Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/85



FROM BIRTH ROBERT BLAKE HAD been physically a big boy and possessed a terrific strength. Now, at eighteen, he stood over six feet in his bare feet. His face, beneath short pitch-like hair, looked as though it had been sculptured out of bronze. His mouth was long, with a touch of wry humor about it, and his eyes were as brown as an old penny. His nose, which had been broken in several football games, showed no ill effects. It looked perfectly chiseled above a square and dinted chin. His physical bigness was so evenly proportioned that his two hundred pounds seemed an unbelievable weight.

He had a widely scattered host of acquaintances and friends, for the warmth in his eyes and the way he walked instantly awoke a friendly welcome for him in any crowd. People, both young and old, found themselves enjoying his broad grin and the gleeful twinkle always present in his eyes. He stood in mortal fear of nothing. He loved crowds, and a football field was his most natural environment. He employed his talent there and was considered the best football player in the county. He hated books, and his teachers found it necessary to "give a little" on many of his examinations.

He was as different in temperament from the quiet, secretive Gaylord, as white is from black. Rarely sitting, his long lean legs always were moving. He was very passionate and his first affair with a woman had occurred when he was only thirteen. She had been twenty years his senior, but this had not alarmed him. Since then, there had been many more. In love, he formed no boundaries. He relished every moment of the unexpected excitement, and he had no ability to feel ashamed of the times he had practiced unnatural sex acts. Life held no mysteries; it only produced incidents and people, 75