SATURDAY, AUGUST 16:

What We’re Made Of

Ryan nudges me awake just as Joan Baez is taking the stage wearing a greenish hippie dress with fringe and some kind of scarf and carrying an acoustic guitar. Jenny is jumping up and down and the crowd is roaring.

I couldn’t have been asleep for more than fifteen minutes, but I feel wide awake immediately. I listen to Baez’s folky protest music, but I mostly look around and can’t believe there are this many people in one place who seem so different from everybody I’ve ever known. I mean, the war always seemed so far away until Ryan and Dad started fighting about it, and this whole idea of protesting and peacing out and standing up to the government just isn’t the way it goes back home. You do what they say, right or wrong. Of course, an awful lot of these people are just here to get wasted. Skippy, for one, is lying facedown in the grass, partied out.

But I’m in the midst of more people than I’ve ever seen in one place, and none of them cares what their parents think right now or if anybody’s staring at their breasts or whether a cop might come by and slap handcuffs on ’em for smoking weed. I can practically hear my dad: “Bunch of freeloading idiots. ‘Peace and love, la-di-da.’ Just wait till they have to get real jobs and haircuts. That’ll be an amazing grace.”

Ryan puts his arm around my shoulder and leans into my ear. “Things are changing right before our eyes,” he says. He starts clapping his hands and whooping. “Stop the war!” he yells.

I yell, too. Anything to keep Ryan from going.

The concert ends for the night about the same time the rain does, sometime around three in the morning.

“We gotta haul ass,” Ryan says. “We are so screwed when Dad gets ahold of us.”

The good news—if you can call it that—is that nobody else is leaving the grounds at this hour, so we can make some time. There are people sleeping in heaps in the mud, but there are also lots of little tents pitched on the hill and other people rolled up in sleeping bags.

A guy with long stringy hair is handing out leaflets that say GET OUT OF ’NAM NOW, and we all take one. Ryan gives the guy a raised-fist salute and says, “Peace, brother.”

We pass a pond and hear people splashing and laughing, and a naked guy and woman walk across the road right in front of us, saying, “Bath time!”

The dirt road is a total mud hole, but it gets better when we reach the highway.

I duck into the cemetery again to retrieve the cooler, and they all follow me. “Thanks, Johnny,” I say to the tombstone.

Ryan shines the flashlight on a gravestone just across from Townsend’s. “Here’s why what we did was right,” he says. “Why you never pass up a chance for an experience like this.”

The stone is simple:

LITTLE HARRY

Born April 27, 1884
Died May 21, 1884

“You never know when you’ll take your last breath,” Ryan says. “Grab your life and shake it.”

It takes another two hours to reach the car, and we eat my mother’s peanut butter sandwiches on the way. They’re soggy from the rain, but we haven’t eaten much since that pot roast.

The sun comes up, and there are patches of clear sky between the clouds.

There aren’t a whole lot of abandoned cars behind us, so we’re able to back the car up for about a quarter mile, then turn around and head for Port Jervis.

We pull into Aunt Lizzie’s driveway a little before seven.

She’s up, and the house smells like coffee and toast. Ryan calls home and luckily he gets Mom, who had called the New York State Police—twice—and was told about the impossibility of communication at the concert and that the Thruway was closed because of Woodstock traffic.

So me and Ryan and Skippy sit on the couch wearing fluffy pink towels around our naked bodies while Aunt Lizzie washes our mud-soaked clothes. We watch The Jetsons and Magilla Gorilla, then eat homemade pancakes and fried eggs. Jenny falls asleep in an armchair, wearing nothing but a purple bathrobe. She’s content; Joan Baez closed the show last night.

“I have a football game at one,” I say, yawning for the hundredth time. We’re more than an hour from home.

“No sweat,” Ryan says. He looks happier than I’ve ever seen him. And that’s saying something.

 

“Today we’ll see what you’re made of,” Coach Epstein barks as we huddle up around him. “See how you handle yourselves against another team.”

The players from Lodi are doing jumping jacks at the end of the field. This is a “controlled” scrimmage, not really a game, so we’re still at the dirt practice field behind the high school and we’re wearing our gray practice jerseys. Our real home games will be on Saturday nights under the lights at the athletic field next to the swim club. First one is only two weeks away.

Coach lowers his voice and looks around. “Don’t let the chocolate ones scare you,” he says. “They go down the same as anybody else when you hit ’em.”

I look over at the Lodi players and see that they’ve got four black guys. We don’t have any. There’s not one black kid living in our town.

I try not to yawn but I can’t help it.

“Am I boring you, Mr. Winslow?” Coach asks.

Some of the guys laugh.

“Sorry,” I say, wiping my mouth. We got home in time for me to brush my teeth, eat a hamburger, and get into my uniform. No sleep except for maybe fifteen minutes in the grass last night.

“Discipline, boys,” Coach says. “We’re an army; that should be your mind-set.”

It doesn’t matter that I’m so tired, because I spend the entire afternoon kneeling on the sideline, watching. It’s raining on and off, and the grassless field is a mess.

I know the coaches aren’t happy that I skipped practice yesterday, but I did bring a written excuse from my mother today. After that run I made in practice the other day, I would think they’d give me some playing time.

Tony gets in at linebacker for a handful of plays, then he kneels next to me. His uniform is covered with mud like everybody else’s—except for mine and Joey Salinardi’s, that is.

Across the field, there are three or four Lodi players who haven’t gotten in yet, either. We keep glancing at each other and sizing one another up. The scrimmage has been dead even.

Finally Coach Epstein waves me and Tony and Joey onto the field. It’s our ball, and we huddle up around Coach. In a controlled scrimmage, the coaches stay on the field and call the plays.

Same formation as in practice: Joey at quarterback, Tony at fullback, and me behind them at tailback. Coach calls that forty-six pitch and I feel a shiver. Salinardi catches my eye and whispers, “Break this one.”

I glance at the defensive line, particularly the tackle and the end I’ll be trying to cut between.

I immediately realize that I’ve made a dumb mistake, looking right at the hole I’ll be heading for. Maybe they didn’t notice.

Salinardi takes the snap, and I hesitate for a second before cutting right. The pitch is bad—low and almost behind me—but I should be able to grab it anyway. I don’t.

The nose of the football hits me in the shin and falls straight down, then bounces away. I pivot and reach, but the defensive tackle is already on me, knocking me to the ground. I scramble to my feet, but a Lodi player scoops up the ball with a clear field ahead of him. I’m the only one with a shot at preventing a touchdown.

Not much of a shot. The guy is seven yards ahead of me in a full run. I chase him all the way to the end zone but never get any closer.

Coach Epstein blows his whistle. “That’s all!” he yells. “Nice job by both teams.”

So I got in for one stupid play and totally blew it.

“My fault,” Salinardi says to me as we walk off the field. But nobody else will see it that way. I fumbled. I got knocked down. They scored. It’s as simple as that, and it cost us the scrimmage.

At least I look like I played. I got as much mud on my uniform as if I’d played the whole time. Big deal.

“What happened?” Tony asks me as we run our laps.

“I don’t know. The ball didn’t get to me.”

“It hit you.”

“Wrong place.”

“Still should have grabbed it. I bet we would have had ten more plays if we’d kept possession.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I would have carried on the next play. I guarantee it.”

“Sorry.”

Nobody else says anything to me, but there’s nothing worse than costing your team a game. They worked all afternoon and kept things even, and then I got in for one play and wrecked the whole thing.

I bet the coaches are wishing they’d cut me when they had the chance.

“You walking home?” Tony asks.

We’ve walked home together after every practice. “How else would I get there? A helicopter?”

The cheerleaders showed up toward the end of the scrimmage, so guys like Esposito and Ferrante are hanging out by them, laughing and acting all cool.

I just want to get out of here. I’m exhausted.

And I’m the worst player on this team.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17

Woodstock Flock

By Brody Winslow

 

Marching
Not to battle
Marching
All night long
Marching
Past barns and cattle
Marching
To hear a song

 

Marching
With my brother
Marching
With thousands more
Marching
To hear another
Marching
Against the war