Barefoot Boy with Cheek by Max Shulman

Author:Max Shulman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

CHAPTER XI

Mon oncle est mort. —BALZAC

I had some difficulty getting tickets for the football game from Eino Fflliikkiinnenn. He didn’t come around the fraternity house much because he was so busy with training. I finally found him eating with the team at their training table. A corps of waiters were lined against the wall, not serving the team, but watching so they didn’t eat each other. Because I was his fraternity brother, Eino sacrificed two tickets behind the goal posts to me for $45.

Noblesse picked me up before the game. She was with Bob Scream and Peggy Orifice in Bob’s convertible. There was a little time before the kickoff, so we sped festively around the stadium, shouting and waving, honking wildly, and raising lumps on pedestrians.

Finally we went into the stadium and wedged ourselves into our seats. I bought Noblesse a balloon. She wrote her phone number on it and released it. Then came the kickoff. Sixty thousand throats shook the earth with their roars. The game was on!

It was one of the most thrilling and colorful afternoons of my life. Although I could not see the field, I knew when I heard cheering that something significant was happening and I yelled as loud as I could. It gave me a sense of belonging. Noblesse joined me, gaily yelling, “I mean block that kick,” or “Hold that line, after all.”

Between the halves there was a colorful ceremony in which a pick-and-shovel squad marched out into the field in formation and dug up the opposing backfield men whom the Minnesota linemen had driven into the ground. This ceremony had been regularly followed since 1931, when an unseasonal winter thaw had unearthed the body of a Purdue tailback on the 40-yard line where he had lain since the Minnesota-Purdue game the previous fall.

Minnesota won the game 84 to 0. Of course everyone knew Minnesota was going to win. They were just interested in seeing how their jackpot numbers came out.

After the game we met Bob and Peggy outside the stadium. “Let’s go over to the Collegiate Eat Shop. Carl Carnage is going to meet us there,” said Bob casually.

“Not Carl Carnage, the halfback!” I cried.

“Not his grandmother,” said Bob wittily. “He’ll be over as soon as he gets paid for today’s game.”

We went to the restaurant, and Carl Carnage soon joined us. For all his fame and publicity, he was a regular fellow. He let me buy him dinner, and later, when we went to the Golden Grouse, he let me pay for his drinks all night.

The Golden Grouse was a quaint little tavern just outside of Minneapolis that was frequented by the gay college crowd after football games. It was run by two genial Neapolitans, Snake and Trigger Caruso, who had formerly been with Capone. When we arrived the place was already crowded with shouting, singing college people. The waiters scurried energetically about serving the exotic mixed drinks that the college crowd fancied. Behind the bar stood Snake and Trigger Caruso, impassively watering the liquor.

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