete works of Hugh Hefner or the advanced version by Larry Flynt. While I don’t believe either are available in a Cliff notes version, you can definitely get them on video or DVD.
By the way, our team lost to the Tallmadge High Blue Devils at Districts. Oh well, at least they weren’t sissies. Anyway, Cindy and I agreed we would attend Ohio State together, get married when we graduated and live happily ever after. That is until she got a scholarship (full ride) to Our Lady of The Lure.
“Our what of the what? Our Lady of Allure? Is that like Prostitute Prep? What happened to the Buckeyes? Why would you even apply there? What about our little Bobby and Sue and our white picket fence. Why?”
Basically, I was a blubbering mess.
“Oh, Mick. You are so funny. It’s Our Lady of The Lure near Lake Lure in North Carolina. If I went to Ohio State, I would be one of many flutes blowing in the breeze. I know I’m good, but I might not get noticed there. Lure has a small well recognized orchestra. I might be first chair. I would get noticed.”
“And, I’m sure, your daddy just happens to be on the board at the college?”
“How many times have I pleaded with you not to hate me just because my daddy is rich?”
I will pause here to say that every time she mentioned that, I did act like it upset me. Hard to do when your inner self is turning cartwheels and belting out verses of We’re in the Money, but I managed somehow. I’m basically a nice guy, but I’m not an idiot.
“I’m following my passion, Mick. You need to find yours and follow it.”
“But…but… I thought I was.”
“C’mon on. I know your passion is not football. You told me it was a stupid game and you were tired of it.
“I said ‘kind of’ tired of it.”
Whatever. I know your passion is not Ohio State. You said you didn’t want to go to a big school if you had a choice. I know it’s not golf, because you suck at that.”
Ouch! Ice pick to the heart.
“So what, Mick? Just what is your passion?”
When it comes to the language of love, I never pretended to be in the class of the greats like Shakespeare or Austin Powers. But on that rare occasion, I do get it right.
“Cindy, I thought you knew. My passion is you.”
He swings. He connects. It’s outta here. Send the roaring crowd home. It’s a walk off round tripper. I think that was probably the sappiest and most romantic thing I had ever said or ever will say. Those big blues welled up with tears. Her smile illuminated the tri-county region. And her next words set the course of my life from that point forward.
“Well then, you have to follow me!”
So I did.