Monday, February 06, 2006

The School

On one side the high school, on the other
grades one through seven, the purple-curtained
auditorium shrank and grew shabbier
each August we came back.  Mr. Whitt one year
decided Charles Tomlinson, Slick King, Dwayne
Burchett, Bobby Peaks, and Big Face Cather
could be a basketball team.  They practiced
on a rocky, red-dirt court with a basket
and some boards on a post.  They drove to games
--always at the other school--in Slick's Ford.
Uniforms were jeans and T-shirts.  Big Face
and Bobby played barefoot.  They lost by scores
like ten to ninety-three, unaccustomed to such space,
wooden floors, lights, adults calling them names.


David Huddle

8:38 AM