The Best Year - 10. Chapter 10

After Luke left, my luck didn’t get any better. I picked at my pizza rolls no longer really all that hungry. Then I went off to practice where Coach kicked my ass around the track. Being an assistant football coach too, I hoped he would be distracted by them. Especially since the football team mostly sucked and needed a lot of attention to get them in decent enough shape. Derek and Toby were also in hot water too and spent most of practice running beside me on the track, at least I didn’t have to wear football gear like them.

When I got home, Mom had waited on the couch. She was still dressed in what she typically wore to work. She didn’t give me time to put my bag away and run up to the bathroom to take a shower.

She didn’t take my car away from me. Only because Cindy told her that Luke wasn’t interested in driving my ass all over town. I didn’t even get out of park duty, Henry put his foot down and wanted me to see out my commitment. He still had faith in me, but I didn’t want to go there. Not after seeing Luke red-faced and crying in my living room. I couldn’t help thinking about the way the tear fell down his cheek, him violently wiping it away before he stormed out. I wasn’t used to people standing up to me and I didn’t expect it from someone like him at all.

So when Saturday morning rolled around Mom stepped into my bedroom to make sure I was awake and getting ready for work. Seeing me sitting on the bed tying my worn out tennis shoes she smiled and leaned against the door.

“Do I have to go?” I groaned, grabbing my t-shirt and pulling it over my head.

“What do you think?” She asked as she leaned against the door frame. She was dressed for work, so I knew where she would be most of the day. Dad was asleep somewhere down the hall, getting ready for another night shift.

“They don’t even want me there,” I countered sighing. I knew I wouldn’t win the argument, not after having my punishment extended “indefinitely” again. Usually it didn’t bother me, seeing their disappointment, but after Luke I couldn’t help feeling like shit. So I didn’t dare say anything about being completely grounded again.

“I agreed with Henry, I want you to see this through,” Mom said, offering me a small smile. “You need to try and make it up to Luke, he was really upset and Cindy won’t budge on letting him attend your school now.”

“Why not?” I asked, groaning. I convinced Mom to talk some sense into Cindy and she had attempted to a few times, I was hoping by now she would have cooled off enough to take another tour of the school. I didn’t see how it had changed much since they were students though, they had to remember how it was. The pranks, taunting, and bullying. It was part of High School. Sometimes I wondered why Luke would even want to be part of our shitty high school anyway.
Even if I had been able to make the best of it over the years, I didn’t think I would miss this place or this small assed town after I left for college. It was the people I would miss, Derek, Toby, and the girls. If Ally and I made it past graduation, it would suck leaving her to go to different schools. I didn’t see why Ally and I couldn’t work though, she put up with me so far. Now that I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time with her, I missed her.

“Your best bet is to behave yourself and hope for Henry,” Mom answered glancing down at her phone. “Cindy might listen to him.”

“How are you friends with her?” I asked, shaking my head. “I think she made the biggest bully in school cry.”

“We’ve been friends since kindergarten,” Mom answered, shrugging. “Friends you can depend on all these years are rare, you need to keep them.”

“Well she’s a piece of work,” I countered pushing myself up off the bed. “How does calm Henry deal with that?”

“By being calm,” Mom answered laughing. “Nothing gets Henry excited, except for maybe fast cars like back when we were in high school together.”

“I don’t want to hear about the old days,” I joked as I stepped past her. She turned and followed me down the stairs grabbing her purse from the end of the couch. “See you after practice.”

“I love you,” she said standing on her toes to kiss me on the cheek. “Be good and try to fix things with Luke today.”

“I’ve tried!” I hissed shaking my head.

“Keep trying, he’ll come around, he’s a lot like his father,” she said smiling as she led me to the door. She held it open for me to walk through, locking it behind her.

Pulling into the park, I slowly drove to one of the many open parking spaces away from everyone else. Most people parked as close to the playground as possible. I was a little late and people were milling around mounds of new playground equipment. There were packages and boxes off to the side under the shade tree where lunch would be served later.

I saw that Luke was watching me as I put the car into park and killed the engine. Even from this distance I saw the smile falter as he turned back to the small group he was with. They looked to be assembling what would be a new monkey bar bridge between two slides. Cindy was finishing up the last bit of mowing and Henry was talking to a group of men and pointing animatedly at the rusty old swing sets.

When I stepped out of the car, Henry waved me over to his small group. He offered me a tight lipped smile, but it felt friendly enough. I didn’t expect anything from him at all, not after what I did in front of his son. Instead, when I got there he patted me on the back and introduced me to a few guys that stood around him. They were from the church and around town, people I didn’t really know or care to remember their names. I was barely listening, I wanted to turn around and look for Luke, since he didn’t want to answer any of my phone calls.

They discussed different ways of taking down the massive swing sets. It made things worse, after they noticed they were anchored to the ground with cement. It took them awhile, me awkwardly standing beside Henry before he finally clapped his hands together. The swing sets were put together at the top, so he and a few other of the guys went to the back of the truck and grabbed the tallest ladder. Then Henry climbed up with Cindy yelling something from the lawn mower, I guess telling him to be careful, but he just waved her off with a smile and started loosening the large bolts holding the pieces together.

While he was up there I turned to see that the small group assembling the jungle gym were mostly finished with it. Luke was talking to a younger girl that hadn’t been around much the first couple of weekends. It was likely someone that went to their school and she was busy tightening something. When she laughed at something he said I rolled my eyes and jumped when I heard Henry yelling from the top of the ladder.

I just had looked up when someone else grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backwards. The swing set gave a loud groan before it toppled over right in front of us. The one a-frame still standing alone still cemented into place. The weight of the rest of the swing set caused the other a-frame to give out and bend.

“And people let their kids play on this,” Henry said as he scurried down the ladder. “Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah,” I muttered when he glanced in my direction. After seeing everyone uninjured he moved the ladder to the other side and climbed up to where the other a-frame leaned and unbolted the other side.

After the middle of the swing set was in a pile on the ground everyone else jumped in and started separating the metal poles. There were wasp nests in rusted holes of the metal, I had to dodge a few pissed off wasps as Henry and a guy named Mark chased them down with cans of insecticide.

By lunch we had the middle of the swing set loaded in the back of the truck. I smelled like sweat and wasp spray and Cindy had finished with the last of the mowing. She met everyone under the shade tree and passed around the bottled water and sandwiches. When it was my turn, she offered me a smile that I guessed was fake due to the people standing in line behind me.

After getting my lunch I took off towards my usual rotting picnic table only to see that they had been removed. Sighing I kept walking and sat down on the cracked concrete just out of the sun’s reach. Being busy with the swing set and not dying allowed me not to feel weird about what happened Monday. Now that they were all huddled under the shade tree, Luke in the middle of the younger crowd - I felt like a loser. He didn’t break away from the group like he usually did to come sit beside me. So far he had been the only one to really try and get me talking, other people only cared to ask me a few of the usual small talk questions. Just talking enough to make themselves feel better about greeting me, but not really all that interested in what I had to say. That is why I preferred to be around people that I knew. I could care less about these people as it was, but at least when Luke took up all the down time talking, it wasn’t too shitty being here.

After lunch Henry told everyone that he and some other guys needed to get shovels and dig up the poles that were still cemented in the ground. He suggested that the girls go inside the building to see what needed working on. There were still small meetings and town hall discussions held inside, but I hadn’t been in there for years. Cindy seemed grateful to be inside with the air conditioning as she led the way.

“Luke there’s a set of new nets for the tennis courts in the back of the truck,” Henry said as he tightened his tool belt. “Why don’t you and Jackson run and put those up real quick?”

“Dad,” Luke groaned and I looked around at the tennis courts. They were on the other side of the park, behind the little league baseball fields nestled off to the side and away from everything else.

“I can go work on the baseball field,” I suggested turning back to Henry. He wiped sweat from his forehead and seemed to consider it.

“No, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, we’ll finish those up last as a group,” He countered offering me a smile. “The nets won’t take long, you two can get it done and be back here to help with the poles.”

“Dad,” Luke started, but Henry turned to him and tilted his head towards his truck not saying anything. Then he turned his back on Luke and grabbed a shovel that was offered to him. The rest of the guys were already shoveling the dirt around the cement. I didn’t know how far they were anchored into the ground, but I was glad I wasn’t shoveling right now. It would be hot for another month or so, but today felt like one of the hottest days of the year. My shirt clinged to me and I could feel the sun baking my skin.

After a few moments of looking around, probably for another shovel that wasn’t there. Luke finally sighed and started towards the parking lot. He didn’t look back to make sure that I was following him and I almost didn’t, but Henry glanced over his shoulder so I clenched my jaws and took off after him.

When I got there he was unloading one bag of netting. I walked around the back and grabbed the second set for the second court and silently walked beside him to the back of the park.

The netting that kept the balls from bouncing off the court had mostly rotted away, so we walked in through one of the holes. Once inside and near the middle of the court he dropped the bag and glanced around scratching the back of his head.

“This place is a dump,” he sighed, glancing around. “I can’t even tell where the nets go.”

“In the middle, probably where the poles are,” I offered pointing as he glared at me. I felt my face flush as I looked away. All the white boundary lines had completely faded away. It would need repainting, but at least the court itself seemed to be in pretty good shape. It was sun faded and had a few cracks, but it wasn’t a grass court so it took the flooding and weather a lot better than the baseball fields.

“I know they go in the middle,” he sighed, not looking at me. “I don’t know anything about tennis.”

“Other than it being a lame assed sport,” I said shrugging. “I don’t either.”

“It’s not lame,” he countered, crossing his arms. “It’s not swimming.”

“Which isn’t lame,” I added when he fell silent.

“Look, there’s the poles that hold up the nets, they look like they’re in good shape,” he said toeing it with his shoe. Not really knowing how a tennis court was supposed to be rigged up, I cursed under my breath and sat down on the court.

“I wouldn’t sit down there’s ants everywhere,” Luke said and I quickly stood up and dusted off my ass and legs to make sure nothing had crawled onto me.

“Alright,” I said and I watched him unroll the net between the two poles. On the one end he hooked the eye on the top cable to secure it to that pole. He walked back to me and after a few tries we managed to learn how to get the hand winch working.

Next we both measured out where the center of the net was and slid the netting along the cable until the middle was lined up with the faded line. Finally we tied off the bottom strings, making the whole net secure.

“That should be good enough right?” He asked, taking a step back as he glanced down the net to where I was. Henry had been right, it didn’t take us very long to assemble the one net. They were cheaper nets that likely weren’t even officially regulation tennis nets. It wasn’t like they would last very long, the other sets were probably killing fish somewhere down the river anyway. Once the rainy fall began in a couple of months, the river would probably flood and wash all of our hard work away. For the first time the thought of a ruined park bothered me. I had wasted more weekends that I cared to waste here already. To see one good storm wash it all down river would suck.

“Ready for the next one?” I asked grabbing the other bag of netting. He nodded his head and we stepped through a hole in the netting that divided the courts and went to work on the other one.

“Dad thinks I should forgive you,” Luke said as I dropped the bag with the net and started walking to the middle of the court. “I just want to know why you did it?”

“It was a…” I started, but he glared at me shaking his head.

“Don’t tell me it was just a stupid prank,” Luke countered crossing his arms. “You saw Mom fussing at that one guy in the lunchroom. You knew she didn’t want me to go to your school and that bully guy wasn’t helping.”

“I know, that’s the fucker that sucker punched me,” I said as I made sure the pole was secure enough to hold up the netting and keep it tight. I didn’t want to talk about my reasons behind pulling the prank. I didn’t know why I did it, other than the fact that I didn’t think I wanted Luke there in my school. I just hadn’t really thought about the reasons why, so I didn’t have an answer. I would like to think I did it because my friends didn’t seem like they liked him. I wasn’t supposed to like him, he was a quiet little church school loser. We had been forced to be together at this park. Shit, we weren’t really friends. I didn’t want to explain myself to him, if Cindy couldn’t handle high school pranks then that was on her, not me. I wasn’t going to change just so she could feel better about her son going to a real school that she wasn’t a teacher at. Where she couldn’t hover around him to make sure nothing ever happened to him. That he remained her perfect little man.

“So why did you do it?” He asked looking right at me, his brown eyes squinted slightly against the harsh sun. “After being nice to me at the pool and going with me to the paint wars thing my Uncle built.”

“I don’t know,” I said chewing on the inside of my bottom lip. “I felt like shit after…”

“After what?” He asked, his face flushed. “After you did it or after I came by and yelled at you?”

“After you yelled at me,” I answered wanting to grab the net and get the tennis court shit finished so I can go back to Henry and help dig out the a-frames.

“Mom won’t change her mind now, Steve Welker has called her a couple times about sending more students to the school,” He said shaking his head. “Some of the other parents were thinking about letting us attend the school in another county, but she doesn’t even want me going there.”

“You church people,” I hissed, rolling my eyes. “You make my high school sound like a, well I don’t know, but it’s not that bad. I have enough fun there and no one gets hurt.”

“You know what I thought when I saw that guy rolling down the hall in the trash can?” He asked, offering me a small smirk. “That it would have been fun to race them down that hallway.”

“Not a bad idea,” I said smiling at the thought of me racing him down the hallway with Derek and Toby having pushed us. “I wonder what Welker would say about that?”

“That Connor guy, he is a friend too, right?” He asked uncrossing his arms and bending down to retrieve the netting.

“Yeah we’re both seniors, I’ve known him since the first grade when he moved here,” I answered as I helped him unroll the net. “We’re not best friends, but we talk at parties and at games and shit.”

“Mom thinks you’re just a big school bully that will pick on me since you know me,” He said, trying not to laugh. “She doesn’t think I can kick your butt if you ever tried.”

“I bet you can’t,” I countered, shaking my head. “All I’d have to do to get away from you is jump into a pool, you can’t swim.”

“Your school doesn’t have a pool,” he said smiling. “So what now?”

“Shut up, that’s what,” I countered and he laughed as he knelt down and tied the net to the pole and we pulled the netting tight and secured it on both sides.

Finished with putting the nets together on both courts we slowly made our way back towards the swing sets. Instead of hurrying ahead, Luke fell in step beside me. The quiet still bothered me though. It made me feel only partially forgiven. Or maybe he wasn’t going to at all and just wanted to get the nets together without an argument. He definitely wasn’t his usual easy-going and talkative self. There seemed to be more bothering him than just not being my friend anymore, even if that bothered me more than I wanted to let on. I hoped he hadn’t noticed my sideways glances. The moments when I thought about something to ask and let it die on my lips. The times I half-turned to stop him from walking. This wasn’t really like me, I didn’t push people to be my friend. I didn’t have to, usually people came up to me.

It made me realize that maybe Luke was comfortable with who he was. So much so that he wouldn’t care about all the bullies that Cindy seemed to think ran the school. He was who he was and nothing was going to change him. He didn’t need me, after what I did to him at school, I doubted he even really wanted to be around me.

“Do you think they have those a-frames dug out yet?” Luke asked nodding ahead of where we were walking. I glanced over and saw a red faced Henry wiping sweat from his forehead. His wispy hair in every direction. His cheeks were flushed and there was a mound of dirt, but the a-frames were still standing. Only Henry would look happy as fuck about not being able to budge the a-frames. As we approached the small group of men all scratching their heads and looking down at the deep hole they’ve already dug.

“Do you think we maybe need a front end loader with a backhoe?” Henry asked, turning to the group. When he saw that we were back he grinned and motioned us to stand beside him.

“You just want to drive one,” Luke said, studying the hole. It looked like the one pole of the a-frame they had managed to dig up had been more than a couple of yards down and secured with concrete. There was no way to tell how heavy that would be. It didn’t look like there was any way for us to dig them out by hand.

“I think we’ll need one,” Henry countered smiling as he glanced at his watch. “Either way I think we’ve done as much as we can today, good work guys. Jackson, can you hang back a minute?”

“Dad,” Luke groaned. I felt my face flush when Henry’s eyes fell on me. If his hair wasn’t sticking up in every direction, I might have been worried. I remembered Mom saying that he was pretty calm, at least it wasn’t Cindy that wanted to talk. She still seemed to act like I just didn’t exist.

“Go inside and tell the girls we’re done, Luke,” Henry ordered and I watched as everyone else picked up the tools and started walking out to the parking lot. Some people had already made it out to their cars. Luke sighed and walked around me towards the building. I turned to watch him leave until Henry cleared his throat and I turned to see him nodding towards one of the hiking trails. “Let’s go for a walk, I’ve not had a chance to talk with you any.”

“Alright,” I said and I fell in step beside him. He reached up and smoothed down his sweat dried hair. In this heat it didn’t take long for shampoo or deodorant to fail. Every once in a while the hot breeze would send the smell of sweat my way and I wrinkled my nose. For the most part Henry was quiet, only pointing out plants, or for me to watch out for poison ivy that snaked around trees close to the trail.

“I’ll need to come through here with a weed killer,” Henry said as we came to a small opening in the trail. He stopped and I took a few steps not expecting him to stop, but I turned to face him. “So, what do you think about all this?”

“I think we’re doing all of this for nothing,” I answered shrugging. He smiled glancing back towards the park.

“Hard work is never for nothing,” he said bending down and grabbing a twig.

“I’ll hate seeing it under the next flood,” I added trying not to let him know how out of place I felt talking to him. I never had a face to face with him before, I barely knew him. I didn’t go to church and made a point to avoid them when they came over to see Mom and Dad, or the rare times they came over for grilling and shit. I didn’t know him, but unlike Cindy he seemed like someone I wouldn’t care to know better. That he would be easy to get along with, that I wouldn’t have to tread carefully around him or be afraid of being judged. His eyes seemed to be measuring me, but not in a way that made me think I would never measure up.

“The town needs something like this restored,” Henry said breaking the twig in half. “I remember having fourth of July celebrations here, people came from all over town.”

“Is that what you want to happen?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“I think it will,” he answered. “If not then I know I tried, that’s the point. There’s been so many things in this town neglected for so long, people are moving away left and right. I’d like to see a few people take pride in this place again.”

“Oh,” I muttered not really knowing how to answer him. I could tell he believed that his small part would go a long way in helping bring some life back to this dying town. I didn’t see how one park on a floodplain could.

“I want Luke to have a normal senior year,” Henry said abruptly changing the topic. I knew the real reason he brought me out here was to talk about him anyway. Otherwise he would have let Luke come out here on the trail with us. It is probably why we walked down a trail to begin with, to keep Luke from hurrying inside and back out to make sure Henry didn’t embarrass him with this talk. I know I hated when Mom or Dad did shit like this.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, turning away to look down the trail.

“No one should be cooped up at home if they don’t want to be,” Henry added, his smile faltering slightly. “I think I can convince Cindy to let him go, but you’ll have to help me out with that.”

“How?” I asked, letting my hands fall to my side. I felt my face flushing as I faced him.

“I know you’re a good kid,” he said, not really answering my question. “I was your age once too, my senior year I had a truck full of speeding tickets. I think I nearly put my folks in the poorhouse over buying me tires that I would turn around and burn away.”

“Really?” I asked and nearly laughed when he tried not to smile as he remembered those days.

“Yes,” he answered coughing. “Just try to be Luke’s friend, okay? Prove me right.”

“I’ll try,” I said glancing down at the dirt. For the first time I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, he seemed to show a lot of faith in me. Something I know I didn’t deserve.

“Good,” he said, tossing the twigs away before he stretched and rubbed some of his sore muscles. “Let’s go so we can get out of here, I know you have practice.”

“Yeah,” I said, turning to walk beside him back up the trail.

“One more thing,” he said, glancing at me. “Do you know where a person can rent a front end loader?”

“No, I don’t,” I answered, chewing on my bottom lip trying not to laugh, but eventually failing.