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(an excerpt from my unpublished novel The Lost Child)
Somehow Theo’s old man found it within himself to give the boys his four tickets. Maybe because it was Turkey Day, maybe because it was cold – or maybe because he drank way too much the night before at the bank office party. It would take a couple of hours to drive to Norman for the game and there was no earthly way the man could ply himself out of that bed nearly in time to grab a shower and gobble a bottle of aspirin in hopes of soothing the throbbing ache. With each beat of his heart that was painfully obvious. In fact, it would be all he could manage to somehow rise above his foolish misdeed and find himself positioned honorably at the head of the table come 2 pm, jolly-faced with bow tie in proper place, prepared to heartily disseminate the carved tom. This Theo’s mother had discerned by ten o’clock the eve before, and when the call came late that night the boys were more than ready and willing. Hell yes! This was the Nebraska Cornhuskers versus the Oklahoma Sooners, Number One versus Number Two, the widely-proclaimed Game of the Century – an immovable object was about to meet an irresistible force or so proclaimed the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Something had to give and these boys were ready to go see just what that might be.
Bright and early Theo pulled up in his daddy’s crimson and cream Cadillac and shortly thereafter the party was most definitely rolling on down the road! Leroy up front with Stevie and Bobby in the back and the boys were excited and ready for just about anything.
“So what time did you roll in last night?” Bobby asked Stevie, knowing that he left the bar just after midnight while his friend remained behind swallowing hot wieners and knocking down shots.
Stevie coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Not exactly sure,” he mumbled, “but you know me – all I need is a good shit, a shave and a shower and I’m good to go.” They’d all heard that one before, many times, in fact it might provide a fitting epitaph on the man’s rock some day but with a few minor alterations – he definitely didn’t shower, not sure if he shaved, but he damn well just shitted – so the remark elicited not even one small guffaw.
“What you got there in the sack?” Leroy asked Bobby.
“You know my mom – she packed us a bunch of turkey sandwiches. Some with mayonnaise, some with Durkee sauce. Wanted us to at least have a little taste of Thanksgiving I guess.”
Now Leroy was smiling and he whispered “God bless your sweet mother” and reached back for the sack but Stevie slapped his hand away. “Already big fella? My God, give us a chance to at least clear the city limits.”
“But I’m hungry,” he answered matter-of-factly and although Leroy didn’t reach again, he didn’t exactly withdraw his huge mitt either. “I’ll bet you had a big breakfast, huh?”
“Well I had what I always have – a pop tart and a banana. You can’t beat that.”
Now Bobby chimed in. “A pop tart and a banana? You eat that every damn morning?”
“Hell yes. Cinnamon tart, slightly toasted, and I don’t mind a bruising fruit. And of course a glass of chilled juice, orange, apple or prune – it don’t make no difference to me.”
“Pruuuuune?” Leroy inquired and Stevie just sat back and smiled, quite pleased with himself and obviously well-lubricated. “P-ruuuuune,” he confirmed. “Freshly squeeeeezed.”
“You can’t squeeze a prune,” Leroy observed.
“You can squeeze anything,” Stevie replied with a grin, and Leroy wasn’t really in the mood to continue this particular line of thought.
“Well I don’t know about you guys but I’m getting my Thanksgiving treat from over yonder,” Theo remarked and nodded toward the glove box. Leroy obligingly opened it and pulled out the bottle wrapped in plain brown paper. Theo continued, “Now that’s the kind of turkey I’m interested in – the wild variety,” and Leroy removed the wrapper and there it surely was, a full bottle of the amber spirit, and before you could say “Garfield county line” the boys were passing it around and gobbling turkey sandwiches.
By the time the boys hit Norman the bottle was empty and the drab November sky was spinning directly above their every maladroit step. Plenty of sunshine but plenty cold, downright chilly in fact, and they didn’t feel a thing. They burst into the swinging double doors of the Jockey Strap Saloon a good two hours before kick-off and lucked into a table in the outer back beer garden where the pre-game celebration was most definitely hitting its stride and there were a couple of good-looking Nebraska gals standing alone off to the side, a couple of strong-jawed corn-fed blonde beauties that Stevie took an immediate fancy to – he was never one to let silly schoolboy loyalty get in the way of a good screwing or, let’s be more realistic here, maybe a quick peck on the cheek – and he grabbed a full pitcher and sauntered on over to let them know all about it much to poor Leroy’s consternation, he who had just settled down after waiting in line to acquire that first full pitcher, and now the big man just sighed and pushed his way back up to his feet and fell back into that long beer line once again.
“Here comes trouble,” Theo said and he pointed towards three big old Cornhusker boys that were ambling their way through the crowd and back toward those still-smiling gals, and if those gals were corn-fed then these were the fellas doing all the feeding. Bobby raised an eyebrow in agreement and added, “I suppose we’ll find out if he’s in a sharing mood today.”
Turns out Stevie was in a sharing mood, with plenty of back-patting and good cheer and cold beer for everybody, and after a moment of discussion he led his new friends back to the table and the next thing you knew they were all sitting together, sipping suds, grinning into each other’s eyes and wondering who was going to be crying in their beer at the end of the day.
“I’m Bob Olsen and this is my brother Dave, and that’s my friend Billy Simpson,” said a pink-faced giant with peach-fuzz sideburns and the huge beaten hands of a dirt farmer, and when Bobby shook one of them there was a slight uncalled-for pressure applied that seemed to suggest that you’d better keep an eye on your boy over there. “And that’s my wife Kathy and Dave’s wife, Odella.”
Stevie perked up and scooted in closer. “Odella Odella – can I get a smella, I wanna be your fella,” and when Bobby caught the flash of her widening eyes he couldn’t be sure if she was appalled or enchanted or, more likely, an intoxicating mixture of both. But he had a good idea what the Brothers Olsen might be feeling.
“Hey Leroy, why don’t you grab a couple of extra pitchers?” Stevie cried out, oblivious to just about everybody, merrily on the road to his own obliteration one way or the other.
Stevie and Bobby never did make it to the game. Stevie was having far too good of a time pontificating right there, drinking and flirting and being an all-around chummy guy, and when he asked Bobby to stay with him Bobby really didn’t need to think too long about it. Because he was rather hammered himself, and although not really serious about sniffing out the pussy and subsequently waiting to get his ass kicked like his foolish friend, he understood that this was after all just a game, a stupid football game, and besides, the only way to avoid the inevitable plunge into the vise of hangover despair was to just keep on drinking. Keep on drinking! And naturally Theo was royally pissed off at the pair because these tickets weren’t cheap, this was one hell of an opportunity, and his family’s generosity was in effect being trashed.
“So sell ‘em,” Stevie sighed, and Theo knew he could score a nice profit from an easy sell, but still Stevie’s unappreciative attitude annoyed the hell out of him. As usual. But deep down he might honestly be relieved to avoid Stevie for the next three hours but he wouldn’t let on to any of that.
“Screw you asshole,” Theo snarled and he shot a glare at Bobby that clearly implied that he wasn’t exactly happy with him either, I would have expected as much from Stevie, but you? Then Theo turned and marched away and Leroy took a deep breath, gave those remaining behind a peace sign and a weary grin, and then followed his agitated leader into the heaving mob.
The Husker fans had bid farewell a few minutes earlier and the place was thinning out, the scattered few left behind either without tickets or unwilling to end the party, but at least now Bobby and Stevie could move on inside where it was warm and a few booths were becoming available.
“Now this is the life my man,” Stevie announced as he pushed his way back into the corner of a booth and stretched out, his legs laying atop the wood bench. “We even got a television tuned to the game over there,” and sure enough right behind the bar sat one small black and white television, rabbit ears sticking up into the smoky air, a pack of loud men settled around it.
Bobby eased back into the booth. The only thing to do now was obvious – keep your fingers crossed and just keep on drinking.
Dusk descended all at once late that afternoon. Looking at it now it would be surprising to realize that a week or so earlier a few of the trees had clung to their last summer leaves like tearful mothers holding on to letters from sons still at war. Tentatively, hopefully, but eventually you must set them down and trust that all will be fine, nature has its ways, no matter what life will most definitely go on. But in the last light of this particular day, if one should even care to notice, these trees were all barren, cleanly plucked and denuded, their last hope released and the promise of spring seemed so sad and far away.
The game was over and the Sooners had lost. Life would go on, the citizens of this state would pick one another up by the seat of their britches and somehow find a method to wait out the lingering sting of this hangover, but Theo’s father would need to buy a new television set to replace the one he had destroyed with an impressive end-over-end fling of a half-full bottle of not-so-cheap Cabernet through the glass picture as time ran out and Cornhusker players hoisted that fat asshole Bob Devaney atop their shoulders carrying him to midfield.
The cold walk back to the car took on the appearance of one long procession of crushed and extremely distraught crimson-clad refugees, complete with aching unseen wounds and a diversified chorus of deep heartfelt sighs stamped by bitter exasperation, who for the most part did their damnedest to remain quiet and level-headed as they mingled with the handful of Nebraska fans who were understandably ecstatic and attempting to maintain their own dignified composure. But of course as the reality set in and the fresh loss cemented into another forever fact a simmering rage poked through some blown gaskets and a few angry voices did ring out from time to time.
“Hey, how much did you Corn-holers pay off the refs on that punt return? That no-call on the obvious clip?” The voice was high-pitched, hoarse, desperate – and of course very anonymous.
A sprinkling of Huskers was walking briskly up ahead. The biggest one slowed a bit and tilted his head back toward the source of the high-pitched anonymous voice. “Stop your crying Sooner boy – calls went both ways and we came down here and won it fair and square on your own damn field.”
“There sure as hell was a clip… a couple of them!” Stevie responded, sobered up by his flaming anger and obviously looking for trouble, for some kind of release, even if it wound up being a painful one.
“Wah wah wah,” the big fellow continued, and then he whispered something over to his friend and they both laughed and flashed knowing grins back towards Stevie as they marched away.
Oh my God Bobby thought. That’s Bob Olsen up there. As drunk as he was he knew that this wasn’t good, not if Stevie found out, and he stole a quick look at his friend. And it was obvious by the flicker in Stevie’s eyes and then the following look of deep concentration that he already knew.
“Hey Olsen, big Bob Olsen, is that you up there?”
“Shut up, Stevie,” Theo said. He was as upset about the game as anybody and was absolutely in no mood to accommodate any additional shenanigans from him.
“Big Bob, is that little Davey up there with you? And I do mean little in every sense, especially the anatomical one.”
Now Bobby was looking to Leroy. He knew that Leroy would try to pinch the poison out of Stevie before the telling bite could be administered, but only if he could get his hands on him first. If not, and if it came to it, then Bobby knew that Leroy would surely end up watching Stevie’s back. Whichever way it went, he knew that Leroy wouldn’t be happy about it.
The Olsen brothers had stopped dead in their tracks along with their friend Billy Simpson – but those two corn-fed beauties just kept walking ahead. A small crowd had gathered and any textbook psychologist worth his monocle would point out that the assembled crowd, although not exactly a mob, not yet anyway, was certainly in the mood to vent.
“Hey Dave, why don’t you ask Odella where she was during half time?” Suddenly the assembled crowd oohed.
Oh my God Bobby thought once again. Stevie had been gone quite some time during that aforementioned time period – he had assumed that the bathroom line was endless or he’d stopped off to harass some other poor waitress – so he hadn’t bothered to question him about it. But come to think about it Stevie did seem to possess a wider grin and that special twinkle upon his return midway through the third quarter. Now Leroy rushed up from behind and grabbed Stevie by the shoulders. “That’s just about enough out of you, friend,” and he applied an urgent death squeeze.
“Ouch! Goddamit Leroy, why do you always got to be the voice of reason? Just once I’d like to see you cut loose and knock somebody silly.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Leroy quickly answered with crooked teeth clenched, “because it would probably be you. Hey, they won the game and that is that, so let it go,” and Leroy punctuated this with a half-assed grin directed towards the Olsen brothers and Billy Simpson.
For a moment all fell silent and motionless, Theo standing off to the side with both hands in his pockets looking more bored than anything else. And then he said quite seriously, “Leroy, as far as I’m concerned you ought to let the little bastard go and allow him to seek his immediate fortune.”
“”Yeah, let him go!” another familiar voice cried out, high-pitched and hoarse, still quite anonymous, followed by a quick series of likewise urgent pleads.
But just then Dave Olsen broke free from the group and took off in a panting jog towards the quickly fleeing shadow of his sweet Odella, who might have truly sat on Stevie’s little fella, because come to think of it, she was gone quite some time, off to the ladies room and then the concessions, and when she finally returned empty-handed she had nervously explained to Dave she had eaten a hot dog somewhere else.
“Hey, where you going?” Bob Olsen asked but Dave wouldn’t answer or maybe didn’t even hear, his mind so suddenly drowning in the churning sea of his own questions. Bob and Billy Simpson had little choice but to turn and take off after him.
And now the crowd aahed.
“That’s right Husker, run, run away, but please send Odella back to play,” and now Stevie was beaming like the ornery pup that he was.
Ten minutes later they finally reached the Cadillac. Theo and Leroy lumbered into the front seat and as the other two waited for the car to unlock Bobby looked Stevie square in the eye.
“You didn’t really, did you?”
With a mischievous grin Stevie replied, “I’ll never tell.” Then he walked over to a truck bearing a Nebraska license plate, opened the lid to the gas tank, and with unrepented pleasure completely relieved himself.
