I liked to spit water all over the floor. It was something you couldn't do indoors as a rule. In a few minutes we were out on the field. Some kind of ceremony was going on. I sat on the bench waiting for the game to start. It was a cool bright afternoon. The grass seemed extremely green. Buddy Shock came over, put one foot on the bench and leaned toward me.
'Gary, we didn't hit each other. We didn't trade blows. You didn't give me the forearm to the chest. I looked all over for you.'
'Not today, Buddy.'
'It's a tradition. We have to do it. It'll be bad luck not to do it. Come on, get up, I want to put three dents in your head.'
'I don't plan any quick movements just yet. I'm saving myself. It's a new methodology I've just worked out.'
'We've done it eight games running, Gary.'
'When men vomit together, they feel joined in body and spirit. Women have no such luck.'
'I hate to see a good tradition wiped out,' Buddy said.
In a little while the ceremony ended. I was feeling heavyheaded; the air was getting thick. Bing Jackmin kicked off. The opposition sustained a drive for three first downs, about eight plays, before losing the ball on a fumble. As I started out I felt unbelievably ponderous. My head was made of Aztec stone. I watched my feet go slowly up and down over the marvelous grass. My teammates were out there already, waiting for me. Garland Hobbs stood above the huddle, above the lowered heads, waiting for me to get there. I continued across the grass, uncranking my arms, watching the long white laces whisk lightly over my black shoes. I reached the huddle. I realized I didn't want to be with all these people. They were all staring at me through their cages. Hobbs called a pass play. We broke and set. Somebody came at me, a huge individual in silver and blue. I fell at his feet and grabbed one shoe. I started untying the lace. He kicked away from me and went after Hobbs. I got up and walked off. I was exceedingly hungry.
The next day Terry Madden and I were playing gin rummy in the lounge. Link Brownlee dragged a chair over and sat down.
'Did you hear?' he said.
'What?' I said.
'Taft Robinson. You haven't seen him? You haven't heard?'
'No, what?'
'He shaved his skull. He's bald.'
'How bald?' Terry said.
'Completely and totally bald. He shaved his skull. He must have done it last night.'
'What do you think it means?' Terry said.
'I don't know,' I said. 'I don't know what it means. How would I know what it means?'
'It means something,' he said.
'Thing used to be so simple,' Brownlee said.
25
Wally Pippich sat behind his desk, facing up into a sun lamp, a strip of Reynolds Wrap covering his eyes. The smell of mops standing in dirty water had penetrated the office.
'Gary, I called you in here to get briefed on the socalled leaving the game incident. I was downstate doing advance work on an allgirl rodeo so I've had to rely on eyewitness accounts. As it was given to me, word for word, you walked right off the field after your team's first play from scrimmage. Everybody thought you were injured.'
'I was hungry,' I said.
'That's what I understand your story is. The story you told Oscar Veech. That's what you allege to be the case. Hunger pangs.'
'I just couldn't stay out there. I was really starved for something to eat. Hunger pangs can be interpreted as a form of injury. I had to leave and get some food.'
I liked the idea of talking with someone who could not see me. I watched his mouth as he spoke. It was extremely active, almost an animated cartoon, a visual guide to the soundmaking process. His mouth seemed to invent the words as well as speak them; it was as though he'd been raised among lip readers. Wally's tongue was lumpy and bluish. His right hand, hanging down between his thighs, moved in a vaguely masturbatory way as he spoke.
'The game had just started,' he said. 'Oscar Veech said he saw you fall on the ground and grab somebody's foot. He thought you were sick or having some kind of fit.'
'I was hungry. Really, that's all it was.'
'Gary, I'm going to level with you. I don't believe a word you're saying. Nobody leaves an intercollegiate athletic event out of sheer appetite motivations.'
'Wally, why else? Why else then? Why would I walk off like that?'
'I know one thing, Gary. You've piqued my innate curiosity. This kind of thing is bread and butter to me. This is part and parcel of the dream stuff of publicity and public relations. I want to follow up on this thing. I'd like to see what I can do with it. Temperamental star. Psychosis attack. Loss of memory. Give me something to go on. I'll slam out a human interest thing, real fast, down and dirty, and I'll get it to the wire services for immediate release. Season's over. We have to get moving on it.'
'What are they going to do to me?' I said.
'They can't suspend you because there aren't any games left. And I don't know what Emmett thinks because he's under the weather. They've got him isolated over in his room. I guess they'll just have to wait on Emmett.'
'We won the game,' I said. 'I knew there wouldn't be any problem. I wouldn't have left if I thought we'd have trouble winning.'
'Gary, I've told you all I know. I'll stick my neck out for you if the situation calls for any necks to be stuck out. In return I ask just one thing. Tell me what happened. Tell me why you walked off the field.'
'I had to make peepee.'
'Pissation.'
'That's right.'
'Gary, I like flair. I like freak appeal. I like any kind of charisma. When I was an access coordinator for the phone company, I got together a specialty act in my spare time. Two swordswallowers on a trampoline. You got to daze people. You got to climb inside their mouth. Gary, I'll stick up for you all the way. Next season we make it big. The T and G backfield. I sure do like the sound of that. Slick as a turd.'
'Wally, aren't you going to hurt your eyes with just that aluminum foil over them?'
'This stuff is oventempered,' he said.
I took a long walk around the college grounds. The wind blew across the plains, gusting now, leaving gray dust everywhere, on buildings, trees, benches, so that in time we too seemed bare, the campus and its people, sparse as the land around us, the hand of the wind on everything. I walked back to Staley Hall. In my room I did nothing for an hour or more. Then I went to visit Billy Mast. He was sitting on his bed, sewing a button on a blue dress. Ted Joost walked in behind me. He and I talked about Billy's course in the untellable. Billy himself merely listened. In a few minutes, Chester Randall and Jeff Elliott came in. Chester wore an old bathrobe and basketball sneakers.
'Nothing's happening,' he said. 'I've been walking the halls all afternoon. I've been trying to figure out what might be happening. Season's over. Nothing's happening.'
'I tried to get in to see Coach,' Jeff said. 'But he can't see anybody yet.'
'Whose dress is that?' Chester said.
Chuck Deering walked in. He did a dance step and then went over and sat on the windowsill.
'Whose dress is that?' he said. 'Is that Alia Joy Burney's dress? Let me put my head in there. I want to bury my head in that erotic material.'
