It was Saturday morning, and Randy was feeling down, depressed and everything else. It was unusually warm for early November. The high temperature for today was 70 degrees. His parent’s had already left to run Saturday errands. His younger brother and sister had spent the night over their cousin’s house. Randy turned on the TV. Saturday morning cartoons. He didn’t feel like watching cartoons. He decided to go to a movie where he could sit by himself in a dark theater.
Randy didn’t even know what was showing at the movies, but he caught the bus downtown, and walked down Theater Row on the strip, to see if there was anything playing that he wanted to see. Nothing. He stopped in Big Boy’s and got a cheeseburger, fries, and a strawberry shake. He loved Big Boy’s. Even better than McDonald’s or Burger King.
As he sat down in the booth to eat, he thought about their football game the night before. “I can’t believe we lost.” It was the last game of the regular season, and if they had won that game, they would have won the city championship, and would have made it to the state playoffs. They had lost though, by two points. Randy had played a good game from his linebacker position, but that didn’t matter. They had lost. Wide right. Their field goal attempt with three seconds left in the game, was wide right.
Although they had not been expected to do well this year, they had stormed past everyone. Even still, they were 17 point underdogs in this last game. Seventeen points. Really? No respect. Didn’t matter now though. After Randy finished eating, he went to a pay phone and called his girlfriend Dianne. She lived across town from him, and went to Vocational High School. “I’m so sorry Randy. I heard about the game. Sure you can come by.”
Dianne always had such a positive outlook on everything. He knew that spending time with her would help him feel better. Maybe she would even make him something to eat. He was still hungry. He knew her twerpy little brother was going to talk smack about his team loosing. Oh well.
He had met Dianne about a month earlier, after they had played Vocational. It was a home game, and they won 24-0. After the game, Joey wanted Randy to go with him to walk these two girls from Vocational up to the bus stop, a few blocks away on Chicago Avenue. The two girls were waiting outside of the locker room for them. Really, Joey liked the one girl, Lisa, and he just wanted Randy to keep her friend, Dianne, company.
They headed to the bus stop, with Joey and Lisa walking in front, and Randy and Dianne walking behind them. Joey had his arm around Lisa, and was leaned in real close to her. Randy and Dianne though, had a nice conversation going, and in just the couple of blocks to the bus stop, he knew that he liked her.
When they got to the bus stop, he wanted to ask for her phone number, but he didn’t have a pen, or any paper. The bus was about three blocks away. Dianne looked at him and smiled. “Take off your coat.” She said. He was wearing his letter jacket, so he took it off. “Now roll up your sleeve.” Randy laughed, when he realized what she was doing. It was like she was reading his mind. She took out a pen, and wrote her name and phone number on his arm. “Now call me this weekend. Ok?” Randy nodded. As Lisa and Dianne got on the bus, Dianne looked back at him, and gave him a big smile.
Now Randy caught the bus heading to her house. As he watched the houses pass by, he started to feel a little better just thinking about Dianne. She loved to sit out on the steps with him, playing music, and just spending time with him. Thinking about this, Randy was starting to feel better already.