“What was that all about, Matt?”
I was standing in front of the coach’s desk. He was sitting behind it in his cramped office, sitting up tall. I’d closed the door when I’d come in, so at least the conversation was private. I didn’t need everyone in the locker room listening in if I was going to get an ass chewing. Which I was pretty sure was going to happen.
The coach was a tall man, not huge, not fat, but tall. He had an unhappy look on his face and his tone of voice was a mixture of anger, puzzlement and disappointment. If it had been just anger, I’d have been in a lot more upset, but as that was only part of what I heard, I knew he really wanted an explanation, and in any case he wasn’t likely to yell. I knew he’d listen to me. Which from my standpoint was excellent, even if the disappointment part of his tone bothered me a lot. I knew the coach very well, and we had a long history. All my life history, to tell the truth. He was my father.
When he asked me a question, I’d learned the hard way that unless I had awfully good reasons to lie, telling him the truth was best. Covering up a lie was a problem with him as he seemed to be able to see through most of them, and if he thought there was even a chance what he was being told wasn’t true, he’d pick at it forever, and usually end up knowing what was really what, and then he’d be really disappointed in me. I hated that. I didn’t like disappointing him. He was fair, and he loved me, and I tried hard to please him, and felt a failure when I didn’t. He didn’t approve of me lying to him. As a result, I rarely did. I tended to tell him the truth, most of the time, even if the truth made me look like an ass. I’d found out, growing up, it was better to simply get it over with rather than let the pressure of a lie build, as the lie would almost certainly be found out.
And there was something else about what had just happened, too. I didn’t really understand why I’d done what I’d done to Kevin, and talking to my father about it might help. I was feeling really bad about Kevin. And me too, really. I wasn’t the sort of guy who’d intentionally hurt a little kid, and if I happened to do that accidentally, I would feel awful about it. Which was how I felt now. Except it hadn’t really been accidental. Well, the hurting him had been. The pushing him hadn’t been, and that was upsetting me. A lot. I didn’t understand what I had been feeling when I’d pushed him, or why I’d done it. Talking to Dad about it might help, and I kind of needed that right now. I was upset with myself, and that wasn’t something that happened very often.
Dad must have seen the conflicting emotions in my face because he told me to sit down, which I did. Then he simply watched me, waiting for my answer. I didn’t give it right away, just sat, trying to figure out how to say what I was feeling. I looked at the nameplate on his desk that read John Tucker, PE Professional. I’d given it to him as a sort of joke on his last birthday. He’d liked it, so much that he put it on his desk, and it was still there. It was easier for me to think about that, him liking a present I’d given him, than what was happening now.
I guess he saw my scattered thoughts, my uncertainty, because rather than waiting any longer for my answer, he spoke instead.
“I’d just come out onto the field, and I happened to be watching. You could have easily just touched him. He didn’t look like he was running as fast as he can, as fast as I’ve seen him run. You could have just touched him. You didn’t. You pushed him. You were trying to knock him down. And Matt, you might have some problems, but being mean to smaller kids isn’t one of them. So, why? Why’d you do that?”
This time there was even less anger in his voice, more puzzlement. He really wanted to know. He knew me as well as I knew him.
“I’m nor sure, Dad. I just don’t know. He’s been sort of bugging me for a while now. He’s kind of a brat, and he’s been hanging around me, and I’ve told him to beat it, and he ignores that, and having a little kid hanging around is sort of, well, you know, embarrassing, and, uh, it all sort of came together, and I pushed him. I feel terrible that he got hurt. How is he?”
“The school nurse is looking at him. He’s either got a sprained or broken wrist, and he’ll have a pretty good bruise on the side of his face.”
“Shit. Uh, I mean, darn. I really didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know you didn’t. But you did, and I have to do something about it, if for no other reason than neither of us want people saying you got preferential treatment. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“But this knocking him down.” He looked at me, thinking. I met his eyes, then looked down. He was trying to figure me out, and I was doing the same thing. I wasn’t sure why I’d done what I’d done out on the field. Dad was no more disappointed in me than I was, but I didn’t like him feeling that way about me. He looked at me some more, then continued. “Were you really mad at him, mad that he was hanging around you when you’d asked him not to?”
“Not really mad, maybe a little upset but more like uncomfortable. He was always around me, and it meant I was thinking about him a lot, and I didn’t want to do that.”
“Why not? I don’t understand this. So some kid wants to hang around you. So what?”
“He just made me uncomfortable, Dad. I’m not even sure why. Part of it is he’s younger, so doesn’t belong hanging around me. But I don’t think that’s all. I don’t understand the way he makes me feel either, and can’t explain it.”
He thought some more, then said, “Well, I guess that’s one thing we can try to get to the bottom of. Because I can see a good punishment for you. He’s going to need some help, whether his wrist is broken or just sprained. He’s not going to be able to use it, and there’ll be times that’ll make things tough for him. So, till he’s healed, I want you to be available to help him when he needs it. And we’ll leave it to him to decide when that is. Whatever he needs, it’ll be your job to take care of it. Here.”
He reached into his desk and brought out a small device and handed it to me. “That’s a text pager. I’ll give one to Kevin when I see him. He can page you when he needs you. When he does, you drop what you’re doing and go to his aid. Whatever you’re doing, whatever it is, he gets preference. Between classes, before and after school while you’re both here, and at lunch, you’re to go to him if he pages you.”
“But . . .”
He got a small, wry smile on his face. “Yeah, I know. It’ll be inconvenient as hell for you, but then, you’ve managed to inconvenience him quite a bit too, so that’s appropriate. You’ve really got nothing to complain about.”
“Except you don’t know him!” The full impact of what this meant was quickly running through my head. “He’s real cocky, he’s got an attitude, and I can just see him paging me all the time just for the fun of it. Then telling me he needs me to tie his shoe or something. He can page me and there he’ll be with a group of his little friends, and I’ll come running, and he’ll say, ‘Hey, my back itches. Scratch it for me.’ Or something like that, and it’ll look like I’m his personal slave. He’ll do this in front of everyone, I just know it. It’ll be humiliating!”
Dad’s smile got a little larger. “Then I guess as a punishment, that’ll work out pretty well.” He saw the look on my face, and stopped smiling. “Look, I know teenagers hate to be embarrassed. It’s about their worst thing. So I sympathize, a little. But, I’m not going to change my mind. This is a fitting punishment. I will say, though, that if he does what you’re saying much, if he abuses it, much, we’ll talk about it. How’s that?”
I was pissed. He didn’t know Kevin like I did. Kevin would be happy as a kangaroo at a jumping contest about this, and I could see him ruining my life. But I could also see my dad had made up his mind, and knew he could have chosen worse punishments. He usually did, as a matter of fact. If this was all that happened to me, I was getting off easily.
He quickly killed my hopes on that account.
“Now, the rest of your punishment. You did realize there’d be more, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said, as sarcastically as I felt I could get away with, which in this case was very, very little at all. He had a very short fuse if he thought I was getting an attitude with him. That wasn’t allowed. So my sarcastic “yeah” didn’t sound sarcastic at all. But it was. At least in my head.
He looked at me a little harder, as though making sure I wasn’t getting smart with him, and I raised my eyes so he could see my pure innocence, and after a moment of looking at me and deciding there was nothing there he needed to do something about, he went on.
“All right, then. Mr. Tollini asked me this morning if I knew anyone who could help out in the marching band. He didn’t have enough kids sign up to begin with, and then some have dropped out. He needs as many bodies as he can get, and if they actually play an instrument, so much the better. I know you hate marching band, but he needs people, and so this is it. You just earned yourself a position in the marching band until the football season is over. Congratulations!”
I never did understand how it was fair that he could be sarcastic with me, but I couldn’t with him.
◊ ◊
Dad had told me to go see Mr. Tollini during my lunch period. I told Cliff and Chris I had to see someone when they asked why I was leaving so soon. We were outside at our table. It was a warm fall day, and it felt great being out there, not stuck inside some stuffy building with all the walls covered with inspirational messages, notices or sign up sheets for various club meetings or other activities like the school play or volunteering to help some learning challenged kids in the elementary schools in town, stuff like that that I never paid any attention to.
I certainly didn’t want to tell those guys I was being punished by being forced to join the marching band. They’d laugh their asses off, and I didn’t like people laughing at me all that much. Being the brunt of a joke isn’t so much fun when you’re the bruntee rather than the bruntor. Wait, did I say that right?
Anyway, I ate fast and then told them I had to fade out. They asked why, but weren’t that interested in my answer anyway. Actually, I was surprised they even asked. That’s why I hung with them. They were about as disinterested in anything and everything as I was. Want stimulating conversation; want to discuss politics, either state, national or at school; want to know the latest gossip, who’s going with whom, who just got dumped; want to argue about world hunger, nuclear arms expansion, green house gasses, the declining fish population in the oceans, or what should be done about the growing homeless numbers? Should abortion be legal, is that okay or not? My answer is, don’t sit at our table. We don’t talk about that shit. About as involved as we get is, “Did you do the homework for Mrs. Barstan’s class?” “Nope.” “Me neither.” That’s about how scintillating we got.
I went back inside and found the halls deserted. It’s always a little strange walking through the halls with no one else there. I always get a funny feeling low in my stomach. Like I’m not supposed to be there, or I’m doing something wrong and am about to be caught. I ignored it and walked to the band room where I figured Mr. Tollini would be.
The band room door was closed, but the lights were on, so I went on in. It was a large room, mostly taken up by risers which were covered with chairs and music stands. These weren’t in orderly ranks but sort of scattered around. There was a large whiteboard on the front wall that had two lines of musical staffs on it, and, of course, Mr. Tollini’s pet “Words of the Day” in the upper right hand corner. Today’s words were FERMATA, ANACRUSIS, and ALLA BREVE. Well, knowing two out of three wasn’t bad, considering what Mr. Tollini would put up there. I guess he was trying to get us to know this stuff, to know more about music. Some kids just ignored them. I kind of got a kick out it. I told myself to remember to look the second one up when I got home.
I looked around and didn’t see Mr. Tollini, but looked toward his office, a small room that you got into through a door on one side of the room, and saw the light was on there, too, so headed that way. I knocked on the door, heard, “Come!” and opened the door and entered.
“Matt! What a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you today?”
Mr. Tollini was about 30 years old. He was short, shorter than I was actually, only about five and a half feet tall, and almost that big around. He had a full head of dark wavy hair and almost always a big smile on his face. He was one of those teachers kids always respond to, probably because he was genuinely friendly and enthusiastic and didn’t try to embarrass anyone. It’s really easy for a band director to embarrass kids. Some feel that’s the only way to maintain discipline, which is kind of important for a high school band director. Think about it. You’ve got 80 or 100 or more kids in front of you all holding musical instruments, some of which they can actually play, and you’re trying to tell them something, make a point, and they all seem to have this almost uncontrollable urge while you’re talking to be tooting or pounding or tuning or rattling slides or something. You’re trying to say what you need to say, which you think is important enough to talk to them about. To be able to be heard at all, to be able to communicate, you have to have discipline.
A lot of these guys do it by screaming at kids, or kicking them out of the band, or punishing them some way, maybe even embarrassing them by making them play their part all by themselves in front of the whole band, then criticizing them or making sarcastic remarks. But some are able to control the kids just by their own personal charisma. Mr. Tollini was one of those. He’d only been at the school a couple years, but in that time he’d become a favorite of all the kids who knew him. Just by being himself, caring about the music we made, and caring about us, too. When he was conducting, and stopped to say something, the kids stopped playing, and listened to him. Quietly. They did it just out of respect for Mr. Tollini, and if someone did talk to his neighbor, or keep playing, the other kids acted as policemen; Mr. Tollini didn’t have to say anything at all to get quiet. On the occasions when there would be some talking when he was trying to talk, he’d just stop and stand there, and very quickly the room would be silent again. That doesn’t work for a lot of teachers, especially the ones the kids didn’t like much. It did for him.
“Hi, Mr. Tollini. My dad talk to you at all?”
“Yeah, he did. Said you’d be joining the marching band. That’s wonderful. We really need you. Why’d you change your mind?”
“I didn’t, really. I guess you spoke to Dad about getting some warm bodies to fill out the marching ranks, and he volunteered me.”
Mr. Tollini wrinkled his forehead at that. “Doesn’t he know how you feel about marching band?”
I smiled, if you could call it that. “Oh, yeah, he knows. I guess when I said he volunteered me, that wasn’t absolutely accurate. I’m being punished for something stupid I did. Your asking for help happened to coincide with that. So, here I am.”
Mr. Tollini grinned at me. “Well, I don’t like you here if you don’t want to be, but I guess we’ll both have to make the best of it, and personally, I’m delighted to have you. The only question I have is, are you going to play, or just wear a uniform and march?”
“I guess as long as I’m doing it, I might as well play.”
“That’s great, Matt. Wonderful, in fact. Now, we have to get you a uniform. Do you know your size?”
I told him, and he got up from his desk and we walked out into the band room, where he opened a large closet next to his office. It had a number of uniforms hanging in those plastic bags that dry cleaners use, and a lot of empty space. Most of the uniforms had already been assigned.
He searched around, found the right size jacket and pants, and then I tried on a couple hats till I found one that fit. I asked if I could leave all the stuff with him and pick it up after school, and he told me of course, that would be fine.
“We rehearse the music here on Wednesday nights. We have marching drills before school on Tuesday and Thursday, and then an early run-through of the program, music and marching, on Friday morning.” He went on to give me the times I needed to show up. When he finished he looked at me with a bemused expression for a moment. Then he asked me a question.
“Do you really mind this, Matt? I really wouldn’t be happy if you hated being here, even knowing it wasn’t my fault or anything like that. If you do, I can talk to your father. It would make me really uncomfortable, having you here and knowing you were hating it.”
His eyes had a look of real empathy.
I reassured him. “No, I’m okay, Mr. Tollini. Really. I did something stupid, something I feel bad about. I deserve to be punished, and this way, I’m helping you, so I can feel good about that. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay. We’ll see you at rehearsal, then.” He smiled at me, and I smiled back. If I had to be punished, it could be a lot worse than this.
◊ ◊
Mom was waiting in the living room when I got home from school, carrying my backpack and uniform and wearing the hat; it had been easier than carrying it along with everything else, even if I did look like a dork.
“Hi, Matt. How was your day?”
My mother never asked me how my day was, so I knew she knew everything. I was used to getting double-teamed. My dad would call her if I ever got in trouble about anything, even if it was nothing at all, like the time I got hauled into the principal’s office because I’d been there when a couple other guys fixed the lights in one of the boys bathrooms so when they were turned off they wouldn’t go back on again, and then trapped a couple freshmen in there, turned off the lights as they shut the door, then held it closed. When the kids began to get scared, and were yelling at us to let them out, and it sounded like one of them was crying, the two guys were laughing so hard they almost pissed their pants, and then Mr. Cochran walked by, heard the boys inside pounding on the door, and he let them out, and the two guys had to go to the office. I did too, and I’d only been standing there. Dad called Mom, and man did I hear about that. As soon as I got home that afternoon. Something like what was happening right now.
Now I should tell you something about my mom. She’s nice, but unfortunately, she’s smarter than anyone I’ve ever met. She’s got a Ph.D. in child psychology. She also has a private practice, working out of our house, which means a bunch of screwed up kids are always showing up at our door, and I frequently have to show them in, then tell them to sit on the couch till she’s ready for them. I don’t mind this so much now, but when I was younger, I kept wondering if maybe they’d killed their father, or even their dog, and I was walking into the living room with them right behind me. Gave me the creeps. I don’t worry about that any more, now that I’m big. Most of them are younger. And the ones that are older, I let them go into the living room ahead of me.
My mother told me I was being silly anyway. She said only one of the kids I let in every week had killed his father, and he’d told her he wouldn’t do that any more and especially wouldn’t do it to me, so I was safe.
I think she was teasing me.
Anyway, now she was asking me how my day went, and looking me right in the eye.
“Okay, Mom.” I sighed. “Dad called, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but he calls me every day, you know that.”
“Yeah, to report on me. Why can’t I have normal parents? A dad who goes to an office somewhere, or tends bar or something? A mother who takes in washing, or cleans other people’s houses? How come I’m the only kid I know whose parents know what he’s doing every minute he’s in school?”
“Are we feeling sorry for ourselves?”
I hate it when she does that.
“No, I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I had a great day. Now I’m going to grab a snack, then go upstairs.” I knew that wouldn’t work, but I’m not one to just quit at the first sign of adversity.
“Why don’t you sit down here with me first, Matt, so we can talk a little?”
“What do you want to talk about? I’ve got things to do.”
“Why don’t we talk about what happened in gym today. That might be a good thing to start with. Your father mentioned something about you not being sure what you felt about something. He wasn’t very clear, but I thought maybe we could discuss that. Matt, he’s worried about you.”
“Yeah, right.” Thinking back on my talk with him in his office, my temper suddenly flared. “He’s putting me in a position where I’ll be the laughingstock of the whole school, and I’ll probably have to transfer somewhere else just because after they’re all through laughing at me, they’ll decide that anyone as dorky as I am should probably be beaten to a pulp every day. Yeah, he’s really worried. If he were worried, he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
With that, I just walked past her and went into the kitchen, my heart beating faster than normal. Once there, I slumped back against the counter. I hadn’t realized I was as upset as I was. I knew I’d been stewing about this all day, about Kevin having a pager, and me being supposed to jump to his beck and call, and looking like a complete idiot in the process. I’d been thinking about it, and getting progressively more upset about it as the day had passed, but hadn’t realized I was as upset as I was. I thought I was keeping it all inside me pretty well. Blowing up at my mother wasn’t something that I did, as I’d learned it wasn’t very smart. My emotions and I had sort of an understanding. I did the controlling, not them, and usually it worked pretty well.
What Dad had proposed as a punishment was obviously affecting me more than I’d thought it would. Being in the marching band was bad enough, but I could deal with that. I didn’t like it, but could accept it. The other, I could see it as the disaster it probably would be. Kevin could single-handedly ruin me. I’d gone through a lot, having a father who worked at the school. Kids tease you a lot about that. Some say things you’re meant to hear, and you can end up in fights you know you’ll lose just because you have to stick up for your dad, and for yourself. I’d lived through that, the past two years, and it hadn’t always been easy, and one time it was worse than just “not easy.” When this school year began, I’d tried adopting a sort of coolness, a detached sort of personality, and acted like I was a little above the fray, not really part of it, ignoring things I didn’t want to be involved in, and the other kids were accepting me better this year than before. Or leaving me alone better, which amounted to the same thing. I was older than two other grade levels at school now, and I was starting to think this year I might be okay. Most of all, I’d begun developing some self-confidence I’d never had before, and that felt so good, I can’t even tell you.
And now, Kevin, a cocky freshman with a big mouth and troubling eyes, had me by the balls, and he could absolutely make me look like a complete dork in front of the whole school, and there was nothing I could do about it. I thought about it, and damn it, damn it, my eyes started to water. I hated crying. I was too old to cry. I wiped my eyes, but the feelings were still there, and my eyes kept dripping, and at that exact moment, my mom walked into the kitchen. I felt like I was two years old, like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar just after I’d been told no cookies, but this was even worse than that. I felt totally raw and exposed.
“Matt?”
I didn’t even answer. I just ran out of the kitchen, ran upstairs, slammed my door shut, and fell onto my bed. And the tears kept coming.