Chapter 64: It’s Just a Party, What Could Happen?

The week of practice started with a few announcements from Big John on Monday morning. Big John had canceled morning practice with a sign written on the giant dry erase board along the long wall in the locker room. He didn’t cancel all practice, but it would be just no helmets or pads. That meant a full hour of lifting weights rather than working out on the practice fields in full pads – a day off for sure. Before practice would have typically begun, the Roosevelt football teams met in the locker room for a series of announcements concerning every football team.

“All right, ladies! Settle down and take a knee!” Big John announced to the assorted mass of testosterone, all on single knees, filling the room.

He waited a moment for the murmurs to settle. “As per the board, we are not practicing out on the field this morning though this afternoon’s practice is as scheduled, so don’t miss it. Now,” Coach hesitated for a moment and swallowed his apparent disgust. “I’ve got some good news, and I’ve got some bad news. No. I’m not gonna let you pick which is first.” The chuckles filled the room briefly, but Big John just held up his hand, demanding quiet attention.

“The grades are in, and they bit us on the ass, by some of you not keeping up with your schoolwork. So we have a few demotions and a few promotions and a bigger announcement as well. I’m not going to embarrass anybody.” He paused and looked in the direction of several different players but mainly varsity players. “I probably should call you guys out here and now right in front of everybody, but I’ll keep that stuff private.”

He took a big swallow from his steaming coffee cup and continued. “But you will be meeting with your positions coaches during the hour, and until then, you can lift weights to do something then get ready for your day of classes.”

Big John took a step back and gestured over to his son, Greg, the offensive line coach, to continue the announcements. “Okay, when I call your name, stand up. Gabriel Gomez, Kevin Robinson, and Cody Watson.” The three bunched together as they were standouts of the junior varsity squad. “You three pack up your gear and get ready to move to the varsity locker area.”

The congratulations were loud and well deserved. Coach Fontana let the congratulations simmer down to a dull roar before continuing. “You guys can move over right after lifting, but before this afternoon’s practice, so if you need to, you can come in during lunch and haul gear.”

Coach Fontana flipped a page on his clipboard and got everyone’s attention again. “All right, same thing. When I call your name, stand up.” The tension in the room was palpable and needed a machete. “Johnnie Boynes, Tony Parker, Jeff Green, Mark Mazzurana, and ‘Hamburger’ Gomez pack up your stuff and get ready to move to the junior varsity lockers. You guys get ready to move before the end of the class period. So get your lifting in and get your stuff moved.” The congratulations mirrored the previous celebration but among the freshman team members.

The consensus among the younger players was that many guys on the junior varsity must have screwed up their grades and lost their spots. By the time the class period finished, a few of those not making high enough grades had left the team and were transferring from the football class of the first period into the first-period physical education class.

The junior varsity coaches were paying attention to the freshman team. They were much further along than any other class of players before — several earned promotions from the freshman football team onto the junior varsity. All of this obliterated the spirit of Big John’s steadfast “no freshmen on varsity” rules.

No one noticed, but the other coaches were subtlety removing several players and moving them toward the coach’s office. That is, no one noticed until someone started yelling.

“No way, coach! I’m not failing anything! I’ve been keeping up with that class, and I’ve been passing his weekly tests. I’m not failing...” The door to the office shut quickly, not quite slamming.

Tim was now wearing a smile that not even a sledgehammer would be able to knock off of his face. He made his way over to his friends and even followed them into the freshman locker area to offer his congratulations as they all grabbed their clothes and locked baskets to transfer their gear to the other locker area.

“I told you, man, you’d make it,” Tim offered as he gave the well-practiced, complicated handshake the friends had been performing for months. “Freshmen on the J.V. team! Who’d have ever thunk it?”

“Yeah, they must have just decided the J.V. guys were too ugly, and thus we got promoted,” Tony Parker offered and basked in the appreciative laughs from his joke.

Everyone grabbed their gear and moved to the new locker area. It wasn’t that different from their previous lockers, and they kept their same combination locks, so nobody was confused with having to memorize new combinations.

“Mayhem, let’s go! You gotta get your lifts in before the newbs,” Frank Robinson yelled from just outside the locker room.

Tim made his way to the weight room, but on the way, he cried to his friends, “Hey, Boynes, whatta ya say?!”

Jogging out the door toward the weight room, Tim smiled when he heard a drawn-out, “YEAAAAAAAH BOYEEEEEE!”

For Tim Murphy, the only thing of interest for the week was the reaction of those students who had not yet met the triplets. When the three of them entered the cafeteria, the proverbial needle could have hit the floor and would have had everyone jumping at the sound. They quickly found Tim seated at his table in the corner with his friends all around, busily inhaling food.

Tony Parker’s mouth was open, but nothing was coming out of it. This was an oddity since Tony talked enough for the entire group. Tim was about to comment on the lack of comment from Tony when he noticed Jeff Green’s mouth was also wide open and silent. Not unexpected there, since Jeff rarely spoke unless essential and profound. Then Mark Mazzurana began slapping Tim’s shoulder, almost making him drop the hamburger he was holding.

“What the hell, dude?” Tim asked, slightly annoyed.

Mark just kept staring at the cafeteria entrance behind Tim, so Tim turned to see what had the table’s attention.

The triplets had seen Tim before he turned around, and they made a beeline, sashaying toward his table. There weren’t any more seats at the table, but a few spots were available at nearby tables. Tim noticed the predicament and soon got things rolling.

“Dude, grab a couple of those extra chairs. Scoot in and give the ladies some room to eat, will ya?” Tim ordered, and several nearby seats swiftly appeared right before the girls reached the table.

“Hi, Tim, um, do you mind if we join you for lunch ... at least until we can figure things out in here?” Margie requested.

“Sure, no problem. Have a seat,” Tim answered.

Tim went ahead and introduced the triplets to his friends with whom he ate lunch every day. Unfortunately, they were all doing beautiful jobs of imitating fish out of water. Namely, their mouths were stuck open, and nothing but labored breathing was escaping from among the crew.

“Save me a seat, y’all. I’ll go and get lunch,” Margie took command as she put down her book bag and made her way up to the snack food line.

“Y’all? Are you trying to get with the Texas vernacular?” Tim challenged jokingly.

“Holy shit, she did say y’all, didn’t she?” Marcie exclaimed and quickly hid her laugh in her hand. Marcia didn’t even try to hide her laugh. She almost snorted, and both sisters laughed louder when their sister returned with their lunch.

Tony Parker rediscovered his voice and told Margie what her sisters said while gone. She just blushed red and gave her sisters their food with a little bit of an attitude. They knew to enjoy the laugh now because her vengeance would undoubtedly come later.

It took a moment before the conversation restarted, but it instantly turned to the table manners of the young football teammates.

“Well, I just caution you to keep your fingers away from any of their mouths, or else they’ll get sucked in with the food,” Tim defended his friends to the new neighbors.

“Oh, that’s okay, it’s just like Dad when he gets started on barbecue. I think it was a major reason we moved to San Antonio rather than going to Minnesota,” Margie explained.

“Holy crap! I didn’t even realize it until just now. I never even asked why y’all moved here in the first place!” Tim dramatically announced with a slap to his forehead. “Sorry about that, girls.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re pretty because you’re not gonna get far with your smarts,” Marcie added with a wink and a bite of her hamburger.

Their tablemates and several nearby listeners all laughed at the joke. Before the end of the lunch period, the triplets had won over Tim’s friends.

The triplets acted like it wasn’t the first time they had to carry conversations while intermixing with teenage men. As far as what Tim had seen for himself, nothing else out of the ordinary happened with the triplets and the other students. However, the other students of Roosevelt swiftly and privately took sides in the coming war.

Cindy Diefendorf complained to her fellow Patriot Dance Team officers, “I mean, have you seen the way they fawn all over him?”

The girls were in the secondary gym, the girls’ gym, the same size as the main gym, except this one did not have folding wooden stands for people to sit and watch the different basketball and volleyball games. As the boys’ locker room was adjacent to the main gym, the girls’ locker room was adjacent to the girls’ gym. Luckily, the two locker rooms were almost the same size, but because of the lack of girls’ sports, their locker room features an area akin to the portion of the football locker area used by the cheerleaders and dance team for dance practice.

In the dance area, the Patriots were planning a dance number for the halftime shows during the Bi-District playoff game in a couple of weeks. The cheerleaders were practicing on the other side of the locker room.

“Those hussies were rubbing all over him and laughing at all of his jokes. It took everything I had to keep from pukin’ my lunch right there in the cafeteria.”

“Cindy, what the hell are you talkin’ about?” Jennifer Smith, the small-of-stature second-in-command of the Patriots Dance Team, asked her friend. “I was right there with you during lunch, and I don’t remember any of those girls even touching Tim during the entire lunchtime.”

“Oh shut up, Jennifer,” Cindy exclaimed. “You weren’t there for the whole of it. You didn’t see the way they pushed themselves into seats with those guys. It was disgusting.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Jennifer added. She then pointed a finger to her temple while looking at the other girls and sang, “cuckoo, cuckoo.” The other Patriots leaders roaring with laughter, ending the conversation with a frustrated Cindy wondering why her friend wasn’t falling into her place behind her, as she usually did.

While the rest of the dance squad concentrated on warming up, Cindy was bound and determined to get the other officers to agree with her version of what happened during lunch in the cafeteria. “Oh, stuff it, Jen. You didn’t see what happened when you went to get your food. That’s when I saw the one triplet rubbing her fake tits on Tim’s shoulder as she was giving her sisters their lunch. If she could have, she would have pulled his dick out and started teaching a pole dancing class right in the middle of the cafeteria.”

“My, my, my! Now that would have been a sight,” Patricia Townsend, the Algebra teacher and faculty sponsor/coach of the Patriots Dance Team added, while joining the officers at the head of the formation for calisthenics. The laughing of the officers ended the conversation. This time, Cindy kept her silence briefly but was determined to continue badmouthing the newest members of the Roosevelt student body.

The girls’ attention was drawn, on cue, toward the door when the triplets entered the girls’ gym and walked to the locker room. Cindy was staring daggers into each of the three.

“What in the hell are those sluts doing here,” the Patriot’s Captain expressed a little too loudly.

Ms. Townsend gathered the triplets’ attention and met them halfway. “Hello, girls, thanks for coming down. Now, if I remember correctly, you three said you were interested in the cheerleader squad, am I right?”

The three nodded their agreement.

“Awesome! They are over there, and I’m pretty sure they would be more than excited to have you join their squad.”

The triplets turned toward the gaggle of girls, all staring in a mix of fear and surprise at the three beautiful girls approaching them. The cheerleaders were nice enough girls, but they’d had little-to-no leadership from their faculty advisor over the last few years as she had signed up not understanding what the squad would need from her.

The girls were short, very short; not one of the cheerleaders was five feet tall. These girls were former gymnasts and knew each other from practicing with the same coaches at the same gym. They each had gone into puberty and developed. The lack of height accentuated the development of these girls. If they had five more inches of height, they would be ordinary, well-proportioned girls. Because of their stature, though, the boys at Roosevelt mostly stayed away. Thus, lesbianism became a popular choice.

In most cases, it was a choice they did not want to make, but getting the cream of the crop in the male student body went to the leadership of the Patriots Dance Squad. They chose to keep up a lesbian charade rather than find a boyfriend.

One cheerleader, Jennifer Smith, escaped from that social dilemma. She was now second-in-command of the Patriots and best friend to Roosevelt Queen Cindy Diefendorf. Although she was a lesbian, Jennifer was allowed to join the Patriots because she was a couple of inches taller than five feet. Jennifer was a beautiful girl when she wore makeup which she only did for the Patriots. Every one of the Patriots knew Jennifer was head-over-heels for Cindy except Cindy. It was almost a “Lifetime” movie in the making.

The Patriots and the dance squad watched the three continue down the locker room, and Cindy again disparaged them as Ms. Townsend returned.

“Okay, zip it, Cindy. Those girls asked earlier today about joining the cheerleaders. They were all members of the cheerleading squad from their last school and want to join up again,” Ms. Townsend announced as she motioned the girls to get into position for the beginning of practice.

The other Patriots leaders all liked the idea of the three girls joining the lesser-socially-ranked cheerleaders. They appeared to be less of a threat there.

When the Patriots’ practice finished, the girls returned to the locker room. The gossiping on various subjects continued with Cindy attempting to continue badmouthing Margie, Marcie, and Marcia.

“I’m telling you, I don’t trust those girls any further than I can throw them,” Cindy pronounced.

By now, all the others Patriot officers and a good number of the regular dance team members were tired of Cindy’s attempted character bashing. Once again, though, Jennifer was the only one to say something since Jennifer seemed to be the only person who could get Cindy to change her mind about anything.

“Cindy, I love you, girl, but drop it. Those three have not given you a reason to hate them. You’re always saying how other people are always hating on you because of the way you look, and now you’re doing the same to these three girls,” Jennifer explained while she finished getting dressed.

“Anyways, I met Marcie and Marcia in my English class today with Miss Holmes, and even though they didn’t know the assignment, they had read the book and were able to keep up with our class. It was invigorating to have someone else to argue against Hemingway. Now you wanna start badmouthing him, I’m with you one thousand percent!” Jennifer suggested to her friend.

“But those girls are nice and not a threat to you or to your crown ... at least, not yet,” Jennifer joked but quickly continued before she could be interrupted. “Once they start coming for you, then we can destroy them and their prospects at ruling this school,” Jennifer pleaded with her friend.

Cindy took a few moments and, out of the corner of her eye and over Jennifer’s shoulder, caught a couple of the other girls nodding their agreement with what Jennifer said and pleading expressions on their faces. Cindy took a second to lean back against the wall and dramatically released a held-in breath of air toward the heavens.

“Do you promise to start hating them the second they do something heinous?”

“How about I agree to begin listening to your arguments, because after all, you just might be a bitch, too,” Jennifer mused as she dodged the torrent of damp towels tossed at her by not only Cindy but several of the other Patriot dancers.

The game against the MacArthur Brahmas was not as close as the final score indicated.

It was 84-0. The officials ended the game in the middle of the third quarter. Apparently, the head coach, who considered himself a gifted orator, had challenged his boys to try harder in the second half. Of course, the attitude was there, but the skill was severely lacking. Big John reported that the Brahmas wanted to continue the game into the second half. Tim thought they must have been high! That team had not won any games all year.

An unexpected highlight of the week’s preparation for the game was the promotion of Tim’s friends from the freshman football team to the Junior Varsity football team. The freshman and J.V. football teams had only one more game to play for each of their seasons. Once finished, the freshmen separated into different groups, and their main activities for the rest of the semester were strength and conditioning. If you planned to play another sport, your class schedule changed to accommodate that specific sport. If you were planning on going out for track and field, you just stayed in first-period football and reported to after-school practice for your events.