The Scrub

By Janson Mancheski

Old Packers Stadium!

Curly Lambeaus ghost!

An upset of Rocky-like proportions!

The Scrub reveals the lives of three teens, each facing insurmountable challenges. Janus Mann is at odds with his football coach; his best friend Barnaby is being bullied by his physical therapist; and Ashas life is controlled by her alcoholic father. Yet the three friends remain determined to achieve success.

The story shines light on high school life, ripped open like a scab. Where on any given day you can reach soaring heights; or just as easily be beaten down into a dark pit of despair.

In spite of the set-backs, our trio of plucky friends persists. But when Janus luck reaches rock bottom, he has only one place to turnhe seeks advice from the ghost of Green Bay Packers legend Curly Lambeau, who becomes his mentor and surrogate father.

As dark forces mount a final attack, is it too late for the friends to alter their fate? Or will they accept Curlys lesson: that through loyalty, friendship and teamworkyou will always be stronger than going it alone?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Nov 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781458221209

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Copyright © 2017 Janson Mancheski.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Abbott Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-2122-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2121-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2120-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911124

Abbott Press rev. date: 11/21/2017

Contents

PART ONE

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

PART TWO

THE SHED

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

PART THREE

THE LEGEND OF CURLY’S GHOST

CHAPTER 63

CHAPTER 64

CHAPTER 65

CHAPTER 66

CHAPTER 67

CHAPTER 68

CHAPTER 69

CHAPTER 70

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

FINAL FOOTNOTE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In

memory of Hall of Fame football coach Gene Bray, who allowed me to keep plugging along

until I achieved a measure of success on the gridiron

PART ONE

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

CHAPTER 1

Thursday Night

The snickering of goblins. It’s the sound the dead leaves make as my bike tires roll over their dried-up carcasses lying strewn along the gutter.

I’m pedaling near the curb along a narrow side street in an older neighborhood close to the river. My bike has no light—just a reflector beneath the seat in back. I have on a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, cross-trainers, and am indistinguishable from a thousand other adolescents. I am a shadow.

It’s nighttime now, and Halloween decorations can be distinguished in windows and doorways as I sweep past sheet ghosts lurking in bushes or strung across front lawns in wisps. Gap-toothed pumpkins stare from porches. Dark figures hide in gloomy hedges, and black cat silhouettes and cornstalks are tacked to front doors.

Halloween’s only a week away, and kids will TP the trees in the park across from our high school. It’s an eighty-year tradition. Football and paper country. Green Bay is one of the bedrocks where the game sprouted its roots. What many folks don’t know, however, is that the city—and the adjacent Fox River Valley—is also the tissue-paper capital of the world. Good joke fodder if you’re a Packers opponent, I suppose.

I cruise along past homes with yard lights, mostly unlit. I distinguish people moving behind closed curtains and the flicker of playing televisions.

High tree branches bristle in the breeze. I hear them because I’m free of traffic. I roll on. More dead leaves crackle; more goblins snicker. I veer from one street onto an even darker one, which courses along the nearby river. A lone streetlight illuminates the intersection far ahead.

Encased in darkness, lost in thought, I can’t shake our football practice from my skull. Coach Ray called a light workout beneath the stadium lights so we could prepare for tomorrow night’s game. I missed an easy pass I normally hit, and Coach had a conniption fit. I’m a scrub, a loser, a two-bit quarterback. Blah, blah. Heard it all before. By game time tomorrow against the Trojans, he’ll be over it.

I’m pedaling like a robot now, my mind still on his tirade. My eyes are focused on some invisible point ahead of me, not really seeing. I sweep around a car parked on the shadowy street. As I’m easing past, the driver’s door flings open. The edge catches my back wheel and spins me around. I’m suddenly in the air, landing rough on the asphalt. My bike skids, slides a full circle. When the spinning stops, I’m lying in the middle of the narrow street, shaken, stunned from my face-plant. My ball cap lies ten feet away.

I blink my eyes…see colors. My Raleigh is sideways, front tire spinning. My head has slapped the pavement, I realize, and is beginning to throb on one side above my ear.

A voice shrieks from behind me. I glance back. The girl is my age, garbed in dark leggings and a hoodie. She stands next to her open car door, lit faintly by the dome light. I recognize her by the glimpse of short white bangs. She’s Asha Silver. From a few of my classes. She also student-jobs in the library.

I watch as she steps in the street and reaches for a hard black case lying on its side, halfway open. Despite the shadows I can see the reflection of a long musical instrument on the asphalt. She lifts it with the care of a heart surgeon.

My flute, she cries, and renders me a desperate look. What the hell’s wrong with you? She examines the instrument for damage. I wonder, vaguely, how she can tell in the dark. She withdraws her cell phone and holds it up like a flashlight, as if reading my mind.

It’s pitch black, I tell her, defensive. You opened your door…as I’m riding past.

She stares at me, incredulous. You’re saying it’s my fault? She cradles the flute like an injured bird.

Just an accident. The pressure in my head is spreading. I notice sparkles at the edge of my vision. I want to ask if she’s okay, but the words won’t form. I droop my head in the crook of my elbow and close my eyes just for a second. The inky night closes in fast, and I wonder if I’m still inside my body.

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It’s a dream or a vision. Maybe a memory—or a premonition, even. I’m not sure. I’m walking from the football field postgame. Here comes Matt, my favorite teammate, giving me a clap on the shoulder as he trots past. Half our players have their helmets off, heading toward the exit gates. Our locker room is twenty yards beyond them, just inside the high school.

Some far-off region of my cortex reminds me that I’m passed out, lying in the street, dreaming. It’s as if my brain is fighting to right itself. I’m like a coma victim, unconscious yet aware of my surroundings. And now more images—slices of memory—flash across my mind.

Coach Ray is approaching as we leave the field: You’re holding the ball too long, Janus! Get rid of it faster. We practice that play ten times a day. And four kids hopping the empty bleachers not far from us, with one straw-haired boy calling from the stands, Hey, Janus! Can you throw a pass over ten yards? They laugh together and run off.

Flash ahead to Coach standing in front of our locker room…Sweat, dirt, uniforms stained by mud and grass, sweaty gray undershirts…He’s giving his postgame talk: You’re playing like scared little boys! You’re all a bunch of losers. A team of scrubs. He gives us an exasperated look. Go home. Rest. Shake this off. Next week we face the Southwest Trojans. We handled them in our August scrimmage. But we’ve got to get our act together here. A few scattered Yeahs! and Rights! and Let’s do its!

Finally Coach calling us together—arms, fists, helmets extended in the circle around him for a group chant: Red Devils! Red Devils! Hoo rah-rah!

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Moments later—or perhaps it’s minutes or hours—I hear my voice slurring, Ooo raw-raaaw, like I’m a drunk coming off a bender.

What? a thin voice is asking. Hey! You sure you’re okay?

I mumble, Yeah. Dandy. My eyes blink. I raise my head, and I realize I’m staring into the dark eyes of Asha Silver. I look around. I’m still in the street, my bike toppled in the shadows near the curb. I rub the tender spot on my skull.

You don’t look it. She says this suspiciously. You went blank for almost a minute. Fine. Just a little… I recognize where I am now. Her street, striking her car, bike sliding, me in the air, crashing. My clunked head. We were arguing about something. I can’t place what it was.

How could you not see me? she demands. It’s a car!

I rise to one elbow. That’s it! Arguing about the crash. I’ll pay for any damages. To your car and to your, uh, piccolo there.

Her grimace has moron written on it.

My eyes adapt to the shadows. Beneath her shock of white hair I notice a silver stud in one eyebrow. She’s petite and skinny. Asha, right? From the library?

She says nothing, and I struggle to my feet, hands on knees, cautious as a fallen mountain climber. You live around here?

Why? You want to set my house on fire next?

Before I can answer, a commotion erupts from the duplex across the lawn. The front door flies open. A giant figure with a gray ponytail looms. He’s wearing a sleeveless-T and is backlit by the inner light. I recognize him from the walks he often takes through the neighborhoods around our high school: Sam Silver. Clicketyclackclick. He’s Asha’s dad.

Hell’s going on out here? His slur is discernable, consistent with what I know his reputation to be.

Nothing, Dad. Just a little…accident.

The car? Better not be—

We’re cool. This is…he’s a boy from school. Go back to sleep. Asha gives me a pained look. Her father grumbles and disappears back inside the duplex, slamming the door behind him.

My brain is finally back in gear. Tumblers fall in place, years of local gossip. I know of her dad, and she knows I know. Sam Silver Fox Silver was a local celebrity twenty years ago. A Golden Gloves boxer in his day. Good enough for a six-fight pro run. These days, his faded glory qualifies him as a storytelling BS-er in the string of taverns over on Main Street. It’s a stretch not far from here on the opposite side of the river.

I want to slap myself for not putting it together sooner. I never two-and-two’d that the skinny waif Asha from my class is the daughter of the notorious Silver Fox. Small world.

I brush my palms on my jeans, rising to full height. Put my cap back on. The skin of my left hand is scraped from the asphalt. My left shoulder, where I landed, is starting to burn. But when I rotate the joint, it seems fine. With a game tomorrow, it better be. Not my throwing arm, so no big deal.

I examine my bike, making sure the parts appear stable. Asha stoops and gathers her flute case. She shoves her phone in her hoodie pocket. She turns and strides away up the slope of her narrow driveway.

Nice talking to you, Asha, I call. I mount my ride. The chain is still in place, and the handlebars seem straight. I’m serious. Let me know if there’s any damages.

She calls over her shoulder. Get your eyes checked for night blindness.

I have nothing clever to say. I watch the duplex front door open, then close. I pedal away into the bleak darkness.

A half block later, I roll past familiar neighborhood homes that appear less familiar in the shadows. My mind bounces from Asha, to lying in the street, back to our practice, then to her dad’s shadowy presence shouting from the doorway.

I finally allow myself to relax. I’ve been hit harder playing basketball, or even falling off a slide when I was ten. After a good night’s sleep, I’m sure it will all seem like some weird dream.

Except for the memory of how cute Asha Silver looked, screaming at me in the dark.

CHAPTER 2

Friday Night

If this were a movie, it would open with an image of the iconic Curly Lambeau statue, cast in charcoal gray, holding an outstretched football in one hand, while pointing his opposite forefinger triumphantly down at the playing field—Old City Stadium—where he founded the original Green Bay Packers.

But this is not a movie. And we—the East High Red Devils—are not those rough-and-tumble Packers of yesteryear. Instead, we’re just a bunch of high schoolers who are lucky enough to be toiling on the same field where the legendary Curly Lambeau played and coached the Packers to six NFL championships.

So any similarities end about here. And even more fortunate for me, the incident with Asha’s car last night hasn’t had any lasting effects. My bike is fine and so am I. So much so that, at this very second, beneath the glowing stadium lights and bleachers thick with rabid fans, as I approach the line of scrimmage:

The butt of Nelson’s white uniform pants appears shiny. He is bending over at the waist, clutching the football with both his taped hands. Four more of my teammates, two on each side, are bent over in similar fashion. All are alike in our crimson-and-white East High uniforms, and yet each reveals a slightly different shape and size.

I stand a yard behind where our center is bent over and survey the opposing defense. Our crosstown rivals, clad in silver and blue: the Southwest Trojans. Satisfied, I step forward and slide my hands tight against Nelson’s backside. My eyes swivel, seeing everything, and I’m ready to receive the snap.

The stands are filled, fans revved up. The repeated slam of two thousand feet on aluminum bleachers is like a freight train pounding louder and louder.

Time slows like a highlight reel. Vapor snorts from the lineman’s nostrils, and I detect the bug-eyed stares of psychotic linebackers. I bark the signals. On the third hutt the ball is snapped. Our linemen ahead of me move in ballet unison, perfect synchronicity. I turn and slip the football into Steff’s arms as our big tailback glides past.

I’m carrying out my fake, when I hear the cry all quarterbacks dread in their darkest nightmares: "Fumble!"

I spin around, eyes searching the ground. Mud churns up from digging cleats, the linemen’s thick ankles. I spot the brown orb bouncing along the dewy grass. I dive on the ball and smother it as three large behemoths crash on top of my back.

Whistles blast around us. A thousand pounds of beef unpile from me, slow and snarling, snapping like infected dogs. It’s a three-yard loss, so it could have been worse. Yet it’s the thing I fear most: looking like some scrub who doesn’t know his rear from a hole in the ground.

Without glancing at the sidelines, I know that Coach Ray’s face is furious.

I rise, wary of looking across at our team bench. Yet I have to. A quick peek. Our headman, Coach Raymond Grayna, is waving his clipboard in the air. He’s screaming at Coach Bob and Coach Van, our two assistant coaches. And everyone else within earshot. His forehead and cheeks are on fire. He’s looking for someone to strangle.

That someone would be me if I were near him right now.

Across the field the scoreboard reads East Red Devils 14, Trojans 7. It is now third down. We’re winning by a touchdown with 3:24 left in the game. The Trojan defenders are fired up. They jostle one another, slam shoulder pads, aroused that if they can stop us one more time they’ll get the ball back.

Our huddle has descended into chaos. My teammates argue and finger-point over our fumble. I bark with authority, Shut up! Everybody. Concentrate! They quiet at my stern words. I’m the voice of reason in our huddle.

Yet the deer-in-the-headlights looks remain. We’ve dodged a howitzer on the last play. Mathew Matt Christian, our big offensive tackle, trots in and conveys the next play to me. It’s a third-down pass, with eight yards to go. I call it with authority. If we complete this throw, we will run out the clock and ice the game.

We break our huddle, position at the line of scrimmage. I imagine the voice of the play-by-play announcer in the press box. "Here we go, folks. It’s a crisp Friday night in late October, with the East Red Devils facing uncertainty. Eleven angry Trojans are hell-bent on stopping them here and getting the ball back."

I study Nelson’s butt again, bent over, vulnerable, the football angled between his gnarled hands. I stand a yard back and survey the defense. I glance over at Lee Lash, our tight end. He looks back with a dullness in his eyes. His demeanor is wrong. I know at once he doesn’t remember the pass route—whether he should turn in, or out to the sideline.

If I call time-out Coach Ray will strangle me right here on the field.

Alarm bells in my head. Red lights flash. Imminent disaster. If Lee Lash turns the wrong way as I throw, the ball will be intercepted and likely returned down the sideline for a touchdown. Tie game. And a two-point after beats us. The crap-storm will be dumped on me, the quarterback. I calculate the options and percentages in my head: Do I run the play anyway? Guess which way Lee Lash might turn? Or call a desperation time-out? We’ll be penalized, but it might save the game.

Or perhaps I’ll drop back and look for a secondary receiver. Or I can hold the ball, pat-pat-pat, for a deliberate sack, risk fumbling, but likely preserving us a victory.

Clicketyclickclack. My internal abacus tabulates these odds in my head.

I step to the line. The crowd noise rings in my ear holes—the helmet with the snarling, crimson Red Devil on the side. I ease behind our center, still contemplating the various doomsday scenarios.

The Trojan defensive back is creeping up as if he knows our secret. The stomping feet in the stands are full force again, tremoring like a small earthquake. I make my decision while barking the count. The ball is snapped. I take a sprint-out to the right. I can’t let the game’s outcome ride on what’s going on in my teammate’s foggy skull. I’m the quarterback. These are decisions a leader must make.

I fire the pass. The ball sails above our team bench, bounces, strikes a cheerleader in the calf as she performs a high kick. She drops to the running track as if shot. The crowd groans at the incompletion.

Coach Ray’s eyes explode like machine-gun fire in my direction. The punting unit rushes past us onto the field as my teammates and I trot to the sidelines.

It was a glorious spiral. I commend myself for this. A perfect pass thrown for a game-saving, third-down incompletion. Our helmets are bowed as we depart the field. Beside me, our big lineman Matt says, Got away, huh?

Yeah, I mumble. Slick ball. I don’t want to throw Lee Lash under the bus.

On the sidelines, Coach Ray’s predatory eyes laser in on me. My teammates veer away like escaping antelopes. I’m the straggler, the lone target. The next moment Coach Ray is in my grill, screaming, waving his clipboard and shouting: What? Why? Who? Don’t I know…? How the hell can I be so stupid?

I know enough to stay silent and eat the crap sandwich.

Without letting him see, I shift my gaze across the playing field to the scoreboard at the stadium’s north end. It’s close to the river and our practice field. The high trees lining the outer fence are the same sturdy elms kids used to climb to watch the Packers and Curly Lambeau win championships in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. I don’t need to look too hard. There are no kids in those trees watching us now.

My eyes come back to Coach Ray, and I realize his harsh words have steered us from the field toward our team bench. He’s not letting up. The rest of his diatribe is a blur, peppered with variations of You’re a loser, Janus! You’re a scrub! You’re the reason we’re not winning this game by thirty points.

The thump of our punter booting the ball is the only thing capable of silencing his wrath. Coach turns and stomps back to the sidelines. His forehead is hot enough to fry an egg on.

My desire is to sulk. To sit on the bench and contemplate my great misfortune. In the air, I detect the odor of Tuf-Skin, mixed with the bitterness of adolescent adrenaline. These scents blend with the popcorn and cheesy pretzels from the stands. Instead of pouting, however, I move to the sideline for a better view of the final three minutes.

Behind us our cheerleaders shout from the running track, begging our defense to Hold that line! Hey!

My mind drifts to the image of Curly Lambeau standing on this same sideline decades ago. This same sacred turf. Were there contests where he chose to sacrifice himself in order to win a tight ball game? Of course. There had to be. Curly Lambeau—from everything I’ve read— would give up his soul to win a game. It was a matter of survival for him. And survival for the team he founded: the Green Bay Packers.

Curly Lambeau was a big-picture guy.

Our defenders hold the Trojans to a single first down, followed by four futile pass attempts. The gun sounds, putting the final exclamation on the contest. The East High Red Devils now have a record of 4 and 1. We’re in the thick of a tight conference race.

"In spite of the spotty play of senior quarterback, Janus Mann." This is how the local Green Bay Press-Gazette will summarize things in tomorrow’s fish wrap. Of that I can be certain.

CHAPTER 3

The locker room door opens to the back parking lot across from the tennis courts. There’s a long metal rack there where I park my bike. The white-fenced baseball stadium is across the street, bordering the road that courses along the murky East River. Traffic is stalled on the streets as two hundred vehicles are still departing the stadium lot. Teammates get rides home from parents. Or they passenger with other students who drive or have access to cars. A handful of us rely on our bikes for transportation.

The stadium foot traffic has cleared by now. The lights still shine in the nearby distance. They reflect off the low-hanging October clouds, shrouding our high school in ghostly shadows. At the bike rack, I straddle my three-year-old Raleigh. A few teammates in cars flash me victory signs as they motor past. They know I like to ride alone. It gives me time to think.

I seldom wear a riding helmet. I guess I’m a risk-taker. Indestructible seventeen-year-olds. A cliché, I know, but I suppose it applies. Sometimes I wear a ball cap and sunglasses if it’s too bright out, which happens less and less now at October’s end. My no-headgear excuse? I only have eight blocks to ride to get home, along quiet neighborhood streets. And besides, I’ve just spent the last two hours in a sweaty football helmet. My hair is short and shower steam rises from my scalp. My uncovered head feels cool in the October air.

Despite last night’s header, I’m not going to change my ways. It was a fluke—a one-off, which by now I’ve shrugged away. Did I mention indestructible seventeen-year-olds?

Matt exits the building carrying his backpack. He’s a big black dude who walks slightly pigeon-toed, his knees compensating for his bulk. He has on black-rimmed geek glasses from the Clark Kent era. He wears throwaway contact lens when he plays, but tells me he prefers his glasses for everyday use.

Don’t let him get to you, Janus. He calls this in a voice that’s soft for his bulk. You’re not a loser or a scrub. None of us are.

Our opinions count one point, I tell him. Coach’s count twenty.

Forty of us. One of him. Matt walks up to where I straddle my bike. He’s trying to fire us up, get us to play better. That’s all.

I know this. My dad was a football coach, and I understand how they think as a species. The psychology of the negative. It’s like the marines: they rip you down to build you back up. Get you to function as a unit, and not as individuals. Psych 101.

Yet with Coach Grayna, it always feels personal. I understand he’s trying to motivate me. I get it. At the same time, it gets to be a little much.

I wave to Matt and pedal off.

Get ’em next week, he calls to my back.

Hoo-rah! I shout back, sarcastic, giving him a backhanded wave. Moments later, I cruise past the dark front facade of the massive high school, headed for the streetlights at the corner. The wind blows through the high tree branches in the park across the street. It’s a cool wind. I’m reminded that November is already on the way.

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I turn onto the side streets off Walnut Street, which is the main drag leading to our high school. Each block I ride moves me farther from the buildings, the postgame congestion. Darkness gathers in thick pools between older homes and duplexes. As the neighborhoods become more desolate and quiet, the presence of streetlights declines.

I try not to think of the game. Still, I can’t prevent the highlight reel of each play—each series, every high and low—from running like a video through my mind. I picture my final pass sailing over Lee Lash’s head and over our team bench. If this night were a comedy film, they’d add that play to the gag reel at the end.

My Raleigh offers me an escape. I don’t have to talk to anyone while I pedal. I sometimes listen to music on my phone with earbuds, yet I mostly enjoy the solitude. Just my thoughts. I imagine it’s similar to the cowboys alone with their horses a couple hundred years back. Ride off into the sunset in silence. Just you and your best friend—Champ or Sassy or Nevada—the prairies and forests, the silent mountains and open night skies. It’s likely why they wrote all those lonesome cowboy songs.

Just you and an audience of one.

My inner voice chides me. Perhaps someday I’ll write a ballad while I pedal, like one of Grandma Francie’s oldies: I am just a loser…according to my coach…I am squandering my existence…

Something like that. It’ll suck, I know. But did the cowboys care that their songs weren’t loved by millions? Hardly.

I wish my dad was around. He’d be the one I’d go to for advice. And that’s another weird thing: my dad and Coach Ray were close friends. Besties for real. Coach Ray was my dad’s number-one assistant, back when Alec Mann coached at our high school.

My dad passed away three years ago. I haven’t quite gotten over it yet. Do you ever when you’re the eldest son? The one being groomed as a star athlete someday?

Last year my mom took my two sisters and moved to Columbus, Ohio. To start a new life, she told me. And everyone else that asked. Time for a clean break. Too many old memories in this place.

Not wanting to uproot my final year of high school, I convinced her that I could live here with Grandma Francie, my dad’s mom. She lives in a small, older house eight blocks from our high school. My mom and the school psychologist both agreed with my pleadings. They agreed my staying in Green Bay for my senior year was in my best interest. Besides, it’s only for my final year. And now with the football season at October’s end, down to only four games left, the countdown has already begun.

Toward what, I’m not exactly sure.

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I’m pedaling like a robot again, mindless, rolling past neighborhood houses in the dark. Without realizing it, I’m riding past Asha’s duplex again. I feel like a criminal who can’t stop from returning to the crime scene. Only tonight there’s no car in the street; no screaming, angry cute girl;