Yearbook (17 page)

And Ro-Anne, a young and beautiful princess, walked past the arch, past couples kissing beneath the stars in a meadow of pines, past all the sad good-bys and fond farewells and went back to her room, by herself. Not a white knight in sight.

She lay naked on her bed, the green crinoline dress spread out next to her. Her blue eyes wandered over to the full length mirror, locking as she discovered her reflected loveliness.

And as she lay there gazing at herself, she thought of the dance and all those boys she’d excited. Massaging a breast with one hand and her sacred locked vault with the other, she couldn’t understand why, with so many attentive suitors, she felt so saddened, and so damn alone and so …

No!—dammit, no! Ro-Anne snapped open her eyes. Hell, what was the good of reliving in the past if when you get there it only made you sad?

And then the thought of fantasizing about playing with herself while she actually played with herself so upset her, she quickly completed the act, rolled over onto her stomach and let a few new tears send her off to dreamland.

Of course she had no way of knowing Corky’s red pill had spent its magic; that, having arrived home depleted, he’d laid down for what he thought would be ten minutes and slept until six the following morning.

TWENTY-THREE
 

A
PRIVATE MEETING
was held early Monday before first period in Coach Petrillo’s tiny office. Corky and his coach agreed that relaxing at night and then being stimulated the following morning was just what he needed.

Saturday’s game at Rockville Centre’s Southside High would be the last of the season. A Waterfield victory would make them division champs, allowing the Eagles to compete for the league trophy. Petrillo told Corky to repeat the medication.

Guy awoke Saturday to find a snowstorm raging in his backyard. The ancient steam pipes against the wall coughed and complained.

Rasputin had crept into the room during the cold night, curling into a fur muff at the end of Guy’s blanket, displaying rare sociability.

As Guy got out of bed, the cat stretched grandly, a fat ballerina on tiptoes.

Shivering, Guy dropped to the floor for his morning exercises. He noticed it mid-sit-up.

The bottom of his pajamas seemed unusually far from his ankles.

Jumping up, he found his yardstick and marked off five feet on the wall. Tall and erect, he then scratched a pencil mark directly across the peak of his head. It registered a solid three inches above the five-foot mark.

Guy’s eyes popped open. Had those little workers inside his body been stretching the kid these past months while he wasn’t looking?

Five-three. Five foot three!

Further observation revealed other signs of sudden growth. Above the lip, mingling casually with peach-fuzz, two, no three darkening hairs, practically whiskers.

Guy flung off his pajama pants, frantic to get to the next inspection. Sure enough, south of the border, a light density of fragile blond curls had tentatively begun a clandestine gathering.

If things were finally blossoming, Guy reasoned, could the greatly anticipated, widely discussed joys of masturbation be far behind?

It was Guy Fowler the late-but-finally-growing man-boy who boarded the bus bound for Rockville Centre that snowy morning.

The ride was endless, every inch a milestone. The driver couldn’t distinguish sky from expressway.

The thirty-minute trip took two hours and the battered bus limped into a snow-covered parking lot just before kickoff.

The white sprinkle covering the playing field before the starting gun went off was soon churned to freezing mud by determined cleats.

The wind picked up. Snow beat hard against faces. Red-cheeked players wiped running noses with muddied sleeves. Frozen toes lost feeling. Ice caked around cleats and exposed calves cramped in the bitter chill. Pain was pleasure.

Charged by Coach Petrillo’s catalyst, Corky played as if it were an afternoon in May.

Guy was too cold to take pictures. It was snowing so heavily anyway, they’d have only come out looking like poor television reception.

It was a game played in frozen slow motion on a glass surface. When it was over, most of the triumphant Eagles were sneezing.

Petrillo had his best season as his last. For the first time in years, he’d be getting a crack at the regional trophy, in pursuit of which he’d spent an entire career.

He made a point of interrupting the celebration in the locker room, standing on a bench and promising—in booming stentorian tones—to drive each of them well past exhaustion, to the brink of cracking; straining and readying his gladiators for the most important contest of all.

The athletes cheered, agreeing they were girded for anything Coach could give out.

Petrillo was good as his word. During the next two weeks he pushed his boys like never before, keeping them on the field late into the afternoon and sometimes past sunset, into the cold darkness of night. He would have kept them longer—perhaps till dawn—if the field had been equipped with adequate lighting.

Corky poured total energy into the title game against Hempstead High. If Petrillo told him to put in two laps before quitting, he ran three. If Coach ordered fifty push-ups, Corky gave him sixty.

Whenever Petrillo whistled a rare ten-minute break, Corky insisted upon having the team back on the field, scrimmaging, in five.

They worked well together. Committed only to winning, Corky and Petrillo made a solemn pact: no second best.

The Friday before Christmas vacation was not a day for education. Festive parties were held in decorated homerooms and students exchanged grab-bag gifts purchased for under a dollar.

There were special assembly programs.

An angelic choir of carolers, a bit flat, was followed by a weary Santa Claus, a bit thin.

Dr. Potter declaimed passages from Great Expectations, after which the numbed audience had their drooping eyelids further challenged by three girls in purple crepe paper sacks twirling through a recording of “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

Student prexy Ken Crawley snapped everyone back by reading a letter from Sim Lu, the school’s adopted Korean orphan.

The correspondence thanked all the wonderful American students for providing her with money for rice and education. Her one dream in life was to be able to travel to America someday to visit each of them personally and say thank you for Uncle Sam’s charity.

Sim Lu’s hundreds of parents applauded.

Amy and Guy were assigned to cover the annual Homecoming Dance for fifth-year alumni that evening.

The gym was crowded when they arrived, filled with the class of ‘54. A scream of recognition occasionally broke through a low murmur as once-familiar faces renewed contact.

The reporters climbed to the top of the bleachers and observed; she with her pad and pen, he with his camera.

“How’d everyone get so old, so fast?” asked Amy.

Guy looked around, mystified. “You realize these people are already out of college!”

College. That far-off place where you went to grow up. An eternity away.

Guy looked at Amy. “How many of the girls do you suppose are already married?”

“Most.” Amy finished a note in her pad. “Unless they get to be teachers, nurses or secretaries. Bless the joy of alternatives!”

“Tough darts, Silverstein!” Guy snapped a photo. “It s a man’s world!”

“Don’t remind me. My nineteen-year-old cousin Jane got engaged last night. My Aunt Bernice phoned in details this morning. You’d think the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor again the way Evelyn took the news. “

“Wasn’t she pleased?”

“ ‘You know what this means, don’t you, Amy dear?’ “ Amy imitated her mother. “ ‘Now all the girls in the family are spoken for. All married, pinned or engaged. Now we just have to find you a fella, get you all set, so your father can die a happy man!’ “

“May I have your attention, please?!” announced the student body president from behind the microphone.

The noise died down.

“Hi, kids! I’m Ken Crawley!” Big smile. “Well! Here we are at the class of fifty-four’s homecoming reunion. Boy, it’s been a long five years, huh? Must feel great being back in the ole Eagle gym. What say we all join in the singing of the alma mater?”

The returnees resumed talking.

Corky couldn’t sleep.

He tried on his stomach. On his back. His side. Nothing.

The pink ticket to unconsciousness had been in his system an hour and a half, yet here he was, at eleven-thirty, pent-up and anxious, staring at the ceiling.

He got out of bed, went to the bathroom, swallowed another pink pill from Petrillo’s bottle.

Back in bed, he was asleep in twenty minutes.

The dream didn’t start for another five hours. Scrambling abstract thoughts and dormant fears, it gnawed at his brain. Lucky for him, he slept through it.

Having barely heard the alarm in the morning, groggy and exhausted, he stumbled into the bathroom.

If one pink pill couldn’t get him to sleep, it followed one red one wouldn’t wake him up. So Corky took two.

In the locker room, getting ready for the game, Corky did not stop talking. Jazzed and overflowing, he bounded from one bench to the next, patting teammates on the back, interrupting conversations with gibberish, telling half-finished stories and disconnected snatches of trivia.

It scared the hell out of Petrillo.

The stands were jammed, not a vacant seat. Kids carried signs and waved pom-poms. The roar of anticipation around the sunny field was deafening.

In the bleachers, Carl and Dora waved to friends.

Chuck Troendle’s father pushed his way through their row, commenting, “Well, folks. This is the day we ve been waiting for all our lives!”

Carl and Dora smiled.

Just before kickoff, a man presented himself to Guy.

“Hi. Rollings. Ned Rollings of Netvsday. Your quarterback says I should see you if I want the best pictures of the game.”

“He did?’

“We don’t usually cover high school sports, but this being a championship game and all, you know… “

The reporter handed Guy his card. “If you’ll drop off your film, we’ll develop. Maybe run a couple shots if they’re any good. Five bucks per. Wadda ya say?”

“Will do, mister!” Guy studied the card. “Thanks a million!”

The whistling noise from the stands followed the opening kickoff until the ball was high in the air.

The first half was played tough and scoreless.

Five yards forward. Two back. Six forward. Three back. Nothing exceptional on either side. A tug-of-war at stalemate, both teams evenly matched.

Petrillo’s halftime speech was more than his usual rouser. He poured everything into this, his swan song. When he looked over at his prized quarterback and saw Corky’s eyes dancing in their sockets, he started to cry.

These were not his ordinary crocodile tears, used to stimulate guilt and provoke the will to win. This time he meant it.

The Eagles began a second half push, gaining ground until they were first-and-ten, twelve yards from the end zone.

Corky called the play. Ace-in-the-hole runaround.

The ball was hiked. Half the line moved forward to confuse, half dropped back to protect.

Now was the time. The right end was clear, home free in the end zone. Corky was well-protected.

He brought a hesitating arm back to throw the ball, and his head began to swim. Colors reeled within and suddenly nothing made sense. Two of Hempstead’s linemen were almost on him, so Corky threw the ball, a perfect bullet, to the end, still in the clear.

Everyone was on their feet screaming and Corky relaxed as the receiver caught the ball and started to run.

Run?! Where was he running?

Corky took a second look, this time in focus, and saw that he hadn’t thrown the ball to his right end at all, but directly to Hempstead’s defensive halfback ten yards away who, surprised at the gift, was now busting his ass, heading in the opposite direction.

The Hempstead back made it past two Eagles, both still stunned as the crowd, staring in disbelief at the confusion. He rammed his way over a third lineman and then there was only Corky between him and eighty-five yards of open field.

Corky saw him coming, knew what he had to do.

He dove, a miscalculated leap, barely catching the side of a sleeve.

The Hempstead side roared. A hush fell over the Eagles.

Alone, the Hempstead halfback crossed into the end zone. Touchdown!

While one side of the field rose in celebration, the other was plunged into mortification.

Ro-Anne held white-gloved hands over her mouth.

Guy lowered his camera.

Carl stared at the wooden floorboards.

Petrillo couldn’t catch his breath.

As the Eagles’ defense ran out to try to block the extra point, Coach stood his ground, forcing himself not to lose control.

A defeated Corky wandered past him, onto the bench. He flopped down, disoriented, burying his head in his hands.

Petrillo crouched in front of him. “What the hell was that all about?”

Corky looked up, trying to stop the foggy visions spinning everywhere. Squinting, he took a deep breath and then grabbed Petrillo by the lapels, pulling the coach’s face smack against his. “What the fuck have you done to me, you son of a bitch?”

Petrillo tried pushing his face away; he couldn’t.

“Do somethingfor me,” Corky pleaded. “Help me!”

The noise of the crowd swelled and Corky’s attention immediately shifted to see Hempstead miss kicking the extra point.

A natural response from years of training made him automatically jump up and run onto the field. Now he understood the problem. He would not let it beat him. If his muscles still worked when he was ready to give out, so could his mind.

Corky went back and played football.

The ball was kicked-off to the Eagles. A scatback receiver caught it and ran to the fifty yard line, where he was stopped by two powerful Hempstead tacklers.

The team huddled, down and confused. Corky tried snapping them out of it, insisting vehemently, “Listen to me carefully. We re going to win this game!”