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this, Mrs Garland. You know your sports,' and I said: 'Why not? My husband
was the czar of sports here at Mecklenberg. Castigated in the Times for
financing near illiterates under the table. Could it be that your boy
has parents who are in poor health and, because of poverty, have
inadequate doctors? No, that was done on a television show last week.'
'Damn, you know books and sports on television. You're a triple threat.'
'Those are the sorts of things that keep you alive when you pass
seventy.' In mild but growing frustration we dismissed one plot
device after another until I said: 'Let's go and walk on the lawn,' and as
the brisk October air struck us, she said: 'Damn, this is real football
weather.' Snapping her fingers, she said: 'Come on, between us we're
bright enough to whip this thing.' But my thoughts were elsewhere at
that point. Very slowly I said: 'What really infuriates me about big-time
college sports as I saw it with my husband and see it now on the
newscasts is not the fact that a charismatic coach can earn a million
dollars a year from all his extras like TV, camps and endorsements, while
his players get nothing. What bugs me is the way male athletes all over
the country think they have the God-given right to rape co-eds. Look at
the cases in the last year, all parts of the nation. Three football
players rape a freshman girl. Four hockey players, two basketball players,
and any number of cases that don't get into the press. What's going on,
that coaches seem to 382 think their, stair P~Iaxs, to prove
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their manhood, can rap whomever they wish?' Afraid that I had ranted,
I drew back: 'I'll correct that. doubt the coaches know. I'm sure they
don't condone it.' . A long silence fell, and when I looked at Jenny
walkin slowly down the slope it was obvious that she was pickin her
way through a mental minefield. Finally she stoppe indicated a bench and
invited me to sit beside her. Then sh said quite slowly, choosing her
words meticulously: 'So in Number Five, and he's the type, outstanding and
upstandir - he rapes our heroine. She's so outraged she reports
immediately, but - and now I borrow from you - he's u for the Heisman. If
he gets it, the university gets it, to Great publicity, next year's
recruiting that much easier.' 'Strong beginning.' Jenny ignored
this, for her mind was on the surpri ending to which she was leading me:
'The universi lawyers, some of the faculty, the lesser coaches an
especially the head coach, all pressure her to withdraw h charge - they
muzzle her. They don't actually threaten h physically, but she's scared as
hell. in the entire universi establishment she has no friend except a
black girl who hi already fought all the battles a young woman can stan
She advises our heroine: 'Forge ahead,' and the followi week the black
girl's dropped from school. College autt orities cite bad grades and
infractions of rules.' 'You're writing a powerful revision.' 'But
that's not the end. Our hero gets the Heisman. Ot university garners the
accolades. And our heroine ge pregnant.' Another long silence, then
with extreme care: 'When th is verified, she goes to all the authorities
who advised h(
before and asks what she should do now, and it's the coa who
solves her problem. He provides funds and a doctor fc an abortion, but our
heroine says she will not go throug 38
with it unless the black girl is reinstated. She is, and they
go together to the clinic.' After some moments, I said: 'Eons ahead
of anything I could have devised. But of course you'll have to hang it on
Nebraska State. Can't use a real place.' 'Nol' Jenny said with
unexpected firmness. 'Nebraska State is so richly rewarding as is, it must
remain untouched. We'll invent another school.' 'What one?' 'How
do I know?' and the force with which this exploded satisfied me that Jenny
had been more personally involved in this case than she had revealed, but
I knew that now was not the time to explore that dark alley. For a
long time in the October sunlight we sat in silence, and as I studied
Jenny with sidelong glances I felt as if I were being granted an interior
glimpse of the writing process and I asked myself: 'I wonder what happened
to this young woman on those Western campuses? Don't expect the truth
from her. All writers are inventors, even when describing a landscape.
They have to be. they write their interpretations and we're eager to
accept them.' Finally Jenny spoke: 'I'm sure I can guess what you're
thinking. No, I was not the girl who became pregnant and was so shamefully
treated. I've fudged the facts. That girl was black. The black girl in my
story, the one who did the befriending, she was white. And I'll let you
guess who she was.' Tuesday, 29 Oaober: I had decided when my
husband died that I would not become what the women in my childhood
called 'a wasting widow,' meaning a woman of some gentility and acceptable
appearance who considered her life ended, and who remained imprisoned in
the house her husband left her, preoccupied with hoarding whatever
funds she had so that she could pass them on to her childr and
grandchildren. None of that for me. Sooner after the funeral than some of
my friends mi have liked, I resumed the varied community activities th
had in the past given me a sense of accomplishment. A because I had been
left a great deal of money - it was much as thirty million - I was able to
do the things wanted. Like my husband, I supported the town library
and p Ms Benelli a yearly bonus about which her board remain ignorant.
I gave to the college. I quietly put up the funds Little League baseball
in Neumunster, and of course I help rather generously our small local
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hospital. The church that Larrimore had supported I continued to help,
and on. But what kept me interested in local life, and protecti
of my own welfare, was my friendly association with t farmers and
tradesmen of our community, so that wh our new resident Yvonne Marmelle
needed a worki introduction to her new community, I proved to be the be
cicerone she could have had. Starting at nine this momin I took her for a
sweep of our district, providing her wi maps, both printed and hand-drawn
by me. 'This is where our road, Cut Off, meets Rhenish Roa and that
farm where the old barn has just been bulldozed the Fenstermacher place, a
mournful affair, really. On had hundreds-o"cres, but through the decades
the fami wasted them away. I've tried to help Otto, and I adore t
wife, but I find their son hard to take. Larrimore and I ga him a kind of
scholarship when he was at Neumunster, b he accomplished nothing with it.
You'll come here fr quently, I suppose, because Fenstermacher makes the
be scrapple in these parts.' When she asked what that was, I said:
'You're not rea( for Dresden. it's what God. invented after he made
crust(
18
apple brown betty. An indescribable Dutch mea T dish that i
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