Matt Mattlock is dead.

I had a good friend in high school named Matt Mattlock. He was a big curly-haired blond kid, with big red lips, always smiling and cracking jokes. He was a good football player. He played varsity as a sophomore. We were all-league defensive players as juniors. But then he quit football, didn't go out as a senior. I forget why, I think it was one of those personality conflicts with the coach that were so common in the 70's, as we younger generation decided we didn't have to put up with what seemed to us to be abuse, but what seemed to the older generation as plain old discipline.

I met Matt when I was in sixth grade. I was a geek in sixth grade, too tall, too skinny, too smart, too shy. We moved to the new town in sixth grade. I had a lunch box and everyone else had sack lunches. I remember telling my mom after about a month of school that I didn't want to use my brand-new race car lunch box anymore. That shows how embarrassed I was that I was willing to face the wrath of telling my mom she wasted some money. One time I wet my pants in school, it hurts even now to admit it, a sixth grader is too old to wet his pants. It was near the end of the day and I had to go but the teacher said couldn't I just wait till the bell? The bell finally rang and I ran to the bathroom but oops too late. I was in the bathroom with wet pants and how could I go back out and get on the bus with wet pants? Matt walked in, of course he was a cool kid, he couldn't have had any idea who I was. He saw my predicament and said, "let's have a water fight!" Well he splashed water from the sink at me and my pants were even wetter but now I had an excuse. Some other kids came in and saw Matt squirt me some more and then run out laughing. I kind of chased him but then told nobody in particular that I had to catch the bus, I would get him later. I left with at least a little dignity.

Our school got split in half the next year, and I didn't see Matt again except at all-star games. He and Terry Criner were the big studs at AE Wright. Our Lindero teams lost in every sport to those guys. In high school I went out for football and of course Matt was a guaranteed starter, he scared me he was so tough and cocky. Somehow I got to be a starter too, and so we became real friends. We had a good team, we went undefeated, our defense was awesome. Sophomore year came and Matt went up to varsity while I played on the JV's. I played basketball and he wrestled. I think he played baseball a couple years while I high-jumped on the track team. So we were both jocks, but he was a leader, always grab-assing in the locker room, smacking some clown who needed it, cracking a joke when we all needed it. He started the slang of "cat-hood". If you could bench press 200 pounds then you were a "cat," said like Sammy Davis Jr. would describe Frank Sinatra, "a real cat."

Like I said before, for some reason he got mad at coach and quit football senior year. It was a real blow, he was all-league and a real leader. Well we went on without him and switched around and had a good offense instead of a good defense. Junior year we would win 6-0 and 14-7 and senior year we were winning 42-17 and 48-24. We made the playoffs, blasted some team 40-0, but then lost in the second round 26-24 to the team that went to the finals. There was Matt in the stands, cheering us on.

One last tattle on myself, when we turned 18 Matt's older brother John decided to take us to an X-rated movie, a perverted right of adulthood that only makes sense in modern America. We were all set to show our driver's licenses but the only one who had to show ID was John, leisure suit and all. I guess me and Matt were big bruisers and no one even questioned our age.

Anyway, I went off to college and Matt stayed home. I saw him every so often at parties, sometimes we hung out. He was a good carpenter and made things, he liked showing off a cabinet or table he made. One day I heard he had leukemia. I went to see him and he was emaciated, his hair was falling out. It was shocking to see such a robust person losing the battle to disease. After a while it went into remission and he gained some weight back. I saw him a couple times at parties in the summer, but I was coming home less and less during the school year. After a couple months I heard he had died. They had already had the funeral, why would someone call me? He was more a friend to me than I was to him. I had some dreams about him. I would be in a crowd and I would see him and I would try to go to him and he would look at me and just walk away. Sometimes I still think about him and it's like I just moved away, he's not dead. I don't see any of my friends from high school anymore, in a sense he's just another old friend whom I've lost touch with.

Well Matt, why didn't you play football with us senior year? You were an awesome player, we might have won that playoff game and gone all the way. No guilt, I just wonder. Was it really worth your sense of dignity to miss out on that one last chance at glory? I cried when we lost that game, not because we lost, but because I knew that a part of my life that I really enjoyed was over. I even went out to practice once at the local Junior college, just one day and I realized it was really over, I couldn't get myself psyched up to play anymore. I still play basketball, it's easy to find a pick-up game. But football only makes sense when you're playing for your school, with all your friends, against the enemy school across town, when it really counts. Not too many things in life really count, we can slough off and miss deadlines and still get by. But losing that playoff game was it, no more chances, if I hadn't played up to my potential by then it was too late. Yet football's only a metaphor, life is what really counts. You got taken out early, but any of us could get tapped on the shoulder at any time and told to sit down.

So Matt, you're my inspiration. I hope you don't mind that I use your memory as a reminder that the clock is ticking, that I need to live each day as hard as I can and hope I make the playoffs.

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