Back in \u201895, when I was seventeen, I dated Rhonda Ball for two quarters and a fornicative halftime before shanking an easy overtime kick, ruining the Barley Harvest Homecoming, and igniting a Thanksgiving-themed riot. I was the stuff of fuckup legend. Coach R.T. said, \u201cWilkins, you got a palindrome life, son,\u201d meanin\u2019 my days would forever be the same forwards and back. I pretended to ponder, before sack-racking Coach (who was also the Law, and my foster father). Our days changed a bit afterwards. Coach lost one nut. Things got hot around town. Rhonda dumped me.<\/p>\n
Before Rhonda gave me dirty, funky love I had a cult of chia pets, I baked peanut brittle, and I sang in the falsetto register. But Rhonda took me below the stands and tweaked my nipples, poured Old Crow in my mouth, and dry-humped me senseless, while the marching band farted \u201cPurple Rain.\u201d I was close to climax when I looked up and saw R.T. in the stands. He dropped a corn dog that hit me in the eye. I came in my trousers. Lovesick, I ran on the field and kicked so god-awful I nailed the drumline. I should\u2019ve been kicking my glory to All-State, but that night I shattered my Division-I hopes and a Yamaha bass drum.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The next day I woke up in a kudzu patch hurtin\u2019 all over, tasting Rhonda, breathing her name when she\u2019d already forgotten mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cRhonda, Rhonda, Rhonda,\u201d I croaked. Hoping she\u2019d come back.<\/p>\n
She never did.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Forty-five years old, I still live in Ezekiel, Mississippi. I sublet a ghoulish bamboo efficiency behind my Grans\u2019 McMansion and sleep on a waterbed where something has died. I regularly practice my kicks out in the driveway. I can still wallop the ball, but often as not I sink it in the marsh next door. I rewatch All the Right Moves<\/em> until I dream about a Titanic-sized life that looks nothing like mine. I wake up in the dark alone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes I get stuck behind Rhonda at the 10-or-Less inside Save A Lot.<\/p>\n She always stacks her cart to overflowing.<\/p>\n She never remembers my name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before Rhonda gave me dirty, funky love I had a cult of chia pets, I baked peanut brittle, and I sang in the falsetto register. But Rhonda took me below the stands and tweaked my nipples, poured Old Crow in my mouth, and dry-humped me senseless, while the marching band farted \u201cPurple Rain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3485],"class_list":["post-19702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-dirtbag","writer-mike-itaya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19702"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20246,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702\/revisions\/20246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}