Chapter 29: Unexpected Opportunities

His smile was wide as he made his way down the hall to his room. He heard his mother showering and going through her processes for bed. His dad just gave a halfhearted hello as he walked past their bedroom door. His dad was busy watching TV. Tim turned on the overhead light as he entered his room and immediately closed and locked the door. He quickly blew a kiss to Cindy on the wall, sat down at the desk, and was taking off his shoes when his mom knocked. Tim unlocked the door.

“Hey, I thought you said you’d be back around ten?”

“Yeah, Jimmy understood what he was doing, but he thought he was doing something wrong even though it was working. I just convinced him he was right and stuck around as he finished his homework and played a couple of video games real quick,” Tim was trying to be nonchalant as he untied his other shoe, collected them both and placed them underneath the desk. He grabbed the remote control and looked up at his mom with an unspoken urging for her to leave so he could watch a little TV. He didn’t actually turn it on because that would force his mother into finding out the details of the evening. He did not want to lie to his mom but, then again, losing his virginity to his high school English teacher was a conversation he did not want to have – especially with his mother. Good thing he did wait.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah, I think so. I’m not too worried. Supposedly, Clark is not a better team than Warren, so I’m not worried, but I’m not overlookin’ them, either,” he smiled with the answer.

“Are you gonna take a shower tonight before bed?”

“Oh yeah, I’m just gonna watch some college football, or maybe there are some big high school teams playing on ESPN.”

“They put high school teams on ESPN?”

“Oh, yeah. The last couple of years or so they have been playing the best programs all across the country against each other -- kind of like who plays better football. Can the great programs from Miami beat the perennial winners from California? Or maybe even the best from Pennsylvania going toe-to-toe with the best from Georgia,” Tim explained excitedly.

“Do you think you’d ever play in a game like that?”

“Oh mom, well, I guess anything is possible, but we’d have to be like an unstoppable force tearing through the rest of Texas to the state championship, undefeated, and beating everybody like...”

“Like your team does now!” his mother interrupted. “I’ll bet you get to do that soon.”

“Well, let’s hope. It would be a great way to tell how good we are. At least I’d be able to see how good I am.”

“Alright. Don’t stay up all night watching TV. Remember, you have a game in the morning and I, for one, am looking forward to it.” His mother took a few steps into the room and kissed her son on his forehead. It was a tradition she had fallen into ever since Tim was a little boy. She continued the tradition when her daughter was born. She considered it a final tucking in instead of actually tucking her children into bed. They were home. They were safe. She could go to sleep sound and content.

She closed the door behind her and, after he heard her sandals making the familiar clucking on the linoleum as she walked on down the hall, he reached up and connected the simple door lock.

He started up his laptop computer as the TV turned on. He made computations using the computer calendar and figured out how many months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and second he had been alive. “Wow,” he mumbled to himself. “That sure was a long time to wait to get a piece of ass.”

The largest area of the lockers in the all-sports locker room was the Varsity football lockers which were actual man-sized locking cages where the entire locker, including where the pads were kept, were under the security of the combination-lock door lever. The Varsity lockers also featured a top shelf to put personal things as well as an extra box to store things like tablet computers and expensive cell phones securely. Each athlete had to bring their own lock if they wanted to make sure their private lockbox in the locker was safe, but most just closed it and locked the main door, satisfied their personal property was secured enough with the single-locked door.

The Junior Varsity football lockers were half the size of the Varsity ones, built on top of each other, with enough room for someone to hang the shoulder pads and helmets on separate hooks welded into the cages, and room to leave things on the bottom of the locker. No extra lock box built in to these lockers. You put all of your school books and personal items on the floor of the locker whether you had a top or a bottom locker.

The freshman football locker area featured shared benches with hooks every few feet for the shoulder pads and pants and a top shelf for the helmet. Any personal belongings were placed in the old, well-worn iron baskets. They had just enough room to put all your personal stuff. If your stuff couldn’t fit, you either left it with a coach in their office, or you left it in your school locker and hoped it was there the next class day.

Tim was sitting in his normal spot in the rear corner of the freshman football locker/basket area. Every few moments another player would walk into the cage, unlock his basket, and move to their spot on one of the benches. Only slight head nods and assorted previously rehearsed hand slaps and fist bumps acknowledged others to his arrival. Everyone kept the conversations to a minimum and were all concentrating on what they had to do for the game. Tim noticed it was starting to get a little crowded with guys putting on their football gear and, since he was already dressed, he decided to give some room to the guys just coming in to get ready. He gathered up his helmet and shoulder pads in one hand and his tablet in the other.

He was listening to music as he got himself emotionally ready to beat another person into submission. He was not paying attention to anything else as he was listening to music through his headphones and, even though he was not on the offense, he had a copy of the offensive playbook and was reading it. Someone lightly kicked Tim’s arm. He looked up and saw Coach Alvarez, so he put the song on pause and removed his headphones.

“What are you listening to,” the coach asked?

“My dad gave me a bunch of mp3’s that he listened to when he was younger, and he said they always got him hyped up and ready for action. They seem to be doing a better job than the stuff some of the guys are listening to today.”

Coach Alvarez gestured for Tim to give him the headphones, so he could hear the music. The Coach adjusted the headphones and nodded for Tim to play the song.

I can’t stand it. I know you planned it.
But I’m gonna set it straight, this Watergate.
I can’t stand rocking when I’m in here.
Because your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear.
So while you sit back and wonder why,
I got this fucking thorn in my side.
Oh my Good, it’s a mirage.
I’m tellin’ y’all it’s a sabotage!

The coach recognized the song after just a few seconds and was nodding his head along with the song with a big smile crossing his face, remembering the Beastie Boys song from his misspent youth. He pulled the headphones off and gave them back to Tim. The song was still playing, though, and anyone in the immediate area could hear the wailing and grinding guitar and high-pressure vocals. Coach Alvarez smiled down at his superstar defender. “Yep. That it’ll do it. Excellent choice ... Mayhem.”

He smiled as he walked away from the star of the freshman football team. He called out to the team, “Okay ladies, bus leaves in about fifteen minutes. Everybody be ready in about ten minutes, then we go do some business.”

Johnnie sat down beside Tim while the coach was listening to the pulse-quickening tune. “I gotta take a piss. Here,” Tim urged as he passed the tablet and headphones to Johnnie who promptly put them on and began dancing in his seat to the Beastie Boys.

“Hey, Joe.” Coach Alvarez turned toward the voice coming from the doorway of the coaches office. “Put the training gear in the little bus. Coach Shack can drive that one for the gear and trainers, and we’ll use the big one for the players.” Coach Alvarez just nodded and started picking up bags of gear while the managers and team trainers picked up the rest of the gear.

Coach Shackelford, more affectionately known as Coach Shack, was Roosevelt’s head athletic trainer and was responsible for the treatment of any injuries suffered by any student participating in athletic events for the school. He also ran the group of five girls who helped him watch over every player. Tim had not had a chance to meet Coach Shack yet, but he figured he probably never would since he had his own way of treating injuries. The coaches and training staff quickly filled up the back half of the small bus with equipment and left a little room for the trainers to ride as well.

Tim washed his hands and stared at himself in the mirror for a few moments. He was having trouble believing this was all happening to him. He was lost in memories of his previous life and trying to think of what he would have probably been doing had it not been for the meeting his future self at the creek that warm summer day. He rinsed his hands and splashed some water on his face. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a message from his nanites scroll across his vision. “Good luck in the game today, Tim. We think we will all have fun.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

He smiled and said thanks to his reflection in the mirror. No one noticed him talking to his reflection.

Tim made his way over to Johnnie and his friends, all listening to the same song. “Okay fellas, time to go put an ass whoppin’ on the Cougars,” he exclaimed! He retrieved the headphones and the tablet and jogged back to his basket. He pulled out his clothes and, leaving his jeans on the bottom, sandwiched the tablet and headphones on top of his jeans and underneath his t-shirt. He replaced the basket and re-locked the combination lock.

The ride to Clark High School took just over a half hour. It being a Saturday morning, there was not much traffic for the buses to fight. The bus made its way around to the back of the school, and Tim saw a large field and grandstand of metal bleachers. The bleachers were steadily being filled. He watched as the little bus they were following pull into a circle, and the trainers got off their bus. Then Coach Barrett called for the players to follow the trainers to the locker area.

The first thing everyone noticed was the bright pink color scheme of the walls, ceiling, and dilapidated lockers – not to mention the vending machine featuring tampons. It was easy to conclude the visitors used the girls’ locker area. Coach Alvarez saw this and raised his hands up and called out to the players. “Nope. No can do. We ain’t in here. Do you fellas mind spending some time outside in the great outdoors?” The shared answer was no. “Okay, then hang loose for a few seconds, and we’ll see what to do.”

The coaches had a quick huddle and turned to the team. “Fellas, we are going to the other side of the field where those trees are.” He pointed, and everyone looked over the coach’s shoulder, finding the copse of trees.

Johnnie called out to the players. “Okay, fellas, let’s do this with some pride and some precision. We will line up in threes and jog ourselves over. Not too fast, don’t wanna get hurt.” The players looked at each other, grunted their approvals and moved into three columns with the coaches falling in with the end of the columns. Little did they know they were starting a new tradition for road games for Roosevelt.

Coach Barrett was whispering to Coach Alvarez as they jogged behind the team. “I didn’t even make it inside to see the locker room. How bad was it?”

Coach Alvarez grinned at his friend. “It looks like they just repainted it over the summer. The pink was striking.” They both laughed.

“I can’t believe they are still trying that psychological shit from twenty years ago,” Coach Barrett lamented.

“Oh sure. But, then again, we did change the way we were going to do things. They’ve already screwed with our plans. Their pseudo-psychiatric trick worked,” Coach Alvarez pointed out as they crossed mid-field toward the other side of the football field. Then he smiled at his friend and picked up his speed to reach the small swath of trees just ahead of the players.

The players were jogging on the track, but the coaches cut right over the grass field. When the boys reached the trees, the coaches gathered the team around them and had them take a knee for a final pep talk.

After the players filled in around the coaches, Coach Barrett started a different speech than what he had in mind. “Everybody go ahead and take a knee. Y’all still okay? Hamburger ... what about you?” The large Mexican/Puerto Rican man-child nodded his head affirmatively as he was fighting to catch his breath, but he would be ready when it was time to play.

When summer training had first begun, Carlos Gomez, -- or as Coach Alvarez had renamed him, ‘Hamburger’ -- was nearly 400 pounds of fat. The name stuck because, rather than fighting the moniker, he embraced it. Underneath those large layers of fat, though, was a powerful young man. If Tim had not been a member of the team, ‘Hamburger’ would have been the strongest player, by far. He was down to a svelte 350 pounds, and his belly fat still jiggled whenever he moved, spoke, or breathed, but his legs were impressive in the amount of muscle density visible to the naked eye. His calves, hamstrings, and thighs were rock solid and most certainly did not jiggle when they moved. He was a brick wall as the starting left tackle.

Despite his strength and solid base, he still was not very fast and, as such, was vulnerable to speed rushers going around him. He almost always needed help from a running back or a receiver on that side to stop any speed rushers from running around him. He was working on getting quicker in and out of his stances for blocking, but it was a work in progress.

After a few seconds, everyone had removed their helmets and looked up at the coaches, waiting for their standard pre-game pep talk. Coach Barrett removed his sunglasses, looked all around at his team, and took a moment to look each boy in the eye. “I’m not gonna be all rah-rah, go-team-go. You guys don’t need that.” He looked up at the deep blue sky and raised his arms, pointing toward the wisps of clouds dotting the sky.

“Second game of the season and this team already knows what they need to do,” he declared loud enough to be heard in the stands across the field. Bringing his voice back to just loud enough for the team, “You guys have improved tremendously in the short time we have been able to work with each other. I can’t believe you are the same team I had to admonish for still worrying about which middle school you came from. I usually don’t get to give this speech until the final or, if it’s a really good team, the second-to-last game of the season.”

The coach paused again, looked into the faces of the players and saw understanding. Then he continued with his unnecessary pep talk, “Fellas, I know for a fact a few of you won’t be on this team for the entire season, but that’s okay because you will probably be moving on up to JV.” A small rumble of astonishment rolled throughout the team, vocalizing in many grunts and grumbles as well as looks toward Tim and his friends. “Guys, those of you who move on up the line, know that you are ready for the challenge, and don’t forget us little guys when you do move up. Watch out, though, cuz the guy replacing you will be hungry, come sophomore year, and they will be coming for you.” The grunts and grumbles turned into hoots and hollers punctuated with shoulder slaps and playful pushes.

Coach Alvarez leaned into the huddle of the team and did what Coach Alvarez always did, “Hey, but let’s beat up on these boys first, though! Whaddaya say?!”

The opening coin toss saw the Rough Riders winning the opportunity to start on offense. Tim was a little disappointed but knew his chance would come soon.

Before his team lined up for the first play of the game, Tim looked in the stands for his parents. He spotted them just sitting down a couple of rows up from the bottom. His father pointed toward the people sitting in the stands below them and the smile that cascaded across his mother’s face brought on feelings of pride he never knew he had. The men in the seats below his parents were all dressed in coaches polo shirts with many different high school and a few college insignia on the left breast of each shirt.

A sudden yell from his teammates had Tim quickly noticing his friend Johnnie sprinting right up the middle of the field with only a couple of would-be tacklers ahead of him. One tackler dove low, trying to get at his legs as they churned up the field. Johnnie just extended his stride and hurdled right over the Cougar defensive man. The final defender was still trying to catch up to Johnnie, but the running back seemed to find a third gear and easily pulled away from the last defender to score a touchdown on the opening play.

Tim was cheering along with his friends and a voice from the field, growing louder as it neared the rest of his teammates, boomed a familiar mantra, “YEAAAAAAAH BOYEEEEEE!”

“Great run, Johnnie! Great freakin’ run!” Johnnie was met with numerous slaps on the back, high fives, and even a couple of the jumping chest bumps the NFL players are doing after almost every good play.

Johnnie seemed a little more winded from the celebration than the eighty-yard touchdown run, right through the middle of the Clark defense, should cause. “Dude, Alex turned and handed me the ball. I saw the entire left side of the line busted wide open. Hamburger just planted two dudes into the ground like they got buried or something. Next time anybody sees those fools, they’ll be coming up for air in China.” The rest of the team was still congratulating Johnnie when the crowd cheered again as the extra point went right down the middle.

Johnnie sat down on one of the benches behind the team, and Tim came to give him personal congratulations. “Hey man, should I let them run a couple of plays so you can get some rest or do I need to get the ball back to you quick?”

“Get that ball back to me quick, fast and in a hurry, mutha fucka!” Johnnie then squirted water at Tim from his water bottle. “Imma gonna start impressin’ those scouts that are comin’ for you.” He took a drink of water. “They are coming here to see if you are for real, but they are going home talking about two great players coming up from Roosevelt. We are gonna take Texas High School Football to a new level!”

The two friends grasped each other forearms to the elbow. The handshake between the two was much more significant than just a simple handshake. It was an all-encompassing oath.

The kickoff to the Cougars went as expected. The Clark kick returner just watched the ball sail over his head and out the back of the end zone. The Cougars would be starting their first offensive series with the ball on the twenty yard line. The Rough Riders were now coming on defense as the kickoff team exited the field.

“Okay, ladies, Johnnie got them nice and tenderized for us, all we gotta do is burn their asses and serve ‘em up on a plate,” the freshman middle linebacker Gabriel Hawkins barked out to his defense.

The Cougars used the spread offense, like most teams in high school and college football, and a lot like the new offense to which the Rough Riders were transitioning. Their spread offense used the pass as the base for their offense rather than establishing the run. On their first possession, the quarterback stood back from the line in the shotgun formation. During pregame warm-ups, it was easy to see the Cougar quarterback had a lively arm and was pretty accurate while throwing the ball against no defense.

The snap came to the quarterback fast and right at his waist. He instantly set his feet and rifled the ball to his left at the smallish, yet quick, wide receiver. During the warm-ups, Coach Alvarez made it a point that this receiver was swift and nimble and to show the defense they needed to understand where he lined up on each play.

The throw was not completed because Tim recognized the quick pass so, instead of attacking toward the passer immediately, Tim shot out toward the passing lane and was able to knock the ball out of the air before it could be completed. The only reason Tim swatted the ball out of the air rather than intercepting it was because his foot slipped just slightly before he could take off up the field. That fraction of a second was the difference in an incomplete pass and an interception for a touchdown.

Tim jogged back to the defensive huddle, signaling with his thumb and first finger held slightly apart. His teammates slapped him on his shoulder pads and told him to watch out for next time, and it would be six points for the good guys. The next defensive play was called ‘jailbreak.’ The front line was to go all-out and attack the quarterback before he could throw the ball. If he happened to hand off to a running back, they were to stop him before he reached the line of scrimmage. This was a defensive play designed to get the offense worried about the defense just running right over them, despite their best efforts to stop them.