I'm Not A Jersey Kind Of Guy

Chapter 9

Beckham O’Neil

I sat in the coaches’ office while Coach Stevens dealt with Tyler’s bloody nose issue. By the looks of him, I got a pretty good shot in. His nose was already starting to swell and there was a faint purplish tent to it. I smirked a little. “What are you looking at?” Tyler growled at me.

I shook my head, “Nothing.”

At that moment, Paul came stomping in. “Beckham O’Neil what the hell were you thinking?”

The smirk slid off of my face to a grim line. I slouched in my chair a little more and crossed my arms. “I was thinking that Tyler deserved to get punched for being an ass.”

I think I saw Coach Stevens smile a little. “Beck, you can’t go around punching teammates, no matter how much of an ass they are. Didn’t you learn anything from Remember the Titans?” To be honest? No. I turned my head away from him and faced Tyler, who was scowling. “You can’t be hostile towards your teammate. I’m including you in this conversation too, Lock. You two can’t start a cat fight in the middle of my field, or any where for that matter. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Sir.” We said in unison, not taking our eyes off of each other.

“Now go on and get out of here.” He jammed his finger over his shoulder towards the office door. We got up and headed towards the locker rooms to get changed.

The next day I still hadn’t seen hide or hair of Lacy. I was starting to get worried about her. She didn’t say anything about missing school. As  I sat down at my usual table alone, I decided that I would pay her a visit after practice. I pulled my book out and started to read. I didn’t look up when someone sat down across from me.

He cleared his throat, trying to get my attention. As I gazed up, I saw that it was Tyler. My stare lingered on his nose for a moment. It was huge because of the swelling and it was obvious he was using some sort of make-up to cover most of the bruising. I was on the verge of busting out laughing in tears, but decided against it and put my head back down.

“Look, Beck,” he said my name as if it was a swear, “Coach is going to ask us what we know about each other today, so we might as well get it over with now.”

I ignored him. I didn’t care if Paul got mad at us if we didn’t play nice.

He sighed out of frustration. “What’s your favorite color?” He forced the words out of his mouth.

I just looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. I wanted to laugh. I think that’s the stupidest question I have ever heard. What’s my favorite color? Couldn’t he come up with something a little more deep? Oh, wait. I forgot who was talking to me.

“I’m going to say black. Mines blue. Okay? Great. Now we know something about each other.” He got up and left to go sit with his friends. I returned to my book in peace.

After the game on Friday I had gained a lot of popularity. No where near Tyler or any of the other guys, but I earned a few high fives in the hallway, and more people would talk to me in class, but none of them seemed like the good friends type. They just wanted to be friends now because I was good at football, which I didn’t understand why that would qualify me to be someone people want to hang out with.

At lunch I still sat alone, a few people invited me to sit with them, but sometimes I enjoyed being by myself. I’d rather not talk than be forced to make polite small talk with people I don’t particularly like. I heard the clank of a lunch tray against the table and looked up to find Tyler, once again. I sighed.

“I don’t think this is fun either, but Coach said we had to sit together at lunch.”

I smirked, “Great, maybe we can hold hands and skip afterwards.” He threw dagger eyes at me then took a bite out of his sandwich. We sat in silence as we both ate. Finally my curiosity got the better of me. “How did you know?”

He looked up from his meal, and with a mouthful of BLT he said, “What do you mean?”

I shrugged, “That my Dad abused me.”

He set his sandwich down. “I saw your back in the locker room the other day.” He pushed up his sleeve to reveal his own battle scars. “My Dad wasn’t too kind either. When I was 9 my social worker took me here, to live with the Locks. They adopted me a little bit after that.”

I nodded in understanding, even though I didn’t. Tyler was lucky; he found a home on the first try. I’ve lived with God knows how many families, some even worse than my real family. “You’re lucky you were adopted so soon.”

He nodded. “Yeah, well, Coach is a good guy, so is Mrs. Westcott.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that those were words of encouragement. That we had made some sort of bond. But of course I knew better than that.

We ran out onto the field to meet Paul for football practice. The team gathered in a circle around him as he started to speak. “Before we start practice, I want everyone to say one thing that they learned about their partner. And knowing their favorite color, or animal or any other foo-foo crap doesn’t count. Michaels, you and Jeff are up first.”

After every pair had gone through, it was our turn. Most people had said something stupid, like they have a dog, or they like to go fishing on the weekends, on guy even said that his partner likes to play football. I’m pretty sure everybody on the football team likes to play football. Okay, I have mixed feelings about the sport, but still that’s a pretty lame answer. “Okay, Beck, what have you learned about Tyler?”

I took a deep breath and sighed, searching for some sort of answer. Paul said that I couldn’t say his favorite color, so that was out. I looked over at his face for some sort of answer. I got it. I started smiling. I shouldn’t, should I? Hell, what did I have to lose? The guy already hated me.

In a very arrogant tone I said, “I learned that Tyler wears make-up.” That got a laugh and an “Oooh” from the crowd. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and my jaw was throbbing. A red faced Tyler stood above me, fists clenched. Now that I think about it, I probably deserved that.

We found our selves back in the Coaches’ office for the second day in the row. This time, however, I was the one being examined by Coach Stevens. Apparently teaching Health gives him clearance to make medical decisions. He jerked my chin this way and then that way and then up and down. Once he finally let go of my face I rubbed the sore spot where Tyler hit me

I looked over at Tyler; he was still scowling at me. Come to think of it, I don’t think there was a time when he wasn’t scowling, at least in my presence he always was.

We waited in silence for Paul to arrive. Coach Stevens was drumming on the desk while Tyler and I stared each other down. We didn’t blink for the full five minutes it took for Paul to show up at the office door.

Paul rubbed his face as he entered; stretching his tired and stressed skin out. “I don’t know what to do with you two. I can’t make you run, because Beck likes to run. I can’t force you guys to be friends, because well, you two clearly hate each other. I’ve run out of options. I can’t have a team that’s always fighting. I need to fix the situation and there is only one way I know how.” He sighed, “This is hard, but the only thing left to do is cut you.” He closed his eyes, “I’m sorry, Beck.”

I broke eye contact with Tyler and looked over at him in shock and awe. Did he just kick me off of the football team?

Sorry it's a little short. I was on vacation the past week and didn't get to write as much as I wanted to. Hopefully I will be able to write more this weekend!  ;P