Oscar P. and The Designated Paddle, Part 2

Then it happened.

My best friend and I decided to sneak out of class one day and bolt to the closest convenience store for some much needed munchies. We were in his sweet 57 Chevy, one that stuck out like a sore thumb from the wicked black paint, blood red and white custom interior, and loud mufflers, none of which had a "quiet" setting anywhere I could detect. We decided to hit the Stop and Go up the street from school, planning to make our return when class was changing so we could re-enter the student parking lot and class without the possibility of being suspected of "leaving school grounds", a major infraction. Oscar happened to be walking through the smoking section (I assumed to do his daily shake down of the long hairs) located on the student parking lot side of the building by the auto shop and lunchroom. It must have been just as we were hauling ass (and I mean haulin' ass) out of the student parking lot. When we retrieved our goods from the Stop and Go, we headed out the glass and metal framed front door and there stood Oscar, grinning like a jackass in a brier patch. Apparently he’d jumped in his trusty Volkswagen and decided he’d follow us to be damn sure he’d caught his men. Of course, we were off school property and Boyles couldn’t so much as ask what time it was or for correct change to make a phone call. We were both surprised to see him, but we looked him in the eye and without saying a word jumped back into into my buddies 57 and off we went. Let me tell you this truth, that dude could drive. He backed her out of the parking lot, slammed it up into first and dumped the clutch. We made our speedy exit, sideways, boiling the tires and snatching gears, leaving double black marks as evidence of our visit, making our way swiftly back to the school grounds. Junior Johnson would have proud of my old friend that day. Driving was written into his genetic code.

We hustled back to the coaches office where we found Coach Davis, who wrote us a retroactive pass to be off school grounds “to retrieve my football cleats”… a total load of crap. Oscar protested that we were only at the store, noting that my house was nine miles away. I stated that we discovered my cleats in the car when we were headed to my house and stopped at the Stop and Go for gas. We got away with it much to the protest of one Oscar P. Boyles. He was not a happy man and I had made him, or was involved in making him, look bad…again. He obviously held onto the “English class” comment for my benefit and this, well, this was the cherry on his chocolate sundae, the ice cream type, of his displeasure of all things “me”. He was so red-faced when we bested him that I was sure he was ready to fight. I knew right then I was on thin ice for the rest of the year and needed to be careful…really careful. 

It was my last quarter of high school, just a few months before I was to go on to my chosen institute of higher learning and play the college game as I had done for the majority of my life. I was purposely staying under the Oscar P. Boyles radar, cruising along quietly, looking forward to getting out of there and on to bigger and better, or at least, more different things. I was running track to keep in shape, and I also enjoyed jumping on the Olympic sized trampoline located in the lower gymnasium. I got so proficient on the tramp that I could do double front and back flips, and getting massive air at will. I was able to jump high enough to grab onto the numerous plumbing pipes running throughout the ceiling and just hang there. It was something to do with all the time I had on my hands back then.

That particular quarter I was a teacher’s aid for my favorite teacher, Mr. North, and he'd regularly give me a pass to go and chit-chat with my football coaches, him not caring what I did nor where I was. Thing was, I could duplicate his signature perfectly, and still can to this day, signing every hall pass and some reports for him. On the day of my reckoning I indeed had a hall pass that I had "counterfeited"(as Boyles would later put it) and had signed Mr. North’s name to. I was busy hanging off the high plumbing when Mr. Boyles walked into the lower gym that day. He was making his rounds I guessed, looking for criminals, so I just hung there quietly, thinking he'd never look up to find someone breaking the "law". He turned to leave, took three steps, and calmly turned back, looked up, and knew he has his man. He immediately asked me to “dismount” and come to his office. I obliged him, thinking I was in the clear, no harm no foul.

Wrong.

As I waited in the office for Oscar's return, he was busy gathering evidence, visiting with Mr. North concerning my whereabouts. Of course, Mr. North had no idea where I might be at any time. I was his "aid", he trusted me, and he defiantly told Oscar that I regularly signed his hall passes (I'm guessing he didn't care much for Oscar either) for him, but even he couldn't tell which ones were mine and which were his. The pass Oscar presented to Mr. North looked exactly like his signature, so there was a good chance he had indeed signed it. Mr. North hadn't thrown me under the proverbial bus, so I thought I was clean. BUT, I was an unsupervised teachers aid AND there were no coaches in the lower gym AND I was jumping on a piece of school property without "proper" permission, whatever that meant. Ole Boyles had hit the trifecta, trumped up charges at worst and revenge for him at the best. Toss in the fact that I had manufactured my own hall pass and I was completely screwed. After verbally laying out the charges, he offered me the standard punishment, or so I thought, his standard 50 page theme or three licks with the EQUALIZER, the paddle he used on male students. I told him I’d take the licks before he uttered more than a few words. He then informed me that I’d get FIVE licks or my theme would be 100 pages. I assumed the extra two licks were for the English class thing and the Stop and Go incident, us staring knowingly at each other concerning my past “indiscretions”. I petitioned him to let me think about it for a few minutes just for the drama of the event and decided on the theme versus the licks, just to throw him off. I knew that two more licks above his standard three wouldn't be as bad as a theme, doubled of course. He noted, in what I perceived to be a joyful tone, that I would not graduate if said theme was not turned in “prior to” and was delivered as a coherent theme, double spaced, and readable. It was to be based on the evils of disrespect, chewing gum, rock and roll music, communism, excessive alcohol consumption, short pants, pre-marital anything, Twinkies, and any car with dual exhaust, shiny paint and a four speed. 

I realized Mr. Boyles was itching to finally bust my ass with his paddle and theme be damned, so I changed my mind and agreed to the licks, knowing he'd read every word and be more critical of my theme than my English Lit teacher, Mrs. Spriggs. Anyway, he'd get what he wanted all along and I could get on with my life. At least what was left of it there. I didn't sit around much anyway so what was a few days more on my feet, knowing my rump was going to look and feel like a freshly cut pair of Rib-eye steaks, burnt of course, in a few minutes from right then. He and I both knew he had me.

So I relented, and agreed to the licks on the spot. He asked me to please remove all objects from my back pockets, which I did, and “assume the position”, both hands on his desk. I looked at the picture hanging on the wall over his chair and I’m sure I saw him grinning in the reflection, his face clearly in view behind me, his eyes glowing red and shiny, savoring this moment he had so hoped for. He asked me not to look back at  him while he was administering the punishment he had so wanted to deliver my way over the past two years. In his hesitation, I though he might have reached down, as if to be retrieving a paddle he’d fashioned just for me. I guessed he had a wood shop behind his house and spent his evenings carving and sanding paddles with the names of most of my friends on them, each with its own special case, but mine with a red velvet lining and “JIM HALL” carefully carved in Old English script across the face of the paddle, perfectly spaced so JIM would be on one cheek and HALL on the other. I’m exaggerating, of course, but you catch my drift. 

Time was getting short and Ole Oscar was about to check off one more name on his short list of Seniors who's asses he wanted to crack before graduation. He'd whacked everybody I knew, so the list must have been down to a name or two. I might have even been the last name on it way back in 19 and 78 (you can toss in the and if it's been more than 30 years). He wanted my ass hanging on his trophy wall and I was finally his. My time had come and it was time to pay the piper, the fat lady was about to sing, Oscar was about to bust Jim Hall’s ass and maybe just retire and call it a career. There was no getting out of it. Now I want to make it clear, my High School football head coach used to give me three “all-purpose” licks every Friday, him knowing I was up to something but never sure of what. But those were "keeping you in the rows" licks and not revenge driven ones like the five Oscar had lined up for me that day. My butt was about to receive five of the hardest licks I had ever been on the receiving end of and I knew it. I braced myself for the experience that was about to come. Ole Oscar was in his left-handed swinging position and ready to roll, and I had an epiphany that would change our relationship for eternity. 

And I mean really change it. And that right soon.

The End is near! C'mon back Friday for the ending, you'll like it.