Tim Sandlin: Skipped Parts

“They shaved the skin off my arm before grafting it, but the hair all grew back. Ever see anything like that?”

He turned his hand sideways into the handshake position. “Ft. Worth Jones, ma’am. I’m more than pleased to meet you.”

Lydia stared at the hand a moment, then up at the guy’s expansive face.

I said, “I heard your name at football practice.”

The gold tooth flashed in the fluorescent light. “Hope they said something good.”

“How do you spell Fort ?”

He looked perplexed by the question. “F-T period. Like the town.”

“Oh.”

He still had his hand out. “Saturday night’s movie night at the VFW, little lady. The Inspector General. I’d be pleased if you’d accompany me.”

I was sure “little lady” would spark a Lydia volcano, but nothing happened. She just sat there. My theory is Ft. Worth was so far from her frame of reference that Lydia couldn’t see him.

Ft. Worth looked at me. “Is she okay?”

“Medication.”

He stared intently at Lydia’s eyes. “Yeah. Would you tell her I dropped by.”

I nodded.

The tall stranger stepped through the White Deck screen door and strode to the counter. “Black coffee and rare beefsteak.”

When Dot brought out the stranger’s supper, she refilled his coffee cup. “What brings you to town, stranger?”

“Passing through.”

Dot was amazed at his calmness. “Honey, nobody passes through GroVont. Where you headed?”

“Paris-France.” The stranger paused to light a Cuban cigar. “Want to come along?”

Dot looked around to see to whom the stranger was speaking. “You want me to run away to Paris-France?”

“Your considerable beauty and charm are wasted in this king-hell hole. I want to uncover your light and let it shine on the world.”

“But I’m overweight.”

The stranger studied Dot from her white sneakers to her teased hair. “I like ’em with meat.”

As Dot took off her apron and threw her order book in the trashy she asked, “What’s your line, mister?”

“I’m God’s gift to waitresses.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Callahan, ma’am. Sam Callahan.”

I actually dragged Lydia to a football game. We were playing Victor, Idaho, and I started at split end—even caught a pass, a first for me and the team.

The rodeo grounds east of town had bleachers, but the football field didn’t—says something about local priorities. The football field was a flat spot on the valley floor cleared of sagebrush and marked off with lime. Probably the only playing field in America completely surrounded by national park. Spectators backed their trucks up to the sidelines and sat on tailgates, a few even had strap-back lawn chairs. Almost everyone had access to a cooler.

Maurey Pierce was one of the cheerleaders. They wore these really short, considering the temperature, pleated white skirts and red turtleneck sweaters with gv over what would have been the right breast if any of them had had breasts. I took the color scheme as a joke because our football uniforms were tan and brown, like the hills behind the school. We were in camouflage.

As the team ran onto the field, the cheerleaders jumped up and bent their knees and yelled “Go, Badgers,” our nickname, and threw their pom-poms in the air. Maurey’s pom-pom landed right in front of me and I stepped on it on purpose,

At the bench, as the guys milled around, hitting each other in the shoulder pads and growling, I checked back to see Maurey standing there with a muddy pom-pom in her right hand and a godawful look on her face. Ugly, mean. I guess nobody’d ever stepped on anything of hers before. Her legs were pretty, but the knees stuck in a little.

Lydia parked Caspar’s ’62 Olds on the south 10-yard marker, way off from everyone else, and kept the engine running and the heater on. I knew that was a mistake, but I was so psyched about my mom being out in front of the whole town, I forgot. You see, this big cottonwood tree stood off that end zone, the only decent-sized tree anywhere near school.

Toward the end of the first quarter, a steady stream of men and boys started drifting up to the cottonwood, then back past the Olds and onto their trucks, lawn chairs, and coolers. Practically every guy waved to Lydia, coming and going.

I caught my pass on the last play of the first half. We were behind, 24-zip with nothing to lose, so Stebbins called for the Hail Mary bomb. Jimmy Crandall, the quarterback, figured out what he meant and showed the rest of us with a stick in the dirt.

The play involves both receivers and all three running backs splitting off to the right side of the line and when Jimmy goes “Yup, yup,” we take off hell-bent for downfield, he throws the ball as far as he can, and we see what happens from there.

Jimmy “yupped” and everybody took off but me. I’d watched the Crandall kid throw in practice. Had an arm like a broomstick. So our receivers and all their defenders charge off forty yards downfield and Jimmy launches this wounded duck that wobbles about twelve yards to where I’m waiting—hits me in both hands and the chest, I hang on, the crowd goes wild. About ten potato heads jumped on me, but I didn’t fumble and we got our first first down of the half, what would prove to be the only first down of the game.

Ft. Worth and a bunch of those White Deck hoodlums leapt in their trucks and honked horns. Maybe it was sarcasm, hell, I don’t know. But I was proud. None of those kids who ate at home every night had caught a pass.

I played it superior when I left the field and passed the cheerleaders, but I snuck a quick glance and a couple of them were watching me. Women always love a football star. Maurey wasn’t one of the couple, she was deep in her own superior routine.

I jogged over to the Olds and knocked on the window until Lydia rolled it down. She had the rearview mirror cocked off sideways.

“You see me catch that pass?” I asked.

“What?” Her eyes were stuck on the mirror. A bunch of high school boys waved at her as they walked behind the car toward the cottonwood. “You know what that tree is?” Lydia asked me.

I glanced over and got embarrassed. “It’s the pee tree.”

“Have you ever used it?”

“A few times during practice.”

Lydia’s eyes finally came back to look at me. They held that reckless Carolina glitter that I’d both loved and feared before our drive west, before the post-10:30 doldrums set in all day. “Sam, honey bunny, I believe I’ve seen every penis in GroVont.”

I stood up straight and looked across the top of the Olds to the pee tree. It was disgusting. Nobody tried to cup with their hands or anything. And they knew too. The high school boys were nudging each other and giggling and sneaking leers our way.

I said, “I call that sick.”

Lydia smiled as she gazed back into the crooked mirror. “I call that hospitality.”

The next day, Saturday, it started snowing. I wasn’t total hick enough to run into the street hollering, “Jeeze Louise, what’s this white stuff?” I’d seen snow in Carolina, just not a whole lot. It was still a cold novelty. We both kept it casual—“Look outside, honey bunny, Jack Frost came last night”—but, underneath, Lydia and I were pretty excited.

She stared out the window the same old way, right foot on the sill, Dr Pepper in one hand, cigarette in the other, but something had changed. She wasn’t staring into the void or herself or wherever Lydia went when she did her lost-in-space number. She was looking out the window.