The Trigger Effect
© 2005 By Ken Glassmeyer
© 2005 By Ken Glassmeyer
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day Brewster, Arman, and a few other members of the football team gathered around Coach Smith in the hospital hallway just outside Coach G’s room.
“Look, guys. Coach G. didn’t have a full on heart attack, but his blackout was enough to make the doctors very cautious. They didn’t want him to have any visitors for a while, but when he became upset when they said you guys couldn’t stop by, they decided it would be even worse for him to get angry. That means I am trusting you to be on your best behavior,” with that the assistant coach dropped his gaze directly at Jenkins.
“What?”
“Don’t be a knucklehead,” Arman translated for Jeren.
“Geez, give a brother some credit, I’m not a fool all the time. I love G as much as the rest of your guys. Besides, Soda, the only person that gets G as riled up as Kellen is you.”
Arman started to reach for Jenkin’s throat with one clawed hand, before Brewster caught his wrist and smiled at his friend.
“I’m the only one that gets to call ‘em Soda.”
“Why, cause your name is even dumber than his? You both had crack head momma’s and it ain’t my fault that you got funny na. . .”
“Can it! That is the exact type of garbage I am talking about.”
Jenkins flinched at Coach Smith’s bark. Even though Smith was usually calm and gentle at practices and games, the Marine he used to be was still lurked just beneath that surface. “Shoot if we don’t act like ourselves then coach is really going to get stressed. He’ll think his team got snatched by aliens or something if we all go in their acting like we is white or something. Besides, it isn’t my fault that Sir William Brewster has to get on his white horse to protect Lady Baking Soda.”
This time it was Brewster that went for Jenkins before a big offensive tackle stepped between them.
“Man, why does it always got to be about color with you dudes?” Brian Murphy, the only white starter on the team asked. The smile and joke was enough to cut the tension. That and the fact that this gentle giant on their team was bigger than most seniors even though he was only in eighth grade.
“You lucky, Shrek is here to protect, you Sir.”
“That’s my job,” Murphy smiled in a way that reminded Jenkins that the jester’s place was usually on the bench.
“Black, white or purple, just don’t upset the coach,” Smith declared as he opened the door after swatting Jenkins upside the head with only a half-speed swipe that was more playful than corrective. Smith paused for a second fixing Jenkins with smiling, fatherly eyes. Jenkins looked at the ground and then looked back up and nodded without speaking the promise aloud.
The boys didn’t know what to expect, but they all had their own mental versions of the coach being hooked up to a bunch of beeping machines and hoses. What they didn’t expect is to see him on the floor of the hospital room doing sit-ups.
“Hey fellas,” he grunted as he finished his last set. He stood quickly and wiped the sweat from his shoulders and arms with a towel that had the hospital crest on it before shaking each of their hands. “Thanks for dropping by.”
Arman held his hand firmly even though the coach was clearly done with the greeting.
“Uhhm, coach, shouldn’t you be like resting or something?” Arman asked, still holding his coach’s hand.
“Gee Hammer, does this mean were going steady?” The coach smiled down at his favorite player’s clutching handshake.
“What? Nah, man, I. . .” Arman had expected to see his coach barely alive, not healthier than he had ever looked in his life.
“What Soda is trying to say coach is how come you aren’t in intensive care or something? You did just have a heart attack, right?” Brewster asked.
“Palpitations. My heartbeat is a bit irregular and they want to observe me a few days. Nothing to worry about fellas—really.”
“So you didn’t like almost die when Kellen. . .”
“Let’s not say his name around me again, please.” The coach said this evenly, but his face had become flush and it wasn’t from the exercise he was just doing. Coach Smith cleared his throat to remind the boys not to upset their head coach. Ted Grabowski smiled over at his best friend and co-coach. “I’m glad you guys are all here together. We need to discuss some changes to the team.”
A few of the players groaned wondering if the fact that their head coach doing calisthenics just 48 hours after what looked like a massive coronary meant that they were all in for extra conditioning. While it would be taboo to admit it, they all had looked forward to the kinder gentler Smith taking over the reigns for the rest of the season.
As if reading their minds Grabowski intoned very seriously, “Coach Smith is now the head coach. I’ll still be around, but the only way the docs would let me back onto a football field is if I promised to step down as the head coach—that goes for basketball this winter too.”
“But, who will. . .”
“I will still be there for practices and I should even make the Porter game, as long as you guys help me keep my day-to-day stress down and Coach Smith does all the talking to the
zebras. I also have to get off the Fatkins diet.”
“My mom’s said it works and that doctors don’t know sh. . .”
“Not Atkins, Kline, Fatkins. The days of living off pizza, beer and wings, are over for me—and don’t let it start for you guys. Trust me, there is nothing that gets your attention quicker than a heart that debates about whether or not it is going to pump enough blood to let you take your next breath. I might have even found religion two days ago. That reminds me of another thing. As you guys know, I have a slight anger problem and. . .”
“Not you coach, why you are the kindest, gentlest man I have ever met,” Jenkins intoned doing his best impression of Al Jolsen even though he didn’t know who the man was.
Grabowski growled at his resident clown.
“I thought you said you were supposed to control your anger?” Brewster said as he reached out and put a calming hand on his coach’s chest.
The coach stared down at the quarterback’s hand, “You want me to meet you down on the third floor and sign your cast, Brewster.”
Brewster looked at his hand as if it had sprouted eyeballs. There were terrible legends about what happened to the last kid that had touched Coach G. back in the old days when teachers could hit kids. It was a good thing it was his throwing hand. The look on the coach’s face clearly seemed to calculate that he could still make hand-offs and passes with a snapped left wrist. The coach grinned down, but it was a shark grin. “Brewster, you might want to move your hand now. I am sure maiming you would undo all of the wooing of your mom I have done these last two days while in her hospital.”
The other players all made loud hooting noises and Brewster’s dark skin went purple with embarrassment. His mother was a nurse at the hospital and it was she that had provided the major pull for this reunion. He hoped that the coach was just joking. He knew his mom was cute, and that coach would be far better than some of the dudes she went out with, but the idea of having his mom actually getting romantically involved with him was unthinkable. It would be weird. The fact that there would be whispers of jungle fever would not help that either. Coach G was one of the whitest men Brewster had ever met, and his mother was a Nubian beauty. His troubled glare at his friends did little to help the problem. Soon they were leering and jeering and making catcall whistles as his mother came striding into the room in her crisp white uniform. Her hips swayed and Brewster looked down at his shoes. Coach winked at him, and then smiled up at Brianna Brewster. She started to lecture the football players and coaches, tapping her clipboard for effect, but Coach G shot her a thousand watt grin and the woman smiled demurely back at him. Brewster wanted to find a bedpan to hide under.
