The Agreement
20 Rescue
HAVING EIGHT SCHOOLS in the county with both varsity and JV teams meant that the tournament would begin Wednesday and end Saturday with four games every day. JV games at noon and two-thirty. Varsity games at five-thirty and eight. The tournament was at Portage High where they had the biggest gym. They had the biggest players, too. They’d been to the final four three times in the past five years. We drew Harrison Military Academy for the first JV game.
Sean led us onto the court for the National Anthem and we stood in a line with our hands over our hearts looking at the flag. The Harrison players snapped to attention in three rows of five as we listened to a trumpeter blow the anthem. He couldn’t quite reach the high note. I guess we all had nerves. Coach started Bert and Josh as guards with Derek and Carl in at forward. Sean lined up in the center and we got the tip. Carl grabbed it and threw it down court to Josh who held it and waited for our team to get in place. By the time he got the ball, there were already three defenders between him and the basket, so there was no chance for a quick score. Bert took the ball from Josh and raised a five-finger hand to the team. It was a quick pass to Sean who set the pick at the foul line and handed the ball to Carl for a jump shot. He must have been wound too tight because the ball came off the backboard so hard one of the Harrison guards grabbed it and rushed it on a fast break for a score before we could get turned around.
We got the ball back and the game started to seesaw. We’d score once or twice and then they’d score a couple times. Coach started working different players in at about five minutes to give our starters a break. I went in for Bert and Doug went in for Derek. We managed to put a couple plays together, but we were running up and down the court so fast that we were tiring quickly. About ten minutes into the game, Coach signaled and Sean called a time out.
“Sean, babe, you’re doing good, but let’s not wear you out. Ty, you’re in for Sean. Phil, Joe, in for Carl and Derek. Whitney, you’re in for Josh.” I expected him to pull me, to, but he pointed at me and said, “You’ll make the plays, Brian. They’re ignoring you because of your size. Work the ball and take some shots. Pull them out from under the basket. Let’s see how they deal with our secret weapon,” he said, nodding at Whitney. We put our hands in the middle and yelled “Trojans!”
It only took them a few seconds to figure out there was a girl on the court. Whitney had topped six-one and was as big as the other players but she had a black braid down her back to her shoulders. I drove straight for the center and flipped the ball to Whitney as I came up short at the foul line. She popped the ball up for her first score. They made the classic mistake of not taking Whitney seriously. The two of us met their guards at the center line and the point casually flipped the ball toward his partner. Big mistake. Whitney is fast. She snatched the ball practically out of his hands and re-directed it down court. I was already moving past the other guard and picked up the ball on the fast break for a quick lay-up.
Phil and Joe zipped up to put the press on the two guards. They had to launch the inbounds pass up in the air to a forward coming up court to assist. Ty jumped in front of him and fired the ball right back to Phil for a swish. We’d scored three times fast and backed off, not to give them a chance, but so we could all catch our breath. As they came down court, it was clear they were trying to move it in close. The point guard drove. Whitney backed up to defend and ran right up against their center on a good pick. There’s often contact between a defender and a player setting a pick, so that usually isn’t called a foul. This dude, though, grabbed her ponytail and made two little thrusts with his hips. She spun and waited for the whistle, but the refs hadn’t seen it. They were waiting with the ball for us to inbound. I froze. Whitney shouted at the center.
“You touch me like that again, you’ll ride home with your balls up your butthole. Do you understand me, plebe?” The guy was so surprised by the fact that she yelled at him and called him ‘plebe’ that he almost snapped to attention as he yelled, “Yes sir!”
That was when the whistle blew. Whitney was called for a technical foul. Coach Hancock was off the bench and was warned away. The center smirked at Whitney as he took the ball and licked his lips. I had a whispered conference with her as the guy took his shot—and missed it.
We inbounded the ball and Whitney drove straight for the big center, easily switching the ball away from the guard as she ran past him. Just before she reached the center, she tossed the ball to me and cut right. The center turned toward me and I threw the ball behind my back straight toward Joe. Only problem was the center was between us and I caught him square in the crotch. Whitney cut back in front of him and grabbed the ball for a layup as he doubled over. The guy straightened up and shook it off but as we backpedalled up court, I heard Ty casually comment, “You were warned.”
The game settled down in the second quarter. Not that there weren’t any fouls, but for the most part we played pretty clean basketball. We played hard and won by eight points.
We were in a good mood headed back. We didn’t stay for the second game and wouldn’t play on Thursday, so we had a day off. Even Coach got into the humor and when he said, “Okay. Good job, but that’s only the first one. Get some rest tomorrow and no late nights. You got that, plebes?” Even the cheerleaders snapped back, “Yes sir!”
I was happy to have Thursday off. It was a sunny day, even though it was cold. The horses hadn’t been ridden much all winter and I decided to take my old girl Silk for a ride. We worked in the corral for a little bit and then we rode to the woods. It was a whole different experience riding through the woods in winter than in summer. In the summer, you hear birds and snapping twigs and squirrels. In the winter, it’s so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. That’s why I could clearly hear someone crying. I nudged Silk forward and under our tree, Cassie was sitting in the snow with her face buried in her hands.
I swung off Silk and looped the reins over a branch as I ran to Cassie. I was kneeling in the snow with my arms around her before I realized what I was doing. She buried her head against my chest as soon as she realized I was there.
“I’m sorry, Cassie. I should have asked permission before I hugged you. Are you okay?” I hate to admit it, but my first thought was that Geoff had been out here with her and had hurt her.
“Please hold me,” she cried. It took a minute for her to settle down a little.
“What’s the problem, Cass?” I asked. “Can I help?”
“No. Nobody can help. My… my father found the agreement. I thought the adults had all talked about it at the New Year’s party, but apparently no one mentioned it at all. He got mad and tore it up and told me I had to tell everyone I wasn’t part of the group anymore. I never even did anything. The only thing I got to do was go to the party.”
Some adults are all fucked up.
“Cassie? Angel, is he home now?” She nodded against my chest. “Let me take you home and talk to him. You’ve never ridden on Silk, have you?”
“You can’t do that, Brian! How could you do that?”
“He has to know that you are my girlfriend and I’m not going to let you go that easily.”
“Really?”
“When you broke up with me, back before junior high? It was because you were scared and you made the decision. If it’s your decision to break up with us now, we’ll agree. But just because your father tore up your copy doesn’t mean you aren’t our girlfriend. It just doesn’t work that way.” Cassie held out her hand and I could see that she had the two halves of the agreement her father tore clutched there. I helped her onto Silk’s back and swung up behind her. We rode straight across the airstrip to her back door and tied Silk to the stair railing. Cassie looked at me just before she opened the door.
“Hold my hand?” she asked. I did and we walked in to face the music.
When I was younger, I’d found Mr. Clinton to be a stern man, but not unreasonable or unkind. I knew he loved his daughter. I just hoped he wouldn’t get so mad that I couldn’t talk to him. He was surprised to see us holding hands when we walked into the den where he was working.
“What’s the meaning of this? Cassandra, I told you no.”
“Mr. Clinton, I’d like to speak with you. I found Cassie crying in the woods while I was out riding and brought her home. Did you know she wasn’t in the house?” I figured it was best to turn the tables and do the questioning rather than the other way around. His expression told me he didn’t know she’d gone outside. “Cassie is my girlfriend and you hurt her very much by tearing up our agreement. I’d like to know why.”
“According to that paper you have a dozen girlfriends, and boyfriends,” he started.
“Fifteen girls and five boys,” I said. “But I think we’ll be adding another girl and another boy on Monday.”
“That’s un-Christian. The Bible says a man shall have one wife.”
“Actually, that’s a state law; it’s not in the Bible. And second, we aren’t married. We’re just a group of teens who want a safe way to date and have fun.”
“Have fun? By letting any boy in this group touch my daughter anyplace but skin-to-skin contact with her genitals? That kind of fun?” I decided not to correct him and say any boy or any girl.
“The agreement states how far a consenting couple can go, not how far they must go. I can’t believe I have to explain that to everyone who reads the agreement. The agreement does not give permission for anyone to touch anyone. Only the people who are being touched can give permission. Do you really think Cassie would be giving five or six boys permission to touch her intimately? Or even to kiss her? I don’t think she’s even held hands with anyone until she asked me to hold her hand while we came to talk to you. Is that how low an opinion you have of your daughter, sir?”
“Cassie will have no boyfriend who doesn’t go to our church.”
“You made me go to your church for an entire summer just so I could see Cassie once a week. You know what I learned from that? That I really, really hated your church. And you know what else? I know most of the kids who go to your church and at least half of them really hate it. It’s just something that’s forced on them. How many do you think will be back once their parents stop forcing them?” He stopped and thought. One of the things I’d always liked about Mr. Clinton was that he actually seemed to think about what he was saying most of the time. I guess his little girl was an exception to the rule. I noticed that Mrs. Clinton had come into the room and was standing behind us.
“Is that what you think, Cassandra?” he asked, finally. “Do you really hate our church?” I held my breath. No matter how she answered, this could be bad.
“No, Daddy,” she said softly. I could see tears still in her eyes. “I just really, really hate that you don’t think I learned anything there. You won’t let me see my… my boyfriends and girlfriends because I might not do what you taught me. I just want to have friends and go to parties and games and dances and not be scared someone will push me to do something I don’t want to do. Why do you think the boys in Sunday School all sit on one side of the classroom and the girls all sit on the other? It’s not because we’re being proper. It’s because the girls are all scared of the boys. I’m not scared of Brian or Geoff or Lionel or Carl or Doug. They’ve shown that I can trust them. I can’t trust the boys in Sunday School.”
Mrs. Clinton passed by us and went to put her hand on his shoulder. I realized that he had a tear in his eye. Cassie’s were flowing freely and she had a death grip on my hand with both of hers.
“Maybe we’ve been a little too harsh, John,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Is this agreement really so bad?” He patted her hand.
“I see you still have the agreement in your hand,” he said. “May I see it, please, Cassandra?” She handed it to him and he smoothed the wrinkled page. He reached for his tape dispenser and taped the page together as his wife held the pieces flat. “Perhaps the two of you would come here and read this and explain each of these eight rules of dating.”
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