The Essay A Novel

by The Essay (retail) (epub)

  “You mean like washing and . . .”

  “Like soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste? Wearing clean clothes?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “I overheard some of the football players talking about you. They said you wear your underwear to school, then to practice, then you wear the same shorts home?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, Jimmy Lee, no wonder you smell bad. You’ve got to change your sweaty shorts.”

  “How often?”

  Her chin dropped and her eyes widened. “Are you serious?” I could feel tears of humiliation welling up in my eyes. At that moment, all I could think about was that I was glad I hadn’t asked Ruth Ann Shellabarger to the homecoming dance. “As often as necessary, Jimmy Lee. At least once a day, twice if you’re playing football, three times if you’ve got gym class.” She reached into a bottom drawer and produced a paper bag from the Abel’s Drug Store in McArthur. She held up a can of aerosol antiperspirant and deodorant. “Every time you get out of the shower, you use this. Do you know what it’s for?”

  “I know what deodorant is. We just don’t have any at my house. My dad says it’s a waste of money.”

  Her eyes squinted. “It’s not a waste of money, Jimmy Lee. Civilized people use deodorant.” She shoved the aerosol can back in the bag and produced a bottle of shampoo. “Wash your hair every time you take a shower. Every time! There’s soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush, a hair brush and a tube of face wash. Use them. If you run out and can’t afford to buy more, tell me.”

  “This is pretty embarrassing.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed.”

  “When someone tells you that you stink, it’s embarrassing, Miss Singletary.”

  “If no one told you, how could you be expected to know?” She folded down the top of the bag and shoved it across the desk to me. “Now, as long as we’re on this subject. Let’s talk about your clothes. Make sure you change your socks every day. And, you need to get some clothes besides those old T-shirts and blue jeans and work boots.”

  “Like what?”

  She smiled. “Some nice khakis or navy pants and dress shirts. I’ve got someone who can help us with that. Will your parents buy you some new clothes?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I’ve got some money saved from working at the truck stop this summer. How much will I need?”

  “We could probably get you set up for about a hundred dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “It’s an investment in your future. It will make a big difference in how you look at yourself, Jimmy Lee. Now, let’s talk about your hair.”

  “What about my hair?”

  “Jimmy Lee, it’s a half-inch long all around your head. Where do you get your hair cut?”

  “My mom cuts it with a pair of clippers. She’s cut it for years. She got upset when I was in the first grade and Margaret Burrell said I had lice.”

  Miss Singletary rubbed at her eyes and said, “Oh, Jimmy Lee, you poor thing.”

  “I don’t want your pity, Miss Singletary. Just show me how to do things right. I’ll listen.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I

  tried to hurt my opponents.

  I particularly liked it when a running back came out of the backfield on a screen or flare pass and had his back to me while he waited for the quarterback to deliver the ball. He would never see me coming. I would run as hard as I could and use my helmet like a battering ram, trying to put my helmet between his shoulder blades or go for a helmet-to-helmet collision just as his hands touched the ball. I wanted to hear the breath rush from his lungs and see the look of fear in his eyes. On more than one occasion, I had given up the chance to intercept the ball in order to put a hard lick on a kid. The crack of the helmets always brought the crowd to its feet. If I could horse collar a running back trying to turn the corner, I would spin him off his feet and try to slam him hard on his shoulder and give him a stinger. Done successfully, this would send a volt of searing pain down his spine and cause his arm and side to go numb. I was good at filling the hole and meeting running backs at the line of scrimmage. As I was making the tackle, I tried to get my helmet under their chin and drive them hard to the ground.

  The East Vinton fans loved it. They cheered my name. When Mr. Evans on the public address system announced my name on a tackle, it would echo through the narrow valley that encased our field. Coach Battershell and the assistants would slap my helmet and say, “Hell of a hit, Hickam.” I loved the game, and football provided an outlet for my anger, a chance to dish out revenge for years of being scorned. I didn’t crave the spotlight; I craved acceptance. Football gave me a degree of acceptance. The booster club president would never invite me to his house or allow me to date his daughter, but he was quick to put a hand on my shoulder after a game and praise my effort. The harder I hit my opponents, the louder they cheered, and the more I liked it.

  Miss Singletary’s talk about my hygiene left me angry and ashamed. Mostly, it made me feel ignorant and inferior. I was angry with her, with my parents for not having talked to me years ago, but mostly with myself for being just another stupid dogger. At the end of the day, that’s all I was, just another hick from Red Dog Road who didn’t have the good sense to bathe and change his shorts on a regular basis. Jesus Christ, I thought, no wonder people didn’t want to be around me.

  Merle Smith was a freshman halfback who probably should have gone out for the golf team. He might have weighed a hundred pounds with his equipment. That day, while I was brooding over my conversation with Miss Singletary, the scout team offense ran a pitch to the left side and I hit Merle with a shoulder and forearm an instant before he took the pitch. The impact lifted him a foot off the ground and separated his chinstrap from his helmet. He flailed through the air like a man falling backwards over a cliff, his arms whirling in tiny circles. I scooped up the ball and ran ten yards until the coach blew the whistle. When I turned around, Merle was limping to the sideline, tears in his eyes and gasping for air. The defensive players smacked my shoulder pads for the hit, but I knew it had been unnecessary.

  While the scout team huddled, Coach Battershell walked across the line of scrimmage, hooked my facemask with an index finger, pulled my face close to his, and asked, in a calm tone barely above a whisper, “You having a bad day, Jimmy Lee?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m alright.”

  “Maybe you’ve got a burr up your ass about something, but don’t take it out on a little guy like Merle Smith. Got it?”

  I lower my eyes and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  I was deliberately slow to strip off my practice uniform and get into the shower. My pants were crusty with salt and stained with grass and soil. The white, numberless jersey was heavy with sweat. For the first time I noticed how badly they reeked. They went into a cloth duffel bag with my socks, T-shirt and underwear. The shower was clearing out when I entered. I took a corner shower, turned the water up as hot as I could stand it, and let it pour down over me.

  There was a cake of pink soap in the holder near the shower handles. I held it like a scrub brush and raked it through my bristled hair until suds ran down my forehead and into my ears and dripped on my shoulders. At first, I thought she was being helpful, but as I stood in the shower her attitude seemed so demeaning. I lathered up my chest and arms, scrubbed hard on my pits and rolled the soap over my package until my pubes were full of bubbles. They probably had a big laugh about it in the teachers’ lounge. It was just like the Valentine I had sent Rebecca McGonagle or the morning erection that Lindsey Morgan found so humorous. Everyone was having a laugh at Jimmy Lee’s expense.

  Of course, I knew Miss Singletary would never do anything like that. I was more angry at my own ignorance than at her, but at seventeen, it is sometimes difficult to accept responsibility for your own missteps.

  I washed each leg from the ankle up, rubbing the soap against the grain of my leg h
air. I ran the bar over my face, then stood under the pounding water and watched the white lather snake toward the brass drain. I repeated the process, and when the lather had rinsed from my eyes, I could see Coach Battershell standing in the opening to the shower. “Don’t wash the skin off,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Stop by my office before you leave.”

  “Why?”

  His brows arched, surprised at the answer. “Because I said so.” He left before I could respond. After drying off, I stuffed the towel into the duffel bag and pulled my blue jeans over damp skin. The underwear had gone in the duffel bag, so I covered myself with one hand and carefully zipped up my jeans with the other. The locker room had cleared out by the time I walked into Coach Battershell’s office. His feet were crossed at the ankles and resting on the corner of his desk when I rapped twice and walked in. He didn’t look up from the playbook he was flipping through, but pointed at a chair with his pencil. “Have a seat, Jimmy Lee.” Without looking up he added, “Shut the door.” I pulled it closed behind me, dropped the duffel bag and eased down on the plastic chair, waiting for his eyes to leave the playbook. “Rough day at school?” he asked.

  “Not particularly.”

  His brows arched as he finally lifted his eyes. “It looked to me like you were taking out some frustration on the freshman. Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  He nodded, his eyes focused on the eraser end of the pencil he was tapping on the desk. “Are you upset with Miss Singletary.”

  “Why would I be upset with Miss Singletary?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, Jimmy Lee.” I folded my arms and looked away. “Do you think that conversation the two of you had was easy for her?”

  “How’d you know about it?”

  “She talked to me about it first. She was nervous about approaching you and wanted to know how I thought you would take it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “The first thing I told her was that she had more guts than I did. I also told her you’d take it like a man. Of course, given your display of temper at practice, now I’m not so sure.”

  “It’s football. I thought we were supposed to hit.”

  He ignored my comment. “Let me ask you a question, Jimmy Lee, and I want you to really think about it. When was the last time you had someone, anyone, climb out on a limb for you the way Miss Singletary has with this essay contest?”

  “You did.”

  He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I’m just your football coach. I like you and I care about you, Jimmy Lee, but I haven’t had to risk anything by putting you in a game. Anyone who watches can see you’re a hell of a football player. I don’t need to convince people of that. They’d think I was an idiot if I didn’t play you. But as far as I can see, there’s only one person in the whole school who believes you wrote that essay and believes it enough that she’s willing to back you up.”

  “I never asked her to do that.”

  “Really? Do you think you could be any more ungrateful?” His tone turned harsh, as when a player missed an assignment on a critical play. “She wants you to succeed and she doesn’t want you to embarrass yourself. There’s not another teacher in this school who would have had that conversation with you. She’s got your back and all you can do is whine about it?”

  “The only reason I entered that stupid essay contest was to show Miss Singletary that I could write. I wanted to show her that she didn’t need to worry about passing me out of junior English. Before that writing contest, everyone looked at me and told me how good I was at football. Now all anyone is talking about is me being a cheater. I wish hadn’t even tried at that essay contest. What do I need it for, anyway? You said maybe I could get a scholarship to play football.”

  “Your life in football is finite. Do you understand what that means?” I didn’t, and shook my head. “There’s an end to playing football. Sometimes it ends after high school. If you’re fortunate it ends after college. If you’re very, very fortunate, it ends after the pros. But it ends for everybody, and the number of years you get to play are pretty insignificant in relationship to your entire life. When the day comes that you can’t play football anymore, what are you going to do?” I looked blankly at him. “It’s not a rhetorical question. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that much about it.”

  “You better start. Miss Singletary says you have talent. Use it, son.” I looked away, feeling very much the scolded child. “And, as long as we’re on this subject, I want to tell you something, but it doesn’t leave the room. Understand?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “You be damn careful how you act around Mrs. Johanessen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. Be careful. She’s a snake, and she’ll do anything she can to trip you up before that writing competition. She catches you doing anything that could be construed as improper or a violation of school rules, she’ll try to get you suspended. Did you know that she had planned a celebration for Catherine the evening you upset the apple cart and won that contest?” I did not and shook my head. He couldn’t hide a smirk. “She thought it was a lock and had invited a raft of family and friends, including a few teachers, to her house for a party. Then you trimmed her sails, so she’ll be gunning for you, trying to find a way to get her kid into the county competition. She’s got a strong ally in Mr. Speer, so don’t give her any ammunition.”

  “I won’t.”

  Mrs. Johanessen was a dour woman who thought life had wronged her by planting her firmly in the middle of Ohio’s Appalachian hills. She had moved to Vinton County from Cincinnati after her halitosic dentist husband bought Doc Verzella’s practice in McArthur. She was openly disparaging of the locals and longed for the life of culture and entitlement that she believed had been her destiny when she married Ralph Johanessen in his third year of dental school. Stories abound at East Vinton High that Mrs. Johanessen had a wild side and had rebelled against her husband for dragging her to the hills by having a series of affairs, one of which was rumored to be with Principal Speer. Mrs. Johanessen rarely smiled, wore her hair in a bun so tight it seemed to stretch the corners of her eyes, and wore loose-fitting skirts in a vain attempt to hide her spreading rear end. From my perspective, it seemed almost beyond comprehension that someone could find her desirable.

  Behind her back, Mrs. Johanessen was known as “the chess master,” for the way she orchestrated Catherine’s every move. There were those in Vinton County who said Mrs. Johanessen had a near maniacal obsession with her daughter and lived vicariously through her achievements. Those less kind said that her love for her daughter was conditional upon those achievements, and that she worked Catherine like an expert puppeteer.

  When Catherine was in elementary school, Mrs. Johanessen carted her throughout the Midwest to compete in beauty pageants. During show-and-tell in those early years, Catherine was forever bringing in a sash for being the Pumpkin Festival Princess, or a tiara for being Little Miss Zucchini Festival, or a trophy proclaiming her Miss Tiny Tomato Queen. On the playground after one such demonstration, Kip Fillinger put one hand on his hip, one behind his head and while shaking his butt said, “Look at me, I’m a beauty queen,” and then made fart sounds with each wiggle of his rear. Catherine burst into tears and ran inside. Of course, Mrs. Johanessen made a visit to the elementary school the next day, and Mrs. MacIntyre gave us a talk about not being cruel to our classmates on the playground, though she could barely do it with a straight face.

  Mrs. Johanessen became the cheerleading advisor at the high school when Catherine was in junior high just so she could hold the position and ensure that her daughter spent four years cheering on the varsity. After carting Catherine off to Athens for two years of private tennis lessons from the Ohio University women’s coach, Mrs. Johanessen organized a tennis tournament at the Vinton County Country Club, such as it was, with a nine
-hole golf course, two tennis courts and a swimming pool so small it was called the bird-bath. The tournament pitted Catherine against a half-dozen girls who barely knew which end of the racket to hold. She won the tournament three years in a row, for which her mother presented her with a trophy the size of a small car and had an article placed in the Vinton County Messenger that would have made you think she had won the U.S. Open.

  Mrs. Johanessen worked diligently to raise a spoiled, entitled brat, and that’s what she ended up with. Given her history, it was not beyond my comprehension to believe she might try to blindside me prior to the county essay competition.

  Chapter Twelve

  M

  y shirt was a tad too small through the chest and it was cutting at my armpits. Mom had bought it at the Volunteers of America Thrift Store in Chillicothe the previous winter for my great-uncle Chester’s funeral. It was a little thin at the elbows, but it was washed and pressed. The slacks were black and, I think, made of nylon. They came from the same thrift store and like the shirt, were a little snug. I had polished my belt and my only pair of black shoes. The scent of the antiperspirant was noticeable to me and I sensed that I had put on too much.

  When I walked into Miss Singletary’s classroom for my tutoring session, she looked up briefly, then back to the paper she was grading. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have a tutoring session this period and simply don’t have time for a parent-teacher conference at this moment.” She looked up again and feigned surprise. “Why, as I live and breathe, Jimmy Lee Hickam. I didn’t recognize you all dressed up.”

  My lips quivered as I unsuccessfully tried to suppress a grin. “It’s from the second-hand store in Chillicothe. I got it for my uncle’s funeral.”

  “It looks nice,” she said. She sounded sincere. She crossed her arms and smiled. “I’m proud of you, Jimmy Lee. This is a big step. Is that cologne I smell?”