This chapter provides an introduction to the coming-of-age story of a teenager named Daria growing up in Garfield, New Jersey in the 1970s. It describes Daria discovering she is hemorrhaging badly in the bathroom and giving birth to a premature baby. Her distressed mother calls for an ambulance. Meanwhile, three teenage boys named Flip, Joe, and the narrator Stem are drinking and daring each other to inappropriate acts at a high school band concert. Stem dares to climb up the side of the school building to peek into the girls' locker room shower.

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Daze Reunion " A coming of age tale while cutting teeth on a slice of life growing
up in Garfield in the 1970's. READ ENTIRE FIRST CHAPTER
PROLOGUE
Enshrouded within the eclipse of the empire skyline, just on the outskirts of
what was native to drowse jaw locals as "Da City",Slumbered a "Naught Jawzy"
sleepy hollow bedroom community known as Garfield. That was the place of
plight for this tangled tale.
The populous was predominately massed from first and second generation
Italian, Polish and Slavic lineage propagating nearly forty thousand people.
Firm, family woven, textile bound neighbors they all appeared to be, arriving
with a suitcase crammed with their American dreams. Much like their ancestry,
these ethnic people found refuge in the peer and tier group both high and low
on the economic scales within the community.
Backslap nepotism played a major role of substance vocationally as well as
academically here. As a common cornucopian community, it was collectively
compiled of have and have not inhabitants. The fruit lay cradled in the lap
of luxury, rather than at the short end of the cornucopian horn.
The highlands or "Heights" inhabitants preponderated a migration of Italian
natives. To some extent, this was a diminutive facsimile of “The Hill" type
fame likened to various urban metropolitan distinctions. Often the area was
referred to disparagingly as "Guinea Heights".
Had a stranger strolled the summer church celebration in the Heights he might
think he had stumbled upon an open set audition for the lead role in the
movie "My Cousin Vinny"? The "yoots" from the Heights all pretended to be in
some way connected. Many of them contrived an Uncle Angelo or a Cousin Vinny
that to some extent was associated or forevermore removed from the mob.
It came to view that a lion's share of the political pigskin patronage was
being passed among benefactors and kindred blood relatives to this
"Sopranoland" sector of the city.
West of these Heights were the lowlands on the Passaic River side whose roots
of origin were comprised of Polish and Slavic credentials.
The people in the community were sometimes referred to as DP's, which stood
for deports or dumb Pollocks.
"Maybe day not talk so good, no?" These were quite well heeled people that
are by the rudimental definition, retaining less than moderate means.
Jewel Street was the business district, a downtown stretch of whitewashed
window store fronts. Most of the juvenile delinquency focused in that dwarf
dysfunctional junction, which was our place of refuge at the time.

2. Here, the abandoned textile sweat shops, along with the perspiring paper mill
plants which once flourished in the region prior to their foreign exodus,
subsequently had become vast vacant vestiges of a jobless benefit.
Invariably these two principal groups were alienated and at endless odds with
each other. Having what was recognized as a gin mill, tap room, tavern, club,
or bar on roughly every street corner in town hardly brought these divided
bands toward any common congeniality.
This is the grinding axe of anger and its consequence overcome by the
arrogance of youth during the development of a young man.
"The anger of Achilles is my theme."
Available @ Amazon Books
ENTIRE CHAPTER ONE
"You fill up my senses like a night in a forest"
The tranquil sounds of a John Denver tune could be heard as they murmured in
the warm weightless summer air through the open screens of the first floor,
two family home of modest means. On that early July just before twilight,
Daria, a strawberry blonde, teenage Tom girl, was tending her household
duties. Dee was anticipating the arrival of her working class, single income
home maker mom. Her mom had been divorced for many years.
Daria, one of a pair of siblings, had a brother ten plus years her senior.
The girl seemed to be, by mom's age, not a welcome arrival at birth as her
brother Steve had been. She was peewee petite, yet had quite a statuesque
figure for such a youthful age.
Her mother, a woman of unquestionable temperament and questionable years, was
said to have been a living miracle having endured a bed ridden form of cancer
just recently.
Now, with great faith she preached the good book. By day, by night, and by
day again, she preached to her young, dear daughter Daria. The household knew
no television or radio other than gospel music, for these were the tools of
the Devil himself. None other than the sedate sounds of John Denver were
considered acceptable listening on occasion by mom these days.
As Daria's pint sized, classic, forty-five plus mother entered the home that
evening, she began to check the chores she had asked of her young Dee earlier
that day.
"Now, what shortcomings might there be?" she pondered while pinching at her
chin.
Never had anyone tried so hard to please, as Daria tried to please her mom.
And never had anyone been so difficult to please as her mom.
Now, humming along with the Denver tune, she began to wonder where her young
Dee was. The bathroom seemed to be the likely locale.
Mom sounded off, "Dee, are you here, Dee?"

3. Daria answered in somewhat of a discomforting tone. "Yeah, Ma, ah... huh...,
yeah."
"Are you okay, dear?"
"Yeah Ma, cramps."
"Again?" mom questioned with a prune face of a smile.
"Cramps again?"
Daria, now straining to get the words out, replied, "Yeah, yeah, Ma, cramps
again!"
Her mother tended to dinner back in the compact, California style
kitchenette, while minutes turned to the better part of a half an hour.
Mom hailed her voice towards the bath in order to muster a response.
"Dee, dinner is almost ready, dear."
Daria, now in a more discomforting tone replied, "Ma, I’m having a problem. I
think I'm bleedin'!"
"Let me in now, Dee!"
"Let me in there right now,..... now!" she demanded.
In her posted position, Daria extended out and undid the awkward metal door
hook to allow mom entry into the closely confined quarters. Upon doing so,
what she had restrained for the better part of an hour was then expended.
Massive scarlet bellows of gore escaped as her screams distorted the peaceful
night backdrop of John Denver's ballad.
"My God, child, you're hemorrhaging horribly. My God!"
Blood now consumed the entire seat of the bowl as well as the small space of
the tiny pink and black checkered tile floor.
"Mommy, help me. I'm bleedin'! I'm bleedin'! Please, help me! "
"Mother of God, help my child! Mother of God, please! “Echoed throughout the
room from her startled lips.
"Help her, Jesus!"
Befuddled, her mom staggered out of the bathroom, dazed in disbelief, etching
a trail of bloodied footprints in her wake as her fingers now fumbled in
ferment with the rotary dial phone.
"Please, we need an ambulance at 225 Division Ave.
immediately! My daughter is hemorrhaging! Hurry, please hurry!"
She rushed back to her daughter who was now just short of collapse from the
loss of blood as well as from absolute fright.
"Hold on, darling, just hold on. Don't move a muscle. They're on their way,"
she assured her.
Now, stooped against the clammy porcelain potty, she began to pray while
holding onto her daughter in a vise like grip. Daria remained lethargic while
she clenched towels tightly to her loins. She was saddled on the slick
commode with both knees strained jointly and firmly.

4. Minutes seemed like hours before the lucid, red, reflective images could be
seen as they sifted through the window screens and jigged across the dimly
lit walls.
Arching her head back in momentary relief her Mom cried out,
"Finally..., thank God, they are here. Thank almighty ......God!"
As the word of God scrolled off her tongue she charged toward the front door
to permit the paramedics passage.
Once more Daria screeched in an outcry, this time culminating her calamity
into a final curtain call of closure.
With that wail of conclusion came a traumatic tremor and the expulsion of her
premature newborn plunging into the dusky, bloody liquid of the sullied
toilet.
With a scowling eye of cinder and a fairly composed facial gaze, Daria's mom
stood petrified and polar as she sheltered her open mouth between the picket
fingers of her pressed palms.
Aid and comfort were administered to the child mother and her less than
precocious protégé by the emergency medical technicians. Within moments the
"teeny-tom" mom was sedated, sheeted, strapped, and swept outward for
transit.
Daria, now apparently in a quandary of unqualified denial, could scarcely
motion from her episode of inoculated paralysis.
By that time, curiosity seeking neighbors inhabited the unassuming street.
Mom sauntered unyieldingly out onto the glaring, radiantly reddened asphalt
in order to board the double parked, spotlessly shiny, white ambulance.
Totally expressionless in a mummified, transient state, she now seemed to be
soliciting her very soul in the shrieking silence of a solitary world.
Benched against the wheel well, she sat with her head wrenched toward the
back as the rear view doors cast shade across her tongue gaping stare of
vacant granite. Noiseless ambulance ambers illuminated and descended down the
precariously tight, right of way roads through the city of Garfield in route
with urgency to the hospital.
Shadows of a somber, summertime sonnet now whispered fainting lyrics as they
faded into the gloom of a Cimmerian street light gray along Division Avenue.
"come love me again."
Midway across town, three pubescent, less than pedigree teens, once again
under the influence, were shooting the breeze at an outdoor tournament of
high school bands.
The luminescence of a copious, crimson, summer sphere descended just beyond
the west grandstands as the temporary lighting for the event began to
glitter, casting a glow upon the infertile football field.
It was show time once again for these unusual but usual suspects.

5. Flip, best described as a disheveled, yellowed- out, spaghetti head boy, was
one of a brood of five in his family. He was a poor man's, fish eating, bead
pulling altar boy, just recently unplugged from his youthful Catholic faith.
Flip was the nearest thing to a rebel without a clue and that brother I never
had. We spent most of our wasted youth as close confidants. The yearbook
taunt "Partners in Crime" pertained to me and him.
Joe, sometimes referred to as "Little Eggie", having been fathered by an egg
delivery man, was our philological guru. Mop top Joe had a head of hair
resembling the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. Little Eggie was the leading
man in our trite trifle of trouble. He consumed anything from pot tea in the
morning to black beauties, red and green Christmas trees, blotter acid, black
hash, and beers at night while giving us his twist on Frank Zappa. Joe would
quote Zappa, his eminent mentor, verbatim in his prophetic ode libretto with
all its splendor. He was the authentic article, quite possibly a periphery
player on that swerving curve of genius, while he was off building castles in
Spain somewhere in his head. Joe, however, had more balls than a field of
Hydrangeas in bloom.
Unfortunately, Joe was flying much too close to the exposed flames, as he
turned out not as galvanized as he thought himself to be in his subsequent
years. Joe's voice could be best described as a shrill sounding motor with
defective windings, but he exhibited a keen mind and a quick mouth.
Describing myself, Stem, legitimately is only a perception on my part.
Retaining a less than loquacious demeanor at times, it would be fair to state
that I was never hurt by something I didn't say. Pivoting my party of peers,
I stood with the neighborhood rough boys although I still dangled by the
threads of my varsity jacket to the jock-strapper horde. Having experienced
one premature year of athletic success while procuring glory as a one hit
wonder eventually led to an untimely gridiron demise. The avoidance of
haircuts and validating the formidable report card without parental scrutiny
were my sole priorities at the time.
It appeared as though our reputation had begun to proceed us in many ways
that we did not realize at the time.
Drinking Boilermakers, shots of Southern Comfort Whiskey dropped into cups of
beer, and banging a reefer was the way we went that night. We three high
school "Soph o morons" had a strange chemistry when we were together. Playing
up to our own peer group was always a quick kick for us. Tonight was no
exception. It was who, after a buzz, would dare to be brazen, brash, and
bold enough to walk up to girls at the concert and verbally or physically be
offensive with them. The two standbys based one's point total on the
expressive, suggestive lewdness. These types of games always seemed to start
out quite harmlessly and later escalate.
The outside boundaries of the high school stadium consisted of a continuous,
eight foot, ornamental concrete pillar wall with a walkway and an adjacent
parking lot. People were arriving and departing as their respective bands
concluded for the evening.
Joe started off by putting his arm around a girl's shoulders who was walking
past and asking her if she would screw. Immediately, he obtained the early
lead with five points granted for his efforts.
In order to receive early respect, Flip countered with a grab ass walk by.
Ten points were awarded.

6. "Ok, Stem, what are you gonna do, pal?" Joe interrogated with his "Alfred E.
Neuman" ear to ear lookin' grin.
"I'll grab the next good lookin' girl's tits," I said.
"You ain't got the balls," chimed in Flip. "No way, man."
A moment or two went by when three honey haired, sixteen-ish thoroughbreds
walked past. I walked up with a butt in my mouth and stopped them as if I
needed a light for the unlit cigarette. The girl in the middle smiled so
obviously that she received my utmost intentions as well as my full
attention.
"Hi. Do you have a light?" I asked.
"No, sorry, we don't smoke," she replied with a cute smirk.
Throwing away the cigarette I stated, "Well, actually, I don't smoke either,"
as I reached out toward her chest.
"I just wanted to feel your tits," I explained in a very matter of fact tone.
While making contact with my target objectives, she swung out and slapped my
face in a thrashing lash, giving me an Irish kiss. Joe and Flip stood slack-
jawed and started to howl like a couple of werewolves. At that point the
three blondes bolted off as if they had been flogged with a branding iron. We
also fled, only in the opposite direction.
"Twenty five points, Stem !" Joe yelled as we ran.
We found ourselves huffing and puffing and out of breath directly in front of
the gymnasium. Incidentally, it happened to be the girls' shower room side of
the gym.
The area had an abrupt thirty foot hill where the brick building met the
ground that rose up to the public sidewalk. About eight feet or so up the
wall was a four inch brick ledge below a foggy, dimpled glass window which
opened just a crack to the girls' shower rooms. As a matter of course, that
appeared to be my next challenge. I made the statement that I would walk into
the girls' locker room showers if they would give me the boost I needed. By
that time, they knew I was not about to back down.
We walked down the hillside while arriving at the conclusion that maybe it
was out of the realm of actual possibility. At the very least I would be able
to grab a finger hold onto the edge of the ledge with a jumping boost. The
part where I would pull myself up like a fly on the wall I had not yet
figured out, although the incentives that awaited were quite seductive and
alluring.
The two foot, four hand boost to the roost sent me up just high enough to
grasp the edge of the ledge with my face flat against the cool brick. I
slowly began to draw up toward the ledge, like a rat climbing up a drain
pipe, with just enough room to get my elbows on it while still affixed to the
wall the entire time. I pulled open the top half of the jalousie style window
enough to grasp the metal frame as I pulled myself up until one knee found
the ledge. Getting a leg up and both feet onto the ledge, I was now home
free. I could hear the girls talking down the slender hall toward the lockers
and showers. By the sounds I figured there must have been a least fifty girls
inside. The thought of them being partially or completely uncovered started
to make me feel quite nervous. My heart felt as though it was pounding out a
rhythmic pulsation to the arteries in my head.

7. On the ground Flip and Joe were asking simultaneously, "Can ya see anything
yet?”
“Yeah, a few bare asses down the hall walking toward the showers."
At that point I decided it was now or never. I opened the top half of the
window and ducked my head in enough to get my body through the window and
into the interior of the room. Standing on the sill ledge about five feet or
so off the floor, I could now see from the very rear of the poorly lit
storage end to the locker room area.
As quietly as possible I set myself down onto the floor. No one walking
within twenty feet or so had yet to spot me. I then began to walk like a
guerilla in the mist toward the front lockers where I could see twenty or so
girls disrobing, toweling off, and placing their Mickey Mouse mattresses in
place. As I slowly sauntered directly toward them I began to notice that the
majority of the girls were not glancing around much, possibly due to their
own bashful demureness. All was calm for about twenty seconds until a broad
breasted babe with wet locks of auburn, peered up from the leg she was
swabbing with her towel and let out a screeching squeal.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!"
In an abrupt mutuality, clamoring cries fractured into an almost ghostly
sound bounding off the locker room walls. Unbound bedlam broke free as linen
covered exposed flesh with the alacrity of a jail break.
As all of that was happening I proceeded with my tour de'jour toward the
shower room passing a drenched girl or two who eye balled me like deer caught
in the headlights. I then strolled toward the tiled arch opening.
There I witnessed a wealth of young beauties of all shapes and sizes soaping
their youthful, tender, tan torsos north, south, east, and west with lucid
white lather. The lighting was not premium but the noteworthy scene of those
sudsing silhouettes will certainly be among my fondness memories.
A more erotically picturesque and dazzling sight for a young man like myself
might never be eye witnessed again.
As I began to walk directly into the wet tiled room, screams accompanied soap
bars and wash cloths which were deployed as projectiles propelled at a
machine gun rate with uncanny pinpoint accuracy. All of the captivating
cuties scurried out of the shower room like fire ants.
With garb oozing wet I grabbed a towel off the floor and blotted off some of
the damp lather as I proceeded toward the door. As I strolled out of the
swinging door into the school hallway two ladies gave me an odd stare but I
continued to walk past them very casually. A fleeting glimpse over my left
shoulder revealed a tiny, partially clothed, saturated sweetheart standing
outside of the locker room door with a janitor. He instructed everyone inside
to cover up before he entered to check out the area.
By chance alone I chose the correct route. I then walked out the main doors,
down the stairs and back up the hill to my envious buddies who were
dumfounded with total disbelief. I gave them all the details which they
couldn't believe and actually, neither could I at the time.
That same night we all traversed to one of the indigenous underage bars in
town which at that time were many. Up the Bellmont Hill about a half mile
from the high school was a small, run down gin mill known to us as Mary's. It

8. normally was filled with the local beer jerkers and booze artists from the
neighborhood. That night it was crammed with twenty or so under-agers
getting into a rowdy state of mind, pretty well tweezed, as we stepped into
the den of iniquity. The foulness of stale hops, yeast, smoke, and mildew in
the saturated floor boards pervaded the room with an adulterated ambiance.
The number five school boys were out and about in number that night. Although
now in high school, we previously had battled each other in grammar school.
Fortunately, out of all the seven or so grammar schools, the number five
school boys always seemed to get along pretty well with the number four
school boys. So we were welcome clientele there, even out of our local
element.
Poor Mary was an eighty or so bent over Slavic lady obviously quite blind by
the size of the lens cheaters that she wore. She gave the impression that she
actually could see what she was reading. Meanwhile, everyone knew that she
was way past the point of being legally blind by the way she grabbed and
handled each item behind the bar. We would pass around the same phony I.D.
and Mary would study it five or six times, for some guys as long as a half a
minute, before serving the next underage kid.
Don, a freshman, was fourteen when she first began to serve him and she never
again asked for his proof.
The music that night was excessively loud as we walked through the thick
mahogany front door. Actually, a kid we knew as Joey swung open the door as
we entered, hanging onto the knob like a playground swinging gate ride. Just
as we ordered our first round of brews, a Jethro Tull tune played on the Juke
box and all hell broke loose.
There was an air of ominous and odious intention in the room. As Jethro Tull
shuffled into his madness, a couple of the guys at the pool table seemed to
join in as they began to beat their cue sticks against the chairs. Not to be
outdone by one another in a boyhood challenge, with every beat came a harsher
impact until the cheap wooden veneer chairs began to shatter.
The rest of the drunken underage crew, picking up on the hostile momentum,
started a small scale riot by grabbing stools, bottles, and glasses and
heaving them at the mirrored background and glass shelving behind the bar,
depicting a low budget, cheap, and spaghetti western. What lasted in all
likelihood for seconds lived on in much greater detail in everyone's memory.
Poor, proud Mary, totally petrified by this momentary delirium, remained
frozen, peering out from behind the back door of the storage room.
As the air cleared of smoke, flying glass, and beer Flip, Joe and I looked at
each other with an uncomfortable, numb feeling while wide eyed in total
disbelief. We were somewhat sober since we hadn't yet finished our first beer
in the place. As quickly as it occurred, that little tempest in a teacup
didn't seem to catalogue as reality. In less than seconds, the bar floor boys
attempted to clear out the door like two pounds of baloney being stuffed into
a one pound bag. The discharged patronage spilled out into the dingy street,
scattering in individual directions.
With their exigency we followed the same track but without the same tack. We
scratched the gravel down Bellmont Hill with the speed of a belt-fed motor as
we heard the sounds of sirens in the distance. The decision to ditch out
behind a dumpster at Meltzer's Sporting Goods for a while in order to elude
the local law turned out to be the right one.

9. After about a half an hour of speed walking we encountered a momentary run-in
with a local blue suit who questioned our whereabouts for the evening. We all
played it as dumb as mud, which was not a stretch by any means. It was a
Detective Amos who asked us to contact him if we heard anything about the
incident. We assured him that we would and added that when that kind of thing
happened around there it usually turned out to be a bunch of out-of-towners.
Ironically, Detective Amos happened to claim fatherhood to one of the more
zealous participants that evening.
Weightless vapors of mist filtered through the fall air as we broke the
huddle minutes before halftime on that dreary, dimly lit, last game of the
athletic football season. Dave, our team co-captain and center, looked back
at me through the dank fog and shook his head knowing it was my center screen
play that had just been called.
Dave was our consummate leader as well as everyone's mentor. He did not
sacrifice substance and duty for speed. It could be definitely stated that
most of our team was slower than the drawl in a bible banging, southern
preacher's sermon. As far as physical toughness, guys like Dave, as well as
others in the starting lineup, could stand nose to nose with most.
“Let’s go, kid," he grumbled with his typically intense facial expression.
As we set into position at the ball, I was the up back in the eye formation.
Into motion I went as Jimmy, our quarterback, began to call the signals. The
play called for me to come back to the center of scrimmage in order to catch
a middle screen pass without the support of blocking. This was a totally
blind play with my back to the defense as the offensive lineman allowed their
defenders to break through.
As I veered back with both arms in mid-air to signal for the ball from Jimmy,
I heard the pulverizing sound of a heavy helmet colliding into my back,
pummeling me torpedo fashion face -down into the mushy terrain.
My first sensation was a sweet snoutful of freshly trimmed turf along with a
deficit of breath in my lungs. As I opened my eyes, a red flag sat next to my
kisser for the premature blow I had received from Dennis Tinsley, Englewood's
all-star linebacker.
As gasps for air came from my mouth, I listlessly got up on my rubber legged
feet and walked, as they say on Queer Street, back to the huddle. The sound
coming from me as I staggered ahead was my unrelenting lungs heaving for
fresh air. As I attempted to inhale, the sound resembled the resonance of a
Hoover vacuum with a burnt out motor.
"Aaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaah!"
Dave looked at me and swore, "What the fuck! You got the wind knocked out of
you, you stupid fuckin' Pollock. Lie down!"
There I stood, bowed over forward, tugging fragments of rude air back into my
emptied lung cavity as I waved off his command.
"Get him out." Monte, our tight end and other co-captain, yelled and then
pointed to the sideline where the coaches obviously did not pick up his
characteristic and distinctive dictatorial doctrine.

10. Without warning, my exhalation came forth in a discharge of intensive reverse
polarity. The refreshing air blasted back into my lungs tearing my eyes.
Monte stood boulder faced as he grinned at me and asked, "You okay, Stem? You
okay, man? “While patting the back of my helmet.
Choking on my response, I huffed out loud for air and looked at Jimmy as I
stuttered for words.
"I'm, I'm all right,....................but Jimmy, don't run that play again,
huh !"
"Why not? We got a first down!"
The entire huddle burst into laughter, shaking their heads from side to side
as the sideline coaches, bewildered, looked at each other as if to say, "What
the hell is going on out there now?"
Dave rewarded me with a closed fist to the forehead and said, "You stupid
fuckin' kid!"
I didn't say a word as I purveyed my most premium smirk. At that moment the
referee walked up toward the huddle and said,
"Two minute warning, fellas."
He looked over at teary eyed me and said, "You all right thirty-five?
"I'm fine...... Dad," was my response.
The referee turned his head in a double take to catch the grin on my face.
How good, although short-lived, that baptism under fire was. Gaining peer
respect, making a virtue of necessity, by merely getting up from a cheap shot
to the back ribs seemed to earn more respect than anything preceding that. It
was odd that that would subsequently become the most vivid single event in my
memory of that day.
Monte, our tight end, Dave, our center, and Jimmy, the quarterback were now
at the sideline discussing our strategy for the last two minutes of the first
half of this Thanksgiving Day game. I glanced over to see them explaining
what the laughing was all about. The coaches were all shaking their heads in
synchronized unison as they responded.
The trio trotted back to the huddle with the play as time was running out in
the first half of this zero to zero clash. Jimmy called the passing play as
we broke the huddle. The gadget play was one in which Eddie, the halfback,
would catch a screen pass behind the line of scrimmage and throw the ball
across the field to Jimmy, who would run down the opposite sideline.
As we ran the play, I took a fake play action hand off while the pass to
Eddie was completed. He hadn't much time as he hurled the ball across the
field. As Jimmy leapt to catch the pass, Tinsley, the linebacker, shot out of
nowhere to intercept it and ran down the barren sideline untouched to
fracture the scoring draught in the game. You could hear the groaning crowd
verbalize their discontent. Englewood missed the extra point and after a few
no gain plays we walked into the locker room down six points.
The stage was fixed in the Englewood Cardinal locker room and the theater was
the Thanksgiving Day football game with the Garfield Boilermakers visiting
their foe.

11. Halftime chalk talk was being supplied by head coach Frank Dawson, a crew
cut, jar-headed, thirty-ish, fit man quite towering in stature. Dawson
demanded the utmost discipline and respect from his players and coaches
alike.
He quite often spoke loudly and clearly as he displayed his iron hand in a
velvet glove emotion in a grandstanding style of his own.
As he attempted to reach us with his halftime speech, Eddie and I glanced
back at each other when we heard our names mentioned, not realizing the
pressures of that moment. We were both sophomores starting in the backfield
where we both had been for a portion of the season. Most likely, the last
time most of these senior players would ever play in an organized football
game was that day. That tended to create a very somber mood for them. Guys
who said little or nothing to us all year were coming up and telling us that
we absolutely had to win the game for them.
Coaches split the defense and offense into separate areas to discuss what was
going on. Dawson told me to keep my head up more, and the team to concentrate
on running more because of the weather. Eddie was banged up a little, having
taken most of the carries the first half, yet I was still reasonably fresh.
The cut orange slices were tasting extra good as we sat there not really
paying much attention to the second half strategy being implemented.
Coach Dawson said, "You all came from a lot tougher past than those guys out
there. Your families worked hard and struggled their entire lives for you so
that you guys could have a life better than their own."
They, meaning our opponents, thought we were low class, he told us.
"You haven't had anything handed to you; nothing has come easy," he stated.
"On the other hand, those guys out there have been born with silver spoons in
their mouths. They look down at us like we're low class. So let's take those
silver spoons of theirs and shove-um right up their asses!" He yelled out.
The entire team yelled back, "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Dave and Monte, standing together, said in unison, "This could be the last
game for any one of us because anything could happen. So play like it's your
last funkin' game, you guys."
At that moment, Dave gave both Eddie and I his silent stare.
Simultaneously Ed and I gave each other a "yeah right, not us" look, not
knowing how prophetic a statement that was for at least me. It haunted me for
years afterwards, never dreaming for a moment that it was to be my "Swan
Song". Here, with absolute unknown certainty, it had become.
Adding to everyone's emotional state was the fact that old Coach Hollis, a
bull of a man and a local hero, was retiring from his forty plus years as a
pillar of the sport community at Garfield High. Coach Hollis, who had coached
my Dad in the forties, was built like a Coke machine but with a head and a
pair of glasses. He was certainly our hometown living legend once playing
head to head against the one and only Knute Rockne many years before. If
anyone mentioned Knute, the coach was known to go ballistic, usually grabbing
the guy by the throat and picking him off his feet in mid- air. Hollis was
our equipment manager and he would sparingly give out "Hollis Hard Cards"

12. which stated that you were an official "Hollis Hard", meaning that you
achieved the high standard of tough guy in his book.
The coaches were all pumping us up for the second half of the last game of
the season. During the excitement, a loud yell from the rear of the room was
heard echoing off the metal lockers. It was assistant coach Saganic
yelling,"You fuckin' idiots; that's no pisser. It's a funkin' fountain!"
As everyone scrambled to check out the commotion we saw six players hanging
over the white, round fountain in a circle, whizzing into a big, bright,
porcelain drinking and washing fountain. We all started to laugh at those
guys as the coach smacked them in the head for being so stupid. Just at that
moment I remembered what Coach Dawson had referred to only minutes earlier:
the fact that the other team thought we had no class. Well, how much off the
mark were they if that was the case.
As we left the room and walked into the tunnel below the concrete
grandstands, the first team players were in the front, and the rest of the
team was hitting everyone on the back and saying, "Let's go man; let's get
these guys!"
As we ran back onto the field, I could hear some of the home crowd calling
out our guys' names and numbers saying things like, "You're gonna get your
ass kicked, number thirty-five."
As Eddie and I ran out, a cup flew out of the stands, hit Eddie in the helmet
and bounced onto my chest. It was a full sixteen ounce Coke. Eddie stopped
dead in his tracks and turned to look up at the crowd. I stopped, looking
straight ahead. Eddie flipped the crowd the bird as Coach Dawson turned
around to see what the crowd had just reacted to. He saw Eddie standing there
with his finger lifted in the air. I grabbed Eddie by the jersey and said,
"Fuck'um, Ed. Let's go."
Coach Dawson started to explode as Ed explained that someone in the crowd had
deliberately dropped a Coke on us. Dawson let a whiff of air out of his mouth
in disgust as he looked up at the crowd.
Back on the field Eddie was running the ball well and I was blocking for him
while taking about one carry for his two. The huddle was full of intensity as
the game was winding down. We were moving the ball but stalling inside
Englewood's territory each time. This was very frustrating for the coaches
and for us as well. During the third quarter Dave, a linebacker on defense,
trapped the Englewood quarterback behind the line of scrimmage in the end
zone for a safety that put two points on the board for us. The score was now
six to two.
Late in the fourth quarter with the ball at mid-field on a fourth and ten
call, Jimmy rolled around to his right and threw a pass to Al for a first
down around the thirty yard line. With the two minute warning getting close
at hand I got the ball straight up the middle and bounced off a few tackles
down to about the twenty. I got some raps on the helmet for encouragement and
the two minute warning was there. We in the huddle, muddied and wet, looked
at each other knowing that this was it; there were no more second chances.
Jimmy came back to the huddle and said, "Stem, you're running up the middle
from here, pal. You gotta run hard, keep your head up, and don't let them get
the ball man. Hear me?"

13. With the lust of a laser in his eyes Dave added, "Step right on my fuckin'
back if you have to, man. We gotta win this game."
As I looked around the huddle at these guys with what appeared to be an eased
demeanor, I could tell that they thought I was treating this lightly although
I wasn't. In reality the only way I knew how to deal with pressure was to
exhibit a relaxed complacency.
I carried the ball four times up the middle for quick slight gains and we got
another first down around the four yard line. We used a time out and once
again we ran straight down their throats. I was getting pounded by now with
six and eight guys at a time all trying to horse collar me and steal the
slick ball.
Coach Dawson called on me to run the ball. I hadn't coughed it up in two
years under game conditions and prayed that I wouldn't now. Eddie had been
taking most of the snaps all day. He had been knocked out of the game a few
times also. Now at the goal line Dawson brought in Mace, a defensive lineman
and part time fullback. He was about six foot four and two hundred twenty
plus pounds. Mace got the call but couldn't put it over.
Time was lacking and the pressure was mounting as the field clock descended
toward the final minute of the game. I ran a few plays up the middle hitting
the openings while the defense was trying to shoot those same gaps with
bodies. Due to the heavier rain now falling, making our traction almost
hopeless, we totally abandoned our passing game, not to say we actually had
one.
Between the weather, bad footing, mud, and the defense trying to stand people
up to knock the ball out of our hands, we were fortunate to still have
possession. We were down to a fourth and goal at the one yard line which was
our last play with twenty-two seconds left on the clock. Back in the huddle,
voices erupted into enraged hysteria as everyone asserted to each other that
we had to get over on this last play.
"You gotta get in Stem; you gotta get in, man!”
"With my face and palms up to the skies I countered," I'm tryin'!"
The overcast storm clouds purged once again on cue as the rain pelted down
onto our mud mired uniforms and faces.
Monte unexpectedly yelled out, "All of you just shut the fuck up! We all
want to win this game bad, so just fuckin' block your man this time and we'll
win the fuckin' game!"
Monte's words seemed to detonate a dumbfounded silence throughout the
previously uproarious huddle.
Jimmy returned to our field flock in order to call the final play of the day
which was for me to run off center one last time.
As I tipped my head up I viewed ten pairs of peering eyes cruxed my way
gloated in a gag of obvious unsteady silence.
Jimmy rotated in my direction and stuck his face mask right into mine with an
unanticipated thud and blurted out, "This is it. You know what you gotta do."

14. Void of expression with the exception of a raised eyebrow, I nodded in
agreement.
I suddenly felt very wet, raw, and sore. My legs seemed to move at a sluggish
acceleration rate cuffed in a delusionary imprisonment to a ball and chain.
That was due to the excess weight of the mud on the soles of my cleats being
hauled around like big wads of glutinous gum all day long.
As I took my three point position for the last time I withheld from putting
my hand down into the mush once more. My attention wandered off for a second
or so in a relapse conjuring some obscure thought of relaxation. My total
concentration was lost briefly only to be recollected by the count of hut
one, hut two.
Abruptly, Jimmy lurched up from the center and whirled his body around as he
handed me the ball in a near miss, mid-air, turbulent movement. Stepping on
eggs while bumbling ahead I swiveled out in the direction of the goal line,
skidding like Goofy on skates for the first time in the Ice Capades. I
detected a small area of blurred daylight between Dave's shoulder pads and
lunged forward head first.
With that final impetus, I ruptured the vague plane and kowtowed over the
swabbed out, faded, yellow stripe, finally hitting pay dirt, splattering into
the soiled end zone.
As the referee signaled a touchdown, I loitered face down with my elbows
doused in the moldable mass taking in the noteworthy scene. Jimmy was jumping
up high in the air in a vertical leap while running toward the sidelines. The
entire band of players, coaches and fans alike jumped, hugged, applauded,
whooped and yelled out loudly.
Willfully and without a warning a hand plucked me from the back of the jersey
and yanked me up to my feet from the muck. With the football still cradled in
my arms I twisted around to see the face of my principal mentor, Dave.
As he smacked me on the lid he said as if I hadn't realized it yet, "You
scored, kid! You fuckin' scored, man! And it's about fuckin' time, ain't it?"
I nodded my head as I started to lope over to the sidelines still embracing
the ball like a wino clutching his last bottle of booze. The referee trailed
in hot pursuit as I walked over to the bench. He asked me for the football.
As I sluggishly tossed it over to him, he nodded back in courtesy.
The uproar reached full peak on the sideline at that point. Everyone was
hugging and slapping each other in the celebration of that moment. I was
instantaneously catapulted into small potato town, football hero status.
The extra point was made as the time ran out on the ensuing kickoff, and
party plans began to take shape.
Teams briefly exchanged niceties at the perpetual mid-field symposium. Soon
afterward we began to board the bus for our jubilant jaunt home. The hazy
headlights of the bus cast a final backdrop on that muddled and puddled day.
The prominent pole lighting now terminated, leaving the field in faded washed
out shades of gridiron green and grey.

15. Sports articles from the local paper as well as one small write -up in the
New York Times were gathered for me by family members. A few days afterwards
my Dad asked me why I was so casual after we scored. I hadn't any answer for
him.
On Monday, still with the lingering feeling of a battered up torso, I decided
to take the day off from school and spend it with Daria.
That morning the sound of the high school public address system was heard
making the morning announcements to the homeroom classes congratulating the
coaches, players and me for the game victory. Meanwhile, Daria and I were
laid out on her living room rug, pillowed, blanketed, and embraced in
juvenile carnality.
Daria was extraordinarily well developed for her age. Her hair was a wildfire
of strawberry blonde bursting out of her head like beams of absolute untamed
rays of sunshine. Her breasts were voluminously spherical with tiny flawless
flushed rosettes at their extremities. Comment as well as compliment were
frequently pitched at her regarding her bosom. Daria carried a bit more
weight than the previous freshman year although she retained quite an
athletic yet malleable form. She stood about five feet four and weighed one
hundred and eight pounds at the time.
There we were at the "Hot Bed Hotel" that late fall afternoon totally
consumed by each other, horizontal and impassioned in the state of hormonal
paradise. Sparingly clothed and lost out on the pike of passion, abruptly and
without warning Daria bounded out of our buckled embrace and said that she
heard her mother's rickety car pull into the driveway.
"Hurry up, Stem. Get up. Get up!" she screeched.
Grabbing up pillows, clothing, and blankets in a fury, I
raced to Daria's bedroom closet, stumbling over my socks which were half off
as I heard the sound of the front door cylinder unbolt.
With Daria's bedroom door halfcocked, as well as myself, in her closet I
stood, barely clothed, not moving a single muscle, comprehending every word
spoken by her miniature mom.
"Dee, what are you doing home at this hour?" she asked.
"I left school after lunch, Mom. I don't feel well," Dee replied in a whine.
"You look a mess; you are flushed," she insisted.
"I was lying down on my bed," she explained to her mom.
"Well, put some clothes on dear; you probably have a slight fever. Let's
see." Her mom felt her forehead and replied,
“My god, you are quite warm, girl. Bundle up and I'll fix you some tea."
"Okay, Ma," Dee answered.
As I stood nested within Daria's apparel, eavesdropping on them, I realized
that I had dropped my underwear between the closet and Daria's bed in full
view from the kitchen. They happened to be unmistakable boxer style trunks. I
could hear myself breathing out loud due to my intense nervousness and fear.
Daria's mom, although a pint size woman, would certainly launch her wrath
upon me, but most assuredly on her young daughter, if I were to be
discovered. Her mom most definitely would have me “caught by the short
hairs." My heart was now thumping so loud it felt as though it was on the

16. outside of my chest. My incarceration had lasted the better part of an hour
at that point.
Just then Daria walked into the room and gave me a wink as she kicked my
underwear underneath her bed and returned to the kitchen. I wondered how the
hell I was going to get out of there. I absolutely couldn't stay in the
closet all night long. My parents would go ballistic if I wasn't home in a
few hours. Just at that moment Daria's mom peered out the kitchen window and
stated, "Oh, dear. Those clothes on the line will freeze tonight! I had
better get out there now."
It was a blessing in disguise. A huge sigh of relief escaped from me with her
words. As her mom put on her jacket and picked up the laundry basket, I
readied myself for the breakout.
As the door closed behind her, I rushed out of the closet's caged confines. I
bobbed toward the front door inside one pant leg, dressing myself along the
way, as Daria, in a panic, coached me into the hall. Together enough to leave
the house, I made a B line for the door. Unfortunately, I forgot that the
door led into a hallway that had a side door in full view of her mom at the
line of clothes.
Daria kissed me firmly on the mouth and shut the door behind me as I darted
toward the front exterior porch door, not realizing in my state of panic that
the front door was seldom used for entry.
The front door to both units was bolted with a keyed lock from the inside and
outside. This side door was the one which Daria and her mom used to exit and
enter adjacent to the driveway.
Back to the side door I fled only to see her mom returning to the house with
clothes basket in hand. Beads of sweat quickly covered my forehead as I
realized that the basement door was also right there. Just as I opened the
door and slipped in, her mom entered the hall and did not detect a single
sound. Within ten minutes I felt brazen enough to exit when I heard the
sounds of gospel music which now veiled my escape from the basement of the
house.
As I walked the three blocks to my house the fresh air invigorated my
disposition. My Mom was in the kitchen preparing dinner as I entered the
kitchen from the back of the house as usual.
“Hi, Ma! What are you making?" I asked her with her back toward me.
“Sloppy Joes," she announced, as I proceeded down the hall past the living
room to the basement door. I passed Dad in his chair watching TV in the
living room. As I acknowledged him I couldn't help but notice an unfamiliar
expression on his face.
He asked, "Where you coming from?"
"School yard; shooting baskets."
"Oh, yeah," he said in a tone of total disbelief.
As I continued down the short hall and flew down the stairwell to the safety
of my sanctuary, I felt perplexed by Dad's sudden inquisition.
As I removed my jacket, an explanation revealed itself. Calf clingers, panty
hose, that is, had static clung to my jacket's corduroy back.