“I just had anal fissure repair surgery,” Payne Littlefield, my next-door neighbor, recently confided to me.

“I’ve never experienced such pain in my life! …” After a few minutes of this, I’d just as soon watch in silence as Woogie hoses down his rosebush. I was more outgoing and neighborly when my wife was alive, but I realize I’ve become pessimistic about the possibility of lions and lambs even co-existing on the same planet, much less taking a snooze together. When Rosa and I moved to Blackwell County a quarter of a century ago I never dreamed I’d become so wary, but now fear is an emotion I carry around in my back pocket like a wallet.

“It won’t happen again,” I say hastily to Cunningham.

My neighbor, a tall man in his forties who has the gut of an ex-jock, hooks his thumbs in his jeans. He works, I think, at the post office downtown.

“I wanted to find out if you’d be interested in talking about the case of the Razorback football player charged with rape in Fayetteville yesterday. Dade Cunningham is my nephew. His father is inside.”

Dade Cunningham. Now that’s a name I know! Three years ago he was the most sought-after prospect from Arkansas since Keith Jackson signed with Oklahoma back in the early eighties. Lou Holtz had come within an inch of luring Cunningham to Notre Dame, but the pres sure on the kid to stay in-state was tremendous. It would be like Rush Limbaugh announcing he was about to defect to China. Until yesterday, Cunningham, a junior wide receiver with 4.4 speed in the forty-yard dash, was a cinch to be a top draft choice whenever he decided to turn pro. He was on several preseason first team all-American lists and has already had a season most players only dream about. With that kind of future I can’t help feeling a little sorry for him. This morning’s front-page article in the Democrat-Gazette about Cunningham’s re ported rape of a University of Arkansas coed (her name was not given) has to be worth four or five points on the betting line out of Las Vegas for the Hogs’ Southeastern Conference game against Georgia this week. On Satur day, Cunningham caught eight passes for over two him dred yards and two touchdowns against South Carolina in the Razorbacks’ 24 to 17 win.