Running From The Devil

In 1968, as I sat there in Franklin's Drugstore reeking of English Leather, in walks the football coach, Jack Dancer. He was looking for his football boys to make sure they weren't hangin’ out with us ne'er-do-wells. He looked at us with our black leather jackets and motorcycle boots and pronounced us "Drugstore Cowboys", a name that stuck.


So why didn't I play football. Well, one day I pulled up in my powder blue '59 Chevy to where the football guys were practicing. It was in the summer so I was drinking a quart of cold Coors beer and watching these guys run up and down in full pads in the heat until they puked. I preferred to play tenor sax in the marching band and they were PUKING ON WHERE I MARCHED!

This traumatized me.

So I ran up to the coach waving my arms and yelling, "Ils vommisent sur la champ de l'honneur, Ils vommisent sur la champ de l'honneur!" Now coach Dancer also was the history teacher and had covered the French Revolution where he had elicited some French words and phrases at us, so I figured he spoke French. Not so.

He starts chasing me up the field, my friend Chuck Sack, the quarterback takes the snap. I am running full tilt trying to get away from this madman, when, over my shoulder, I see the football, spiraling and wobbling in slow motion, arcing ever so slowly down, down, down and then falling into my waiting hands.

Still running with the ball I jump into my car, firing up the 348 c.i. big block and peeling rubber out of the parking lot, the Doors singing "Light My Fire" on the radio. I laughed as I pitched the pigskin out of the window and reached for another cold Coors.

A Facebook Novellette. Published on Stephen Graue’s Facebook page on June 4, 2010, 9:26 pm.