Prologue
Every life is a collection of memories and dreams. And while I have heard
it said that the mind keeps a record of every moment, I don't really know about
that. I do know that memories, and the emotions they bring with them, will
sneak up on you sometimes unexpectedly, perhaps when you're cleaning out the
garage, say, and you come across an old sweatshirt, or when on a late summer
afternoon you find yourself watching your children race across the yard and you
think back to your own golden childhood, or those times when an old familiar
tune pops up on the radio, blanketing your mood with violet reminiscence. I
know I shall never forget the autumn season of my senior year at Lassiter College, for it was a season filled with the deepest
of memories. That season is now a part of me, and I will always be haunted by
those memories and dreams.
There were two seasons for me in the fall of
that year at Lassiter, Connecticut: one rich bronze autumn of ripening for my
own heart and mind and one season in which I played, for the last time, a crazy
and simple game that we call, here in the States, football. I remember, as if
it were yesterday, one shimmering image from that year. It was the last few
days of August and the summer was as hot in Connecticut as it would ever be. We were working out in
full pads and I had a coach who would push us in these practices until the
fibers of our jerseys were soaked with sweat and coated with dust from the
trampled grass at our feet, and only then would he justify a halt to the
scrimmage. In that brief break it was a tradition at that school to allow every
player a single cup of ice cold water. The act was more ritual -- a sacrificial
offering -- than real relief. Hell, I could've drunk a bucketful and still been
thirsty! Yet in all my life it's doubtful I've consumed a sweeter taste than
that spare swallow. The ice water ran across our tongues and swirled down our
throats in a fleeting moment of absolute fraternity, virgin pureness and
crystalline clarity. We became linked in that drama, not only with each other,
but with the essence of our existence, the unclouded sustenance of our lives.
The memory ties up for me much of the pain and unreachable desires of my last
year at Lassiter. I came to terms with the magnitude of my thirsts that year:
in me the presence of an unquenchable thirst for passion and triumph, a deep
flowing thirst for love and respect and, finally, a thirst for justice. It was
the season I came of age, and this is the story of that season.
Chapter
1
This story is about – mostly – the events that
transpired during my last year at Lassiter College. From time to time, as this story unfolds,
you may think, distracted by a sudden familiar footstep, or an autumn breeze,
that you’ve heard parts of this story before. You may even recall a scene or
two from your own life and marvel at the detail of my re-telling. But it is all
coincidence, believe me. Dreams, fiction and history are close companions. I am
an American child, raised in the dust-hooves of the continent, dirt-faced and
mean, and it is likely that we share a history.
It is true that much of my story is typical of
many young Americans growing up in the last stages of the twentieth century. We
were starry-eyed kids, feeling our way blindly through the ambiguities,
challenges and delights of college towards the impending uncertainties, fears
and freedoms of adulthood. This story takes place in a weird time, a time well
after the disillusionment of Nixon and Vietnam, a time before the Roaring Nineties and the
slurp of The Bubble. It has been described as a lost time, a time when
inflation was the Big Enemy and Disco battled Punk and Metal for The Stage. We
all have our histories, fictions and dreams. And we all have our secrets.
The year was 1981. It was the year in which I
would reach my highest achievements as an athlete, the year in which I would
encounter the most painful truths about the mortality of man and, indeed, my
own mortality, and the year in which I would learn the hardest lessons of the
powerful and the powerless. It was the year that I would explore the depths of
Edgar Allan Poe through the greatest English teacher on earth, and a year in
which I would begin to understand the demons caged within me and how they could
defeat me in a single unguarded moment of fervor or ignite in me a fire whose
tendrils could reach every slick and ivy-covered gutter of a quiet New England
school. To this day I maintain that it was all my sister’s fault.
What can I say about Lisa Rae? She was
different. That’s probably the best compliment I can give her right now, given
my state of mind. Lisa Rae was two years older than me by the calendar, but
leagues ahead when it came to intellect and intuition. I don't know how she
came to such acute perceptions. She looked just like me -- God bless her soul
-- and I can attest to the modesty of her upbringings and genetic pool. One or
more of the Muses must’ve made her acquaintance at some point in her youth,
because it was a fact: she had ways. She could teach a cat to fetch slippers.
Tie sailor knots blindfolded. Climb Fealey’s oak in a minute and a half, and do
a one and a half into Winowee’s Creek. She could make perfect sense of
Shakespeare while still a sophomore in high school. I envied her and idolized
her and resented her, in my best moments. She tolerated me, at best, most
times, but we were all we had in our family.
Lisa Rae had her own perspectives on how the
world worked. She spoke too well for her class, I believed. It probably had
something to do with her voracious appetite for books. I hardly ever saw her
without a book in her lap or at her side. It was as though she found escape
from the slow, quiet reality of Lumberton in the pages of her novels. She believed in
the power of dreams, but saw little value in the passions of sports. I couldn't
side with her on that one. “Johnnie
Boy,” she'd call me. We'd be driving down some dirt road, on our way to Hendersonville to visit Aunt Rachel who lived near the lake,
perhaps. “We're doomed, you know? Just look around. I can't pick out a single
relative on either side that's ever amounted to anything. It's in the genes.”
Sometimes, in my bolder moments, I would counter her. “Well, Aunt Rachel's done
alright by herself.” Lisa Rae drove poorly, particularly on a back road with no
oncoming obstacles. She had a mind for concepts, but not much of an eye for
geometry or physics. When my big sister was driving I always kept one eye
geared toward the road and one hand fastened to the car door.
Our Aunt Rachel lived in a large two-story
home, sitting in the middle of about five acres. The front drive was framed by
huge oak trees like something out of Gone with the Wind.
“Inherited it,” Lisa Rae told me. “Got it all
from Uncle Ned's folks, who inherited it from one of their grandparents, who
struck oil in Louisiana. I hardly call that making it. Though she is just about the nicest Aunt
in the bunch.”
“Yeah, and she's got a ski boat.”
“Yeah, that counts for a lot.”
Lisa Rae and I saw eye to eye on many things
within the family, but she never quite understood the dynamics of athletics,
nor my own obsession with sports. Many books have been written about sport, but
it is a subject still surrounded by the mysteries of human evolution. For most of my life competition on the field
of play ruled my life. I think it was mostly because I was good at it. As a
child I took quickly to the strategies of every sport I took up. Though never
particularly big (even in college I was but 5' 10” and weighed a mere 175
pounds) I nevertheless had quick feet and a feeling for the angles, and I used
every trick I could create if it would give me an advantage. Some folks called
me just plain lucky. Usually, after some wacky touchdown, where I'd stop in
mid-field, offering the defender one leg, then another, only to snatch them
both away at the last moment, and slip by him to sideline. I insisted it was
the natural warrior instinct of the Natchez Indian.
My father, or Sarge, as he was not so
affectionately known around Lumberton, was my greatest fan and sternest critic. It
was he who tossed me my first rubber football at age two. It was he who took me
to Wal-Mart to pick out my first baseball mitt, he who nurtured my thirst for
athletics when the challenges were greatest, he who cheered loudest when I
faced adversity and emerged victorious, and he whose disappointment at my
failures most often broke my spirit and endangered my love for The Game.
Everywhere, Sarge saw a world of violence, where the meek inherit nothing but
despair. Even at a young age he would line up against me and force me to try to
tackle him, or bring out some old pugil sticks to stage mock battles in the
back yard. I remember once catching him in the groin with an errant stab. His
face turned red, then he whirled and batted me in the jaw. He stood over me and
grinned as I looked for my teeth in the grass. No spanking went on in our
house. It was called whippin'. I learned quickly to keep my smart mouth shut
and if the thought of devilry crossed by mind I'd better be damn sure I could
get away with it. My mother kept secret many of my larger transgressions,
saving what little ass I have left. Even with her protection, however, I seemed
to always be in trouble for something, as though I was at once at war with my
father, while still his most trusted soldier.
I graduated from Jackson High School in 1975. Originally built in 1927, the gym
burned down in 1940 and again twenty years later. A new stadium was built in
1962 and a new wing added in 1965, but these were the only major additions to
the original ruby-red bricks. While the age of the institution provided some
sort of pride to some members of the community, the students found the building
awkward and outdated. Like much of southern Mississippi, large pines and oaks rose up in the
courtyard, giving the grounds a scenic beauty. But inside it was
different. Every day you could smell
some strange, peculiar odor, not unlike the mixing of linseed oil and pine sol.
Most of the classrooms had no air-conditioners and during the warmer months of
the year we would literally drip perspiration onto the carved-up desk,
struggling to follow the teacher's uninspired lessons. During spring the pollen
from the yellow pines that surrounded the school would float in with the hot
breezes and wreak havoc on everyone's nasal passages. The school was a dinosaur,
lurching forward on the momentum of historic tradition. I did well there, both
academically and athletically, but my case was not typical. Racial prejudice
was pervasive in the town where I grew up. Though the high school had been
desegregated in 1970, the cultures which created the segregation died less
swiftly. I had been raised to be fair and honest and to judge people by the
same measures, but it was a difficult stand to uphold. My mother was a devout
Methodist. She viewed all humanity in terms of their capacity for goodness and
the value of their eternal soul. In these regards she told us (and the preacher
at least seemed to back her up) all of us are equal. Though my father had been
raised in a segregated world, the Army had seasoned him to the realities of our
time. There is something about war which awakens the humanity of all men, but
one does not easily supersede ones time.
Coping is enough. Shifting the balance of a
few hearts and minds, perhaps that is all one should aspire to. By the time I
was old enough to give sociology much serious thought I could see only two
conclusions: I liked women and I wanted the ball. I had tasted the recontre and
it was sweet. In my senior year a transfer from Texas joined our team who could really throw, and our
offense suddenly evolved into a lively force in southern Mississippi. We ran and threw with equal nonchalance and
I began to recognize the true discrepancies between my own talents and those of
my peers. We made it to the state finals, where we got beat narrowly by a much
better team from Tupelo. I took the defeat graciously, for I'd contributed my share. I'd set a
slew of records and had refined open-field maneuvering into an art form. Our
bus trip back to Lumberton after the final game was quiet, but not sorrowful. We'd given it our
best shot and been defeated by a superior team. We were out-manned.
I remember our fans awaiting our return in the
school parking lot late that night. I recall their applause as the team stepped
off the bus and the way they lit up as I began my descent. I'd entertained them
for three years and led them to the best season the school had seen in
seventeen years. I looked out across the crowd. I heard them raise their voices
in praise, heard the cheerleaders call my name in unison, saw the faces, both
white and black, giving me the finest curtain call I was capable of absorbing.
My family and my girlfriend waited near the door and we all hugged in sympathy
and celebration. My father shook my hand in firm military fashion. He pulled a
twenty dollar bill from his wallet. “Take Stacey out for a pizza,” he said,
handing me the keys to the Ford. “Fine season, son.” I looked into his dark
eyes, glossed over by the phosphorescent lighting and the lateness of the
hours, and caught within them the approval and the recognition which he
bestowed so rarely. He was at his finest in such moments. This is how I choose
to remember Lumberton and Jackson High. The academic backwardness, the racism, the conflicts
with my father, the lost loves: all are relics I prefer to keep hidden from my
recollections, a dusty chest deep in the corner of my Freudian attic. It was
the best of times, not only for me, but for my community, and we reveled in the
excitement and brotherhood occasioned by our simple game. One can choose to
forget or remember anything, but one must always pay the consequences.
Chapter
2
How I ended up at Lassiter College is a tale of one girl's compelling energy and
pure chance. My father thought Ole Miss was the top of the line when it came to
colleges. He harbored regional prejudices and his only uncle -- Jimmy Sloan --
was an Ole Miss graduate. Located in Oxford, Ole Miss was Mississippi's largest university and close enough to Lumberton to make it a comfortable day trip. Though
Sarge had never attended a day of college, he was a Mississippian and nothing
would thrill him more than watching his son strap it on at the state’s
preeminent university. My mother was mostly noncommittal, but she knew better
than to openly question my father’s wisdom. Plus, I believed at the time, she
wanted me close enough to keep an eye on, for her own reasons. She prayed the
Lord would guide me to the right choice.
During my last semester at Jackson High I
struggled with the implications and opportunities that the different
scholarship offers presented. It had never occurred to me the importance of
college athletic programs, nor how significant my selection might be for my own
future. I knew nothing about the many schools that sent me scholarship offers, or
the importance my selection might portend for my own future. With the exception
of their geographical location and the record of their football team, they all
looked alike. I was unprepared for the multitude of offers. Even before the
season was over several members of the Ole Miss and Mississippi State alumni caught me in the parking lot to chat.
They stopped just short of slipping me five-dollar bills, but their intentions
were obvious. I let them banter, but their backslapping 'good-ole-boy' prodding
didn't help their cause. They had mistaken my background and my motives. In the
first week of eligibility the pace heightened. Nearly every division I and II
school in the southeast and Texas sent letters of invitation, often followed up
with phone calls and personal visits by recruiters. As I played out my last
season of organized baseball I shuffled through these distractions clumsily.
It was my sister who noticed the odd letter
from Dr. Francis Cannon, an alumnus of Lassiter College, an exclusive, private school just north of Hartford, Connecticut. I certainly would have quickly disposed of
the inquiry had it not been for Lisa Rae's persistence. Dr. Cannon had played
tackle for Lassiter back in 65. He now was an ophthalmologist in Hattiesburg. The letter was quiet in its tone, but
included an intriguing sentence intimating that he could twist some arms if I
needed help negotiating the academic requirements at Lassiter. What the hell, I thought. I had a 3.5 G.P.A.
Who were these freaks?
Lisa Rae did some research for me. Indeed, she
often gave me a full review of the schools on my list before I knew where they
were located. She was unforgiving of their academic mediocrity. To this day, I
don't why I lent her viewpoint such credence. After all, she seemed satisfied
enough with Biloxi State, a school of rather modest dimensions in all
respects. She told me that love shaded her considerations. (Her boyfriend, and
later, her husband, was a sophomore there). Besides, nothing in her prep record
recommended her to a scholarship at such a prestigious school. A college
education is an investment in the mind and spirit, she told me. When it was all
said and done, not even professional tutoring would be sufficient to equal out
the disparities between us; but it might give me an edge. She convinced me that
I lacked the intelligence and ambition to overcome the environment that we both
had inherited. If the Colton’s were to make out of the swamps, therefore, the burden rested firmly on
me. She would be the light, she told me. It was up to me to do the legwork. I
knew she was right at least in this respect: I had to get out of Mississippi. Perhaps, like my father, I would one day
return, set down roots in familiar soil. But the time was right for a gamble.
The dusty air was full of chance. I could feel it my bones like a fresh cold.
So it was that Lisa Rae called Dr. Cannon and set up the paperwork that
eventually led to me being offered a full scholarship, including a travel
stipend, to a prestigious northern university, in southern Connecticut, in the middle of New England, and as far away from my current world as the
moon.
For a kid like me, used to playing it safe
when off the field of play, it was a gritty call. Sarge was not one to be
dismissed lightly; he had his prejudices and preconceptions about how the world
worked. None of us knew anything about Lassiter, Connecticut – or New England for that matter – and my dad was not
impressed with their academic resume. I think, in the back of his mind, he had
given some thought to the possibility of me taking over his hardware business.
We had grown up in different times, with different opportunities; it was too
early to let him in on how different were our visions of the world.
The Boys were equally unimpressed. At one of
the many parties thrown to celebrate the conclusion of our senior year, my
closest friends tried their best to dissuade me of my crazy notions. We were at
Reynolds farm. We’d dragged a couple of kegs out behind their barn, down where
the lake had been cleared out, and things started to seem right with the world.
On a moonlit night in Mississippi, when the hormones are raging and the cold
beer is flowing, and a cheap stereo is honking out Lynyrd Skynyrd classics and
over-played Led Zeppelin tunes, there’s only one place on this earth to be – at
Reynolds’s farm. It was the prime spot for a party when Rabbit Reynolds and his
wing man Little Dipper could work it out. Rabbit’s folks were always making
trips to New
Orleans, or somewhere else exotic, so on those weekends Reynolds’s farm became
The Spot. We’d pool our cash for kegs or cases, devise stories for the folks,
put on too much cologne, wait for dusk, and then head down the dusty dirt roads
for Reynolds’s Farm.
Most of The Boys had been there a while, when
my girlfriend Stacy had hiked her way to the house with some of her girlfriends. The Boys and I
made our way naturally toward the lake shore, where a huge oak supported a tire
swing on one of its muscular limbs. Even at this hour someone would
occasionally throw off their shirt and swing out over the lake and fall in with
a howl. It was clear they’d had a head start.
At one point Red Simpson grabbed me from
behind.
“You ready to go in, college boy?” he asked
me.
Red was the shortstop and point guard at Jackson
High, about the quickest little bugger in school, with hands like painter. Had
he been a few inches taller the boy might’ve played a few years, but at 5’ 5”
he was always viewed as a novelty. So far, only Colleton Community College and Biloxi JuCo had showed any interest.
“Go ahead Red,” I answered, “I’ll join you in
a few. The night is still young and the beer is still cold.”
Jazz Kaufman, our quarterback and Romeo,
chimed in. “Well, you better drink up boys, ‘cause the keg by the barn is on
its last leg.”
“Not a problem,” Scooter Leaks informed us.
“I’ve got a bottle of Jack Black in the trunk.” Scooter played center on the
football team and was a state finalist wrestler. He was a good man to have on
your side.
“Just one?” I asked him.
“As far as you know, Colton. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be in
training for big time college football? What’s the name of that place: Connecticut School for Disadvantaged Women?”
“Lassiter College,” I corrected him, “Though I hope to leave a
few disadvantaged women in my wake.”
Red continued the line of questioning. “Yeah Colton, what’s the deal with that, anyway? I heard
Ole Miss sent you a letter.”
Heads seemed to suddenly turn our way from all
around us in the shady moonlight.
“Who told you that?” I asked him.
“I’ve got my sources,” was all he would say.
I suspected perhaps my sister had let it out,
then, reconsidering, I realized it was probably my old man, running his mouth
at the barber shop, or over the counter at the hardware store.
“Well I lost track of them,” I fessed up,
facetiously. “Who knows? I mean, after The Bear stopped by for supper, they all
faded into mediocrity.”
“The Bear?” Scooter queried. “Bear fuckin’
Bryant? You’re crazier’n a possum on moonshine.”
“Sonafabitch could eat some pie, though. I’ll
tell ya that!”
Suddenly, Hallie Matson burst into our circle,
with her 38 DD’s tightly testing the fibers of her Ole Miss t-shirt.
“What’s this about Ole Miss?” Her voice was as
southern and seductive as a warm pecan pie.
“Colton thinks he’s Shakespeare!” Red told her,
stepping forward so his nose was mere inches from glory. “Or….at the
least….Faulkner.”
“Shakespeare?” Hallie wondered aloud.
Scooter spoke up. “Yeah, Colton is heading north. Mississippi’s not good enough for him.”
“Well, I’m
going to Ole Miss, John,” Hallie said, stepping too close for her own good. I
tried to regain my composure, one eye on her t-shirt, one on the hill beyond,
where Stacey might soon be returning.
“I sure don’t know what I’m going to do,
Hallie. Ole Miss is a pretty big school, you know. I’m just a little peanut of
a player. All that physical contact gives me the willies.”
Hallie smiled and moved close enough to
whisper in my ear. “That’s not what I heard,” she told me.
I looked straight ahead, nonplussed, across
Sadie’s lake, where the reflection of the full moon rode the light ripples of
the evening breeze. I could feel the moisture from her breath on my earlobe and
smell the sweet aroma of bourbon and I must admit it sent a charge throughout
the weaker angels of my existence. I leaned toward Scooter Leaks and put a hand
on his shoulder, as if to ground me from her electrical charges.
“Well, we’ll see,” I said. “Who knows? Perhaps
I’ll apply for admission in some first class Ole Miss fraternity. One of those
houses with the big columns out front and keg parties every weekend, win or
lose.”
“Oh yeah!” Hallie encouraged me. And everyone
else seemed to concur.
“Sounds good to me,” Kerry said, slapping
Scooter’s hand.
“I can only imagine running into some coed
like you, Hallie, on a wild Saturday night in Oxford after we just laid a butt whuppin’ on The
Tide.”
Pete Kaufman brought me back to reality.
“Well, the first part has some basis in reality. Seriously Colton: you don’t think you can play in the SEC?”
I tried to answer the question in a way that
was politically correct; and not make me seem too much of a coward. “That’s a
good question,” I told him, distracted once more by Hallie Matson’s perfume. A
bullfrog jumped into the lake with a splash.
“I really don’t know, guys. Truth is, I’m just
not sure. You remember the semi-finals against Biloxi? You remember that linebacker that knocked
Cooley out of the game and ran down Daughtery on the corner?”
Scooter certainly did. He answered. “Jason
McKinney. I heard he’s committed to Texas A&M.”
“Yeah. McKinney. Kid was on the state champion 880 relay
team. You guys think I got the moves to beat a whole field of McKinney’s?”
The guys had to stop for a second and consider
that one. They were the best judge and jury I could put together for such a
verdict and they were unsure. After a moment, Red stepped in. “Couldn't catch
me.”
We laughed and imagined the scene. It was
true. Red Simpson was quicker than a jackrabbit in the open field. Red and I
had grown up together and in a backyard football game I don’t think I’d ever
seen anyone tackle him in the open field. Even in full pads, as a sophomore, he
struck terror into the hearts of defensive backs. But it was no matter. He
would always be too small. And he knew it.
Red’s father was a true farmer. He grew
peanuts on his arable land and catfish in the wetlands. Zeke Simpson was a mean
sonafabitch, but you always knew where you stood. Red’s mom, Lizzie, was as big
as a bear and just as sturdy. It was no wonder Red had developed quick reflexes.
I’d seen him snatch catfish out of the pond with his bare hands. He was the
only kid in the neighborhood that could keep up with me in a race down Oak Root
Alley to Creel’s Creek. That was a three block path that wound through the
largest oaks in the county down to a deep, cool pool in the creek. The
overhanging limbs and thick moss provided the perfect canopy for a race to the
finish and a dive headlong into the refreshing, crayfish-filled stream.
As the party at Reynolds’s farm progressed, we
laughed, traded barbs and continued drinking to excess, as only young men full
of vim and vigor can do. I couldn't explain to them why I was casting all my
fortunes in with an unknown school at the far edges of our known civilization.
The more I had thought about it, the less sense even I could make of it. I was
born and raised in Mississippi. I loved this state and just about everything about it. Standing by the
lakeside at full moon, re-living old times with my best friends (a symphony of
frogs and crickets providing background music), it was an easy place to love.
But Lisa Rae had convinced me there was more out there to be experienced. But
how would a simple country boy from southern Mississippi fit into the Ivy League?
Lisa Rae tried to drag me though the apprehensions
I carried with me throughout that long summer. Sometimes on a warm Friday night
we'd sneak out for pizza and end up sharing a bottle of wine with our feet
hanging off the old train trestle over Winowee's Creek. She could point out
every planet lit up in the sky and half the constellations. She had a sense of
the misgivings in my head and she tried her best to bolster my spirit.
“It's cold,” she said. We sat with the rusted
steel beam tucked beneath our legs, leaning forward across the cable, looking
down. The creek slipped by us quietly in the darkness far below.
“Should've worn some long pants,” I counseled,
“Or even some shorts.”
“Oh. You're embarrassed now.”
“Hey -- just cuz' my older sister walks into
Pizza Hut with half her ass hanging out: no cause for alarm!”
“Well, it’s so sweet that you're worried about
my reputation.” She threw her long brown hair back, letting the soft breeze
toss it down her back, then she spit off the edge. “Though perhaps it’s your infamous name that
you're worried about.”
“Nope. Too late for that. My virtue and
virginity are well documented. I've been turned down by every high school age
female in Lamar County.”
She laughed, a mere whisper. “And now you have
the whole of Connecticut to corrupt. I see your strategy now. Hey, pass the wine.”
“Hmpf. I don't know about that. Seems like a
bunch of spoiled rich kids to me.”
“These girls are gonna be
cultured, honey....sophisticated. They might even know how to behave in public.
And unlike your current harem, most of them will speak English.” Lisa Rae had
an obsession with the proper use of the language. She used to drive all my
friends crazy with her constant corrections of their natural southern slang.
“Well, as long as they can pronounce the
answers to my favorite questions -- yes and more -- I'll be happy.”
“Hah! Yes and less, you mean.”
She passed me the bottle back just as a
bullfrog lit up far below us on the far bank. The cacophony of crickets seemed
to rise up to meet the challenge of song. There would be no old, abandoned
train trestles in Lassiter, Connecticut, few warm nights to ride the breeze, and no
Lisa Rae to guide me through the stars. She held my hand and told me how much
I'd be missed. We were in this together, she said, and I couldn't help but cry
a little when she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I smiled and looked toward the
planet Venus, rising like a diamond over Crowder's farm. I pulled her to me
with a firm hug and we looked out into the moonless night, our lives fixed on a
precipice so thinly drawn only the fibers of our own mysterious love could
guide our wild and roaring futures towards balance. Just then, we saw a
shooting star blaze through the western sky. And we made a silent wish.
