Chapter 25: Behind the Scenes

05 January 1992 – Hardwick Road, Enfield, Massachusetts

“You’ve made incredible progress in the two and a half months we’ve worked together, Darrin.”

“I had to, Coach, if I wanted to stop getting shoved into the boards, dropped to the ice, having my pocket picked...”

“Okay, you ready?”

Darrin nodded. Jeff snapped a low pass from the left corner, well to the side of the net. Darrin waited in the left slot. He blasted the puck back at the net, sending it through one of the small openings of the target tied over the goalmouth. Jeff fed him pass after pass. Darrin placed shot after shot perfectly, changing his targets and scoring goal after goal.

“GO!” Jeff shouted after Darrin scored on the last shot.

Darrin broke for the far end of the ice. Jeff moved behind the net they’d been using, retrieving the puck he reserved. Darrin came back down the ice at full speed. Jeff played a defenseman clearing the puck out of his end. Jeff passed the puck to Darrin as the freshman curled back out of the zone.

Darrin picked up the pass in stride and drove back down the ice. He curled around the far net and came back at Jeff, now playing against Darrin. Darrin closed on Jeff at full speed. He shifted to his backhand side to pass Jeff. Jeff leaned to follow. Darrin popped the puck through Jeff’s legs. Darrin cut hard to his forehand side and blew by Jeff in a split second. Jeff turned in time to see Darrin blast a shot from the top of the face-off circle. The puck entered the net’ top-shelf,’ just under the crossbar.

“YES!” Darrin yelled, pumping his fist.

Darrin turned back to Jeff with a wide smile. Jeff skated over and bumped gloves with the freshman, and then ruffled his hair.

“Nice job! It’s good to see you’re still sharp, even after the Christmas break. If you don’t make the team next year, I’ll eat my jock.”

“Um, eww, Coach?”

“All right, maybe not my jock. Maybe one of those pickle-covered abominations you call a hot dog in Chi-town.”

“Don’t knock ‘em ‘till you’ve tried ‘em, Coach.”

“Hey, John, how was your break?” Jeff asked John Kessler when he walked into the coach’s office the next day. The head coach sat at his desk with his head in his hands.

“It was good, until today,” the older man grumbled.

“Why? What happened?”

“Wisnewski’s out. Academically ineligible. Almost straight Fs on his report card. That’s going to leave us short at left wing.”

“Man!”

The team was well-balanced this year, though only average in performance. The team needed a spark of greatness before, but this was going to cause significant problems now. Then a lightbulb went off for Jeff.

“Are we allowed to replace him?”

“Sure, but with who?”

“I’ve got an idea. I’ll fill you in at practice.”

Darrin dropped his books on the desk in his dorm room in Hampden Hall. His first full day of classes following the Christmas break was over. He had about two hours before he needed to meet Coach Knox for his workout session. It was Monday, so that meant on-ice leg day. He’d be lucky if he were able to walk back to his room afterward. A knock at Darrin’s door shook him from his musings.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Opportunity!” came the reply. That sounded like Coach Knox’s voice. Darrin opened the door and discovered he was right. “Grab your stuff, and let’s hit the ice, kid!”

“Wha...? What do you mean, Coach? Don’t we have to wait for practice to be over?”

“Not when you’re practicing with the team! Let’s go, Whitmore! Move with a purpose!”

“With the team?”

“We’re gonna be late if you don’t pick it up, Darrin!”

Darrin grabbed his already-packed hockey bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“Why am I practicing with the team today?”

“Because there’s an open roster spot for a left winger, and I mean to get you on that roster! Let’s go! Shag it!”

Jeff led the way to the field house. He directed Darrin into the referee’s changing room.

“Why am I changing in here?”

“You wanna spoil my surprise? Get dressed and start stretching. I’ll come to get you.”

Jeff hustled to the coach’s office to get changed himself.

“Where’d you go?”

“You’ll see in a few minutes, John. I found you a winger.”

“Okay...”

Jeff changed in record time. “I’ll see you on the ice, John.” He was out the door before John could say anything. He knocked on the ref’s room door two minutes later and stuck his head in. “You ready?”

“I’m so nervous I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Then you’re ready. Let’s go.”

John Kessler looked behind him when Jeff and Darrin emerged from the player’s tunnel to the locker rooms. “Darrin’s the player you’ve been working with for two months? He’s your special project?”

“You got anyone else ready to take Wisnewski’s spot? Let him prove you wrong, John. I’m telling you this kid’s ready.”

John looked at Jeff like he was shining him on. “All right, Darrin hit the ice.” Darrin charged through the boards and joined the team. “I hope you’re right, Jeff. I don’t want to disappoint this kid again.”

“He’s a sniper with rockets in his skates now, John. Just wait.”

John Kessler didn’t have to wait long. Darrin blew by the defenseman in the first round of drills and ripped a slap-shot past the goalie, stick-side low. He scored glove-side high the next time. The skating drill proved Jeff correct about Darrin’s speed as well.

“Son of a bitch! I thought you were feeding me a line of bull, Jeff, but damn!”

“He just needed some fine-tuning with skating and shooting. Is he back on the team?”

“Damn right!”

Jeff sat on the couch in his apartment, reviewing his EMT class notes later that week when his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jeff.”

“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

“Jeff, have you heard the rumblings at school?”

“Some low-level stuff with Wanamaker’s name attached, but what’s going on now, Mom? I haven’t been paying attention.”

“Jay Wanamaker’s trying to get you fired! He’s painting you as a violent, out-of-control veteran who’s not fit to be working with kids!”

“I guess that doesn’t surprise me. Is Wanamaker doing anything else?” He was counting to one hundred in his head, trying to keep his cool.

“He’s calling for a meeting of the entire high school faculty and staff! Then, he’ll try to have them vote to ask the Board of Trustees to remove you!” Marisa was upset.

“Mom, deep breath. Do you think that’s really going to go anywhere? When’s the meeting?”

“Next Monday, the thirteenth, at six-thirty pm. It’s going to be in the Feldman Auditorium.”

The gears already turned in Jeff’s head. “No worries, Mom. I’ve got this figured out.”

Jeff and his guest for the meeting entered the Feldman Auditorium just after 6:30 the following Monday evening. His accuser already railed at the pulpit. Jeff marched straight down the center aisle towards Jay Wanamaker.

“This meeting is for faculty and staff only!”

“Ah, how soon we forget, Mr. Wannabe...”

“It’s WanaMAKER!”

“Whatever. Did you forget about our first meeting? In the weight room?” Jeff pulled his school ID from his coat pocket. “I believe mine reads ’STAFF’ like everyone else’s in this room, except the sergeant here. Anyway, I understand I’m a dangerous and violently unstable veteran who is unsuitable to be around kids?”

“You are! You pointed a gun at four men!”

“Oh, do you mean the four men who broke into my apartment in the middle of the night? Those four men? What, no answer? STREAK! ROLL TAPE!”

The audio of Jeff’s 9-1-1 call sounded through the hall, carried by the well-placed speakers and excellent acoustics. When it ended, Jeff took up the story again.

“As you heard, I remained inside the apartment, just observing until they smashed the window on my door and entered my residence. Then, I held them at gunpoint until the police arrived and arrested them.”

“You had no call to do that! You could have left!”

“He had no duty to leave his apartment, Wanamaker!” Jack shouted from behind Jeff. He made a disgusted noise before stomping past Jeff. He grabbed the microphone off the podium, causing it to squeal.

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sergeant Jack Dwadczik of the Enfield Police Department. Mr. Knox is duly licensed to own firearms and has trained in their use. He also knows when not to use them. To answer Mr. Wanamaker’s assertion that Mr. Knox should have left his apartment to avoid confrontation: he had no requirement under the law to leave! NONE!”

“Allow me to quote Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 278, Section 8a for you:”

In the prosecution of a person who is an occupant of a dwelling charged with killing or injuring one who was unlawfully in said dwelling, it shall be a defense that the occupant was in his dwelling at the time of the offense and that he acted in the reasonable belief that the person unlawfully in said dwelling was about to inflict great bodily injury or death upon said occupant or upon another person lawfully in said dwelling, and that said occupant used reasonable means to defend himself or such other person lawfully in said dwelling. There shall be no duty on said occupant to retreat from such person unlawfully in said dwelling.

“If that person had taken one more step towards Mr. Knox on the night in question, Mr. Knox would have been justified in pulling the trigger on his shotgun. Instead, the courts arraigned all four intruders on multiple charges, including breaking into and entering Mr. Knox’s apartment. The only crimes committed that night were against Mr. Knox!”

“I completely agree, Sergeant!” a new voice called.

A woman strode down the aisle from the shadows at the back of the auditorium. She smiled at Jeff. Wanamaker she ignored, despite his signaling from behind the podium. Instead, she extended her hand, requesting the microphone. The woman nodded to Jack when he handed it to her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am...”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Hightower...?” Wanamaker tried to interrupt.

Meredith Hightower ignored him. “ ... Meredith Hightower. I am the Chair of...”

“Mrs. Hightower, please...”

“ ... the Board of Trustees...”

“Ma’am...?”

“Mister Knox!” she yelled, silencing Wanamaker.

“Yes, Ma’am?” Jeff answered.

“You spent some time in my home state of North Carolina while you were in the Army, did you not?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“If this person interrupts me again, I’d like to ask you to do something.”

“What’s that, Ma’am?”

“Would you stomp a mudhole in his ass and walk it dry, please?” she asked in her best Southern Belle voice. She asked with the sweetest smile ever on her face.

“It would be my pleasure, Ma’am.”

“Now, as I was trying to say, my name is Meredith Hightower, Chair of the Board of Trustees. I can see by your faces that most of you are here to support Mr. Knox and that you would have voted down any motion to try and dismiss him. So, therefore, I am here to tell you that regardless of the outcome of this meeting, Jeff Knox will remain on the staff here until he chooses to leave us.”

“For those of you who do not know Mr. Knox, allow me to fill you in on who he is. Mr. Knox is a native of this town, of Enfield, and has deep roots in this community. He graduated from this school in 1987, his sister in 1988. Mr. Knox decided to enlist in the United States Army upon graduation, where he volunteered for both the infantry and the paratroops. He is a combat veteran of both Panama and the Persian Gulf.”