The Lovestruck Tackling Dummy of Fillmore High School by Patrick Carella
Set in 1973, Chris is an asset on the football field on account of his size, but when he reaches high school things get complicated.
I was always big for my age.
At birth, I tipped the scale at ten pounds, twenty-three inches.
My poor mother.
Growing up, I was usually the biggest kid in class - or at least top two. You'd think it gave me an edge. Sometimes it did. Other times, like when some older, undersized kid with a chip on his shoulder decided to beat me up just for being bigger - not so much.
I was always picked first in basketball and football choose-ups. I was also the first of my friends to shop the Men's Department at John Wanamaker's.
My feet were big too. Dad loved making the same dumb joke whenever we bought sneakers:
"I hope you have some oars to go with those canoes! Yuk, yuk, yuk!"
I'd been playing football as long as I could remember - loping across fields like a modern-day Paul Bunyan, tossing kids aside. I modeled my game after Chicago Bear great Dick Butkus, famous for his bone-crushing tackles and violent play.
But Dick had two things I didn't: natural ability and a mean streak. In high school, coaches prized both. My sandlot domination was just a pre-adolescent farce - a pantomime of real football. High school was the real deal.
At fourteen, I was still considered big - but plenty of kids had caught up. Some were stronger. Faster. Just plain bigger. Like Raymond Petrovic, a guy from middle school also trying out for JV. Six-foot-four, two-twenty. That's big at any age.
My Summer daydreams promised me big things for high school - exactly like Walt Disney intended it - except in Yonkers: sun-filtered, hallowed hallways echoing with glee clubs singing the school fight song, Fred MacMurray hunched over a Bunsen burner with a test tube clutched in tongs, cheerleaders competing for my attention, burgers and malts after school, drag races, and me in maroon-and-white sweater with an embroidered football and big "F" stitched on it. Maybe they'd even give me a cool nickname. Something like "Moose."
I was delusional.
I'd never followed a workout regimen. But I could press a hundred pounds over my head! I was plenty strong enough for JV football! Or so I thought.
Running? Sure, I could run. But I was going to be a lineman - the big guys who block and tackle and maybe shuffle a bit. I didn't need to run. I was already in peak shape.
I didn't know shit.
Helmets, shoulder pads, padded pants, and flak jackets - to protect your ribs - were school-issued. I was on the hook for cleats, a mouth guard, and something called a cup - an athletic supporter with a pouch for a hard plastic insert to protect the "family jewels."
There was a period of groinal acclimation. The thing cramped your thighs and felt exactly like what it was - an unforgiving, inflexible foreign object clamped over your gonads like a hard plastic prison. It looked a lot like a fighter pilot's mask - with holes.
The next morning, I tied the laces of my new molded Puma cleats and slung them over my shoulder, put my cup and towel into a little satchel borrowed from Dad, hopped into his service van, and we were off.
I got to practice a day late - I'd waited until the last minute for my physical. The school needed it to make sure you were healthy enough to play - and to cover their ass in case someone dropped dead on the field.
Six-foot one. 205 lbs. Obese. That's what the chart read.
The standard for obesity was a lot different in 1973.
I was fourteen years old.
Dad dropped me off behind the school, near the field and locker rooms. I walked down the concrete risers toward a group of guys gathered outside the JV locker room, next to Varsity's.
A few kids I knew from middle and elementary school called out, "Hey, Chris." Others gave the standard head nod. Some shot mildly hostile glares. And some just sized me up and looked away.
I handed my health clearance to the coach. "Hey Coach Boyce! I remember you from P.S. 18 - You were our gym teacher!"
He stared straight ahead. "Yeah, go grab a helmet in the gym and join the rest of the team."
It was indeed Ryan F. Boyce, former gym teacher at P.S. 18, now head coach of Fillmore JV. He clearly wasn't in the mood for nostalgia.
The gym was dark and smelled musty - school wouldn't start for weeks. At the far end, I spotted a scattering of leftover purple helmets.
Two kinds: the familiar round ones, and others that looked like they'd time-traveled out of the 1950s - long, almost flat on top, like something Merlin Jones might've worn in an old Annette Funicello movie. I was amazed they had facemasks. Some still sported the school's 1960s paint scheme.
Both styles had a six-inch-wide, vinyl-covered foam strip slapped across the crown - extra protection, I guessed. A white stripe divided the maroon down the middle.
I picked up a normal-looking helmet. Size 7. Too small. Tried another. Still tiny. Each felt made for a pea-sized head. I grabbed one of the antique skull shells and slipped it on, silently praying it wouldn't fit.
It fit like it was custom-made.
Oh God. I walked back to the field, head drooping, when I heard:
"Hey look, Cardarelli got a Ramjet."
It was a sophomore.
Didn't take long to figure it out. It was the helmet - Roger Ramjet, the cartoon hero with the weird, trapezoidal helmet and massive rye-bread-shaped ear pods.
Too bad I'd stopped trick-or-treating. I could've thrown on the helmet, slapped the testicle protection cup over my face, and gone as a pilot.
Other guys had the same helmet, but no one pulled off the "just landed from Mars" look quite like me.
Coach Boyce called us all in.
"Okay, we're gonna do a few laps."
No "welcome." No season outlook. No motivational speech.
Just: "Run."
We strapped on our helmets and jogged to the track. The fit and fast took the lead. I was toward the back.
Two sophomores led the pack, shouting oaths about "Winning the City!" and "Kicking Franklin's ass!"
Franklin High: our crosstown nemesis.
We rounded the track. I figured we were done.
We did three more laps.
An even mile.
When we stopped, I bent over, hands on knees, lungs pinched, heart doing a John Bonham solo. What the hell had I signed up for?
Coach Zucharelli - "Coach Zuke" to those who loved him - put us through a series of sweat-fueled tortures:
Monkey rolls, Cariocas, wheelbarrows.
And finally: wind sprints.
A drill dreamed up by the devil himself.
Coach Zuke called us in. "Tomorrow, same time. Pads next week. Go home and rest."
I used to love the smell of freshly cut grass in summer - picnics at Glen Island, kites, freedom. Now it reeked of burning lungs, sore muscles, and sweaty underwear.
Every day, the cycle repeated. Next week: two-a-days in full pads - hitting sleds, hitting each other, running like sun-stroked water buffalo, singing in military cadence.
After morning practice, I'd go home, shower, eat something light - didn't want to vomit on a teammate - and lie down, wondering why I was doing this.
Then it was back for round two.
That's when I learned the varsity - Juniors and Seniors - were off at something called "camp." Judging by the tone, it wasn't fun.
Varsity. The word struck fear into every freshman. The stories followed: locker room raids by older players. Kids taped up and ripped clean. Heat balm smeared into jocks - pain kicking in too late.
A rite of passage.
One day, we heard a horrible sound - something big, moving.
The varsity had returned.
Their arrival was thunderous. Their cleated feet - metal - notched the tiled floors with a clatter that echoed like tree-trunk concussions.
We kept practicing while they warmed up and took the field.
These were full-grown humans. Bigger. Faster. Some rumored to have kids. They played like it - with speed, violence, precision. Passes sailed across the field. Dust clouds kicked up in their wake.
"JV" stood for junior varsity. And we were junior in every way.
Practice dragged on another 90 minutes.
Our field was that in name only. Turf along the edges. In the center: patchy, dusty, bald like it had horticultural male-pattern baldness.
By the end, we looked like brown coal miners after a double shift.
I jogged toward the locker room, dust-covered, sweat-soaked, streaked in mud. And thirsty. So thirsty my throat clenched with every swallow.
Some of our guys were already in the showers, mouths open like turkeys in rain. Others lined up at the janitor's sink. The line stretched out the door.
The varsity plodded by, just as filthy and sweat-drenched.
One guy - Bobby Cello, starting left tackle - thudded past. Six-four, over three hundred pounds. Hands, legs, head - huge. He blocked out the sun.
His counterpart at right tackle, Carter Wilkinson, was only slightly smaller. Together, they disappeared into the varsity locker room like bank vaults on cleats.
Two trainers set the varsity water bucket beside our locker room. Still had a few gallons left.
I glanced at the line at the sink.
Then the bucket.
It glinted like a desert mirage. I thought about dunking my whole head in.
I reached for the ladle.
That's when Henry Maglone stepped in front of me.
A wall of human muscle. One of the five varsity guys we were warned to avoid. Nasty. Unpredictable. Borderline psycho.
"THIS is for varsity."
He didn't yell. Just stated it.
I smiled sheepishly. He left.
I dropped the ladle back in.
The cleats returned. Planted. Calves like bowling balls. He stood over me, arms akimbo.
I froze, mid sip. My body forgot how to move.
I never looked at that bucket - or Henry Maglone - again.
It was early September. School had started, and with it, a full-on high school curriculum. Practice kicked off at 3:30 sharp. While my body was getting a workout, my brain was still somewhere back in summer.
I couldn't make sense of a single thing in Mrs. Nachman's Regents Algebra class. Math was my kryptonite.
After school, I'd shuffle down to the locker room to suit up. A high school locker room in late summer is a thing to behold. Beyond the usual chaos - gear strewn everywhere - there was the smell.
It wasn't just body odor. It was a permanent funk: sour sweat, Ben Gay, testosterone. It clung to the cinderblock walls and didn't leave until Thanksgiving.
And not everyone shared the same sweat-to-stink ratio. Some guys were unapproachable even post-shower.
I saw some girls bouncing around on the track.
I started my pre-practice laps with a spring in my step, gliding like Hermes himself - Ramjet helmet and all - planning to cruise past them in a blur of beaming male hubrisity.
That was the plan.
Then they came into view - Auburn, flaxen, raven visions in motion.
Varsity cheerleaders.
My stride faltered. Legs turned to rubber. Cliché? Maybe. But you weren't there.
They moved in perfect harmony, gymnastic contortions synchronized to a conspiratorial rhythm designed specifically to derail adolescent motor skills.
I was barely moving now, bug-eyed under the Nagurski helmet, a lovesick lobster on parade.
These weren't the giggling classmates I'd just seen in Algebra. These were... women.
One of the muses stood out from all the rest.
She was about five-foot-eight with hair like a river of dark chestnut, deep and shadowy as a forest floor at dusk.
Her Mediterranean face framed dark, lively eyes, her calm countenance unaffected by the cheers she had memorized and performed.
Coach Zuke's voice cut through the air like a chainsaw.
"Cardarelli, you fat swine! Keep running, or you'll be doing hills till you die!"
Zuke called most people that. He wasn't exactly spry himself.
But one thing was clear: Cheerleaders and football were a dangerous mix.
Of all punishments, "the Hill" was the worst. Just a grass incline - forty-five degrees, fifty feet long - but pure hell. We were forced to sprint up and down while coaches at both ends barked to keep us moving.
They called it "conditioning."
Using my growing network - and a little recon - I got her name: Adrianne Fillippone.
Not a Junior. Not a Senior. A Sophomore.
But she looked more womanly than all of them.
She wore little bells on her cheerleading saddle shoes.
When she cantered by, the bells made a distinct musical sound, like the sleigh bell intro to the Beach Boys' "Dance, Dance, Dance." Every time I heard that song, I'd think of her. Still do.
Maybe there was more to this whole football thing than I had given credit for.
Practice trudged on - through heat, dust, and rain that turned the field to muck. Our first game was that weekend against Pelham.
Didn't matter. I was a benchwarmer. Not a rotational player. Not a specialist. A scrub.
I was convinced the Board of Ed swapped in aluminum benches just for me - so I wouldn't get splinters from all the sitting.
And I didn't ask my dad to come. Why should he? Just to watch the back of my jersey? I figured I'd wait until next year when I'd actually play. Then he could not show up to those games instead.
We shut out Pelham 16-0. Frenchie Williams, our quarterback, ran for two touchdowns. Varsity won too - rolling over the older Eagles.
What followed was one of the most euphoric weeks in Fillmore High history. Maybe in my life.
It started as murmurs - hallways, lunchroom, wood shop. Everyone was talking about the upcoming game against Franklin High - the perennial powerhouse.
Fillmore football had always been bad. But this year felt different.
Excitement built all week. Buttons with "Red Is Dead" (Franklin's colors were red and white) flew off the shelves at the Student Union.
Many of Fillmore's teachers were alumni - scarred by years of humiliating losses. You could hear the vengeance in Mr. Tomasino's voice as he blared morning announcements:
"I hope you're all there in the stands this Saturday as the Fillmore Rockets scalp the Franklin Tomahawks! I quote Bubbe Wozniak: 'Franklin is red, but'll soon be black and blue. The beating'll be merciless - it's long overdue. Red is Dead!'"
Bubbe Wozniak was a mystery. Junior? Senior? GPA unrecorded. But a legend.
He played both ways - offense and defense - and was a 1973 cornerstone. Coaches and teachers treated him like weaponized uranium: fascinating, powerful - stay away.
He'd been crowned toughest, craziest kid in school.
The Bubbe I encountered? Quiet. A guy who once taught me - an awkward fourteen-year-old - how to kick a field goal.
But when the whistle blew, he turned homicidal. On defense, he annihilated ball carriers.
In a game against Davis, he fumbled, chased down the guy who recovered it, and snatched the ball back.
By Thursday, the Semper Unum was everywhere.The pep rally promised to be a blowout. Varsity and JV players wore game jerseys to school.
Varsity cheerleaders whipped the crowd into a maroon-and-white frenzy.
The gym doors flew open. Varsity jogged in. The place exploded.
We were swept in behind them, caught in their jet stream. JV landed center court, in the eye of the storm.
Players were introduced. Then Mr. Monroe - beloved social studies teacher led us in the school fight song in his familiar Southern drawl.
The band exploded.
A thundering army of horns, snares, and bass drums surged to a cymbal-crashing crescendo.
Then over a thousand voices roared:
"We're gonna beat that other team...
FRANKLIN!
Rockets do or die...
We'll wage a bitter fight with
All of our might...
Fight on Fillmore High!"
When we shouted "FRANKLIN!" - the gym shook in a seismic tantrum.
Some of the older people in attendance dove under the bleachers.
After practice Friday, Zuke pulled the linemen in. He started quiet - talking about how big this game was, what it meant. Then he pivoted to Franklin's JV coach - an old high school rival. The more he talked, the redder his face got. Voice climbing, veins bulging, fury rising.
Tomorrow was the reckoning.
For "that fat swine."
By the end, he was nearly crying, voice cracking as he led us in a primal chant. Guys screamed. Fists pumped. We were frothing.
Even if I was stuck on the sidelines - tomorrow was going to be something else.
We boarded the bus bound for Franklin's home field on Hyland Avenue.
The ride was its own spectacle. The radio was cranked to a Top 100 FM station. Guys sang along at full volume, swapping in dirty lyrics. Case in point, "American Pie":
"Well, I know that you're in love with him 'Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym. You both pulled down your drawers..."
More song parodies followed - each one worse than the last - but they loosened us up.
The game began. The Pep Squad - each member paired with a JV player - shouted our names in giddy unison. I had to wait until next year, when Marcy Leibowitz, Pep Squad princess and minor crush, would shout mine.
Frenchie scored first on a QB sneak. Jarvis Edison followed with an end-around. Steve Washington, Chris Eiken, and Zach Lemmon had Franklin's offense in full retreat. Final score: Fillmore JV 16 - Franklin JV 0.
Zip. Zilch. Bupkis.
This team was a juggernaut. Coach Zuke was ecstatic - finally getting revenge on the fat swine.
Now for the big show: varsity.
I don't know why I showered when we got back to school - but I did. I grabbed something to eat before the game.
The sound hit before the sight.
The stands - normally a scatter of students - were packed. Fans from both sides. Marching bands. A live booth from WFAS. Food vendors, smoke curling from grills. The scene felt surreal.
If this was high school life, I was all in.
The teams took the field. The anthem played.
Kickoff.
The game was a slugfest. Every Fillmore touchdown answered by Franklin. Their star back, Ed Nether, kept them in it.
From my perch on the sideline, I noticed their eye black - some traditional, some painted into war masks. Red and yellow stripes. "Maroon Maneaters" scrawled on helmet tape. Some even had Mohawks under helmets.
At one point in the game, we had to punt, and the job fell to Eric Noggio, one of our star backs. The ball was snapped to him, and he launched it with a distinctive thud. A hush swept over the crowd as the Rawlings missile shot skyward. It entered the stratosphere, punched a hole clean through a nimbus, and kept climbing.
I think it was the first punt ever measured by stopwatch instead of yard marker - as far as I know, it's still up there - orbiting the Earth like a laced, leather satellite.
We were up 18-14 late in the fourth. Franklin was driving.
Their QB, Mike Pemberton, threw across the middle.
Hassy Davison - our linebacker - emerged from the dust and snagged it. Interception.
The whistle blew. The little dried pea stopped dancing in its stainless chamber. We'd clinched our first victory over Franklin in a decade.
I didn't go to the parties. There was drinking. I hadn't had my first beer. My parents heard about it and squashed the plan.
I woke up the next morning still drunk on victory. The high lasted a week.
Fillmore swept the season - both squads winning city championships for the first time in school history.
I even got in for a few plays. Wearing my brand-new, normal-looking helmet.
My Cinderella season had reached its end.
There would be other moments in high school and college. But nothing ever quite matched that fall.
When everything felt larger than life.
And for once - I got close enough to touch it.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/BtZTv6n
via IFTTT
 |
| Image generated with OpenAI |
At birth, I tipped the scale at ten pounds, twenty-three inches.
My poor mother.
Growing up, I was usually the biggest kid in class - or at least top two. You'd think it gave me an edge. Sometimes it did. Other times, like when some older, undersized kid with a chip on his shoulder decided to beat me up just for being bigger - not so much.
I was always picked first in basketball and football choose-ups. I was also the first of my friends to shop the Men's Department at John Wanamaker's.
My feet were big too. Dad loved making the same dumb joke whenever we bought sneakers:
"I hope you have some oars to go with those canoes! Yuk, yuk, yuk!"
I'd been playing football as long as I could remember - loping across fields like a modern-day Paul Bunyan, tossing kids aside. I modeled my game after Chicago Bear great Dick Butkus, famous for his bone-crushing tackles and violent play.
But Dick had two things I didn't: natural ability and a mean streak. In high school, coaches prized both. My sandlot domination was just a pre-adolescent farce - a pantomime of real football. High school was the real deal.
At fourteen, I was still considered big - but plenty of kids had caught up. Some were stronger. Faster. Just plain bigger. Like Raymond Petrovic, a guy from middle school also trying out for JV. Six-foot-four, two-twenty. That's big at any age.
My Summer daydreams promised me big things for high school - exactly like Walt Disney intended it - except in Yonkers: sun-filtered, hallowed hallways echoing with glee clubs singing the school fight song, Fred MacMurray hunched over a Bunsen burner with a test tube clutched in tongs, cheerleaders competing for my attention, burgers and malts after school, drag races, and me in maroon-and-white sweater with an embroidered football and big "F" stitched on it. Maybe they'd even give me a cool nickname. Something like "Moose."
I was delusional.
I'd never followed a workout regimen. But I could press a hundred pounds over my head! I was plenty strong enough for JV football! Or so I thought.
Running? Sure, I could run. But I was going to be a lineman - the big guys who block and tackle and maybe shuffle a bit. I didn't need to run. I was already in peak shape.
I didn't know shit.
Helmets, shoulder pads, padded pants, and flak jackets - to protect your ribs - were school-issued. I was on the hook for cleats, a mouth guard, and something called a cup - an athletic supporter with a pouch for a hard plastic insert to protect the "family jewels."
There was a period of groinal acclimation. The thing cramped your thighs and felt exactly like what it was - an unforgiving, inflexible foreign object clamped over your gonads like a hard plastic prison. It looked a lot like a fighter pilot's mask - with holes.
The next morning, I tied the laces of my new molded Puma cleats and slung them over my shoulder, put my cup and towel into a little satchel borrowed from Dad, hopped into his service van, and we were off.
I got to practice a day late - I'd waited until the last minute for my physical. The school needed it to make sure you were healthy enough to play - and to cover their ass in case someone dropped dead on the field.
Six-foot one. 205 lbs. Obese. That's what the chart read.
The standard for obesity was a lot different in 1973.
I was fourteen years old.
Dad dropped me off behind the school, near the field and locker rooms. I walked down the concrete risers toward a group of guys gathered outside the JV locker room, next to Varsity's.
A few kids I knew from middle and elementary school called out, "Hey, Chris." Others gave the standard head nod. Some shot mildly hostile glares. And some just sized me up and looked away.
I handed my health clearance to the coach. "Hey Coach Boyce! I remember you from P.S. 18 - You were our gym teacher!"
He stared straight ahead. "Yeah, go grab a helmet in the gym and join the rest of the team."
It was indeed Ryan F. Boyce, former gym teacher at P.S. 18, now head coach of Fillmore JV. He clearly wasn't in the mood for nostalgia.
The gym was dark and smelled musty - school wouldn't start for weeks. At the far end, I spotted a scattering of leftover purple helmets.
Two kinds: the familiar round ones, and others that looked like they'd time-traveled out of the 1950s - long, almost flat on top, like something Merlin Jones might've worn in an old Annette Funicello movie. I was amazed they had facemasks. Some still sported the school's 1960s paint scheme.
Both styles had a six-inch-wide, vinyl-covered foam strip slapped across the crown - extra protection, I guessed. A white stripe divided the maroon down the middle.
I picked up a normal-looking helmet. Size 7. Too small. Tried another. Still tiny. Each felt made for a pea-sized head. I grabbed one of the antique skull shells and slipped it on, silently praying it wouldn't fit.
It fit like it was custom-made.
Oh God. I walked back to the field, head drooping, when I heard:
"Hey look, Cardarelli got a Ramjet."
It was a sophomore.
Didn't take long to figure it out. It was the helmet - Roger Ramjet, the cartoon hero with the weird, trapezoidal helmet and massive rye-bread-shaped ear pods.
Too bad I'd stopped trick-or-treating. I could've thrown on the helmet, slapped the testicle protection cup over my face, and gone as a pilot.
Other guys had the same helmet, but no one pulled off the "just landed from Mars" look quite like me.
Coach Boyce called us all in.
"Okay, we're gonna do a few laps."
No "welcome." No season outlook. No motivational speech.
Just: "Run."
We strapped on our helmets and jogged to the track. The fit and fast took the lead. I was toward the back.
Two sophomores led the pack, shouting oaths about "Winning the City!" and "Kicking Franklin's ass!"
Franklin High: our crosstown nemesis.
We rounded the track. I figured we were done.
We did three more laps.
An even mile.
When we stopped, I bent over, hands on knees, lungs pinched, heart doing a John Bonham solo. What the hell had I signed up for?
Coach Zucharelli - "Coach Zuke" to those who loved him - put us through a series of sweat-fueled tortures:
Monkey rolls, Cariocas, wheelbarrows.
And finally: wind sprints.
A drill dreamed up by the devil himself.
Coach Zuke called us in. "Tomorrow, same time. Pads next week. Go home and rest."
I used to love the smell of freshly cut grass in summer - picnics at Glen Island, kites, freedom. Now it reeked of burning lungs, sore muscles, and sweaty underwear.
Every day, the cycle repeated. Next week: two-a-days in full pads - hitting sleds, hitting each other, running like sun-stroked water buffalo, singing in military cadence.
After morning practice, I'd go home, shower, eat something light - didn't want to vomit on a teammate - and lie down, wondering why I was doing this.
Then it was back for round two.
That's when I learned the varsity - Juniors and Seniors - were off at something called "camp." Judging by the tone, it wasn't fun.
Varsity. The word struck fear into every freshman. The stories followed: locker room raids by older players. Kids taped up and ripped clean. Heat balm smeared into jocks - pain kicking in too late.
A rite of passage.
One day, we heard a horrible sound - something big, moving.
The varsity had returned.
Their arrival was thunderous. Their cleated feet - metal - notched the tiled floors with a clatter that echoed like tree-trunk concussions.
We kept practicing while they warmed up and took the field.
These were full-grown humans. Bigger. Faster. Some rumored to have kids. They played like it - with speed, violence, precision. Passes sailed across the field. Dust clouds kicked up in their wake.
"JV" stood for junior varsity. And we were junior in every way.
Practice dragged on another 90 minutes.
Our field was that in name only. Turf along the edges. In the center: patchy, dusty, bald like it had horticultural male-pattern baldness.
By the end, we looked like brown coal miners after a double shift.
I jogged toward the locker room, dust-covered, sweat-soaked, streaked in mud. And thirsty. So thirsty my throat clenched with every swallow.
Some of our guys were already in the showers, mouths open like turkeys in rain. Others lined up at the janitor's sink. The line stretched out the door.
The varsity plodded by, just as filthy and sweat-drenched.
One guy - Bobby Cello, starting left tackle - thudded past. Six-four, over three hundred pounds. Hands, legs, head - huge. He blocked out the sun.
His counterpart at right tackle, Carter Wilkinson, was only slightly smaller. Together, they disappeared into the varsity locker room like bank vaults on cleats.
Two trainers set the varsity water bucket beside our locker room. Still had a few gallons left.
I glanced at the line at the sink.
Then the bucket.
It glinted like a desert mirage. I thought about dunking my whole head in.
I reached for the ladle.
That's when Henry Maglone stepped in front of me.
A wall of human muscle. One of the five varsity guys we were warned to avoid. Nasty. Unpredictable. Borderline psycho.
"THIS is for varsity."
He didn't yell. Just stated it.
I smiled sheepishly. He left.
I dropped the ladle back in.
The cleats returned. Planted. Calves like bowling balls. He stood over me, arms akimbo.
I froze, mid sip. My body forgot how to move.
I never looked at that bucket - or Henry Maglone - again.
It was early September. School had started, and with it, a full-on high school curriculum. Practice kicked off at 3:30 sharp. While my body was getting a workout, my brain was still somewhere back in summer.
I couldn't make sense of a single thing in Mrs. Nachman's Regents Algebra class. Math was my kryptonite.
After school, I'd shuffle down to the locker room to suit up. A high school locker room in late summer is a thing to behold. Beyond the usual chaos - gear strewn everywhere - there was the smell.
It wasn't just body odor. It was a permanent funk: sour sweat, Ben Gay, testosterone. It clung to the cinderblock walls and didn't leave until Thanksgiving.
And not everyone shared the same sweat-to-stink ratio. Some guys were unapproachable even post-shower.
I saw some girls bouncing around on the track.
I started my pre-practice laps with a spring in my step, gliding like Hermes himself - Ramjet helmet and all - planning to cruise past them in a blur of beaming male hubrisity.
That was the plan.
Then they came into view - Auburn, flaxen, raven visions in motion.
Varsity cheerleaders.
My stride faltered. Legs turned to rubber. Cliché? Maybe. But you weren't there.
They moved in perfect harmony, gymnastic contortions synchronized to a conspiratorial rhythm designed specifically to derail adolescent motor skills.
I was barely moving now, bug-eyed under the Nagurski helmet, a lovesick lobster on parade.
These weren't the giggling classmates I'd just seen in Algebra. These were... women.
One of the muses stood out from all the rest.
She was about five-foot-eight with hair like a river of dark chestnut, deep and shadowy as a forest floor at dusk.
Her Mediterranean face framed dark, lively eyes, her calm countenance unaffected by the cheers she had memorized and performed.
Coach Zuke's voice cut through the air like a chainsaw.
"Cardarelli, you fat swine! Keep running, or you'll be doing hills till you die!"
Zuke called most people that. He wasn't exactly spry himself.
But one thing was clear: Cheerleaders and football were a dangerous mix.
Of all punishments, "the Hill" was the worst. Just a grass incline - forty-five degrees, fifty feet long - but pure hell. We were forced to sprint up and down while coaches at both ends barked to keep us moving.
They called it "conditioning."
Using my growing network - and a little recon - I got her name: Adrianne Fillippone.
Not a Junior. Not a Senior. A Sophomore.
But she looked more womanly than all of them.
She wore little bells on her cheerleading saddle shoes.
When she cantered by, the bells made a distinct musical sound, like the sleigh bell intro to the Beach Boys' "Dance, Dance, Dance." Every time I heard that song, I'd think of her. Still do.
Maybe there was more to this whole football thing than I had given credit for.
Practice trudged on - through heat, dust, and rain that turned the field to muck. Our first game was that weekend against Pelham.
Didn't matter. I was a benchwarmer. Not a rotational player. Not a specialist. A scrub.
I was convinced the Board of Ed swapped in aluminum benches just for me - so I wouldn't get splinters from all the sitting.
And I didn't ask my dad to come. Why should he? Just to watch the back of my jersey? I figured I'd wait until next year when I'd actually play. Then he could not show up to those games instead.
We shut out Pelham 16-0. Frenchie Williams, our quarterback, ran for two touchdowns. Varsity won too - rolling over the older Eagles.
What followed was one of the most euphoric weeks in Fillmore High history. Maybe in my life.
It started as murmurs - hallways, lunchroom, wood shop. Everyone was talking about the upcoming game against Franklin High - the perennial powerhouse.
Fillmore football had always been bad. But this year felt different.
Excitement built all week. Buttons with "Red Is Dead" (Franklin's colors were red and white) flew off the shelves at the Student Union.
Many of Fillmore's teachers were alumni - scarred by years of humiliating losses. You could hear the vengeance in Mr. Tomasino's voice as he blared morning announcements:
"I hope you're all there in the stands this Saturday as the Fillmore Rockets scalp the Franklin Tomahawks! I quote Bubbe Wozniak: 'Franklin is red, but'll soon be black and blue. The beating'll be merciless - it's long overdue. Red is Dead!'"
Bubbe Wozniak was a mystery. Junior? Senior? GPA unrecorded. But a legend.
He played both ways - offense and defense - and was a 1973 cornerstone. Coaches and teachers treated him like weaponized uranium: fascinating, powerful - stay away.
He'd been crowned toughest, craziest kid in school.
The Bubbe I encountered? Quiet. A guy who once taught me - an awkward fourteen-year-old - how to kick a field goal.
But when the whistle blew, he turned homicidal. On defense, he annihilated ball carriers.
In a game against Davis, he fumbled, chased down the guy who recovered it, and snatched the ball back.
By Thursday, the Semper Unum was everywhere.The pep rally promised to be a blowout. Varsity and JV players wore game jerseys to school.
Varsity cheerleaders whipped the crowd into a maroon-and-white frenzy.
The gym doors flew open. Varsity jogged in. The place exploded.
We were swept in behind them, caught in their jet stream. JV landed center court, in the eye of the storm.
Players were introduced. Then Mr. Monroe - beloved social studies teacher led us in the school fight song in his familiar Southern drawl.
The band exploded.
A thundering army of horns, snares, and bass drums surged to a cymbal-crashing crescendo.
Then over a thousand voices roared:
"We're gonna beat that other team...
FRANKLIN!
Rockets do or die...
We'll wage a bitter fight with
All of our might...
Fight on Fillmore High!"
When we shouted "FRANKLIN!" - the gym shook in a seismic tantrum.
Some of the older people in attendance dove under the bleachers.
After practice Friday, Zuke pulled the linemen in. He started quiet - talking about how big this game was, what it meant. Then he pivoted to Franklin's JV coach - an old high school rival. The more he talked, the redder his face got. Voice climbing, veins bulging, fury rising.
Tomorrow was the reckoning.
For "that fat swine."
By the end, he was nearly crying, voice cracking as he led us in a primal chant. Guys screamed. Fists pumped. We were frothing.
Even if I was stuck on the sidelines - tomorrow was going to be something else.
We boarded the bus bound for Franklin's home field on Hyland Avenue.
The ride was its own spectacle. The radio was cranked to a Top 100 FM station. Guys sang along at full volume, swapping in dirty lyrics. Case in point, "American Pie":
"Well, I know that you're in love with him 'Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym. You both pulled down your drawers..."
More song parodies followed - each one worse than the last - but they loosened us up.
The game began. The Pep Squad - each member paired with a JV player - shouted our names in giddy unison. I had to wait until next year, when Marcy Leibowitz, Pep Squad princess and minor crush, would shout mine.
Frenchie scored first on a QB sneak. Jarvis Edison followed with an end-around. Steve Washington, Chris Eiken, and Zach Lemmon had Franklin's offense in full retreat. Final score: Fillmore JV 16 - Franklin JV 0.
Zip. Zilch. Bupkis.
This team was a juggernaut. Coach Zuke was ecstatic - finally getting revenge on the fat swine.
Now for the big show: varsity.
I don't know why I showered when we got back to school - but I did. I grabbed something to eat before the game.
The sound hit before the sight.
The stands - normally a scatter of students - were packed. Fans from both sides. Marching bands. A live booth from WFAS. Food vendors, smoke curling from grills. The scene felt surreal.
If this was high school life, I was all in.
The teams took the field. The anthem played.
Kickoff.
The game was a slugfest. Every Fillmore touchdown answered by Franklin. Their star back, Ed Nether, kept them in it.
From my perch on the sideline, I noticed their eye black - some traditional, some painted into war masks. Red and yellow stripes. "Maroon Maneaters" scrawled on helmet tape. Some even had Mohawks under helmets.
At one point in the game, we had to punt, and the job fell to Eric Noggio, one of our star backs. The ball was snapped to him, and he launched it with a distinctive thud. A hush swept over the crowd as the Rawlings missile shot skyward. It entered the stratosphere, punched a hole clean through a nimbus, and kept climbing.
I think it was the first punt ever measured by stopwatch instead of yard marker - as far as I know, it's still up there - orbiting the Earth like a laced, leather satellite.
We were up 18-14 late in the fourth. Franklin was driving.
Their QB, Mike Pemberton, threw across the middle.
Hassy Davison - our linebacker - emerged from the dust and snagged it. Interception.
The whistle blew. The little dried pea stopped dancing in its stainless chamber. We'd clinched our first victory over Franklin in a decade.
I didn't go to the parties. There was drinking. I hadn't had my first beer. My parents heard about it and squashed the plan.
I woke up the next morning still drunk on victory. The high lasted a week.
Fillmore swept the season - both squads winning city championships for the first time in school history.
I even got in for a few plays. Wearing my brand-new, normal-looking helmet.
My Cinderella season had reached its end.
There would be other moments in high school and college. But nothing ever quite matched that fall.
When everything felt larger than life.
And for once - I got close enough to touch it.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/BtZTv6n
via IFTTT
Comments
Post a Comment