most lives are guided by cliches. They have a soothing effect on the mind and they express the kind of widely accepted sentiment that, when peeled back, is seen to be a denial of silence. Their menace is hidden with the darker crimes of thought and language. In the face of death, this menace vanishes altogether. Death is the best soil for cliche. The trite saying is never more comforting, more restful, as in times of mourning. Flowers are set about the room; we stand very close to walls, uttering the lush banalities.

Norgene Azamanian's name did not seem ridiculous for long. We knew that nothing is too absurd to happen in America. Norgene, the man and the name, soon became ordinary, no less plausible than refrigerators or bibles or the names for these objects. When he died, of injuries sustained in an automobile accident, we repeated certain phrases to each other and dedicated our next game to his memory. A local minister called him a fallen warrior. An article in the school paper quoted the president, Mrs. Tom Wade, as saying that his untimely death at the age of twentyone would serve as a tragic reminder that our destiny is in the hands of a Being or Force dwelling beyond the scope of man's reason. Norgene wasn't a very good football player. But death had overwhelmed even his mediocrity and we conspired with his passing to make him gigantic. For many of us it was a first experience with death. We beüeved the phrases. He was indeed a fallen warrior; we were unquestionably reminded of our destinies. We took the field on the night of Norgene's memorial game and played like magnificent young gods, not out to avenge death but only to honor the dead, to remake memory as a work of art. That was the first half. In the second half the whole game fell apart. There were fights, broken plays, every kind of penalty. We still won easily. But the last hour left a bad taste (as the saying goes) in everyone's mouth.

Several weeks later, sometime bet veen three and six in the morning, Tom Cook Clark shot himself in the head with an ivoryhandled Colt .45. Emmet Creed referred to him in a eulogy as one of the best football minds in the country. He was also a molder of young men and a fine interdenominational example of all those fortunate enough to have been associated with him. Creed himself assumed the deceased man's responsibilities with the quarterbacks. The wake was held at the funeral home in town because there was nowhere in particular to send the body and no family to send it to. Everyone commented on how good the embalmed corpse looked. This became the theme of the wake. We assembled in the anteroom, clinging to walls, avoiding the center of the room for some reason, and we told each other how good the dead man looked, as if he were not dead at all but only waxed and welldressed as part of some process of rejuvenation and would soon be buzzed awake, thinner than ever and quite refreshed. We reacted to the impact of death in this way, exchanging comical remarks in all seriousness, consoling each other with handshakes and slogans. Major Staley came to pay his respects. The major commanded the Air Force ROTC unit at the school. He saw me and came over. We shook hands, slowly and delicately, foregoing on this special occasion all intimations of virility.

"I understand he was despondent because of ill health," the major said.

We heard about the collision right away. It happened only about a quarter of a mile from campus. It was about ten at night. State troopers stood on the road, writing in their little books, copying from each other. They identified Norgene from the contents of his wallet. There were three others dead, one a girl (passenger, female, white). Her legs stuck out of the wreck, terribly white, the only white things in all that blood and swirling red light, the only things quiet in the voices and noise. I wondered who she was. I also wondered why her death seemed more wasteful than the others. I kept looking at her legs. Then I went back to my room, thinking about the extra syllable in the fallen warrior's Christian name, how it had shamed tradition and brought bad luc............