High School 1971

HIGH SCHOOL
1971

There was a small group of potheads in my high school during those
days when everybody wore puka-shells and trodded softly in their hush
puppies. It was the early seventies when Led Zeppelin broke the rock
and roll sound barrier, and Credence Clearwater Revival was descending
from grace, according to a decree from incipient metal-heads that
congregated below the football bleachers during gym class.
This eclectic bunch would brazenly pass around their grass packed bowl
like Sioux Indians at a Pow-Wow, until the buzzed-topped Coach
Scrotimeyer, affectionately known as Coach Scrotum came into view. He
hated potheads. He hated them because they were non-conformist,
non-athletic types who viewed all types of authority with utter mockery
and contempt. And they doubly hated the Coach because he was always
trying to blow their high.
The coach lived for football and if you could roll up pigskin and
stuff it into a pipe, he would smoke it till it burned a hole through
his lung. There was a constant cat-and-mouse game between the doper's
and Coach Scrotum. The doper's objective was to smoke a lot of weed
during gym class without getting caught. Scrotimeyer's goal was to make
sure they got caught.
But getting caught red-handed was difficult if you put enough distance
between you and the Coach. So the doper's would opt for softball, which
would put them at the grass-starved diamond a couple hundred yards from
Scrotimeyer's office.
The doper's could see Scrotimeyer coming a mile away. When
Scrotimeyer's massive, over-the-hill lard-body weaved his way through
the teeming commotion of kids playing on the blacktop, a red-eyed doper
would hazily sound the alarm, "Dude's, here comes Scrotum!" After the
stuff was stashed behind one of the bleacher's angle irons, they joked
about the predictable scenario-no dope-no bust. But this time, Coach
brought out the big guns.
Scrotimeyer arrived on the field clutching huge 10 x 50 binoculars, the
kind used for tracking galaxies zillions of light years away, and he
was gloating. "You-you-you-and you!" he said, pointing his binocular
hand at each one. "Come with me."
The doper's knew they were busted for real, and would be summarily
spanked by Scrotimeyer's "Board of Education." He had it custom made by
Mr. Meeks, the wood shop teacher. With holes drilled in strategic
places, the paddle defied the laws of resistance, engraving your
enflamed backside with a waffle-like mosaic of circles and
ridges.
It was a victorious moment for Coach Scrotimeyer as he led his motley
prisoners in single file through the field, and toward the chthonic
kingdom of letter-jacketed, jock-strapping, has-been football hero's of
yesteryear, to await their fate. Bummer.

I was on the field that day the doper's were busted. I stood next to
second base trying to field some nasty bad-hoppers as they careened of
my shinbones and ended up in the outfield. The blazing grounders took
vindictive whacks at my body, mercifully foregoing the vulnerable and
stripling-family jewels.
Not that it really mattered much to me. I was just a gangly,
underdeveloped kid just trying to avoid the social haphazards of high
school culture. Who cares what can happen to you physically? Sure, you
might break some bones and need some stitching, but who dies at
sixteen?
A one-hopper in the family jewels might have me begging for a coup de
grace from one of my teammates, but I would never let them see me cry.
That would be worse than physical death. And if a pretty girl should
see you get whacked, well then you'd better die while on your feet and
acting cool. Like your teammates would say when you struck out or made
an error, "Shake it off, dude-shake it off."
In high school, you lived or died by where you placed on the "cool"
scale. If you blew it in front of the girls, you were finished-food in
your teeth, a pimple on your nose, bad haircut, Wrangler jeans, fart in
class, trip over your own shoes, pants to high, socks to low, to smart,
to dumb, to fat, no car; those were just some of the major social
infractions that had to be avoided at all cost.
Instead of "shaking it off," you could end up getting the-"shake off."
There were no "Grief Counselors" swarming all over campus speaking
soothing words of sympathy when some poor fool was caught picking his
nose in front of a group of chicks. All you could do is hope to God
your reputation doesn't go up in flames like a Malibu Hills forest
fire.
In those days, while brazen rock stars groped themselves on stage while
tilting a bottle of Jack Daniel's, America's potheads were singing
Fraternity of Man's, "Don't Bogart that Joint" with moral indignation.
Everybody got their fingertips burned, and all were happy as long as
there was a little left for somebody else-except me. I was to busy
nursing my shins and trying to make sense of the whole mess.

I guess you could say that I existed as a centrist, and middle of the
roader type of guy, who just sort blended with the landscape;
inconspicuously camouflaged in Levi's and "Hang Ten" T-shirts. I made
no waves-no fuss-raised no eyebrows. I had my small, socially
challenged buddies who existed perpetually unnoticed except for the
absent-minded gaze of somebody who might fix the same gaze on a crack
in the sidewalk. My friends weren't nearly cool, but I think they
hovered just above dead on the popularity scale. That was okay as far
as I was concerned. I considered myself fortunate to even be in that
range.

Eddie Moore was my friend. At lunchtime we would meet where he sat at
the same concrete bench everyday, a leaky brown bag open between his
knobby knees. His hair was blonde and rudely shorn clean above the
ears. His face was long and tapered like a rat, his teeth leaning
outward like a weathered picket fence. His arms and legs were all bone,
and his long slender fingers gripped his sandwich with all the
possessiveness of a greedy raccoon. Normally, I wouldn't have given him
the time of day, but when he tapped the back of my shoulder the first
day of class and motioned to Lynn Grossman's cleavage, I figured he
wasn't all that bad.
I discovered something odd about Eddie. Physically, most of the
students dismissed him as some incongruous fixture in the midst of
scholastic beauty and brawn, but Eddie possessed a natural coolness
underneath his goofy veneer. He never worked at it, it was innate; it
flowed from him like glibness in a shady used car salesman.
For kicks, Eddie would walk up to a couple of snobby cheerleaders and
carry-on with them like they were old friends. There was never a blush
of red on his face. I've also seen Eddie, with his head set like radar
on his way to the candy machine, purposely brush right by Tanner Blake,
the varsity Linebacker, leaving him scratching his head over the
affront. Tanner, a big lug who could steamroll over a Sherman Tank,
gave him the evil eye, but never said a word. Even though he could have
broken him like a tree twig, Eddie was oblivious to intimidation.
Eddie was also smart. Not the gratuitous, boring, pedantic text book
smart that comes from some pocket-protector wearing, wedgie-bearing,
wipe-his-snot-on-his-sleeve type, but a kind of clever-smart. His
profound answer to most everything worth pondering was, "Possible, but
not probable."
I used to think that phrase was the mother of all answers. By that
phrase, I believed Eddie had some preternatural insight into the laws
of mathematical statistics. Given a breath of a second, he consulted
the constellations, or searched the heavens for a cataclysmic event
that could alter or enhance the course of the human condition. Then,
after the calculations of probability were formulized and solved, Eddie
would utter those four definitive words and the door would be slammed
on any potential refutation, "Possible, but not probable."
After lunch, during a quiet pause, Eddie would go on about the stars
and light speed and the probability of life on other planets. He had a
homemade telescope, and claimed one night to have seen a UFO streaking
through the sky, disappearing in a dive somewhere behind the white
block letters of the HOLLYWOOD sign. We believed him because the
following morning a TV newsman reported that a large patch of charred
grass was found behind the letters L-L. The reporter at the scene said
somebody had tried to set the whole sign on fire but failed, and it was
believed to be the work of a firebug in the area. Because of the
coincidence, it was Eddie's account that would square with us.
Larry Fields was also part of our social group. He was very tall and
thin, his long neck supporting a rebel clump of wiry hair that was
impossible to train. Yet he never gave in to its recalcitrance, wetting
and tugging and patting and combing until he was content and then
repeating the routine a moment later. He'd always saunter over to us
with a dull, absent look on his face, his hands shoved deep in his
pockets and his elbows locked straight, pushing his corduroys below the
belt line. I never saw him eat anything; he just kept a sentinel pose
at our front, a towering monument of vacuity.
Larry was the only guy in school who had a motorcycle chopper with long
forks and an airbrushed gas tank with a picture of palm trees and a
girl in a bikini. You always knew when he was skipping class because
every brick in the building rattled when he fired up his machine,
making everybody's teeth gnash from the assault on our nerves. Nobody
could nod off in class once Larry yanked on the throttle. It was as if
somebody stuck a jackhammer in your ear.
From my seat in class I could feel the floor vibrate under my feet
while his bike thundered through every gear until it became a faint
buzz in the distance. Sometimes I would concentrate so hard I'd swear I
could still hear the distant humming of his motor as the clock spanned
through the long minutes, but it was probably just the humming that
develops in your brain from protracted misery of Mr. Pipkin's lecture
on the cellular cryptogamic plant life of the L.A. river.
Larry never talked much unless it was about motorcycles. Only then did
he become resurrected from dormancy. When he talked, he tended to bob
his head like a pigeon, his words spitting out in inaudible
spasms.
Eddie was the only one who lent Larry a sympathetic ear, while I was
quickly devising a way to change the subject. Motorcycles were okay to
look at, but how much can you say about them? I thought they were noisy
and obnoxious. I liked Larry well enough, but he was about as
interesting as a block of wood.
Matty Batunga was born in Manila but raised in California. He had three
brothers who went to college on football scholarships. Two went on to
play professional football, the other became a bean counter for the
aerospace industry, and Matty fell in love with poetry. His dream was
to write great poetry and be famous like Stevenson or Frost or T.S.
Eliot. I hadn't the faintest clue who those people were.
Matty was Eddie's friend first. Both of them were kicked off the swim
team at the same time when they both showed up at their first meet
wearing swim trunks instead of the mandatory uniform-Speedo's. The swim
coach told them to go and change, but instead left their briefs on a
showerhead and skipped out the side door.
Matty told Eddie that he didn't want to be a swimmer anyway; he was
only trying out because his dad wanted him to go to college on a sports
scholarship. He was a natural born swimmer, lean and strong, but Matty
said he wouldn't be caught dead in those, "little girl panties." But
being caught dead with poetry books didn't seem to bother him.
With dark, recessed eyes, he was cut for the role of the sad and
brooding, misunderstood poet. He was caring and gentle, always
responding to somebody's misfortune with, "Oh that's tragic. I think
I'll write a poem about that." And there, sitting cross-legged on the
grass under Larry's oblivious gaze, Matty would compose a poem.

"Treeless worlds and sandless shores
Empty space through timeless doors
To God we cry for vengeance done
While grief and death, our dirges sung"

"That's pretty good Matty," said Eddie. "You sure have a gift for
poetry."
Matty closed his notebook and his dark eyes widened. "Ya think so
Eddie?" He then looked over at me. "What about you, Jess? You think
it's good?"
"Good enough to be read at the poetry reading tonight," I said,
immediately wishing I hadn't.
"You guys want to come? Dylan Rhodes is gonna be there. He'll be book
signing tonight."
"I'll think about it," I said. Eddie said, maybe. Larry just shrugged.
I never understood poetry, but I never ridiculed Matty for it. I
disliked the weird coffeehouses and the tiny cups the hippy-typed poets
sipped from, and the queer way they grew their mustaches and beards;
and their long hair, and how they cheered and fussed over some phrases
that sounded absolutely meaningless. Some of poems didn't even
rhyme.
The last time I went to "The Greenhouse Cafe" with Matty and Eddie, I
was amazed at how small and confining the room was. It was stuffed with
people who sat at small, round tables with cigarettes dangling from
their mouths and ashtrays, all frozen with spellbound awe as they
mentally wrestled to decipher abstract metaphors from a goatee clad
poet who stood on a footstool against the wall.
When the goatee finished, Matty fixed his sad eyes on me, assuming
that I shared the same heart rending enlightenment, and said, "That's
life man. That's real life. You notice how the pigs with their badges
worn on their ass symbolized their contempt for the revolution? It's as
if the whole establishment has hermetically sealed their ignorance by
refusing to hear the cries of the people. All we want is a voice, man,
and the establishment answers with clubs and guns. Someday things are
gonna blow, man, and it ain't gonna be pretty."
A girl in blue jeans and a halter-top with long, straight, dirty
blonde hair took a place on the footstool. The teeming discussions
about the previous poem abated at once and the hungry poets waited with
voracious appetites to savor every word that poured from her pulsating
breast.

"I hear the tales of angry men
I feel the fires that burn within
Oh, desert sands, where can we flee?
Your sands abound toward the churning sea"

We shout and cry until we bleed
As white corporate flesh, feeds their greed
Oh, mountains, where can we hide?
Within your caverns, where Jesus died?

Everybody applauded her zealously, while some even whooped and
hollered. Matty was one of those who whistled with his thumb and
forefinger pinched against his tongue, pausing only to replenish his
lungs. "Wow! 'Within your caverns, where Jesus died," he repeated,
reverently emphasizing each word. "Man, that's heavy. It's like Jesus
represents all the good in the world and it's buried deep in the
ignorance of an unscrupulous establishment, ruled by white America.
Man, that was heavy."
I was lost on the interpretation and all I could lamely say was "Well,
at least it rhymed."
Matty dismissed my comment with a condescending shake of his head,
took a sip of his lukewarm coffee and grimaced. "I need a re-fill," he
said. "Be right back."
Matty was quickly lost within the throng of poets and I knew he would
inevitably find some disciples to share his enthusiasm with.
It was all a mystery to me-the esoteric words that carried such
weighty expressions of pain and sorrow-love and hate. I couldn't figure
out why poetry had to be so lugubrious and hopeless. In the strange
kinship of poets, I found that their culture was predicated on a
constant foreboding of actions and reactions. Their dark, angry stanzas
were meaningless in my world, but alive with profundity and repletely
coded with stark truisms in theirs. It was a language they understood,
and until you could break through your own conditioned myopia, you were
considered an outsider-a plebeian of limited mind and spirit. The poets
burned for the truth, sought it with dolorous pining, then spoke it
with righteous, sword-bearing denunciations of worldly manifestations
that were beyond their control.
Then, Eddie stood on the footstool, and I was quickly brought back to
reality.
"Four-score and seven years ago," he said. " Wait a minute-that's not
how it goes. 'Twinkle, Twinkle, little star.' Oops, sorry. I'll get it
right. Oh, yeah, now I remember."

"There once was a Mexican from Granada
Who answered everything with, "de nada"
When called a dirty greaser
He said, "Con permiso, Meester,
But your seester swallows the whole enchilada."

Everybody was quiet and I thought Eddie would be thrown out headfirst
for breaching the poet's creed, "Thou Shalt Not Disrupt the Somber
Ambiance of Introspective Thought, Via the Medium Of Poetic Levity,"
when the whole room suddenly erupted in laughter. I laughed with them
and watched as some hippies patted Eddie on his back while others
slapped the palm of his hand and said, "Right on, man." I saw Matty
leaning against the counter, bristling at all the attention Eddie was
getting.
"What's wrong, Matty?" I asked, stifling my laughter.
"It's Eddie," he said, barely audible over the din. "Poetry should be
taken serious and he makes a mockery out of it."
"Come on Matty," I said, "He was just having a little fun. Besides, it
was getting a little too serious in here. Everybody's poems are so
depressing. Can't anybody write about happy things?"
In Matty's mind, a happy poet was not really a poet at all. He held to
his tenant that happy, optimistic verses were superficial and cowardly,
an unforgivable attempt to cast themselves as seers of the inner self.
He condemned them as lazy rhymer's, destitute of the ineffable pathos
that projects experientially through visceral pain and innate passion,
searing the heart with words that form from the bottomless wells of the
soul. A true poet lived and breathed as a walking microcosm of
inequities and pain that flowed through his veins like blood-pulsating
with fury until pen and paper tries to make sense out of the mad,
infinite assaults on his mind, while searching for answers that would
free him.
When Matty was nine years old, his Beagle Jake died, leaving him
broken-hearted and searching for answers concerning life and death. He
sought God with timid reverence, but God had vanished with the clouds
that formed and stretched to nothing before his eyes.
He questioned his father, but his father said, "It was Jake's time to
go, and that's that." He laid on his back and talked to the mighty oaks
that lined his street, as if their strength held some key to the
mystery of life and death, but they were silent and still as the
blanched leaves under the hot August sun.
That was when Matty wrote his first poem with his sister's red crayon
and nailed it to the cross over Jake's grave in his back yard. His
mother found the poem and cried; copied it, and entered it into a
poetry contest. Matty won a subscription to "Boy's Life," and a
genuine, one-man, cardboard submarine.
The poem went like this:

My Dog Jasper
"I laughed when Jasper licked my ear
A puppy-always warm and near
But when Jake grew old and tired, he died
Like a driving winter's shower- such tears I cried"

That was Matty's first introduction to poetry. In a world without
answers, he sought understanding through emotions of suffering and
despair, usually in a self-inflicted, melodramatic display. Those were
the sensations he patronized spiritually, then honed into verses upon a
sheet of paper to be read to others in artistic fellowship; planting
seeds of introspective thought and offering possible answers to life's
enigmas-enigmas that multiplied like cancer cells from one reading to
the next.
"How's anybody going to take me seriously after Eddie's little joke?"
asked Matty, still bristling. "There's nothing funny about it. He
ruined it for me."
"Ah, come on Matty," I said. "That's just Eddie. He's always doing
something crazy. He was just having some fun. Go on, do your poem and
forget about the whole thing."
Matty shrugged and took his place on the footstool. I could see he was
still fuming and everybody was milling around until Eddie noticed him
standing alone and gave a shrill whistle for everybody to quiet
down.
All eyes were on Matty. It was his first reading and the poets waited
with curiosity at this kid who looked more like a football quarterback
than anything resembling a poet.

"My heart is broken as the skies erupt
Latent memories like thunder claps beat upon my breast
Our prayers are forgotten, like wind across the plains
Cries of change sweep loudly but are not heard
For we are destined to wander aimlessly
Like wayward drops of rain finding it's mark
Upon thirsty lips in foreign lands
Hungry for knowledge, but replete with pain
Spinning through space on a leaning axis
So is our course through life
Reaching, grabbing, holding fast with tenacious intensity
Only to find it's your pulse I grasp
The pulses of frustration, despair, and fear"

Eddie was the first to clap and holler, hoping to take the attention
off himself, and direct it towards Matty. Everybody followed with
zealous applause.
Eddie put his arm around Matty. "That was great Matt, but what did it
mean exactly?"
Matty winced and said, "It's about pain Eddie, it's all about
pain."
Eddie was about to press further, when Larry's motorcycle roared
outside, shaking the small cups that sat on the small tables.
Larry walked in, his tall body ducking awkwardly under the doorframe.
"Hey," he said laconically, finding a chair next to me and looking
quizzically at everybody.
He was wearing a grease-dappled, sleeveless Denim jacket that had
"Harley Davidson" embroidered across the back. A pack of Marlboro's
were exposed through the frayed holes in his breast pocket.
"Hey Larry," I said. "Didn't think you'd make it. You just missed
Matty's reading."
"That's too bad," he said. "Had to change my oil."
"Want some coffee?"
"Naw, I hate the stuff," he said, scratching his butt while assessing
the crowd.
Eddie pulled up a chair. "How's it goin' Larry?" he asked.
"Awright. Had to change the oil on my bike. Otherwise, I would have
made it sooner."
"You didn't miss nothin," said Eddie, making sure Matty wasn't within
hearing distance. "I don't know how we always get dragged here
anyway."
"Cause Matty's our friend, that's why." I said. "Besides, the girl
with the halter top is kind of foxy, even if her poems do stink."
"Yeah?" said Eddie. Well I can think of a lot better things to do with
my time than listen to a bunch of weirdo's whine about how bad the
world is and how much the establishment sucks."
Larry saw Matty at the counter talking with a tall college-aged man
wearing a red beret. He was pale and had a little goatee that he
rubbed; giving the impression that he was scrutinizing everything that
Matty was saying to him. "Who's Matty talking to?" Larry asked.
"Oh, that's Dylan Rhodes," I said. "He's that hotshot poet who wrote a
poetry book. Matty's probably trying to get some tips from the great
guru himself."
"Uh, oh," said Eddie. "I think they're coming over this way."
"Hey guys," said Matty, "This is Dylan Rhodes. He's the author of
"America-The Perennial Flushing Bowl."
"Hi," we all said.
"Hi, guys," he said with a sweep of his hand. "Hope you're enjoying
tonight's readings. There sure is a lot of talent in this room. Do any
of you write poetry?"
"No," said Eddie, "We're just here to support Matty." Matty was glad
Eddie didn't repeat the bawdy limerick that almost brought the house
down with laughter.
"Well, we're all poets to some extent you know," said Dylan. "I
started writing some real cool stuff on bathroom walls. It's good
practice and a lot of fun. There's nothing like bathroom humor to past
the time."
Larry was busy shaping his unruly hair into place when he said, "You
ever write a poem about motorcycles?"
"No, I never did," said Dylan, caught a little off guard. "But it
might be an interesting exercise. I suppose I would have to experience
it first. You know, to get the vibes and all. Are you a motorcycle
buff?"
Larry looked at Dylan quizzically and then at Eddie. "He means, do you
like motorcycles?" said Eddie.
"Sure do. I got a Harley parked outside. All I know is bikes. I'm
going to have my own motorcycle shop someday."
"What about you Jess," he asked me. "What is it that you like to
do?"
The question surprised me. I never thought about it really. I just
kinda liked to hang out with my friends. Sports were cool. I dug
movies. But I felt that Dylan was looking for something a little more
on the intellectual side, so I said, "I like to write."
"Oh?" he said. "What kind of writing?"
"Uh, short stories-that kinda thing," I said. I looked over at Eddie
and he had a deadpan look on his face. He knew the closest I ever got
to writing were forged notes excusing me from classes.
"Really?" said Dylan, who seemed to be genuinely interested, "Maybe
someday you'll let me read some. Poets and writers have a lot in common
you know-our writings leave us open and vulnerable. I believe it's a
courageous thing to continue our craft in spite of the evisceration we
receive from critics-and even from our closest friends and relatives.
But the rewards are even greater when you consider the spiritual effect
it has on you. It can be very cleansing for the soul."
"Yeah, I guess so," I said lamely, hoping for some diversion.
"What are you working on now?" he asked.
My mind raced for something and all I could think of was the dopers
who got busted by Coach Scrotimeyer. "I'm working on an idea about a
guy who gets caught smoking pot at school and subsequently becomes a
marijuana activist."
Eddie looked at me curiously. "Were did you get that idea?" he asked,
enjoying my present predicament.
"Got the idea one day while I was playing softball. Coach Scrotimeyer
busted a few dudes by the bleachers. Caught them red-handed passing a
bowl. They stashed their dope somewhere under the bleachers. Looks like
they might get expelled."
"Bummer," said Dylan. "Ya can't even enjoy a little herb without
somebody narcing on you."
Matty agreed with Dylan though he was never one to inhale anything but
the smog laded skies of Los Angeles. "Yeah, bummer," he said.
"Well guys, it was nice meeting all of you," said Dylan. "It's time to
mill around a bit. Maybe even sell a few books and make a little bread.
See ya around."
Dylan left and Matty grabbed a deserted chair and squeezed between us.
"So what do you think?" he asked.
"About what?" Eddie asked.
"Dylan. What do you think of him?"
"He's okay," said Eddie. "He seems like a nice enough guy. Can't say
much for his hat though."
"It's a beret. All great poets wear berets," said Matty.
"Are you going to wear one?" asked Larry.
"No, I wouldn't look good in one. Besides, you'd all make fun of me if
I did."
"I'd think you lost your mind if you started wearing a beret," said
Eddie. "Besides, it would look too small on your head."
"Gee thanks," said Matty.
"Nothing personal," said Eddie, flashing his picket teeth.

Later, Matty caught a ride home on the back of Larry's bike. The roar
was deafening as Larry tore down the street. Eddie leaned over and
shouted in my ear. "Let's get the hell out of here. I'm sick of these
weirdo's."
Outside, Eddie asked if I thought the pot was still in the
bleachers.
"Maybe. Why do you ask?"
"You ever get loaded?"
"No. You?"
"A little," Eddie said with a shrug. "My cousin brought some with him
when he stayed for the summer. It's a blast really."
"Your not thinking of going to the bleachers, are you?" I asked.
"Why not? It's something to do. Besides, who's gonna know?"
"What if we're caught? What if Scrot?"
"Don't sweat it, man. We'll wait till tonight, when he's long gone.
Trust me. It'll be fun."

Eddie and I jumped the chain link fence and dropped to our knees. We
scanned the field and gym building for any evidence of Coach
Scrotimeyer.
"Looks like he's gone," I said. Then I led Eddie to the pot.
We crossed the baseball field and ducked under the steel girders that
crisscrossed the bleachers. In the dark, I miscalculated where pot was
stashed and I started to get nervous. "What if Scrotimeyer already
found it? Or, what if he's setting a trap?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it," said Eddie. "The coach isn't that
brilliant."
"I got it!" I said, excited. I held a baggy, half filled with
weed.
"Great, let's go," said Eddie.
Suddenly 500-watt bulbs illuminated the field around us. We were
bathed in artificial light. We froze like rabbits pinned to the ground
below us. Then a megaphone blared through our shock.
"All right you two, this is Coach Scrotimeyer. Start walking toward
the office. You've got some explaining to do."
Eddie and I broke for the fence. At the same time, on the other side
of the fence, the dopers were coming back to reclaim their stash.
We felt like we were escaping from Alcatraz with all that heat on our
backs. The warden-Coach Scrotimeyer was hard on our heels. He was
covered in a refulgent cloud of dust as he hit the running track and
pounced towards the dead grass with the megaphone still in his hand.
The dopers scattered like roaches caught under a kitchen light, cussing
and hollering as they went.
Coach Scrotimeyer was too old and fat to deftly negotiate the
reticulate infrastructure of iron braces under the bleachers. His
mammoth head collided with a small block of concrete and was pole-axed
to the ground, unconscious; his dented megaphone blaring forth the
collision with a huge thud and clang.
We could hear sirens in the distance and we started to run for it when
Eddie skidded to a stop with an idea.
"Wait here," he said. I watched in amazement as he jumped back over the
fence and bent down over Coach Scrotimeyer. I told him to hurry. The
sirens were getting louder.
Eventually, blue, yellow and red lights flashed against the bleachers,
but we were safely away, meandering through dark alleys and familiar
streets. We met up with Larry and Matty at McArthur Park near the duck
pond. Eddie expertly rolled a joint and laughingly recalled our recent
experience with Coach Scrotum.
"Ol' Coach Scrotum's gonna have some explaining to do when the cops
find him passed out with a stuffed toke-pipe in his shirt
pocket."
Eddie emptied the tobacco from a couple of Larry's cigarettes and used
the paper to roll some joints. We inhaled heartily while our story
evolved into hyperboles, gut-wrenching hysterics.
"Yeah," I added, "Can you imagine tomorrow's headlines-"HIGH SCHOOL
FOOTBALL COACH BUSTED FOR BRANDISHING BUD."
"Or," giggled Eddie, "POLICE CORAL COACH COLD WITH ILLEGAL
CASHE."
Though I felt a twinge of pity for Coach Scrotum, I knew he'd come out
okay and would be back with his bullhorn and binoculars with more
vengeance than a castrated range-bull. But we were having fun and
entertained the possibilities of Coach's ousting till we inhaled the
last vapor deep into our lungs.
I loved my friends that night. I loved them for their genuiness in a
world that spun on an axis of social displacement; I loved their
unattractiveness, for it was their soul of candor and fidelity that
transcended the outward beauty and dishonest character prevalent on
high school campuses. They would never be popular. They would never be
accepted by the hip clique; or those lofty and pompous athletes; or the
gorgeous, but snobbish pom-pom waving blondes who shared the rarified
air of the christened nonpareil.
These were my friends who would forever remain in mind heart and mind.
This was my crowd-my playmates in unpretentious nakedness.
There was Eddie, our iconoclastic leader and motivator in all things
unconventional and anomalous who could make our dull lives fun and
exciting.
Larry was a transparent giant with absolutely no guile or rancor who
would give you the jean-jacket off his back if you asked him for
it.
And Matty, a heavy-hearted lyrist with a perpetual longing to
understand those mysteries that are outside of our finite ability to
grasp. His world is a funereal ritual of last rites and psalm dirges
and mournful liturgies. His searching's are penned in poetic verses,
line-by-line, syntax and rhyme. But Matty had an open soul, and his
feelings were never stifled or caged; they were invisible and sometimes
painfully uncomfortable to see, but always real. Matty was a true
friend.
Twenty-five years later I can still hear the stilled silence of Larry's
motorcycle after an old lady in a Rambler broadsided him, leaving him
quartered in a couple of pieces upon the asphalt. She told the police
that Larry just came out of nowhere.
I remember sitting biology class as the throttling roar of his engine
had suddenly ceased; and sick with prescient awareness, I knew that
Larry would never again grace our small group with his contagious
idiosyncrasies.
After Larry's funeral, the three of us lingered near his grave and
waited for the lowering of his casket. It was long and sleekly silver,
with shiny brass handles. Matty threw a rose into his grave and said
this poem:

"Ocean tides rife with life
Moonlight beams on faces bright
But where my friend lies this cold night
Is in our hearts, where God gives light"

********************************************************

I ran into Eddie years later at a bookseller's convention. Matty
mentioned to him that I'd be there. I gave him a novel I had written
which enjoyed some moderate success. He looked as youthful as he did
during high school, sans the crooked teeth. He had them straightened
years earlier by an orthodontist colleague. We reminisced a while and
he said he'd read my book when he could get away from the dental chair.
He said he's booked up solid wiring kid's teeth. He gave me his
business card but I never called.
I still stay in touch with Matty. We've gone on a few camping trips
together in the high desert just to chill. He gave up the dream of
being a famous poet and now works as a Long Shoreman in Long Beach. He
has six kids and has immersed himself in local politics. He hopes to be
elected to the city council someday. But I know that in his heart, he
still has the heart of a poet.
As for me, well?I spend my waking hours laboring over my
word-processor, pecking away without beginning or end; without plots or
subplots; my mind teetering on madness for lack of originality or
artistry, waiting for a flicker of light to bring life to my stagnant
imagination. When words do not circulate and stories disintegrate into
banality; I think about my high school pals, and my fingers start
talking.

THE END