Ham On Rye

"That doesn't matter. I might, I might not."

"You'd make a good sailor."

I smiled, thought about being a sailor, then discarded that idea.

"If you stay another term," she said, "you can have anything you want."

She looked up at me and I knew exactly what she meant and she knew that I knew exactly what she meant.

"No," I said, "I'm leaving."

I walked toward the door. I stopped there, turned, gave her a little nod goodbye, a slight and quick goodbye. Outside I walked along under the campus trees. Everywhere, it seemed, there was a boy and a girl together. Mrs. Curtis was sitting alone at her desk as I walked alone. What a great triumph it would have been. Kissing that lisp, working those fine legs open, as Hitler swallowed up Europe and peered toward London.

After a while I walked over toward the gym. I was going to clean out my locker. No more exercising for me. People always talked about the good clean smell of fresh sweat. They had to make excuses for it. They never talked about the good clean smell of fresh shit. There was nothing really as glorious as a good beer shit - 1 mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It made you realize that you were really alive.

I found the locker, opened it and dumped my gym suit and shoes into the trash. Also two empty wine bottles. Good luck to the next one who got my locker. Maybe he'd end up mayor of Boise, Idaho. I threw the combo lock into the trash too. I'd never liked that combination: 1,2, 1, 1,2. Not very mental. The address of my parents' house had been 2122. Everything was minimal. In the R.O.T.C. it had been 1, 2, 3,4; 1, 2, 3, 4. Maybe some day I'd move up to 5.

I walked out of the gym and took a shortcut through the playing field. There was a game of touch football going on, a pick-up game. I cut to one side to avoid it. Then I heard Baldy: "Hey, Hank!"

I looked up and he was sitting in the stands with Monty Ballard. There wasn't much to Ballard. The nice thing about him was that he never talked unless you asked him a question. I never asked him any questions. He just looked at life out from underneath his dirty yellow hair and yearned to be a biologist. I waved to them and kept walking.

"Come on up here. Hank!" Baldy yelled. "It's important."

I walked over. "What is it?"

"Sit down and watch that stocky guy in the gym suit."

I sat down. There was only one guy in a gym suit. He had on track shoes with spikes. He was short but wide, very wide. He had amazing biceps, shoulders, a thick neck, heavy short legs. His hair was black; the front of his face almost flat; small mouth, not much nose, and the eyes, the eyes were there somewhere.

"Hey, I heard about this guy," I said.

"Watch him," said Baldy.

There were four guys on each team. The ball was snapped. The quarterback faded to pass. King Kong, Jr. was on defense. He played about halfway back. One of the guys on the offensive team ran deep, the other ran short. The center blocked. King Kong, Jr. lowered his shoulders and sped toward the guy playing short. He smashed into him, burying a shoulder into his side and gut and dumped him hard. Then he turned and trotted away. The pass was completed to the deep man for a TD.

"You see?" said Baldy.

"King Kong…"

"King Kong isn't playing football at all. He just hits some guy as hard as he can, play after play."

"You can't hit a pass receiver before he catches the ball," I said.

"It's against the rules."

"Who's going to tell him?" Baldy asked.

"You going to tell him?" I asked Ballard.

"No," said Ballard.

King Kong's team took the kickoff. Now he could block legally. He came down and savaged the littlest guy on the field. He knocked the guy completely over, his head went between his legs as he flipped. The little guy was slow getting up.

"That King Kong is a subnormal," I said. "How did he ever pass his entrance exam?"

"They don't have them here."

King Kong's team lined up. Joe Stapen was the best guy on the other team. He wanted to be a shrink. He was tall, six foot two, lean, and he had guts. Joe Stapen and King Kong charged each other. Stapen did pretty good. He didn't get dumped. The next play they charged each other again. This time Joe bounced off and gave a little ground.

"Shit," said Baldy, "Joe's giving up."

The next time Kong hit Joe even harder, spi

"This is really disgusting! That guy's nothing but a fucking sadist!" I said.

"Is he a sadist?" Baldy asked Ballard.

"He's a fucking sadist," said Ballard.

The next play Kong shifted back to the smallest guy. He just ran over him and piled on top of him, dropping him hard. The little guy didn't move for a while. Then he sat up and held his head. It looked like he was finished. I stood up.

"Well, here I go," I said.

" Get that son-of-a-bitch!" said Baldy.

"Sure," I said. I walked down to the field.

"Hey, fellas. Need a player?"

The little guy stood up, started to walk off the field. He stopped as he reached me.

"Don't go in there. All that guy wants is to kill somebody."

"It's just touch football," I said.

It was our ball. I got into the huddle with Joe Stapen and the other two survivors.

"What's the game plan?" I asked.

"Just to stay the fuck alive," said Joe Stapen.

"What's the score?"

"I think they're wi

"Time!" I called.

Le

"My name's Hank. Hank Chinaski. Journalism."

Kong didn't answer. He just stared at me. He had dead white skin. There was no glitter or life in his eyes.

"What's your name?" I asked him. He just kept staring.

"What's the matter? Got some placenta caught in your teeth?"

Kong slowly raised his right arm. Then he straightened it out and pointed a finger at me. Then he lowered his arm.

"Well, suck my weenie," I said, "what's that mean?"

"Come on, let's play ball," one of Kong's mates said. Le

Stapen had thrown an incomplete pass. We huddled.

"I got an idea," I said.

"What's that?" asked Joe.

"I'll throw the ball. You block."

"Let's leave it the way it is," said Joe.

We broke out of the huddle. Le

Stapen had thrown a short complete pass. Third down. No huddle. When the ball snapped Kong and I ran at each other. At the last moment I left my feet and hurled myself at him. The weight of my body hit his neck and his head, knocking him off balance. As he fell I kicked him as hard as I could and caught him right on the chin. We were both on the ground. I got up first. As Kong rose there was a red blotch on the side of his face and blood at the corner of his mouth. We trotted back to our positions.