ANGUS TAKES CHARGE OF ME

1961

     I was eating lunch at a bench by myself at school when a kid who looked to be around 25 came up and introduced himself as Angus Taylor. He’d heard I was the star baseball player on campus and informed me he’d moved down here from Moose Jaw, Canada to pursue a professional baseball career as a centerfielder. He was stocky with a husky voice, wavy black hair, heavily lidded eyes and a bold, direct manner. I invited him to sit down. He told me he played junior hockey and had a chance to turn pro in that sport, but, much as he loved hockey, he loved baseball more. His family had sold their home and moved everything they owned to this area because it was a baseball hotbed where he had a better chance to “sign.” He said there were hardly any scouts in the vast regions of Calgary, so his family had taken a big gamble for him. His Dad, a plumber, had managed to find a good job and his older brother, a roughneck, worked and lived at home.

     We began hanging out and one afternoon pitched batting practice to each other. He was strong, fairly fleet and graceful, had a level pendulum swing, and did things right. He didn’t have a strong arm. He poked me in the chest afterwards.

     “I hear yer a fuckin’ prima-donna, throwin’ bloody temper tantrums like a little kid. Christ, I wish I had half yer talent. An idgit can see yer a fuckin’ natural. But I ain’t  playin’ with a bloody flake. This is our senior year, and I’m shapin’ yer ass up, because this is OUR team, your team and MY team, and since yer gonna be my best friend, I’m gonna take yer sorry ass under my wing, and we’re gonna win this league and we’re both gonna sign and be playin’ pro ball…okay?”

     Okay. I became his personal project. Right off he accused me of having a negative attitude toward women; and right off it was obvious he had a way with the girls, like it came second nature. “Listen, I’ve got more pussy than you might get in your whole life. I been at it since I was thirteen. I already got my eye on a couple hoo-ers. These babes down here are dynamite compared to the farm heifers back home.” He poked my chest. “Yah just gotta know how to talk to ‘em. You don’t. Yah never look at ‘em when yer talkin’ to ‘em, because a blind man can see yer afraid of girls.”

     “Bullshit.”

     “Oh yes yah are. First of all, yer a decent lookin’ guy, but yah dress like a bum. First impressions mean a lot. And I seen the way yah gawk at that goody-goody Polly Puritan Dawn Meadows. Stay away from that wench, and follow the big A, and I’ll set yah up with a bloody hoo-er, and once yah nail one of them, all ‘of ‘em’ll be after yer scrawny ass if yah throw ‘em a good fuck. All yah gotta do, Dell, is hang out with the big A and let me do the talkin’, and yah’ll get laid.”

     The Big A, like me, didn’t give a hoot for school. We spent our time in pool halls in bowling allies in Orange County, where the big players shot for money. Angus grew up above a tavern and was a crack shot able to run rack after rack in straight pool. He corrected my bridge and taught me how to hustle and soon we were gambling every weekend. Angus befriended perfect strangers with his big innocent and disarming smile and instant charm. We began making money, the Big A always making the final kill against older, more experienced players. “Don’t mess with the A,” he whispered to me after each conquest, his eyes dancing with mischief and conquest.

     When we hunted down girls—mostly gum-chewing twitchy-hipped sophomores in tight dresses who seemed drawn to Angus as if he was Elvis--he watched me act interested in them and try to make friendly conversation, and chastised me afterwards. “Just feed ‘em the Southern Comfort,” he urged. “They don’t give a flyin’ fuck about what you got to say. What yah do is give ‘em a buncha shit, keep ‘em off balance, maybe make ‘em cry, then make up, and then they’re fulla passion, and yah nail ‘em like yah love ‘em, only yah never get stupid and TELL ‘em yah love ‘em, because then they either get bored and drop yah, or they try to trap yer ass in marriage.”

      I didn’t dare admit to him I couldn’t stop thinking about and keeping my eyes off Dawn Meadows of the porcelain skin and perfect posture and prize-winning smile that oozed easy self-confidence and was pursued by student presidents and those already headed for the American Dream success story. I hated myself for being attracted to her and thus ignored her when she said hello to me like I was special--like she did everybody else--and actually snickered, following the Big A’s advice, causing her to pause and stare at me in shock and then purposely ignore me in English class, which I relished.

     Since my Chevy was filthy and cluttered, Angus borrowed his brother’s big roomy smoke-spewing, clanging Packard with the big back seat after he convinced one of his squeezes to talk a friend into going out with me on a double date. When he came to our house my parents looked him over pretty well and he talked baseball with Dad. Mother winked at me and said Angus had “the devil in his baby blue eyes.” Dad was thrilled I had a baseball buddy, mentioned that Angus was much more mature than me, felt he was “good for me.”

     “Yer Dad, he’s something,” Angus said, heading to the home of a couple sophomore vixens with a trunk full of Southern Comfort and Beer bought by his brother Bill. “I can see how yah ended up such a great ball player with a Dad like that, but Dell, if I were you I’d sign and get out from under his shadow and play ball a thousand miles away.”

    (Next Sunday installment: Ted Williams Does it HIS way).