"Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom." ~ Bodhidharma
💀💀💀
Wednesday - October 10th
First thing in the morning, Buzzy marches straight into the pool office and addresses the Plunger pool troops with a graven face. Even before coffee and donuts can be had, the Buzzard's bitchfest begins.
"I need everyone to step into my office." He waves both his minions into his office. "We need to have a little chat about what happened yesterday."
"Okay Buzzy, what's up?" Chad beams intentionally oblivious of whatever is happening.
"Did you know that your brothers, Moran and some of the boys went into the library to pick a fight with Dean yesterday?" Buzzy eyes the obvious source of the problem.
"Nope, not until after it was over." Chad shrugs off the accusation. "But the way I heard it, Dean took everything the wrong way and just went nuts. Acting all crazy, shoving people around and making some pretty serious threats. He even held a knife on my brother."
"Just for the record he didn't hold a knife on your brother." Brad clarifies the weapon of choice. "According to Bob, all Dean did was put a pencil eraser in Corky's ear."
"Whatever, but I'm telling you that kid is crazy, maybe even Columbine crazy?" Chad starts making his next bad move. "Yeah, you should talk to your mother-in-law and have them kick him out of here. Or at least search his locker for drungs and weapons or something?"
"Darren is not Columbine crazy." Brad sighs and rolls his eyes. "He's just seriously pissed off at the moment. To be honest, after what Bobby told me was said and done? I don't blame him for being pissed one bit."
"Hell, I'd be pissed to if someone threw my mother's addiction issues around town, like it was a joke. Which is exactly what got Corky slapped around." Brad side-eyes the obvious idiot in the room.
"Okay, so pretty much the standard boys will be boys bull?" Buzzy eyes his two assistants coaches across the desk. "Which takes us to my next problem. So which one of you pulled Dean's school files?"
"That was on me." Brad freely admits the already known truth.
"Then perhaps you can you explain to me, why I had to find out from his grandfather last night, that was what led to a physical altercation with members of my teams?" Buzzy starts his staccato style of asking questions he already knows the answers to.
"How it comes to pass that members of the swim team came into that information? Then decided to take it upon themselves to go have a little chat with Dean after school yesterday in the library? Sharing details about Dean's personal information regarding his mother in front of other students?" Buzzy eyes his minions harshly. "Now would be an excellent opportunity, for either one of you to chime in on any of that."
"Sorry Buzzy, but I can't explain any of that nonsense." Brad rocks his eye over at the grinning idiot in the room and slowly shakes his head in disdain at Captian Midnight.
"Chad?" Buzzy eyes the idiot.
"Buzz, you know what little shit Dean is like? He was talking shit on you, so he got some his own shit handed back to him? So what comes around goes around." Chad smirks proudly. "So maybe I encouraged Corky and the boys a little to take him down a notch? But Dean's the one that turned it into a bar brawl. So he needs to go."
"How old are you Chad?" Buzzy eyes the fool that nearly got him beaten to a pulp in Aces backyard last night.
"Twenty four?" Captian Midnight smiles proudly like he just passed the ultimate fitness test.
"And how old is Dean?" Buzzy dead eyes the cause of his second biggest mistake of the summer.
"I don't know ...seventeen, eighteen?" Chad shrugs off the irrelevant details.
"He barely just turned sixteen," Buzzy informs evenly.
"Okay...and?" The idiot blinks back in incomprehension.
"And that fact doesn't strike you as problematic? That you felt the need to get even with a sixteen-year-old student? For what, talking trash on me?" Buzzy snorts and shakes his head.
"News flash Chad, all teenagers talk trash. I did it. Brad here is kind of a circumspective guy, so maybe not him. But I'm positive you did Chad, because you're still doing it today."
"Not me. I talked smack right up until the day one of my sisters decked me and knocked me out cold." Brad nods along positively. "I think I was about ten? So after that...not so much."
"Aside from Bradley's childhood sister sibling trauma, let's be honest for a second, shall we? And about talk what this is really about. Not this bull about defending my honor." Buzzy shakes his head sadly in remembrance of the dress down he wss forced endured the night before at the hands of this very self-same sixteen-year-old.
"No, this is about what that kid can do in the water, with that crazy fish kick? What neither one of you have ever been able to do in the water, on your best day." Buzzy eyes the Plunger boys. "And you know why you hate that kid so much, Chad? Because he's pretty much everything you'll never be in the water and then some."
"Just as I'm sure the fact that he just smashed your best time in the 400 hundred. In a freshmen PE class without trying, had nothing to do with this, right? And what really galls you, because I know it galls me off. Is that he doesn't care one whit about that fact at all?"
"Seriously." Brad scowls down at his flip-flops.
"That contrary to popular belief that I owed his grandfather Aces some poker debt? Or that Pat and Iris Irish go back to when they were kids? I hired Dean because he had all his certifications and scuba certs." He glares down the boys to make his point. "Which means he's actually got triple the training of you two combined."
"Oh, and on top of that, he has three red cross awards for lifesaving under exceptional circumstances, in open water." Buzzy heaves a long sigh of disbelief. "Hell, he even jumped off a pier into the ocean to save some poor kid from a shark, when he was fourteen years old."
"No shit?" Brad intones impressed. "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I always thought he was way too confident for his age."
"No kidding, Brad." Buzzy frowns at the bad word. "So I am going to ask this question one more time. How did Corky, Bobby and the boys come by the information about Dean's mother? Because I know damn well it didn't come from me. Which means it had to come from one of you two?"
"I don't know maybe Brad said something to Bobby?" Chad deflects the obvious away from himself.
"I wouldn't and I didn't." Brad turns on his former teammate with a deep scowl. "And you know I didn't, because you knew I wanted him to swim for my teams this year, not your water polo team. You also knew damn well that put your brother in a bit of a bind. Because he would most likely lose his spot on the roster to Darren. I did talk about that fact with Bobby ...but never Dean's home situation."
"Chad?" Buzzy bounces the blame ball over to the Cap't.
"I couldn't say." Captian Midnight casually shrugs off the accusation.
"So if I call Corky, Moran, and Bobby in here? Sit them down and ask them who told them about Dean's mother's situation? You're telling me that your name is not going to come up in this mess?" Buzzy throws down the gauntlet.
"No way Corky is going to throw me under the bus." Chad smiles right back like he has a secret. Which is right when everyone in the room knows that Chad has already told his brother everything. And already cautioned Corky to put it all on Brad and Bobby Weston.
"We'll just have to see about that then." Buzzy nods unsatisfied that this is the truth.
Everyone in the room relaxes, save for Buzzy who is now committed in his own mind to making things right again with Aces. But even more importantly with the Irish Antichrist, who is the incarnation of death herself. So if some heads have to roll because of that? Sobeit, just so long as his head is not one of them.
"Chad, you have two choices to pick from." Buzzy holds up a single finger. "One, you put in your two weeks today. Then when your next job calls I don't tell them how you violated the privacy of one of our students. Or choice two, you make me fire you for cause and try to go to the union rep. Which will be my mother in law. Or worse one of her many Mahjongg friends."
"But when you leave ...and make no mistake, you will be leaving us." He eyes the red-faced liability to his early retirement. "You fight me on this, and you will never be able to use me or this school as a reference again."
"Oh, and I will personally call over to Big U, to tell Coach Grant all about why you got fired. So you can pretty much count on not ever coaching at a school again using your Uni pedigree either."
"So what? You're firing me and Brad, over this bullshit with Dean?" Chad rears back angrily.
"No, not Brad...just you Chad." Now it's Buzzy's turn to starts telling lies. "I already talked this over with Dean's grandfather last night. He had no problem with Brad pulling Dean's old school file."
"But they have a major issue with how you tried to shame the kid in front of the other members of my team...using your own brother? And that's just Aces, cause as far as I know Ol Irish Iris isn't even on the warpath yet." Buzzy shivers in the horror that is the coming of the Irish Antichrist. "Like I said two choices, and arguing your way out of this is not going to be one of them."
"So I get fired because of that little shit?" Captian Midnight starts to say things without thinking them through. "Because I didn't even want that little shithead on the teams. You and Brad were the ones that wanted to talk him into swimming for us? I just wanted Dean to get the message..."
"No, you're getting fired because you are clearly too immature to work around kids." Buzzy shakes his head in disdain at the Cap't. "The fact that you've personalized this issue onto a sixteen-year-old kid, instead of acting like a grown up? Not to mention instead of taking responsibility for your own actions, you're pointing the finger at everyone else? But the guy who disseminated Dean's information to your brother?"
"Oh, so this is all my fault now?" Chad rolls his eyes out the window to the five pools of summertime fun. "And nothing to do with that shit from the princess pool this summer at all, right?"
"You know, forget it Chad, it's not even worth explaining to you any longer. You either put you're two weeks in today and walk, or I'll just go ahead and fire you for cause right now. But if I was you, I wouldn't make me think of a good reason." Buzzy dead eyes the idiot down.
"So seeing how you like sharing personal information so much? You probably won't have a problem when I start sharing yours?" Buzzy drives his point home hard. "Maybe start by calling your rich fiancee's father? Tell him what you really do on your off hours during the summer, Captian Midnight?"
Buzzy eye bones him hard now waiting for the bravura of bullshit to erupt from the volatile idiot. But when none is to be had, Buzzy pushes on with his new agenda.
"Clear out your locker and be gone by the time school starts. I don't want to see you on campus at all after today. But you try to fight me on this and I guarantee you I will ruin you." Buzzy points to the door and rids himself of his second biggest mistake of the summer. "Now get out of my office, and don't come back."
"You know what? Screw you both! I don't need this shit, and neither does my brother!" Chad seethes as he stomps out off the office to throw his temper tantrum.
When the temper tantrum was over and all the trash cans that could be kicked were kicked, and all the doors that could be slammed were slammed twice over. Buzzy and Brad were left standing in the wake of not really caring a whit about the life and death of Captain Midnight.
"Well, that sorta sucked. But I understand why you had to do what you are doing." Brad sighs, picks up a bench that's been kicked over and takes a seat to await his fate. "So I guess it's my turn now, right?"
"Maybe." Buzzy shrugs. "But if you go, that means Crystal goes too?"
"Damn. I'm really sorry about all this Buzz, it was never my intention to..." Brad shakes his head slowly. "Never mind that then, just tell me what you need me to do. I'm not worried about me, I can always figure something out for myself down the road."
"But Crystal got the kid Buzz? So she needs the job and the benefits that come with." Brad steeles himself to take the hard plunge. "So if there is any way I can just take all the heat on this, and leave Crystal out of it?"
"I know that, Brad." Buzzy nods slowly. "And that, and the fact that you'd fall on your sword is one of the main reasons I am going to try to find a way to save your job. But not at my own family's expense, and especially not at Pat's expense with Irish Iris. Do you understand me?"
"Yeah Buzz, I get that." Brad sighs seriously.
"Okay, so Chad was right about one thing... Darren is a mean little bastard." Buzz starts thinking thru the rest of his day now that the easy part is over. "But I think we can agree that he has just cause to feel the way he does about us this time? Especially after having his mother's crap thrown in his face. But that's pretty much on me now, because of how I handled that thing last summer with Dotty. But now I am gonna need you to eat a little crow too, Brad."
"Whatever needs to be done Buzzy. If I can save Crystal from this mess, I'll learn to love eating crow." Brad beams positively.
"Good. So after talking to Aces Dean here's what I think might work. First, Darren's PE class is third period, right? So you're taking over that class now as a permanent sub. Dean needs to know that Chad is gone, but more importantly that he needs to watch his back. Because I don't trust Chad or his brothers and neither should Dean." Buzzy pauses. "Or us, now that I think about it."
"Nope, never trusted any of them." Brad shakes his head in agreement.
"So Dean's in there with a bunch of freshmen, right?" Buzzy narrows his eyes into calculating slits at the water beyond the window. "Then screw it then, just put Dean in charge and just let him do whatever he wants to do in that class. Anything short of putting the other kids at risk. Which knowing him as I do now, I don't think he's gonna do anything to jeopardize anyone. He's got that old guard mentality, better safe than sorry."
"If you think that's wise, Buzzy?" Brad shrugs deferring to his mentor's wisdom in all things water. "I'm game."
"Look Brad, I'd do it myself. But Darren pretty much let me know in no uncertain terms last night what he thinks of me." Buzzy shakes off the memory of the almost beats he was served up at the House of Dean. "So I need someone to step in that he at least sort of still respects? To send the right message here before things start spinning out of control."
"You don't need to justify yourself to me, Buzz." Brad cuts of the long-winded explanation before it really gets going. "Just tell me what you want to do, and I'll figure out how get it done. If not to fix my own stupidity for pulling his file in the first place? Then for Crystal and her kid."
"Good." Buzzy eyes the former good time boy from summer. "Speaking of Crystal, you gonna put a ring on that finger anytime soon?"
"I don't know, maybe? I'll think about it after we figure out if I just lost her job or not?" Brad shrugs off the future, to focus on the present problem. "So can I ask a question now?"
"Shoot." Buzzy waits for the dodge out.
"What did Mrs. Saint C say about all this?" Brad wisely looks up the food chain, at the potential fall out.
"As far as I know Pat doesn't know about all this yet?" Buzzy shakes off the stupid. "But I am gonna talk to her at lunch, right after you tell me that Dean is good with everything."
"Which is when, I'm gonna tell her that it was my responsibility. That everyone involved thought they were doing the right thing by the kid. Well except for Chad, which is why he is gone now," Buzzy adds an easy out to the new version of events.
"That when you and I put our heads together on this thing? We figured out that Chad had another agenda, besides the best interest of the school and its students...Dean included." Buzzy smiles widely. "So I terminated his ass on the spot for good cause."
"You don't have to do that, Buzzy." Brad offers.
"Yeah, I do Brad. Because ol' Aces was right about something else too." Buzzy's mood darkens perceptibly. "I'm the guy in charge, and that means I am ultimately responsible for the people that work for me. So if we want to keep these jobs and our benefits?" We need to have a lot less Captian Midnight bullshit, and show a lot more professionalism from here on out. Make sure everything stays above board from now on."
"Okay Buzz, just let me know what you need from me." Brad nods along to the new order of things.
"You're okay for right now, but I got some stuff I need to work on going forward." Buzzy glares out at the aquatic kingdom beyond the glass and onto his next adventure. "But the next idiot we hire, I'm thinking should be a girl? Someone like Leslie Price down at the Annex."
"She's really ugly, Buzzy." Brad offers his opinion. Only because he knows that Buzzy does not like being around ugly women, who remind him of his time in the Navy.
"Exactly. Qualified, responsible and ugly?" Buzzy smirks sagely. "Yes, I'm thinking Leslie is a great choice for us. Good for a happily married man with a kid and another on the way. And a safe choice for a young coach with a girlfriend that works at the same school."
"Good thinking, Buzz." Brad bows his head to the new wisdom.
"And an even better choice because she can deal with all the girl's teams from now on. So that neither you or I ever have to worry about someone like Chad screwing up our livelihoods with his midnight swims again." Buzzy adds for good measure. "Not to mention Leslie works with Dean over at Old Joe's Annex? So maybe there's some built-in trust there going forward?"
"I agree one hundred percent, Buzz. I've always thought Leslie was a real missed opportunity for us." Brad smiles insincerely.
"Me too." Buzzy agrees with his brilliant new solution. "So how about before you fix Dean, you give Leslie a call up and see how soon she is willing to come over? Then we can pretend to interview her before we hand her the job."
"On it, Buzz." Brad starts heading out of the office.
"Oh, and Brad...one last thing." Buzzy digs his final hooks into the former good time pool boy of summers past.
"Yeah, Buzz?" Brad pauses at the door.
"No more second chances after this." Buzzy eyes his last loyal minion. "You ever pull another kid's file without telling me ...and you get caught? I won't cover for you again. I'll pass the buck and make sure both you and Crystal go straight in front of Pat if I have to. End of story."
"Understood." Brad nods slowly.
"Good. Because I never want to have this conversation again." Thinking of the prior night's talking time at the House of Dean. "That kid pisses me off way too much. And I don't know about you? But I did not work this hard, to do this little ...to get this pissed off about anyone else's problems."
"You're the boss, Buzz." Brad nods along in full agreement with the new pool protocols. Then flip-flops out of the officce to make his calls and do his masters bidding.
💀💀💀