chapter 4

Garrett

“You’re a good kid, Garrett.”

Michelle McCarthy. She was a crazy piece of work when I was a

student at Lakeside, and now she’s my boss. I sit across the desk from her, in her office, a half hour before I have to be on the football field for the start of the last week of August practices.

“You always were. I like you.”

She’s lying. I wasn’t that good of a kid . . . and she doesn’t like me.

Miss McCarthy doesn’t like anyone. She’s like . . . Darth Vader . . . if Darth Vader were a high school principal—her hate gives her strength.

“Thanks, Miss McCarthy.”

Even though I’m an adult, I can’t bring myself to call her by her first name. It’s like that with all the adults I grew up with around town—it’d be like calling my mom Irene.

Michelle . . . nope . . . too fucking weird.

The fact that she looks almost exactly the same as when I first met her, only makes it worse. She has one of those ageless faces—firm, round

cheeks, hazel eyes, a bob of reddish-brown hair—the kind of woman who looks better with a little extra weight, who would look like a flabby, deflated balloon if she were too thin.

Miss McCarthy takes a blue plastic bottle of TUMS out of the top drawer of her desk, tips her head back, and pours some into her mouth.

“You’re a leader in this school,” she tells me as she crunches the chalky tablets. “The other teachers look up to you.”

Not every teacher has their shit together, like I do. In fact, the majority are frighteningly hot messes. Messy personal lives, messy relationships

with their children, messy head cases who can barely put up a stable front for seven hours a day with an occasional crack in the veneer. Those cracks

are what you read about in the papers—when a teacher finally goes ape-shit on a smartass student or throws a chair through a classroom window because one kid too many came to class without a pencil.

That’s how our former vice principal, Todd Melons, went out last year. And that’s how I know what McCarthy is going to say next.

“Which is why I want to promote you to vice principal.”

She leans forward, staring me in the eyes like a Wild West gunslinger on a dusty, tumbleweed-scattered Main Street at high noon, waiting for me to reach for my piece so she can shoot it out of my hand.

But I don’t have a piece—or, in this case, excuses. Too complicated— I’m all about being a straight shooter.

“I don’t want to be vice principal, Miss McCarthy.”

“You’re ambitious, Daniels. Competitive. The VP position is one step closer to being top dog around here. You could institute real change.”

Change is overrated. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it—and from where I’m sitting, there’s nothing broken about Lakeside High School.

I like being in charge; I like calling the shots. But I’m not a fucking idiot.

Being vice principal sucks. Too many headaches, not enough upside.

And the kids hate you because you’re the disciplinarian—in charge of detentions, suspensions, and enforcing the dress code. By definition, the VP’s job is to suck all the fun out of high school, and while high schoolers

can absolutely be selfish, shitty little punks . . . sometimes they can also be really funny.

Like last year, a sophomore brought a rooster to school on the first day.

He unleashed it in the halls—shitting and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing everywhere. The maintenance guys were terrified. I thought it was hilarious.

But Todd Melons didn’t think it was hilarious—he couldn’t—he had to come down hard on the kid, make an example out of him and babysit him through six weeks of Saturday detention. If he hadn’t, he would’ve had fucking farm animals roaming the school halls every day of the year.

Non-administration teachers can still enjoy the funny. And some days, the funny is the only thing that gets us through the day.

McCarthy lifts her hands, gesturing towards the cramped, insane-

asylum-beige-colored walls. “And one day, when I retire, this could all be yours.”

She’ll never retire. She’s single, no kids, doesn’t travel. She’s going to die at that desk—clutching a bottle of TUMS—probably from a massive, stress-induced heart attack brought on by the stupidity of my co-workers

and the senility of her long-time secretary—sweet little Mrs. Cockaburrow.

No thanks.

“I don’t want to be principal, Miss McCarthy.” I shake my head. “Not ever.”

McCarthy scowls—giving me the pissed-off principal face I remember from my youth. It makes me feel seventeen-and-just-got-caught-getting- lucky-in-the-janitor’s-closet, all over again.

“The students respect you. They respond to you.”

“My players respect me,” I correct her, “because they know I can make them run until they barf up both lungs. The students think I’m young and

cool—but they won’t if I move into the vice principal’s office. Then they’ll just think I’m a douche. I don’t want to be a douche, Miss McCarthy.”

Her eyes narrow and her pretty, pudgy face twists. “So, it’s a no?” I nod. “A hard no.”

And schwing . . . out comes the flaming red light saber. “You’re a cocky little shithead, Daniels. You always were. I never liked you. One of these days, you’re going to need something from me and I’m going to laugh in your smug, pretty-boy face.”

I’m not offended. Sorrynotsorry.

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

She pushes her chair back from the desk. “Cockaburrow! Bring me those god damn résumés.”

Mrs. Cockaburrow scurries into the office like Dr. Frankenstein’s Igor.

Then McCarthy shoos at me with her hand. “Get the hell out of my office. Go get that team ready to win some football games.”

“That, I can do for you, Miss McCarthy.” I tap the door jamb as I walk through it. “That I can do.”

~ ~ ~

“Nice job, Martinez! Donbrowski—I said left! You go left! Jesus, were you absent the day they taught left and right in fucking kindergarten?!”

Times have changed since I was a football player on this field. The things a coach can say—and can’t say—have changed. For instance, my

coach—Leo Saber—liked to tell us he was going to break our legs if we

screwed up. And if we really screwed up, he’d rip our heads off and take a dump down our necks.

Today, that would be frowned upon.

These days, it’s all about behavior-centric criticism. We can’t call them dumbasses, but we can tell them to stop acting like dumbasses. It’s a minute difference, but one me and my coaching staff are bound by. Some changes have been good, important—vital. Back in the day, coaches weren’t as

aware of health issues, like multiple concussions. It didn’t matter if you were hurt—we were always hurt—it mattered if you were injured.

I’ll never forget the day, the summer before my junior year, when Billy Golling had a seizure in the middle of a two-point conversion. Heat stroke.

That’ll never happen to one of my kids. I won’t let it.

But the fundamentals of this game haven’t changed. It’s brotherhood, mentorship, hero worship—it’s dirt and grass, confidence and pain. It’s hard

. . . it takes real commitment and real sweat. The best things in life always do.

We spend practice breaking them down, like in the military, then building them up into the champions they can be. And the kids love it. They want us to scream at them, direct them—fucking coach them. Because they know in their hearts if we didn’t care, if we didn’t see their potential, we

wouldn’t bother yelling at them.

We treat them like warriors, and on the field . . . they play like kings. That’s how it worked with me—that’s how it works now.

“No, no, no—god damn it, O’Riley! You drop that ball again, I’ll have you doing suicides until you can’t see straight!”

Dean Walker is my offensive coach. He’s also my second-place best friend, after Snoopy. He was my go-to receiver in high school, and together we were an unbeatable combination. Unlike me, he didn’t play football in college; he majored in math—and is now the AP math teacher at Lakeside.

Dean’s a real Clark Kent kind of guy, depending on the time of year.

He’s a drummer in a band—having summers off allows him to tour all the local haunts up and down the Jersey shore. But from the end of August through June, he hangs up the drumsticks, puts on his glasses, and assumes the Mr. Walker, math-teacher-extraordinaire persona.

He grabs O’Riley’s face mask. “You’re pulling a Lenny! Stop squeezing the puppy to death!”

Some players are chokers—they freeze up when a big moment arrives. Others, like our sophomore receiver Nick O’Riley, are what I call clenchers. They’re too eager, too rough, they clasp the ball too hard, making it easy to fumble the minute another player taps them.

“I don’t know what that means, Coach Walker,” O’Riley grunts around his mouthpiece.

“Lenny—Of Mice and Men—read a frigging book once in a while,” Dean shouts back. “You’re holding the ball too tight. What happens if you squeeze an egg too hard?”

“It cracks, Coach.”

“Exactly. Hold the ball like an egg.” Dean demonstrates with the ball in his hands. “Firm and secure—but don’t strangle the bastard.”

I have a better idea. “Snoopy, come here!”

Snoopy loves football practice. He runs around the field and herds the players like a sheepdog. In a white furry blur he runs and leaps into my

arms.

Then I put him in O’Riley’s. “Snoopy’s your football. You hold him too tight, or drop him, he’ll bite your ass.” I point down field. “Now run.”

Across the field, my defensive coach barks at my starting line. “What the hell was that?”

Jerry Dorfman is a former all-state defensive back and a decorated marine. “I piss harder than you’re hitting! Get the lead out! Stop acting like pussies!”

He’s also Lakeside’s only guidance counselor and our emotional management therapist.

So . . . yeah.

~ ~ ~

A few hours later, when the air is cooler and the sun is on its downward descent, and the team is hydrating and the field is quieter, I watch my quarterback, Lipinski, throw long passes to my wide receiver, DJ King. I

check their feet, their form, every move they make—looking for weakness or error and finding none.

Watching them reminds me of why I love this game. Why I always have.

It’s those seconds of perfect clarity—when time freezes and even your heartbeat stops. The only sound is your own breath echoing in your helmet and the only two people on the field are you and your receiver. Your vision becomes eagle-focused and everything snaps into place. And you know— you feel it in your bones—that now, now is the time. The raw energy, the

strength, rushes up your spine, and you step back, pump your arm . . . and throw.

And the ball flies, swirls beautifully, not defying gravity but owning it

—landing right where you’ve commanded it to go. Like you’re a master, the god of the air and sky.

And everything about it is perfect.

Perfect throw, perfect choreographed dance . . . the perfect play. I clap my hands and pat DJ’s back as he comes in. “Nice!” I tap

Lipinski’s helmet. “Beautiful! That’s how it’s done.” And Lipinski . . . rolls his eyes.

It’s quick and shielded by his helmet, but I catch it. And I pause, open my mouth to call the little shit out . . . and then I close it. Because Lipinski is a senior, he’s feeling his oats—that cocksure, adrenaline-fueled

superiority that comes with being the best and knowing it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I was an arrogant little prick myself, and it worked out well for me.

A kid can’t grow if he’s walking around with his coach’s foot on his neck 24/7. You have to give the leash some slack before you can snap it back—when needed.

My players huddle around me and take a knee.

“Good practice today, boys. We’ll do the same tomorrow. Go home, eat, shower, sleep.” They groan collectively, because it’s the last week of the

summer. “Don’t go out with your girlfriends, don’t frigging drink, don’t

stay up until two in the morning playing Xbox with your idiot friends across town.” A few of them chuckle guiltily. “Eat, shower, sleep—I’ll know if you don’t—and I’ll make it hurt tomorrow.” I scan their faces. “Now let me hear it.”

Lipinski calls it out, “Who are we?”

The team answers in one voice: “Lions!” “Who are we?!”

“Lions!”

“Can’t be beat!”

“Can’t be beat! Can’t be beat! Lions, lions, LIONS!”

And that’s what they are—especially this year. They’re everything

we’ve made them—a well-oiled machine. Disciplined, strong, cohesive— fuck yeah.

~ ~ ~

Before I head home, I put Snoopy in the Jeep and walk down to my

classroom, where I’ll be teaching US history in a few more days. I have a good roster—especially third period—a nice mix of smart, well-behaved kids and smart, mouthy ones to keep things from being too boring. They’re juniors, which is a good age—they know the routine, know their way

around, but still care enough about their grades not to tell me and my assignments to go screw myself. That tends to happen senior year.

I put a stack of rubber-band-wrapped index cards in the top drawer of the desk. It’s for the first-day assignment I always give, where I play “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” by Billy Joel and hang the lyrics around the

classroom. Then, they each pick two index cards and have to give an oral report the next day on the two people or events they chose. It makes history more relevant for them—interesting—which is big for a generation of kids who are basically immediate-gratification junkies.

Child psychologists will tell you the human brain isn’t fully developed until age twenty-five, but—not to go all touchy-feely on you—I think the soul stops growing at the end of high school, and who you are when you graduate is who you’ll always be. I’ve seen it in action: if you’re a dick at eighteen—you’ll probably be a dick for life.

That’s another reason I like this job . . . because there’s still hope for these kids. No matter where they come from, who their parents are, who their dipshit friends are, we get them in this building for seven hours a day. So, if we do what we’re supposed to, set the example, listen, teach the right things, and yeah—figuratively knock them upside the head once in a while

—we can help shape their souls. Change them—make them better human beings than they would’ve been without us.

That’s my theory, anyway.

I sit down in the desk chair and lean back, balancing on the hind legs like my mother always told me not to. I fold my hands behind my head, put my feet on the desk, and sigh with contentment. Because life is sweet.

It’s going to be a great year.

They’re not all great—some years suck donkey balls. My best players graduate and it’s a rebuilding year, which means a lot of L’s on the board, or sometimes you just get a crappy crop of students. But this year’s going to be awesome—I can feel it.

And then, something catches my eye outside the window in the parking lot.Someone.

And my balance goes to shit.

I swing my arms like a baby bird, hang in the air for half a second . . . and then topple back in a heap. Not my smoothest move.

But right now, it doesn’t matter.

I pull myself up to my feet, step over the chair towards the window, all the while peering at the blonde in the navy-blue pencil skirt walking across the parking lot.

And the ass that, even from this distance, I would know anywhere. Callaway Carpenter. Holy shit.

She looks amazing, even more beautiful than the last time I saw her . . . than the first time I saw her. You never forget your first. Isn’t that what they say? Callie was my first and for a long time, I thought she’d be my only.

The first time I laid my eyes on her, it felt like getting sacked by a three- hundred-pound defensive lineman with an ax to grind. She looked like an

angel. Golden hair framing petite, delicate features—a heart-shaped face, a dainty jaw, a cute nose and these big, round, blinking green eyes I wanted to drown in.

Wait . . . back up . . . that’s not actually true. That’s a lie.

I was fifteen when I met Callie, and fifteen-year-old boys are notorious perverts, so the first thing I noticed about her wasn’t her face. It was her tits

—they were full and round and absolutely perfect.

The second thing I noticed was her mouth—shiny and pink with a bee- stung bottom lip. In a blink, a hundred fantasies had gone through my head of what she could do with that mouth . . . what I could show her how to do.

Then I saw her angel face. That’s how it happened. And just like that—I was gone.

We were “the” couple in high school—Brenda and Eddie from that Billy Joel song. The star quarterback and the theater queen.

She was the love of my life, before I had any fucking idea what love was . . . and then, still, even after I did.

We broke up when she went away to college and I stayed here in Jersey

—couldn’t survive the distance. It was a quiet ending when I went out to visit her in California, no drama or hysterics. Just some hard truths, tears, one last night together in her dorm-room bed, and a morning of goodbye.

She never really came home again after that. At least, not long enough for us to run into each other. I haven’t seen her in years—in a lifetime.

But she’s here now. At my school.

And you can bet Callie’s sweet ass I’m going to find out why.