Chapter 08

Interesting By-products

The sixth football game of the season is against a team well known for their rough and tough play. One of their team members is a junior with a reputation for excessive violence on the field, yet his coach does nothing about it despite the many penalties he gives away. So far this year Brian ‘The Brick’ Wall has caused eight of his opposition players to be carried off the field then spend a week or two recovering from his hitting them very hard and very late; all of those hit were kick and pass receivers. His rate of damage is the same as last year. Many people think his coach lets him do it because it means the opposition loses some of their best players early in the game and it helps to win the game for them.

The whole of Lyn’s team is concerned about what The Brick will do to them during the game. Lyn settles them down and he encourages them to play their usual game. He ends his pre-game talk with, “If The Brick steps out of line I’ll take over and show him what it’s like to be hit by an irresistible force.” The players and coaches give him an odd look.

When they walk out to sit on the bench by the field the head coach says, “Davies, I’m aware of the special notes on your file. Should I be concerned about the last comment you made?”

Lyn replies, “Coach, the file comment hasn’t been updated for some time. My anger issues were due to the deaths of my parents. I’ve been getting counselling for that for almost a year and I now have things a lot more under control. I won’t lose control out there, but I may show them a lot more aggression than they’re used to seeing, if I have to play.” He gets a simple nod of acceptance in response.

They make the opening kick-off and they soon stop the opposition to force them to punt from their thirty yard line. It’s a good deep kick and the receiver takes it near the twenty-five yard line. He starts up the field behind his teammates creating a protective shield. But they can’t create an opportunity for him to break through. When they near the fifty yard line some tacklers get around the edges of the protection for the ball carrier. Following his orders from Lyn he stops and signals the end of play where he is by ‘taking a knee’ when he drops to one knee.

The umpire blows his whistle to indicate the end of the play. Most players stop what they’re doing but The Brick takes four paces and hits Sam, the kick receiver, like an out of control train at high speed. Because he’s not expecting to be hit now the contact knocks Sam flying and he hits the ground hard. The umpire signals a penalty, he awards a fifteen yard penalty while Sam is being evaluated and carried off for an x-ray.

To give the players time to settle into their offence and get over Sam’s hit only running plays are called for a while; and they progress down the field. They do well, taking several plays with an average of two runs per first down to reach first and goal. The defence is expecting another run play to make the touchdown. Thus the pass to the wide receiver in the end zone takes the defence by surprise. The touch judge signals the touchdown and follows that with a penalty flag because The Brick took three steps before slamming into the receiver, Barry, and knocking him flying. Barry twists his ankle when he hits the ground. A penalty is awarded and it’s applied on the kick-off after the extra point.

Following the restart of the game the opposition is shut down and forced to punt from their own twenty-five yard line. Lyn slips his helmet on as he enters the field as the kick receiver.

First Punt Return

Up in the broadcast box one of the announcers says, “Well, there’s an interesting twist. Davies is on the field to play for the first time in the season despite being the team captain representing the receivers. As you may remember he displayed great catching and return skills in the Spring Scrimmage and then he messed about for the whole quarter as part of a public complaint display against the actions of the previous Athletics Director. We’ve all wondered why he’s still on the team and we felt it was to act as an informal coach of the receivers. But now he’s all set to catch this kick.” The announcer keeps describing the action when Lyn moves to make a clean catch and then he moves in behind his protection. No seam opens to let him through, but a small hole is almost open so Lyn hits it at high speed then he makes his way through by knocking one of the defenders out of his way before he races down the field. Lyn makes good ground and he’s at the midfield line when he finds he has The Brick only a pace from contact.

The announcer is doing a good job and he says, “Well, the way Davies is heading down field shows his Spring Scrimmage performance wasn’t a set up or a once only event. But he’s about to be stopped hard by The Brick.” He gasps, “Well, that’s something I didn’t expect. The Brick did his usual tackle of throwing himself at his target when just a pace away. It seems Davies was expecting this so he stopped to brace himself, as many have done in the past but still been flattened by The Brick. But this time it’s The Brick who goes down first. Davies shifted his position just before impact so The Brick didn’t hit him dead on. Also, it appears Davies lifted himself a bit at the time of impact. The hit caused Davies to stagger back and drop to his knees, but it also caused The Brick to rise in the air and turn around. The Brick hit the ground on his left side and rolled several feet before he stopped. He’s struggling to get up as Davies tosses the ball to the umpire. The Brick Wall has been knocked down for the first time in his career. I wonder how he’ll take it.”

After passing the ball to the umpire Lyn walks back past Wall and says, “Catch you later, Brian Baby.” He gets a glare in return.

The Brick leaves the field to be checked over and Lyn sits on the bench to talk to the coach. He rubs his sore shoulder while he does. A few minutes later The Brick returns to the field and Lyn does too. They’ve driven down to the twenty yard line with run plays.

The defence lines up with The Brick in a position to stop the running back or go in to sack the quarterback if the play is on the other side.

The play starts and Lyn is in motion. The ball goes to the running back who hands it off to Lyn crossing behind him and Lyn turns to go down the field on the same side The Brick is on with the running back following him. Lyn nears the line of scrimmage. He heads directly at The Brick and throws himself straight into the middle of his chest as hard as he can at full speed. The Brick is knocked back on his arse while Lyn bounces back to stagger and be tackled by another defender. It’s now second and twelve with The Brick slowly getting to his feet while glaring at Lyn. The next play is a repeat to be third and fifteen with The Brick taking longer to get up while a grinning Lyn walks away from him.

For the third time they line up the same and it plays out the same. Right up to the point where Lyn is approaching the line of scrimmage. Two paces from contact he flips the ball behind him to the running back who turns and tosses it back to the quarterback who takes the ball to makes a long pass to their wide receiver in the end zone. The whistle for the touchdown is blown just before Lyn throws himself at The Brick to knock him on his arse again. This time The Brick lies there moaning.

The umpires gather for a quick discussion then call over Lyn and his team captains for a word while The Brick is being carried from the field. The conference breaks up and the touchdown is confirmed while Lyn heads for the bench. A penalty against Lyn is applied at the restart.

Right at the end of the first quarter the word arrives: Sam and Barry are out for the rest of the game but they should be right for the game next week. While The Brick Wall is out for the rest of the season with two cracked ribs despite all of the protective padding he wears.

The rest of the game is a walk over by Lyn’s team because the other team’s strong defensive plays are centred around The Brick and it takes them most of the rest of the game to settle into new defensive plays.

Lyn doesn’t participate in the post game interviews because he’s classed as a Freshman / Sophomore and only the Seniors do interviews. They’re not sure how to class Lyn because the college usually doesn’t count the Summer Semester studies when placing people in a year, thus this is his second semester so he’s a freshman, but he’s in his second academic year and he’s also doing some sophomore classes.

During the interview the coach is asked, “Coach, during the first quarter it seemed as if Davies targeted Brian Wall. Did he?”

“Davies is our Receivers Captain and he’s very protective of his men. He knew The Brick’s reputation and when he saw Wall going out of his way to hurt his people Davies decided to take action to protect them. I believe Davies is best described as an irresistible force due to his past actions to see the right thing done. Today showed that some people will make a stand against bullying on the field.” He smiles while he replies.

Extra Time

That evening after the football game the team is in a good steakhouse having a tasty meal to celebrate their win when three large men force their way into the restaurant and head toward the team’s table. The coach stands to confront them but Lyn also stands and he touches his arm while nodding back at his seat. The coach frowns, and Lyn says, “If there’s any trouble the team can do better with only me out, but not with you out because of it. Sit down, please, Coach.” He grumbles while he sits down. He understands what Lyn is saying and is stunned when Lyn adds, “Anyway, I’m probably more able to handle this lot than you are.”

While the men approach them Lyn can see a family resemblance and wonders who they are, but he can see they’re all related. When they near the table the one in the lead asks, “Which of ya is the asshole Davies that put my boy Brian in hospital.”

Lyn grins and replies, “If you mean Brian ‘The Brick’ as in ‘Thick as a Brick’ Wall then I’m the one you’re after for putting that bullying bastard bash artist off the field for deliberately putting two of my people into the hospital.” The speaker is taken aback by the way Lyn replies.

At a nearby table another man is sitting with his family and he says, “Sorry, I may have to deal with this.” He lifts up the hand microphone for the radio on his belt, “Despatch, Deputy King. Tell the Sheriff Big Jim Wall is at the steakhouse with his brother and eldest son, they’re looking for the kid who took Brian out of the game. Send an ambulance too.” He puts the microphone away while he stands up.

Lyn is watching the three in front of him, but he still spots the man stand up. King is behind the three but a bit off to the side. Lyn says, “If you want to make this a physical confrontation we should move it outside so I don’t splash the other diners with your blood.”

“You think you can beat the three of us in a fight?”

“Beat you! I doubt it. But I know I can kill the three of you if I have to. The question is: Are you good enough that I have to kill you or bad enough I can settle for hospitalising you?”

The whole place is dead quiet. This kid is facing three men who are all about a foot taller and twice his weight, yet he’s saying he can kill them. He’s ready to take on the county’s three roughest brawlers and he’s saying he’ll do them. No one can believe it.

Deputy King interrupts with, “Big Jim, if you start anything in here you know I’ve got to get involved and arrest you. However, he’s offered to take you on outside. If you accept that and take it outside I’ll stand aside as long as you leave knives and guns out of it. You know how the Sheriff feels about fights inside public places!”

Big Jim turns to look at King, nods to him, turns back to Lyn, and asks, “Ya mean it? Ya’ll takes us all on out in the car park.” Lyn nods yes. “Ya know my brother and I was in the Army and was trained by them!”

Lyn grins, “No, I didn’t know that. But it makes no difference. I was trained by my grandfather and he used to train Marines. So we’ll see who gives the better training, the Army or the Marines.”

Big Jim nods, turns around, and he heads for the door, followed by Lyn and Deputy King plus everyone in the restaurant. The cook turns to his staff to say, “Turn everything down as I think this’ll take a while and we don’t want anything to burn.” They get busy putting all the cooking on low before they leave by the side door so they can watch the fight.

Once outside they have to wait a moment while some people move cars to clear a good sized combat zone. While that’s happening Lyn says, “What say we make this interesting! How much do you want to bet?”

Big Jim is starting to wonder about this since the kid sounds way too confident, then his son, Adam, says, “I think the kid is trying to psyche us out of doing him over, Pa!” Big Jim nods yes. They get their money out and count it then Adam calls out, “Can ya cover three hundred, kid.”

Lyn takes out his wallet, splits out six fifties, and hands the wallet to Nancy while saying, “See what you can get in side bets.” She grins and heads to the crowd. Lyn walks up to King and hands him the money, “Here’s mine, will you hold this please?”

King nods yes and says, “I’ll do that for you.” Adam walks over and hands him their money for him to hold too.

A moment later they’re squaring off against each other, but wait while the county bookie calls out for some more money on the kid. The locals all know the Wall men and they’ve put up a lot of money. Nancy has covered what she can but Lyn only had another sixteen hundred in his wallet when he handed it over. The bookie is calling for people to cover another three hundred and fifty. A few cars pull up, including an ambulance. The paramedics get out and walk up to stand beside King.

The bookie is calling out for any more bets. He opens his mouth to call for the third time when another voice asks, “How much you got open on the kid?”

They all turn to the voice and the bookie says, “Three hundred and fifty, Sheriff. You want any?”

A large man walks out of the shadows. He’s pulling his wallet out and saying, “I’ll cover the lot of it.” A lot of the spectators are now worried the money they just bet on the Walls is lost. They know the Sheriff doesn’t bet much, unless he thinks he’s on a sure thing. And he’s betting on the kid to win against all three of the Wall family.

Lyn looks over when the Sheriff walks into the light and smiles. He calls out, “Well, now. So this is what you do for a living now, Muddy!”

Sheriff Muddy Waters, previously Sergeant Major Waters, smiles and says, “Ya got me, Lyn. Please don’t let onto Gunny how far I’ve come down. But I got to make a living, some how.” Everyone is wondering how these two know each other. “Lyn, please try very hard not to kill anyone today. The paperwork for a death in a fight is a real bitch and you’re already over your quota for dead idiots in Georgia.”

“Hey, when did they put me on a quota? Besides, my Georgia body count is still below my Florida one.” A few stunned looks are exchanged by the spectators while they take all this in. And a few are now sure they’ve lost the money they bet on the Wall family.

“The local judge don’t like outsiders killing off our local idiots. He thinks we should be doing that ourselves.”

“OK, Muddy. I won’t kill any of them. But that’s just because you asked me nicely. If they’re any good I’ll have to break a bone or two.”

“Hospital is OK. Morgue isn’t.”

Adam never did have much patience and all this talk and waiting is getting him angry. He shouts, “Enough of this bullshit,” and he charges at Lyn from about seven feet away.

Adam nears Lyn while swinging one hell of a right-hand hay maker punch. Lyn moves across in front of Adam in a motion that’s part step, part slide, and part twist. Lyn’s right hand grabs Adams right forearm to pull it down and to the side while Lyn’s left hand comes up to strike Adam’s arm just below the elbow while Lyn turns back to his right and kicks hard at Adam’s right calf. Thus the spectators all hear a double snap when Adam’s forearm breaks a part second before his right calf is broken, and he screams with the combined pain. Lyn eases him to the ground on his side while saying to the two ambulance men, “This one’s all yours now. He can’t do anything else until you patch him up.”

There’s stunned silence, only Muddy and Nancy have seen Lyn in a fight before. When he can on weekends Lyn spends time sparring with any troops Gunny can get for him to keep up practice with. Muddy sparred with Lyn twice, and he lost both times.

Big Jim and his brother stand and stare at Lyn. They can’t believe he took Adam out so quick and so easily. Muddy says, “Damn, you do that so smooth! Now I’m glad we don’t allow those types of moves when we spar. Gunny was right, you’re well out of my class.”

John Wall reaches out to grab his brother’s arm, turns him around, and leads him away as Jim is too stunned to react. John is conceding the fight as he knows when to quit. Nancy and Muddy grin while they collect their winnings. Then everyone heads back inside to finish eating.

October and November

The rest of the semester passes well. Lyn, Nancy, Joan, and Margaret do well in their studies. Nancy and Lyn are reaching a better mental balance due to their counselling, and their personal relationship grows as well. Mary-Jo and the girls are also doing well. All is serene.

Until they near the day Lyn’s father, Allyn, died. It passes without any major issues due to the care Doreen and Nancy take with Lyn. But they’re really worried about the anniversary of his mother’s murder.

The day of the mall shooting comes and passes quietly with Lyn visiting her grave before spending a long time in the spa. Doreen and Nancy spend the whole day with him. Doreen is very embarrassed to join them in the spa, but she feels she needs to be on hand to support him. Late in the afternoon Mary-Jo, Joline, and Joanne join them, so Lyn calls John to get half a dozen pizzas for dinner and join them too. Doreen is surprised when John takes the conditions in the spa in his stride. He also enjoys the scenery in the room, he enjoys it a lot.

The football team does well, only losing two games to the teams that have been the top two teams in their conference for years. They still have a few more games before the season is over, but this is already the best season the college team has had for many years. They look like making the quarter finals no matter how their last few games go.

December

This is a busy month with mid-year exams, Lyn’s Birthday, and the shopping for Christmas presents. Due to the extra effort they’ve made in their studies and listening to their tutors Lyn, and all of his room-mates do very well in their exams. Nancy is surprised to be in the top ten for all of her classes, but she isn’t surprised Lyn is one of the top three in all of his classes despite his heavy work load with studies, football, the gun club, fight sparring, and other personal activities.

When Lyn asks about organising another Christmas party he finds he can’t because the Alumni Association liked last year’s so well they’ve already started organising the one for this year and are paying for it. The party will be held beside another dorm this year since they’ve decided to shift it each year so they can share the closeness between the dorms.

When the classes wind down for the semester Lyn finds himself with a bit more time on his hands which he spends in places where he can interact with the students more. One day Nancy is with him while they sit in the periodicals reading section at the entrance to the library which is where the students can read a number of newspapers and magazines the college subscribes to, and a lot of students going by stop to talk with them for a few minutes. Barry Meadows is sitting nearby reading the paper from his home town.

After about half an hour of watching people stop to talk with Lyn Barry says, “You know, Lyn, you interact with an interesting group of students in the college and each group is a different interaction.”

Nancy gives a half frown as she asks, “What do you mean, Barry?”

“The college student body is made up of a lot of different groups because of their different interests and studies. Many of those groups don’t interact much, if at all, while others are heavily intermingled or have large flows into the other. Look, take the top-end students in the hard science subjects like physics, most of them are also doing a lot of high end math classes and interact with the top-end math students but few others. In general there’s little crossover between the jocks and the nerds. The same applies to most subjects, got it?”

“Yes, I know that. There is the odd person or two who crosses the lines, but not many,” is Nancy’s reply.

“Correct. In most cases the ones who cross the lines only do so in one place. Like a couple of the nerds who are also good jocks cross the line from their main studies subject groups to the jocks group they play with. Some of the people in after class activities do the same. People who are into their subject groups and who also support a sports team or two cross the line a little by being in the supporters activities.”

Nancy grins, “I see that. The only team I watch play is the football team because I go to it with Lyn.”

“Exactly. But the point I’m trying to make is apart from a few sports supports groups the great majority of students tend to group by their school or faculty based on their studies. Look around you and you’ll see the business class students are with other business class students and so on. This is a natural arrangement because they group with those they know from meeting them at classes and lectures.”

Lyn joins in, “I know you’re a people watcher, I am too and what you say is true. It’s also basic psychology. So why mention it now?”

Barry grins, “Because of you! Look, Lyn, I’m sure you know you have a number of different reputations around the campus!” Lyn nods yes. “We have about a hundred students named Davies on the books and over a dozen whose first initial is L. Thus people don’t automatically make the connection between the Davies they hear about on the football team with the Davies they see or hear about in the business studies classes or the one they see or hear about in the physics classes. I know a few of the new students in your dorm who know you as a dorm-mate but don’t link you as the football player. From talking to them I’m sure they think their dorm-mate Davies is a girl. But that’s digressing. While we’ve been here I’ve watched you interacting with students from right across the whole spectrum of student groups, and that just isn’t done.”

Lyn grins, “Most of the people I’ve spoken to I’ve met in classes. But I’ve got classes in just about every school, except the performing arts.”

Barry’s eyes almost pop out, “What?”

“Barry, I’m studying a very mixed set of courses as I’m seeking to get a lot of minor degrees over my five years of studies. I’m here for three semesters a year for over five years: seventeen semesters all up. I’ve not decided what to do for a living so I’m getting qualifications in a broad range of subjects. Some like the paramedic training for the community service and safety, others like law to know the system better. I’ve the time and ability so I’m doing all I can. I’ll decide what to do for a living later. Once I know a lot more about the various types of work I can do.”

“Damn, that’s a lot of studying. But why that approach?”

“Little choice. I’d not really looked into what to do for a living until last December because I’d always planned on doing a general college degree and then go into the Marines. But the events in Tampa put an end to that due to the court ruling and the psych report. So I’m now having to rethink all of my plans so I’m seeking more information. Some classes are because I want to know more on the subject and some are because people I respect suggested I do them and go into that field. You can’t get too much knowledge about work choices.”

“What are you planning to study, all up?” When Lyn finishes going through the full list Barry’s only comment is, “Shit. You’ll be able to do anything you want.”

“That’s the idea. And by then I’ll have a good idea of what other studies I want to do, if I want to do more.”

Nancy says, “I knew you’re doing a lot more than usual, but that’s a hell of a lot more than I realised. No wonder you spend so much time in classes and studying.”

Lyn grins, “It’s a good thing many of the classes count toward a lot of the diplomas I’m after.” The other two nod their agreement in reply.

The College Christmas Breakfast arrives, and it’s a great hit again.

An Odd Visitor

The day after Christmas Lyn and Nancy go to Stockbridge to spend the next ten days with Mary-Jo and family. They’ll return to college late on the Sunday the fifth of January.

On the last Saturday in December they’re at the gun club for practice when Gunny brings a man over to Lyn and introduces him as Chief Warrant Officer Peter ‘Bud’ Miller. Lyn grins at him and asks, “Bud for Budweiser?”

Bud Miller smiles and says, “Yeah, I got tagged with it when I said I didn’t like being called Pete. You’re the first person to spot it so fast as people most think it’s short for Buddy.”

Gunny says, “Lyn, I want Bud to see how well you do with all of your guns, do you mind showing him?” Lyn agrees and is told, “I thought you would, so I set up the long range for you to start with the fifty.”

Lyn smiles while he unlocks his gun safe to remove the special case with his Barrett M99 with a scope and an optical system on it, also in the case is a laser range finder. They take the case outside to the long distance range. This range fires over a gully with targets set from 500 yards up to 2,900 yards before the high hill backstop at just over 3,000 yards. The club has a lot of members who were snipers and they like to make the long-range shots for practice just to keep their ‘eye’ in.

At the all weather bench behind the two firing positions Lyn opens the case and he takes the rifle out. He checks it over before placing the gun at the firing position then he brings the range finder and ammunition over before lying down behind the rifle. Despite the many times he’s used this weapon on this range he still checks the range on the range finder. The target marked as 500 yards is really 700 yards away, a check of the others shows all of the ones up to 2,000 yards as out by the same amount, only the targets from 2,000 yards to 2,900 yards are correct.

Lyn turns to look at Gunny while saying, “You need a new tape measure. All of the targets two thousand and under are out. They’re at two hundred yards more than they’re marked as.”

Bud asks, “Lyn, why did you check the ranges?”

“I was taught to always check the ranges for myself as whoever did the original may have made a mistake or the target may have moved.” He gets a smile in response and he settles into the rifle to set the range.

Lyn loads a round, aims, and fires at the 700 yard target marked as being 500 yards. Gunny is at the spotter’s scope and calls out, “Center,” indicating the round was dead centre of the bullseye.

“Shifting target to the next and I’ll just shift after each round.” Lyn aims and fires.

Gunny replies, “Shifting target after each round,” waits for the shot, looks, and calls, “Center.” Lyn adjusts the sighting range and fires at each target up to the one at 2,500 yards with Gunny calling the hit on each one of them as, “Center.” The call at 2,600 yards is, “Nicked the inside ring but still a bullseye.” Lyn stops there because that’s the maximum range for this weapon and ammo. In the past he’s tried the longer targets, but it’s always outside the bullseye regardless of the corrections he makes and he hasn’t been able to work out why.

Bud helps Lyn carry the gear back to the bench and watches while Lyn strips the gun to clean it before he puts it back in its case. They take it back to the safe and get out the other rifles he has: an AR15 civilian version of the M16 combat rifle, M1 Carbine, and M1903 Springfield.

Lyn gives each weapon a check before demonstrating his accuracy with them on the range over the various distances for each weapon. He cleans the rifles and puts them away. This is followed by a similar demonstration with his range of pistols; Beretta M9, Walther PPK, Glock Model 20 and Model 21. The initial list of guns left to him was a lot longer but he disposed of most of the military standard weapons just to be safe with regards to the gun laws of Georgia. Even so, the M99 may be pushing the limits, but he doesn’t dare check the law because he loves the gun and he’s afraid he’ll be told to dispose of it if he checks. He wants to keep it because his grandfather told him it’s the weapon he used on sniper duty at one time in the past.