PART TWO

THE RIFT

CHAPTER EIGHT

DATE WITH ELLEN

It was inevitable. I should have seen it coming. I mean, I liked to consider myself a kid with good insight. My dad was a jazz drummer, after all, and I was a writer. And, a former troubadour. Yet, for some reason, it caught me totally by surprise when the time came....

CHAPTER NINE

MY FIRST

We had originally decided on bowling first, so I drove with the idea that the bowling alley would be our destination. Very little was said as we rolled through town, on our way to the exit ramp that would take us to 95.

Motley was pissed that I had talked to him that way. Ellen was still doing her combination of angry and embarrassed....

CHAPTER THREE

GOING WITH ELLEN

It was the spring of 1977 that Motley became the first Wallflower to experience a major rite of passage – he got a girlfriend.

There were two girls who walked to school together. Judy and Ellen. Judy was tall and curvy. Ellen was short, and had a body like a twelve-year-old boy. Judy was chesty, and Ellen had the chest of a boy. Judy had great legs – that is, when we got to see them before miniskirts went away....

CHAPTER FOUR

T-BIRD CONVERTIBLE

Funny thing about a driving test. It is one of those rites of passage we all go through. If you want to drive a car, you have to take a test. You have to drive around while some guy dressed like a K-Mart security guard sits beside you, staring dourly at a clipboard. You drive along a street, taking left turns and right turns and practicing a hill stop....

CHAPTER FIVE

ASKING OUT LISA

Motley threw the ball to me, and it smacked in the webbing between my thumb and fore finger, what they called the pocket. A good sound, I thought. Baseball poetry. The sound of spring.

“So, man,” Motley said. “Now you have no excuse. You gonna ask her?”

It was not unusual for me not to know what the fuck Motley was talking about. “Ask who what?” I threw the ball back....

CHAPTER SIX

GUITAR SUICIDE

We had practice at 9:00 Saturday morning. A couple hours of fielding grounders and taking batting practice.

Afterward, some of the guys were heading to Main Street for a hot dog and soda.

“You coming?” Rick Shields asked.

“Nope. Gotta get ready for the festival this afternoon."

Friendly said, “You really think that guy will want to hear one of your songs?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if he does or not....

CHAPTER SEVEN

SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN

Our double-play combination was not as good as it should have been. It looks easy on television, when there is a base runner on first, and a grounder is hit to one of the infielders. He flips the ball to the second baseman, who then pirouettes in the air and throws to first, and both the runner and the batter are out.

And yet, try that in the real world....