Chapter 2

20 minutes later, after a shower, I sat in the stands on a gorgeous day watching the cheerleaders practice. They weren’t very good, nor bad, to be fair I didn’t have much to compare to. And I wasn’t really paying attention. No one had stopped me from being here. There was a guard, but so far it seemed as long as I didn’t try and leave school grounds I was somebody else’s problem. I don’t think I’d ever been out here during school hours.

I wondered where they practiced if it rained. My senior or maybe junior year I would run track, but I had no recollection of anything except running stairs. 30 stinking men running up and down steps in a closed staircase we usually ran until someone slipped on the sweat that dropped off of us and pooled on the steps.

What did freshmen cheerleaders actually do? Who did they cheer for, did we have freshmen teams? There was a hell of a lot I didn’t know about my high school. Even then. If I was stuck here ... I didn’t want to even think about it. Four years ... I did not romanticize the past. I remember writing in my diary that so many did, and not to forget how miserable I was. It would be nice if I had started it before my senior year, so I could figure out what I was up to.

I should just go home. I looked at my schedule- psychology- gym- lunch- choir- French and history left.

Maybe they’ll have those peanut butter and chocolate squares. Other than that. Hell, I took French in college, still can’t speak a word, though my wife says I sometimes talk in my sleep, in French, when I’m stressed. At least I could read it. I only took it back then because I thought it sounded sexy. Like that would be my way to meet girls.

I felt someone standing next to me before I saw her. The coach of the cheer squad was standing over me. Her whistle hanging off her neck almost hitting me in the face. Not as frumpy as every adult I met so far, I allowed my eyes to wander to her cleavage, which she must have known she was giving me a peak at since her breasts were practically on eye level with me. Tanned. As far as I could see, which wasn’t much. Just two buttons on her pollo open.

“Debbie says you are following her.”

“Which one is Debbie?”

“The red head.”

“Oh yeah, I am.” The coach looked at me with concern, straightening up. “But not on purpose.”

“Then what are you doing out here?”

“You ever have one of those days?”

“Pretty early for that.”

“You have no idea.”

“Where you supposed to be?”

“2020.” Blank stare. “Algebra”

“Oh ... Are you having trouble at home or school.” Shit.

“Homes fine. Honest.”

“So school? Are you being bullied?”

“I just ... don’t feel like I belong here.”

“Freshman?”

“Yes, but...” but what could I say? I took my schedule out of my back pocket. “Have you ever seen anything so boring.”

“Choir?”

“I can’t sing ... Je ne parle pas francais, I could care less about the foil method, knowing how the human mind works is great, but memorizing what Freud or Jung did when, please, kill me now, not to mention state history where the biggest goal of the class will be to memorize the 88 counties and their county seat, which I can guarantee I don’t know or remember a single one, despite once having memorized and drawn a map where they are located, no do I care.” I paused out of breath. It would have been an impressive monologue if my voice hadn’t cracked three times.

“There’s always gym.”

“I am a kid at the beach having sand kicked into his face, and I’m not going to sprout to 6’4 until my senior year, when I will be nothing but awkward for another year.”

“You can’t know that. It’s common, a lot of kids feel out of place coming into high school. Why aren’t you in any honor classes?”

“I don’t know.” I get bored easy. No one saw my potential. And I kind of live in my own world. Always have.

“You do know, you have to go to school? You can’t sit here all day watching cheerleaders.”

“They’re too young. Hell you’re too young”

“I’m not that young.”

“Me neither.”

“Please, stop feeling sorry for yourself it will get better.”

“Really?” I looked at her, and I don’t know why now, but I started to cry.

“Honest. “ And very tentatively she hugged me, and I gave in and started crying on her shoulders. She embraced me and stroked my hair. “It’s okay, hush now, it’s alright.” She took my face and brushed away my tears, then quite unexpectedly kissed me on my cheek. I pulled back. “I’m sorry, don’t take that the wrong way.”

“No, I’m not, I just ... Thank you.” And I squeezed her hand.

We sat silent.

“Are you going to get back to class now?”

“I suppose, I can’t think of anything better to do. And you can’t sit here and console me all day. Your cheerleaders will start building circles and squares instead of pyramids.” She laughed, a throaty derp laugh that caused even her teeth to smile. We got up and walked down the stands.

“Tell ... Sorry, I’m bad with names ... the red head that I wasn’t creeping. And thank you ... did you tell me your name?”

““Mrs. Koallinski”.

“Married?” She smiled.

“More or less. You?”

“Married.” She chuckled.

Don’t be a stranger ... kid.” The way she said kid, she was flirting with me. Or teasing at least. I almost smacked her ass as she walked away, but despite our recent intimate connection, that is something I would never do. Oh, why the Hell not, but as I reached out she was already too far away. I watched the way her hips moved, then sighed. It would have been fun to see how she reacted. With resignation I walked back into school.

Lunch was inedible, but I expected that. On the plus there was a peanut butter square and milk. I had no idea how much sugar there was until I tasted it. Good God, heaven. It suddenly occurred to me that I used to eat these with chocolate milk. On the plus side I could eat whatever I wanted again. On the negative, that’s what got me into this mess in the first place.

Gym. Not coed in high school. I had no idea we would be all men. So much for teen comedy dreams. Dodgeball. I used to be good at dodging. I got whaled in the face so hard my glasses flew off and I fell over. I looked at the peg board on the wall and dwelled on future tortures. Who knows, maybe I’d get more than one peg. I tripped on the way to the locker room. My coordination has been shot since I got here. Muscle memory. Not matching up with my old body.

Sitting alone at the lunch table later I thought about it. I was going to have to live here, and I couldn’t change the past. That is, this wasn’t my past, but my future. My life, my brothers lives had been lived once. I’d have to hope that my loved ones were still out there in the cosmos moving on, missing me. That this was just another time altogether.

I felt sad for my Angel. We would miss each other. I doubted that I could ever fall in love again. I really did have a perfect marriage. She’s five years younger than me, so what, nine, now? Oh hon, the last 20 years flew by so fast. Maybe in a few years I’ll look you up, just to let you know how beautiful you will become. That if people teased you ever, not to cry, you are going to blossom and be so special. It really was a wonderful life, George Bailey.

We are destined to maybe have five people we fall in love with. Some burn out, some never start, because of timing, some are just the girl outside in the rain, that you never even do more than share a smile with. And some last forever.

I started humming an old Tom Jones song. Never going to fall in love again. The Hell with it, I stood up and started singing in the cafeteria- “I’ve been in love so many times, thought I knew the score-”. Everyone was staring at me. A kid, shorter than me, but a little heavier sat down next to me.

“What are you doing?” No idea who.

“Nothing, just goofing off.”

“So are you going to ask her?”

““Ask her?”

“Cause she told Beth if you did she would think about it, but Sharon said you’d better ask quick. “ He grabbed some food off my plate. “I think Val is right, everyone thinks of her as the ice queen, so no one else will ask her.” Who in the Hell are all these people?

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“No way, I’ve known Debrah all my life. Just not like that.” Two things, Homecoming and his name shot out in my head. Freddie. He might be gay, but living here and now who in the Hell knows including himself? Debrah, whatever happened to her I hope, despite her rejecting me that she was somewhere happy now. I was never going to start thinking of the future as now.

But now a memory of us at the game, and sharing a hot chocolate under a blanket flashed into my head. We were having fun, laughing. It was my first date. Ever. I was very immature and she was very grown up for her age, smart. A Young Katherine Hepburn In Philadelphia Story. It must have been at the dance I screwed up. Did I have to go through all this again? I certainly didn’t need a teenage girlfriend, or to be rejected, at my age, by one.

“So you know her, should I ask her?”

“Yeah. When I told her you were thinking about it-”

“You told her?”

“We tell each other everything. She didn’t say she liked you or anything, but she wants to go to the dance.” Apparently this kid tells everybody everything.

“When is it?”

“Homecoming; November?”

“So I have time.”

“Someone else might ask her.”

“That’s okay.” He ruffled.

“Don’t you like her?” Shit.

“Of course, I like her. What’s not to like.” Freddie relaxed visibly. “I don’t know if she likes me. And I don’t know how to get to know her.”

“That is tough, with you living out of town.” Out of town. I could run the entire thing as an be

adult in under two hours. But he was right, I wasn’t in a neighborhood, I had no group of friends to bum rides off of and my brothers were all younger. My parents both worked, and I definitely wasn’t bringing a girl home, unless she liked traipsing through the woods there was nothing to do.

“I’ll think of something.”

“Okay, see you at rehearsal.” And he bounced off, before I could think to ask where it was...

Okay, choir. I loved to sing. Making up songs and singing them aloud. There was one just one draw back. I have no rhythm, and to compliment that, I have a horrible singing voice. Or would once it was done changing. I walked into the choir room late after another trip to the office to figure out where they hid it.

“Late Mr. Broomer?” A short man like a young Mr. Roper with a Hitler mustache stood in the center of the room, the kids on a circular riser behind him.

“I have a pass from the office.”

“Of course you do ... You missed warmup. But I’m sure you are prepared, perhaps you’d like to go first.

“Umnnn”

“You are prepared, Broomer?”

“Umnnn”

“Are you prepared for auditions, do you have your music, or will you be singing a cappella?” Auditions. Perfect.

“If I fail them am I kicked out.” The class let out a nervous laugh.

“This isn’t Nazi Germany Broomer, it’s 9th grade, no, you will not be kicked out, I can’t kick you out, even if I wanted to. And it’s already too late to put you anywhere else, so at best we will find out what your work ethic is and where to place you. I take it you aren’t prepared?”

“No, let’s get this farce over with.” I could hear the room silently tense up. The Roper Hitler gestured to the center of the room.

“My thoughts exactly.”

I walked to center and looked at the sea of strangers before me. Freddie waved, he was sitting next to a face I knew only from a single photograph. One that was taken at the dance and paid for. I’m sure we took pictures at her house before, but I never saw them. And with waiting two weeks to get them, once the film was developed actually, as often as not a roll of 24 would have Christmas and Easter back then, it may have been months after she banned me from her life. Besides being a geek I couldn’t think of anything I’d done. She looked up at me with a slight smirk. Another kid smiled at me.

I’d planned on just goofing, getting kicked out, but now I was on the spot.

“Music?” That tone in his voice. I always treat my students like adults. That petty bully. But that’s college.

“A cappella, darling.”

“When you’re ready, then. No pressure.” Right, you jerk ... what in the Hell to sing? I vaguely remember auditioning with “You light up my life” at some point in the past. I’m sure I used to know song lyrics. Music is important to us when we are young, it defines our memories. Our first kiss, our awkward fumbles in the car. But as we get older? I have 15,000 songs on my phone. I’m lucky to hear the same one every six months.

Lately I’d been catching up on the 90’s and early 2000’s in Britpop. But did I know The lyrics to a Muse song, Oasis, Baby Bird, Gorrilaz, Gossip, Gomez, Gossling, Goldfrapp? I seemed to be stuck in the “G”’s. I used to know every Bowie, Iggy, Elvis Costello song by heart.

My wheelhouse is newwave 80’s music. My karaoke go to, back in the 90’s was “50 ways to leave your lover”. “Sound of silence,” The Dickies cover was about to come out. The lyrics about to cascade out of my mouth, forming in my mind tempo and all ... instead...

“ ... I was alone, falling free

Trying my best not to forget

What happened to us, what happened to me

What happened as I let it slip

... I was confused by the powers that be

Forgetting names and faces

Passers by were looking at me