Kelly’s quirky escapades have become legendary amongst her classmates. As a bubbly sophomore at Maple High, she’s entangled everything from gum and pencils to paperclips and staples in her ample blondeness. This entanglement is typically resolved when the nearest, largest brute of a teenage boy can be enlisted to assist with her conundrum. Today, her target is Brandon, a varsity football player planted in the desk behind her, and the entanglement is a pen.
Brandon leans his one-piece metal-and-wood student desk forward as he reaches for the knot. The desk leg slips and announces itself to the class with a shriek on the government-grade linoleum.
“Brandon, what are you doing?”
“Oh, uh, just trying to help Kelly, Mrs. Hannon. She got a pen stuck in her hair.” As Brandon attempts to clarify himself, Kelly emits a half-squeal, half-giggle of embarrassment. It’s not the first time all eyes have fallen upon her.
“Oh not again! Adam, help her out. Brandon, please keep your hands to yourself.” Brandon gains composure of the desk and slouches back into place.
Adam, another classmate, sits to Kelly’s right. They’re in Mrs. Hannon’s sophomore English class, one more in a seemingly eternal series of stepping stones rumored to lead somewhere someday. Unlike most other English classes, where students are arranged in a semi-circle for conversation, Mrs. Hannon keeps her AP class in rigid order – desks facing forward in neatly-aligned rows; no interrupting or talking out of turn; raise your hand only for relevant and respectful commentary.
Brandon & Kelly sit in the end row along the windows, opposite the door, facing the leftmost of three large blackboards on the front wall. The left board is a semi-permanent listing of key dates in the semester. The far right serves up the weekly reading list due every Friday. Mrs. Hannon spends most of her time at the center board scrawling eccentric diagrams of plots and character relationships. And being an AP class in an AP classroom, there’s only twenty desks, and only 14 enrolled.
Adam rotates in the seat to face Kelly, flashes a circumspect glance at Brandon, then reaches out for the pen, “here, I got it.” He unscrews the pen at the center, gives a stroke through the hair, and deftly lets the casing fall to the floor. “Crisis averted.”
Brandon stares outside. It’s snowing again. It’s going to be another muddy and frozen practice. He drifts off thinking through the playbook. He needs to know every step of every play and must constantly rehearse and refresh to stay sharp and help the team. Class continues with another student reading passages from Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and providing real-time amateur analysis. It’s completely lost on him at the moment.
Walking out of class, Adam offers an unsolicited opinion, “Brandon, bro, you gotta be more careful,” while brushing past in a bustle.
***
After classes end, Brandon kills time in the library before heading to the locker room. He has a crucial test coming up in Algebra II. It’s another of his AP-heavy course-load – four classes total that have colonized his schedule, even the 20 minutes between books on the desk and pads on the field. Along with Algebra and English, Brandon is also handling AP History and AP Chem. He doesn’t know what he wants to do just yet – maybe the conventional Doctor or Lawyer, or maybe something more esoteric, like a Chemist or Computer Programmer – but likes the idea of keeping his options open.
During practice, he puts on the hat of the Free Safety, roaming the deep-field territory of the gridiron at full speed on behalf of the varsity football team. He wants desperately to be a ball handler, either a running back or receiver, but Coach seems to have his favorites, and Brandon never even got a try-out.
He’s not sweating it though – it gives him something to work towards – with two more seasons to make it. And playing varsity as a sophomore is notable itself. Whatever position he’s in, he’ll have a good shot at playing college ball. Something like nine or ten seniors from last year’s team are now playing for collegiate teams, including three down the road at State.
During the full scrimmage, Brandon makes a challenging interception which he returns for a touchdown. His teammates all celebrate a job well done. Coach yells at him for poor footwork prior to the catch. Coach doesn’t want a flashy interception, he wants the job done right. Coach’s face turns bright red as he yells. Brandon wonders what part of an interception is flashy; it is part of the job. But Coach doesn’t take backtalk.
On subsequent plays, the Assistant Coach, acting as a ref, flags him for incidental contact three times. Brandon swears he was within the five-yard limit, or didn’t actually impede, and it was just hand slapping anyway. The League Refs are not nearly so strict.
Brandon assures the Coaches he’ll try harder but maybe college ball won’t be for him.
***
After practice, Brandon drives himself home in his parents’ old Mercedes. It’s a solid and reliable tank of a car that gets him where he’s going safely and isn’t too much hot-rod for a teenager. He works on it some weekends with his father’s help. So far he’s replaced the spark plugs, rotated the tires, changed the oil, and swapped out the muffler. He’s considered if he’d like to go into Industrial Engineering.
Adam, his class- and teammate, was gifted a new Mustang before the school year started and drives like peril unleashed, ripping around in a black leather jacket and backwards ball cap. Adam collected his first speeding ticket within two weeks of getting this car.
Brandon has been pulled over several times, but has never been given a ticket. He does drive defensively and to the law. He’s also pretty sure Adam doesn’t even know how to open the hood on the ‘stang.
He parks in the side driveway of his parent’s five-bedroom American Craftsman, fully bereft of squalor, and enters through the side door, passing the dog-care space replete with dog shower and enough dog food to survive several dog years.
Inside, he kisses his mother on the cheek as they convene in the lustrous marble kitchen. She’s in the process of preparing linguine with clams for dinner, a family favorite. He eats a banana for an appetizer while they chat.
Upstairs, he checks in on his sister before heading to his own bedroom. She’s got a corner room facing the backyard, and he’s across the hall with windows out to the front-yard foliage. His parents’ master suite is down at the other end of the hall, with a bathroom, office, and guest room in between.
At dinner, the family discuss the events of their day, whether mundane or significant. His parents care more for their children’s lives than things like the news of the day or the latest neighborhood gossip. They dig into the details of the kids’ experiences; help them find the correct words to articulate their feelings; offer gentle guidance or calm reprimand where necessary; and otherwise encourage and support achievements.
After dinner, he splits kitchen clean-up duties with his sister. She clears the table and he puts away the leftovers; she loads the dishwasher and he scrubs the pots and pans. Once finished, they’re both upstairs to climb their mountains of homework. The parents reconvene to the living room to watch PBS and HBO with a bottle of red.
***
The next morning, Brandon’s the first one up as usual. It’s a regular school day, and he’s got a full to-do list before the first bell. After yesterday’s distraction, he’s behind with The Scarlet Letter. Mrs. Hannon keeps up the pace; they’re expected to get through 25 novels in a semester, or roughly two per week. Getting behind means getting a “B”.
For breakfast, Brandon scarfs down a quick bowl of corn flakes and inhales another banana. He grabs his backpack, already packed with clean clothes and a dopp kit, to head out before getting caught up in any requisite familial chit-chat.
He’s found it’s much quicker to shower in the locker room. Plus, using the locker facilities at that time, when it’s completely empty, makes the whole place seem small and inviting, like Brandon gets to know it in ways others do not.
He iterates through this familiarity on the drive in. Last year, as a freshman, he was assigned a locker in the far back row, number 11-E. The combo was 14-31-23. He wonders if it’s been changed, or if he’d be able to help himself to some freshman’s private effects. He’d never go through with it, but chuckles at the thought of an oversight by the school administration.
He catches himself nodding off into this daydream of memories, dawn brightness as it is, and returns his focus to the road. Checking the rearview, he notices square headlights closing up quickly. It’s the school’s Resource Officer – a role held by a Deputy Sheriff ever since a kid was busted selling cocaine on campus a few years ago – and it’s not the first time Brandon has seen these lights this early.
Previously, he’s been bathed in red-and-blue and interrogated at length at the spear tip of a flashlight. On this occasion, the lights close up to tailgate distance, but turn off at the lane to the faculty lot. Brandon drives on to the student lot and is able to park to unload his baggage before the accostment begins.
The Officer’s spotlight twinkles off the Mercedes chrome, and casts geometric shadows onto the seats, even from a distance. The Resource Officer has circled around the other side of the school and is now aiming the spot from several rows over.
Brandon shades his eyes, “Oh hey, Officer Whitehead, what’s goin’ on?”
“Hey Brandon,” the Officer shouts as the window on the cruiser’s driver-side descends, “you’re here early again.”
“Yeah man, just tryin’ to keep up with homework, you know.”
“I sure do, I sure do. That’s important.” the cruiser is slowly rolling closer, “You keepin’ outta trouble?”
“Sure man, I’m too busy for trouble.”
“Too busy. That’s good. Tell me – got anything on you I should know about? Any drugs? Weapons?” The cruiser comes to a stop directly behind the Mercedes, blocking it in.
“Nah man, just books and clothes.”
“It’s Officer.”
“Right. Officer Whitehead. Of course.”
“Yeah of course. You sure you don’t got nothin‘?”
“No Officer Whitehead. I ain’t got nothin‘”
“Al-righty. Study hard. I’ll see ya. Again.” Officer Whitehead cruises off.
Brandon gathers his gear and hustles to the locker room. He feels deeply feculent, a sensation of disgust on his skin, and wants nothing but the cleansing warmth of a long shower to get past the accusations.
***
Everyone gets sick, and Brandon is not immune. He’s missing Monday classes after jogging in the snow on Sunday. Runny nose, headache, and mild nausea have him down for the count. His mother calls the school to excuse the absence while he persists in bed until lunchtime.
He arises for her offer of Chicken Noodle, which helps with the nausea and headache. His sinuses continue to pressurize and expel, for which Mom prepares hot chocolate.
“It might not cure what ails ya, but it’ll make ya forget about it for a minute.”
“Thanks, mom.”
***
Later that afternoon, Brandon would much prefer to call Kelly to acquire his missing homework, but he can’t find her number amidst several notebooks. He has to call Adam instead.
“Hey-yo?”
“Hi, can I please speak to Adam?”
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“Hey bro, it’s Brandon.”
“Who?”
“Brandon. From school.”
“Brandon? I don’t know any Brandon.”
“Yo dude, we’re both in Hannon’s class. I need the homework.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really, bro?”
Brandon hears the plastic percussion of the phone returning to its cradle. Adam has hung up.
***
Brandon did call around, but only learned the creativity his fellow students put into their answering machine greetings. Not a single classmate picked up and no assignments were completed. There will be no explaining to Mrs. Hannon – he’ll just have to hope he’s not called upon for his thoughts.
Heading to class, he spots Adam coming from the opposite hallway, and stops to express the confrontation.
“Hey bro, what the hell was that?”
“What was what?”
“I called you for the homework last night.”
“Oh, that was you?”
“Yeah man, that was ME. You know, BRANDON!”
“Look, dude, I forgot. When you called, I just couldn’t picture a black dude with a fade named Brandon. Why would I? Better luck next time, buddy.”
Adam proceeds casually into the classroom to take his seat at his regular desk.
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