Chapter 53: Judson vs. Roosevelt Electric Boogaloo

The mood in the locker room was euphoric. A true party atmosphere.

The coaches usually spent a few minutes outside of the locker room during halftime of a game, to give the team leaders time to go over the play of their teammates. Then the coaches would come in and tell them what they saw during the first half, and then together, they would try to correct problems and plan for what to do in the second half.

These were all severe concentration and serious work times for the game, even if the games were well in hand, with a substantial lead on the scoreboard. Even during those rare times, there were still many teachable moments. When the coaches came into the locker room at halftime, there were a couple of players dancing and singing in celebration of their upcoming win. The smiles on the coaches’ faces quickly transformed into looks of horror and rage. The other coaches promptly followed him into the locker room with the last coach quickly closing the door and locking it to keep voyeurs from watching.

Tim Murphy was seated on the tiled floor of the large shower area. Mayhem was in quiet contemplation with a strange smirk on his face as he watched his celebrating teammates enjoy the results of a hard fought first half, versus a rival school in Converse Judson. But Tim was not thinking about the first half, or even forecasting what to do in the second half. Tim was remembering an important conversation with his Dad after they finished cleaning up the front yard from Tim’s momentary breakdown.

The last of the broken branches and swathes of tree bark torn away from the main part of the tree that used to stand tall in the center of the Murphy front yard had been dealt with. While Tim’s father Raymond was not a zealot when it came to lawn care - as per the quintessential Texan, with a quarter-acre of front and back lawn - he did prefer to keep it tidy. It always gave him a thrill when the difference between the neighbor yards and his was noticeable. Raymond fell in behind his son at the front door when going back inside the house.

“Let’s go talk in your room for a minute,” Raymond told his son. They went down the hall but Raymond stopped at the bathroom in the middle of the hall. “Go on, I’ll catch up to you.” Raymond entered the bathroom closed the door behind himself. He took a moment to look at himself in the large bathroom mirror and settled himself to his task. He went underneath the sink and pulled out a well-appointed first aid kit, and went to follow his son into his bedroom.

Tim sat on the bed removing his shoes when his father followed him inside the room. Raymond closed the door and took a seat on the desk chair, waving his son closer to look at his wounded fingernails. Tim tried to hem and haw, not wanting to show his lack of wounds to his highly medically trained father.

“We suggest you tell him ... everything. He will understand,” printed across Tim’s vision. While he read the thoughts from the nanites sharing his body, his father moved the chair he was sitting in closer to his son. Tim looked up, slightly surprised at his father’s coming closer, when the final thoughts of his nanites dissolved from his vision and were replaced with their usual sign off: “End of Message.”

Tim saw his father’s growing irritation because his son would not show him his wounded fingernails. Raymond knew they should be nearly non-existent due to the earlier damage of his son’s losing control and letting it loose on the large oak tree in the front yard.

“Dad, really, I’m okay. They don’t even hurt,” Tim complained to his dad, who simply nodded his head telling Tim to let him be the judge of that. Tim finally relented. He raised his closed fists to his dad and opened them palm down. Raymond was taken aback at what he saw. Or rather, what he didn’t see.

“I saw your hands right after we got you calmed down. You were openly bleeding from each finger. It looked like you tore each of your fingernails out, probably from the roots,” Raymond exclaimed as he examined his son’s large but perfectly normal and apparently uninjured digits.

Tim let go a large breathe he didn’t realize he was holding. “I can explain, Dad. But to be honest, I’m a little scared of what you might think about me.”

“Whatever it is, Son. You’ll always be my son. What are you talking about?”

Tim slid off the bed onto his knees, and turned around to reach underneath his bed for the small bag of contents he had been hiding there since meeting his older self on the side of the Salado Creek, all those many months earlier. He sat back down on his bed and began opening what looked to Raymond like a Trapper Keeper with a zipper.

“Here, read this. I’ll tell you the story when you’ve finished.”

Tim handed his father a few sheets of paper. While taking the pages, Raymond noticed his son palm a small box, and hold it to his heart like it was the most important thing in the world to him. He looked at his son with a questioning glance, but soon turned his attention to the story on the pages in his hands.

Raymond, at first, could not believe what he was reading; but it did start answering several questions about the incredible transformation of his son, since this last summer. Those question rarely came to the surface of his conscienceness, but Raymond always seemed to just blow them off as unimportant.

“You took the pills, right?” Tim shook his head no and opened the little box he had held up to his heart. It was one white capsule, not very large. Raymond in his time as a nurse had seen many pills one would categorize as “a horse pill,” because of its size.

“I only took one. He, well I, did say to only use one, and keep the other for an emergency.” Raymond nodded his understanding.

“What does it feel like? How do you feel?”

“Well, I still feel the same; but when I first took the pill, it was strange wanting to always do something. I mean it was a completely different way of feeling for me, anyway. But I feel fine, now. I have never felt better.”

“So no weird side effects or anything like that?”

“Nope. Well ... not really.”

“What do you mean,” Raymond asked genuinely curious.

“Well I guess you could call them growing pains. I had to learn how to deal with the nanites on a personal level, but now we get along just fine.”

“You’re in contact with the nano ... um, nany,” Raymond tried asking while going back over the note he had just read.

“Nanites, Dad. They are microscopic robots. And yes, I am in contact with them all the time. They write little text messages to me, that are, like super-imposed on my eyesight. They are actually great to get along with, and I consider them my friends.”

Raymond saw his son look like he was looking at something over his shoulder for a moment. Then his attention refocused to his father with a smile. “They say ‘hello and it’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Apparently, they are big fans of yours.”

Raymond smiled and leaned back in the chair. “So all those times we have been worried about you on the field, I really didn’t need to worry, huh?” Tim just slightly shook his head no. Raymond suddenly remembered something. “That game when those two asses went for your knees and you needed to come out for a play, were you really hurt?”

Tim instantly remembered stomping on the ground in front of his coach to get back into the game. “Well, yeah, those guys were trying to hurt me and they succeeded, but the nanites were able to fix the tear immediately. I felt the tear and it hurt, but as they explained it to me, they stopped my brain from receiving pain impulses from the injured area. Then they found both edges of the tear and immediately sort of ‘rewelded’ them together. I felt much better before the others got off of me so I could get up from the pile. I guess I was still a little bit worried about it, so I limped for a couple of steps, and that’s what the coaches noticed and kept me out for a play. I got pissed and stomped in front of Coach Barrett, and he let me get back in the game. The nanites and I have since figured out exactly how to react in those types of situations. Basically, I shut the hell up, and let them do whatever they need to do to fix me.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Keep it up.” The two Murphy men sat quietly for a moment before Raymond restarted their conversation. “Tim, why were you worried about how I would react to finding out about all of this?”

“Well, I guess the only problem I’m having with all of this, is that I’m not really a normal person, anymore. My life will be something completely different than what either of us ever thought it would, or actually might, become. I’m so different and I have such a leg up on everyone else, it’s almost not fair.”

Raymond nodded his vague and maybe partial understanding of his son’s existential plight. “Tim, what you have is a gift that is, well I guess no different than someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth. That person would have advantages of money to help form their future. Now most would think a future formed by immense wealth would be great but it could also become a hinderance. That’s why you hear about the children of rich people becoming assholes since they don’t understand how to treat people without money. Or even if they do understand it, simply don’t care and become assholes.” Raymond got up from the chair and sat on the bed beside his son. “You, my boy, have apparently given yourself a gift. Unusual yes, but from the way I’m seeing it so far ... no different than having five different nannies available for wiping your ass after you take a shit. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can definitely change your outlook on life.”

Both took a moment to laugh.

“I know one thing. I won’t have to worry about you now, though. Well, actually two things. I don’t have to worry about you getting hurt on the field any longer. But the other thing is I know, is that you won’t let this change who you are. You’ll never let this turn you into an asshole,” Raymond added judiciously.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“For this next bit, I think you might not be as happy with me, but I think we might have to tell your mother about this, as well. I made a choice long ago to never keep anything of importance from her, and so far,” Raymond said while animatedly crossing his fingers. “So far, I’ve lived up to that very private and important promise to myself.

“But not Carmen, right,” Tim pondered.

“Yeah. Not Carmen. Maybe when she is a bit older and we can trust her to keep the secret.”

Tim nodded in agreement.

Tim smiled to the memory but was quickly brought back into the now. Big John grabbed an aluminum trash can posted next to the door. He stepped into the group of players busily congratulating each other and flung the can half-filled with detritus, crashing it loudly against a far wall. The attention-getter worked. All excessive talking and noise stopped immediately.

“I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! Who in the hell do y’all think you are?” Big John yelled at the team who to a man all desperately tried to disappear at that second from the frothing-at-the-mouth mad head football coach. “In all of my years,” Big John marched in-between the now kneeling players in the locker room. “I have never seen anything so disgusting in my life.”

Big John was quiet for a few moments as he stared in disgust at each player in the room. “It wasn’t but a couple of weeks ago when we had our jocks handed to us in this very stadium, and here you are, acting as if you have never been here before. This is a football game! Anything and everything can happen! I’m half tempted to go over to the Judson locker room and forfeit the game because of the performance of you, little boys.“

Big John took a few more moments to stare at these young men he used to respect. “The day after the Warren game, I spoke to a coach who told me he was jealous of me, because of the way you had reacted to what those assholes were saying to you the entire game. He was jealous of me because I had done such a good job of turning young boys into young men. Young men who could go on into society and prosper because they had learned how to act in modern society. And his team had won the night before by double digits!”

Big John continued to walk among the still kneeling players. “He was jealous of me because of how this team had acted in the face of adversity. Yes, we got beat down, but this team stuck its chin up and said, ‘Knock me down, and it just gives me another chance to get up again.’”

The head coach continued staring at his players. His disgust was easy to see. “Yes, we can be happy about what you have accomplished so far. But you need to remember it was only one half of a football game! Anything can happen!” He stepped back to the large whiteboard and grabbed the marker. The others in the room thought it was the end of the drumming down of the team. But Coach Big John Fontana was not yet finished.

“Do you know who that coach who called me was?” Several of the people in the room shook their heads unconsciously. “It was Coach Baker from Judson High.” The players looked around at each other. Their faces blankly asking each other as well as the coaches if what their head coach had said was correct. “He was jealous of me because of the way my team acted in the face of adversity. But apparently, I have not taught you how to act with a little bit of class.” A few more silent moments of reflection on life filled the room. “Get to your position coaches so we can see what we need to fix; because believe you me, we ain’t played perfect, yet!”

The friends and family formed up outside of the stadium locker room door to congratulate the team for the great first half of football. But they were a little shell shocked by the quiet and determined faces on the players coming out for the second half. Even with the congratulations from the fans, the players barely reacted but kept their determined faces on, while jogging back out to the sideline. Each player had shared looks of intensity, and each immediately after leaving the locker room went to stretching and loosening up for the second half. They all lined up like the beginning of a practice session. The looks of confusion from the players on the Judson sideline was priceless.

The practice of the coaches giving their players an opportunity to iron out problems themselves at the beginning of halftime during the game, is a tried and true psychological ploy to promote team unity. Judson’s head coach Jim Baker if anything, is a fan of tried and true psychological tricks that get his team wins. In reality, he was a fan of anything that gets him wins. And while standing outside the closed door of the visitor’s locker room, he could not hear anything resembling a team trying to heal itself.

The Judson team coaches were standing outside the locker room as the team figured out themselves what they were doing wrong. The problem was the coaches were not hearing arguing between the teammates. They were hearing nothing but the booster club members wanting to know how they were going to fix this problem, and get them another win.

“Coach, I know you have some tricks up your sleeve on how to deal with that number one running over, around and through us,” a large man in blue jeans and a gray polo shirt with a Judson Rockets logo embroidered on his left breast. The man took a quick look around and counted the three other men dressed identically to him and the other coaches in their white game shirts and khakis. “We have all been working on raising money and recruiting youngsters to Judson football for the glory of our school. Now there seems to be a bit of a rocky road in front of the coach and us. I don’t see you or your highly-priced coaching staff doing much of anything about it.” The threat was not very subtle, but it was effective.

“Come on, fellas. You know me. I got a plan, and I’m just letting our boys burn off a bit of steam between themselves, before we go in and set them up.” The three other members of the Judson booster club visibly relaxed when they heard the plan from their coach. “Now why don’t you and the others get some nachos and couple of Cokes? Go have a seat and enjoy the comeback in the second half.” The boosters shook hands with the coaches and began walking back to their seats. Coach Baker held the arm of the ringleader and waited a moment while the others continued to their seats.

Coach Baker pulled the booster club leader a little closer to himself, and then put an arm around the man’s shoulders. “If you ever come at me with this kind of shit around the coaches or wherever anyone can see us, I’ll turn us all into the UIL and get the famed Judson Rockets blacklisted from playing any high school sports against any other school in the state, ever again,” he quietly warned.

The head coach then patted the man on his shoulders as a dismissal and returned to the gaggle of coaches lingering outside the locker room. Coach Baker wished he could thank that moron from the booster club for putting him into the proper mindset he was going to need when he spoke to his team in a few moments.

The coaches expected the players to be arguing about their performances thus far in the game. With the Rockets losing thus far in overwhelming fashion, the anticipated coaches tensions expected to be high. But they were not ready for what they saw from their team. The stench of embarrassment wafted over everything and everybody in the visitor’s locker room. None of the coaches could speak, because each one needed a moment to fight back the sickness erupting from their stomachs. The only voice heard was their star running back, crying to his offensive line about the lack of any running lanes for him to exploit. None of the linemen were looking up or even really paying attention to the spoiled brat, as he cried and bellowed about how they were losing him his perfect season.

There was one lineman who was glowering at Rodney, so the star running back began targeting his complaints at the only lineman paying attention to him. It was evident to all but Rodney, that this particular lineman was on the verge of doing something to the irritant yelling in his face. Coach Baker quickly got to Rodney and pulled him away from the lineman, and took him further back toward the shower area in the rear of the locker room.

Coach Baker saw a few of the second and third-string players sitting in the shower area unsuccessfully trying to hide from the players who were looking for any reason to act up, and rid themselves of the anger they were feeling from being wholly trounced. He ushered the players out of the shower area while holding Rodney against a back wall.

“You will settle the hell down, Son!” The two stood eye to eye against each other for a few seconds when Rodney relented. “I don’t know what in the world are you complaining about since you haven’t done a good job running any of the plays we’ve sent in, this whole game. For some reason, you have a burr in your saddle about that Murphy kid, and you’re losing the mental war between the two of you.” Rodney looked up at his coach like he had just slapped him across the face.

“But Coach, he’s ruining my perfect season, and these guys are letting him do it,” the star running back screamed in front of his coach but really at his teammates.

“No, Son. You are ruining your perfect season!”

Rodney again looked like the man had just slapped him across the face. The confusion was readily apparent, and Coach Baker hoped he would be able to get to the young man.

“Rodney, you are a very talented young man. Without a doubt, you have all the tools to become a very successful person in life. But for some reason, you seem to think everyone is here for your pleasure. And that ain’t the truth, Son.” Coach Baker could tell he was not getting through to his star football player. So he decided to work within the young man’s neurosis. “What is happening out there that you can’t get a good run?” The coach felt sick almost immediately after asking the question.

“Well, the line ain’t blocking worth a damn. The only time my o-line did anything even close to blocking, was going high and low on that asshole. That should have worked, but they missed the guy,” Rodney explained to his coach. But Rodney couldn’t seem to figure out why didn’t the coach see these things like he did. If the coach called the plays Rodney loved, then they’d run all over those punks. Rodney decided to go ahead and tell the coach exactly what he was thinking. “Coach, we need to get the line to start going after that asshole’s knees and then catching the second wave of defenders. Once we get through that piece of shit,” Rodney let a small smile escape his lips before continuing. “Once we get through that piece of shit Murphy, and get him off the field. Then we can start playing how WE play!”

Coach Baker held his star running back by the shoulders and just watched his face for a few moments. “Did you throw that bag of shit at Murphy’s house?” Coach Baker kept his voice low as he asked his questions. “Did you lie at the meeting in the front office, in front of all of us?”

Rodney looked at his coach like he had just grown a second head. “Well, of course I lied, Coach. I had to get his mind onto something else: it’s psychological warfare, Coach. Get him so mad that he messes up, and we can beat him. Fat piece of nothing it’s done for us so far.” Rodney smiled after admitting his crime. But after a few seconds, he must have recognized the disgust on his coach’s face, and the smile went away. “So, Coach, what do you think we can do to get ourselves back into this game?” he added as the smile returned.

Coach Baker realized at that moment, the star running back of one of the most talented teams he had had the pleasure of coaching in his career, felt nothing near remorse for violating the family home of a star player of a rival football team. His only reaction was that the attempted firebombing of someone’s house failed to change his target’s motivation.

Coach Baker was at a loss. The head football coach could not believe what he saw with his own eyes. “Go join your teammates, and we’ll be there in a second.”

Rodney picked up his helmet from in between his feet and rejoined his offensive players who were quietly sitting, waiting for the changes coming from the coaches. A few of the other coaches were watching the back and forth between the head coach and the star running back. Some of them even heard the conversation but did not quite understand the full implications of Rodney’s confession.

“Hey, Coach, what was that about? What bag of shit are you talking about?” one of the position coaches quietly asked their boss.

Coach Baker looked up over the shoulder of the questioning coach and saw three others also close by. He waved them all over closer. “Earlier this week, I got a call from Coach Fontana. He told me someone had thrown a flaming bag of shit at the front door of Murphy’s house. Mayhem was able to figure out that someone in an off-white Volkswagen Beetle was responsible,” Coach Baker explained to the men he spent many a day and night working with closely.

A couple of the coaches reacted quickly, putting two and two together for the correct answer.

“He had photo evidence of the car speeding away from the house, right after the bag hit the Murphy’s front door, but he couldn’t see who was responsible. After checking with the school’s front office and not finding any VW’s, Coach Fontana called me thinking it might have been a prank gone too far. We got everybody here a couple of days ago and confronted Rodney with the evidence. He, of course, denied it, and his parents backed him up. Did you guys hear what he said, just now?”

Each of the other coaches acknowledged hearing the confession but not fully understanding its implications without the filled in back story until just then. “Now the question is, what do I do? Do I pull him from the game? I could say I didn’t want to risk him getting hurt. Or I can just let him play since the Murphy kid at the meeting knew that Rodney had done it, but let him off the hook. He asked us to let him play.” Now the coaches, including the head coach, were looking into the locker room and contemplating just what they were going to do.