Chapter 11
What a waste. What a waste!
I turned to Ed, indignant, and he looked equally frustrated. “In the preseason, they want to see how the different guys work out,” he explained, but I shook my head. To my mind, that was no excuse and I could tell that he didn’t believe what he was saying, either.
“They should have played him,” he sighed, and now I nodded in agreement. It was absolutely silly that Ronan hadn’t gone in. He had gotten significant minutes in the first preseason matchup but this time? He’d sat on the bench.
I would find out what had happened soon enough, because I was going to wait for him after the game in some special area that they reserved for the players’ friends and families.
I assumed that it was stratified and separated into spaces for the starters and non-starters, like they did for everything else.
There were the Woodsmen prima donnas and there were the extras.
The extras didn’t get game tickets to give to someone like Ed, who deserved to be in the front row for all the work he did for the team (the Junior team, but they were still part of this football organization).
I was working on a solution for that problem.
The extras also didn’t have fan replica jerseys made with their names on them, but I was working on that, too.
I was actually furious about Ronan’s playing time and I was aware that he must have been very disappointed as well. The preseason meant so much! “What’s wrong with the coaches?” I asked Ed. “Are they bad?”
“Lower your voice,” he said, glancing around to make sure that the other Woodsmen fans hadn’t heard us. “They’re great coaches. If he didn’t play, there could have been a good reason.”
Or maybe not. I knew all too well how things could go sideways for someone through no fault of their own.
I was thinking specifically of how I’d been placed with a lab parter in ninth grade who…
that incident wasn’t important. “I’ll find out and let you know,” I told him as we started the long walk toward the exits.
We had been back in the nosebleed area but next week, for the third preseason game, the Woodsmen were going out of town to play in Utah.
I’d been there with my dad (since we’d been everywhere), but I’d never seen their football stadium.
I would next week. I had developed a plan of how I would travel and it was going to work out fine.
It depended on Mr. Gowan, but it didn’t depend on him doing something other than what would directly benefit himself.
He was very happy with me at the moment, because Amy Gas (aka Annie Whitaker-Gassman) had already come through with the gravitas drapes.
She had sent two guys to install them, and they’d bought their own ladders so no one had to stand on my back.
The drapes did look very nice in the room, and when my boss got back from his trip (maybe to the Seychelles?) he’d seemed impressed.
“I also like the new color,” he’d said, pointing at the wall next to his desk. I had nodded and kept to myself that no one had done any painting in here.
Ed and I finally made it down the stairs and out of the building.
I checked to make sure that my Junior Woodsmen banner was ok in the concourse with all the booths and I took his picture standing beneath it.
Myles Pham and I had sat at a table there before the game and it had gone pretty well, with a few people expressing minor interest in the Juniors.
Myles was a very personable guy and I thought he was good-looking, too. That hadn’t hurt the cause.
Ed thanked me again for everything I was doing for the team and I tried not to think about all the stuff I had spent money on, and all that was left to do.
Speaking of painting, their side of the practice facility needed…
no, I really wasn’t going to think about all that today.
I also wouldn’t fret about my new concern, that Mr. Gowan would be fired and I would go with him.
No, I would let it slide off my back and not worry.
I returned to the stadium and then used the pass that Ronan had gotten for me to access the family lounge. My Woodsmen employee credentials weren’t sufficient to allow me into a sacred football player area.
That wasn’t divided as I had thought it would have been, between the “have” section for the starters and the “have-not” area that might have been located in a basement or beneath a flight of stairs.
Yes, I was a little salty about the treatment I saw Ronan getting, especially today.
He should have gone in. He really should have!
There was suckage in life but I didn’t like to see it foisted on him.
Gradually, the players started to emerge into the lounge.
It had taken a long time but since he didn’t need to do any interviews with the press, he was one of the first to step through the door from the locker room area.
He didn’t look upset and he smiled when he saw me, so I tried to be equally happy and carefree.
He wouldn’t have guessed that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” he asked immediately.
“Nothing. How are you?”
“You’re pissed because I didn’t play,” he commented, and I gave in.
“Yes, but you don’t seem to be,” I said.
He opened the door for me and the crowd of fans waiting outside to see the Woodsmen got momentarily excited before they noticed that they didn’t really know him.
They would, one day, and they’d be sorry that they hadn’t asked for his autograph now.
He did sign a few items before we walked through to his SUV/truck, which he’d just had painted.
It was now a uniform shade of grey, but I missed the brown and sliver patches a little.
We were driving together because we had plans tonight, which he mentioned now. “I’m not tired from the game, so we can go crazy and stay up until dawn,” he said. “We could stay out until Monday morning.”
That was the positive spin, and I nodded.
“They had told me that I wasn’t going to play,” he continued. “They’re trying to fit in a new guy at defensive tackle and another one at cornerback. The coaches wanted them to be with the starters tonight to work out the kinks.”
Did that mean he wouldn’t be a starter? Seriously? That was ridiculous.
“Go ahead and say it,” he told me. He waved goodbye to the guard at the booth as we pulled out of the stadium drive.
“No, I don’t have anything to say except that I want you to be happy with everything,” I answered.
“I’m living the dream,” he told me, and I nodded. I would stop trying to push for more.
“Good,” I said. Then he asked how the Junior Woodsmen promotion had gone and we continued to the restaurant.
Even as a backup, he was now recognized as a Woodsmen, so there was a bit of a stir when we walked in. Kiya was already there because she liked to be early, and she waved when she saw us. “Good game,” she told Ronan. “The new cornerback is impressive.”
“Yeah, he’s great,” he answered, and they discussed defensive strategy. It only took a moment, though, before Myles Pham joined us.
“Hey,” he greeted our side of the table and then he turned to Kiya. “I’m Myles.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “Nice to meet you in person.”
This was my answer to her request to fix her up with someone, for either short- or long-term activities. Since I didn’t know too many people here, including men, I had asked Myles if he was interested in meeting someone when I’d invited him to sit at the Junior Woodsmen table with me.
“Sure,” he’d answered off-handedly, and not like he was very interested at all. But he seemed happy to see Kiya now. She was both fun and pretty, and I hoped they’d hit it off.
They seemed to. We had a nice time at dinner and afterwards, they went to a bar, but Ronan hadn’t been serious about staying out until dawn.
I was glad, because I hadn’t slept very well the night before.
Maybe it was nerves—yes, it was nerves. I had been concerned about him playing but then he hadn’t, and his explanation about that hadn’t been a good excuse.
It was poor management by the coaches, plain and simple.
I hoped he would get in during the next game in Utah, which I would attend in person. My plan had fallen into my lap when Mr. Gowan had been admiring his new curtains.
“This office has greatly improved,” he had said, and I’d agreed.
Annie Whitaker-Gassman and her partner had done an amazingly quick job with the drapes, but my boss continued to think that she’d done more than that.
On several occasions, he’d complimented the furniture, and I hadn’t bothered to tell him that no one had touched it.
“They’re very nice curtains. A lot of gravitas,” I had offered. A desire for my affirmation wasn’t the reason that he’d called for me to “come,” though. He was (once again) wanting me to fix an issue unrelated to any special project regarding the Woodsmen.
“What do you know about hotels in Salt Lake City?” he’d asked.
“Nothing. Why?”
He had needed my help to find one last minute, because he and some friends would be flying out there for the next-to-last preseason game.
They were taking a private jet, and rather than argue that I wasn’t his travel agent and my job didn’t involve his personal hotel bookings, I’d had a different response.
“I’d be happy to find you a room,” I’d said. “How large is your friend’s plane?”
It was plenty big enough for one more person and my boss didn’t object when I issued an invitation to myself to ride in it to Utah—it was no skin off his nose, anyway. As it turned out, he hadn’t even expended the energy it took to tell anyone that I was coming along.