Team Manager COACH!
Chapter 14
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY, the volleyball team lost its last two home matches of the regular season. They almost won a game against the Hawks, but the Lions completely dominated them. When they received word of where the first game of the tournament would be, they were even more disheartened. They’d play the Lions again.
On the other hand, the Wolverine football team pulled out a spectacular victory in the first round of the state tournament against the Eagles, 58-8. Dennis was excited for the Conference Cross Country race the next day.
Sunrise was at 7:30 Saturday morning, but Dennis was at Abernathy’s barn hooking up the planting drill at 7:00. He wanted to get as much done as possible before he left for the meet. It was still early dawn light when he finished loading the hopper and started the trek through the prepared field. There were still a couple of places where the ground was soft from the rain, but generally it was good planting weather.
But planting with a drill is slow. Where he could mow a field at five to seven miles per hour, he could only plant at about three miles per hour. He got more passes up and down the field with each hopper full of seed, but was having to stop frequently to unclog jams in the feeder. He hadn’t asked any girlfriends to come help with the planting because he could handle the bags easily and was in the field much longer between fills. Besides, they would all be working at the church in the afternoon to cook meals for those in need. He kept the routine up and made good progress as the day wore on. It was a simple task, but demanded his concentration as he planted row after row of clover.
“Lana, where’s Dennis?” Tori demanded on the phone.
“Um… I don’t know. I’m with Mom buying groceries for the cooking this afternoon. Why? Isn’t he with you?” Lana asked.
“The bus left without him. We’re getting ready for the first race. I thought maybe he was driving over in his new car, but Coach says all team members have to be on the bus,” Tori said.
“Did you call him?”
“He isn’t answering his phone! I’m worried. We all are.”
“Me, too, now. I’ll call around and see if he’s with any of the others. It’s so unlike him to miss an event,” Lana said. She disconnected and started to call Natalie when her mother interrupted her.
“Why are you on the phone instead of getting your list collected so we can check out?” Elsa asked.
“Mom, Dennis is missing! He didn’t make the bus to the conference meet and no one can find him,” Lana said.
Elsa didn’t respond, but pulled out her own phone.
“Randolph, is Dennis working with you this morning,” she asked as soon as her phone connected.
“No, love. Is he missing?”
“Apparently, he didn’t make the bus to the meet this morning. Could you… sort of check up on him?”
“I don’t want to invade his privacy,” Randy said. “But that is unusual. Did you check with Dot?”
“She’s at church getting things ready in the kitchen.”
“I’ll swing by and see if he’s home.”
Dennis wasn’t at home. Randy found him out in the middle of Abe’s field. The tractor was stopped and he was clearing a jam in the feeder for the seed drill.
“Dennis, how’s it going?”
“I’ve been having to clear jams every few passes across the field. I think some of the seed was damp and is clogging,” Dennis answered as he reattached the bin he was working on.
Randy quickly joined him in inspecting the other feeders.
“I think we’re set a little too high for this feeder. If we back it off a notch, it might prevent the seed from collecting in the drill.” He made an adjustment and showed Dennis where to change it over. Between the two of them, they took only a few minutes to get everything started again. Randy rode the fender of the tractor on the next pass, watching for problems in the drill. When they got back to the barn, he helped Dennis reload the hopper. Dennis took off again, thanking Randy for the help. Randy called his wife.
“Dennis is planting Abe’s field,” he said when she answered. “Tell our girl he could probably use some lunch. I don’t think he has any idea what time it is.” He glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly 1:00. “He’s got a good four hours of work out there. Maybe more if he has problems with the planter again.”
When Lana got to the barn at Abernathy’s farm, she waited for Dennis to come in for more seed. He wheeled up to the barn and hopped down from the tractor.
“Hey, sweetie! What are you doing out here?” he asked when he saw her. She ran to him and hugged him.
“We were worried. I brought you lunch.”
“Lunch? Is it that time already? I should get over to the school and get changed for the meet.” He took a sandwich and bottle of water from Lana and realized how hungry he was all of a sudden.
“It’s too late,” she said. “The bus is gone and the meet has started. It might be over by now.”
“It’s what? That can’t be I had the alarm set on my phone so I’d know when to leave!” He reached into his back pocket to find that his phone was missing. “Oh, no! What have I done? I’ve missed the race!”
“And you’ve lost your phone. We’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” Lana said. “We were so worried.”
“So, your dad coming out wasn’t just a routine check, was it?” Dennis sighed. “I wonder where my phone is.”
“Dad suggested we start where you started in the field and walk back and forth until we find where you dropped it. He said you were having difficulty with the drill jamming and the phone probably fell out of your pocket while you were working on it,” Lana said.
“I let my team down,” Dennis sighed. “All because of this field.”
“Honey, in the long run, what’s more important? You know the boys didn’t stand a chance of placing in this meet. So, maybe Donnie places fifty-fifth instead of fifty-sixth or something. You, on the other hand, might have won a race, but you chose to complete your obligation to the Abernathys. Your girlfriends will all be proud of you.”
“I hope the team and the coaches feel that way. I feel bad that I wasn’t there for them. I hope they warmed up properly before the race.”
The two walked out to the field where Dennis had started planting and held hands as they walked across the field and then back.
“I can’t keep looking for the phone or I won’t get the rest of the field planted and it will all have been a waste. And you need to get back to the kitchen for the cooking duty,” he said as they turned to make the sweep back again.
“We’ll all survive. But look! There it is.” They ran over to where Lana’s sharp eyes and spotted the black case against the dark earth. It was partly buried in an imprint of Dennis’s butt where he’d stopped to clear the jam. He looked at the messages and quickly thumbed a response to all his girlfriends, telling them he was fine and working in the field.
Then he went back to the barn, gave Lana a deep and sincere kiss, and mounted the tractor again.
Dennis’s absence from the cross country meet had not affected the team results. Donnie had an off day and allowed Dave to beat him with a season-best time of 20:18. The winning time for the race was 16:28 and was shared by two runners from the same school who were declared a tie. Dennis would have needed to run his best race of the season to place in the top five.
Janice continued to improve her times and flashed across the finish line in 20:35. That was good only for fourth place. However, with Tori, Diane, Judith, and Liz placing eighth, eleventh, twelfth, and fifteenth, the Bartley score of 50 was good for first place in the conference battle.
By the time the team bus returned at 4:00, Dennis still had five acres to plant. He finished up and cleaned his equipment, then headed home for a hot shower and dinner about 5:30. He found Natalie waiting on the front porch for him.
“Hey, sweetheart. What’s up?” he asked as he kissed her, trying not to get his dirty hands on her clean clothes.
“Just here to give you some company while you shower and shave. With me. Then we’re going over to my house for dinner with our families. Your mom and Peg are already on their way over there,” Natalie said.
“That sounds nice,” he replied.
“Nice? Doesn’t it sound exciting and sexy?” Nat teased as they headed for the bedroom.
“Oh, Nat, you know it sounds exciting and sexy, and as soon as my hands are clean, I want to get them all over you. I just kind of feel bad about missing the meet and spending all day planting Mr. Abernathy’s field. It’s like my whole life is out of control,” he complained as she undressed him. Her presence, however, was enough to raise some interest as she pulled his overalls off.
“You had a long day. Let’s get in the tub and you can soak your weary body while you lean up against mine.”
Two people in a bathtub sounds delightful and exciting, but the reality is that it’s crowded, and after a few minutes in the hot water, they drained the tub, stood up and ran the shower to wash his hair and then got out. Natalie determined, however, that they had time to make love before they dressed and went to her house. By that time, Dennis was a more than willing accomplice.
“Nat, you’re so beautiful and I’ve loved you for so long. Thank you for not letting my moodiness get you down. You really light up my life,” he said as he worked his way down her body, spreading kisses across her breasts and tonguing her nipples.
“When you do that to me, there’s no way for my mood to go but up,” she squeaked, wiggling around. “I’m such a selfish girl, I want you to lick me and get me off, even though I came in here to lift your spirits.”
“Believe me, this view of you is a real boost,” he laughed as he looked at her open pussy and licked along her labia before circling her clit with his tongue. She moaned her response and jerked against him.
Before he’d managed to get her off, she tugged at him and pulled him to her lips to kiss.
“I want you, Den. I want you in me, filling my vagina with your penis. I want to feel you thrusting and taking me.” She rolled a condom onto his cock and positioned it at her opening. It was unusual for Natalie to want him on top. Since their first time together, she had usually been in the superior position, posting on his cock. This time, she lay back and raised her legs in the air to give him deep access to her pussy. He pounded into her repeatedly and, with the preparation he’d given her with his tongue, she felt the onset of tremors that signaled her orgasm was going to be a big one.
Dennis thrust with more vigor than his usual tentative lovemaking. He sought out her lips and kissed her as he felt the come boiling in his balls. He was nearly the same height as Natalie now, so they could kiss even as they mounted the heights of orgasm. He slammed his cock into her as far as he could, pushing her legs back as he let loose a torrent in the condom. Feeling the pulses in his cock and the pressure against her clit, Natalie joined him, screaming into his mouth as they continued to kiss.
Dennis collapsed on her soft breasts and she hugged him tightly to her as her legs dropped to the bed.
“My lover. My sweetheart. My boyfriend. My bae. I love you, Dennis.”
“My Number One,” he responded. “I love you, Natalie.”
After a few minutes in this position and nearly falling asleep, they pushed themselves apart and got dressed. The dressing was punctuated with kisses and caresses. Finally, they left the house for dinner with Natalie’s family.
Dennis was surprised to find Randy and Elsa Brown with their three children at the Armors’ house. Lana reached Dennis and Natalie first to give them a big hug.
“What’s going on?” Dennis asked.
“Our mothers are spearheading the food for friends drive and Dad and Mr. Armor are discussing the funding and identification of neighbors in need,” Lana said.
“I could almost hear capital letters there,” Dennis said. “Have they officially named ‘Neighbors in Need,’ and ‘Food for Friends’?”
Dinner parties like this one often split by generation so that the teens have one conversation and the adults have another. This one split almost immediately into the men and the women.
“Dennis, how did it go today?” John Armor asked.
“I had some problems early on, but Mr. Brown came to check on me and helped straighten the planter out. I didn’t really have much problem the rest of the day. I guess I missed the cross country conference meet, though.”
“Your dedication to getting his field done has been the talk of the farmers this afternoon,” Randy said.
“I didn’t think there would be time for anyone to talk with harvest still coming in,” Dennis said. He wondered why no one had come out to help him if they could all sit around talking about it.
“Yes, the last of the corn is still in the field, but we’ll get it finished this week,” Randy laughed. “It used to be that we had to pause the work and come into town to meet at the café for coffee and talk. Now, we all have cellphones and we’re as bad about gossiping on them as the women used to be on the landlines. We can carry on a pretty good conversation while driving tractors in different fields.”
Dennis nodded his head. He’d have had a couple of conversations with his girlfriends if he’d had his phone this morning. And he’d have left the tractor out to go run in the race and still be out there driving it after he got back, even though it was pretty dark now.
“We all feel like we owe you for taking care of what we consider our responsibility. Red Larson got his combine stuck and it took six of us to bring our tractors and pull him out. He might need to wait for the first freeze before he can get in the field again. I left from his place to find you when Elsa called and said you were missing. Then I had to rush back to the corn picker so I didn’t lose the whole day. I’ve got a quarter of a section yet to do, but I think it’s dry enough I can get it in on Monday,” Randy said.
“God willing and the creek don’t rise,” John affirmed.
“Anyway, you’ve earned your place at our table,” Randy said. “The men all want to sit with you to thank you when the crops are all in.”
“It’s not necessary. I like Mr. Abernathy. I’d hate to see him not be able to keep his farm,” Dennis said. ‘Like my dad,’ he added silently.
Dennis became aware of the women’s discussion at the table. They were plotting a strategy for delivering meals.
“Last week was mostly successful,” Lily said. “We delivered a casserole to each of the twelve people on our list. They all accepted it warmly and we sat to talk a while. Three said that while they appreciated the gesture of friends reaching out, they didn’t see themselves in the category of people who really needed help. One even offered to donate to help others. The majority—seven of the homes—had mixed emotions, acknowledging the meal was helpful but not wanting to become dependent on our charity.”
“What about the last two?” Dot asked.
“They were the ones we need most to help,” Lily said. “They were in tears thanking us for the meal and acknowledged that they hadn’t been eating regularly because they couldn’t face cooking or couldn’t afford food.”
“What is our plan?” Elsa asked. “We cooked up thirty prepared meals for two people this afternoon.”
“We can deliver those meals as planned, with one or two to each of those who accepted help. The ones who really need daily help, we need to jump through some hoops with the county welfare department and maybe the state health department as well. Essentially, we can take a neighborly meal to anyone on an occasional basis, but we can’t provide regular meals for an individual or family without becoming licensed by an agency,” Lily sighed.
“That seems so unfair,” Natalie complained. “All we wanted to do was help some people.”
“Yes, honey, and we will. But there comes a point where we become a commercial kitchen—even if we aren’t charging for anything—and we have to abide by state laws governing that. It would include getting a license, having regular health inspections, and possibly even having to take a test to get food handlers’ permits,” Lily said.
“Lily, you have some of that through the school kitchens. Is it possible we could work out an arrangement to use the school facilities instead of the church?” Dot asked.
“It’s possible, but after the fiasco with contaminated chicken last spring, the school is under strict surveillance this fall. All the kitchen staff had to go through the permitting process again and we cannot use students in any aspect of food prep unless they are on an official intern program and then they have to take the permit test as well. We’re lucky that they let students scrape dishes and load the dishwashers,” Lily said.
After dinner and cleanup, the women continued their talk in the family room, brainstorming ways they could get around some of the rules and still provide at least some relief for families in need. Dennis started to follow them, but John tapped him on the shoulder and beckoned him to the back deck with Randy.
“Do you see what’s happening, Dennis?” John asked when they were outside in the chill October air. “You started something, and between your girlfriends and their mothers, they aren’t going to let it rest until they have a solution.”
“I didn’t really do anything,” Dennis answered. “It was all the girls’ idea. They stepped in to help Mom and our family back when Dad first went into the hospital. They keep coming over on Sunday afternoon to plan menus and prepare meals for the week. The meals for others plan was something Leanne suggested.”
“We won’t try to heap all the blame on you,” Randy chuckled. “It’s something that happened this past year, though. You provided a nucleus for those girls to come together. None of us really know why. We have to assume it’s because you’re a good man.”
Dennis was struck by a strong emotion once again that took him by surprise. He couldn’t identify it… a mix of anger, guilt, lust, fear. Something sparked moisture in his eyes that threatened to escape as Randy and John lit cigars.
“Am I?” he whispered. “What if I’m not really a good person like everyone says. What if I’m as bad as those creeps the police killed? I’m afraid.”
“What is it, Dennis? What has you concerned about that?” John asked.
“I guess it was all just innocent play,” he answered, choosing his words carefully. “Last Saturday when you called and said not to go to the field, Randy, the girls started acting kind of squirrelly and one suggested they could um… handcuff me to the bed and have their way with me all day. I panicked. I know they were joking. I know it should have been a fun tease. But I could feel the handcuffs that Trooper Moran snapped onto my wrists last spring and the certainty that I was one of the bad guys, like… like Les Steinman. I knew what he was going through. I’d been through it all my life. I wanted to kill every member of the JV basketball team. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted the gang of three to die. I wanted Tom Perkins who killed my dad to die. I wasn’t stopped because I was a good man. I was stopped because I was a coward.”
By that time, Dennis was weeping and both Randy and John wrapped him in their arms and held him between them. Dennis kept going.
“I was mad at Mr. Abernathy because his stupid field kept me from racing with my team. I wasn’t out there because I wanted to be. I was only there because I lost my stupid phone. I don’t deserve a seat at the table with the men. You were helping each other. I was just going to leave.”
“Why, Dennis?” Randy said. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“I said I’d do it.”
“Did you think every farmer within three miles came out to Red’s farm because we wanted to pull his tractor out of the mud that he shouldn’t have been driving on in the first place? We went because we said we’d help each other when one was in need. I could have gotten most of that quarter section of corn in if my morning hadn’t been interrupted.”
“And then you came and checked on me. I interrupted you, too.”
“It’s because when a man’s daughter calls him in tears because her boyfriend is missing, the man goes hunting,” Randy said. “Nothing was more important than making sure you were safe. Why did you go face down Les Steinman when at any moment he could have pointed that gun at you?”
“Because he was going to hurt people I love,” Dennis said, heaving a deep breath.
“And nothing was more important than stopping him,” John joined in. “It’s what men do. We don’t want to face danger. We don’t want to go off to hard work every day—whether it’s hard work with our hands and machines or hard work in the office with a computer. We all have something we’d rather be doing at any given moment. We’d rather be with our families. We’d rather make love to our wives. We’d rather read a book or climb a mountain. But we do these things because that is what good men do. It’s what you did.”
“And don’t be afraid that people will discover you aren’t as good as they think you are. There isn’t one of us who has to look further than the mirror to find someone who isn’t as good as people think he is,” Randy said. “That includes me. You wanted to kill the people who abused you? I wanted to pick up my hunting rifle and go after the cheerleaders who abused my Lana. Your father took up his gun to protect you and Amy. Sometimes we follow through with what we think we need to do, like you did with Les. Sometimes we think better of what we should do. Call it fear or call it good sense. It doesn’t make a difference.”
“Or call it being a good man,” John concluded. “You made those decisions based on the kind of man you are. You made good choices.”
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