Free The Moth by James M. Cain Page B

Alabama, Southern California, and Georgia, with U.S.C. indicated, if football was what we wanted, but none of them indicated, if we were thinking about something else. I didn’t mind glory, but it wasn’t getting me anywhere either, as I wanted to go on with the mechanical stuff I’d had at Poly, and the football schools weren’t right for it. Denny was all hot for U.S.C, as Howard Jones was alive then, and he was plenty big. But then things settled themselves, in a way that was all right for me and terrific for Denny. At that time, Maryland was doing a little better at football than it does now, as Curley Byrd wasn’t president yet, but just coach, and he didn’t turn out many flops. Then after a game we played in 1927, we were brought down to the Belvedere Hotel to meet him, and Denny fell for him hard. Maryland didn’t hit me at first, but after I went to College Park and found out they were pretty good in mechanical engineering, I decided for the deal. So in 1928, after we graduated from Poly, we entered, shared a room in a dormitory that looked out on the Washington Road, and checked in for the freshman squad.
    At that time Byrd was in his late thirties, but I think he still could have held a job on most teams himself, college or professional. He was a little heavier than he had been when he played, but he was something to look at, tall, straight, with high color and a mane of curly hair that had been black, but was getting gray, and now, of course, is completely white. He gave us plenty of time, even if we were only freshmen, and taught us stuff we’d never had before. So we weren’t too proud to get on the field early, boot a few, and do a little passing. And as soon as the snow melted in the spring, we put on sweat shirts, rough pants, and cleated shoes, and got out there for a little more of it. I had my growth then, the same six feet I am now, and weighed 170, though I got a little heavier later.
    So, early in October of our sophomore year, when at last we could play on the varsity, all of a sudden Denny was an A.P. dispatch, on practically everything he did. But I was a special article, with pictures and inside dope. I mean, they fell for me, and specially the coaches did. I was that player they prayed for, that did everything right, and was even better helping somebody else than at doing stuff himself. I was a big shot once more, and would get clippings and postcards and boxes of fruit from Miss Eleanor, and felt pretty good.
    One day in early November we had played Yale and tied, 13-13, by something I’d done as it happened, when I hooked a pass and made a forty-yard run. We were given our tickets from New Haven back to College Park, but separate instead of club, so we could stay in New York if we wanted to, take in a show or something, and be back Monday. So Denny and I took our bags to the McAlpin, but we couldn’t get in and went to another place a block or two away. We went upstairs, brushed and came down, and then sure enough, there by the newsstand, he picked up a couple of girls. On that stuff, by now, he counted me out, so he went off with them and I took a walk. On Broadway, around Fortieth Street somewhere, I saw a place I liked and went in and had dinner, then went down to Loew’s State where I had sung years before. But I didn’t like it, so I came out and called Miss Eleanor. There was no answer. I started to go back in, but was restless and went out on the street. Then I caught a cab to the hotel. I still had a paper, and I thought I’d drop her a note and enclose the picture of myself being a hero.
    The desks in the writing room were in pairs, facing each other over kind of a low partition, and opposite me was a blonde girl in a black suit and hat, writing letters too. Her pen wasn’t working so I handed her one from my side and she wrote two letters and stuck a dollar bill in each. “Aren’t I the big-hearted, generous thing, passing out money like that? Oh well, easy come, easy