Authors: David Marlow
THAT NIGHT AT DINNER, fried chicken leg in hand, Rose announced, “Guy and Corky spent the afternoon together at the Sugar Bowl.”
Silence.
Birdie stopped passing the broccoli.
Butch discontinued loading a hot mufRn with butter.
Nathan stopped gumming his mashed potatoes. “Guy and Corky HendersonP” he asked, suddenly interested in his younger son’s life now that the town celebrity’s name had been dropped.
“That’s right,” said Rose. “Can you believe it?”
Nathan looked to Butch for corroboration.
“Yeah,” said Butch, drowning his dinner in hollandaise. “Corky Henderson. So what?”
Nathan stared at Guy, calmly stabbing peas and carrots with a fork.
“What’s he like?” asked Birdie.
“I’ll tell you what he’s like,” barked Butch, ignoring the tiny ball of white sauce dribbling down the side of his mouth. “ He’s my fraternity brother!”
“I want to hear what Guy thinks,” Birdie insisted.
Eight eyes went to Guy, who, sighing, milked it for all it was worth. “Oh, I don’t know, he seems nice enough, I guess. …”
Growling, Butch ripped into the flesh of a chicken thigh.
Nathan studied Guy for the rest of the meal. He’d never seen his son so iri control, so much a young man.
Birdie brought in the ice cream-topped banana bread and placed one slice in front of each member of the family.
Nathan tapped his beer glass with a spoon. “I have an announcement.”
Everyone looked to the head of the household.
“I’ve decided to have Guy join tomorrow s duck hunt.”
Guy was stunned.
“Him?” sneered Butch. “He can’t even hold a gun!”
“You think he’s ready?” asked a doubtful Birdie.
“The time has come,” said Nathan, a high priest offering his child to the sun god. Looking over at Guy he asked, “What can you shoot with?”
“My camera.”
“Don’t joke when I’m serious, mister. You can take Butch’s twenty-two. He’ll be on my shotgun anyway.”
“Yes, sir!” Guy smiled. “Thanks a million, Dad. I hope you’ll be proud of me.”
Looking to the ceiling, Nathan exhaled. “Me too, son, me too.”
At four in the morning on Sunday, Nathan flipped on the overhead light in Guy’s room. Outside it was dark, chilly and pouring rain.
“Rise and shine! Rise and shine!” sang Nathan, walking to the window. He lifted the shade and revealed what looked like the end of the world. “A perfect day to shoot ducks. Up and at ‘em, Guy.”
A little over an hour and a half later and up to his ass in slimy mud, shoulder-high reeds, gale-force winds and a driving rain, Guy was shivering so hard he could barely keep his twenty-two steady.
Black skies finally gave way to an overcast, gray morning.
Two of Nathan’s floor managers, Harry and Ed, were out there too, silently laying low. Shotguns poised, they stood ready to fire at the first flurry of feathers.
Harry’s two golden retrievers sniffed about.
Ed tapped Guy and offered him a can of Pabst’s. At five-thirty in the morning? Guy looked around and saw all four of the other soldiers slugging down the brew, Butch draining his with unspeakable gluttony. Although beer was unappetizing at any hour, there he was, after all, in Marlboro country, so what the hell.
“Thanks,” Guy mouthed, and accepted the can. He then proceeded to gulp it down with what he hoped came off as manly gusto.
They stood around like that, in silence; pointing, eyeing, sniffling, guzzling for more than an hour as the mini-hurricane raged about them.
Suddenly the dogs tensed and froze in place, noses to the clouds, as if someone had plugged their tails into an electric socket.
A lone brown and white duck traversed the sky. A lovely vision, the ideal opening for a documentary on wildlife preservation. Ka-boom!
Guy’s four hunting companions opened up on the gracefully gliding creature. Strewn with buckshot, its brown and white body splattered across the bleak sky.
In the next moment hundreds of birds blackened the skies. The troops opened their full assault. Shotgun blasts boomed awake the countryside. Squawking and flapping, the ducks scrambled for their lives.
By the time Guy raised his gun, preparing to fire, the birds had flown out of range; off to a nearby moor where other hunters stalked in other beer-guzzling vigils.
Just to get the damn thing out of his system, Guy closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. His weapon fired into an empty, dark sky.
The dogs set out, soon returning from the battle zone gently carrying in their jaws half a dozen dead ducks.
Nathan placed a strong, fatherly hand on Guy’s shoulder. “Now that’s what I call a duck shoot!”
“Me, too!” Guy assured him with vigor.
“Get anything?”
“Double pneumonia.” Guy sneezed as he pointed to his smoking rifle barrel. “Shot the tail off one of those goners!”
Nathan was impressed. “Good for you, son! Hey, fellas! Guy snagged one-a-these mothers!”
Harry and Ed offered congratulations.
“Hot shit!” muttered Butch, reloading his shotgun.
“I think we’ve had enough for one morning,” Nathan said. “What say we get the flock outta here?”
Ed and Harry cheerfully agreed.
Butch wasn’t so sure. “You go on. I wanna stake out some more. I’ll hitch back.”
“Suit yourself/’ said Nathan.
Their ducks strung together, the woodsmen waded through the downpour, leaving behind in a birdbath of blood, beer and urine Butch the Butcher, contented in his home away from home, the neighborhood mudhole.
Guy had gone a-hunting. He hadn’t flubbed it up, hadn’t failed his old man. Hell, he hadn’t even been shot!
If this was the sort of dividend reaped from hanging around Corky, Guy wanted more. Nothing had ever seemed more important.
He spent the entire ride home staring out the window, watching the rain. Thinking.
Nathan pulled into the driveway and Guy was struck with inspiration. His plan was so simple, he had to smile.
CLASSES ENDED MONDAY
afternoon and Guy rushed to the football field with his shoulder bag of photo equipment.
Standing away from the sidelines, careful to avoid any repetition of the bicycle fiasco, he observed the afternoon senior varsity practice, then took out his Pentax and attached his longest lens. He brought Corky into close-up focus and began to shoot. He took action shots and candid portraits. The dark, fast-moving clouds were a fine background for black-and-white photography.
He went rapidly through four rolls of film, a month’s supply right there.
As devoutly hoped, the pictures processed in the upstairs bathroom, which served as Guy’s darkroom, turned out just fine. The tonal contrasts, the excitement of the brutal action and the cool displayed by Corky, who turned out to be exceedingly photogenic, made this series the best Guy’d ever taken.
School on Tuesday was long and tedious. When biology finally ended at three o’clock, Guy strolled outside to the playing field.
Sitting in the bleachers, all nerves, he watched for an hour until Coach Petrillo called a time-out. The team dispersed.
This was the moment. Now or never. Corky was chatting with a couple of other red-and-yellows. Guy walked over, opened his briefcase, removed three contact sheets and handed them to Corky. “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Would you mind looking at something?”
Corky fast-scanned the columns, sheet after sheet. “Who took these?”
“Me,” said a tiny voice.
“No shit? When?”
“Yesterday.”
“They ‘re damn good!”
So much for that. The storm in Guy’s stomach settled.
“Here.” Guy gave Corky a blue grease pencil. “Check the ones you like and I’ll make prints for you. “
Corky was delighted. “You mean it?”
“Sure I figure it’s the least I can do after what happened.”
“Everything go okay at home?”
Guy nodded. “Better than okay.”
Corky started checking off shots.
“And don’t worry about any expenses. I’ve got my own enlarger at home, so it’s no big deal.”
Coach blew his loud whistle.
“Back to Bataan?” asked Guy.
“Yep.” Corky handed the contacts over to Guy, and, in a gesture straight out of an old Ronald Reagan film, vigorously touseled the small boy’s hair with his hand and, smiling, trotted back out onto the field.
By Friday, the day before the opening game of the season, Guy had printed and blown up eight-by-ten prints of the five shots Corky had chosen. He placed them in a large envelope which he deposited in the senior president’s mailbox in the Student Council office.
Then he waited.
HEAVY SWEATERS, reeking of mothballs, were pulled from shelves.
Plaid woolen blankets tumbled out of linen closets.
Cocoa, soup, coffee and gin flowed into thermoses.
Mayonnaise and mustard, ketchup, butter, relish and jelly got slapped onto bread.
The leaves of Waterfield were turning to rust. Colorful branches shook in the blustery wind. Football weather.
At noon, Nathan piled the family into the Oldsmobile and drove off to the game. Assuming he wasn’t interested, no one asked Guy to go. So twenty minutes later, when he came out of his darkroom, it was too late to express his sudden attraction to the sport.
Guy spent the afternoon at the movies.
After her studying, Amy went to the Teahouse of the August Moon, the local Bohemian coffeehouse, to meet a friend.
Marge Flynn was a complex, soft-spoken girl with a lot of drive who probably would have fitted in fine with the Waterfield sorority set had she not stood six feet in stockings.
Amy and Marge sipped cappuccino, munched on marzipan cookies, chatted.
They talked about the freedom buses heading for Alabama. They discussed their forthcoming unauthorized newsletter, the
Gadfly.
They talked men and mores, Communism and Catholicism, cabbages and kings.
They never mentioned football.
The Fowlers returned home from the football field loud with enthusiasm. They danced about, celebrating the Eagles’ 27-6 trounce of Wantagh.
Exhausted, Corky came home, the conquering hero, and fell asleep for two hours.
While he dozed, Dora tiptoed into his room and covered him with a spare blanket.
She stroked the back of his head lightly, trying to remember where along the years her little boy had become the strapping fellow now stretching from the top to the bottom of his bed. When did he grow and how many yesterdays had it taken?
She thought back to a Christmas morning when a far smaller Corky sat beneath a glittering tree, surrounded by presents… .
Outside it was snowing. Vanilla cupcake frosting covered Water-field. A storybook Christmas.
One by one gifts were handed over, ransom for love, to the magical three-year-old. Tiny ice skates and a long hockey stick. A red catcher’s mitt of sponge with a yellow baseball of soap. Cowboy guns, boxing gloves, and that was just a warm-up.
She and Carl had skimped on themselves so they could be extravagant with the boy.
The living room became a colorful haven for runaway ribbons.
Carl reached forward and extracted a bright blue box. The most lavishly wrapped, it had the biggest bow. “This one’s from Daddy.’’ He placed the prized package in his son’s lap. “It’s a very special present, Corky.”
Small fingers ripped frantically at the wrapping. Corky lifted the top of the pretty box, peered inside and anxiously inspected the contents.
“Well?” said his father.
Corky looked up at his father. His lower lip curled downward. “Not racing car.”
“ Course not. “Carl beamed. “It’s a football!”
“ Feu-baw,” Corky quietly repeated.
“Football!” Carl insisted. “You’re a big boy. Let me hear you say it.”
“Football!” echoed the three-year-old, on cue.
Carl wrapped his arm around Dora, drawing her close. He smiled as his son removed the elliptical pigskin from its colorful package.
Corky turned it around on one of its points, wondering where the batteries were stored.
“What do you say to your father!” Dora told him.
“I love you, Daddy,” said Corky to the football.
Dora went to the kitchen and returned with a batch of gingermen, newly sighted with raisin eyes. She handed Corky one of the warm cookies, which he gobbled down with a sip of cold milk.
After that, two last gifts. A sturdy lilliputian football helmet, burnt orange with a Georgia Tech decal, and outrageous shoulder pads.
Corky sported a dairy moustache. His angelic face was lost in the helmet covering shaggy curls. Shoulder pads loomed over his pajamas. He squeezed his new football. Then he started to cry.
It was all over. Nothing left to unwrap. No more ribbons. No racing car. Nova-room, va-room.
Corky kicked the blue box. “Santa forget my racing car!”
Carl knelt beside him. “Hey, calm down. Don’t cry. You don’t need any racing car. That’s for greasers. You’re no cheap mechanic. Waste of time. If my father had given me a tenth, just a tenth of what I’m gonna give you, son, I wouldn’t be selling dishwashers today and that’s a fact. You’re gonna be an athlete, son—the best athlete—the damndest football player this town’s ever seen.”
Corky rubbed his right eye.
Carl patted him on the head. “You have all these presents. Now stand up straight and thank me, man to man.”
Corky didn’t want to shake hands. He wanted his racing car.
“You’re not going to disappoint me, are you, son? Not on Christmas!”
Corky shook his head. No, he wasn’t going to disappoint his father. Not on Christmas. Not ever. Corky looked up at the tall man, lifted padded shoulders high and offered a timid hand.
His father shook it vigorously. “That’s my brave soldier! Last thing you need is some dumb racing car. Let the others have em. You’re better than that. You’re
special.
I’m gonna take care of you, so for God’s sake, don’t worry. “
“Not worried,” sniffed the young soldier.
“You’re the best thing ever happened to me, Corky. My whole life. We’ll be tossing that football ‘round soon as the snow melts. You’ll love it!”