Yards to Go

by Terry Barr

               In 1950’s-60’s Alabama, the era of my childhood, our air was clotted with toxins.  We had to breathe in the poison, and doing so caused both visible and invisible harm.  Most of us are still breathing today, but what residue lingers from those times?  What scars, internal, external, were made by fumes we couldn’t see?  Or by those we saw all too clearly but rushed headlong into anyway? 

               Our front yard was bisected by a cement walkway, making the perfect fifty-yard line for neighborhood football games.  It’s unbelievable to me now that eight year-old boys could restrain themselves from tackling their friends on the hard surface just to prevent someone from bruising a rib.

               But the cement wasn’t our only obstacle back then.

              The front yard also served as a whiffle ball field in spring and summer.  No hard ball because there were too many picture windows looming in our “outfield,” and too many parked cars lining our “foul territory.”  And then, every kid I knew went barefoot as much as possible regardless of the burning cement sidewalk, regardless of the sporadic sticker patches in the grass.  These patches particularly plagued us in the left side of the yard, but rather than wearing sneakers, we pushed the field forward, encroaching on our next-door neighbor’s yard.  How many times did we try their patience when our plastic ball landed and bounced against their window or on top of their roof!

               My Dad would participate in some of these games, pitching to both sides, or often it was just he and I hitting each other pop flies.  Once, our neighbor’s nephew, “Chip,” was visiting from Miami.  Maybe I was “showing off” for him as I heard Dad comment later to Mom on our way home from the emergency clinic.  Whatever my intention, I went after a stray pop-up and collided head first into another obstacle in the neighbors’ yard: a white, wrought-iron chair, part of a lovely set that of course no one ever sat in.  I had never felt such pain or seen such blood as emanated from my upper lip.  Today, I still feel my scar, hidden beneath my moustache, and whenever I touch it, I think of that late Saturday afternoon, and of Chip.

               Maybe that unfortunate incident began Dad’s declaration of war against our playing ball in the front yard.

               His contention, however, was that we were trampling his precious grass.

               He wanted a showplace: plush, vibrant zoysia grass; a carpet that any passerby would have to lie on or photograph.  But no one would if we kept running on it, tackling on it, and otherwise “intentionally” destroying it.  So he ordered all ball playing to the back yard: a tiered, sloping setting bordered on the two sides by wire fences, on the bottom by a gulley and alley, and at the top by the back end of our house with six windows just begging to be shattered by the hard ball we could use back there. 

                In the middle of our new field were two clotheslines, and once, practicing my Don Drysdale side-arm delivery, my pitch got away from me, flew off to the right, hit the elastic clothesline which, in turn, held the ball’s thrust for a long second, and then shot that ball back in a new, diagonal arc, straight into my mesmerized father’s nose.

               After another trip to the emergency clinic, Don Drysdale was also banished from our yard.

               But of course, the clotheslines stayed.

               Playing tackle football in the back yard proved slightly less challenging than baseball.  Sure, running uphill tier after tier prevented a few touchdowns, but whatever grass lay there, covered in brittle brown leaves, was immune to our trampling.  Every now and then one of us might land on a whole pecan, hidden in the leaves and a product of one of two towering trees looming at the top right of the yard.  But we’d find the pecan’s mate, crack the two against each other, and devour the sweet meat inside.

               In these games, my down-the-street friend Steve was my primary opponent.  Sometimes we’d play on the same team, snapping the ball to each other, with the snapper then heading out for a pass.  More often, the one quarterbacking would fake the snap to himself and either hand off to the trailing back who would run a “67-dive” or “68-off tackle,” or pass to the flanker who’d fake to the sideline and then run a “post” pattern.

               We always “played” for the University of Alabama.  We were Joe Namath, Steve Sloan, Ray Perkins, Dennis Homan, or Les Kelly.  We beat Tennessee, Vandy, Georgia Tech, but our most convincing wins always came against our most hated rival, Auburn.

               Or I should say, Steve’s most hated rival.  It’s hard to understand how a six or seven-year old boy could hate with such passion, such venom, but Steve did.  But back in those days, he had little to fear from Auburn.  They beat Alabama in 1963, but not again until 1969.  In a boy’s life, those years truly translated in “forever.”

               Steve’s hatred of Auburn, however, while deep, was challenged by another hatred: that of President John F. Kennedy who, Steve proclaimed, was nothing but a “nigger-lover.”

               And, of course, his hatred of “niggers.”

               Sociologically speaking, we all know where his hatred came from.  Even today, I can’t believe that his parents allowed him to come over to our house.  We were Democrats, voting not with Alabama Dems who championed George Wallace, but with the national party, the party of Truman, Stevenson, and JFK.  To my knowledge, my family didn’t “hate” anyone, unless you count the great-grandmother I never knew who hated all “Yankees” well into the 1940’s. 

               For all I know, we might have been “hated,” by some, because my Daddy was Jewish.  I’m not sure how this fact struck Steve’s family.  My mother, grandmother, brother, and I went to the same Methodist church that his family did.   Maybe that was enough to make us worthy of being associated with.

               Still, since my mother often warned me about remembering to play “nice” with friends like Steve, I have to think that his mother warned him about something, too, whenever he came up the street to play with me.

               For Steve’s moods were always hard to predict.  He could be the best friend in the world, sharing his toys, teaching me how to punt and throw a curveball.  He taught me the words to the Alabama fight song, and lived and died with me during every tumultuous season when we were kids (not-so-tumultuous really during the “Bear” Bryant era of Bama football).  We spent countless hours together playing other games: cowboys, “Man from UNCLE.”  Steve first coached me and then cheered me on when I tried out for little league baseball, and I know he wanted me to succeed.

               I remember passing his house on the way to tryouts.  He was getting something out of his father’s Ford, and as we passed in our Chevy, I yelled out,

               “On to victory!”

               And Steve smiled and waved back.

               Of course I made a team, the Cubs.  But then everyone made some team in those days.

               Like most little boys, winning the game meant everything to Steve who took Bear Bryant’s adage, “Winning isn’t everything, but it sure beats coming in second,” seriously.  And since he was eighteen months older than me, more confident, and physically more mature, he could beat me whenever he wanted to. 

               And when he wanted to, I had to play tackle against him.  Those were the times when I knew his mood was ugly, when I knew something was wrong.  Not that I could understand or figure out his trouble back then.  I was too little.  But I did see some signs.

               Signs like his mother’s willingness to spank him for any offense, in front of any friend, meaning he had to pull his pants down as she said, “Hinie up.” Signs like his older brother Jim’s ridicule.  For if Jim regularly teased me as being “Butter Bean,” a reference to my portly stature then, what did he say to his more accessible victim?  I assume that when Steve belittled my football helmet as being “not good enough” because the nose guard had only two bars, he learned it from Jim, no doubt passing on the shame. 

              And then there was Steve’s medicine, a liquid potion for an unknown malady.  I remember clearly on several occasions hearing Steve’s mother calling his name and his grabbing me and saying “Let’s go!  She’s trying to put that medicine on me again.”  We’d run up the street and his mother would chase us.  But no matter how far we got, once even two blocks away, no distance was safe enough, and soon Steve was captured, dragged back to his house, and again his pants would be down by his ankles with a yellowish-brown liquid soon pouring over his backside.  It must have stung, for I could have heard his shouts at my house a block away had I not been allowed to hear them from the kitchen, the scene of his misery and shame.

               If there were other reasons for his moods, I’m glad I don’t know or remember what they were.  And maybe I’m wrong about these others anyway.  Maybe tackling me as hard as he could was just in his blood.  Maybe he was simply toughening us up for those future days when we would be playing high school or varsity college football.  Days we both wanted to see but which neither of us ever did.

               So on those days where tackle football ruled, Steve was always Alabama, and I did my best to live up to the legend of the mighty Vols of Tennessee, the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech, or the Commodores of Vanderbilt.  Never, though, in all our games did I want or try to be the dreaded War Eagles of Auburn, mainly because Steve growled enough already when I was a non-hated foe.  No way would I fuel his beast by being the team that he despised above all others.

               It’s hard having a bigger boy come running downhill at you after you’ve just received his kickoff.  It’s even harder when, from the depths of his throat, he emits a sound like some cave man finding a helpless, half-dead wooly mammoth.

               GGGGGRRRRRRRRHHHHHH!

               And while the sound terrified me enough, the look on his face—half “Children of the Damned,” half Christopher Lee in full Dracula-I’m-ready-to-bite-your-neck-mode—achieved its desired end.  Not that I’d fumble the ball or run away.  I’d simply close my eyes and brace myself, for I knew that on no field or yard anywhere on earth could I match Steve’s ferocity.

               Still, I kept playing for the love of good ol’ Vandy.

               I could tackle Steve on occasion, because if I was a Butter Bean that meant that my bulk could weigh him down if I hung on long enough.  I also scored a few touchdowns, and I don’t think Steve let me out of any desire to keep me interested in playing.  On one desperate occasion, he had me by the ankle, lying prone on his stomach.  I twisted and twisted but couldn’t escape.  The goal line loomed only ten yards away, and for once, my desire exceeded my weakness.  I gave up twisting and simply lunged forward as forcefully as I could.  As I succeeded, as my foot rose up out of his grasp, I felt the sheer elation of release.  And then I felt something else.

               Steve’s chin.

               Though I figured he was hurt, I couldn’t let that knowledge keep me from my goal.

               TOUCHDOWN.

               Did I feel bad about seeing Steve lying there, rubbing his chin, stifling his tears?

               No.  But I remember the scene as if it was this morning:

               “Hey, are you okay?”  I hesitate before walking back up the hill toward where he’s now picking himself up.  His chin is turning red, and he looks like he wants to let it out.

               “No…I’m fine.  It sorta hurts… that makes you 6 and I’m 12, right?

               The score.

               “Yeah…I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

               “Yeah.  But that’s fair.  Now go on, it’s your kickoff.”

               Thinking of Steve hurt and vulnerable makes me believe that he was better than those who raised him.  That as the youngest child, he was trying to be good but also trying find his place in some unseen pecking order.  I think now that there were just too many forces pulling at him.  He could have refused to play with me anytime, but he never did. 

               I know that one time in particular, given his family’s racial views, he could have refused to play and banished my family and me from his sight forever.

               The time Billy came over.

               Billy was our maid Dissie’s nephew, a guy roughly ten years older than Steve and me.  Billy came over regularly to do odd jobs, like shaking reluctant pecans down from those towering trees.  Other times he came to be tutored in arithmetic by my mother.

               But whenever Billy came over, at the end of his tasks, he’d play football with me.  Of course, we’d never play tackle.  Billy was too big.  He’d throw me long passes, though, arcing spirals that I’d catch on the run, over my shoulder.  We’d play together, and we were always the Bessemer High Purple Tigers, or Alabama Crimson Tide. 

               It didn’t occur to me then that Billy’s afternoon football fantasies, like mine but for a much different reason, were unattainable.

               For I didn’t realize then all that Black people couldn’t do.  It was 1961, and I was only five.

               If Billy felt the pain of that era, he never showed it to me.  His personality was warm, open.  He laughed at every passing order from Dissie, whom he called “Miss Honey,” and even when my mother or grandmother got frustrated with him for not understanding his division or for not climbing the pecan tree high enough, he’d just laugh good-naturedly.  I don’t think I ever saw him get mad at anything.  And I know he loved me and looked out for me.

               Especially when we were playing football.

               Especially on the day Steve came over.

               It’s strange to me now that Steve didn’t turn around and walk home when he saw Billy and me already playing in the back yard.  I saw the momentary look of confusion on his face.  But he didn’t say anything at first other than “Hi Buddy.” Leaving, I guess, never occurred to him.  He wanted to play, too, regardless of the voices in his head that were surely crying “Nigger, Nigger!” 

              We decided on a game of tackle: Steve versus Billy and me.  Except Billy, naturally, couldn’t carry the ball and couldn’t tackle Steve.  All Billy could do was quarterback and throw passes, or hand off to me and maybe get in Steve’s way just a bit.

               But Billy’s passes were too good, and he got in Steve’s way just enough for us to hear the trailing growls that echoed as I ran to touchdown glory.  When I scored our last touchdown, making the final score Steve 30, Billy and me 18, Billy ran down and hugged me, and nothing had ever felt better. 

               Still, the strangest thing of all on this very strange winter afternoon in central Alabama was that while Steve naturally chose to be Alabama, Billy took in Steve’s declaration, looked down at me, and smiling that incredibly innocent smile, said,

               “That’s OK Buddy.  You and me’ll be Auburn!”

               And just as easily and willingly, I agreed.

               That Steve’s Alabama beat our Auburn was an outcome as preordained as the mood and actions of the mob that greeted Autherine Lucy when she tried to enter the hallowed doorway of the University in Tuscaloosa.  But this was the first and only time in my life that Alabama’s beating Auburn made me sad.  Maybe this moment sets me apart from other Bama fans. 

               I know it set me apart from Steve.

               I wonder, though: what tales did Steve tell when he reached home that evening?  If he declared victory over us, he’d have to confess that he played willingly with one of “them.”  I’m not sure he’d risk his “hinie” over that.  But then, telling his brother Jim and his parents that he single-handedly beat both me and a much older “Nigger” might have made the entire family’s week.

               Either way, I hope he did tell the full, authentic tale, because in the end, I’m sure I didn’t lose.  On that day, I liked being the boy I was, even if I symbolically wore the orange and blue of Auburn.

               And that’s why, as Billy and I trudged up the tiers of my back yard to the house, to the refreshing Coca-Colas and homemade butter cookies that my mother laid out for us, I knew that though I’d always be an Alabama fan, every once in a while, I’d cheer for Auburn too.

               In the years since that day, living in Alabama caused me to run through other obstacles.  I can’t say I made it through cleanly or without some bruises.  And I don’t know if I’ve always found the end zone, but it feels like I have.  I covered all those yards, and if there are still some left to go, I’m sure that I’ll keep running.  I’m sure that I’ll make it.  With Billy, and even with Steve.

Bio: Terry Barr is a Professor of Creative Writing at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, and lives in Greenville, SC, with his wife and two daughters.  His work has been published in Squalorly Journal, The Montreal Review, moonShine review, Prime Number, and Orange Quarterly.