Senior Year Box Set

“One last thought. I know you don’t want the responsibility, that you want to still be a kid in high school, if only for a few more weeks. Well, it’s about time for you to suck it up. You have that responsibility; you took it on as soon as you got those three girls pregnant. It’s about time you grew up, accepted it, and acted like a man instead of a punk, entitled child. At some point, you need to be a better man.”

He stood, and his voice softened as he patted me gently on the shoulder.

“I have to go take care of your mom now, Son. She needs me, and I won’t shirk my responsibility to her, just like I won’t shirk my responsibility to you, to try to bring you up right.”

He walked out the door as I sat there, mute, left alone to my own thoughts. My aches were no longer merely physical.

◊◊◊

As I walked to my apartment, I noticed the cloud cover from the storm had burned away, leaving the night air crisp and clear. I said a little prayer in the hope that this was a metaphor for what I was going through right now. The storm had passed, and the moon sifted through the leaves to give everything an unearthly glow. The rain had left a damp, clean scent in the air. Soon everything would come alive as the temperature warmed up.

When I got upstairs with my trusty hound, I took the opportunity to ruminate on what my dad had said. I’d never seen him that angry, let alone had it directed at me. It was pretty thoroughly humbling for me to have him bring me up short like that. The worst part, though, was that he’d clearly been harboring those thoughts for a while.

But he was right. I had responsibilities, whether I wanted them or not. Not that I would ever turn my back on my responsibilities to my little ones or their mothers. My movies, my businesses, my employees … all of them demanded better behavior from me. As I reflected on my recent adventures, I could see I hadn’t been behaving like the normal teen I’d said I wanted to be. I’d been behaving like Lindsay Lohan, to use my dad’s analogy.

Now that my dad had shown me how far off track I’d gone, would I do something about it?

I needed some alone time to think through my life goals and how I was using that tool. More accurately, how I was misusing that tool; that was glaringly evident. I was picking and choosing those parts that let me justify doing what I wanted to do anyway, no matter how immature it might be.

I needed to either cut my life goals down some or re-prioritize some items.

◊◊◊ Tuesday April 11

The reporting on what I thought of as the ‘Bill Incident’ started dying down a bit on Tuesday. Yes, I was a local hero, yadda yadda yadda, but the local media was getting blasé about the whole incident, thank God.

By the time my school day ended, I was old news as far as the local press was concerned. That didn’t mean the bruises had gone away; I still hurt. The annoying part was, I couldn’t really play. Yeah, I’d continued to complain about being sidelined, but secretly, I was glad to have a bit more time to recover.

We had another away ball game at Urbana today. Moose told me I didn’t need to attend. I was okay with not driving to watch the game. I wished my teammates good luck and headed home.

◊◊◊

After dinner, I was doing my homework with the TV on in the background. Duke lay curled up on his doggy bed, snoring. My phone rang.

“Kevin got kicked off the football team today,” Cindy said.

“What? Why?”

“They drug-tested everyone Sunday. He and four other guys came back positive. He tried to explain that he’d been dosed without his knowledge, but they’d all been warned about what might happen over spring break. They gave Kevin the choice of entering the transfer portal, or they would kick him off the team, and it would become public knowledge as to why,” Cindy explained.

“He’s making them kick him off?” I asked, confused.

“No. Kevin entered the transfer portal today. But the word is already out on the message boards that he and his drug-buddies were asked to leave. Someone leaked it,” Cindy shared.

“He’s my drug-buddy,” I said and instantly regretted saying that. “I mean … you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. Anyway, I was hoping you might put in a good word for him. No one is interested in the five guys because programs don’t want that kind of problem on their football team.”

“Have Kevin call me with whoever he needs me to talk to, and I’ll do it,” I assured her.

“What really hurts is he’s a marginal NFL prospect, and his best shot was playing at Ohio State.”

I was surprised she’d figured that out. The stakes were even higher in the NFL. You had to be a heck of a ballplayer to carry any kind of baggage with you at that level.