DISCLAIMER: I own nothing that the little children's rat already owns.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Lastik!"
Louie craned his head to see Coach Boone beckoning him to stand before the cafeteria, sweat, grass stains, and all. The head coach met him in the center of the room and nodded at him, Louie straightening his back at attention.
"I want you to tell me something about one of your black teammates."
"Sir, yes, sir," Louie trumpeted, every bit the Navy brat you'd expect, and saluted the coach diligently. "I'm rooming with Blue, sir, and I noticed that he wears those leopard spotted underwears, bikini style, sir!" The cafeteria laughed at his answer, and Blue looked at me with embarrassed eyes, shaking his head fervently.
"Okay," the Coach said, amused, "maybe somebody who's not your roommate." Louie nodded obediently.
"Sir, I eat lunch with Rev," he told him, breaking his eye contact with the wall in front of him to look in the direction of our table. "That's Jerry Harris, sir. People call him Rev 'cause he's always praying, and he won't abide a foul tongue, sir!" I could only see the back of Rev's head, but I could tell he was smiling at the large brat's answer, and after a second he looked down at the grain of the table. He was a modest one, wasn't he?
"And what is the Rev gonna do after high school?" Louie shrugged at that, still smiling.
"I don't know," he said, "go to college and all that, I guess."
"What about you? You goin' to college?" Louie laughed at the question, as if it was absurd.
"Oh, not me, Coach. I ain't a braniac like Rev."
"Think you got a future in football?"
"Oh heck no," he told him with a jovial tone, "I figure if I'm in school, I might as well hit some people while I'm at it."
"All right, I like that," Coach responded, looking at the brat with a smile. The kid had guts, that was for sure. "A self-aware man, I like that." And then, Coach Boon took a step towards Louie, and lowered his voice so the rest of the cafeteria couldn't hear. Louie seemed to nod at whatever he said, and then the Coach stepped back again and looked over to our table. "So, what kinda music does the Rev like?"
"Oh, me and Rev both dig on The Temptations," he replied excitedly. The Coach watched as Larry started singing the beginning of Ain't Too Proud To Beg with a juberous that's yet to be rivaled on this trip so far. Louie twirled around as he sang, who was quickly joined by Rev.
"Okay, alright," Coach said with a laugh, cutting the pair off. "Stop beggin'." Still looking light from his interaction with Louie, Coach stepped around him to look at the rest of the cafeteria. "Anybody else?" Louie, knowing that he was dismissed, reclaimed his seat next to the Rev. The room remained silent at the question. I swear, if someone had coughed, it'd been deafening. "No volunteers?" Coach directed his attention to Gerry and Julius, who both shook their heads. No shame or embarrassment on their faces either, just indifference. I watched the Coach regard the room, seeing the divide down the middle like a line in the sand. Black on one side, white on the other. Louie and I being the only anomalies.
"Each one of you will spend time, every day, with a teammate of a different race." The team stared up at him, still as a forest of trees on a windless day while he spoke. "You will learn about him and his family, his likes, his dislikes. And you will report back to me until you meet every one of your teammates. Until that time, we go to three-a-day practices." My table erupted in quiet groans. "You continue to ignore each other, we'll go to four-a-day practices. Now, is there any part of this that you don't understand?" Coach took the team's collective silence as an answer, which prompted him to take a deep breath. "Good."
Giving the room one last look, he took a few steps over to stand directly behind me. "Miss Yoast, can I speak with you in the hall for a minute?" Without much of a choice, I gave the guys a nervous look, before I stood and followed Coach Boon out of the double doors and into the corridor.
"I'm only gonna ask you this one time, Diana," he started, startling me with an unexpected softness. "And one time only, got that?" I nodded up at him. "I want you to encourage your boys to get to know their black teammates." The question, which had come out as an order, made my brows furrow in surprise. Especially considering the fact that Boone barely wanted me to interact with any of the teammates at all. "I know, I know," he said, seeing the look on my face, "but you got a bond with 'em, especially Bertier, I can see it. And right now, you and Lastik are the only white kids in the bunch who's willin' to give any of the GW players a chance. And, call me crazy, but I think they'll be ready to listen to you over Lastik."
"But, Coach," I started, an argument on the tip of my tongue, "I've been trying. They won't listen to me any more than they do you."
"Try harder, Yoast," he told her, no room for nonsense. "So far, the only one around here that isn't afraid to let Bertier have it, is you. Well, at least the only one who won't start a brawl." I winced inwardly at that, because I've been reduced to throwing punches on more than one occasion when it came to the dense quarterback. "This is the only time I'll ask this of you. Just give it a try, alright?"
"Okay, Coach," I nodded, biting my bottom lip so hard that copper ran onto my tongue.
After lunch, the boys were allowed an hour of rest time before they were due on the field for the second practice of the day. Having players throw up on the field because of full stomachs was a very inconvenient occurrence, or at least that's what I was told. I was on a warpath, looking for my least favorite defensive lineman.
"Gerry!" My soprano echoed along the walls like an alarm bell, and he looked back at me from the crowd with wide eyes. Maybe it was my expression of annoyance, which probably read more like anger, that made him visibly swallow as I stomped up to him.
"Jesus, what?"
"Are you an idiot?" The question was clearly rhetorical, so Gerry rolled his eyes at me. "I mean, really, can't you do anything right?"
"Will you lay off with this crap already, Di? I just ate." The rest of the teammates were heading up to their rooms to prepare for their next practice, while Gerry and I stood in the middle of the hallway. He looked about as happy to be talking to me as I was him.
"Come off it," I spat, "just talk to 'em, Gerry. They're just people. Stupid boys just like you and Ray and the rest of y'all. Probably have lots in common."
"You are relentless, girl," he huffed, wiping a hand through his sweaty hair and leaning over on the wall to his right. He looked especially worn out, and if I was feeling more merciful, I would've taken pity on him.
"You're not gonna get very far with Boone if you keep being this way, ya know. He's a good coach, I can see it." This comment made Gerry's eyes narrow at me. If I was lucky, he'd be too tired to argue. If I was lucky.
"He is no Yoast," he told me.
"So? Maybe somethin' different is a good thing."
"How can you talk like that? How can you respect the man who stole your daddy's job right from under him the way he did? Its asinine." The frustration oozed out of me in the form of a low growl. He was so dumb, sometimes. Clinging to a fantasy land of moral superiority, now that was asinine.
"Boon didn't steal anything! God, are you that stupid? If you're gonna be mad at anyone about daddy's job, it should be at the school board."
"Stop calling me stupid, or I'm gonna get angry."
"Oh, I'm so scared. What are ya gonna do, caveman, clonk me on the head with your club, throw me over your shoulder, and lock me up in my room? Drag me back to the stone ages to teach me a lesson? Or are you okay with women, just not your teammates?"
"Shut up!" With nothing short of a booming yell, Gerry exclaimed, his face red and the vein on his neck pulsing. The angry look in his eyes made me reel back a fraction. He was more worked up than I'd seen him in a while. "Jesus, Di, you are the most preachy, annoying, loud mouth, naive little girl that's ever walked God's green earth, you know that?" When I didn't say anything, the fire in his gaze turned my tongue into cotton, he sighed. "I'll talk to the GW boys, alright?"
"Really?" His statement made me blink, taken aback. Did something I said have an effect on Gerry Bertier? "You will?"
"Well, I'm gonna have to if I wanna go back down to two-a-day practices, now won't I?" This response made me deflate.
"Can you try, at least? I met some of 'em today, and they're really nice, actually. And funny." A helluva lot nicer than you, I almost said, but thought better of it. Gerry rolled his eyes at me and let out a huff.
"Whatever," he sighed, "now can I go? We only have an hour before next practice."
"You coulda left whenever you wanted," I told him, folding my arms over my chest. "I'm not the boss of you." He breathed out a humourless laugh before he responded.
"It sure as hell feels like it, sometimes."
During the team's second practice, I decided not to test my luck again, and I watched them through one of the library's foggy windows. It was stuffy in there, and the dust that coated the tables and chairs made my skin crawl. But, it was peaceful, the sound of whistles and yells muffled just enough so that I couldn't make out what they were saying. I did notice little Sheryl running up and down the sideline, making Daddy shake his head in exasperation.
At dinner, as I stood at the head of the cafeteria, my tray of steaming roast beef and potatoes in hand, I took in all of my options.
Option One: I could take myself over to those Hammond boys and give them all a piece of my mind, just like I did Gerry. They were being just as stubborn and hardheaded as he was. Why shouldn't I tell them what's what, too?
Option Two: I could take myself over to those Hammond boys and talk to them calmly. Lay out all of the facts. Tell them that these 2 weeks would go by a lot faster if they'd just listen to me for once in their lives.
And Option Three: I could sit with the GW boys and Louie again, and save myself the headache.
Option three was looking pretty sweet, and like the only one that wouldn't end in Boone banishing me to the library for the rest of camp, when I noticed Daddy waving me over, his face set sternly. Just what I needed, a reaming from the Coach.
"Hey, Daddy," I said sweetly, taking the space next to Sheryl. Her hair was wild, just like it always got in the heat, frizzing up towards the heavens. Mama would've had a conniption if she saw a sight like that on her youngest's angelic head. "How was practice?"
"Fine," he told me curtly. "How was the library?" The question seemed to be pointed, like he wanted to remind me that it was a punishment. As if I'd forget.
"Hot," I replied. Daddy nodded with a sigh.
"The boys are chokin', I think," Sheryl supplied suddenly. "They can't finish a drill if you paid 'em." It was almost like she was accusing me of sabotage, the way she stared up at me with her nose all crinkled.
"Yeah?"
"What did you do to 'em?"
"Oh, can it, Sheryl-"
"Girls, please," Daddy interrupted, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. With pursed lips, I gave him a sheepish look. I decided then would be a good time to fill my mouth with food so I couldn't fit my foot in it. "The boys are already creatin' all sorts of hell, fighting with each other on the field and all that. I don't need the only girls in the building to cause a ruckus too, understand?" Sheryl and I nodded. "Some, uh, decorum might be a nice thing to learn, hm? Teach these boys how to behave?"
"Yes, Coach," we grumbled obediently. The reality that I was disillusioned to know, though, was that Sheryl would be back on the field in the morning, right next to Daddy, screeching like a howler monkey. While, really, I was the one who was expected to act with decorum. It was so unfair it made the spot behind my eyes start to ache.
A/N:A very, very late update. But, I haven't forgotten this story! Hopefully, the next update will be up within the week! Stay tuned! Reviews, favorites, and follows are the best motivators! Also I want to thank the reviewer Callie, who pointed out the mistake I made about Louie Lastik's name, i don't know why I decided his name would be Larry when I watched the movie a thousand times and knew darn well his name was Louie. The human brain is a strange thing.