MID-SEPTEMBER, HOMECOMING WEEK
I suppose there are historians who would swear that the celebration of homecoming is firmly rooted in the fine American tradition of high school competitive sports. But I think there is something more ancient and elemental going on, something that would be familiar to the Druids or Celts.
Each autumn, after harvest season, pre-Christian societies would throw themselves one last bash before the onslaught of winter. Feasts were prepared, games were played, and the village's most beautiful virgin and handsomest young man were named the harvest queen and king. Following a week of revelry and ritual, the comely young couple, fed, pampered, and worshipped, were led to an altar and promptly sacrificed, both in thanks for the previous season's bounty and in hopes of a good year to follow.
While we don't grind the bones of the chosen and sprinkle them on our fields for good luck anymore (and not just because virginity is in short supply), the similarities between the ancient rituals and our modern American celebrations are striking.
Both are a signal of the final passing of summer. Both honor the young, strong, and beautiful. And both require the entire community to bear witness, to mark in our minds and hearts another rite of passage.
"Do I hafta go?" Del whined.
"Of course, Mom," Presley said around a mouthful of cheeseburger, eating his supper as he walked through the cool evening air. "It's like required or something."
We were on our way from the cafe to the school to watch the naming of the homecoming royalty. Though I'd planned to wait for Stu, he had been held up. So I went ahead with Del, Rhonda, and Presley, who, I assumed, honored us with his presence only because he hadn't seen Rhonda for a couple of weeks.
"The strength of any community lies in its support structure," Rhonda said, "and an outward show of that support, such as tonight's coronation ceremony, is important to the tribe as a whole."
Rhonda was back in Delphi for the evening, from Aberdeen where she'd recently begun college classes. I suspected she was taking intro to sociology along with her required freshman courses.
"The group dynamic demands a certain degree of participation and sacrifice from each member," she said, expertly rebraiding her hair as she walked. "As a citizen, it's your duty to contribute." She was walking in front us, with Presley.
"Is that what they teach in college these days?" Del asked me. "Communism?"
"Yeah," I said. "From each according to his nostalgia for high school, to each according to the number of votes he gets."
"You can laugh," Rhonda said over her shoulder, "but you know I'm right. It's important to support your community."
"Hey, you don't have to preach to me," I said. "I intend to applaud dutifully at every appropriate moment. With both hands." I pointed to my shrunken, but healed and cast-free, right arm.
"Don't let her fool you," Del said. "Tory's only going because she has a date."
"She'd go anyway," Presley said, pushing the rest of his burger into an already full mouth. "Tory always goes to these things."
"I know, she's a real pillar of the community," Del said, carefully eyeing her son. "Why are you so gung ho?"
"Coach Fischbach's orders." Presley, who had recently turned thirteen, shrugged. "I guess he wants to keep an eye on us or something. Being's we're on curfew and all."
Too small and wiry to be much use as a tackle or guard, Pres had tried out for the junior high football team as a kicker, and had surprised everyone with his strength and accuracy. He came home from practice bruised, exhausted, and elated by the romance of playing football.
"I thought Doug was the high school coach," I said to Presley.
"He is. But since we practice on the same field as the varsity, Coach Fischbach oversees our workouts too. He wants to make sure we aren't ruined by last year's fag coaching."
"Presley!" Rhonda and I said together, disgusted.
"Sorry." He laughed, raising his hands in self-defense. "I'm only quoting."
"Well, you should tell your coach that such derogatory terms are absolutely inappropriate from a leadership figure," Rhonda said, hands on hips.
"Oh yeah, I could do that all right," Pres said, "if I didn't mind blowing my nose out of my ear."
"He better not hit you," Del said, bridling. Though it was a little slow to surface, her maternal instinct was alive and thriving.
"He doesn't pay any attention to me at all, except to call me a pansy kicker," Pres said. "But he knocked Cameron right off his feet this afternoon. For missing a pass."
"He smacked his own kid, in front of everyone?" I was shocked.
"Well, I didn't see it, but I sure heard him yelling and screaming. And Cameron was on the ground the whole time, until Coach told him to hit the showers."
"I'm so glad we invited such a charming man back into our midst," I said.
"The team is 4 and 0. Whatever he's doing, it must be the right thing." Pres shrugged.
I tried to explain to Presley that, Vince Lombardi notwithstanding, winning was not the only thing. Unfortunately, it was me against the entire athletic mindset—a losing battle right from the start. Or it would have been, if he'd heard me at all. But at the stairs to the school he took off, with a backhand wave, to join friends.
"Come home right after the ceremony," Del hollered after him. "You have homework to do. Remember your curfew." She watched her son disappear into the school. "I guess we should be glad he deigned to walk with us at all," Del said.
"It's just his age," Rhonda said wisely. "Don't take it personally. He'll have to leave home before he realizes how important all this stuff is."
I elbowed Del in the ribs. "Wasn't it just a while ago that Rhonda here couldn't understand what the reunion fuss was all about?"
"Amazing what a couple weeks at a university can do for you," Del agreed.
"You know what they say," Rhonda said, ignoring our teasing. "Home is the place where they gotta let you in if you want to go there." She wrinkled her forehead in concentration. "Or something like that, anyway."
"Are you taking intro to lit this semester too?" I asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"Lucky guess." I laughed, but Rhonda had spotted a couple of friends waving frantically from across the auditorium, and was already making her way over to them.
The noise level was high, with school kids calling and laughing and goofing off in the lower section, adults finding their seats in the upper bleachers, and the band tuning up on stage behind the heavy burgundy matinee curtains.
"Where do you want to sit?" Del asked.
"Up there somewhere, I suppose," I said, surveying the bleachers, waving at acquaintances, searching for enough room for three.
"When is Prince Charming due to arrive, anyway?" Del asked as we worked our way up the steps.
"Pretty quick," I said. "He had some stuff to finish first, and then he'll be right over."
"Hmm," Del said noncommittally, picking her way delicately to an empty space in the middle of a row in what used to be the junior section, right behind Ron and Gina Adler.
Del was being uncharacteristically diplomatic. Stu had been outwardly cheerful, though distracted, lately. Something was on his mind, and I was afraid to ask what. Considering the amount of time he spent on phone calls to and from Minnesota, it wasn't hard to guess. I tried not to think about it.
"Hi, Tory," Gina twisted around and said, ignoring Del completely. "God, this brings back memories, doesn't it?"
"Sure does." Her husband blinked. And then he blinked some more when Del reached down and patted him on the shoulder.
Gina glared at him, and then asked me, "Where's Stu?"
I was amazed how quickly Delphi had adjusted to the notion of Stu and me as a couple. I was equally amazed at how soon the notion changed from "couple" to "joined at the hip."
"She's meeting him here," Del said, though Gina hadn't been talking to her.
"There he is now," Ron said, pointing down at the railing between the upper and lower bleachers just as the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose onstage.
"You know, for some reason, I have been thinking about the year Stu ran for homecoming king," Gina said quietly to me as we all stood for the "Star Spangled Banner" as performed by the combined Delphi High School Band and Chorus.
"That's because Janelle is coming back, and we've all been reminded of that year," I whispered. But it wasn't just that. Stu's acknowledged relationship with me put him in Delphi's public eye. And in Delphi, when you're being talked about, your entire history is up for grabs.
People were remembering me. They were remembering Nicky. They were remembering Stu and Janelle. And Doug. And Butchie Pendergast.
For the zillionth time in the past twenty-five-plus years, Hugh Kincaid skillfully led the chorus through the rest of the National Anthem as Stu made his way into our row and stood next to me.
"Sorry I'm late," he said in my ear as the band swung into a subdued version of the school song—the one they played for serious occasions.
"No problem," I said. "What's up?"
We sat again. "Nothing serious. Walton was having a problem in school, and Renee wanted me to talk to him about it, that's all."
"Oh," I said as the current principal stepped to the microphone and opened the evening's ceremonies.
I could not, in good conscience, fault Stu for being a good father, or for being available to his small son by phone. But I marveled at how often these familial mini-crises occurred at the exact moment Stu was expected elsewhere.
"Have you noticed," Gina whispered to me over her shoulder, as the principal droned on, "that it doesn't matter what year, or which kids are running—the ceremony is always exactly the same? That's what makes it so special."
"That's also what makes it so boring," Del whispered back.
And allowing for differences in hairstyle and gown length, both Del and Gina were right. The coronation itself, the congratulatory squeals of the losing girls, the tears of the winner, and the manly squashing of the king's triumphant grin were each year interchangeable. And each year identically predictable.
"We're going to proceed a little differently this year," the principal said, surprising everyone. "I'd like to call Coach Fischbach to the stage if I may."
Doug had been leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed and scowling, scanning the lower bleachers for errant football players. He scowled even more when he realized that he was expected to join the principal onstage.
"Let's have a round of applause for the first coach in twenty-five years to lead the Delphi football team to a winning season," the principal said as Doug mounted the side stairs to the stage.
The crowd rose to its feet in a spontaneous ovation. No one seemed to care about Doug's personality failings—his drinking, his temper, his fondness for certain sexual epithets. They only wanted to salvage Delphi's battered athletic honor with a winning season.
Doug faced the cheering crowd with a hard smile, performed a small bow, and turned to leave the stage.
"Not so fast, Coach Fischbach." The principal grinned. "Though we appreciate what you've done for our town and team, we'd like to ask one more favor, if we may."
The crowd quieted, and Doug stood on stage, not smiling. I saw Debbie Fischbach, down in the first row of the upper bleachers. Even from my vantage, I could see the tension in her shoulders as she watched her husband onstage.
The principal signaled to his right, and from behind the curtain, Hugh Kincaid wheeled out a cart bearing two tall velvet and gold crowns, two tasseled velvet capes, and a bouquet of roses. Smiling, he wheeled the cart past the principal and stopped next to Doug, who remained stone-faced in front of a semicircle of formally dressed young royalty candidates.
"I would like to ask Coach Fischbach to do the honor of crowning our new homecoming court," the principal announced with a wide smile.
Doug stood frozen, obviously surprised, and not pleased. In the audience, whispering grew as the crowd excitedly discussed the change in routine. Hugh handed one crown and one cape to a reluctant Doug.
"I present to you Delphi's new homecoming king," the principal said grandly, pausing for effect. "Cameron Fischbach."
The crowd erupted in wild applause, delighted that a former homecoming king and current winning football coach was about to crown his own son as the new homecoming king.
Unfortunately, the father and son in question were neither amused nor delighted. Doug awkwardly fastened the cape around Cameron's shoulders and placed the tall crown on his head. Years of drinking had hardened and aged Doug's features into a caricature of his former self, a fact made obvious as he stood next to his young, handsome, unsmiling son. I wondered if anyone, except Debbie Fischbach, noticed that they did not look at, or say anything to, each other.
Ignoring his father, Cameron faced the audience, smiled, and stepped forward to applause as the principal theatrically announced the name of the new homecoming queen.
"Her Majesty, Sandra Saunders."
The whole left side of the bleachers burst into enthusiastic applause as Rhonda's large family congratulated themselves, and each other, on the coronation of the Saunders' youngest girl.
"They're all here," Gina said excitedly, ticking off the many Saunders sisters. "Glenda, Linda, and Brenda are back home, and Chanda brought her new baby."
"Where's Rhonda?" I asked, trying to spot her in the crowd.
"Over there," Del said, pointing mischievously.
I followed Del's finger, prepared to flash an all-right signal in her direction. But my hand froze at my side as Rhonda threw her arms around the neck of a slightly surprised Neil Pascoe and planted a decidedly unplatonic kiss on his lips, and then turned to me and waved in excitement.