The Trigger Effect
© 2005 By Ken Glassmeyer
© 2005 By Ken Glassmeyer
CHAPTER THREE
Frank Grabowski felt every beer, pile of hot chicken wings, and slice of pizza he had consumed over the past four years call his name as he stepped on the twenty-yard line. He clutched his chest and felt a shudder shoot down his left arm. He was in so much pain he could no longer shout the boy’s name. He tried blowing his whistle, but could only wheeze through it. With relief he saw the kid was headed downhill, so maybe he could catch his breath on the way down.
That punk, Kellen Kinslow, had just desecrated his field. If he lived after his chest quit beating like a rap song, he would make sure the kid paid for the act. He was supposed to be suspended, which meant off school property. He grinned realizing this might just be enough to be done with good old “Kit-Kat.” He was the only faculty member at Sally Ride who refused to use the idiotic moniker. Every time Kellen turned in a paper with it written as his name at the top, Frank circled it in red and took off ten points. Frank felt his head swim as he tried to catch his breath. Running to confirm the identity of the vandal was worth the pain of thick blood pounding in his veins. This little act of civil disobedience should be enough to keep Kellen out of his classroom for the rest of the year.
He actually liked the kid, but the disruptions he routinely caused in his classroom stopped him from teaching, and he was one of the few on the faculty that actually still cared if the kids walked out of the building each day knowing a little bit more than they did when they came in each morning. The problem with Kellen was his random mood swings. Ever since his brother, who had been one of Frank’s best linebackers a few years back, fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up in jail, Kellen had been spiraling out of control in a life of violence and crime. Frank believed Kellen was a smart kid, and he didn’t understand why Kellen didn’t learn from Mikail’s mistake. You would think that after you saw your brother end up in prison, that you would not want to follow him there. Kellen’s older brother Mikail could have had a full ride to a division one school until last year when he got busted for theft and assault ruining his senior varsity season up at the high school. Now Kellen seemed bound and determined to follow in his footsteps. It started with quitting the team just two weeks into the season last month. Along with that surprise came this new version of Kellen who would go from being his old cheerful self with a wondrous curiosity, to a scornful thug at the drop of a hat. The big homemade tattoo carved into Kit-Kat’s forearm had not eluded him either:
<>G<>D<>
Frank wasn’t stupid. He knew what that tattoo meant—Kellen was now a serious gang-banger. Even though the local police department had recently presented at their last staff development meeting that their school was safe from criminal activity from what the detective called “suburban club associations” Frank knew the streets were getting rougher, not kinder. While most people just assumed that there was no ghetto in their district, Frank saw what the pockets of poverty had done to some of his most talented kids. It wasn’t just football. One of the best writers he had ever taught died of a heroine overdose two years ago. Things were getting worse.
Frank saw small speckles in his vision and he felt some bile rise in his throat. Maybe this was worse than being winded, he thought with some panic. Could he be having a real live heart attack? He tried to remember what all the telltale symptoms were and was doing a mental checklist when his concentration fluttered and his vision dimmed.
Just as he was falling, in his mind he suddenly heard the voice of his training buddy at the YMCA he swam at, who was a well-respected physician in town, warning him all over again. It didn’t matter how much he swam or lifted, he had to change his diet and lifestyle or he would be dead before he saw fifty. This was especially true now that most people realized that the teaching field was perhaps one of the most stressful career areas—even with two months off in the summer, which was more like three weeks when you counted continuing education and summer practices.
Just as he was realizing he had just experienced at least five of those symptoms of a cardiac arrest his vision went completely gray and he slipped to the dirt path feeling as if someone had just taken a sledgehammer to his chest. The last thing he remembered is one of his players asking if anyone knew CPR, and then his he heard nothing else but his heartbeat racing and then stopping abruptly.
That punk, Kellen Kinslow, had just desecrated his field. If he lived after his chest quit beating like a rap song, he would make sure the kid paid for the act. He was supposed to be suspended, which meant off school property. He grinned realizing this might just be enough to be done with good old “Kit-Kat.” He was the only faculty member at Sally Ride who refused to use the idiotic moniker. Every time Kellen turned in a paper with it written as his name at the top, Frank circled it in red and took off ten points. Frank felt his head swim as he tried to catch his breath. Running to confirm the identity of the vandal was worth the pain of thick blood pounding in his veins. This little act of civil disobedience should be enough to keep Kellen out of his classroom for the rest of the year.
He actually liked the kid, but the disruptions he routinely caused in his classroom stopped him from teaching, and he was one of the few on the faculty that actually still cared if the kids walked out of the building each day knowing a little bit more than they did when they came in each morning. The problem with Kellen was his random mood swings. Ever since his brother, who had been one of Frank’s best linebackers a few years back, fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up in jail, Kellen had been spiraling out of control in a life of violence and crime. Frank believed Kellen was a smart kid, and he didn’t understand why Kellen didn’t learn from Mikail’s mistake. You would think that after you saw your brother end up in prison, that you would not want to follow him there. Kellen’s older brother Mikail could have had a full ride to a division one school until last year when he got busted for theft and assault ruining his senior varsity season up at the high school. Now Kellen seemed bound and determined to follow in his footsteps. It started with quitting the team just two weeks into the season last month. Along with that surprise came this new version of Kellen who would go from being his old cheerful self with a wondrous curiosity, to a scornful thug at the drop of a hat. The big homemade tattoo carved into Kit-Kat’s forearm had not eluded him either:
<>G<>D<>
Frank wasn’t stupid. He knew what that tattoo meant—Kellen was now a serious gang-banger. Even though the local police department had recently presented at their last staff development meeting that their school was safe from criminal activity from what the detective called “suburban club associations” Frank knew the streets were getting rougher, not kinder. While most people just assumed that there was no ghetto in their district, Frank saw what the pockets of poverty had done to some of his most talented kids. It wasn’t just football. One of the best writers he had ever taught died of a heroine overdose two years ago. Things were getting worse.
Frank saw small speckles in his vision and he felt some bile rise in his throat. Maybe this was worse than being winded, he thought with some panic. Could he be having a real live heart attack? He tried to remember what all the telltale symptoms were and was doing a mental checklist when his concentration fluttered and his vision dimmed.
Just as he was falling, in his mind he suddenly heard the voice of his training buddy at the YMCA he swam at, who was a well-respected physician in town, warning him all over again. It didn’t matter how much he swam or lifted, he had to change his diet and lifestyle or he would be dead before he saw fifty. This was especially true now that most people realized that the teaching field was perhaps one of the most stressful career areas—even with two months off in the summer, which was more like three weeks when you counted continuing education and summer practices.
Just as he was realizing he had just experienced at least five of those symptoms of a cardiac arrest his vision went completely gray and he slipped to the dirt path feeling as if someone had just taken a sledgehammer to his chest. The last thing he remembered is one of his players asking if anyone knew CPR, and then his he heard nothing else but his heartbeat racing and then stopping abruptly.
