Chapter Three
Bryan
Late August 1975, UConn, Storrs, CT
Shoving the bare necessities into my well-used UConn duffel, I pull it tight and zip it, then heft it over my shoulder. My father stands in the doorway of my bedroom, blocking my exit. I keep the duffel in place even though it bites into my sore shoulder. I should switch it to the other side, but I don’t move, waiting for him to say whatever he has to say.
“You didn’t finish your chores.”
“I did.”
“No. The extra hand quit early today. You finish his chores.”
“And tomorrow? Who will finish the chores?”
I swallow down a spike of bile, knowing the answer and despising it, despising my choice to do nothing about it. But it’s an impossible choice: football versus my family’s farm.
“As of tomorrow, you’re leaving it all to your cousin Wally.”
I hold back a snort of derision. Wally is undersized even for a ten-year-old. My old man stands there stoic and determined. It would be better if he yelled. Then I could yell back. But we both know my little cousin Wally can’t handle the kind of chores the hired hand does—when he’s around. My old man’s going to have to hire someone new, and he resents me for it.
“Or you could finish the chores,”
I say, lifting my chin and daring him to do something about my insolence.
He takes a step forward, and I steel my body, barely preventing a flinch.
“I’m leaving now. My ride?—”
“Your ride can wait,”
he snarls, anger seething from him because he knows better than to strike now.
I stare him down because I don’t want to give in, don’t want to make Coach Hammer wait. He’s more than my ride, more than my football coach at Suffield Academy. He’s the man who helped get me a football scholarship at UConn. And my old man knows it.
“You can be late. It’s only a game. The chores won’t wait. The farm is more important than any damn game.”
His words cut because he’s right—or he would be right except this isn’t about a damn game. It’s about my life. He’s telling me farming is a more important life than anything else, including football or whatever I might do with a college degree.
But that’s because he doesn’t know about my promise to Caleb. And he never will. It’s killing me to spend all my time and energy, every minute I have that’s not school or football—my one escape—working on the family farm. Which is sick because when I was a kid, I loved it.
Now… he’s ruined it, made the farm a threat, a weapon he wields against me to punish me for Caleb’s death. I swipe my free hand through my hair.
I need to escape, not the farm, my old man. Even if that means leaving my mother and Wally behind. But I swear it’ll be temporary.
“I can’t miss my ride to campus.”
“Call Hammer and tell him to come later.”
His words are matter-of-fact, but I don’t miss the snap in his eyes, the tightening in his jaw when he refers to Coach.
I don’t bother telling him that the UConn football program doesn’t work that way, that I’m expected to report to the field house for a team meeting at noon. He doesn’t care.
I glance at my watch, a silver-colored Timex the old man got me for high school graduation. He said it was so I could make sure I finished my chores on time.
If I do finish the chores quickly, I can just make it to the meeting if Coach drops me off at the field house with my stuff. I’ll have to hitch a ride to the apartment after the meeting and practice or carry my things back. Shit.
From experience, I know I’m not getting past my old man in the doorway without brute force. He’s daring me to shove him out of the way. Then all hell will break loose and Mom will?—
“You’ve already had three years of college.”
He breaks the silence uncharacteristically. “I don’t see that you’ve got even one year’s worth of knowledge out of it. College can wait. Or maybe you should quit.”
We’ve had this argument before, and I’m not about to have a repeat. Not about to make Mom cry on the day I’m leaving, knowing I won’t be back until Thanksgiving. If then. Before I can tell my old man I’ll do the damn chores, Mom pushes him aside to come into my room.
“I’ll call Coach and let him know to come in an hour,”
she says. “Whatever chores you don’t finish, I’ll finish myself.”
She stands with her arms folded, as tall as my old man, wearing a fierce expression. The graying dark waves of her hair fall over one side of her face, and she brushes them aside, her eyes on me, silently and sullenly determined.
I nod, acknowledging her support, but there’s no way in hell I’ll leave a single minute of chores to Mom, even if my old man might let her do them just to punish me.
Coach Hammer will go along with the delay. He’ll do whatever I need, whether I ask or not.
I know he won’t balk at the change of plans, but I already feel like I’m taking advantage of him.
He never says anything about my old man’s attitude, at least not to me. He and Dad have been at war for my time and attention ever since I started playing Pop Warner football. That’s where Coach discovered me—his words, not mine—and recruited me from the public high school in Granby to play for Suffield Academy on scholarship.
My little cousin tries squeezing into the room, and Dad lets him by. He jumps on my bed, grinning like the ten-year-old boy he is.
“Off to play football, you lucky duck. I can’t wait to see a game. Coach says he might take me?—”
“Never mind what Coach says.”
My old man’s voice is quietly firm as he shuts down Wally’s smile and along with it, his giddy anticipation.
“Come on, Wally,”
Mom says. “Bryan has to finish the chores, and then we can say hello to Coach when we see him off.”
She takes his hand and pushes Dad from the doorway as they go out. Dad leaves without gloating about winning the skirmish. Probably because he knows the war is far from over.
I drop my bag and pull off my shirt, replacing it with an old work shirt, and head downstairs out the back door. My crusty work boots sit on the porch waiting for me, and I switch them with my sneakers and head across the yard.
In spite of being sweaty and filthy when I’m finished mucking out the cow barn, I quickly wash my hands and change back into my clean shirt and sneakers without a shower. Coach honks his horn out front as I finish up.
He’s a brave guy to announce his arrival, challenging my old man to greet him. Last time, Dad didn’t bother saying hello to him or goodbye to me. Another year and nothing’s changed. If anything, my old man’s antagonism is worse.
Wally is yammering to Coach about Suffield Academy’s team while Mom smiles, offering him coffee and cookies when I come out the door carrying my duffel over my shoulder and a cardboard box in my arms.
Coach grins at me. “Let me help you with that.”
He rushes to open the trunk to stow the box. I toss my duffel in the back seat.
“Sorry for the delay.”
“No problem at all. I’ll do my best to get you there on time.”
I turn to Wally and Mom and force a smile. It’s for a good cause. “There’ll be plenty of apples this year, and I’m counting on some pie in a care package.”
“I’ll pick the apples,”
Wally says.
“You and what ladder?”
I laugh at him. He’s small, but he has spunk. He reminds me of my older brother sometimes, a little reckless. Reminds Mom of Caleb too, which is probably why she took him in when her older sister passed and has been overprotective of him since.
She tucks him under her arm now. “Don’t you listen to Bryan. You can stand on a crate and get the low branches.”
“Don’t worry about me,”
he says. “I’ll climb the trees to get the high branches.”
“I bet you will,”
I tell him sincerely as a rare lump of emotion pushes its way into my throat. “Come here,”
I rasp. Clearing my throat, I check the emotions down. He breaks away from Mom, and I give him a hug and then ruffle his hair because he hates it.
He swats at me. “Hey. Watch out. You know we’re definitely coming to a game this year.”
I nod and get in the car. I don’t hold any hope of my family making it to a game. Why should this year be any different? Because it’s my senior year? Possibly—no, make that probably—my last year to play football.
Coach backs out of the drive, leaving a cloud of dust that blurs my view of Mom and Wally for a second as they wave like mad. I turn away before I see Mom tearing up. It’s the one thing about my life at home that I can’t stand—more than rising at four a.m., mucking cow shit, hefting bales of hay, feeding pigs, and twelve-hour days. That’s all part of the life, and when I get into the rhythm, it soothes my soul. What I can’t stand is to see my mom cry.
I’ve seen her cry a sea of tears since we lost Caleb, and it never fails to stab me through the heart.
I walk into the team meeting ten minutes late with my duffel and box, and without huffing and puffing from the flat-out run from the front door. I take a seat in the back of the stuffy room with sweat pouring down my face and a slightly earthy smell clinging to me.
Tony Torino, head coach of the football team, stops talking and looks up at me.
I make no comment, while all the guys turn their heads my way.
Fletcher Ferris, a safety with an attitude, sits two rows ahead of me and opens his mouth. In spite of my warning stare, he says under his breath, “I knew it was you by the smell.”
I shrug and turn away.
A few of the guys around us snicker until Coach shuts it down.
“We’re all on the same team here, and it’s time you act like it. We have a real shot at winning the division this year.”
His words hit me like a shot of adrenaline because I was thinking the same thing. Though I keep my thoughts to myself, especially when they’re optimistic.
Coach goes on with his pep talk and introduces the coaching and training staff for the benefit of the new guys before he dismisses us for on-field practice drills. He’ll want to get a look at us. Some of the guys may have slipped in their conditioning over the summer, and the freshmen haven’t been evaluated yet.
Most of the guys in the room groan because this first test is gonna suck. Not me. I love it. This is where the hard work pays off. Grinding out the toughest workouts is where I live.
I think that’s why a lot of the guys on the team don’t like me much.
I don’t give a damn.