completely in a physical sense. Also feeling the need for a pair of big fat school scissors which I bet you got in that desk drawer if you would just let me check.
I went over and pulled open the drawer, bopping his tummy just a tiny bit, which he probably took as a symbol of my need to disbowel him like the Zulus do in movies, there being all that African stuff in my blood. Especially when I said Hah! and yanked out the big scissors with the red handles and held them up to show him. His eyes got a little wide. But I was already sitting on the floor going to work on my pants.
What are you doing? he said.
Cutting off my trousers.
The abuse of clothing is, of course, symbolic of the will to abuse the corporeal self.
The abuse of these pants legs is so they donât flop on my feet when I go flying past those boysâ face in there on my way to a double spin reverse finger roll.
He made a yucky face. Deceit! he said. Bald deceit.
I was through with one leg and started on the other. I heard a whistle again down the hall, and the balls all stopped bouncing. Man, I had to get there!
Basketball, of all games, is the one most dedicated to physical lying, he said.
I never knew anybody who could play while lying, I said,finishing off the leg and pulling the raggedy end pieces off over my sneaks. Most people play it on their physical feet.
He said nothing. I chucked the ends in the trash can, handed him the scissors, which he winced and took with a frown, looking at them like they were a Zulu spear covered in water buffalo blood.
Thanks, Mr. E. Check you later. Keep a cool torso.
What a weary web we weave when we practice to deceive, he said, as I ran out to the hall to get in some deceive-practice. Youâll see, boyâthe body will be avenged for its servitude to untruth! He might have said more but I didnât hear it, for I had made it to the gym and busted in through those double doors.
I had not been thinking too much about manners and entering nicely, being half worried about what Momma would say when I came home with ruined britches and the other half worried about getting into the gym before the coach made teams up for practice games or whatever he was doing while the balls were quiet. So I just crashed in through the doors, thinking only too late that this was maybe a little reckless. And it was, too.
For there, standing at attention in a row facing me, were a dozen white boys in red and white uniforms and there, turned around to see who was busting down his doors, was this fat white man with a butch haircut wearing white shorts and a red nylon jacket with the collar turned up and a whistle in his mouth. I stopped dead. Everybody was staring hard at me. There was no sound except the doors behind me bonging as they flapped back and forth, slower and slower, until they stopped.
At first the boysâ expressions had been all fearful, like the coach had been yelling at them, but they soon got relievedand then very fast got all smug and entertained. In fact a couple of them actually smiled, big private grins, like Here comes a good time.
The coach never smiled. From the start he looked peeved. He looked peeved that someone interrupted him, peeved that it was not Red Auerbach come to observe his coaching method, peeved that instead it was a black kid in ravelly corduroys and a white T-shirt. I began to think he would stare me into the floor unless I said something.
This basketball tryouts? I said. One of the boys let fall the basketball he was holding and grinned. The ball bounced itself down slowly and rolled over towards me.
No, the coach said. This is a meeting ofâ¦ofâ¦He was trying to think of something sarcastic. One of the boys helped him out.
Of the Ku Klux Klan, the boy said.
Of the Future Nurses of America, said the coach, ignoring the kid. What does it look like to you? He talked without taking the whistle out of his teeth.
Looks like Iâm a little bit late to get a uniform, I
I went over and pulled open the drawer, bopping his tummy just a tiny bit, which he probably took as a symbol of my need to disbowel him like the Zulus do in movies, there being all that African stuff in my blood. Especially when I said Hah! and yanked out the big scissors with the red handles and held them up to show him. His eyes got a little wide. But I was already sitting on the floor going to work on my pants.
What are you doing? he said.
Cutting off my trousers.
The abuse of clothing is, of course, symbolic of the will to abuse the corporeal self.
The abuse of these pants legs is so they donât flop on my feet when I go flying past those boysâ face in there on my way to a double spin reverse finger roll.
He made a yucky face. Deceit! he said. Bald deceit.
I was through with one leg and started on the other. I heard a whistle again down the hall, and the balls all stopped bouncing. Man, I had to get there!
Basketball, of all games, is the one most dedicated to physical lying, he said.
I never knew anybody who could play while lying, I said,finishing off the leg and pulling the raggedy end pieces off over my sneaks. Most people play it on their physical feet.
He said nothing. I chucked the ends in the trash can, handed him the scissors, which he winced and took with a frown, looking at them like they were a Zulu spear covered in water buffalo blood.
Thanks, Mr. E. Check you later. Keep a cool torso.
What a weary web we weave when we practice to deceive, he said, as I ran out to the hall to get in some deceive-practice. Youâll see, boyâthe body will be avenged for its servitude to untruth! He might have said more but I didnât hear it, for I had made it to the gym and busted in through those double doors.
I had not been thinking too much about manners and entering nicely, being half worried about what Momma would say when I came home with ruined britches and the other half worried about getting into the gym before the coach made teams up for practice games or whatever he was doing while the balls were quiet. So I just crashed in through the doors, thinking only too late that this was maybe a little reckless. And it was, too.
For there, standing at attention in a row facing me, were a dozen white boys in red and white uniforms and there, turned around to see who was busting down his doors, was this fat white man with a butch haircut wearing white shorts and a red nylon jacket with the collar turned up and a whistle in his mouth. I stopped dead. Everybody was staring hard at me. There was no sound except the doors behind me bonging as they flapped back and forth, slower and slower, until they stopped.
At first the boysâ expressions had been all fearful, like the coach had been yelling at them, but they soon got relievedand then very fast got all smug and entertained. In fact a couple of them actually smiled, big private grins, like Here comes a good time.
The coach never smiled. From the start he looked peeved. He looked peeved that someone interrupted him, peeved that it was not Red Auerbach come to observe his coaching method, peeved that instead it was a black kid in ravelly corduroys and a white T-shirt. I began to think he would stare me into the floor unless I said something.
This basketball tryouts? I said. One of the boys let fall the basketball he was holding and grinned. The ball bounced itself down slowly and rolled over towards me.
No, the coach said. This is a meeting ofâ¦ofâ¦He was trying to think of something sarcastic. One of the boys helped him out.
Of the Ku Klux Klan, the boy said.
Of the Future Nurses of America, said the coach, ignoring the kid. What does it look like to you? He talked without taking the whistle out of his teeth.
Looks like Iâm a little bit late to get a uniform, I
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