The Grim ReaperChapter 10 Romance
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Dad didn’t say anything to me the next day, so we must have covered our tracks. At least the back seat in the SuperCrew was wide enough for us to lay semi-flat on. We still drove around in the cold air with the windows down.
Monday at school I saw Coach Summers and gave him the news. I was out for a week, and would be reevaluated afterwards, so I might be able to play if we won next week and went to State.
“I won’t let you back on the field until you bring me a release from the doctor,” he told me. “That includes practices.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I won’t have a player die on me, Grim. It’s just a damn game!”
“Yes, sir, I understand. Does that mean I’m off the team?” I asked.
“No, just out for the week. I want you to show up for practice and for the game next week. Feel free to wear your jersey, but you can wear regular clothes underneath. You can work with the team and tell them how you messed up reading the plays on the last game.”
“I’m really feeling the love, Coach!” I replied drily.
“You’ll get over it, Grim,” he replied. “Seriously, you can be on the sidelines with me and Coach Walters, helping out. Your teammates listen to you and respect you. We’ll figure out something for you, but it won’t involve any scrimmages or contact, not until you’re healed up.”
“I can do that, Coach. Hey, just how good was my brother? He says he got the game ball.”
“Come to practice and watch, and then you tell me.”
“Yes, sir.”
I figured I didn’t need to wear my jersey during practices, so I left that in my game bag. After school we did the normal Monday practice routine, which was to review the last game and who did right and who did wrong. We weren’t going to get better, said Coach Summers, if we didn’t face facts honestly. I would be in for my share of the critique, but he was fair and spread it around.
Out on the field, it was strange to sit on the sidelines and watch. This was the first game I had ever missed. I was healthy and in good condition, and while I’d had my share of colds and flu over the years, nothing major had cropped up during football season. It was weird watching the defense from the sidelines and seeing somebody else calling plays. It was a completely different perspective.
We had only two games to go in the season. Our next game was Friday, December 5, against the winner of one of the other groupings. We were playing the top-seeded team from Region One, Lowndes High School, which was from way the hell down in Valdosta. This time Matucket High lost the coin toss to see where the game was played. We were going to Valdosta. Valdosta was practically on the Florida line, it was so far away. In fact, no matter which way we went, either over to Atlanta and south through Macon, or straight south down through Columbus and Albany, it was over four hours away, and that was in a car. Do it in a lumbering school bus and we were probably talking a five-hour trip, longer if you figure in a bathroom break or two. The game was scheduled for 6:00 PM, so the school buses left at 11:00 AM. We weren’t figuring all that many fans to follow.
Lowndes was a big school, at least twice our size, and they had a stadium large enough to seat 10,000 spectators. I mean, this was a real stadium! They called it the Concrete Palace. They also had a new coach, who had supposedly sworn blood oaths and sacrificed virgins to pagan gods so that the Lowndes High School Vikings would become the greatest football team in Georgia. For a brand-new coach to get to the state semi-finals was a big deal. They were supposed to have a tough and balanced team, and if they could whip us, they would be headed to the Georgia Dome for the state championship. The Pioneers were considered the underdog.
Mrs. Hollister had buses available for fans to take to the game, but you had to buy your ticket ahead of time. If you bought a ticket you could go to the game, and you could get out of school early. Pack a lunch and a dinner, though, because stops would be minimal, and meals weren’t being served. The return trip would be in the middle of the night! Kelly wanted to go, but I told her it was going to be a long ride, and I would be riding the team bus, at least on the way down, and she couldn’t ride with us. My parents were taking the day off, and they were driving down, but Bobbie Joe was old enough now to take care of himself, and he had a key to get into the house. In fact, our folks were talking about staying the night in Valdosta and coming home on Saturday. What the hell there was to do in Valdosta I had no idea, but maybe they were just planning on a night out without the kids. If Mom was giggling on Saturday, we’d know why.
Friday, I helped load all the crap on the buses, and off we went. We ate on the bus and had a couple of potty breaks along the way. It was still over five hours of travel. By the time we got there most of us were going stir crazy, singing The Wheels On The Bus and Ninety-Nine Bottles Of Beer while making strange noises to each other. The temperature was down in the forties, and rain was threatening. I had long underwear on, along with a heavy winter jacket and a knit cap.
I had to admit; Lowndes High did things right. Somebody was there to greet us when we arrived, and we were shown to the visitor’s locker rooms, which were neat and clean and warm. No using the girl’s locker room. They had a statue of a Viking in their stadium! Still, it was very, very strange to be at a game and in the locker room, and not gearing up. I mostly kept my mouth shut and stayed out of the way. The guys were talking trash and bragging each other up, but I wasn’t really part of it this time. I felt like a real third wheel. I hung back when they were called and ran out onto the field and followed along with the coaching staff.
Playing in the Concrete Palace was unreal! There must have been 4,000 Viking fans on their side. On the Pioneer side we had maybe 200. We were a small but vocal block of purple in the stands, and they were yelling, ‘GOON SQUAD! GOON SQUAD!’ when we came out. I had to smile when I saw our trusty banner waving in the breeze. ‘EAT ‘EM ALIVE AND S*IT OUT THE BONES!’ I wondered what the Vikings thought of that.
Their colors were red and white, which would be easy to differentiate from our purple and gray. When it came time to flip the coin, Speed Demon looked at me and then at Coach Summers. “Who’s going out with me?” he asked.
Coach looked at me curiously, and I shook my head. “I’m not playing, and I’m not dressed. Send out Brax. He’s earned it.”
Coach smiled and nodded, and then pointed at Brax. “Get out there, Mister Hughes. You can fill in for your deadbeat friend here.”
Brax laughed and I flipped him off. “Really, really feeling the love, Coach!”
“You’ll survive. Now we get to see if what you’ve been teaching your brother and the other guys has sunk in. We win here and Monday you pass your physical, this time next week you’ll be taking the field at the Georgia Dome.”
“First we get through today,” I answered.
“First we get through today,” he agreed.
Watching the game from the sidelines was interesting. I could walk around, and I got a very different view of what was happening during defensive plays. You could focus on certain positions and players differently. Two things became immediately apparent. First, Lowndes High had a very good team. The Vikings were tough, and they deserved to be there. However, I had to be honest about it and say that I thought the Eagles last week were tougher. Maybe it was because Region One was smaller with less competition, and maybe because their new coach hadn’t been able to work any magic on them yet. They had gone 8-2 for the season, with a cumulative score of 212-130, which wasn’t quite as good as our 10-0 record and 338-92 cumulative score. In any case, I thought that we were going to win.
The second thing I noticed was that Jack the Ripper was a great middle linebacker. To put it bluntly, as a sophomore he was better than I was as a senior. What would he be like when he finished growing? Give him two more years and my little brother would be going Division I himself. He was very large and very strong and very fast, and he was better than I was at reading the defense. On several occasions I would be thinking to myself about calling a particular lineup or defense, and he would do something different, and he would be right. Watching him play made me both proud and jealous. I decided that once the post-season was over, and injuries wouldn’t bother us, I would have to kick his ass for being better than me!
It wasn’t a blowout like some of the games we had played in, but we did win. The Vikings kept it competitive, and if we made a mistake, they were going to capitalize on it. Fortunately, we were relatively healthy. Will Tyrell was back with us, his twisted ankle all healed up, so we had our kicking game back. I was out, but we had enough linebackers in the second string to fill in. Coach Summers was using them to shuttle plays and ideas out to Jack, and I could see him talking things over with Antwan and the others. Ultimately, we won, 34-20, with no new injuries. The Vikings were going home for the season, and the Pioneers would be going to the Georgia Dome next Friday night.
The Pioneer fans made up for their lack of numbers with an outsized level of cheering. We started heading over towards the locker room when I heard somebody yelling, “JACK! GRIM! OVER HERE!” I don’t know if Jack heard it, but I looked around and saw my folks down at the bottom of the stands, waving frantically. I waved back and grabbed Jack and dragged him over.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Congratulations! You did great out there!” gushed Mom.
“You fellows did real well, real well,” agreed our father. “Next week will be it, the state championship in Atlanta. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. Jack echoed me a second later.
“We’re going to go have dinner and stay the night-,” said, Mom. “-but we wanted to say it was a good game. Pretty exciting!”
Jack looked at me for a second. “How are we getting home from school?”
“Excellent question.” I turned to face our parents.
“Your mom and I drove over to the school and left the Sienna in the parking lot. We drove the truck down. When you get back to Matucket you can take the Sienna home. We’ll be home tomorrow. Have your keys?” asked Dad.
I checked my pockets, and they were on my key ring in my coat pocket. “We’re good.”
“You boys going to be good on the way home?” asked Mom.
“We’re probably going to be asleep!” replied Jack. It was already dark.
“Well, you boys behave,” she said.
“Sure thing. What about you two? Are you going to behave?” teased Jack. “Remember, no drinking, and make sure you’re home before your curfew!”
Mom giggled and said, “Don’t worry about us. You two are the ones most likely to get in trouble.”
“Smartass kids,” muttered Dad.
Mom hugged us both, and then left with Dad, still giggling. I simply looked at Jack and shook my head. We hustled inside, Jack to shower and clean up, and me to get out of the cold. A cold drizzle was settling in.
We didn’t screw around in the locker room, and as soon as we were ready, we piled onto the buses and took off. We formed a giant yellow convoy rolling north up I-75. It was dark as sin, as my grandmother would say, but heavy rain held off and traffic was light. Initially there was a lot of talk about the game, but after a bit everybody curled up on game bags and rolled-up jackets and slept as best they could. It was damn late by the time we got home. The spectators from the buses were pretty muted, and you knew they had been sleeping as well. Jack and I roused ourselves, loaded our stuff into the Sienna, and drove home. The only one awake to greet us was Duke, who whined to go out, and then came back in and went to sleep.
Kelly came over in the morning. I was still sacked out, but I heard the doorbell ring and grabbed a robe and went downstairs to let her in. “Hey, babe,” I said, yawning.
“Did I wake you?” she asked. “When did you get back?”
“I don’t know. Three? Three-thirty? Somewhere in there.” I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t have anything on except the robe and my briefs.
“Sorry, I didn’t know it was so late.” Kelly wrapped her arms around me. She had a twinkle in her eyes as she said, “You look pretty cute. You look like you’re ready to hop in the sack with a hot girl!”
I snorted. “Yeah, great idea, babe. Both my brothers are here, I share a bedroom with Jack, and my parents might be coming home anytime now. We did this once before, remember?”
Kelly laughed at that. “Should I stay or go home until later?”
I leaned down and kissed her cheek. My morning breath was bad. “Stay. I need to get human. You make some coffee and I’ll clean up and get dressed.” I pointed Kelly towards the kitchen, and she shrugged off her coat and went to become domestic. I headed up the stairs.
Jack was still snoring in our room, but Bobbie Joe was making wakeup sounds from his cubbyhole. I slipped into the bathroom before he could beat me to it. Twenty minutes later I was clean and shaved and slightly more awake. Coffee, a lot of it, was needed to completely come alive. I opened the door to find him sitting on the floor in the hall. “Took you long enough,” he said.
“Looks this good don’t come by accident. Perfection comes at a price,” I replied.
“Yeah? Then how come it took Mom and Dad three times to get it right?”
“I’m still trying to figure out why they bothered with you two when they already found perfection on the first go.” This was a standard argument for the two of us. Jack was the one caught in the middle, but neither Bobbie Joe nor I cared what he might think.
I went down the hallway to our room. Jack and I had basically just stripped off our clothes and fallen asleep on top of the covers. He was still snoring. I kicked his bed. “Wake up. It’s time for breakfast.” I nudged him a couple of times while I dressed.
“Oh, fuck you. Let me sleep,” he answered once he was awake.
“Sleep is for pussies. Coffee is brewing and we can make breakfast. Get your ass out of bed,” I told him.
He gave me a few more choice curses, but I ignored him. Jack was beginning to stir alive by the time I was dressed and out the door.
I found Kelly in the kitchen with an apron on over her jeans and sweater. “Isn’t this the scene of domestic bliss,” I commented.
“If you don’t want any coffee...,” she started.
“I don’t want coffee, I need coffee! First though, I owe you this.” I wrapped Kelly in my arms and gave her a very long kiss. “Now, I can drink some coffee.”
It must have been a good kiss because Kelly had a flustered look on her face. “When do your parents get home? I’ll chance your brothers catching us!”
I laughed loudly at that. “I won’t! You’ll just have to wait until later, babe! That’s all we’d need!” Kelly had been busy with Mister Coffee. I poured myself some coffee and inhaled it, waking up just from the aroma. I took mine straight up, no sugar or milk, while Kelly drank hers very sweet and creamy. “We need to get started on breakfast,” I told her.
“You can cook?” she asked.
“I am a full-grown man of Georgia!” I announced. “If there is one thing men of Georgia know, it’s how to cook pigs!”
“You can cook a pig?”
“Well, bacon and sausage, at least. What do you say to some waffles and bacon and sausage? I figure if we both get involved, we can burn the house down twice as fast.”
“Sounds yummy!”
Kelly didn’t really know where stuff was, but I got everything out of the refrigerator and the pantry for her. After that I went to work with the swine-related products, and she made waffle mix according to the directions on the back of the box. When Bobbie Joe wandered through, I put him to work setting the table.
“How many plates?” he asked.
“Just four. I don’t know when Mom and Dad are getting back, but it probably won’t be until after lunch,” I answered. “They were planning on getting a late dinner and staying the night.”
“What in the world is there to do in Valdosta?” asked my brother.
“Not much that I could see, but by the time we got there it was dark. Maybe the place turns into a tropical paradise when the sun comes up.”
Bobbie Joe set the table for four. I plugged in the waffle iron and gave Kelly the instructions, since each iron was different. “When the light goes off, put in a ladle of mix. Then, when the light goes off again, it’s ready.”
“Got it!” she said.
Jack stumbled through at that point. He was clean but looked bleary. “Man, those guys hit hard! I feel like death warmed over.”
“Now you know how I felt last week.”
Bobbie Joe asked, “So who won?”
Jack and I stared at him. “You don’t know? You weren’t listening to the radio? You haven’t read the newspaper?” I asked.
“Sorry, no. I watched TV last night,” he answered.
“Go get the paper, you little shitweasel!” ordered Jack.
“I swear to God; we’re taking away your man card!” I added.
“Hey!” Bobbie Joe protested.
We continued the verbal abuse until Bobbie Joe grumped and went out to get the paper off the front lawn. He had it open to the Sports section by the time he returned. “Hey, congratulations! This means you’re going to State next week, right?”
I was just on the verge of answering when the phone rang. “Explain it to him,” I told Jack. I grabbed the phone and answered, “Hello?”
“Hi, sweetie, just checking in. You boys all right?” It was our mother.
I muted the phone with my hand. “It’s Mom.” To my mother I said, “Just fine, Mom. The fire department got everything under control just a few minutes ago, and Bobbie Joe and Jack are at the hospital. We’re just fine.”
“Smart-aleck!”
“What’s up, Mom?”
“Just checking up on you. Your father said to get the beer kegs and dancing girls out by the time we get home.”
“When’s that going to be?” I asked.
“Sometime this afternoon. We’re going to get breakfast and leave afterwards,” she answered. Then it got strange. It sounded like she was cupping the phone, but I heard her faintly giggle and say, “Jack! Behave! Not while I’m talking to the boys!” There was some more giggling, and a muffled squeal. I was simply staring at the phone, and then Mom said, “I have to go now. You boys behave.” She was giggling as she hung up the phone.
The others were staring at me as I stared at the phone. “What’s wrong, Grim?” asked Kelly.
“Hmmm?”
“What’s wrong? You look surprised or something.”
I hung up the phone and scratched my head. How to answer that one? I gave her an amused look. “Remember what you were suggesting this morning, for us?” Kelly blushed and swatted my arm. I pointed at the phone. “I think Dad was getting frisky!”
“Oh, my God!” groaned Jack.
Bobbie Joe added, “I think I’m going to be sick!”
Kelly grinned at me. “You think so?”
“If Mom and Dad are holding hands when they come home, and Mom is giggling - I’m positive!”
“I’m not sure I can eat now,” protested Jack. “My sensitive young mind is ruined for life!”
“You don’t want any waffles?” quizzed Kelly.
Jack grabbed for the plate. “I’ll suffer through. Jeez! Mom and Dad? I don’t want to know!”
The others wanted to know the evidence, so I replayed the conversation for them, which they all found both vastly amusing and conclusive proof. After breakfast Jack was detailed to do the dishes, and Kelly hung around with me at the house. Mom and Dad got home around half past two, and as I predicted, Mom was giggling. I just looked at the others and we started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Mom asked. That just got us to laughing harder.
Once my folks were back, Kelly and I took off, simply to keep from laughing at them all afternoon. We went out to her Miata, and halfway to her house I realized I should have taken Mom’s Sienna. Then again, if we took the Sienna, that would be proof positive that I was planning on going parking with Kelly later. That sort of thing was simply physically impossible in a Miata! I mentioned that to Kelly.
“I didn’t think of that either! What do we do about, you know, later?”
I shrugged. “I’m tapped out of ideas, babe. It’s too cold and wet to take the blankets out up at the lake.”
“Let’s worry about it later. Come on. Let’s go over to the Pizza Palace and see who’s around.”
The rest of the day we simply goofed off. We saw a few people over at the Pizza Palace, then went to the mall and did some Christmas shopping. Afterwards we dumped our stuff in her car and went back inside for a movie. Eventually we ended up back at Kelly’s house. It was late, and her mother was already up in bed, but the lights were still on. When we came in the door, her mother yelled out, “Kelly, is that you?”
“Yes, Mom! Grim and I are going to watch some television.”
“Good night!”
“Good night!”
Then Kelly grabbed me by the hand and pulled me down the stairs to their family room. She whispered, “If we’re quiet, she won’t hear us!”
I smiled at her. “You’re out of your mind! She’s going to kill us!”
“No, that would be Daddy, not Mom. Afterwards I can take you home.”
“She’s going to hear us for sure. She’s going to hear you for sure! Hell, the neighbors will probably hear you!” I countered.
Kelly had a very simple answer for this. She stepped back slightly and peeled off her cable-knit sweater, leaving her amazing breasts barely contained by a very small and lacy bra. “You sure I can’t change your mind?” She smiled and unbuttoned the top of her jeans. “Hmmm?” she asked, smiling.
“I swear, going into the Army will probably be safer for me!” I grabbed a throw pillow off the couch and handed it to her. “Here, if you have to scream, scream into this!”
Kelly laughed. “I love it when you make me scream!”
“Aaaagh!” I groaned.
I won’t lie and say it was my finest performance, since I was constantly worrying that Mrs. O’Connor was going to wander in on us. Still, Kelly seemed most appreciative, and she really did scream into the pillow a few times. Afterwards we dressed and Kelly drove me back to the house. That would be probably our only chance for romance for a week. Sunday night was out since we had school on Monday. Then we had school right through Friday, and Friday night was the Georgia State Championship. If we hadn’t chanced it at her house, it would have been a dry couple of weeks for us.
I think the entire school was crazy that week. All that anybody could talk about was the upcoming state championship. The game was that Friday night, December 13, and was played in Atlanta at the Georgia Dome. The game would start at 8:00 PM, and we were playing Parkview High, from Region Eight. Parkview was in Lilburn, an Atlanta suburb on the eastern side of the city, and they were going to be tough. They were twice our size, had more money, more facilities, and more of anything else you could mention. They had won the state championship the last two years, and they expected to win it again. So, it seemed, did everybody else!
That wasn’t anything new to us by now. For the last two years the newspapers and television stations had been treating Matucket High as a bunch of hillbillies who needed to mind their manners around their betters. In the last two years we had won twenty straight regular season games and six out of seven post-season games. We were the Region Three champions two years in a row. We had two definite Division I picks on the team. According to the stats we were the toughest defense in the state. Most of us were wondering just what it would take to be considered as something other than the perennial underdogs. Even an even match would be considered an improvement!
I took an afternoon off on Monday and Mom took me to the hospital to get checked out. I couldn’t play without a permission slip. It was going to be my last game, and I wanted to play it on a real field, in a real stadium, in a real championship. It was for all the marbles. I got my slip and made it back to school in time to give it to the school nurse and Coach Summers. He smiled and sent me to the locker room to get ready for practice.
Coach’s theme for the week was going back to the basics. Ignore the hype and the hoopla. “This is a football!” he started, imitating Vince Lombardi. If we remembered our assignments, if we remembered our plays, if we didn’t play stupid, then we’d win. We simply practiced our playbooks and concentrated on doing what we already knew how to do.
That is not to say the hype and hoopla didn’t intrude. The Georgia State Championship might not be the Super Bowl, but we did get reporters coming around. The Matucket Times-Dispatch brought in a reporter and a photographer, and Channel 9 sent over Brad Dillon with a cameraman, to do interviews. Since I was one of the co-captains, I was interviewed, along with Speed, Brax, and Randy. That was hilarious to us.
On Tuesday, before we headed out to practice, Coach Summers called us all into the cafeteria for a talk. He told us we were going to be meeting reporters who would be asking all sorts of idiotic questions, and that we had to behave and watch our mouths. Then he grinned and turned the meeting over to Bo Effner, which all of us found a little odd. Bo had a television set hooked up to a VCR, something he had borrowed from the Audio-Visual Department, and he turned it on. He hit a couple of buttons on the remote, and suddenly it was the scene on the bus in Bull Durham, with Kevin Costner telling Tim Robbins,” You’re gonna have to learn your clichés. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down: ‘We gotta play it one day at a time.’”
Then Bo turned off the television. “Now, you have to learn your clichés!” He pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of his pocket and said, “Repeat after me! We gotta play it one day at a time. That’s right, everybody say it!”
We all looked at each other, but Coach Summers was going along with it, so we all said, “We gotta play it one day at a time.”
“We have to stick to our game plan.”
At this point I heard a chuckle from one side of the room, and we all repeated,” We have to stick to our game plan.”
“We have to leave it all on the field,” said Bo, grinning.
By now we had guys starting to laugh. “We have to leave it all on the field,” we yelled out.
Bo had a bunch more. “We have to give 110 percent.” “We have to play a full 48 minutes.” “We have to take care of the football.” There were even more, some tossed out by the team. More than a few of our responses were ridiculous. In any case, it broke the tension, and Coach sent us out to practice. The rest of the week we were tossing clichés back and forth to each other all day long. There was a reason why we were grinning when Brad Dillon interviewed us; we were using some of Bo’s clichés and it was all we could do to not start laughing on camera!
Still, by Friday I was just a bundle of nerves. Atlanta was a hell of a lot closer to Matucket than Valdosta was, and a lot of people would be attending. Kids and parents who wouldn’t go to a regular season game were going to see us at the Georgia Dome. That in itself was a big draw. We would be inside, out of the cold and wind and rain and snow and whatever else might be going on outside. There would be real seats, and real concession stands. A convoy of school buses would be bringing students and parents over, and the place would be packed with other people driving over. Jack and I would be on the school bus, but Mom, Dad, and Bobbie Joe would be driving in the Sienna, and they were bringing the O’Connors, Kelly and her mom.
It was a little over an hour’s trip from Matucket High to the Georgia Dome, but we left the school a little after five. The game was at eight but with Friday night rush hour, the always jammed Atlanta highways would probably be even worse. No way were we losing due to a forfeit because we were stuck in a traffic jam! We had some energy bars and beef jerky on the trip over, but at least a couple of us were too keyed up to even eat that. As we rolled out, it seemed like hundreds of cars were following us, all festooned with purple and gray, and with slogans painted on windows with shoe polish.
It was weird when we got to the Georgia Dome. The team buses rolled up to the player’s entrance. I’d been to the Dome before, to see the Falcons play, but this was totally different. We went through a different gate, parked separately from the rest of the fans, and went in a different entrance. We were able to walk out onto the playing field before we went into the locker rooms. We got out there and most of us just stopped and stared at everything. Some fans were already present, on both sides, but we ignored that. You could also see where the television cameras were being set up. Yeah, we were going to be playing live on one of the Georgia public television stations! I just stood there and looked around - and up! We were under cover! Outside the weather was cold and windy and rainy - just miserable! Inside it was warm and calm and dry.
It was almost midnight by the time I got back to the apartment. Rather than being able to drink a beer or go to bed, however, the lights were on in both the apartment and in my grandparents’ house and the driveway was filled with my family’s cars. A bad afternoon and evening were about to get worse. I climbed the stairs up to the apartment, but by the time I got to the top, the door was open, and Kelly was standing there waiting for me. “How you doing, Grim?” “I’m good, babe.” She gave me...
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Monday, Kelly told me that she was going with me to the lawyer’s office, and the way she said it indicated I had better not argue. I still wasn’t sure what Brockport could do for me that Stillwell couldn’t. Everything I had heard from the guys the other day showed that no matter how I got out of this, the County Attorney and the County Council would still demand they get rid of a killer, and I was still probationary. “Grim, just listen to what he has to say. Daddy says the guy is a magician....
Sunday & Monday, February 18 & 19, 2001 I came to slowly. I was surprised that I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I would, but I couldn’t really move all that well, and things seemed weird. It was warmer than I remembered it being, and brighter, and my sweatshirt and windbreaker were missing. I groaned and tried to move some more. That did hurt, quite a bit, and I tried to find a position it didn’t hurt, and I realized I hurt all over. I blinked my eyes, but only my left eye was...
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 I got out of bed at 0600, but I hadn’t been asleep. I had slept fitfully at best all night, and I just gave in and got up. I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, so the water would warm up, and then started brushing my teeth. “Can’t sleep?” asked Kelly, from our bed. “I need to get to the station early,” I told her. Any further discussion was ended when we heard a cry from the hallway. Kelly groaned and got out of bed. I smiled and shook my head and...
Things got very strange from that point on. It wasn’t like I could just fly off to Washington so the President could slap on the Medal of Honor. Everything had to be coordinated. I was informed of the Medal of Honor on May 24, which was a Monday. My keepers, which is what the two light birds turned out to be, returned on Tuesday, June 1, to let me know the latest. The Army, by that time, had publicly confirmed that I was to receive the Medal of Honor, but that the ceremony was to be held at...
Friday, September 5, 2008 I had to do a lot of yard work at that resort. Kelly was very insistent that the lawn needed to be mowed as often as possible. I also had to ‘clear the weeds’, ‘trim the shrubs’, ‘edge the lawn’, and perform every other possible type of yard maintenance. On the other hand, I considered it critical to provide the best customer service possible. It’s just the kind of guy I am. Still, we did have to get out of the room on occasion, if simply to gas up the mower....
I told my family to stay there, and I would get my gear and catch up to them. Kelly offered to follow me, but I had to explain that women were not allowed in the barracks, no way, no how! Luckily there was a parking lot near the barracks that would allow me to load my gear up. Dad had driven down in the F-150, so we could toss my stuff in the back and then ride home. The ride home was mostly taken up with my parents and Kelly asking me about the Army and my training. What did I do, what did...
December 21, 2007 The rest of the year I simply prepped for the academy, worked at the police station, and ‘assisted’ Kelly with wedding planning. Assistance basically consisted of doing whatever I was told I was doing, regardless of my personal opinions. White and rose orchids? Whatever you say, babe, they look wonderful! The fact that I couldn’t tell an orchid from a dandelion meant nothing. White cake, yellow cake, or chocolate cake? They all tasted delicious, but even if they tasted like...
That was pretty much it for grand romance for a few weeks. School was ending the following Thursday, and Saturday Kelly and her mom were flying out of Atlanta to London. Neither set of parental units were allowing us to date on school nights, not even during the last week of school. We were able to go out on Friday night, and we got in some quality time then, but that was it. She was going to be gone the last week of May and the first two weeks of June. She got sort of tearful and clingy and...
Jim Talbot called me the next afternoon and told me that there was a lively discussion after I left, but that they hadn’t blown me off. I was still being considered by most of the council. He also told me that one of the other candidates had dropped out, citing the council’s inability to get its shit together. That cut it down to me and one other candidate. Sometime next week would be another interview, though that one would be in a smaller setting. What that meant wasn’t specified, but I...
Monday, May 24, 2010 I busted my ass that winter getting back into shape. As the doctors had told me, my problems mostly related to muscle and tissue damage, but my joints were in good shape. My biggest problems were in stretching and rebuilding the muscles in my left arm and side. I spent a lot of time in rehab and therapy, and then even more time in the gym rebuilding myself. Kelly and I didn’t have a gym in the house, but it was another one of those benefits of being a cop. The MPD had an...
Thursday proved to be about as hectic as I expected it to be. By the time the detectives came to see me, I would be the last guy they would be talking to. By that time, they would have already interviewed everybody except the three dead guys, and they would have been autopsied. The crime scene crew would have been all over the last car they had been in, as well as all over the Quiki-Stop. The security videos from the Quiki-Stop would have been obtained, as well as any from any of the...
They were right, of course, I was beat. I stayed awake through dinner and then fell asleep. I woke up Saturday morning stiff and creaky. As the saying goes, it’s just like cars; it’s not the years but the mileage. At thirty-three I had the mileage for one-hundred-thirty-three. Saturday was all about family. My parents arrived right after breakfast, and after Mom violated the rule about not treating a relative by checking my records, they gave me the latest info. Jack was flying in from San...
Kelly and I watched the news Monday night for about an hour, but it was getting repetitious, and we turned it off. By then Kelly was beginning to get some emails and tweets from people she was friends with, mostly asking what was going on. Most seemed confused, but several were rather vile. A few people wanted me to immediately fly to California and butcher my brother on the fifty-yard line, followed by ritually committing suicide. We went to bed, where Kelly tried to take my mind off...
I called Kelly as soon as I had finished a couple of slices. It was a Thursday, so she promised to come home that night and spend a long weekend with me. I told her I was heading over to the apartment and to find me there. It would be late when she got there, but that didn’t matter much to me. I went back to the kitchen, grabbed another slice of pizza and a beer, and sat down in the family room. Bobbie Joe returned my keys. When I was finished, I kissed Mom on the cheek and headed out. The...
Tuesday, January 7, 2019 The rest of the semester was a bitch, a stone-cold cast-iron bitch. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but it was just unrelenting work. Maybe it was because I had taken a lot of time on the two consulting jobs or maybe it was because of the time taken up with Tolley’s book project. More likely it was because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing trying to get a doctorate in history. I mean, I knew there was a lot of reading that was going to be involved....
Seamus fell asleep in his car seat before Kelly got home. That made him extra fussy when we got there, and he was handed to me after she got him out of the car. For the next hour we kept putting him to bed and he kept waking up and fussing. Kelly and I talked about my father’s condition. “So, what happens next?” I asked. “This ever happen to your father?” “Not that I’ve ever heard. Maybe he doesn’t exercise as vigorously as your father does.” I had to laugh at that. “There are some things...
June 2005-March 2006 The next morning, we were back to the Army in earnest. Most everybody had filtered back, and we began with PT, physical training, including calisthenics and a four-mile conditioning run. I was hurting as bad as any of the other troops. Leave had left me soft. It didn’t matter, since I knew I would be back in shape in a few weeks, tops. Montoya and Gonzalez, the fuzzies just out of Benning, were in decent shape. Riley was coming off leave and was in about the same...
Nothing job-related came to my attention by Friday afternoon. I speculated what the perfect job ad would look like - “Wanted! Matucket Firearms Corporation has an immediate opening for product design and testing in their Machine Gun Division! Iraqi war veterans with PTSD desired! Call now, operators are standing by!” I remembered that the AK-47 was invented by a busted-up Russian sergeant during World War II. Too bad there really wasn’t a Matucket Firearms Corporation, either with or without...
Monday, September 26, 2022 Monday was a busy day. I bundled the kids off to school and then called Matucket State. While I didn’t go into details, I had to let her Department Vice-Chair know she was going to be away from work for a week or two. I didn’t know who to call at DARPA or the NSA, but Kelly didn’t talk to them daily anyway; she could handle that chore. Then I drove over to the hospital. By all accounts, I would be able to bring her home that day. First, though, she needed to be...
Monday, March 19, 2018 “Dispatch to One-Six-Three.” “One-Six-Three to Dispatch, go ahead.” Dispatch to One-Six-Three, say location.” I was curious as to why Dispatch wanted to know where I was, since they had sent me to supervise an accident at Pinetree and Glen Aubrey. There was a three-car pileup on Glen Aubrey after the first car, a silver Nissan sedan had suddenly braked for a squirrel. The next car, a red Ford Fusion had slammed into the Nissan from behind and had then been...
Hank called me later that evening, laughing about the three chuckleheads, as he called them, and told me that he had told them some more stories. Of course, he kept their glasses full, so it was a profitable conversation for him. He told me that he had told a bunch of war stories about ‘the old days’ and how we did things ‘back then.’ I laughed and invited him and his wife over some night, and to just call me or Kelly to schedule it. Over the weekend Kelly and I goofed off while driving the...
Chief Crowley called the meeting to an end. He told Captain Abernathy to light a fire under the detectives and see if anybody had seen any African-American strangers recently. At best we had maybe a day or two before something might happen. Captain Bullfinch and Lieutenant Roscoe were told to give whatever support possible, including moving watch schedules around. Hank was told to assist me and dial up TRT. As far as I was concerned, Priority One was taking care of my family. What was even...
Saturday, June 21, 2008 I continued riding with Hank Jenkins for two weeks, and he signed off on turning me loose on the public on my own. During our time he taught me about the night and graveyard shifts, much like Jerry had taught me about the day shift and general police work. We also brought in a number of bad guys on various warrants, taking criminals off the street and otherwise making Matucket safer for all. It seemed like every shift would start with Hank handing me a stack of...
Fall 2023 The summer progressed nicely. I spent a fair bit of time down in Sullivan County and the nearby environs, first analyzing what they had and then developing the options everybody needed to consider. One thing I stressed with them was that by standardizing on similar doctrine, training, and hardware, the SWAT teams created would be suitable for any eventual regional coordination. How the politics would work out was questionable, but it would be easier if the local units had similar...
April 2005 - May 2005 A few days later I had to leave. I was due back at Fort Drum on Thursday, so Tuesday Kelly and I loaded up the back of the Outback with all my stuff. This time we added all my personal stuff that I had shipped home when I first deployed to Iraq in 2003. Jack was none too amused when I took the television set with me, since he had set it up in the bedroom, but I wasn’t impressed. “You want to keep it? Fine with me. Just buy me a new one,” I told him. “I don’t have the...
June to August 2002 The following week we had finals, and that was it. Seniors had to go through graduation, but the rest of us were out for a couple of months for the summer. For me that meant I had about a week of goof-off time before I had to go back to the mill full time. That would take me through all of June and into July, at which time it was back to practice for the football season, running twice-a-days and sweating off about ten pounds under the July sun. Somewhere during that...
Summer 2023 The job in Sullivan Springs was a larger project than most of those I had already worked on. The spreadsheets were smoking by the time I got through with them. When I contacted Ballantine in two weeks, it was only to tell him I was still working the project. Unlike some of my other jobs, in this one I didn’t have a single answer already packaged. In my other jobs the chief or sheriff already knew what he wanted to do and simply needed an outsider to give him a third-party...
January 2007 Mom was very upset that I wasn’t going to come home on my leave. She just wasn’t buying my explanation about losing my squad. She wanted me to come home, squad or no squad. I think Dad understood, and he told me that his father understood, but Mom was very unhappy. I had been in the Army now for four Christmases, and three had been spent in Iraq. I didn’t even bother telling her about the incident at Yankee North. One of her latest kicks was, “Are you the only soldier in Iraq?...
It seemed late when we finished dinner. There was a Welcome Aboard talk in the ship’s theater and after that we did a bit more exploring. There were all sorts of stuff on the boat, including a shopping center with incredibly overpriced stuff, a casino, and a bunch more bars, restaurants, and lounges. We walked around the deck and then went back to our cabin, where we discovered it had been made up, the bed turned down, and an odd animal formed out of some folded towels. Kelly decided she...
I was able to get in to see Captain Crowley on Thursday morning. Another young officer, African-American this time, was the one who escorted me in, and this time Crowley had some paperwork on his desk. I got the impression that after this meeting it would be time to shit or get off the pot. Crowley outlined the procedure to apply, and then reviewed the pay and benefits. “Grim, as an Administrative Assistant you make a bit more than minimum wage, but it’s a full-time job and it qualifies you...
June 2004 - August 2004 Word came down from Battalion that the rest of Second Brigade would be deploying to Iraq soon. It was expected that they would show up sometime in July, but no dates were available. What they would do then was not known, or at least not known to us down at Camp Custer. Where exactly they would be positioned wasn’t known or might change before they got here. However, one interesting tidbit came out. Fourth of the Fourth was going to get some leave. Over the next few...
For the last few days President Trump had been on a Twitter rampage, demanding that the NFL players stand during the anthem, demanding the team owners and coaches fire them if they didn’t, and promising dire actions otherwise. Both Jack and I were getting slammed left and right, me for not complaining about the football players’ protests and Jack for not doing more. He was also bitching about Puerto Rico, primary elections, and fake news. No wonder he wasn’t doing his job - he was spending...
2024 Sunday, I helped Jack get home. He had chartered a plane to fly from California to Matucket (“ Can you imagine flying commercial through Atlanta with a wheelchair?”) so I simply drove over to their house Sunday morning and helped him out of the house and down to his rental. None of our homes had ramps and I asked whether we should build some for their next visit. “Grim, I’m not sure you should bother. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here any time soon.” “Jack...” “Grim, I just...
I never really passed out, but I wasn’t in a mood to keep talking. The immediate threat was contained, and since I was trapped under a tree and wounded, I wasn’t going to wander around the battlefield. After a few minutes I began to hear sirens, both police and fire department; I wouldn’t be alone for long. I twisted my head to the left but couldn’t see to the end of the driveway out on Lakeside Drive. I did see flashing lights approaching, and the sirens went silent. Moments later I heard a...
Grandpa was right about some of what he had said. I googled ‘medal of honor procedure’ later and it turned out there was a huge process involved in giving the Medal of Honor. Once the recommendation worked its way up from Battalion to Brigade and then to Division, it landed at the Pentagon. At least two boards in the Human Resources Command had to approve it, and then it went before the Chief of Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of...
Thursday morning was an exercise in controlled chaos. I had time to do a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon, which could be a bit of a luxury. I tried to cook a nice family breakfast on weekends but shift work with the MPD meant I frequently missed weekends. At least three of us ate well. Seamus only ate Froot Loops; he was almost three and was still a knucklehead in the Terrible Twos. After breakfast Kelly put Riley and me to work cleaning the house. Seamus, on the other...
Captain Crowley simply congratulated me on making it through SWAT and then told me that I needed to call CBS in New York. He gave me a phone number and told me to let him know what was going on. For my mind, I was basically done with publicity. The Army had mustered me out a second time, so they couldn’t order me back to New York, and if 60 Minutes wanted to do something on the MPD, they had to come to us in any case. The call went smoothly. Now that I was home from the Academy, CBS felt...
Mom went back to work down in the ER the next morning, which I found a blessing. I mean, I loved my mother, but she was driving me completely nuts hanging around the room with me. She still dropped in at lunchtime, but I could handle that. Otherwise, I had her bring in a few books from home that I could read holding up with my left hand. Kelly came over after school on Tuesday. She had worked out an arrangement to take a different bus over to the hospital, and then either Mom would take her...
Friday started out like most other days. We got Riley off to school on the bus, and Kelly loaded Seamus in the Sienna to take to day care at Matucket State. The big difference was that we dug out all the luggage. While she was at class, I packed all my formal stuff in a hanging bag, with the rest in a suitcase. As soon as Kelly and Seamus came home, she grabbed her stuff out of the closet and told me to start packing, while she packed everything for the kids. It became a mad rush, since I...
Friday, February 16, 2001 School had just started again after the winter break. I was hanging out after lunch with some friends near the south stairwell lockers, with Tilly next to me, when Terry Watson muttered, “Holy shit!” as he looked at something behind me. I turned around and didn’t see anything unusual, at least not at first. What I did see looked like a bunch of girls hugging. Then I saw one of the girls turn around and come over towards us. She was slim, about my height, with...
Jack managed to finagle a ride home with a couple of cheerleaders who were juniors. I have no idea if he got anything more from them than a lift home, and I didn’t want to know. One of these days my brother’s love life was going to bite him in the ass. Some girl was going to find him with another girl, and there would be hell to pay. Hopefully she wouldn’t be carrying a weapon when that happened. The Sports Section headline Saturday morning was “UNDERDOG PIONEERS CRUSH WARRIORS!” I had no...
I knew what the citation said; whether I believed it was a different question. It didn’t matter much. I stood there, kept my mouth shut, and looked straight ahead. The President put the ribbon around my neck, and everybody saluted and applauded. He gave me a whispered, ‘At ease.’, and I was able to break position and shake his hand in thanks. That was the end of the official ceremony, and it was time for a meet-and-greet. Mister and Mrs. Obama escorted me down off the stage and over to where...
Police work was vastly different from military life. One of the biggest differences was that the U.S. Army was quite monolithic, in the sense that everybody trained and fought the same way. Every infantryman trained at Fort Benning. Every helicopter crewman trained at Fort Rucker. Every medic trained at Fort Sam Houston. You get the idea. The same could be said at any camp or fort in the country. Everybody did things the same. There’s a reason they called it the ‘big green machine.’ It made...
Saturday, October 24, 2009 My schedule that week was the night shift, Tuesday to Friday, and then I would have off, Saturday to Tuesday. That worked out well, since Saturday was my parents’ anniversary, and both Kelly and I would have the day off. I would be able to sleep late and then we could go over to the house later. Since it was their Silver Anniversary, the plan was for Bobbie Joe, Kelly, and me to take the parental units out to a nice dinner. Jack and Teresa couldn’t be there, of...
That was basically the end of the craziness. From Chicago we flew home for a long weekend. Monday, we flew back to New York, and I went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which proved interesting. Stewart was on the liberal side of the spectrum, but he always showed a lot of respect to the soldiers even as he crucified the politicians who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the interview was the standard questions, but at the end he asked me something nobody else had asked. Stewart:...
It looked like almost the entire platoon had arrived, led by Lieutenant Southerland. They rolled up to the front gate, actually driving over various body parts as they did so and stopped. The crashed Apache blocked the way in. The first guys to come inside the compound simply stood there and stared at the carnage, though a couple of guys tossed their cookies. Eventually somebody noticed I was standing there and Southerland and another couple of guys ran over to me. “Sergeant Reaper! Sergeant...
Our first game of the season was at the end of the month, the last Friday of August, the 30th. It was a home game with North Cobb High, from up in Kennesaw. They were from a wealthy suburb of Atlanta, and North Cobb was a big school, certainly bigger than us. That was important in high school football, since the more students you had, the more likely you’ll be able to find better players. I commented on that to Kelly once, and she said something about Gaussian distributions and standard...
Things moved along through the summer. At times it seemed as if for every step we took forward we were taking two steps back. Still, some good things happened. Our new Auto Theft Division made a major arrest mid-June. They grabbed a few cars out of the impound yard and fitted them with GPS trackers and allowed them to be stolen. That generated enough information to get warrants on a pair of ‘chop shops’, garages where stolen cars could be taken and stripped for parts. Lieutenant Dupree of...
October 2007 - December 2007 Mid-October, about when it became obvious that I was going to stick it out and go to the academy, Tim Hungerford showed up at the rickety-bench-with-delusions-of-grandeur that I called my desk. He had a packet of paperwork with him. “Take a break,” he ordered. “You need to look this stuff over.” I looked at him. “Why? What is it?” “It’s the packet from the academy.” “Ah!” I nodded at that. “Let’s take a look. You’ve been through this, right?” Tim nodded....
January 2008 - March 2008 When I went back to work, I let Captain Carson know about meeting the Gorsky family, and that I was sure that a lawsuit was on the way. Both he and Lieutenant Brownell quizzed me on what I had told the Gorskys and I swore six ways from Sunday that I hadn’t said anything that could be construed as an admission of guilt. Their general feeling was that we would be named in the suit, but we could dump any responsibility onto the Sheriff’s office, since they ran the jail...
March to May, 2002 Mom was not at all amused by my thinking. All through dinner, which Kelly and I nuked in the microwave to warm up, she badgered me about why I was joining the Army. I pretty much gave her the same reasons as I gave my girlfriend. Dad mostly just sat there and listened. He insisted that they had to meet Sergeant Donaldson, and that I was not doing anything until after I got out of school. Eventually I could escape, and I took Kelly out and we went over to the mall, to do...
Friday, September 1, 2017 “Gentlemen, I have had it. I hereby resign my position as a member of the human race. There is no possible way I share any genetic material with what I had to put up with today.” So saying, I settled myself onto a barstool in the center of the bar at the Cherokee Grill. Around me my fellow police officers laughed. Mack Waterhouse, the owner of the bar and a former MPD lieutenant, came over and smiled. “Feel free to tell your friendly bartender what your problem is,...
We slept in the next morning, and I informed Kelly that she needed to pass an audition like I had done with her. How was I to know that she wasn’t a demanding wife? What if she was only interested in me for my body, and not my mind? That got me a smart-ass comment from her, “Really? You want to go there? Grim, you need to stick with your body! Your mind ain’t going to cut it!” That earned her a sharp smack on the ass, and I tickled her until she shrieked and begged me to stop. That led to her...
Monday, May 26, 2008 Certain things worked out for me. The bullshit out of the CORB had gotten pretty extreme, and the Justice Department planned to investigate them and not me. The Review Board wasn’t helped when Pendergast was caught saying that he was hoping for the dissolution of the entire Matucket Police Department and its replacement by a federally supervised police force. That was considered more than a bit nutty, even for hard-core Democrats. In any case, it got me off the hook with...