Silo was the first to light up a Cuban, then Nat, then Paul, and finallyNeely . The Utley twins neither drank nor smoked.
"You'll never guess what I found," Nat said.
"A girlfriend?"Silo said.
"Shut up, Silo." Nat opened the case and removed a large cassette tape player, a boom box.
"Great, some jazz, just what I wanted," Silo said.
Nat held up a cassette tape and announced, "This is Buck Coffey doing the '87 championship game."
"No way," Paul said.
"Yep.I listened to it last night, first time in years."
"I've never heard it," Paul said.
"I didn't know they recorded the games," Silo said.
"Lotta things you don't know, Silo," Nat said. He put the tape in the slot and began fiddling with the dials. "If it's okay with you guys, I thought we'd just skip the first half."
EvenNeely managed a laugh. He'd thrown four interceptions and fumbled once in the first half. The Spartans were down 31-0 to a wonderfully gifted team from East Pike.
The tape began and the slow, raspy voice of Buck Coffey cut through the stillness of the bleachers.
Buck Coffey here at halftime, folks, on the campus ofA&M , in what was supposed to be an evenly matched game between two unbeaten teams. Not so. East Pike leads in every category except penalties and turnovers. The score is thirty-one to nothing. I've been calling Messina Spartan games for the past twenty-two years, and I cannot remember being this far behind at halftime.
"Where's Buck now?"Neely asked.