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Deke squinted. “Damn if I know.”
Coach clapped his hands and told his kids to shower up. He walked over to the bleachers and
clapped me on the back. “Howza goin, Shakespeare?”
“Pretty good,” I said, smiling gamely.
“Shakespeare, kick in the rear, that’s what we used to say when we were kids.” He laughed heartily.
“We used to say Coach, Coach, step on a roach.”
Coach Borman looked puzzled. “Really?”
“Nah, just goofin witcha.” And sort of wishing I’d acted on my first impulse and scooted out of
town after supper. “How does the team look?”
“Aw, they good boys, they goan try hard, but it won’t be the same without Jimmy. Did you see the
new billboard out there where 109 splits off from Highway 77?” Only he said it seb’ny-seb’n.
“Too used to it to notice, I guess.”
“Well, have a look on the way out, podna. Boosters done it up right. Jimmy’s mama ’bout cried
when she saw it. I understand I owe you a vote a thanks for gettin that young man to swear off the
drinkin.” He removed his cap with the big C on it, armed sweat from his forehead, put it back on, and
sighed heavily. “Probably owe that fuckin nummie Vince Knowles a vote a thanks, too, but puttin
him on my prayer list is the best I can do.”
I recalled that Coach was a Baptist of the hard-shell variety. In addition to prayer lists, he probably
believed all that shit about Noah’s sons.
“No thanks necessary,” I said. “Just doing my job.”
He looked at me keenly. “You ought to still be doing it, not jerking off over some book. Sorry if
that’s too blunt, but it’s how I feel.”
“That’s all right.” It was. I liked him better for saying it. In another world, he might even have
been right. I pointed across the field, where the Silent Mike look-alike was packing his salad bowl
into a steel case. His earphones were still hanging around his neck. “Who’s that, Coach?”
Coach snorted. “Think his name is Hale Duff. Or maybe it’s Cale. New sports guy at the Big
Damn.” He was talking about KDAM, Denholm County’s one radio station, a teensy sundowner that
ran farm reports in the morning, country music in the afternoons, and rock after school let out. The
kids enjoyed the station breaks as much as the music; there would be an explosion followed by an old
cowboy type saying, “K-DAM! That was a big ’un!” In the Land of Ago, this is considered the height
of risqué wit.
“What’s that contraption of his, Coach?” Deke asked. “Do you know?”
“I know, all right,” Coach said, “and if he thinks I’m gonna let him use it during a game broadcast,
he’s out of his sneaker. Think I want ever’one who’s got a radio hearin me call my boys a bunch of
goddam pussies when they can’t deny the rush on third and short?”
I turned to him, very slowly. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t believe him, so I tried it myself,” the Coach said. Then, with mounting indignation: “I
heard Boof Redford tellin one of the freshmen that my balls were bigger than my brains!”
“Really,” I said. My heartbeat had picked up appreciably.
“Duffer there said he built it in his goddam garage,” Coach grumbled. “Said when it’s turned up to
full gain, you can hear a cat fart on the next block. That’s bullshit, accourse, but Redford was on the
other side of the field when I heard him make his smart remark.”
The sports guy, who looked all of twenty-four, picked up his steel equipment case and waved with
his free hand. Coach waved back, then muttered under his breath, “The gameday I let him on my field
with that thing will be the day I put a Kennedy sticker on my fucking Dodge.”