Caught running, p.6
Caught Running, page 6
“I’d say anyone who washed out in college comes back,” Jonathan ventured with a nod at Jake.
“Next person to fall down will owe everyone a lap!” Jake shouted as he tossed the kid back into line and continued his prowling. The drill went on for another minute or so, and Jake called a halt to it just before he knew kids would start falling over and not getting back up. “Go get water!” he ordered, stalking back to the fence. Behind him, some kids literally crawled to the dugout.
Brandon was momentarily shocked by Jonathan’s comment, but then realized he was talking about sports. Jake would have had to complete his degree to teach, but not playing sports wouldn’t have stopped him. The blown-out knee was starting to make more sense. And why Jake was here and not playing professional ball somewhere. He remembered there’d been talk. He watched Jake approach, straightening a little and pulling out his pad to make a few notes, checking the numbers on a few of the players.
Jake frowned at the little pad of paper and raised an eyebrow in question as he came up to the fence and leaned against it. “That little dude is gonna be your leadoff hitter, I guarantee it,” he said to Jonathan with a nod at a freshman kid who was little more than five feet tall. “Shortstop.”
Jonathan nodded. That was one of the kids he didn’t know, who had filtered in from another middle school. But he could see what Jake saw clearly enough.
“Any observations?” Jake invited of Brandon as Troy came trotting up to them noisily.
Brandon glanced over his shorthand. “Jack will be a good runner, so will Evan,” he said of two juniors. “Jimmy’s not very fast or suited to running, but solid. First base, maybe. And Junior in the outfield, he’s got the endurance to do the distance. Not sure about the eye, though.” He looked up to see all three men staring at him. It was starting to get a little unnerving. “What?” he asked for about the millionth time.
Jake stifled laugh and shook his head. “All right, then,” he responded without answering. “Let’s break ’em up,” he ordered as he stepped away from the fence and bellowed the order.
“Do I want to know what that was about?” the science teacher muttered as they followed the varsity coach back out onto the field.
“You never know,” Jonathan laughed with a shake of his head. The kids trudged out obediently and began to work the same drills from yesterday. Jake worked them until the sun started to go down, then called a halt to the activities and had the kids start putting up the equipment.
“You put up your own equipment until the day someone offers to pay you to play ball!” Jake was shouting as he watched. “If I see you letting someone else do the work, I’ll make work for you!”
Brandon stood near third base, watching the tired kids scurry. Hell, he was tired just looking at them. Soon the field was clear, and he walked to join the others at home base.
“Tomorrow we’ll start making lists,” Jake told the coaches as they gathered around him. Light was fading quickly now, and he glanced around the field to make certain it was clear. “By Friday we’ll have the teams set. Sound about right?” The others nodded obediently, and Jake refrained from rolling his eyes. “See you guys tomorrow,” he told them, giving one of the college kids a slap on the back that had him staggering forward as Jake turned and headed for the gate.
Jonathan waved goodbye to Brandon, who nodded an answer before starting to walk back to the gym himself. Troy whizzed off in that golf cart – where on Earth did he get that thing and why did Jake tolerate it? – and the biology teacher found himself walking through the parking lot in the dusk. It was quiet and cool, and he shivered a little.
Jake flopped down on the steps near the entrance, dragged off his cleats, slid into his trainers and stood again slowly, shouldering his heavy equipment bag as he watched the other guys head off. He watched Brandon for a moment, not even sure what he was thinking at that point. It annoyed him that he couldn’t make up his mind about the guy. He stood and stretched, his long body arching gracefully, then he turned to head for the road and the walk home.
Spur of the moment, Brandon piped up. “You good to get home, Coach?” he asked neutrally as he came to a clacking stop on the concrete with the cleats.
Jake turned around and looked back at the man. “Yeah,” he called in answer. “I plan to hijack Troy on the road and steal his golf cart,” he said seriously. “I figure even if he hits me with it, it can’t do much damage,” he snickered.
Brandon’s nose wrinkled in a smile. “Why the hell do you let him drive that insane thing?” he asked.
Jake veered off the grass and strolled back into the parking lot. “He drives it to work,” he answered with a smirk. “He lives about a mile that way,” he pointed in the opposite direction of his own house. “He’s cheap and lazy. A fearful combination when you add shameless and resourceful.”
Unable to stop the snicker, Brandon just shook his head. “That’s just incredible,” he commented, eyes dancing.
Jake gave a slight smile and nodded, looking out into the darkness of the road he would be walking. It was an interesting mix of feelings, the need to get home combined with a curious desire to keep talking with a man he had never had much to do with before. Well, there was an easy way to solve that predicament. “You know, if you don’t mind, I might take you up on the offer of a ride,” he said with another glance at Brandon. “Gets dark too early.”
“No problem,” Brandon replied easily, stopping at the door. “I just need to grab my pack and change my shoes. Be right back.” He ducked inside, shoes clacking on the hard floor.
Jake groaned quietly and flopped his big body to sit on the steps to wait. He was going to have to start actually driving to work. Just because he felt like a walk in the morning didn’t mean he would twelve hours later.
It only took Brandon a couple of minutes, and then he was back outside. “I parked back here this morning,” he pointed to the car about halfway back in the lot. “Figured it would make the evenings easier.” He offered Jake a hand up.
Jake reached up for the hand without a second thought, letting the man pull him to his feet with a slight groan. “My ass is too old for this,” he complained good-naturedly as he walked beside Brandon toward the car.
Brandon laughed. “Yesterday you said we weren’t old!” he pointed out.
“It’s just certain parts of me, that’s all,” Jake answered defensively, grinning as he hitched his equipment bag higher.
“The whole young at heart thing is clichéd, but I think it still applies,” Brandon said, digging into his pack for his car keys as they approached the Jetta. “To you, anyway.”
“Oh yeah?” Jake asked in slight amusement. “Why’s that?”
“That it applies to you?” Brandon opened the locks with the fob and tossed his pack in the back seat. “You still love it. The game. You still have passion. Even though it’s a pain in the ass sometimes, and you hurt at night, you still love it.”
Jake felt himself flushing in the darkness, and he cleared his throat as he opened the back door. “Yeah, well, yeah,” he muttered in response as he tossed his bag in and closed the door again.
Brandon smiled a bit, recognizing the other man was a little embarrassed. So he just let it drop and climbed into the car. Soon they were off, headed to Jake’s house, classic rock playing quietly on the radio from where he’d left it on that morning.
Jake wasn’t quite sure what to say on the quiet drive. He felt like he needed to say something, but he was finding that he just didn’t know enough about the other man to converse comfortably. They didn’t even really have work in common. They were both teachers, technically, but not the same kind.
He wracked his brain, trying to think up something. “So, uh, did you know Jonathan before yesterday?” he finally asked, remembering the two men being chummy on the field.
“No, I didn’t know him. I don’t think he knows I went to Parkview, either,” Brandon answered, stopping the car at the same light as the night before. “He said he knew your name, looked up to you,” he ribbed a little.
Jake blushed harder and bit his lip. “Yeah,” he agreed as he looked out the window. A lot of people had looked up to him, thinking he of all people would be going on to bigger and better things. Football and baseball scholarships, scouted by Major League and NFL teams.
But here he was instead.
Smiling, Brandon let it go, not wanting to prod Jake into annoyance rather than slight amusement. He drove across the intersection and within a minute he pulled into the driveway and shifted the car into park. “I meant to ask before practice,” Brandon said quietly, “if you were feeling better today.”
“Eh,” Jake responded automatically. “All I had to do was put one of those lifts in my shoe again and it solved the ankle thing. Thanks for asking,” he added sincerely.
“Good,” Brandon answered with a nod, and then he was out of things to say. He sat there wracking his brain, trying to come up with something, anything to say, though he had no idea why. Actually, no, he knew exactly why. He just didn’t want to admit it.
“I would offer you food and beer, but...” Jake turned to the man and smiled slightly. “I’m not good company after 3 p.m.”
Brandon compressed his lips to hold back a snicker. When it was safe, he said, “You were fine last night,” rather evenly. He understood, though. Last night was an aberration. Brandon could be on his way now. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty to do. “Have a good night,” he murmured, caught looking at the other man’s shadowed face.
Jake smiled slightly and said, “I’m always fine last night,” barely able to stop the snicker as he elbowed the man. “See you tomorrow, man. Thanks for the ride.”
Shaking his head at Jake’s banter, Brandon raised a hand to wave. “Bye,” he said quietly, reminding himself to stow these odd twitching feelings and get back to the real world. He moved to shift the car into reverse.
Jake gave a wave and stepped away from the car, then gave a little hop and banged on the roof, leaning over to open the door and stick his head back in. “Coach’s night tomorrow,” he said to the man. “We’re coming here after practice. Pizza, beer, more beer...”
Brandon startled when Jake hit the car, but had his breath back by the time he was done talking. He had to smile, just a little. “I guess since I’m a coach, I’m invited. Should I bring anything?”
“Only if you have a certain type of beer you like or chips or something. Seriously, it’s just an excuse to drink. If you bring any Zima or shit like that, you’ll get beat up,” Jake teased with a wink.
The look on Brandon’s face was one of mute horror. “Don’t tell me Jonathan did that.”
“No. Troy did it,” Jake laughed, grinning widely at the man as he leaned over and looked through the door.
“Jesus Christ. Where did he go to school? If you were caught drinking something like that at Tech you’d have been dumped off an overpass onto I-75,” Brandon said, still cringing.
“He swears it was a joke,” Jake snickered. “I just think he’s a closet queer,” he giggled with a shake of his head as he stood back up and gave the car another slap with his hand. “See you tomorrow, man,” he said with a smile in his voice, turning to head into the house.
Stuck in place, Brandon just watched Jake walk up the stairs, intensely glad the other coach wasn’t looking at him at that moment, because he was sure all sorts of things he didn’t want seen were written all over his face. Closet queer. Fuck. Brandon ran a hand through his hair and pulled out of the driveway. He really hoped Jake had meant what he said in a somewhat affectionate, teasing manner, rather than a dirtier, more ignorant meaning.
Brandon had heard enough of that to last a lifetime.
“Morning, Mr. Bartlett,” one of the bouncy little cheerleaders greeted the next morning. “Morning, Coach,” the boy walking with her said, nodding at Brandon respectfully and smiling as they headed for their seats.
“Katie,” Brandon said distractedly, ticking her name off the list, but Jimmy’s greeting caught him off guard, and he looked up. Pushing his glasses up, he had to rally. “Ah, good morning, Jimmy.”
“Morning, Coach,” came another greeting almost immediately, followed by a smattering of other good mornings as the kids filed in. The first class of the day usually saw tired kids trudging in and flopping down with grunts. But every boy who had been at tryouts the last two days greeted Brandon that morning in a semi-cheerful manner.
Blinking, he remembered what Jake had said about the players always being in class, and looking at his grade book, he had to admit the coach was right. They all had perfect attendance. Pleasantly surprised, Brandon moved to his desk off to the side of the room to grab his teaching list for the block. “All right, break into groups of four, please, and pull some desks together for each group. We’re doing interactive exercises today.” It was one of the activities Brandon consistently received positive feedback on: Students working together on something besides book work. He personally felt they learned much more by doing rather than seeing or hearing. Musing, he got them started on a variation of Biology Pictionary and let them go, listening in on each group.
As the first class of the day got started, the speaker near the door crackled to life for the morning reports. The voice droned on with the usual announcements, the person speaking obviously aware that no one ever listened to these things. At the end, the voice read, “And Coach Campbell would like to remind the student body that the next person caught throwing wet wads of toilet paper at the ceiling of the locker rooms will be ... wait, can I say that over the speaker? I’m not sure I can say that.” There was a clearing of a throat and a mutter that couldn’t be understood, and then the kid said, “Just don’t do it again, trust me.”
A few of the boys in the class snickered quietly, trying not to make a lot of noise but obviously familiar with whatever threat their coach had used. Brandon’s brow shot up. He could just imagine what Jake had said he would do. Shaking his head, he chuckled, tapping Cynthia on the head and pointing to the trash can for her gum without having to say a word. Too bad Troy couldn’t find other upperclassmen to keep reading announcements along those lines. It would be amusing enough to keep him going all morning.
As he walked around, Brandon noticed that one of the baseball kids was having trouble drawing, using his left hand instead of his right. He was about to say something when he saw the kid’s right hand. His fingers were taped. The teacher stopped before commenting and just watched, not wanting to interrupt. It was awkward for the boy, he could tell, but the kid got it done, and the other students guessed correctly. Brandon smiled and patted the kid’s shoulder. “Good job,” he murmured before moving on to the next group.
“Thanks, Coach,” the kid muttered automatically.
The rest of Brandon’s day went much the same. Third block, a cheerleader had to sit with her leg extended because she was wearing a knee brace. Fourth block, it was a softball player with a wrist brace. Fifth block, a lacrosse player with a black eye. The teacher couldn’t figure out how he’d missed all this before. It was all right there in front of him. It wasn’t that he’d thought badly of the kids or didn’t pay attention to them, it was just that he hadn’t noticed the injuries or the way the kids dealt with them. That embarrassed him a hell of a lot. In the nine minutes before sixth block, Brandon crammed papers and files into his pack, snagged the duffle from under his desk and headed out to the gym and the ‘beloved’ health class. He had plans for the anatomy lesson he figured the students would get a hoot out of, and since he was still trying to build rapport with them, he figured some fun would go a long way toward helping that. He got to the classroom in the gym complex just a couple of minutes before the bell.
Somewhere in the maze of hallways that connected the gymnasium to the locker rooms, offices, and classrooms, an angry bellow echoed off the tile and out through the open doors. It sounded again, clearer this time, accompanied by running footsteps. “Snakes in the grass,” an amused voice said to Brandon as he stood in the hallway. The science teacher turned to see the School Resource Officer leaning against the wall in the dark end of the corridor, his handcuffs and gun seriously out of place in the school hallway. Another shout echoed and a door slammed somewhere. “He’s been after those little shits for weeks,” the cop said with a laugh.
“What’s going on?” Brandon asked, stopping outside the classroom as students filed in past him.
“Kids loitering in the locker rooms, that sort of thing,” the SRO answered. “Hell, they’re more scared of Campbell than they are of me.” He laughed softly as he put a Pepsi can to his lips and spit tobacco into it discreetly.
Brandon had to grin. “Hell, I know I am,” he said. His smile grew when a couple of kids smashed through the double doors just past them and raced toward the breezeway leading back to the main building.
The SRO laughed hard as the kids flew by him, and a moment later the doors were pushed open and Jake came stalking out. “Little bastards,” he growled, completely unaware of the presence of anyone else until he turned around. “Next time just shoot ’em, man, I won’t tell nobody,” he huffed to the cop. Brandon and the SRO looked at each other before dissolving into laughter. “Shut up!” Jake called grumpily as he pushed through the other pair of doors and into the large gymnasium. “Get the hell off that rim!” he bellowed suddenly as the doors creaked closed behind him.
The two men left behind just kept laughing until the bell rang. “Welcome to the nuthouse,” the SRO said before sauntering off. Brandon went into class still grinning and grabbed up his grade book. What a hoot. Sitting on the edge of the front of the desk, he took role, still trying to match names to faces.
