He slipped or was distracted or something, because I should never have been able to get by him that easy. The quarterback was dropping back and looking to his left when I hit him. The ball came loose, I was able to cover it and suddenly there we were on their twenty-three-yard line, down 23 to 21 and with less than two minutes on the clock. As I moved off the field, I passed Brad Thomas, our quarterback, heading for the ball with the rest of the offense.

“Jesus, Denton; I ought to let you have a week’s worth of dates with Connie for that.”

It was a good thing he was already by me when he said that or I would have likely thrown him on the ground and stomped his ass.

Connie was Constance Dennis, Brad’s girlfriend, and the girl I have been hopelessly in love with forever. Everyone knew it and loved teasing me about it. Some, like Brad, taunted me over it. Brad especially liked to rub my nose in the fact that he had her and I didn’t.

A week’s worth of dates with Connie? I’d never even had one. I must have asked her at least a hundred times and was turned down every time. What hurt the most was that she was always around me. Half of our classes were assigned seating and her being Dennis and me being Denton almost always had us sitting next to each other, and if there were class projects we always ended up in the same group. She was a cheerleader and always close to the bench where I sat when not on the field. If that wasn’t bad enough, she was my next-door neighbor AND my sister Alice’s best friend. As my sister’s best friend she was always over at the house, mostly because we had a swimming pool and Alice (my sis) was forever asking Connie over to lay by the pool. I won’t even go into what Connie in a bathing suit did to me.

The offense came out of the huddle, and we were all standing on the sideline yelling encouragement as Brad handed off to Kyle who got six yards. He threw an incomplete pass toward Eddy. Another pass got nine yards, and then Coach Branigan decided to just go for the field goal. We all held our breath as the ball was snapped to Mike, who bobbled the ball before setting it in place and then Ronnie kicked it through the uprights to give us the 24-23 win.

The crowd went wild. There were a lot of folks who said we had a successful season if we beat Roosevelt. As far as they were concerned, we could lose all of our other games, but if we beat Rosey it was a successful season. Ronny came up to me and asked if I was going to the victory party at Ken’s and I told him I wasn’t.

“Why the hell not? This was your win Bobby. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t got us the ball.”

“I just won’t be comfortable there.”

“Jesus Christ Bobby, grow some stones. You are eighteen, a high school senior and not some little kid. So she will be there with Brad; so what! There are tons of other girls in the world, and quite a few in this school and in this city who would love to date you if you would just get your head out of your ass.”

I don’t know why he said it that way, because I did date. I just never got into the girls I dated. There just didn’t seem to be any spark there that made me want to go steady with any of them.

“You are old enough to know you aren’t going to get everything you want. Life just isn’t that way. Come on; go to the party. Show everyone you can handle it.”

He was right and I knew it, but it killed me to see Connie with Brad. Brad was an asshole, and how she could spend time with him I just didn’t know, but as Ronny pointed out, I was old enough to know I wasn’t going to get everything I wanted. I should go to the party, if only so I could look at Connie. If rumor was right, she was going back east to college and I might never see her again. I told Ronny I would go and we headed for the locker room.

There were quite a few surprised looks when I showed up at the party. It was something that I just didn’t usually do. Everyone knew I avoided places where Connie and Brad were likely to go. Actually, any place where Connie and whoever her steady was at the time. It was Harry in the tenth grade, Norm in the eleventh and now Brad. When I walked in the door I promised myself I would ignore Connie and try to have a good time and enjoy myself so of course the first person I saw when I walked in the door was Connie. She was talking to Sue and Mary, both fellow cheerleaders, and when Ronny called out “Hey; you made it” she glanced toward the door, saw me, shot me a smile and a little finger wave and went back to talking to Sue and Mary.

I headed for Ronny and the two guys he was standing with. Kenny’s house had hardwood floors and the living room furniture had been moved to create a small dance floor and as Ronnie, Mike, Barry and I talked about the game, we watched the couples dancing to the music from the record player.

I’d been there about fifteen minutes when I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned to see Lisa Meadows standing there.

“This is Sadie Hawkins Day, Bobby. Girls can ask boys to dance and they are not allowed to say no.”

She offered me her arm and I took it and we moved out onto the makeshift dance floor. As we moved to the music Lisa asked why I’d never called her again after the last date we’d had and I lied to her and said my dad had me working at his business’s and I just haven’t had any time off to date. The real reason was that Lisa was putting out signals that she wanted to go steady and I just didn’t want to go there. We finished our dance and she wandered of somewhere while I went back to join Ronnie and the guys.

Two minutes later Sue came up to me and asked me to dance and used the Sadie Hawkin’s Day line and then after her there was Mary who was followed by Kiley. It was while I was dancing with Kiley that I noticed that none of the other guys were being asked to dance so I straight out asked:

“What’s going on here, Kiley?”

She didn’t bat her eyes and say “Whatever do you mean?” She came right out and told me. “Steve heard what Brad said to you, and he told Shirley and she told the rest of us girls. We know you, Bobby, and we know what would likely happen if Brad said something else stupid to you tonight. We figure if we can keep you occupied and away from Brad, we can keep you out of trouble.”

It was a nice thought and I appreciated they liked me enough to make the effort, but it was all for naught. Kiley’s words were no sooner out of her mouth when someone bumped into us and almost caused Kiley to fall. I heard “Watch where you are going dumb shit.”

I turned and saw Brad dancing with Connie. I asked Kiley if she was all right and she said she was. I turned to Brad and said “You are an asshole. Why Connie wastes her time on a dipshit like you I will never understand.”

“What did you call me” he asked as he poked me in the chest and gave me the gift I needed. He poked me. That’s assault right? I had to defend myself didn’t I? My first punch broke his nose and when his hands went up to his face I buried my fist in his belly. He doubled up and my third punch was to the left side of his head and he fell to the floor. I looked down at him and called him an asshole again. I apologized to Kenny for disrupting his party and headed for the door. As I was driving home I was rehearsing in my mind how I would handle him the next time. The next time? Oh yes, there would be a next time. Brad was sure to come after me to get even and I intended to be ready for him.

I’d been home about half an hour when Alice came home and into the family room where I was watching television. “Connie is not happy with you, little brother.” The little brother needs to be explained. Alice and I are twins, she was born six minutes ahead of me and she gloried in being the oldest and never let me forget it.

“Why is she upset with me? Her boyfriend started it.”

“Bullshit little brother. I was there and I saw it. All he did was poke you. He didn’t hit you. It was only a little poke in the chest and it didn’t hurt you a bit.”

“Okay; I don’t like the asshole and I took advantage of the situation to vent. So what?”

“Nothing. Except for Connie, most of the kids there wanted to applaud and cheer and the only reason Connie is pissed is because when his nose started bleeding, she got some blood on her dress.”

“Tell her I’ll pay for it if she sends it to the cleaners. If the stain won’t come out tell her I’ll buy her a new dress.”

“I’ll tell her, but you should apologize the next time you see her.”

“Apologize? For what? For her being stupid enough for being with Brad in the first place? I need to get to bed.”

I shut of the TV and left the room.

The weekend was filled with family activities, and the only bad spot was on Sunday afternoon. I was doing laps in the pool when Alice and Connie came out to sunbathe. It was okay as long as I was swimming because I wasn’t looking in their direction, but when I came out of the pool and saw Connie in her bathing suit I couldn’t stop the erection that distorted my trunks. Connie noticed and I saw a little smile cross her face. I quickly turned and went over to one of the chaise lounges, laid down on it and turned my body so the erection couldn’t be seen.

I did my best to ignore Alice and Connie, but Connie wasn’t having any of it. She got up and came over and sat down on the lounger next to me.

“Why did you hit Brad at the party?”

I was in no mood to duck the question so I said “He is an asshole and I don’t like him, so when he got in my face, poked me in the chest and called me a name I decided it was time to show him just how much I don’t like him.”

“Are you sure that is the real reason and not the fact that he is my boyfriend?”

“His being your boyfriend is part of it. He flaunts it in my face every chance he gets. Have you heard what he said to me when I came off the field after recovering that fumble?

“No.”

“Everyone else at Kenny’s knew about it.”

“They must not have wanted me to hear it for some reason.”

I told her what he said and she said “I don’t believe that.”

“Ask any of the girls I danced with that night. They all knew it. That and what he called me when he bumped into me and Kiley, and then his poking me in the chest is all it took to set me off. You need to blame someone for what happed blame your asshole boyfriend.”

I got up and went into the house and up to my room. Half an hour later, Alice knocked on my door and asked if she could come in. I said yes and she came in and sat down on the bed. I was sitting at the small table I was using as a desk and working on a paper that was due the coming Thursday. I dropped the pencil on top of the paper and turned to look at her.

“Something on your mind?”

“You and your fixation on Connie. Why can’t you just accept she isn’t interested in you and let it go?”

“I have accepted it, but I can’t let it go. Just because I want something I can’t have doesn’t mean I can stop wanting it. Maybe when she leaves for college and isn’t around me every day of the week I can wean myself from her, but as long as she is always around it isn’t going to go away.”

“What makes you think she is going off to college?”

“That’s the rumor going around. That’s she going back east for college.”

“Well the rumor is just that. It’s only a rumor. She’s staying here and going to State.”

“Then I guess I’m screwed. It might be a little better in that it isn’t likely we will always end up sitting next to each other in classes since we probably won’t have that many classes together, anyway. You could help things out a little by going someplace else with her when you hang out instead of doing it here. You want me over her come up with some ways to keep distance between us.”

“You know I can’t do that; she’s my best friend. I can’t bar her from coming over here just to keep you two apart.”

“So be it.”

She left and I got back to my paper.

Monday, I was at my locker when Connie came up to me.

“I’m sorry I doubted you Bobby. I did talk to Sue, Lisa and Mary and they told me what Steve told Shirley. I’ll be having a talk with Brad before the day is over.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“He is probably already pissed at what happened at the party, and I fully expect that he wants to get even, but I’m sure he will take his time in getting around to it. If you go off on him it might make him mad enough to come after me right away. I don’t want that.”

“You are afraid of him?”

“Not in this lifetime, sweetie, but we need him healthy when we play Parker on Friday and we need to beat Parker in order to go to the regionals. Mel is okay as a backup as long as there is no pressure on the game, but he is not a pressure player. If Brad comes after me before the Parker game there is a damned good chance he won’t be in any condition to play when it is over.”

“You are that sure of yourself?”

“Against Brad? You bet. The problem is that there isn’t any ‘quit’ in him. He will keep coming and I’ll probably have to put some real hurt on him to shut him down.”

“How come I don’t know this about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t I know about how confident you are? Why don’t I know that you think ahead and consider possible outcomes and scenarios?”

“Probably because you’ve never spent any time with me. We’ve know each other most of our lives, but we’ve never spent any time together. And that’s not my fault. I’ve tried like hell to get to know you better, but it never happened. I’ve got to get to class” and I closed my locker and headed for our first class.

I don’t know if Connie had her talk with Brad or not, but true to my prediction he was waiting by my car when school let out.

“You and me got so...” and that’s all he got out before I punched him in the mouth. I’ve no doubt that the rest of what he was going to say was “Some unfinished business,” but I saw no sense in standing around and talking while he worked himself up to fight. Fuck talking; you want to fight then get right to it. The first punch stunned him because he wasn’t ready for it and the next two had him on the ground holding his belly and gasping for breath. I’d always felt that once you had them down you should make damned sure they stayed down and normally my next move would be to kick him in the nuts or ribs a couple of times, but it could hurt him enough that he wouldn’t be able to play on Friday and I didn’t want that. Instead I bent at the waist, grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head up so I was right in his face and said:

“Best you stay clear of me, asshole, or the next time I might just hurt you so bad you won’t be able to play on Friday.”

I let go of his hair and when I turned to get in my car I saw a half dozen of my classmates standing there watching and among them were Connie and Alice. None of them said a word as I got in my car and left. No, the words came at the house when Alice got there.

“What the hell is wrong with you, little brother? You can’t go around beating up guys because they date Connie.”

“It had nothing to do with his dating Connie. The asshole was waiting for me when I got out of school. He was looking for a fight and I gave him one. He will probably come looking again, I’ll kick his ass again and I’ll keep doing it until he learns to stay away from me.”

“Still...”

“Enough Alice! Let it go!” I walked away from her and headed for my room.

I was surprised Tuesday morning when I got in my car to go to school. Connie was sitting on the front seat. She usually rode with Alice or Alice rode with her. I suppose this would be a good place to mention that my parents were extremely wealthy and both Alice and I were spoiled rotten by them. They gave each of us a car when we were old enough to get driver’s licenses. The cars were both 1949 Ford coupes. Mine was black and Alice’s was white. The 283 was not a gas guzzler, which was a good thing with gas being 27 cents a gallon. Connie’s parents were also well to do and she had a car also.

But it wasn’t all “cake” for Alice and me. Dad owned three businesses, and Alice and I had been working in them part time since we were thirteen. It was weekends, summer vacations and school breaks mostly, although we did occasionally have to go in after school. It was understood it would be full time after we out of school. Mom convinced Dad that we should enjoy our senior year and the summer vacation following, so we were currently not working. Back to my surprise passenger.

“Surprised?”

“I am. What’s the occasion?”

“What we talked about the other day. We live next door to each other and have known each other forever, yet I don’t know much about you at all. I figure we can talk on the way to school and on the way home and I can get to know you a little better.”

“Why would you bother? Being around you will only encourage me to ask you out again and upset me when you say no again.”

“How do you know I’ll say no again?”

“You always have and besides that you are going steady with Brad.”

“Things change, Bobby; nothing is written in stone.”

She pumped me for information all the way to school and seemed surprised at some of the things she found out. When we got to school, something happened that I really did not need. Brad saw us get out of my car and walk into school together. More fuel for the fire that was already burning between us.

Before football practice that afternoon Coach Billings gave us a pep talk on how we needed to be reader for Parker on Friday.

“You can beat them. You have the tools to get the job done,” and on and on and on. I’m sure if you’ve ever played team sports you get the picture. Brad stayed clear of me during practice and in the locker room after. I half expected him to be waiting at my car when I got there, but he wasn’t. He was where he could see Connie getting in to the car with me to go home and I did wonder what he was thinking about that.

On the way home Connie asked me what my future plans were and I told her it was pretty much up to Uncle Sam.

“What does that mean?”

“With that mess going on in Korea there is a chance I could get drafted. In fact, it is a pretty good chance since I have a low number.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know that guys have to register for the draft on their eighteenth birthday, right?”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“Dad took me down to register the day after my birthday. If I do get a draft notice while I’m in college I may be able to get a deferment. If I get it before I get into college I’ll probably have to go.”

“Isn’t there some way you could get out of it?”

I guess there are some ways, but I couldn’t use them.”

“Why not?”

“Because my dad would probably disown me. He believes it is your duty to serve your country if it calls. He could have gotten out of serving in World War Two because two of his companies produced goods needed by the war effort, and he could have claimed they needed him in order to run right, but he turned the companies over to Mom to run and he went off to war. He would not be at all happy with me if I tried to duck the draft. As it is, he has hinted a couple of times that I should enlist and put college off until my discharge.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It won’t be enlisting. I’ll just hope that my draft number doesn’t come up.”

She looked at me in silence for maybe fifteen seconds and then said, “I’m with your dad on the serving your country if they call.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ll be home dating and having a good time and not in some foreign country being shot at.”

By then we were pulling into my driveway. I got out, went around and opened her door and she got out and surprised me. She went up on her toes and kissed me before turning away and walking across the lawn to her house.

I was not surprise when the next day Connie wasn’t in my car waiting for me. She and Alice rode to school together. The surprise cam at lunch time. I was sitting at a table in the school cafeteria when I saw Connie come through the line. She paid the cashier, looked around the room and then headed straight for my table, even though Brad was sitting alone at a table on the other side of the room.

“May I sit with you?”

“Of course you may, but try not to look surprised when I ask you why you are here instead of over at Brad’s table.”

“Brad and I have parted ways. He was getting way too possessive. When he told me that he didn’t want me around you I cut him loose. So where are we going on our first date?”

“What?”

“Simple question. Should be easy for you to answer.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“It is obvious to me after talking with Alice that you had given up on asking me, so I’m asking you. I am assuming of course that you would like to spend some time with little ol’ me.”

I might have been a bit stunned, but I wasn’t dumb so I said, “Of course I would like to spend some time with you, but it won’t be until after the Parker game on Friday. Given everything that’s going on between me and Brad, if he saw me dating you before the game he might lose it and come after me. I don’t want to chance it. We need him for the game.’

“Win or lose there will be a party somewhere after the game. How about we go together?”

“Not a good idea. If we win everybody will be up, and if Brad was there if would be highly likely that he would do something stupid and it could ruin the mood for everyone. If we lose everyone will be down, and we wouldn’t want to make things worse. How about we do it on Saturday?”

“That will work for me. What will we do?”

“Think on it and let me know what you want to do.”

Just then the bell rang saying lunch period was over, so we got up and went to class.

Brad stayed clear of me in practice and the locker room and Connie stayed away from me in school, but we got together at home after school. For our Saturday date she decided on the double feature at the Martha Washington, followed by milkshakes at Harry’s Malt Shoppe.