ANGUS STEERS ME THROUGH THE FEMALE LABYRINTH

1961

     Besides winning a championship and signing a baseball contract, Angus’s major mission was getting me laid. He now had a main girl friend named Tammy and two others who were after him, and he was trying to palm them off on me, but it was obvious that girls who were hot for Angus had no interest in me.

     “Yah know, Dell,” he told me, the wild glint in his eye. “If rogues like us make it to the big leagues we’ll be fightin’ off the pussy, and they’ll be cream of the crop. Any guy ever wore the big league uniform’s had more women than he can count.”    

     On the ball field, we continued to win. The O.C. Register wrote up our team, and the student body, always obsessed with football and sometimes basketball, filled LaPalma Park for the first time ever. Walking down the corridors with Angus, fellow students—even girls!—smiled and waved at us like we were celebrities. The most popular pretty girls began to show up at our games with members of the political class of strivers and achievers, stomping during rallies and cheering our successes.

     One afternoon, sitting directly behind my Dad and a cluster of scouts, was Dawn Meadows. As always, she was clad in billowy ankle-length skirt revealing nothing, high-necked sweater, hair perfect, posture prim and self-assured, legs crossed, occasionally clapping, a smiling queen paying homage to her minions. We won the game, and I hit some rockets and ran the bases like a wild man, dirtying my uniform.

     Next day in English class I slouched in back studying her white neck in the front row. She had the clearest, pearliest skin, the bluest eyes, wore no make-up. When she talked she looked right at you. She listened intently and liked to smile. When class ended, she stopped me outside the door.

     “Dell, I just wanted to tell you what a good game you played yesterday. You are such a good baseball player.”

     I shuffled and grunted as she held her books against her ample chest. “I also think you’re a very good writer, and should be in Mrs. Rogers creative writing class.”

     “Yeh well.” I shrugged. Angus lurked down the hallway, holding hands with Tammy, who he was fucking on a regular basis in his brother’s car at the drive-in movie, and his eyes twinkled with lascivious mischief.

     Dawn stepped closer. “Dell, I don’t think you’re anything like you act. You put on this tough-guy act, so gruff, but inside I think you’re soft as a marshmallow. The act is just a cover-up, because you’re afraid of being sensitive. I think deep down inside you’re really a nice guy.”

     “I ain’t so nice.”

     “Why must you talk like a…street thug? You’re not fooling me one minute, Dell Franklin.” She smiled at me in a very wise and knowing yet fond manner. “I’d really like to be your friend. I think you’re an interesting person.”

     “I blushed. “Yeh? Well, yah wanna go out some time then, ey?

     “I like to have men friends. Sometimes girls are so…catty.”

     I turned abruptly and walked off. Angus winked as I passed by. From this point on, I went out of my way to ignore Dawn. Once, when I passed her in the hall, she slowed down and her eyes widened and pinned mine, as if to seek some explanation for my swinish behavior, but I huffed on by, snorting disdainfully. Later on she spotted me with Angus at the lunch benches and came right over. Angus leered and walked to another bench to observe the proceedings. Dawn was upset.

     “Why do you hate me, Dell?”

     “I hate everybody in this stupid school except my team mates, so don’t feel so isolated.”

     “Oh that’s a bunch of nonsense and you know it.” She thrust her delicate chin at me, blue eyes fiery. “Know what I think? I think you’re afraid to really like a girl, because Angus over there’ll make fun of you. And I think that’s so pathetic and spineless on your part. I thought you were your own man, but you’re just another follower, bending to peer pressure.”

     She walked off with haughty dignity as I stared at her white calves. I’d spied on her in gym class, and, though totally un-athletic, her boobs jounced and her legs rippled in her blue shorts, a sure sign that beneath the matronly attire was the voluptuous body of a blossoming woman at its most tender.

     “Yer bloody sweet on her,” Angus said after she stalked off. “Look, she’s the kind’ll get under yer skin and fuck with yer baseball. She’s a bloody virgin, I’d bet, the kind yah take home and marry. Yah pop her cherry and yah gotta marry her. And I’ll bet my ass and yer ass that once yah giver a good ram she’ll turn into a fine piece of arse, because that’s the way it is with the ones holdin’ back waitin’ for the right guy.” He pinched my cheek, leered. “She’s comin’ to all yer games, ey?”

     We continued winning, and I continued ignoring Dawn. One of her poetry class friends stopped me in the hall and asked who I was taking to the prom. I informed her I didn’t go to proms. She said a bunch of guys, including one of the brainy social climbers, who was going to Yale, had asked Dawn, but she hadn’t yet made a decision. At dinner, Dad asked, “Who’s the girl with the flawless skin and pretty blue eyes?”

     I shrugged. “Just another devoted fan.”

     He winked at mother. “Nice girl, Rose. He’s like his old man—good taste in women.” He glanced back at me. “You still a fighter, or you a lover?”

     Dawn finally pigeon-holed me outside English class. “Who are you taking to the prom—Angus?”

     “I hate proms. I ain’t wearin’ a damn monkey suit for nobody. I hate dancing. I hate everything about the whole stupid tradition. I’ll go to the all night party and get drunk.”

     She rolled her eyes. “You takin’ Angus to the all night party, too?”

     “Angus is taking Tammy. Maybe you can give him a big graduation kiss, ey?”

     She stormed off, but came to my game the next afternoon, sitting directly behind my Dad and the scouts, and when I happened to glance over at her she looked right at me, and smiled knowingly.

     (Next Sunday installment: Big Ted Kluszewski Shows Me His Knuckleball)