Michael Malone
HIGH SCHOOL LOSERS
I tell my boy Buster, in the game of life there are winners
and losers, and it's hard to switch teams after you run on the field.
Buster never appears to be listening, but I feel like I want him to know.
My wife Linda tells me Buster's a late bloomer. She tells him he should
have known me when I was in high school if he wanted to know the
real
me; he 'd be proud. Buster raises his eyebrow and slouches back to
his room.
But it's true. I was revved to race back th en, I was poured full of the
juice of youth. Everything on me bulged. Not a muscle, including the
one we called Mr. Roto-rooter, that wasn't flexing of its own accord.
It
was all I could do to walk down the sidewalks without cramping into a
pretzel or exploding like a tire. I was so pumped I had to jog in place; I
had the feeling that if I didn't keep all the muscles moving, everything
in me would get lockjaw.
My mother would stretch her arms across the door to hold me:
"Mooch ie, listen to me , are you coming to the reunion Saturday or not,
are you coming home for supper or not, are you going to ask Mr.
Gaddy about a summer job or not?" Oh, she had a life all planned for
me, but I sidestepped it. She thought I couldn't hold my horses , and
she was right as rain. "Mooch has ants in his pants." But it wasn't ants.
I guess you could call it an anteater. With its nose in a constant quiver,
that thing had a life all planned for me too, always pointing where it
just had to go in a hurry.
If
I'd had it on a leas h , it would have yanked
my arm right out of the socket. I spent my time back then trying to get
under a barbell or a car, or get a girl under me. I tell Buster, at least I
spent
my time.
Along the way Somebody (and I guess it was God) poured the
sands of time all over my motor. I know it was nothing personal. Some
people think it was a rotten kind of a joke for Him to play on his own
pet creatures-human beings , I mean-to rust them out with age. But I
feel I got a good shake and I 'm not complaining. Not that I'm claiming
I was any special pet of His, but back when I was young He showered
some confetti on my head, and I could hear the bands play, and there's
