Sally Mae, I Owe You

Thanks, Sally Mae, I Owe You One
(Excerpt from "Red Bugs, Moonshine & the Book of Leviticus")

I stood there at the plate. It was the bottom of the seventh (Dixie League equivalent to bottom of the ninth) and the score was tied 3 to 3. The stands were packed. The six, seven and eight year old boys sat on their bicycles along the outfield fence dreaming of the day they would make it here. The wind up and the pitch. A high hanging curve. The crowd stood to its feet. Everything went into slow motion. I connected and drove the ball deep into the left field corner and it was still rolling to the fence as I headed for second. I rounded second without looking at the location of the ball. I kept my eyes on the base coach positioned there. The home-plate umpire had run down the line to position himself for the call. The third baseman straddled the bag with his waiting glove opened to the inside. The ball was on its way and I knew it. With outstretched arms, the third base coach pumped both hands downward several times. Hit the dirt. I lunged head first, diving for the bag. That precious bag.

“Saaaaafe!” came the call as the home-plate umpire threw one arm to the east and the other to the west. The crowd cheered for me, and the younger boys along the outfield fence slapped each other on their shoulders in excitement.

“What are you doing in there you little twit,” someone called out. Suddenly, in a single moment, the crowd vanished and I lay there in the dirt where the third base bag would be if this were actually a real game. I stood up quickly and began to brush the dirt off the front of my shirt and pants.

“You’re not old enough to be in there, the voice called out again; and I’m gonna tell.”

It was Sally Mae Forehand. J She was thirteen. I was suddenly eight again.

“I ain’t hurting anything,” I replied.

“Well, you’re not old enough to be in there, and I’m going to tell.”

“I will be old enough next year, and you’ll still be just an ole girl.”

“I won’t tell if you’ll come over here and give me a kiss,” Sally Mae stated the terms of her blackmail as she puckered out her lips and made “smooching” noises at me.

I think I’m going to be sick, I thought. If she did tell the older boys that I was playing in here, there was the possibility they might not believe her. After all, she is just a girl. Even if they did believe her, the worst I would get would be a sock in the eye or a kick in the stomach. Black eyes heal and as long as there was no damage to my internal organs, my stomach would eventually stop hurting, I thought.

“I would rather kiss a dog’s butt than kiss you, Sally Mae,” I yelled as I began picking up rocks and hurling them at her. Sally Mae rode away on her bicycle.

I began to walk home. I walked past the Philpot house just as Timothy was running out the back door. “Let’s get up a game,” he suggested.

“I have to go home and get my glove,” I said. “I’ll stop on the way and get Jim Beau,” I offered.

“I’ll go by and get Tommy and Russell and my brother Mark. They can each get someone else who can each get someone else. (Timothy later made 42 gazillion dollars in a pyramid marketing business. I’m sure the idea started here.) Mark, Timothy’s brother, was ten and a baseball legend. “We’ll meet back at the park,” I yelled as I ran toward home.

Within fifteen minutes or so, we had enough boys to field two teams. We were barely into the second inning when Sally Mae Forehand came riding up to the fence on her bicycle. Jim Beau Pendarvis started the chant, but it was quickly joined by everyone else.

“Sally Mae,

Sally Mae,

Two by four

Can’t get through

The bathroom door.”

All the boys laughed, but Sally Mae seemed unmoved. She was like a black widow spider, seeking out her next victim. Eugene Primrose rode up on his bicycle with his glove hooked onto the right handle bar.

“All positions are filled,” Mark Philpot advised from the pitcher’s mound. Sally Mae rode over next to Eugene and they disappeared behind the closed concession stand. Everyone snickered. Everyone except Mark. He threw the next pitch and struck out David Maples swinging. We came in from the field to bat.

Sally Mae and Eugene were still behind the concession stand. We all snickered more.

“Fat girls can move their tongues better than a bus station queer,” Mark reported.

“A what?” I thought. My curiosity couldn’t take it. “What’s a bus station queer?” I blurted out.

“Don’t you know nothing? Are you an ignoramus?” Mark asked me. He wasn’t really expecting a reply.

At that very moment, Sally Mae and Eugene reappeared from behind the concession stand and walked toward their bicycles which were still leaning against the fence. This time Russell started it . . . but the chorus joined in just the same:

“Eugene and Sallie May sitting in a tree

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First comes love

Then comes marriage

Then comes Eugene with a baby carriage.”

Eugene’s face turned tomato red and he jumped on his bicycle and quickly rode away. Sallie Mae just stood their smiling like a bird dog eating green persimmons.

“Revell,” Mark began. Real life baseball players always call people by their last names. It’s a rule. “A bus station queer is somebody that don’t like girls,” he continued.

I must be a bus station queer for sure, I thought. But at least Mark didn’t know it. His own brother Timothy was a bus station queer too, but I wasn’t about to squeal on him. I looked around at the other boys, Jim Beau, Tommy, Russell and Zack . . . all bus station queers. Mark didn’t know it, but he couldn’t have spit in that ball field without hitting at least one bus station queer.

Then an agonizing heart pounding fear hit me. Sally Mae knew, but would she tell. After all, it hadn’t been more than a hour and a half ago that I had pelted her with rocks and told her that I’d rather kiss a dog’s butt, than kiss her. Sally Mae turned and looked straight at me. My heart froze. She puckered up her lips and made that “smooching” sound. Then she just turned and rode away.

Thanks Sallie Mae, I owe you one.