“Happiness is having Doug Marshall (1) sign your Caravel (high school yearbook) twice. Doug Marshall (2)”
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In “Black Swan Green,” a year in the life coming of age novel by David Mitchell, Jason Taylor takes us on a journey – the voice of a boy whose perfect pitch, seizing of irony, wins us over at least once, sometimes multiple times a page. Mitchell guides us back to our own times because we all knew a Jason, a boy with inner sight, who if we had the luxury of getting to know him would instruct and delight and amuse us, and whose example even in such a short time as a year would stay with us as an inspiration for a lifetime.
Such were the qualities of Doug Marshall. Or Marsho, as we called him.
How many people do you know blessed with equal parts generosity and courage? In our gang, The Smitty Boys, known across Owen Sound (http://bigthink.com/ideas/21393), for a raucous ironic fan club, replete with signs, placards and banners, twenty minutes before game time at the top row of the old Owen Sound Arena, The Smitty Boys (Marsho, Greg and me) bleating and cheering and shouting our allegiance to lacrosse defender Al Smith, who in a previous winter had served as backup goaltender to Johnny Bower in 1965-66, and should have had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup that season but didn’t, so nevermind, played as go-to goalie for my beloved Penguins in Pittsburgh for two seasons, and a tour of Detroit too, before he became a No. 2 at best, still ten years in the NHL, and as fate would have it, a wannabe writer, who in 1998 wrote and produced a play in Toronto, “Confessions to Anne Sexton,” drawing seventeen people to its premiere. Dead at 56 from pancreatic cancer, but on one unforgettable warmup at the Owen Sound Arena in the bygone summer lacrosse league, playing for the Owen Sound North Stars, Smitty, our boy, mediocre as a lacrosse player at best, and a clutch of First Nation sharpshooter lacrosse stars whizzed lacrosse ball after lacrosse ball up into our cheering section, very nearly decapitating Marsho, blowing out Greg’s knee, and smacking me right in the eye, for God’s sakes if we hadn’t dived to the floor, Marsho calling out just in time, “Hit the deck, boys!” And laugh like there’s no tomorrow.
Gang. James Gang. Call me dated. In the hit movie “Social Network,” “Mark Zuckerberg” is driven by brilliance, yes, but also an innate, unchallenged need to show up his social and class superiors; upending the if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em tradition, ’cause for Zuck and the instantly global meta-narrative, can’t see the movie enough, appearing on more best-of lists than any other film, sure to get an early 2011 Oscar boost, it’s a remake: If you can’t beat ’em destroy ’em.
Innocent times in Owen Sound. Our gang, the misfits, outsiders and fun-seekers. We’re not just outside the Inner Circle, as we called it, but in orbit. Marsho, in so many ways, leading the charge. Each of our family cars: the Lumber Wagon, the Hay Wagon, the Chip Wagon, and simply, The Olds. In the dead of winter, Marsho cranking down the window, air rushing in. Doug’s line: “The night is still young kinda thing.”
In tennis singles, he stares me down, returning certain winners, zips a backhand past me, spends hours on the court without me, drilling other players, improving, bringing his game on to me, but in those early games, before he could match me shot for shot, when if he won a game in a three-set match it was a gift, he’d double-fault half the points away, only to take his racquet and strum affectless, spontaneously the words and tune coming to him fully formed, “I GOT THE DOUBLE-FAULT BLUES; ALL I EVER DO IS LOOOOO-OOOOSE,” and variations on that until I’m in stitches and he’s back serving up another lemon, driving it into the tape, and bounce, bounce, bounce on his side – again.
The Smitty Boys: Brawn (Greg), The Cool Guy (Me, for want of someone with actual charm) and Brains (Marsho), a chem and functions whiz who believed more strongly than anything that “David Live” was the best live album ever made, ever will be made. “Changes: “Time May Change Me, But I Can’t Trace Time.”
Each year, at West Hill Secondary School, where The Smitty Boys were born, Greg’s acting/writing, my writing/editing, Marsho is back, his spirit honored in the presentation of the Douglas Marshall Memorial Award for Proficiency in the Waterloo Chemistry News Exam, forty years after Doug Marshall autographed my yearbook.
I see him, feinting left, then right with his lacrosse stick, I think it’s going forehand, but no, he reverses, the ball whips off his stick, over his shoulder and past me through a space between my chest and crooked arm holding the goal stick. Mincing back out again, but then he’s back at me for another charge. Because it was good his shot, but it was not exactly right. Not in his mind, because he didn’t stop. He didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Next: Running for Your Life in 2011; Happy Holidays Everybody!
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