Chapter 4

Unlike most high schools in the country, football in the fancy suburbs of Chicago is played on Saturday afternoons. It is doubtful if anyone living today knows or understands the reasons for this, but there has never been any effort or interest in changing to Friday evenings. At John Kelly's school, the football coach prohibited players from dating or going to parties on the night before a game, so John spent his Friday with several of his teammates taking in a movie and hanging out at the pizza place. At some point in the evening, one of his buddies who knew something but not all of the details about the "Kari ultimatum" just felt it his duty to inquire.

"John, what's the deal with Kari? I thought you two were dating. Shelly told me that Kari made up a bunch of rules and that all the girls are supporting her."

"I don't want to talk abut it. She pisses me off."

"Well, what's the deal man? Is that going to screw it up for all of us? Shelly says they have all agreed to no more sex. What's gives?"

"Son of a bitch! Who the hell does she think she is, making rules! This sucks. She pisses me off so much. Dammit, all I want is a little pussy and the broad gets all uptight and starts making demands of me! Of ME!!! Who does she think she is?"

"Me and Shelly had this good thing goin'," his buddy told John. "She'd give me head every night after practice and I'd fuck her silly every Saturday after the game. Now she says we can't be doin' that stuff anymore until you make peace with Kari. Ya gotta talk to her, man. I need my sex."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll talk to her."

At the game the following day, John was able to observe, from the field side, the acrobatic routines that Kari was involved in with the cheerleading squad. Especially bothersome to John was the part where Kari ended up being held up in the air by one of the guys with her legs spread wide in a split. It was supposed to be that his hand held her butt on the outside of her tiny little cheer skirt, but about half the time, when he caught her in mid air, his hand was inside her skirt, resting on her panties, and he was looking straight up at her crotch.

As the team returned from their locker room after half time, some of the same guys that he had been with last night asked if he had talked to Kari yet.

"No, dammit, I haven't."

"Why don't you go see her now before the game starts again?"

So John wandered over to the place where the cheerleaders were, but Kari was busy talking with some students. He did see the guy who was her "catcher" though, and decided to talk to him instead. "Hey, buddy, I been watching you when you catch and hold Kari up in the air."

"Yeah, isn't she great," he responded enthusiastically.

"Yeah, well, every time you do that, I see you lookin' up under her skirt like that."

"You wouldn't believe it. Today she didn't wear those ugly heavy panties like she usually does, and I could see her whole pussy. God is that--"

That's when John hit him full force in the mouth with his big fist, dropping the young man to the ground and causing an enormous eruption of blood to begin spurting from his nose and mouth. Several people screamed causing even more to look at what was going on. Quickly some of the girls rushed to the aid of their fallen teammate, wondering what had just happened.

"You probably shouldn't do that anymore," John said and walked back to the field. The people in the stands called for the coaches to help the poor cheerleader as he lay injured, and when the commotion was finally over, John's coach pulled him aside.

"What the hell is going on John? You just punched that kid and probably broke his jaw. They're gonna make me suspend you from the team. What the hell happened?"

"That dumb shit started telling me how he gets to look up Kari's skirt and he was bragging about it and her pussy and everything, so I hit him. He can't be doin' that with her."

The coach shook his head, mumbled something unintelligible and walked away. He spoke to his assistant coaches, instructing them to put John in on every play for the second half, both offense and defense and make sure that he stays on the field and away from the cheerleaders. He had damage control to perform.

Having deactivated, probably permanently, Kari's only "catcher", the cheer squad was unable to repeat the aerial portion of that particular cheer any more that day, a fact that did not upset John Kelly one bit. In fact, he played with an abandon previously unseen, especially on defense, making both solo and dual tackles that punished the opponents ball carriers. By the end of the third quarter, at least three of the opponents were unable to return to the field from the aches and pains of his tackles. Soon, even the crowd was into it, groaning with each hit and cheering as he threw himself at a ball carrier.

They won the game, of course. No team could have withstood the pounding unleashed by John and his teammates. Afterwards there was the typical joviality in the locker room until one of the others asked John about his altercation with the cheerleader.

"Why'd you punch that kid, John?"

"He was braggin' about lookin' up Kari's skirt. Then he started talkin' about her pussy so I hit him. I'm not having any of that!"

There was no further conversation, of any kind, while the guys showered and redressed. As John was just about ready to leave, the coach called him into his office.

"I don't know who this little girl is that everyone is making such a fuss about, and what's more I don't care. I understand she is a freshman, probably too young for someone like you, but that's her decision, along with her parents, not mine. I'm told that you two had some sort of an argument and that you haven't really spoken to her since then."

"Yeah coach, she..."

"Don't interrupt, John. Just listen to me for a change. I also understand that she has somehow managed to rally a whole bunch of girls to her cause, which is upsetting the dating life of half of your teammates. And now you went and punched out the lights of one of your own schoolmates on the cheer squad, and I don't even want to know what brought that on. I don't know what your argument or conflict is with this little girl, but I'm gonna tell you how it's going to be resolved. Are you listening, John?"

John nodded that he was.

"That's good, 'cause I'm gonna tell you now what's gonna happen, and I'm only gonna tell you once. On Monday, at lunch time, you are going to go over to this table where this girl Kari sits and stand in front of it, with your arms folded nicely, and you are going to apologize to her and her friends for causing such a ruckus at half time today, and when the kid that you punched comes back to school, if he does, you are going to publicly apologize to him as well. Then you are going to ask this girl what it is that you must do to make things right, and then you are going to agree, out loud in front of everybody, to do it. If you're smart, you'll have a bunch of your buddies standing there behind you, and you will convince them to agree to whatever it is as well.