Vanity On The Gridiron

Never mind, he said with his eyes, putting me in mind of the time he made me run on a broken leg for a week.

At night, after those meaningless big suppers of steak and milk and dry toast, I began to realize this: "Lu Libble won't let you start this year, not even in the Army game against your great enemy Art Janur (who pushed me out of the showers when I was a kid in Lowell High but got his comeuppance from Orestes Gringas), and not even maybe next year as a junior, he wants to make a big hero out of his Italian Mike Romanino, well Mike is a great passer but he runs like Pietryka, like an old cow. And Hank Full's leaving. The hell with it. What'll I do?"

I stared into the darkness of the bunk rooms thinking what to do.

"Ah shucks, go into the American night, the Thomas Wolfe darkness, the hell with these big-shot football coaches, go after being an American writer, tell the truth, don't be pushed around by them or anybody else or any of their goons.... The Ivy League is just an excuse to get football players for nothing and get them to be American cornballs enough to make America sick for a thousand years. You shoulda stuck to Francis Fahey.... "

Well I can't remember what I was thinking altogether but all I know is that the next night, after dinner, I packed all my gear in my suitcase and sauntered down the steps right in front of Lu Libble's table where he was sitting with his assistant coaches figuring out plays. My bones were rasping against my muscles from the overtraining; I limped. "Where are you going Dulouse?"

"Going over to my grandmother's house in Brooklyn and dump some of this clothes."

"It's Saturday night. Be back by tomorrow at eight. You gonna sleep there?"

"Yeh."

"Be back by eight. We're going to have a light calisthenics, you know the part where you get on your back and turn your skull to the grass and roll around so you won't get your fool neck broken in a game?"

"Yes sir."