Chapter 12

I got up the next morning feeling like I had gotten a good night of sleep. I was pretty excited and a bit nervous. I would be seeing my Philly grandparents for the first time in more than a year. I would be attending a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and had baseball practice before that. To get to that point, I needed to do my morning chores (Mom volunteered for the afternoon milking as she was not at the clinic today) and go to school. Of course Janie and Jen would be at school, so school was a darn good place to be, too.

So, I chased away the hens, stole their eggs and gave them to Grandma. Then I washed both hands and forearms and visited my other girls (Daisy and Amber). After giving the heavy milk jugs to Grandpa, cleaning up and wolfing down my breakfast, I grabbed my knapsack and ran for the bus stop.

When I got on the bus, there was silence. Even Timmy Boy didn’t say word one to me. Something was up. So I talked to the most reasonable guy on the bus (next to the driver, Mr. Smithers).

“Hey, David. What’s up?”

“Nothing, Man. Same old crap.”

“It’s just so quiet.”

“Well, you kind of made things awkward over the last few days,” said Jacob Tuner.

“I made things awkward?!” I exclaimed.

Jake nodded his head. “Well, yeah. First, you’re an attacker, then you’re the guy that got wronged, now who knows what’s going on?”

“You know, I like the Buckos chances this year. Don’t you, David?” I said, hoping to change the subject.

“Yeah, we’ve got the best lineup in baseball.”

“Fuck you, Matthews, you ain’t getting off so easy on all this shit, you little puke!” complained Tim.

“Back of the bus, Walton,” muttered Mr. Smithers and Tim moved to the back, swearing his butt off all the way.

David turned to me, “Yeah, you’d think baseball would be a safe topic with that clown.”

“We’re talking about the Pirates. How does that tick him off?”

“It makes him think of baseball. He went oh for three, striking out three times and his team got beaten twelve to zip yesterday.”

“How do you know?”

David puffed out his chest. “I play on the Myers’ Chevy Cheetahs. We’re the team that beat his Elks,” laughed David.

I made it through homeroom but anxiously made my way to first-period English. As normal, Janie was sitting next to Jennifer.

I heard a voice. “Do you want to switch to sit next to Janie?”

“No thanks Laura. I think my buddy Karl misses me.” I grinned, as I replied.

Janie kind of frowned until I winked at her. “I’ll try to sit with you in History, Beautiful.”

Janie giggled and Jen just beamed at me.

After sitting through another of Mrs. Douglas’ Hemingway lectures, we moved on to History. This time Jen and I flanked Janie and Mr. Crane was in rare form, talking about the first years of Civil War Reconstruction. My next class was Pre-Algebra with Axel. Finally, there was Physical Science with Janie. I wasn’t Janie’s lab partner, but I made a point of looking over at her and smiling when she caught my eyes (instead of turning away the way I used to do). Then it was lunch.

My table was filled again with unlikely types. It appeared that everybody except Karl had paired up with a girl (well in my case, trio-ed up). The biggest surprise was somewhat geeky Axel (compared to uber-geeky Karl) had cheerleader, Angie Bloom, all over him.

“Axel is helping Angie with Bio,” whispered Jen.

“So it won’t last?” I asked, not wanting to see my friend hurt.

“It could,” whispered Janie. “That’s up to Axel. He gets serious brownie points for being your friend.”

“For being my friend?”

“Hero, you’re one of the most talked-about boys in school now. Lucky we got you first,” smirked Jennifer.

I shook my head. A few months ago, I was not even five feet tall and at worst, I was a pariah. At best, I was a little geeky shrimp meant to be petted. Now, I’ve gained about seven inches and I’m unofficially dating the two most beautiful girls in school. Yes, the roller coaster ride was intense, but I was coming out the other side on top. I smiled at ‘J Squared’. Yes, Janie had some problems, but the three of us would be able to find a way to get through them together.

To quote Bob Seger from his song Against the Wind: ‘Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.’

Afternoon Spanish, Study, Hall, and Gym went well. Then mom picked me up and drove me to practice. I was the first kid there, as I had gotten a ride with my mom, so Coach talked to me a little bit about team leadership. He was happy with me so far, and called me a natural leader, leading both by example and being vocal when necessary. He even commented on how I dealt with the other team.

“I like the way you handled the Carter kid. You know his dad is a scout in the Pirates’ organization. If you play your cards right, you never know,” he teased.

“Lionel’s a good kid,” I said. “He’s just a little cocky.”

“A little?”

“Well, he certainly backs it up with his play! He plays hard! He busted out that routine fly ball that Larry dropped and wound up on third. Yeah, he’s fast, but he doesn’t get to third unless he’s running all out, all the way.”

“True,” admitted Coach Daniels.

When the other kids got there he huddled us up and got to his concerns.

“You guys played well on Tuesday. You ran into a couple of quality pitchers. Those two might be among the best in the league, so I’m not worried about the inconsistency at the plate. I do want to see more crisp play out in the field.”

As I could guess from his comments, Coach Daniels spent the whole practice on defense. We only had two ninth-graders on our team and they were primarily pitchers, though Jeremy Richards played some outfield, while Terry Robinson was our backup catcher. While Coach shagged fly balls with the outfielders, he had me and Billy working with the infielders. The infielders looked good, but aside from Paul Clinton, our Tuesday starters, the Johnson twins, were still a bit shaky in the outfield (and got to practice late). The good news was that Jeremy seemed to be able to hold his own in left field. While he would be ineligible to pitch, since he had pitched on Tuesday, he would be available to play left field on Saturday.

When Mom picked me up to go home to shower and eat, she was grinning from ear-to-ear and I knew why.

“They all look so happy, Tommy! I think we’re finally all going to be a family!”

Ten minutes later, my arms were wrapped around my Philadelphia grandmother who was hugging the stuffing out of me. Having been used to being gentle with Grandma, it was nice to get a big hug from this grandmother. My grandfather then gave me a big hug of his own.

“You’ve grown up so much, Tom, and not just on the outside, from what I’ve heard.”

When I thought about it, I could see the physical resemblance to my dad, but also the speech and mannerisms too. Yet there was more. It was something I just couldn’t really explain. There was a presence that you could almost touch in both my dad and grandfather. It was filled with the same kind of positive energy I got from my father. I knew something else too. My father could turn that presence into something negative against his enemies. I bet grandfather could do that in spades.

“Thank you, Sir.”

Grandfather frowned. “Tommy, I’m never ‘Sir’ to you. We’re family,” he smiled, his eyes growing misty. “Grandson, I’d appreciate it if you would call me ‘Granddad’. It was what I called my father’s father and it is what your dad called my father. It would mean a lot to me to hear that name from you.”

I got choked up, but I still managed the words, “Okay, Granddad,” as his eyes began to twinkle brightly.

“Tommy, please feel free to call me Gran. I called my grandmother that,” said my grandmother.

“Thanks, Gran,” I smiled knowing that now I would have a special relationship with all four of my grandparents.

Uncle Steve and Lars were over, and I noticed that Granddad had pulled my uncle over to talk to him. They were having a somewhat animated conversation. Lars approached me.

“I think your grandfather has a plan to help Dad, and it involves you.”

“Really? Right now, the only person in our family I want to be in business with is you.”

“What?”

“I hear you might be looking for a guitar player for your band,” I grinned.

“Yeah. All I have for sure is Jimmy Davis, my best friend and drummer. He’s pushing a guy at me, but I doubt he plays better than you.”

“Are you looking for a keyboard player? If so, I know somebody,” I said thinking about one of my loves.

“Maybe. We’re not sure if we want to go heavy or not. Still, a lot of hard rock bands like Deep Purple and Journey feature keyboard players. Can he sing?”

“Actually it’s a ‘she’ and yeah, she has a good voice.”

“Hmmm ... a girl singer? That could open us up to doing some Pat Benatar and Heart.”

“Not sure if she has the pipes for Annie Wilson or Benatar, but I think her best friend does. I’ve heard her sing Steve Perry, too.”

“Well, we’ll be auditioning when school’s out or at Spring vacation. Jimmy won’t like it that you guys are only going to be freshmen, but since we aren’t even eighteen we won’t be able to get any bar gigs anyway. I’m on your side, Cousin and if the others are as good as you say, then I’ll back them too.”

“Thanks, Lars.”

Dinner was great. Both grandmothers working in the kitchen produced chicken cordon bleu, cooked with our own chickens and Uncle Bo’s smokehouse ham, which was delicious. Then, it was off to the meeting.

When we got to the meeting, Dad and Uncle Steve found Nick and they peeled off to the front of the room, while Granddad took Lars and me to the back of the large meeting room.

“Lars, I talked to your father about your role in his automotive and restoration business. We agree that you should attend this meeting, because once you leave high school and complete technical college, he will want you to play a bigger part.”