Chapter 5: New York Part II

Monday January 27, 2014 – Freshman Year

I found Cassidy at our locker when I got to school Monday morning. When she saw me she acted funny and tried to duck out. I suddenly felt my stomach tighten up.

"Freeze," I ordered.

She wouldn't look me in the eye.

"Tell me," I said.

She took a deep breath and then it came out in a rush.

"We went to the party on Saturday. April had a few drinks. I don't think she had ever done that before," Cassidy said barely above a whisper. Then she straightened up. "Luke was hitting on her, and tried to get her in a back bedroom. She didn't know what she was doing. I kind of got in trouble."

I saw red. I was going to kick the living crud out of Luke. I slammed my locker and headed to where I knew he would be before school. I suddenly found myself face down in the hall with a sharp pain coming from my wrist. Cassidy had put me down in the blink of an eye. I cried out in pain.

"Oh God! I'm so sorry," she said as she let my wrist go.

April walked up then and saw me on the floor cradling my wrist and Cassidy crying. To April's credit she didn't overreact. She sat down next to me on the floor and checked my wrist. She then helped me up and Cassidy took off to the bathroom. April guided me to an empty classroom.

"I take it that Cassidy told you what happened Saturday," April stated.

"Some of it. Are you okay?" I asked.

"More embarrassed than anything else, but you were right. Luke did ply me with alcohol and try to take advantage of me. Thank you for sending Cassidy with me," April said and then took a deep breath. "We are both grounded for life. At least that is what our Dads told us when they had to pick us up at the police station."

"What! What did you two do?"

"We ... well I guess really Cassidy beat Luke up. I would have been fine, but someone called the police. Luke, Cassidy, and I got hauled in. Cassidy told them what happened. I think they wanted to hold Cassidy, but Luke refused to press charges. He told them that he didn't want to do anything for fear it would get his scholarship pulled. When our parents showed up the police turned us over to their custody. I was scared I was getting in trouble for underage drinking. It would wreck basketball."

"How bad was Luke hurt?"

"Not too bad. He will be walking funny and he has a black eye."

"We can talk about this later. Let's go get our little ninja and make sure she's okay."

We found her in one of the girl's bathrooms washing her face. She gave me a curious look.

"You're not supposed to be in here," Cassidy said.

I just walked up and hugged her. She stiffened and then wrapped me in a fierce embrace.

"Daddy said I wasn't supposed to hurt any more boys this week."

I started laughing. What the heck, only this week ... I guess she was over her quota.

"Thank you for protecting April. Thank you for stopping me from making an ass out of myself. I think your Dad would approve of what you did to me in the hall," I said as I kissed her on top of her head.

"Do I get one?" April asked.

I winked at her and she came over and I gave her a real kiss. Cassidy finally let me go. A couple of girls came in and started giving us shit about having a threesome in the bathroom. I asked them if they wanted to join us. April and Cassidy pulled me out into the hall before I could get anything going. The bell rang, and we hurried off to class.

At lunch Kendal tracked me down. You wouldn't believe all the stuff we had to go through to allow her on school grounds last year. With all the problems since Columbine, school security had been tightened up. Kendal had to get a background check. I was relieved when she didn't turn up on the sex offender list. I teased her now and then that I would be willing to help her get on it. She never thought that was a good idea. I didn't see her coming and she snuck behind me and put her hands over my eyes.

"Guess who?" she whispered in my ear.

"Kate, is that you Kate?" I asked hopefully.

I got whacked for my troubles. It was never Kate Upton.

"You wish. Do you have a check for me?"

"Yep, it's in my locker."

As we walked to get the check for last weekend's commercial we talked about Adrienne's plan to open her own agency.

"Do you think you're interested in working with her?" Kendal asked.

"Oh unquestionably, it's a great opportunity. I learned so much from her on Saturday." I told her as I gave her exaggerated sexy looks.

"You are such a dork," she laughed at me. "Seriously though, do you want to do this?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Okay, I'll talk to Tom and make sure you're not about to have a problem with your Ford contract."

"Speaking of which, they are greedy little cusses. I tried to get them to sign off on my shoot Sunday and Deb Thomas wanted to charge me full boat. We need to work something out where someone can help me on weekends if you're not around."

"Funny you should mention that. We are having a meeting today to discuss that very topic. Tom got called on the carpet Sunday night for no one being around."

"Are you coming with me this weekend?"

"That's the plan. Why, did you miss me?"

"Actually I did. My security guy was great when I went to California. He played football with me and took me to a bar..." I said as Kendal gave me a horrified look. "But he's a total pussy. I guess his boss read him the riot act about how to behave in front of Adrienne. He acted like he was really my body guard. I needed a wingman to protect me from all the girls Adrienne was throwing at me."

"I bet. Did she happen to have any cute guys hanging around?"

I rolled my eyes.

"I did see Kara and Adrienne dancing with some guys. I guess if you are into tall dark and handsome they were all right."

"I think that would be okay. So when are we leaving?" Kendal chirped.

I opened my locker and gave her the envelope with the check in it. It was still sealed. She gave me a funny look.

"Did you even look at this?"

I just shrugged. I trusted Kara and Rafael.

She opened it up and her eyes got big.

"They paid you too much," Kendal said.

A note fell out of the envelope and landed on the floor. I picked it up and read it.

Just a little thank you for getting Adrienne involved in the project. I tried to pay her, but she said to give it to you. I look forward to working with you again. – Rafael.

"Well I'll be danged. I'll have to thank Adrienne when I see her."

The bell rang. I gave Kendal a hug and went to PE.

When I got to dance class, the girls wanted to teach me a dance they had been working on. They put on Carly Rae Jepsen's song Call Me Maybe. I looked around and our teacher gave me a small wave and disappeared after she saw the girls had things in hand. They had obviously been working on this song. The girls soon had me up to speed and we were having fun. My job was to take my shirt off and let them dance around me. I have to say I did my part very well.

I told them about my weekend in New York and going to the club to dance. They spent the rest of the hour teaching me some new moves. I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed this class. I had to laugh at several of them as they were being such flirts.

In art class, we were drawing hands. It is way harder than I thought it would be. I couldn't seem to get the fingers right. I looked over at the girl next to me and her drawing was great. I snapped my pencil in two in frustration.

"Having a problem?" she asked.

"I just can't seem to get it right."

"Let me teach you a trick I learned to help me get started."

She showed me how to measure my hand and then create a stick drawing based on the measurements. She then had me draw around the stick figure. It ended up looking ten times better once I got the proportions correct.

"Now try drawing it without the guide."

It still wasn't great, but much better. The bell rang and she packed up.

"Thanks. I'm David by the way."

"Stacy, Stacy Clute."

She gave me a shy smile and was gone. I made a mental note to remember her name.

The after-school workouts were attracting more and more people. Once the word got out that it was not just football players, we were starting to get a mix of boys and girls from other sports. I was surprised to see Magic and Kevin show up. When I asked them, they said they were getting in shape for their freshman year at State. I had a talk with Cassidy about going too hard. I didn't want people quitting. She had dialed it back some. Don't get me wrong, she was still working us hard, but no one was puking afterwards.

After school, I invited myself to Alan's for dinner. Jeff and Gina tagged along. Last year, before I became a jerk, it wasn't uncommon for the four of us to show up at one of our homes and hang out. That group had Tami, instead of Gina.

We were all sitting at the kitchen table playing cards when Paul and Phyllis Douglas came in together. Phyllis owned a florist company and Paul helped her. We got a double take, but they just smiled at us and went to change clothes.

"I miss this," I announced. "Just hanging out with you guys is a lot of fun. We need to do this more."

"Of course you have to quit cheating at cards," Jeff complained.

I had won the last three games. I was just having a run of good luck.

"I can't help it if you all suck," I said.

"David, language," Phyllis scolded me.

"Sorry, Mrs. Douglas, they just aren't very good. Do you want to join us, and teach them how this is played?"

We were playing Gin Rummy and she had joined us when we were younger. She pulled up a chair and we dealt her in. I got lucky again and won. They were all giving me the eye.

"See, I told you, they aren't very good."

"Someone is too full of themselves," Paul said as he joined us.

As we played the next hand Paul ordered delivery and came back to the table with a beer. I gave him a funny look.

"What?" he asked me.

"Aren't you going to share?"

This was an old joke between the two of us. So he went and got me a beer which I popped open and took a big swig. Gina's eyes got big. She knew I wasn't a drinker. Everyone started laughing at her.

"Okay, what's the deal?" she asked.

I showed her the bottle. It was a non-alcoholic beer. Paul didn't drink, but he liked the taste.

"When we were about ten or eleven, David being the adventuresome one of the group, asked Dad if he wasn't going to share. Dad didn't even bat an eye. He gave David a beer," Alan shared.

"Then after he finished it off, David thought he was drunk," Jeff added.

"Laugh it up. Turns out I had an inner ear infection and got dizzy. Luckily Phyllis got concerned and checked my forehead and it was hot," I told Gina.

"Ever since then, David always bums a beer off of Dad. You should have seen him at the block party we had. Here is this twelve year old shooting the shit with my Dad drinking a beer when his Mom shows up," Alan said. I cringed remembering that day. "I thought she was going to kill both Dad and David before it was over. When they finally explained that it was non-alcoholic, she just shrugged and walked away. Man, your Mom can be scary."

We all nodded at that. I beat them again and Jeff threw the cards at me. I had to pick them all up. They were all saved when the food arrived. Over dinner we were talking about my Mom and modeling when Jeff asked about baseball.

"I plan on playing this year," I told them. Then I got a great idea. "Why don't you come out also? We could have some fun."

Jeff was a pretty good outfielder in little league. Alan was hopeless. Our coach had a rule that everyone had to play. Alan got to be our lead off strike out and then he would leave the game. He just liked hanging out with us and keeping stats.

"Do you think they would let me do the stats?" Alan asked.

"I don't see why not."

"Let's do it," Jeff said.

They were all smiling. It really felt like the old gang was back. I suddenly really missed Tami. It wasn't quite the same without her.

Tuesday January 28, 2014 – Freshman Year

Coach Hope pulled me out of lifting before school. He had me sit down in one of the chairs across from his desk. As soon as I was comfortable he started.

"I wanted to know if you were interested in playing in a seven-on-seven tournament."

"Sure, it sounds like fun."

"Here's the deal. The school will not sponsor a team. I talked to Brad and he is putting together a varsity team."

"Am I invited to be on the team?"

I had to ask. I really didn't want to play on it with Brad and the boys, but I wasn't going to be a jerk either.

"No, he says he already has his team," Coach told me and raised his hands before I could say anything. "I need to take care of this. What Brad and the juniors are doing does not bode well for the upcoming season. I'm aware of some of the crap that they have been saying to the underclassmen, you specifically. Cassidy has kept me in the loop."

"So what do we have to do to get a team in the tournament?" I asked.

"Tell me you want to do it, and we need an $80 entrance fee."

I pulled out my wallet and gave him four twenties.

"Shit, you have more cash on you than I have."

"Shit, I have a better job than you do."

He just shook his head at me. He wasn't going to argue.

"Who can I get to be on my team?" I asked.

"Anyone that is not on this list."

I scanned the list and it was all current juniors. I was not happy to see Bill Callaway. He was my favorite target last year. I quickly jotted down seven names.

Mike Herndon – Freshman Quarterback
Tim Foresee – Freshman Linebacker
Bert Nelson – Freshman Fullback
Kelly Holcombe – Freshman Tailback
Wolf Tams – Varsity Tight End (freshman)
Jim Ball – JV Tackle (sophomore)
Ed Pine – Varsity Tailback (sophomore)

"Who do you want as your coach?"

I thought about it for a moment. It was obvious that it was not going to be Coach Hope.

"Could I use Magic?"

"I don't see a problem with that," Coach said. "You do realize that we are going to kick your butt."

"I see how it is."

Coach just smirked at me. Then he got more serious.

"You have been showing a lot of leadership with organizing the workouts. The juniors have been working out at a local gym."

That was news. At least they were doing something.

"I want you to take your leadership further. I want you to start creating other leaders," Coach Hope said.

"Okay, what do you need me to do?"

"Take three or four people and put them in charge of some things. For example you have Cassidy leading the evening workouts. Put someone in charge of the mornings. Get the idea?"

"Yeah, I have some people in mind."

"Now, what I want you to do is to give your leaders clear expectations. As an example, I want you to work with the training staff to measure everyone. Get a baseline of them physically. For example, height, weight and so on. I also want to know what workout program everyone is on and how to keep records of that program. A good example would be the bench press. What weight and number of reps.

"Once we know these things what benefits do you see?" Coach asked me.

"After a period of time, we can see improvement."

"If they improve what does that do?"

"Makes them able to compete harder."

"What else?"

"They are less likely to get hurt."

"Good one. Do you see the benefit of a healthy football team?"

"Yes sir. I think they'll also feel better about themselves."

"Excellent. That is the one I want to focus on. If they are feeling good about themselves they are more self-confident. They have a mindset that they can accomplish something. What else?"

"Keeping records will give them accountability."

"Bingo. That is the big one. If left to their own devices, they would be home eating junk food and lounging around. What do you think the other teams on our schedule are doing right now? I bet you they are not getting up early to lift and staying after to get in shape.

"Let's go back for a moment to them feeling better about themselves. Do you think them knowing they are an elite group will make them feel special?" Coach Hope asked.

I was starting to see his vision. I nodded.

"I'll tell you a secret. I knew I was going into the military. The reason I picked the Marines was because they were the toughest group around. They're the cream of the crop. They also had the best uniforms. Do you think teenage boys and girls might be attracted to something like that?"

My mind was going a mile a minute.

"In high school, playing sports gives you a certain status. What if you created something that was beyond that? Something that has to be earned to set them apart. Think for a moment about being a state champ. Besides the trophy for the school, each player gets a patch in the shape of the state that says State Champion on it. You put that on your letter jacket. How cool would it be to have three of those?"

"Wow, you are blowing my mind coach."

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course."

"Why does hardly anyone wear their letter jackets? Do you even have one?"

I was embarrassed to say that I didn't have a letter jacket. I had won a letter in football. I think it was in my sock drawer.

"Your right, I don't own one."

"David, I'm not getting on you. I wanted to show you what I was talking about. You know why you don't have a letter jacket and wear it?" Coach Hope asked.

"Yes sir."

"None of the seniors are wearing them. We have to find ways to build pride in being a player for Lincoln."

"You're right coach. Only a handful of us have a Letterman jacket and even fewer wear them."

"The last thing is you need to have a plan and work towards that plan."

A big smile came over my face. This I knew from my summer in exile. Uncle John had worked with me to map out my life.

"This I understand Coach. My Uncle helped me establish my life goals."

I thought Coach Hope's eyebrows were going to go into his hairline.

"Okay, I'm sorry, but you have to tell me about your life goals."

"Last year I got into a little scrape with the law. Without getting into details, it caused a problem at home. I was sent packing to my Uncle's farm for the summer. His plan was to break me down by working me until I was exhausted. I didn't have time to be a little jerk. Once I broke down, he built me back up. One of the things he did was help me decide my life goals to give me structure.

"If I ever start doubting myself I pull out my goals and see if what I'm doing aligns with them. It helps me sort out the bullshit and focus on what matters. It also reaffirms why I'm doing certain things with my life."

"Can you tell me what they are?"

"Sure, but what they are, is not as important as having them," I said as he nodded to me in understanding. "There are four main goals. The first is financial stability, second is physical fitness, third is solid moral foundation, and the fourth is a healthy sex life."

He about choked on the last one.

"Yeah, you're not dating my daughter."

I just laughed at him. We heard the early birds hit the showers. I needed to get going. I felt like I understood Coach Hope better after today. I was starting to see his vision and it was aligning with mine. We just needed to make it happen. To do that, we needed to get the team together.

For the team members, I was thinking my current team of Kendal, Lily and Tracy. Okay, I wasn't a hundred percent sure about Tracy. And the guys would be my seven-on-seven team. A wild thought hit me. My best friends needed to be involved. I would get Alan, Jeff and Gina to help. Of course Tami would be the puppet master pulling my strings. I was starting to get excited. But I still had a question I had to ask.

"Why aren't you doing this with Brad? Why me?"

I could see he was struggling with this. I think our meeting had evolved into something more than he intended. My concern was that he was setting me up to be Brad's rival even more than we already were. A football team couldn't have two groups and be a team. If I had to bite the bullet and let Brad lead, I could swallow my pride and do it.

I had figured out that Brad was Coach Hope's blind spot. If it were anyone else, he would not be putting up with next year's seniors tearing down the team's chemistry. He also wouldn't have walked into Lincoln the first day and anointed Brad as quarterback without a competition.

Coach Hope gave me a hard look. I don't think he was used to being challenged.

"I have Brad organizing the juniors."

I waited for him to say something more, but it was not forthcoming. I knew that Coach Hope had more life experience than I did. You don't become a Major in the Marines without knowing something about leadership. If anyone could pull our two groups together I was sure he could. I just had a bad feeling that this was not going to turn out well.

At lunch I confirmed that the guys all wanted to play in the tournament. Magic was excited that he would get to coach us. Plans were made to get everyone over to State's indoor practice facility this weekend. I explained that I wouldn't be there. I had a job in New York this weekend. Magic volunteered to play quarterback. I had copied the seven-on-seven section of the materials that Bo Harrington had left me. I gave them to Magic to look over.

After that was done, I left the lunch room so I could call Kendal. I explained what Coach Hope had told me. She was on board to help. She explained that getting me to the NFL was one of their goals. I just shrugged it off.

"Now for the hard question, do we include Tracy?"

I heard Kendal sigh. She is in a tough spot working for Tracy's Dad. So she tried to weasel out of the question.

"I don't know. What were you planning on her doing?"

"Wimp."

"Bite me."

"I'll see what I can do this weekend."

"You better not. I'll have Chuck take you out."

"Please, he is an old man. I would be afraid he would stroke out."

"Like how I got out of answering?"

"I noticed that. Back on track. Is she going to wig out?"

"You know she will. She can also be an asset. While you were telling me all this, I started thinking, What is in it for them?"

She was smooth. She had me off on another topic.

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that many of them might want to play college ball, either D1 or really, anywhere."

"And Tracy would be perfect at working on that. Plus it would give her something to focus on."

The unsaid part was that it would keep her away from me. Then it hit me. Not everyone could play college ball or would even want to.

"What about the ones that can't play college ball?" I asked.

"Several things come to mind. They get to play on a winning team. How about being part of something special? I could also see us working with the school counselors to identify other scholarships. I got one from my state representative for three years because no one else ever applied. There are lots of ways we could help them find money to go to school."

The bell rang.

"Hey, I got to go. Brainstorm some and we will talk about this later."

"You got it boss."

Today in art class we had our first model. We had to draw the hands of one of the girls. Stacy saw me studying the girls intently. She could see I was struggling.

"Go measure her hands for a reference."

"I can do that?" I asked hopefully.

"Of course you can. Go ask her nicely and I'm sure she would like you to hold her hand," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I could tell she was teasing me. I just shrugged and got up from behind my easel and approached her.

"Hi, mind if I take some measurements?" I asked.

She blushed and nodded. I took my time trying to notice everything about her hands. They were very delicate and small compared to mine. She jumped when I took my finger and caressed her skin so I could get an idea of how smooth it was. I could see light blue veins that I had not noticed from my seat. I did a couple of quick sketches to remind me of different parts of her hand.

I went back to my easel and quickly started putting in my points of reference. Ms. Saunders came over and watched me for a while. Then she put her hand on my arm to get my attention. I stopped and looked at her.

"Class, I want you to take a moment and come see what David is doing."

When she had everyone gathered around she pointed to my reference points.

"This was something I was going to teach you after this assignment. I wanted to see how hard it is to get the right size and dimension. Hands are hard to draw. What he is doing is in effect putting in the skeletal system and then drawing over it."

"Actually Stacy taught me how to do this. She saw I was struggling yesterday and gave this tip."

Stacy blushed when she suddenly became the center of attention. I felt bad because she was shy and I had just put the spotlight on her. Luckily Ms. Saunders could see she was uncomfortable. She just smiled at her and continued her lesson. She took everyone up to the model and showed them how to measure her hands.

When Stacy and I got back to our easels I apologized to her.

"Hey, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"It's okay. I need to come out of my shell some. At least that's what my mother tells me."

"I know about mothers. Would it be all right if I got your number? We have to be done with this on Monday and I'm going to be in New York this weekend. I might need some help."

She blushed as I opened my phone contact list and handed it to her so she could put in her info. When she was done I took her picture.

"What do you think you're doing?"

I held up my finger as I did a couple of quick key strokes to attach her picture to her contact info. I turned the phone around so she could see.

"Oh, I didn't know you could do that."

Suddenly my phone chimed, and then again. It was my turn to blush. I had forgotten that when I added a contact it went to Kendal, Tom, Tracy and Lily. The two texts were displayed so Stacy could see them. She chuckled so I knew it couldn't be too bad.

One was from Kendal asking who the hot chick was. The other was from Lily wanting to know if I was adding to my harem. I just rolled my eyes.

"So?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Am I getting added to your harem?"

I didn't even think about it.

"Well of course you are. I should probably meet your Mom so she knows what your duties will be. How about I come over for dinner tonight and you can help me get this done," I said pointing at my drawing.

"Well ... aaahhh ... I would have to ask my Mom," Stacy stammered.

I gave her a big smile and handed her my phone. She took it and stepped out into the hall to make the call. She came back in dazed.

"I think I made a big mistake," she said and then came out of her daze. "My Mom thinks we are going out. She's a little excited."

"Don't worry about it. I've played the faux boyfriend a number of times. Do you think we should make out some to make her happy?"

"Give me the phone back. I need to cancel."

"What, I'm so bad looking that you don't want to be my faux girlfriend."

She just sputtered and turned about three shades of red. I got her address and promised to be at her home at six that night.

Before afternoon workouts started I took Cassidy aside. I needed to find out more about why Coach Hope was splitting leadership responsibilities.

"I had a good talk with your Dad today. He commented on what a good job you are doing with the workouts."

She brightened at that. Her dad's approval was important to Cassidy.

"That is good to hear."

"He did mention something that I have a question about. He said that Brad and next year's seniors are all working out off campus. Do you know why we are not all working out together?"

Her eyebrows went together and her lips got tight. She took in a deep breath and let it out.

"I told Daddy that Brad is being a big jerk. We talked about it. Brad said he was not working out with a girl leading the workouts."

I could tell that hurt her feelings.

"Hey, don't let him get to you. We are very happy that you're helping us," I reassured her.

"That's what Daddy said. Brad said that when the fall workouts started he would make sure everyone was part of the team. He said he was working with the guys that would be seniors now so they would make a good core for the team. Daddy wasn't happy. He and Brad fought about it," she told me and then looked nervous. "You can't say anything. Daddy said we have to show a united front. He doesn't want anyone to know if we have disagreements."