- A city street--
I crossed the street to the gym. A few of the players were already waiting to carpool to the field. We sat on the concrete blocks waiting for the rides to come. The president of the college pulls in smoothly and goes into the gym to look at the progress being done in preparing it for the chef competition. I wish our college didn't engage in publicity and money stunts.
***
The truck pulled up, and a bunch of players jumped in. They pulled out, and I was left with the first player, waiting for the next ride.
***
A car pulled up with another student waiting for a ride, player 2.
"Hello," he said in a silly voice, "What's your name?" He changed to a more serious tone: "There's no one else
waiting for a ride?" he asked. “Just us three?”
"Six of them already left," I said.
"I thought the coach said 4:30,” he exclaimed, “It's just past four."
"Well, the first ride came and filled up his truck and left. We're waiting for the other person."
"Who already left?"
After the first player who was waiting with me went through trying to describe all the players he didn't remember the names of, I went through and listed them all out by name.
***
The ride pulled up almost to our feet. The driver got out.
"Hello, what's your name?" was asked by the second player to the driver.
"Joe Smooth," he replied. "Since you're short, you probably should go in the back."
"Who are you calling short?"
"Just watch the stuff in the back."
We stuffed ourselves in on top of his sweatshirts, shoes, bags, papers, etc. We took off, with the radio blasting directly behind my head. I thought in my head "At least the seatbelts all work."
***
"I was coming here going 70 in the 55 zone, and there was this white truck trying to pass me, and I was like who is this idiot in the white truck trying to pass me. We had been alongside each other a while, so I looked over and it was the coach."
He was a relatively safe driver anyhow. He drove pretty carefully, though was exceedingly jerky pulling in to merge. He didn't change the radio until we were going straight though. The radio worked better the faster we went. The players all turned their hats backwards so as not to be blown off from the wind pouring in through the wide open windows.
"Does this seatbelt works?" one of the players asked.
"No," the driver replied.
At that point I noticed he wasn't wearing one either.
***
It wasn't all that far, and we made it there without rolling over.
"We'll carpool tomorrow too, and probably for the foreseeable future," the coach said.
When I just rewrote this, it was clear that I hurried on it last time, and never read it over. Not only was there the thing where I never said who was talking, there were also (for me) numerous typographical errors, such as the one on progress and foreseeable.
ReplyDeleteWell, the third and fourth vignette are still not quite within your grasp, still not clear.
ReplyDeleteWho are "just us three"? I only count you and #2. Who is exclaiming--2 or 3? Who gets the dialogue at the end of vignette #3?
"The truck pulled up, and a bunch of players jumped in. They pulled out, and I was left with the first player, waiting for the next ride."
ReplyDeleteThe "first player" is the one who is sitting there quietly throughout all of that, and tries to list the players who had already left at the end. That is also how there are three. The "first player" never talks, it is just me and the player that just came talking.
Tom, this is like a joke someone has to explain in excruciating detail to another someone who didn't get the punchline. Once it's 'explained' adequately, it's dead anyway.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a writing problem--this anecdote will never again be at issue in any future work. It's something we can put to bed. You can say, 'English teachers! They can't count!' And I will say, 'Calculus students! They can't get one, two, and/or three straight!'
I'm laughing, always a good way to leave me!