Ashes Kuhn

Ashes Kuhn
       For some inexplicable reason, the coaching staff at Tulane University felt I was a likely candidate to make their football squad. Upon graduation from high school, they presented me with an athletic scholarship to that august institution. Unfortunately, it was an era when every player had to play both offense and defense along with covering the punts and kickoffs, all without the benefit of substitution or a facemask to ease the pain. Tulane had given up physical education several years before I got there, and we were forced to play with people who could actually read and write. At least, a little bit.        Our head coach was Anton “Andy” Pilney, whose only claim to fame was in 1925, as a Notre Dame third string halfback, he staggered off of the bench in South Bend to drunkenly score the winning points against rival Ohio State. The Greater New Orleans sports crowd lionized this man as though he were a pre-depression Emmett Smith. Pilney once told his team, “Never trust nobody. If you yaz wanna loin somthin', go to yaz teammate.” Pilney never learned the more dulcet tones of the Southern dialect and choose to speak, either in parables, which no one understood, or by crying throughout every sentence. It was particularly true if he was giving one of his stirring half time speeches to an exhausted and outmanned team, already crushed by the loyal opposition.
     We had other coaches whose nicknames will stay with me forever. Ironhead, Motormouth, Burpie, Little Ray, Stanley-Watch out-for-them-collier(sic)-dogs, and Legs were only a few of the many who were recycled through our system, always looking for greener pastures where they could hang up their coaching jockstraps.
     Our trainer was also a rare piece of work. Earl “Bubba” Porche was a mental wreck. I never heard him speak to anyone in a normal tone. In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone. When he did, it was in the surliest, most disrespectful manner. He walked around with his head down, never looked anyone in the eyes, and never had an encouraging word for any player. He was married to a distant cousin of mine, who I always called “Cuz,” particularly around him. For some reason this really pissed him off. I guess he didn’t want anyone to know his wife was related to such a horrible athlete.
     But the piece de resistance was the team doctor, “Ashes” Kuhn. I never learned the man’s first name, since “Ashes” was the absolute perfect moniker for him. I never saw Ashes without a cigarette in his mouth throughout the five years I labored at the school. Yes, five years; I was red-shirted. Plus, I was a very slow learner. Ashes never took a cigarette out from his mouth like other smokers did. He let it dangle from his lips, dragging on it until the ashes formed this parabolic curve from the end of the cigarette to the butt part in his mouth. Most times the ashes would fall off and cascade all down the front of the man. Occasionally the ashes would be shaken off prematurely by one of his coughing fits, during which the cigarette remained glued to his lower lip. In either case, by days end he looked like a fireman exiting a burning building with ashes covering him from his neck to his shoes.
     One spring, when all other students were sunning themselves at the lakefront or drinking gin and tonics at a local college bar, the jocks were having a party of their own called Spring Training. It was a time when the coaches were able to thin out the fall squad by running off all the less talented athletes. They put them through a rigor of bone-crushing exercises that forced most of them to pack up their meager belongings and head for the door. The ones they wanted to keep were also put through hell, but our hell was designed to make us better players, not run us off. It did neither. I never figured out why I was not included in the first group that was run off, because throughout my career as a jock; bitty-ball, grammar school, high school, and college, I never made one tackle. I once concluded, with all the practices (about 2000) and games (about 150) never to have made one tackle while playing defense and covering all those kicks is mind boggling. Surely, someone must have tripped over me. But it never happened.
     At any rate, this particular spring training session, we were having an intrasquad scrimmage and the offensive team was running a play around my end. As usual, the pulling guard knocked me down to the ground and the trailing halfback inadvertently stepped onto the back of my leg on his way to the goal line. In those days, we wore plastic cleats screwed onto our shoes to gain better traction. One of the cleats had fallen off the halfback’s shoe, leaving only a metal post, which opened a large gash in the back of my leg when he stepped on me. I really didn’t mind so much, because it meant I would be out for most of the remainder of the spring training practices and could join my fellow students tanning at the lakefront or preferably, in the college bar slugging down those gin and tonics.
     As they dragged me into the locker room and threw me up onto a table, I saw Ashes approach, hacking and coughing his way into this makeshift operating theater. “This won’t hurt, son,” was the prophetic words Dr. Kuhn always uttered, no matter what the injury. Dislocated or broken arms, knees with meniscus tears, mashed toes, or separated shoulders always brought forth Ashes’ fearless prognostication, “This won’t hurt, son.”
     In my case, Ashes looked a lot like Betsy Ross, as he had already whipped out his sewing kit and had begun to sew up this great hole in my calf. I turned my head around, as best I could, and saw Ashes was about three-quarters through with his smoke. I know a lot of you readers think I’m joking, but you would be dead wrong. Ashes couldn’t wear a surgical mask because he would have to cut a hole in it for his cigarette, so he stitched au natural.
     When I turned my head around a second time, the ashes were all the way up to his lips and were teetering on the brink. In order to see better, Ashes bent over as close to the wound as possible, which made me think he was trying to cauterize it before sewing it up. However, I just think he forgot his bifocals again and wanted to make sure he sewed the right two things together. Once more Ashes coughed and the falling residue went straight into the gaping hole in my calf. Not to be deterred by this, Ashes spit out the little butt remaining in his mouth, and began blowing on the ashes in the hopes of extricating them from the unsewn portion of my gash.
     Presumably, some of them were blown out, but to this date, I have a salt and pepper scar on the back of my calf; a present from the great Doctor “Ashes” Kuhn.

The Joy Theater

            My Mama told me never to go to that part of town. “It’s where some really bad people are,” she said. But the fellows I hung with heard it was a great place and told me I should get myself over there. I know the older boys all went, so I decided to take the plunge.

            I remember, just like it was yesterday, passing the Joy Theater on Canal Street. “Lickety Split” was the title flashing on the marquee. I was sure it had something to do with race cars and since I was a thirteen year old, pimple-faced kid, car speed was my first love. I jealously witnessed the older boys driving their rods around my neighborhood, with hot chicks practically sitting in their laps. When Friday rolled around, our local movie house, The Abalon, showed one of their third or fourth run features, and attendance by every kid under eighteen was mandatory.

            So, up to the Joy Theater ticket booth I step, and ordered my stub, “One adult please.”

            Unfortunately for me, the ticket seller was a twenty-something year old woman who looked as if the jury had just returned to her a verdict of death by a thousand cuts.

            She said, much louder than was necessary, “How old are you, little boy?”

            “Old enough,” was my rapid retort.

            “Old enough for what? You look to be about ten or eleven; tops. What you think dis here movie is about?” she questioned, exhibiting her eighth grade education to the fullest. She chewed her three sticks of gum at a record setting pace, while interspersed between every five or six chews, she created a loud popping sound. It was sort of like a tree branch snapping underfoot and would violate even the least sensitive ears.

            I guess I should have walked away from this surly beast, but looking at the great mound of dyed red hair piled aimlessly on top of her head, and with her chewing and popping that gum, it made me bow my young back.

            “I know what this movie is,” I raged. “This here ‘Lickety Split’ is a movie about race cars and I want in.” With that, I plopped a one dollar bill down on the kiosk ledge.

            She damn near swallowed her great wad of gum. “Hoib,” she yelled back toward the lobby. “Come’ere. You gotta see dis here.”

            Out from the lobby pops Herb, or ‘Hoib,’ as our demure ticket seller affectionately knew him. “Dis here little punk wants to see da movie about race cars. What you tink? Let ‘em in?”

            Now Herb was about six feet two; tall for those years, and about one hundred thirty pounds; skinny for those years. His head was so small it looked like a replica of one of the head hunters of Borneo’s trophies. But Herb packed a cool attitude befitting the floor manager of the Joy Theater. After all, they were offering “Lickety Split” as a feature to their discerning customers. Customers I immediately discerned were conspicuously absent. I didn’t see anybody flocking to the popcorn machine dispenser or ordering a coke, like we did at home at the Abalon Theater. In fact, I didn’t see anybody in the lobby at all. Surely, the cool, laid-back guys were inside watching the Daytona 500 being replayed for them; hopefully in slow motion. That’s what I came to this part of town to see. An action movie, not those kissy things they often showed at the Abalon.

            Herb looked down at me; saw my one dollar bill on the ledge. “Dis here foist run feature is t’ree dollars, my boy. You got dat much on ya?”

            By now I’m assuming the feature movie may be a replay of not only the Daytona 500, but the year’s most exciting races at Talladega and Indianapolis as well. I reached down deep into my Levi’s and pulled out the last of my money, extracting two one-dollar bills, and realized I didn’t even have enough left for my bag of popcorn and a coke. But what the hell, I was going to see seven or eight hours of the year’s best auto races. I’m really beginning to like this part of town.

            As ‘Hoib’ tore my ticket in half, he said, “Hurry up boy. Da preview done started five minutes ago. And one other ting; don’t sit in da back. Dem prevoits is all in dere.” I assumed my new friend Herb knew what he was talking about and just wanted me to see the movie better, ‘cause I didn’t know nothing about no prevoits.’ He was just chasing me closer to the front where I could observe, first hand, all the action on the track.

            I then entered the theater proper, which was totally dark. I had my head down seeking a seat in front as Herb had advised, when I heard these great moans coming from the screen and saw from the corner of my eye, the “prevoit” section, in the back. Naturally I assumed it was the sounds of an injured driver following a particularly nasty crackup on the Daytona track. But since this was the previews, I changed my mind. It had to be the Coyote being banged around by the Roadrunner.

            I reached my seat, looked up, and to my shocked little face, there appeared on the silver screen at the Joy Theater, a tiny little man with the longest wee-wee I had ever seen. I was thrown into a complete state of shock. Now, everybody at home knew ‘Turkey’ House had the biggest wee-wee in our neighborhood, but this man made poor ‘Turkey’ look like a new born baby in an incubator. He was strutting around a king-sized bed, eyeing three naked women who appeared not to notice his gigantic thing.

            The women in bed kept calling the little guy ‘Tripod,’ and I finally guessed why. Well he climbed into the king-sized bed and commenced doing things with the three women the older boys at home told me about, but I, up to this moment, doubted anyone wanted to do that stuff with anybody. I was glad when it was over because I was starting to fell real funny, particularly down in my drawers.          

            This Joy Theater certainly had different previews than The Abalon Theater did in my

neighborhood. We always had Woody Woodpecker, and our favorite, The Roadrunner precede our flicks. All this nasty stuff was a real change for me, and I knew it would take some getting used to.

            Then the feature attraction came on. While I was still anticipating an exciting day at the races, the feeling in my drawers lingered a little. Unfortunately for me, the feature, “Lickety Split,” was nastier than the preview, and I began to be suspicious about this place. I never saw so many naked people in my life. Even at gym class or in the swimming pool locker room in summer, nobody looked like those folks. We used to look through the peep-hole into the girls locker room at school, but this was different.

            Four skinny guys looked to me almost as big as Tripod, were jumping up and down on four women, who looked surprisingly like the redheaded ticket seller in the booth outside. After about ten minutes of the same thing, I got out of my seat and trudged back up the aisle to talk to Herb, who was busy chatting-up the ticket seller as though they were about to do the same nasty things the actors on the Joy Theater screen were doing.

            “Hay, Herb. When do the races come on?”

            Herb slowly turned his head and said, “You just seen the races, my boy.” He continued his conversation with the piranha chewing ticket woman, who ignored me.

            “I want my money back, Herb. There ain’t no cars racing in there.”

            The redheaded gum chewer broke away from Herb’s death-like clutches. “You ain’t gettin’ no money back kid, so you might as well go look at what we got in dere and play wit ya’self  like them prevoits are doin’ in da back.”

            That was it for me. I stormed out of the Joy Theater with three dollars less in my Levi’s, but with a newly acquired knowledge of what goes on in the bad part of town. I returned to my neighborhood, gathered my friends around me, and told them all about my adventures at The Joy Theater. I felt bad because ‘Turkey’ House became extremely upset someone had bested his long-standing record of having the largest wee-wee in our part of town. But he got over it when they all went to see “Lickety Split” and got a funny feeling down in their drawers, too.

            Turkey lost his title that day, but as for me, those Roadrunner previews at The Abalon were never the same.