JOHNNY U When I was a boy, I hero-worshipped easily, and my great hero was Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts. I lived for Sundays when I could watch him play on television, watch him throw those dazzling touchdown passes to Raymond Berry, watch him beat the Green Bay Packers. I wrote him once, and he sent me an eight by ten glossy with his autograph gracefully leaping over his hightops. And one day, during my first year in high school, Johnny Unitas came to THS. He came courtesy of Sears Roebuck, accompanied by a Sears Roebuck man, and he spoke in the gym to all the boys about good grooming and sportsmanship. Good grooming may have included purchasing shirts from the Johnny Unitas collection of Sears Roebuck, but that would have been preaching to the converted. I already owned two. After his talk, he was instantly surrounded by every athlete in the school, but I struggled to be near him and even managed a photograph.

I wanted to speak with Johnny Unitas. I wanted to tell him he had brought something to my life, something I didn’t quite understand but which made it worth living. I wanted to tell him he did something for me I could not do for myself, was something to me I could not be on my own. I wanted to wish him well and tell him that every time the Colts lost a game I was heartbroken. Heartbroken not because the team lost or because I was angry or because other kids liked the other team, but because I knew he would be sad. Such was, at the time, the profundity of my worship.

When finally I got near him all I could do was thrust a crumpled scrap of paper and a bic ballpoint pen at him and mumble, “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” He signed the scrap, smiled, and said, “The honor is all mine, son.” As I reached for the now sacred relic, he grasped my hand and shook it gently. I was overwhelmed. I stared at him and tried to speak, but only a hoarse and timid “Thank you” warbled from my lips.

I wanted to say more, much more, but his gaze was kind and gentle, and the grip of his hand, the very hand that threw the touchdowns that sent me reeling with euphoria every autumn Sunday, well, his hand enveloped mine. I felt security and I felt trust and I felt confidence in his hand. And I felt totally paralyzed. The throng soon unfastened our clasped hands and I drifted away from Johnny U. I like to think I remember his eyes following mine in a futile effort to protect me as I sank into a sea of savage jayvee jocks and disappeared from view, but I fear this is wishful thinking made all the more vivid and certain by faulty instant replays of memory and time. When the last member of the Terrier football squad had done stepping over me to get to Johnny, I looked up, hapless and disheveled, in time to see him hustled off by the coaches and their vermin to some secret gladiatorial sanctum of the school. My moment was over. My words had died in my stupefied mouth and I had lost my chance. I went to my next period class with a sense of defeated excitement, not knowing then that this ambivalent feeling of triumph and despair would visit me many times hence.

I went into the library, put away my camera, and began my duties as seventh period library aide. My heart, of course, was not in it this day, and I found my eyes and attention wandering out windows, seeking escape and flying high over billowy clouds that this day resembled pigskin spirals in the air and goal posts in the sky. I was shelving the NFL yearbook under religion when, again, my mind wandered out the nearby open door to the parking lot. And there he was. Alone. Standing quietly at the curb, hands in his pant’s pockets, making little circles in the sandy sidewalk with the sole of his right shoe. The Sears Roebuck man had probably gone for the car, and Johnny Unitas was patiently waiting for his ride. I was no more than ten yards away, first down territory. I stared at him for what seemed a very long time. And then I realized that this was my chance. My chance to speak to him, to tell him, to explain. This was my chance to be alone with Johnny Unitas, and to know then and for the rest of my life that for a few moments Johnny Unitas and I had been alone, alone together. But how would I say it? It would have to be just right. I would have to say just the right thing and he would have to say just the right thing back. It would all have to be just right or it would all be wrong, then and for the rest of my life.

So I struggled with the thoughts and the words and the feelings. I struggled and stared as he slipped his hands out of his pockets, crossed his arms in front of him, and looked up at my clouds. It had to be just right. My mind was moving forward but my legs had not yet followed when a long, black car drove up and stopped in front of Johnny U. My mind snapped back and my left leg took an uncertain step as Johnny smiled at the driver, walked around the front of the car, opened the passenger door, and slipped into the front seat.

I watched the long car drive off slowly, my eyes straining to make out Johnny’s crewcut through the darkened glass of the rear window. And then I stepped back, frightened. I was cold and I felt hot, and I was aware that something important, something prophetic, was happening to me. Something about all this was telling me something about myself I did not want to know.

The moment passed, and I’m certain the sky darkened. Skies always darken when prophecy’s at hand. Slowly, I walked to the place where Johnny Unitas had been, and I stood on the spot where Johnny Unitas had stood. I looked out on the clouds he had looked on and tried to see them as he had seen them. Then I looked down and began making little circles in the sandy sidewalk with the sole of my right shoe. Just as he had made them.