George. âWe get up to seventy or eighty, and Iâm straddling the white line and wonât let him get by, and so he tries for the inside, and weâre neck and neck going around a right-hand curve, and Iâm trying to force my way back in our lane when suddenly this car comes around the corner right at me.â George jerked the wheel to the right, just in time to avoid a head-on collision with an elderly couple staring popeyed at what they must have seen as certain death. As it was, he sheared off only the whole side of their car, doors and fenders included, and sent the other dragster smashing into a fire hydrant. His fatherâs Mercury was now also a total wreck and the road a howling litter of car parts, skid marks, gasoline fumes, and the smell of freshly burnt rubber.
âIâve done a lot of thinking about George in recent years, and especially since I saw him on TV recently,â says his other best pal, Mike Grable, who as well as being the team quarterback was also president of the senior class. âAnd back when we were growing up, I canât think of anything that happened in that town you could point to now and say thatâs why he turned out the way he did. The only thing I can say is George just always had what I would call a casual attitude.â
âI think âriskyâ is kind of a good word for it,â says another girlfriend of that period. âHe was different from everyone else, and I think thatâs what appealed to me. It did to a lot of the girls. They were fascinated with him. He was good-looking and popular and strong. And he was someone on the outs, like a James Dean, but preppy. Heâd have all these loony ideasâhe wanted to go to Tahiti, and he never wanted to, I absolutely remember him saying to me, âI am never going to work for a living.â I remember that as clear as a bell.â
Whatever image of himself George was projecting to his friends, his own life at home, from junior high on up, became progressively less happy as the wrangling between his parents grew more strident. Today his memories of that period flow like lava and appear as fresh as if it all had happened just the other day. âThere were constant fights in that house. My sister would go into her bedroom and close the door and read books. At the time I was young and wasnât into reading, so I had to listen to itâthe same argument, over and over, my mother saying, âI could have done better. It was my mother who wanted me to marry you.â But then, what was the matter? I think. My father took care of the family, he never betrayed them or left them. The old man was doing the best he could. He bought a new car every two or three years, he paid the bills, there were plenty of groceries in the house, he never owed anybody. He gave you anything he had on the face of the earth. But he just wasnât what she wanted him to be. Because she loved the violinâwe had a Stradivarius in the houseâand she loved the theater and the opera. Do you know my grandmother knew Sophie Tucker? That she once had a date with Cy Young? My father, his big day was to come home and read the newspaper and have a couple of drinks, smoke a cigar and watch television. He didnât know anything about the theater or classical music.â
For purposes of comparison, Ermine would bring up Uncle George, as well as her brother, Uncle Jack OâNeill, also fairly prosperous, who owned the music stores down in Baton Rouge. George recalls, âIt was, My brother has this, and Uncle Georgeâit was, Uncle George was better, he had a better house, the sword over his mantel. We had to go up there every goddamn Sunday. He was the god to everyone. At Christmas when Marie was going to college, heâd give her a present of a little Christmas tree with hundred-dollar bills tied on in bows all over it, for her tuition that year. Then it would get dark and weâd drive home
âIâve done a lot of thinking about George in recent years, and especially since I saw him on TV recently,â says his other best pal, Mike Grable, who as well as being the team quarterback was also president of the senior class. âAnd back when we were growing up, I canât think of anything that happened in that town you could point to now and say thatâs why he turned out the way he did. The only thing I can say is George just always had what I would call a casual attitude.â
âI think âriskyâ is kind of a good word for it,â says another girlfriend of that period. âHe was different from everyone else, and I think thatâs what appealed to me. It did to a lot of the girls. They were fascinated with him. He was good-looking and popular and strong. And he was someone on the outs, like a James Dean, but preppy. Heâd have all these loony ideasâhe wanted to go to Tahiti, and he never wanted to, I absolutely remember him saying to me, âI am never going to work for a living.â I remember that as clear as a bell.â
Whatever image of himself George was projecting to his friends, his own life at home, from junior high on up, became progressively less happy as the wrangling between his parents grew more strident. Today his memories of that period flow like lava and appear as fresh as if it all had happened just the other day. âThere were constant fights in that house. My sister would go into her bedroom and close the door and read books. At the time I was young and wasnât into reading, so I had to listen to itâthe same argument, over and over, my mother saying, âI could have done better. It was my mother who wanted me to marry you.â But then, what was the matter? I think. My father took care of the family, he never betrayed them or left them. The old man was doing the best he could. He bought a new car every two or three years, he paid the bills, there were plenty of groceries in the house, he never owed anybody. He gave you anything he had on the face of the earth. But he just wasnât what she wanted him to be. Because she loved the violinâwe had a Stradivarius in the houseâand she loved the theater and the opera. Do you know my grandmother knew Sophie Tucker? That she once had a date with Cy Young? My father, his big day was to come home and read the newspaper and have a couple of drinks, smoke a cigar and watch television. He didnât know anything about the theater or classical music.â
For purposes of comparison, Ermine would bring up Uncle George, as well as her brother, Uncle Jack OâNeill, also fairly prosperous, who owned the music stores down in Baton Rouge. George recalls, âIt was, My brother has this, and Uncle Georgeâit was, Uncle George was better, he had a better house, the sword over his mantel. We had to go up there every goddamn Sunday. He was the god to everyone. At Christmas when Marie was going to college, heâd give her a present of a little Christmas tree with hundred-dollar bills tied on in bows all over it, for her tuition that year. Then it would get dark and weâd drive home
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