Freddogg Off The Chain

New Years Eve back in 1973 and the grandfather clock in the marble hall was about to strike stupid.

A teaching friend at the school for emotionally disturbed teens where I taught adolescents more acceptable versions of aberrance had an apartment inside a Philadelphia Mainline Mansion and there was a commingling of class party and all my liberal arts off beat buddies showed up to rub elbows with old money but at least we despised these snooty bastards.

Apartment dwelling sophisticated and erudite Ben was a flaming Spanish teacher. We called him Gentle Ben he said he preferred Ben Gay and I asked him how about just plain faggot and he giggled and life was simple in a Paris Hilton sort of way.

My Jewish friend Howard, the principal of our school, spilled a drink on the exquisite pool table for blue bloods late in the evening and the owner started to question Howard’s lack of concern for the property of others. Howard responded, “You may be rich but in the game of intellectual juxtaposition you are a fucking idiot.” That pretty much shut the guy down and he appeared to like the raw response to civility and I guessed we were a conduit to subterranean low class behaviors so prevalent among the frozen fish stick set.
Just before midnight a diving contest was wrapping up down at the indoor pool. There were two saunas; people were drinking around the pool, covered by a transparent bubble separating us from real January just like the transparency separating us from the upper classes inside the Mansion.

I was a jack knifing fool from Highway Pool before gay metric boards invaded America. We’re talking 10 foot spring board which for an athlete like me sent me up to 15 where my jack knife was an absolute bitch. And those high haired Italian girls just loved it but I didn’t have time for those Bandstand castoffs they could continue chasing after Bobby Rydell, Fabian and Frankie Avalon.

I was the last competitor off the barely one meter board. Iasked what were the criteria and was told elevation, grace in the air, and entry into the water. I was about 27 years old, ripped and fit, and not too drunk.

The entire clientele of the party sat around the pool with their legs in the warm water. Something of a spectacle was about to happen and I was the focused performer.

I stepped slowing and pounded down on the end of that board. I lifted like a Mercury Rocket, all movements in perfect hard bodied coordination. I could see faces looking up at me. It was a grand moment. But I just kept defying the laws of gravity and achieved escape velocity from the geo-pathetic dome of corpulent opulence.

Crashing through the suspended ceiling I continued to soar but abruptly dropped out of the Styrofoam cloud cover when the top of my head traversed a black terracotta soil pipe.

Flop is an exaggeration of the gracefulness with which I entered the pool. I hadn’t stuck the landing, the landing stuck me.

The top of my head broke into hard boiled nodules. My vision was blurred. I paddled to the side, said nothing, acting like I just needed a bigger room to hold my talent.

Howard came over, handed me a drink and said, ”You win!”

Peace Flying Freddogg