Life Along the Bell Curve

By Jeffrey J. Brusie

A small town guy leaves the big city as a fired coach. He seeks the front porch of a mountain cabin across from a stream, to sit, smoke, drink whiskey and feel sorry for himself in solitude. He fishes once and the city follows. Dellabole Blue is too busy to enjoy the food and music mentioned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669838043

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Copyright © 2022 by Jeffrey J. Brusie.

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New

International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International

Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Rev. date: 07/18/2022

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1Fired

Chapter 2The Drive

Chapter 3Conspiracy

Chapter 4The Awakening

Chapter 5Fishing

Chapter 6The Hamlet

Chapter 7Friends

Chapter 8Lovers

Chapter 9The trip to Bobstadt

Chapter 10Indian Giver

Chapter 11Ketubah

Chapter 12Comeuppance

Chapter 13Business For Breakfast

Chapter 14Gray Winter Days

Chapter 15Education

Chapter 16Economics

Chapter 17Immigration

Chapter 18Freedom

Chapter 19Annual Report

Chapter 20Starting Over

Chapter 21Revenuers

Chapter 22Sorrow

Chapter 23Lust

Chapter 24Next

Chapter 25Football Revisited

Chapter 26Prom

Chapter 27Management

Chapter 28Polygamy

Chapter 29Money

Chapter 30Lollipops

Chapter 31Leaving

Chapter 32Death

Chapter 33Chutzpah

Chapter 34Enterprise

CHAPTER 1

Fired

There’s two kinds of coaches, them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired.

Bum Phillips

Red leaves scattered on a background of dirty brown ones with sketches of yellow littered the lawns on tree lined streets. Nature’s manure spreader excited the soul as the breeze screamed of football weather in the city.

Fog resisted vacating the inside of a concrete football stadium. Under a goalpost, enveloped in the fog, sat a man, his head held between his hands, supported by his knees, with his butt on the grass. Michael, a fine arts student, fiddled with the public address system. Through a speaker behind that goalpost he softly played Bless The Beasts And The Children to please the ear of Delabole Blue, coach of the Mud Hogs. His sister had died after a two year battle with cancer.

Lisa, Coach cried. Remember. We were little in that backyard tent. The fart contest. We’d pick a winner by the loudest. The stench ended the game. The times I hitched up my trusty steed, polished my armor and grabbed my pointed lance to defend your honor. I relished setting them straight. Or just sitting on the porch, late at night sharing secrets.

As the fog lifted, Michael viewed players, dressed in their brown and tan sweats, huddled near the goalpost to provide consolation. Word spread about Lisa. Coach Delly didn’t notice as he thought about Walsh. Would his ankle hold up? Miller was taller. If he had to go in the game at short snapper, his stance would be six inches wider. Would it matter? He remembered a sailing race from Ponce Inlet to St. Augustine. On a beam reach, the wind perpendicular to the boat, they gained one tenth of a knot on the other boats and won the race. Yes, little things do matter. Delly played What if? games in his head about as often as he talked about recruiting good solid young men to be scholars and football players at the same time.

Delly’s mind raced back to Lisa. How had they gone their separate ways? Her body was slender geometry, topped with a pretty face and cropped black hair. She could have gone to college, played basketball or been a cheerleader. She did in highschool. The parents didn’t care about Friday and Saturday games breaking the Sabbath. They let her go her own way.

For Delly it was a different matter. He played in the game and people watched. The parents didn’t want Delly standing out as the Jew Boy playing a game on the Sabbath. They sent him to a school that only played on Sunday. They had no qualms about desecrating other’s sabbath.

Delly pondered what had separated them. He followed football around the Bluegrass. Lisa married a man whom Delly couldn’t remember. She became a Jehovah’s Witness and moved to Califuckinfornia. What the hell was that all about? Delly studied Hasidic Jewry, but was not particularly observant.. He kept everything in his soul.

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In the locker room, the coaches opened the windows wide. Michael blasted the Texas A and M War Song. Delly thought some arrogance was in order. He often provided a challenge beyond the game itself.

Well, we’ve just made a statement that we think we’re better than they are. Now go out and prove it. They’re from Oklahoma and they hate Texas. They put us in the same category with that blue team east of here - nobody, yelled Coach Delly.

How do you protect a lead? Yelled Coach Danahay.

Extend it, yelled the team.

How do you hit um? Asked Coach Carna.

Hit em high or hit em low, as long as you hit the son of a bitches hard, yelled the team.

Coach Delly took control, radar blocking first quarter, colors second quarter. Green means nothing. Now go get em.

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The Hogs goed and got em, 14-0 at half time. Coach Delabole Blue was always last to enter the locker room. The men had just a few minutes to socialize while Delly spent time alone. Today he thought of the old days. Lisa, Claire, Sandra, Sheryl, Evelyn, Ann, Karen and other young cheerleaders dressed in homemade outfits. The players waited in line to have numbers taped on their backs. Delly was #44. No need to kick an extra point since there were no goalposts. But the least he could say was that they won every game and it was always standing room only. There were no bleachers.

Coach slammed the door. No one moved and no one sounded. Farts were muffled. Not out of fear did they listen. It was a matter of respect. When things went well, the team got the credit. When things went badly, Coach Delabole Blue took the blame. Coach had no time for blame. Blame took too much time away from solving a problem.

Gentlemen, men, boys, you decide what you are. I gotta tell you, we got us a problem. This game ain’t over. You think those guys are gonna lay down and surrender, as the blue team east of here? Right about now they’re getting a Bobby Knight kinda thrashing. We’ll see if they can come out of their abyss. They’ll come after us with everything they’ve got. Well, we’re gonna let em. They have to score. We need to use up the clock. We’ll let um throw the ball. The more they throw, the higher the chance of an interception. When we get the ball, we’re goin for gains that keep the clock moving. Play for field position and we’ll get this thing over with. Be loose. Have fun. All boys can stay in the locker room, yelled Coach Blue as he led the troops to battle.

Coach Carna aired his concerns to Coach Blue as the Enemy made gain after gain down the field.

How are they making their gains? Asked Coach Blue.

Under our defenders and in bounds, answered Coach Carna.

Coach Blue responded, stay with it. We’ve got the score, the time and the odds. You take over. I have to talk to Lisa. All mistakes are mine, all successes are yours, said Delly as he walked to the fence dividing the field from the stands.

Coach Carna’s legs quivered as he realized all those phrases and quotes he directed to his players were churning in his gut now:

Suck it up.

Stand tall.

Fatigue beats.

Intestinal fortitude.

Pull it out of your ass.

Carna couldn’t pull it out of his ass. He had to go to the bathroom. His legs hugged each other to hold it in. What to do now? Carna stood tall and sucked it up. He didn’t hear the cheers or see the action on the field. In his silence he thought of what Delly would do now. Where did all the subtle things come from that Delly applied to now? Carna was baffled that Delly could observe and analyze many things at the same time. How did he know, nine out of ten times, what the other teams’ offensive plays were? Little things mattered. Why did Delly poke him in the ribs at 3:37 left in the first half? Then Carna remembered the Enemy Coach threw his clipboard to the ground at that time. Delly always said that as the coach goes, the team goes. Son of a bitch, did Delly know then that the game was over?

Carna noticed Enemy receivers flinching on every pass as the Hogs’ defensive backs repeatedly beat on them. Carna knew it was time for a finesse guy who could sneak around receivers and steal the ball. Benny Jack Bruce entered the game. In his hometown they called him Brother Bruise, not for the bumps left on your skin, but for the blemishes left on your ego when he stole the ball. Seldom used, he led the team in interceptions, yards per carry and total yards gained after interceptions. At free safety, he followed the quarterback. When the quarterback dropped back, Bro dropped back. Bro followed the quarterback from one side of the field to the other. When he ran with the ball, Bro crashed on him. Mainly, Bro was just there. Players could feel him, until the ball came their way. Blink, Bro either tackled gently while trying to slap the ball away or more likely………….you missed it. When the receiver flinched, he took the ball at the Hogs’ ten yard line and returned it to the Enemy fifteen. Coach Carna used the clock and scored on fourth down.

Late in the game Delly’s game plan became too predictable: let them gain, hope the Hogs could hold them, start all over again. Carna wanted to create a little twist in the action - something he could create on his own. Delly’s plan resembled life on Hadrian’s Wall where the Romans and Scotts co-existed along the Wall. Carna was up against the Maginot Line. The Hogs couldn’t go through it. They couldn’t go around it, but Carna had a solution. In a Machiavellian Moment he let the Enemy think they were having their way while Carna was having his own. At the Hog’s thirteen yard line, the Hogs needed one yard on third down to earn a first down. The Enemy prepared for a party on the Hadrian’s Wall of scrimmage. A failed attempt at a first down meant a punt on fourth down. The Enemy would get the ball back at about mid field.

Carna lined up his men in a single wind formation from the old days. The backfield was stacked on the right side of the center with the fullback four yards behind. The Franks entered the game at each end. Delly couldn’t remember their long Italian names and called them G and Z. G, more stout, blocked on the stacked side. Z, more shifty, lined up on the left. Little Campbell brought in the play. The team knew the play before he entered the huddle. Even Grandma, high in the stands, knew something was amiss. Campbell was no fullback. Little, but mighty, he was one hell of a punter.

On a count of 1, Campbell took the snap. Z, whizzed down the sidelines. G, held his block as Campbell pivoted on his right foot and planted his left leg. He quick kicked the ball end over end above the linemen. G, slid from his block and raced down the field. An Enemy defensive player, wanting to be a hero, slapped at the ball as it tumbled high and he touched the ball. G, blocked him. Z, picked up the ball and crossed the goal line.

Delly was back now. He heard Sun Tzu wake from the grave yelling for the home team, all warfare is based on deception, all warfare is based on deception. Delly’s ear followed the cheers as the ball raced down the field. His eyes saw things differently. Little Campbell was held high by Enemy linemen. Delly entered the playing field with legs pumping as fast as an inline four cylinder Japanese motorcycle. He intercepted an Enemy second string linebacker intent on revenge. Delly exploded from his toes to his arms. Mr. Benchwarmer’s playing time ended as he slid on his backside for ten yards.

Three yellow flags landed on the grass. Delly delighted for a second that he could still perform. Would have been a textbook picture, he thought, as he was ejected from the game. Delly paused at the sideline to plead his case with illspoken words. Telling the referee he’s full of shit, that it was a Kentucky fairy call didn’t help his cause. More flags were thrown. The embarrassed benchwarmer entered the huddle of officials and Delly. Delly jacked his jaw while the ‘Big Goon’ held on to Coach’s hair.

His midsection’s open and my hands are free. I can hit him, but he can’t hit me, Delly tried to show compassion.

Men dressed in dark blue with badges and official looking hats escorted Coach Delabole Blue from the premises. The fracas gave the Athletic Director time to move from the pressbox to the scene of the ejection. They met in a corner. Mr A.D. relieved Delly of his responsibilities at the school. A thin familiar arm poked low between them with a tape recorder in hand. He tried to forget her years ago. She hung around, probably had her eye on one of the players. But then he thought that it had nothing to do with feelings. This was only a matter of business. Delly forgot the colors of the uniforms, the cheers, the smell of sweat or the aroma of hotdogs, burgers, brats and coffee from the concession stand.

"So what you’re telling me is I no longer work for this school? Delly asked.

That is correct, answered the A.D.

So I’m not the coach of the Mud Hogs?

That is correct, answered the A.D.

I can’t return to the field?

That is correct, answered the A.D.

If I get down on my hands and knees and beg for forgiveness, can I return?

No. I’m getting quite tired of this, answered the A.D.

So I don’t work here anymore?

No, now get out of here and be gone by 6:00 this evening, were the A.D.’s last words.

Delly spent his last words in Italian, Yiddish, and Mexican slang, ba fangu, mangiami, mangiami presto, tua madre e una puttana, sangue di im bastardo, putz, schmuck, mamzer goyim, shtup, perro loco Americano, vete a la merde, pinche mamon.

At a speaking in tongues championship at the local holy roller temple, he’d have won first prize.

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In Delly’s office (some office, just a desk in the corner), he packed his most necessary possessions and junk. Ex-coach, Delabole blue viewed the scoreboard through the trees of red speckled leaves: 17-5.

Would players and coaches arrive to pay condolences? Delly tidied up his home and packed for a trip to a trout stream. He remembered an ancient Kentucky proverb.

Keep your friends close and your bourbon closer.

Not wanting to deal with humanity, he posted a sign on his front door with extra pins for messages:

Pin messages here.

Slide other correspondence in the slot.

Knock at your own discretion.

Be back………..later.

Gone trout fishing.

CHAPTER 2

The Drive

Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated.

Jean Baudrillard

Fishing gear, camping supplies and whiskey all packed, Delly turned on the ignition key. The clock showed 4:00 as he sat perched high on the plaid cloth bench seat of his 4x4 Red Ford Bronco. Beside him, snuggled close, he used a cooler to house the booze and serve as an armrest. Delly heard the gentle rumble from glass packed mufflers on dual exhausts. Hands were off the cold steering wheel. Twinkles from a street light appeared when the breeze moved the naked tree branches. The truck cab was warming and Delly adjusted himself in his seat.

He thought of a question posed to him once. What would Merton be without the monastery? What would Merton be without his priesthood? Without anything? Thomas Merton, the famous monk from The Abbey Of Gethsemani, would be Thomas Merton. Maybe that was the secret. With nothing, the only thing left is yourself. He’d be a monk for a while and find out. No one showed up at Delly’s place. He thought of Knute Rockne who said that six weeks after you’re done playing football, they forget your name. He guessed it didn’t take that long for fired coaches.

Delly turned right from Patti Ln. to the main road. Two miles later he switched the lights on high beam. He was in the country, looking for deer at the edges of fields. When on the Interstate, moving east, he set the cruise control to 55mph. To change the boredom, he folded his legs under him and thought of Indians around a campfire in the dark. The fire was too warm. He turned down the heater.

The sun peered over the horizon. He needed sunglasses, but they were in the fly fishing vest in the rear of the Big Red Thing. The visor was pulled down, but the glare was too great to read the gauges in the instrument panel. Delly left the Interstate and traveled country roads and put the mountain between the sun and his eyes for a spell.

And ah, sweet Jeeesus, and ah, and here me, brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you, sweet Jeeesus, and ah, is what the radio told him each time he changed the stations.

Oh, hell, he laughed out loud. It’s Sunday.

Delly turned the thing off and drove on, fighting thoughts of football and Her. Maybe in a grocery store, he’d turn a corner there she’d be, not a slender arm, pushed between two advoceries. He saw her in the stands watching practice and wondered who she had her eye on and how many of them wanted to plug her. He forged on to trout, woods, whiskey and felt sorry for himself. With the radio back on, banjo and harmonica music filled the cab with country sound. Delly grabbed the steering wheel tight, rounded a bend in the road and whizzed past a white building. Two wheels pressed hard to the road as those on the other side lifted. He gained control and reminded himself that he wasn’t racing an MGB. At the Y in the road, he called time out, sat, caught his breath and decided to return to the white blur at the bend to ask a human for direction.

A store, with three large dogs lounged on a concrete slab, welcomed the stranger. Beyond the coon hounds and a bloodhound was a short fleshy man behind the counter inside the Mom and Pop Shop. With the truck door open, Delly dangled his foot. With no flinch from the mutts, he stood on the ground with his hand on the door handle for a quick get away. Delly strolled past the dogs, removed his shoes, as a courtesy, and entered the store.

Hi, name’s Delly.

I know. Red Bronco drives by. Not from here. Just like the picture in the paper. See those two girls, just left here? They bought the last newspaper and said something about you drivin by lookin like crazy city folk. Showed me the picture of the red truck. Now everyone back here will know you’re around, said the man.

I came here to be unknown, replied Delly.

Ah, I too, to be forgotten, to be unknown, said the squat little store operator.

Need cigarettes, said Delly.

Need a pop to go with it?

"I’m not from here and you don’t sound like here either,’ stated Delly.

Hungarian Revolution, 1956. I got out. Name’s Laszlo Stein. Read an ad in a paper. Said something about running your own business, independence and all, small town, quiet. I took em up on it. Never had these things with the Communists.

Oy, said Delly.

Oy vey, returned Laszlo.

You too, exclaimed Delly.

Oy gevalt, answered Laszlo.

You’re right. Oh G-d, alright already, said Delly.

Well, you here for trout or suicide? Asked Laszlo. I can show you how to get to the stream. As for suucide, you’re on your own. Many come to fish, but a change to themselves is what they desire. When you get to where I’m telling you, park next to the ’67 Plymouth."

Delly looked for his shoes, but they were gone. He asked Laszlo about it and was told it was most likely Yoder, the young coon hound.

Was he smiling at you when you went out the door? Laszlo asked.

Delly, not impressed, changed shoes and followed Road #2024 south and turned right at the stop sign. He advanced anxious and shaking in anticipation of roll casting a fly on the stream. Oaks, beaches and poplar trees whizzed by with leaves dropping like rain. He missed the beauty of them. The Big Red Thing sloshed across the stream a few times fast enough to muffle the sound of water flowing over rock in the stream. He ascended the dirt road up the side of the mountain, a hundred feet above the stream. Not knowing if a place was provided for a vehicle to pass he stopped and listened for the sound of tires on the rocks below. At the bottom, he let out his breath.

Amen.

A sign, nailed to a tree, read Buffalo Beach, with stone sculptures and strategically placed soda cans buried in the sand to communicate to the world that sometimes people stop bye. Around a slight bend and past a small brick house on the stream side of the road were neatly placed stalks of some kind with buds at the top arranged in a row. Across the road, on the cliff side, were miniature stone sculptures as the ones at The Beach. Something spiritual? There was a man, cleaning the road. As Delly passed he slowed a bit, lowered his window and extended a two fingered country wave. Delly saw the two fingers returned through the rearview mirror. At a split in the stream, the Big Red Thing parked a comfortable distance from the Plymouth.

CHAPTER 3

Conspiracy

A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public.

Mark Twain

At the time of Delly’s packing, the denizens of scholastic trust met in an inner office of the Department of Human Resources to plot and conspire against the A.A. ’s mischosen words. Winnie Blake, a senior student aide was told to be there and make copies of Coach’s file for this clandestine assemblage. Copies were distributed to those in attendance and one she shoved down her pants.

Winnie arrived back at her dorm room and answered the phone, Hello…..Ruby, Ruby Sands? What the hell is so important? It’s 4:00 in the morning. Can’t sleep? Oh, it’s Delly now. It was always Coach Delly or Mr. Blue, but now it’s just Delly? Meet me at the statue at the park entrance. Park your car on a side street and walk around the whole statue. I’m not sure which bench I’ll be on. You bring coffee and I’ll pick up breakfast. Sausage biscuits ok? See you at 10:30 and I’ve got something of interest for you.

Winnie heard Ruby’s car before she saw the rusted blue thing. Ruby scurried on the sidewalk, almost a trot, as she hurried across the street without looking for oncoming traffic. Her slight body was determined to get to the benches quickly. Her dark hair fluffed in the wind created by her haste.

I…..him. Yea, Ruby said as she sat down on the bench.

I’m not sure I heard you, but, Winnie responded.

I love him, really, Ruby answered with a look on her face that longed for approval. He’ll move away, get another coaching job in another city and I’ll never see him again. I’ll never be close to him again."

"So this is about a guy twice your age? He could be having his way with your mother. You said