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him close up, only on distant athletic fields, because he lived in a housing development on the opposite side of town and we had gone to different elementary schools.
    The cheerleaders were leading the packed stands in a frantic yell: ‘Sparky! Sparky! He’s our may-un! If he cain’t do hit, Dole cay-un!’ (It seemed unlikely to me then, from the fierce good looks of Joe Bob, that there was anything he couldn’t do. Being all palpitating pudenda, I hadn’t yet realized that the ability to think did have its occasional uses.) Then Doyle charged through the deflowered paper hoop. The cheerleaders in their white and brown saddle shoes spun wildly, their full maroon and gray skirts swirling up around their waists to reveal maroon body suits. I spun, too, twirling my flag.
    I could see Joe Bob in the middle of the field as I did so. He was prancing in place like a horse in the starting line at the Derby. Once the team had all established that they could leap through the hoop, Head Coach Bicknell appeared, surrounded by his assistants like a Mafioso by his bodyguards. All the players removed their helmets and tucked them under their left arms. The cheerleaders and I stood at attention, me with my flag shouldered like a rifle. The band blared through its unrecognizable rendering of The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and I watched with approval as Joe Bob placed his huge right hand over his breast and stared reverently at Old Glory, while most of his teammates fidgeted and flexed. Then the team formed a tight circle, their eyes closed, and Joe Bob’s closed most intently of all. Coach Bicknell led them in a prayer for good sportsmanship and teamwork, and, as an afterthought, victory.
    Then the cheerleaders led our packed stands in welcoming the Sow Gap Lynxes: “Our game is rough, /Our boys are rowdy./But we send Sow Gap/A great big howdy!”
    The Kinflicks of that first heady game, which Mother was shooting from the front row of the bleachers, show me in a variety of prescribed poses: I remove my plumed helmet and do cartwheels as though the rotation of the earth depended on it; I grab up the cheerleaders’ megaphone and shriek fervently toward the bleachers, “Y’all yell, ya hee-yah?” ; I fall to my knees and raise my eyes to the heavens, pleading for a touchdown; after our first touchdown, I skip through an allemande left with the seven cheerleaders while the band blasts out its unique drum-dominated version of the school song to the tune of “Stars and Stripes Forever.” And in one sequence I prophetically savor each letter as, after his first touchdown, we spell out “Sparky.” (People around school called Joe Bob “Sparky,” though I always preferred the more dignified “Joe Bob.”) “Gimme an Ess!” “Ess!” “Gimme a P!” “P!” And so on. “Whaddaya got?” “SPARKY!”
    We watched the clock on the scoreboard and counted down the last thirty seconds in a roar. Joe Bob had scored three touchdowns and had led the Pirates to a crashing victory over the Lynxes. He was carried from the field on the shoulders of fans who spilled from the stands. The entire town attended all the high school athletic matches. Meets with neighboring towns brought out all the latent intertown hostilities. It was as though each town were a warring city-state, and the high school teams were the town heavies.
    A victory dance was held in the school gym, which was decorated with maroon and gray streamers and fierce pirates on poster paper. I stood in my short shorts and go-go boots with a couple of the cheerleaders and watched my classmates milling around. Occasionally, I’d flash a smile at a familiar face, a smile too enthusiastic for credibility, and would offer the ritual Hulls-port High greeting: “Say hey!”
    I was distracted by the presence a few feet away of Joe Bob Sparks himself, changed into a neat plaid