Chapter 8: Time

Medway High School

12:45pm, Thursday, February 15, 1979

“Hello everyone!” Mrs. Pierce loudly said after the bell to start our seventh period English class sounded. “Did you miss me or were you enjoying your free time, yesterday?”

“A little of both,” Brad MacGee diplomatically said in response to our favorite English teacher’s question. A smattering of ‘yeah’ and ‘yes’ were murmured around me after Brad’s appropriate response.

“Ha, you can’t BS, a BSer,” she cackled out then loudly coughed several times and bent somewhat over her teacher’s desk. “Gee, excuse me there. I’m just not feeli...”

I was glad to see both Liz Morkings and Brad quickly jump up out of their front row seats and rushed up to Mrs. Pierce as she slowly sagged down behind her desk. Brad got to her first and prevented her from completely collapsing onto the ground, and Liz quickly wheeled her leather teacher’s chair behind her slouched, stout body.

Every one of us tenth graders stood up and looked to see if Mrs. Pierce was OK. Brad gently lowered her into her chair and Liz lifted one of her arms and laid it on her desk so she could put her head down on something a little softer than the bare desk.

As everyone was buzzing about Mrs. Pierce’s condition, I hustled towards the door and told Liz and Brad I would run down and bring the nurse up here. Heidi Amstrong also ran up front with me and said, “I’ll go and see about getting a glass of water or something for her.”

“‘K, thanks,” I heard Liz call out as she rubbed Mrs. Pierce’s back.

I ran down the front stairs and dodged a few students on my way to the nurse’s room. Unfortunately Ms. Randle wasn’t in her office, so I zipped into the main office to see if anyone knew where the school nurse was. I was told she went home with flu-like symptoms herself, earlier in day. When I told Miss Stone about Mrs. Pierce, both Principal Matherson and VP Williamson heard and came rushing out of their respective offices.

“She did what?” Mr. Williamson said as he hurried out to me around the main office counter. “I got this, Bill,” he said to our Principal. “I’ll buzz down if I need any other help.”

“Okay, Tom,” the somewhat frazzled 60ish year-old principal replied. “Keep me informed.”

“Uh, Mrs. Pierce just was starting our class when she had a coughing spell, and I think she may have passed out. Brad MacGee and Liz Morkings got to her before she went down on the floor, and Mrs. Pierce was resting in her chair as I ran down here.”

We took the front stairs two and three steps at a time. Coach Williamson still looked like he could play college basketball as he flew up the stairs and down the one-hundred feet or so to our English room. He rushed in to Mrs. Pierce and saw that she was awake but not super alert at the moment. She was taking small sips of water as Mr. Williamson asked, “Margaret, are OK? Do we need to call an ambulance for you?”

“I’m uh, okay, I think,” she softly said to Mr. Williamson. “I just felt a little light headed there, and I’m guessing I should have listened to Bob this morning, and stayed home another day.”

“You think?” the VP jokingly said to the pale but lightly grinning English teacher. A few of us students who were standing around her desk chuckled at that little wise crack. We knew the VP wasn’t being mean to Mrs. Pierce, and that it was probably something she would have said to him or anyone really if the roles were reversed.

When VP Williamson finally saw us smiling after seeing our teacher pass out, he stood up and not surprisingly announced that we had another unexpected spare from English on our hands. As the other students packed up their poetry text and notebooks, he also said, “Unless I can find a sub for Mrs. Pierce, I think it safe to say you’ll have a very long weekend away from this lovable, but obstinate English teacher. And if you don’t know what ‘obstinate’ means, look it up. Remember this is an English class.”

A few of us brighter students chuckled at his backhanded challenge.

As the first students exited the classroom, VP Williamson sternly said, “Use the OUTSIDE hallway to go to the cafeteria or to the library. I don’t want to hear any teacher complaints about noise in the hallways or I’ll hunt you down. Be gone!”

Mrs. Pierce looked like she had a little more color in her face now as she looked around at Brad, Liz, Heidi and me. “Thank you for your help. I just hope you don’t catch this dastardly bug from these old bones here.”

“I hope you get to feeling better soon, Mrs. Pierce,” Liz said as she patted her on the shoulder and went to get her things together.

“Same, Mrs. Pierce,” Heidi said. “Get some rest,” Brad added, while I simply offered, “Get well, Mrs. P. We’ll be praying for you and your worse half.”

“Thanks,” she said to the others and then cackled, “Right now, I feel like the worse half. Thanks, again.”

“Yes, indeed thank you for your help with this little situation. We all appreciate your fast actions,” VP Williamson said to the four of us as we slowly walked out the door.

Out in the hallway, I put my hands on Brad’s and Liz’s shoulders and said, “You two were dang fast on your feet in there. Liz, I didn’t know you could move that fast?”

“I just reacted, and I was sure glad Brad got a hold of her first,” she replied and subtly gave Brad a small push on his shoulder. “I doubt I could have kept her from collapsing like he did.”

“You did great too, Liz,” Heidi commented. “You quickly got her chair situated so Mrs. Pierce would have something to sit and rest on.”

Liz suddenly had a semi-big grin on her face after she heard our small compliments. That was an unusual sight as she rarely flashed her soft warm smile. When Brad put his right arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a little shoulder to side hug, Liz’s face lit up brighter than I had seen it be since our St. Patrick’s eighth grade graduation ceremony, where she bested me for the top student award.

I slowed my pace a little to let Heidi catch up to me, and when she did, I tilted my head towards Brad and Liz. Heidi’s eyes got big as she probably saw the same thing I did; that Brad and Liz were probably in the initial stages of developing a relationship. Heidi turned back to me and mouthed, ‘Cute couple, yes?‘

I smiled and nodded back at her. When we got to the outside hallway’s stairs, I heard Liz say, “I’m going down to the library to look up some Australian folklore for Mr. St. George’s class.”

I was real happy to hear Brad reply, “I’ve got to find a World War 2 article for History, so uh, do you mind if I join you?” Liz’s big smile told him and us that she was pleased to have Brad accompany her to the library.

“I’m heading to the cafeteria,” Heidi said as we skipped down the stairs. “I’m going to look at my musical piece one final time before I play it for Mr. Ballows, today.”

“Mind if I join you?” I asked which allowed Brad and Liz to venture off alone towards the library. When Heidi nodded yes to my query, we both stopped and watched as Liz touched her hand against Brad’s. After another two or three steps Brad had interlocked his fingers with hers, and they both floated the remaining short distance to the library.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Heidi softly gushed out that sugary statement.

“I’m glad to see Liz smiling like that. She, uh, she’s had a rough go there from right before and after Christmas,” I said to Heidi as we walked a little quicker now to the cafeteria. She looked up at me with a look of confusion on her face.

Because I went to elementary school with Liz, and she was a fairly introverted person, I figured Heidi didn’t know that Liz’s father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer right before Christmas. I softly said to the beautiful blonde, “Her father was diagnosed with a bad type of cancer in early December, and uh, he died in mid-January.”

Heidi gasped at that news but didn’t say anything just yet. “Because Liz is such a studious student, she uh, didn’t take any time away from school other than for her dad’s funeral service. That’s why she’s been down in the dumps all winter.”

“Oh jeezes, I didn’t know that,” Heidi replied. “I’m sorry to hear that about her dad. She’s such a sweet girl. Is there anything I can do for her?”

“I think her friends from elementary school are trying to be there for her right now. She has always been a quiet, introverted kinda girl, so I think our boisterous bunch of friends might overwhelm her if we try to do anything special for her.”

“Yeah ... I still think I might make her a card or something to let her know she has other friends here who are thinking of her and are willing to talk or help, if she needs it.”

“I think she would like that a lot,” I said to Heidi. “We just don’t need to make a big deal of this because she is a fairly private person.”

“Oh, I won’t. I’m just going to do this on my own.” Heidi and I shared a smile as I held the cafeteria door open for her. Once we walked in, we both saw Samantha, Warren and a few others from English sitting at a table talking about what just happened in English.

On the way over to them, I saw my brother Patt sitting with his friend and our second cousin, Jerry Egon. I saw Warren look up at me as I reached the end of the table, so I said to him, “I’ll be back in a few. Got to ask my brother something.” He just nodded and watched as Heidi sat down beside Samantha.

Jerry saw me approach their table and said, “Hey there, Mike, how are things with the Valentine lover boy?” Of all things he could have said at that time, he picked something which immediately set my brother’s blood to boiling and put me on pins and needles.

“I’m good, Jerry,” I somewhat falsely replied. I quickly glanced at my brother who suddenly stiffed up on my approach. As I pulled a chair out from beside Jerry, I said, “I hear Dave is out with the flu. I hope you don’t catch that nasty bug.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty miserable and roughed up with that shit.” Jerry must have seen how quickly my brother’s demeanor changed, so he thankfully said, “I’m going to grab a drink, now that the lines aren’t a mile long. Either of you want something?”

“No, thank you,” I said as my brother gruffly replied, “I’m good, Jerry.”

When our cousin was walking away, Patt scathingly asked, “What do you want, Doofus? Isn’t your little worship group over there good enough for you?”

I hung my head and shook it slightly before I looked up at him said, “If I peed in your cornflakes to make you this miserable Patt, I’m truly sorry. If you can’t talk in a half way civil manner, I won’t bother asking if you would be interested in playing piano and keyboards in a band that Paul, Cathy and I are thinking of starting.”

His derisive laugh told me darn near everything I needed to know about his thoughts and answer to my invitation. He then smugly added, “What makes you dip-wads think you can start a band anyhow? Paul and Cathy are OK musicians, but what the hell are you going to play? The tambourine or the bongos?”

“I hate to say this but I figured you would say something along those lines. Hell, Paul told me I was wasting my time asking you, but I figured I would give you a chance before we asked an even better piano player to join us.” I pushed up from the table and finished with, “At least you can’t go whining to mom about not being included in some of my fun activities, now.”

“Piss off you little shit or...” he fired back.

But I quickly turned back to him and cut off his rant with, “Or what? What do you think you can do to me Patt? In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve put on about 15 pounds of muscle here lately, and I sure as hell don’t think you can push me around anymore.” He quickly got up out of his chair and glared at me with venom in his eyes.

As he leaned across the table towards me, I did the same and said loud enough for most students and a few teachers to hear, “You may not care about getting kicked out of school, but I do. Nothing is gonna happen here, but if you want to continue on with this, you know where to find me, tonight.” We both held our ground and stared daggers at each other for about five seconds.

“Stand down you two,” I heard Mr. Marose, another history teacher call out from across the cafeteria. Every instinct in my body said, ‘Stay put, don’t move‘ as I finally felt I had the upper hand physically here against my bitchy older brother.

However, when I heard a soft voice call out, “Mike, please, leave him be,” I pushed back away from the table and slowly moved away from my brother. I hated giving him that small victory or satisfaction by backing down first, but that soothing voice helped my forty-year-old brain overcome my hot-headed sixteen-year-old body.

When I turned around, I saw a concerned look on Samantha’s face as she stood at her table and watched me walk towards her location. I figured it was her voice that I heard there, so I did my best to rid my face of all that tension and loathing I just felt.

Before I sat down with my friends, I heard Mr. Marose call out, “Michael ... a word, please.”

I let a long sigh escape as I turned and walked over to the powerfully built teacher. Mr. Morose was short and stocky, and the wrestling coach as well as being a history teacher, so he wasn’t someone who took too kindly to fools and troublemakers.

“Sir,” I said as I approached him.

“Care to explain what went on over there?”

“Not really sir. It’s a personal issue with my brother,” I said as I held his gaze.

“You’re positive about that?”

I nodded my head in response.

“Okay then ... So nothing more will come of this personal issue here at school, correct?”

“I’m not going to start anything here, and I don’t think my brother will, but I wouldn’t bet my life on.”

“Alrighty,” he slowly replied as he ran his fingers over his black goatee. “Please avoid your brother as best you can here at school, and try not to destroy anything at your parents’ house, either. Nothing good will come out of you battling with him. Understand?”

“Yes sir. I know that but he just infuriates me at times,” I replied as my blood began to boil within me again. “I, uh, made him a peace offering over there, and he throws it back in my face and does it with a, a ... with such loathing that I just couldn’t stand it.”

“I heard some of it, but you can’t let him get you like that. When he does, he has taken a little bit of control over you, and I know you don’t want that, correct?”

“No. Ah, yes, sir. I’ll do my best to keep things under my control when it comes to him.”

“Good, good,” Mr. Morose said back to me. “Why don’t you grab your things and head on towards your next class.”

“I have music, next, right next door,” I replied. “Can l just head back to my friends there, and I won’t pay my brother any heed.”

“Okay.”

I did my best to calm down as I walked back over to my friends’ table. I felt like a freckin’ moron as I sat down beside Warren as everyone was looking at me. “Sorry about that little spectacle over there,” I said to the small group there.

“I’m glad you didn’t do anything crazy over there,” Warren said. “I was worried your brother was going to jump at you for a moment.”

“Yeah, so was I,” I softly replied.

“Fighting never solves anything, Mike,” Samantha said and I knew exactly where she was coming from with that comment.

“I know Sammy, I know. I guess I need to hang around you more and listen to your pearls of wisdom.” I saw a look of concern on her face as I said that and then realized she may not want anyone else here to know about her Wushu martial arts activity. I decided to try and change the focus within our little group here and said, “Anyone besides Heidi going to perform something for the Little-Man, today?”

Warren, Kate Dorringer and Samantha all indicated they were going to do something. Kate, a heavy set girl played trombone and sang in the choir, indicated that Warren and her were going to sing a song they wrote together. Heidi said she and Andi Whiting were going to play a clarinet duet.

Samantha surprisingly remained quiet as these folks excitedly shared what their musical pieces were about. When a lull in that lively discussion presented itself, Sam caught my attention and motioned for me to walk with her away from the crowd.

“Sorry there, Sam,” I started to say.

“For what?”

“Um, for nearly getting into it with my brother and uh, for maybe sharing a little too much info with them, when I talked about listening to your pearls of wisdom. I saw your look and wondered if I said too much there.”

“Well, uh, not many know I do that martial arts activity, and if they don’t know you’re good at any form of combat fighting, then they have no reason to challenge you.”

“That’s exactly what I thought when I saw your ‘cease and desist’ kinda look there.” I put my hand on her shoulder to hopefully let her know I was on the same page as her. “So uh, what did you really want from me?”

“Uh, I was remembering what you said about strumming on a guitar a few times, and uh, I just so happen to have an extra electric guitar and amp with me in the back of my Bronco. I’ve got a new Fender Stratocaster, which I prefer to play. So, uh, if you want, you can use or have my old Les Paul Classic electric.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather as I stood there dumbfounded at Sam’s incredibly gracious offer. While I wasn’t a serious guitar player, I most definitely knew about the quality guitars Samantha was referring to in her offer. She just smiled up at me for a few seconds as I stood there lost for words.

Finally, she gently drilled me in my left shoulder with one of her punches and said, “Come on. We have about 15 minutes ‘til music starts and my Bronco isn’t too far from the back doors, here.”

I was grinning like an idiot as I hustled to catch up with the fast moving redhead. I figured she was moving fast because it was still down right chilly outside and neither of us had our jackets on. When she got to the back of her hunter green with tan trimmed Bronco, she unlocked the back lift-door and pointed to the five guitar cases and four amplifiers sitting there. “Dang Sam, you’ve got enough guitars to start your own store in here.”

She smiled and chuckled out, “Well, um, I’ve got my six-string Gibson Dove and 12-string Fender Grand acoustics, right here.” Sam touched each of those guitar cases as she mentioned them with pride. “Both of those have their own amp, and uh, these two here are my electrics; the new Stratocaster I just told you about, and my dad’s ‘64 Gibson Firebird VII, which I use on a few songs.”

I definitely was impressed with her collection of guitars. I’m sure my eyes were bugging out of my head when she flipped open the case with the 1977 Silverburst Les Paul Classic electric in it. She lifted the silver and black guitar out of the case and handed it to me. I cradled the neck and body of that piece of guitar heaven and studied all the intricate details and small pic-scratches on its face. When I looked back at Sam, she was grinning back at me with stars shining in her mint green eyes.

“Uh, Sam, I can’t take this. This is an awesome guitar, and uh, I can’t ... this is, you can’t be serious about letting me use it.”

“Mike, it will only collect dust if you don’t play it,” she replied as she reached out and took the guitar strap and placed it over my head. “As I just said, I really like playing my new Fender better and uh, if you think you can make this Les Paul sing like it’s meant to sing, then I’ll be a happy gal.” I could see the joy in her face as she looked at me with that silver and black classic resting on my upper stomach.

“I don’t know, Sam,” I said, “I’ve only tinkered around with a friend’s guitar before and this, God, this is a just a sweet instrument.”

“I’m not going to force it on you, but uh, you’re more than welcome to take it and see if you can get some good sound out of it. If you can, it’s yours!”

I was awestruck with it around my neck. I ran my fingers along the edges of the body and over the sleek long black neck. As my fingers reached the tuning pegs and I saw the Les Paul Custom label, I looked at her and simply asked, “Why me?”

“The music you wrote and those words were incredible. I think if you played them on this guitar, it would sound amazing. I’m sure you could improvise as well and get the true feelings of those lyrics with this guitar. Do you know how to adjust the tone and quality of the sound with these knobs?”

“Not really, but from what I know, you really can’t hurt anything by fooling around with them.”

“Yeah, you got that right. So, uh, will you take it?” she asked as we heard the warning bell announcing the upcoming end to the seventh period. Thankfully we had the second ten minute break before the eighth period started.

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” She barely nodded her head but her huge smile told me she was still good with her offer. “God Sam this ... this is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me. Yeah, I’ll give this beauty a whirl.”

“Great, I’m happy to see ‘Silverburst’ here in some good hands. Let’s put it up, and if you grab that Fender Quad Reverb amp under the silver cover-case there, and we’ll take all this into the music room, now. Do you have a way to get these home safely?”