Chapter 12: A Day of Firsts

First day of school for both Murphy kids saw a return of a family tradition: Mom fixed a full breakfast for everyone. Pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, fruits and all kinds of baked goods. She generally cooks for the family, then the mothers from the neighborhood carpool come and enjoy a wonderful meal at their own pace. There were usually a few empty bottles of wine in the trash when the kids returned home from the first day of school.

Rumor has it the same carpoolers also got together toward the end of the school year, to mourn the last days of having their days to themselves, but none of the carpoolers would confirm.

Tim was a bit rushed because he was nervous about making it to school on time for practice. He wore the clothes his father had suggested for the first day of school.

“Hey, tomorrow when I get home, I wanna talk to you before your wrestling show comes on,” Raymond Murphy told his son while choosing a simple white Polo shirt and fashionable blue jeans. Initially, Tim had reservations about buying the shirts in the tighter size, but his father simply smiled and told him not to worry about it. “Once you see the response from the girls in the hallways, you can thank me tomorrow night.”

Raymond draped the clothes, still on their hangers, over the back of the desk chair. He then nailed a couple of three-inch nails into the header above the closet’s sliding door. Finally, he re-hung the selected clothes on the newly formed ‘hangnails’ in front of the closet.

“This way you don’t wrinkle them before you wear them. Also, I know you told me about those small baskets for your clothes, so don’t try to roll these clothes up into the basket. That will wrinkle them all to hell. Just take a couple of foldable hangers in your backpack and hang your clothes somewhere close to your locker. You said all your new friends have lockers right next to yours, so they can help keep an eye out for anyone messing with them. For the first day of school, I doubt anyone would try something like that, anyway.” Raymond rubbed his fingers to his chin like he was thinking of something and quickly came to a decision. “Go ahead and take one of those heavy duty t-shirts we bought. Use it as a backup that you can keep in your backpack or in your basket, whichever, but try not to wrinkle it too much.”

“Son, I am positive you can handle whatever is going to be thrown at you. You’re smart enough to stay out of trouble, but I also know you have never had to deal with these kind of distractions before. So, if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask. I was young once, and I can remember what it felt like to have those hormones raging through my body. Just do what you think is best. Trust me, you are going to have girls coming after you. You worked really hard this summer, and because of that damn tapeworm, you now have a leg up physically on impressing the ladies over the other guys in your grade. Your body will bring them to you and your mind will keep them interested.” Raymond stood eye to eye, well eye to neck, and put his hands on his son’s shoulders, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a lot of attention from the older girls in school, too. Maybe even the teachers.” Raymond’s Cheshire cat grin turned Tim into a deep red from embarrassment. His father seeing this, gave a faux punch to his shoulder then brushed away a few non-existent wrinkles on the hanging clothes and left his sons’ room.

Tim did not want to let his father see how nervous that last statement made him, but after a few moments he realized there was nothing he could do about it. He should just go with the flow.

“Hell, maybe there is something I can use as inspiration in the next letter I write to myself.”

He closed his door and set the new lock. It was nothing more than a simple hook-and-eye lock, but it should do the trick of keeping unwanted visitors out of his room until he could let them in, personally. He agreed with his father about not taking advantage of locking the door constantly. Only, when changing or when he wanted a little privacy, he’d fasten it; since everyone knew of Carmen’s affinity for opening doors first, and then asking for permission to open said door. A closed door in her vicinity was an invitation for a visit from the mischievous fourth grader.

Tim refolded the piece of paper and replaced it with the others. Rather than hiding them under the mattress and above the box springs, he could now easily lift the entire bed and place the manila envelope on a hidden shelf he’d built, inside the box spring of his bed. He surreptitiously made the shelf inside the center, on the outside wall of the box spring, so he could easily locate the shelf each time he needed to retrieve the envelopes. He also had set a small trap to let him know if anyone else tried to pick up the bed. Nothing dangerous, but attention would be grabbed if anyone else was trying to look at what was underneath the bed. He knew, as soon as he could, he needed to get a secure safe.

Now, back at his desk and thoroughly confused by the cryptic nature of the most recent letter from his future self, Tim decided waiting on his hormones to kick in was probably not a very smart move. So he chose to go ahead and get a better explanation from the nanites themselves.

“So, what is this letter talking about, regarding my ‘natural charms?” Tim once again felt kind of stupid talking to no one else in the room so he made sure he was whispering to make sure no one else could hear. He was subconsciously looking at his favorite Cindy Crawford poster on the wall above his TV.

Tim was getting used to seeing what he thought of as the ‘closed captioning’ in his eyesight, which the nanites used for communicating. Over the summer, he learned they really did not know much, other than what they were programmed to tell him. That made sense, since they carried a lot of programming to do their main work. Excess work like waxing poetic on a teenager’s philosophical conundrum was not something they needed to be able to do.

“You now have complete control of your pheromones. You can either reduce the amount you project through the air, or you can increase the projections by an order of magnitude. Our limited information on this matter, says this ability was created to make sure you could get the approval of any female you chose, in your immediate vicinity. You can either earn their compliance through natural charm and charisma, or via this chemical reaction. The pheromones’ chemical reaction activates neurons inside the female, causing her to lose inhibitions and helping you to coerce her to your whims.” A brief pause, then, “End of message.”

“Okay so how do I use these pheromones to control women?” Tim thought to himself. He was having trouble believing he could control women to basically do what he wanted. The nanites, though they could not read his mind, had a very good understanding of his thought processes.

“No, you cannot force a woman to do something they ordinarily would not be willing to do. Basically, you can remove the governors and allow them to do things they would want, but only if they would be willing to do them if you did not have control of your pheromones. Our programmers said ‘slipping them a mickey’ is the best description of how the process works.”

“Now, how to operate the process, is basically a subconscious effort from you, much like concentrating to listen to someone. While ‘concentrating’ on the object of your affections, the pheromones project out at your prey, causing her to lose inhibitions and to be open to your wants or desires. It is best used when in close contact, primarily focused on that female. The pheromones wear off after a few hours, but there is no physical harm done to the female. The only thing hurt might be her pride if she believes later that she made a mistake being with you. That is out of our control. Realistically, it is also out of your control.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

“Well, that could indeed come in handy. But, like I told myself, I’m gonna try not to start anything on the first day. Just make plans,” he thought to himself. “Well, now that I think about it, I guess I deserve to have a little bit of fun.”

Since Tim was on the football team, his first class of the day was his physical education credit “Freshman Football.” Classes started at 8:45 in the morning, but the coaches wanted the team ready to start practice at eight in the morning, so everyone reported to the locker room before 7:50 to make sure they could be dressed for practice starting at eight. The closer to 7:50 you arrived, the faster you got dressed for practice.

First day of practice was actually canceled, but the coaches wanted everyone there on time, and they were making sure everyone was there ON TIME. Tim decided he wanted to be in the locker room around seven every morning. He could always read something while waiting for practice to begin.

Tim was wearing a simple t-shirt and basketball shorts and carried his clothes draped over his arm. His backpack was hung over his left shoulder. Once in the locker room, he stopped to repeat morning greetings with a couple of other freshman players who were arriving at the same time. Greetings complete, Tim stopped before stepping onto the blue carpet, looked up at the “Rough Rider Country” on the wall and saluted.

“Oh, Mr. Murphy a moment of your time please.”

Coach Fontana, the head varsity coach and the school’s athletic director, was waving him over to the bench where all the football coaches were sitting and watching over their football teams as they entered the locker room. Each coach was dressed in the requisite white polo with red and blue school logo over the left breast, all wearing the same blue coaches’ shorts and each one sipping coffee. The smell was easy to identify as it wafted over the entire group, and undoubtedly was not the first cup for any of them.

“Coach Alvarez was just telling us about your first two weeks with us. How do you think you are doing so far, son?”

“Well, sir, I know I am having a lot of fun. I have always loved watching football but now that Coach Alvarez has shown me a little bit of the basics, I can see so much more than just the scoring.” Tim was getting visibly more excited as his answer continued. “Just this weekend, I was watching some of the college games. I mean, it was like I was seeing the games all new. I was watching the d-line working on their leverage and watching their stunts and blitzes. I was starting to notice the nuances and when and why they called for a blitz on certain situations.”

Tim noticed he was also getting a little worked up during his explanation and got a little embarrassed. “I got a little over-excited during the Notre Dame game as well, and my dad came into my room and told me to keep it down a couple of times, and as he put it, to get the volume level ‘down off of eleven.’ Apparently, I was getting a little loud, but damn that left defensive end could not hold the edge and keep the QB from getting outside the box to either run or throw the ball. I mean, he had all day to make up his mind!”

“Yeah, I was watching that game, too. You’re talking about the third quarter, right,” Coach Alvarez asked, and Tim nodded yes. “What would you have done differently, Tim?”

“Well, sir, it was kind of obvious. He needed to keep his lane and keep the QB bottled up. I mean, sure, he is really good at going after the runner and all that; but you could tell by the way the other team was setting him up, that the right defensive play was to keep the QB bottled up, so the linebackers could come in and knock him into next week. If he would have just kept his lane and position, the QB would have either been destroyed by the tackle coming off the stunt, or the QB was going to run off to his right and directly into the arms of the d-end waiting at his assignment, but that guy was running around chasing the play despite his teammates like his head was on fire.”

“Good answer, son.” All the coaches were grinning from ear-to-ear, sneaking looks at each other, and thoroughly enjoying their coffee.

“Since today is the first day of class, we are not going to bother suiting up this morning. So just get ready for class and when the bell rings go to your homeroom. Use this list to find yours, and pass it around to the others. I think the school has copies of these plastered all over the walls in the school but use this one and a map to find your homeroom.” Coach Barrett handed Tim a sheet of paper and continued.

“After homeroom, you’ll come back here since all football team members have football for first period. But we aren’t going to try and get everyone here then dressed to workout for 30 minutes and then get everyone back to shower for second period. So we will work harder when we will have practice this afternoon. We will see you guys back here in a few minutes, but we will just sit back and get everyone ready for the first day of school.”

The paper listed the homeroom assignments for the freshmen, via last name. After finding his class, he passed it to another freshman already in the locker room.

It was while showering that Tim realized he was showering without being embarrassed at his large belly and what he felt was his smaller than normal penis. He was walking around without trying to quickly get back to his clothes. He did not worry about anyone looking at him while he was undressed.

With a smile on his face, he used the specialty soap that his father told him was for making him smell good. They were perfumed soaps that went with the cologne that his father had picked out. Along with the soaps came a lesson from his father in how and when to use them. That included using soap “A” for getting the dirt and grime off his body. Then following up with shampoo “A” for removing the dirt from his hair. Then finishing with soap and shampoo “B” to make himself smell good.

This was the first time he was using the dual-soap system, since up until that point, he showered after practices, then usually got something to eat with the guys and went home. They never went hunting for girls since each of them just wanted to go home and relax after practice. Today, he went through the entire dual-soap ritual and finished it off with a shave and aftershave splashing of cologne. At the mirrors, he was surrounded by mainly seniors and a few popular juniors from the varsity team.

Frank Robinson, the senior middle linebacker and best player on the varsity team nudged over to give Tim a little room in front of a mirror. “Hey fellas, we got ourselves a freshman who already understands the dual soap regime.” Frank peeked inside of Tim’s shower bag and saw the brand names. “Oh, respect. Nice choices. They are definitely going to get you noticed in a room full of freshmen boys; who, if they use anything all, smell of Axe body spray. You will stand out in a very good way. Respect.”

Tim nodded his thanks, and proceeded to shave and style his hair as his dad trained him over the weekend. At the time, he thought he was going a little overboard but out of the corner of his eyes, he saw all the popular seniors and other older players who all looked like they cared about their appearance were all going through the same primping and prodding he was. He reminded himself to thank his dad again when he saw him at dinner.

When Tim was finished with the mirror and walking back toward the freshman locker cage, Frank got his attention again. “Say, Tim, come here a second. I want you to meet somebody. This is Troy Williams. He is going to be the starting QB this year, and most likely Prom Queen since he is so pretty.”

Tim and Troy shook hands. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I understand you had a little run in with our resident junkyard dog Rob Newsome a little ways back. I’m glad to see he didn’t scare you off.” The smile from the QB was warm and very toothy. Of course each were straight and almost painfully white like he had had them whitened by a dentist recently. He stood at least six foot four and a shade under two hundred pounds. He looked like a prototypical, high school, all-American football star is supposed to look.

“The pleasure is all mine Troy, all mine. But I do have a question for you.”

“Sure, whatcha got?”

“Do you have your dress picked out for prom already, or are you waiting for the new fall lines from Paris?” Tim muted the harshness of the statement with an equally toothy but not as white smile. Everyone including Troy was laughing.

“I’ll get you back for that, Tim, I’ll get you back.”

Tim retrieved his locked basket, and carried it over to the corner he and his new friends had been using since the first day of two-a-day practices. The group got used to each other, and the team knew Tim and his friends were by far the best players among the freshman.

The rumor mill had Tim, Tony, Jeff, Mark and Johnnie being promoted to the JV, by at least the fourth game of the season when the first grades came out. That was when a few players would be declared academically ineligible for all extra-curricular activities, and they would not be allowed to participate until the grade point averages were back up to passing. In Roosevelt athletics, that meant a minimum grade of seventy percent.

Every year, a few players would fall behind on their school subjects. If you are failing, then you are given a warning of one week to turn in a passing grade. Nevertheless, a few players for whatever reasons would flunk a class. They’d be put on probation, until the mid-terms three weeks later, assuming they had a passing grade. While on probation, you cannot participate in school-sponsored athletics. You can still go to the classes but you cannot workout with the rest of the team until you have a passing grade.

If a position on the varsity team opened because of a player flunking classes he would be replaced by his immediate backup who would most likely already be on the varsity team. For a freshman to be promoted to varsity, that player needed to be something special which the coaches could not ignore.

Coach Fontana, in his thirty years of coaching, had never promoted a freshman to varsity and he lists at least fifteen former players he has coached who have gone onto the NFL. That includes one former player who is in the NFL Hall of Fame today. That same twelve-year NFL veteran even thanked Coach Fontana in his acceptance speech for not promoting him to the varsity as a freshman even though the fans and athletic supporters were definitely in favor of seeing what their freshman phenom could do against better competition. Coach Fontana vowed to make sure he was ready physically and mentally. That admission, from his favorite player of all time, only reinforced the coach’s thinking that freshmen were not physically or psychologically ready for the varsity game.

So he just refused to let freshmen ever be promoted to varsity. He took his belief even further and set the guidelines that only juniors and seniors should be playing varsity football. It was a rare case when a sophomore, who was a spectacular athlete when the varsity team suffered from a severe lack of options at that position, was ever given the opportunity to play on the varsity. That had not happened in the last five years.

Tim and the majority of other freshmen were finishing up their showers before the bell rang to start school. The homeroom list made its way around to the other players, and everyone was now passing around copies of the school map to get themselves ready to go to their new homerooms. Most freshmen still had not actually gone through the halls of the school. Tim had only seen the hallways from the library to the main auditorium and to the weight room and locker room. He still hadn’t stepped foot in the “A” wing, where he suspected a majority of his classes would be held.

Tim pulled out his own copy of the school map and began looking up his home room. Like all the other freshmen, he was afraid of being late for class. He was also worried about getting a good locker since that was a status symbol. The school lockers were stacked one atop another in rows of six. It is infinitely more important for you to get an upper locker, at least in the new high school status environment. Realistically, Tim did not care which locker he’d had in middle school. He always had a bottom locker, and he found it worked just fine -- all he used it for was to hold his books. Same reason he needed to use it in high school.

After Tim spent a few minutes hanging out with his friends and teammates, the bell to end class rang, and that set off the coaches, for some reason.

“All right, ladies, get to homeroom. Remember, you got five minutes to make your way across campus before the tardy bell. No tardy slips today; but tomorrow, if you are late for class, you get to run laps when we find out you have a tardy slip,” Coach Alvarez barked out over the sounds of everyone gathering themselves for class.

The first steps outside of the locker room and into the school hallway were like stepping into an entirely new universe. In many ways, Tim was. His entire life thus far had been built on staying unnoticed as a key survival trait. If nobody noticed you, then nobody needed to take the time to mess with you. He learned early on in his life, if accosted, humor was a possible defense. Tim was quick-witted, and early in his middle school life he used humor to deflate any possible tension surrounding him or someone he was with.

A subtle breeze wafted out of the boys locker room and into the shared hallway with the entrance to the girl’s locker room as well as the coed weight room. This hallway led from the locker rooms to the front entrances of the cafeteria and into the “B” wing of the school. The “B” wing of the school featured mainly science classes and labs in the older buildings of the school. Lockers began lining the halls of the “B” wing right after passing the cafeteria. Those lockers were mainly for seniors who were not on the path toward college, and usually only went to class half days and then went on to internships or part time jobs.

The “A” wing of the school is mainly basic classrooms with lockers filling its hallways. The majority of classes and lockers were in the “A” wing. The passageway from the locker rooms into the school was filling fast with students on their way to their new homerooms.

Tim knew he had to make his way from the boys locker room to his new homeroom in the “A” wing. Tim, though nervous, was mainly excited. But when he stepped out the door into the high school hallway, it was like a badly written teen romantic comedy.

Tim saw something he never thought he would see in his entire lifetime. Girls pouring out of their locker room were stopping dead in their tracks causing small collisions as girl after girl walked into each other, doing a double take when they first noticed Tim. He noticed everyone was looking at him and that all conversations also stopped, but his first instinct was to try and hide himself. He quickly scooted his way around everyone in front of him and exploded out of the mass of people who had suddenly stopped.

From right behind Tim, “Damn dude you sure do know how to make a first impression with the ladies.

“YEAAAAHHHHHH, BOYEEEEEE!”

The laughing started immediately and Tim felt his flight instinct dissipate. The conversations restarted, and the right-of-ways were redefined. Tim felt someone grab him by the arm, and they ducked into a side hallway.

“Just concentrate on your breathing, and we will get out of this hall pretty quick. Now come with us so we can talk.” Johnnie Boynes was backed up by the other guys as they made a protective wall around the presumptive leader. They made their way down the hall and around a corner that, at the moment, was not jammed tight with teenagers shuffling their way to class.

“I figured you might have some trouble with your new found looks, man.” Johnnie said sympathetically while looking Tim in his eyes. “Remember, I knew you before you came out of your cocoon. This is probably going to be a little hard on you.”

“What do you mean?” Tim was honestly questioning his friend’s reasoning.

“I remember you all through middle school. You were a nice, quiet boy who, pardon me for saying this, no one would remember. I know you are a great guy, and that you are smart and friendly, but that was not the story your whole self portrayed. I mean I got to know you because we had so many classes together.” A smile emphasized Johnnie’s point to Tim. “You are truly completely different on the outside from who you were before to who you are now. You’re probably going to get a lot of attention!”

“You grew up!” Johnnie brought his hand up to mock measure Tim’s current height. “You grew out,” Johnnie wrapped his hands around Tim’s bicep and squeezed to make his point. “I’m not afraid of jarring my masculinity, but you also grew into a very handsome man.”

The entire group let out a quick laugh.

“My point is this. The girls will be after you, the guys will be jealous of you, and the teachers will be forced to pay attention to you once your first grades start coming in. Especially since I know first hand just how smart you really are. You were unfocused in middle school but we can all see that is no longer true.” Each of the guys were nodding affirmatively. “So take a deep breath, keep your chin up high, your back straight and walk the halls with an aura of pride because their ain’t a single motherfucker in the whole damn school who can come close to you.”

Johnnie slapped Tim on the arm. Then he readjusted his backpack, since it had slid down his arm slightly after the slap on the shoulder.

“Well, actually, except for me.” And before anyone could grab him he yelled out “YEAAAAHHHHH, BOYEEEEEE!” and scooted down the hall.

He was a running back, after all. The others laughed and followed after him. Tim felt amazingly better after that little pep talk, and did exactly what his new best friend told him to do.

Tim adjusted his backpack, then made sure his clothes were as wrinkle free and as tucked in as possible, and followed after his friends. He held his chin up high, his back straight and his aura of pride was as bright as the morning sun.

There was something strangely familiar about homeroom that Tim found relaxing. After a few moments of sitting in his desk and waiting for the bell to ring and class to begin, he finally realized what it was that he found relaxing. Actually, it was a couple of things. First, he recognized many of the other students, since homeroom assignments are made via the student’s last name. Many of these kids had been attending the same schools with Tim, since they were in elementary school. When the bell rang to begin class, out of the twenty six students in his homeroom, he recognized twelve of them.

Secondly, the fear of the unknown of first day of school was so thick in the air of that class, you could almost cut it with a butter knife.

“All right everybody, settle down. I am Mr. Brooks. I teach English, sophomore English, so don’t worry about remembering my name since you only come to this homeroom class once a year, so today is your one chance to gaze longingly into the eyes of your wonderful professor.” Several small chuckles could be heard, and pretty much everyone appreciated the teacher trying to take some of the stress out of the room. “Now I’ll hand out your schedules and if I have your schedule still in my hand when I finish then you are not present today.”

Tim did exactly what everyone else in the class did when they got their schedule for the first time, and he checked which lunch period he had and made sure his friends had the same lunch period.

With nearly 2,800 students, sending all of them to lunch at the same time would have been impossible. So, the lunches were split in half and named, thoughtfully enough, “A” lunch and “B” lunch. Basically, with seven classes each day the difference comes before fourth period. If you have “A” lunch, when third period ends, you go to lunch either to the cafeteria to purchase your lunch or to enjoy the lunch you brought from home. “A” lunch ends about fifteen minutes before fourth period ends. This gives the cafeteria staff time to prep for “B” lunch which starts about ten minutes after fourth period begins for the students who went to “A” lunch. Tim found he had “B” lunch.