Read Online Skipped Parts: A Heartbreaking, Wild, and Raunchy Comedy by Tim Sandlin - Free Book Online
Authors: Tim Sandlin
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North Carolina or anywhere else who make things dirty for the rest of us.
Maybe I wasn’t simply sucking up to Maurey. Maybe I got myself beat up defending decency. Hell, I don’t know.
And beat up is what I got. Within seconds he’d twisted my arm up behind my back and slammed my face into the cold mud. He used his knee to pin me there while he wrestled a flailing Maurey into the same position. Then Dothan held us, each with one ear ground into the earth.
Maurey and I faced each other, nose to nose, maybe eight inches apart. Dothan’s hand spread across the side of her head, his nails digging into her cheek. He had me more by the neck. She didn’t make a sound so neither did I. The one eye I could see wasn’t crying anymore. It was hurt. Not the physical hurt I was in or the shame hurt of having your face rubbed in the snow by a horse’s ass. Maurey’s was the kind of hurt you get when you discover what an unfair mess of a world we’re stuck with and how helpless we are to do a damn thing about it.
Or maybe she was just king-hell pissed. I’m always reading twenty minutes of insight into a glance in someone’s eyes.
Sam Callahan came off the ground with a roar. He kicked once and Dothan’s knee bent at an impossible angle. Sam caught him with a left to the liver, a right to the mouth, and an elbow in the solar plexus. Sam picked up a baseball bat and broke it across Dothan’s forehead. Then Sam picked him up and threw him through the glass door.
Florence’s godawful screaming stopped and I felt the sharp weight lifted off my spine. I rolled sideways, coughing, and looked up to see Coach Stebbins holding Dothan by both arms.
Florence had the voice of a raped goat. “They started it. They started it. They jumped on my brother.”
Maurey spit snow. “He was celebrating the fucker who killed Kennedy.”
Stebbins stared at us on the ground, then his eyes traveled the circle of kids, Teddy the Chewer, Chuckette Morris, Kim Schmidt. His jaw looked like he’d been hit, not us. He let Dothan go, then turned and walked back into the school.
***
That Friday in November must be the most analyzed, beat-to-pulp day in history. The day everything got quiet; the day America lost her virginity, or at least her innocence; the day the fifties ended. More strangers spoke to each other that day than any time before or since.
A lot of newspaper and TV guys made their careers that day. An entire industry has grown around trying to figure out what happened. I hate to think we’ll never know.
I take it as the day I first talked to Maurey, without which I’d be a different deal.
I’ve asked a number of people who were ten, eleven, twelve back in 1963, and most of them recall it as the day the grown-ups cried.
***
“Come on,” Maurey said.
“Where?” She was standing up, but I still sat in wet snow. I felt somewhat debased by losing the fight. Dothan wasn’t that tough. Maurey’s white skirt was a mess. I imagined the guys got some great panty shots, which was probably a bigger deal to them than the death of a president.
“I can’t be here anymore.”
“That makes sense.”
“We can to go my house and watch the news. I want to know what this is about.”
I glanced at the school. “Think they’ll miss us?”
She held out a hand to help me up. “All the rules are off today, Sam. Nothing we do matters.”
How did she know that? Maurey wasn’t any older than me. She didn’t have any more experience at presidential assassinations. Some people are just born with intuition.
I held on to Maurey’s hand after she pulled me upright. She looked at me sharply.
“You said the rules are off today.”
“Don’t get carried away.” She drew her hand free.
The town seemed asleep as we walked by the triangle. A few trucks sat outside the Esso station and the White Deck, and a parked Buick was running next to Kimball’s Food Market, but we passed no people, not even a dog, and the snow made everything
Maybe I wasn’t simply sucking up to Maurey. Maybe I got myself beat up defending decency. Hell, I don’t know.
And beat up is what I got. Within seconds he’d twisted my arm up behind my back and slammed my face into the cold mud. He used his knee to pin me there while he wrestled a flailing Maurey into the same position. Then Dothan held us, each with one ear ground into the earth.
Maurey and I faced each other, nose to nose, maybe eight inches apart. Dothan’s hand spread across the side of her head, his nails digging into her cheek. He had me more by the neck. She didn’t make a sound so neither did I. The one eye I could see wasn’t crying anymore. It was hurt. Not the physical hurt I was in or the shame hurt of having your face rubbed in the snow by a horse’s ass. Maurey’s was the kind of hurt you get when you discover what an unfair mess of a world we’re stuck with and how helpless we are to do a damn thing about it.
Or maybe she was just king-hell pissed. I’m always reading twenty minutes of insight into a glance in someone’s eyes.
Sam Callahan came off the ground with a roar. He kicked once and Dothan’s knee bent at an impossible angle. Sam caught him with a left to the liver, a right to the mouth, and an elbow in the solar plexus. Sam picked up a baseball bat and broke it across Dothan’s forehead. Then Sam picked him up and threw him through the glass door.
Florence’s godawful screaming stopped and I felt the sharp weight lifted off my spine. I rolled sideways, coughing, and looked up to see Coach Stebbins holding Dothan by both arms.
Florence had the voice of a raped goat. “They started it. They started it. They jumped on my brother.”
Maurey spit snow. “He was celebrating the fucker who killed Kennedy.”
Stebbins stared at us on the ground, then his eyes traveled the circle of kids, Teddy the Chewer, Chuckette Morris, Kim Schmidt. His jaw looked like he’d been hit, not us. He let Dothan go, then turned and walked back into the school.
***
That Friday in November must be the most analyzed, beat-to-pulp day in history. The day everything got quiet; the day America lost her virginity, or at least her innocence; the day the fifties ended. More strangers spoke to each other that day than any time before or since.
A lot of newspaper and TV guys made their careers that day. An entire industry has grown around trying to figure out what happened. I hate to think we’ll never know.
I take it as the day I first talked to Maurey, without which I’d be a different deal.
I’ve asked a number of people who were ten, eleven, twelve back in 1963, and most of them recall it as the day the grown-ups cried.
***
“Come on,” Maurey said.
“Where?” She was standing up, but I still sat in wet snow. I felt somewhat debased by losing the fight. Dothan wasn’t that tough. Maurey’s white skirt was a mess. I imagined the guys got some great panty shots, which was probably a bigger deal to them than the death of a president.
“I can’t be here anymore.”
“That makes sense.”
“We can to go my house and watch the news. I want to know what this is about.”
I glanced at the school. “Think they’ll miss us?”
She held out a hand to help me up. “All the rules are off today, Sam. Nothing we do matters.”
How did she know that? Maurey wasn’t any older than me. She didn’t have any more experience at presidential assassinations. Some people are just born with intuition.
I held on to Maurey’s hand after she pulled me upright. She looked at me sharply.
“You said the rules are off today.”
“Don’t get carried away.” She drew her hand free.
The town seemed asleep as we walked by the triangle. A few trucks sat outside the Esso station and the White Deck, and a parked Buick was running next to Kimball’s Food Market, but we passed no people, not even a dog, and the snow made everything
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