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PARTISAN REVIEW
prize, and I don 't mean that in any sacrilegious way either. Oh, Linda
and I don't do it the way we used to. But I'll say this, we had our share.
And well, hell, life can't stand still. The game's got to come to an end
sometime. And we still love each other, even if (like we joke together )
my pectorals and her breasts have both slid a little, like we were those
wax candles of a bride and groom on our wedding cake. And our joke
is, even if we have burnt down, at least we were lit.
But I don't get anywhere trying to make Buster see my point of
view. Like yesterday they showed some clips on TV before the State/
Duke game.
It
was a little thing called "State Football : Highlights
from the Past." Well, I figured I might be one of the highlights so I
yelled for Linda to go get Buster to turn off those weird singers he
listens to all the time and come down and watch. Finally he scuffed
into the den and slumped down against the paneling. And sure enough
they did show my big run against Duke. There I went, I spun away like
the White Knight. Buster got his sarcastic expression while we
watched. "Big Moochie Tryson, ]eez-us!" he said.
Then he threw out one of his quotes like always, I don't know
where he gets them . He called this one ''To An Athlete Dying Young. "
Live fast and leave a beautiful memory type stuff. And he says, "You
should have died right then, Dad, right there in the end zone. Like the
Greeks in the stadium used to yell at their Olympic victors, you know,
Die Now Die Now!
See, they were reminding them, you'll never be this
perfect again, you only get this kind of moment once. So die now.
Right?"
I said, "No thanks, Buster. I'm kind of glad I didn't die then ."
Linda said, "Then where would you be, Buster silly billy, if Daddy
had died before you were born?"
Buster tore up to his room and came back with a magazine article
that claimed to prove it was the losers in high school who went on
to
great achievements in the world, while the implication was that if you
were a sort of big-shot or whatever you want to call it, back then ,
chances were you'd end up selling used washing machines, while the
old high school losers you used to feel sorry for were off being movie
stars and inventing a cure for cancer, et cetera. I'm the first
to
admit
setting the world on fire never crossed my mind personally, but if that 's
what Buster plans to do later on, nothing would please me and Linda
more, as long as he was happy. But of course, it's clear as day why this
article meant so much
to
him, because, God help him, if there ever was
a high school loser, he's it.
And I guess that's where I think his article was off the track. The
