Chapter 3: Thunderstruck

27 August 1984 – Hardwick Road, Enfield, Massachusetts

Jeff gulped down the cup of water he held and readied himself for his next turn at the current drill. He’d square off against Nick Ansoina, now a senior and co-captain of the soccer team. They watched Tom Jarrett and a freshman race after the ball, each jockeying for position.

“Man, they’re really banging away at each other, aren’t they?” Nick asked as he looked down the field. “That kid isn’t taking it easy on Tom, that’s for sure.”

“There’s one in every bunch,” Jeff joked in reply.

“That was you last year, ya know?” Nick reminded Jeff, facing him now.

“Huh?”

“That was you,” Nick repeated. “You and Tom fought your way down the whole sideline. And you’re right, there is one in every bunch. That was me my freshman year, it was Tom two years ago, and that was you last year. Your performance in this drill last year, your refusal to give up, was a big reason why you got as much playing time as you did last year. You’ll be captain your senior year, if not before.” Jeff wasn’t sure how to answer that.

He didn’t have a chance to meet the freshman he commented about until the scrimmage at the end of practice. They were part of their team’s midfield together.

“Hey,” Jeff greeted his teammate while he held out a hand. “I’m Jeff Knox.”

“Chris Micklicz,” the freshman responded as they shook.

“Where you from?”

“My family just moved to Palmer from outside Lansing, Michigan. Dad got a new job in Springfield this summer.”

“Well, the valley’s not anywhere near our beloved Commonwealth’s capital, but we prefer it that way.”

“The valley?”

“The Swift River valley which is, technically, Enfield, Greenwich, Prescott, and Dana.”

“It’s not pronounced ‘Grennitch?’”

“Nope, ‘GREEN-witch.’ We’re a bit different ‘round these parts.”

Chris laughed. “I was glad that my folks at least picked a school with a hockey team. Is it any good?”

Jeff shrugged. “We weren’t that good last year, five-and-fifteen, but a lot of those games could have gone either way. We just need the breaks to go our way and we’ll be pretty good.”

The whistle blew.

“Today, ladies!” called Coach Romanov. They quickly got back into their positions.

“Hey! Jeff!” a voice called to him the next week.

Jeff turned from his locker and saw his friend Jack Jarrett walking towards him. Jack wore a wide smile on his face while holding an arm around Kathy Stein, his girlfriend of nine months. The young brunette invited Jack to her family’s summer house for the month that August. Jeff hadn’t seen the couple since mid-July due to the timing of his own family’s vacation and theirs. Jack and Kathy left for Maine the same day the Knoxes returned home.

“Well, look at you two,” Jeff quipped. “Both of you look very happy. And disgustingly tanned.”

“And you’re not?” Kathy shot back. “You look like you were outside for hours every day yourself.”

“Well...” Jeff began. “Okay, fine. I was outside a lot despite my hours at Bilzarian’s. How was Maine?”

“Other than the crazy tourists, it was fine,” Kathy replied.

“Um, aren’t you guys crazy tourists when you go up there, Kath?”

“Yeah, okay.”

A beautiful blonde Jeff didn’t recognize passing by distracted him. She chatted with a group of girls he recognized from the junior class as they walked down the hall. Jeff managed not to let his mouth hang open, but he couldn’t stop staring at her. She was spectacular.

“Jeff? Jeff?” Jack tried to get his attention. Jeff looked back at his friends.

“Sorry...” he said, a sheepish look on his face. Kathy just laughed at him. She saw who he’d been watching.

“You met Chris Micklicz last week during soccer practice, right?” Jack asked.

“Yeah?” Jeff answered, wondering how Jack had already heard of him.

“Tom told me about him,” Jack explained. “That’s his older sister, Pauline. She’s in Tom’s class.”

“Wow...” Jeff whispered, clearly taken with the older girl.

“Yeah, definitely not a butter face,” Kathy muttered. A ‘butter face’ was a girl who looked pretty until she turned around: “she had a fine body, but her face...!”

“Older and out of my league, then,” Jeff sighed.

“You never know until you try, Big Boy,” Kathy teased.

“That’s one of the areas I don’t have a lot of confidence in, Kathy. You know that.”

“And that’s something I totally don’t get,” she said. “You’re friends with just about everybody!”

“Any of the girls I’m friends with I’ve known for years,” Jeff reminded Kathy. “You’re the exception, Kath. You’d already met this guy here, and now you’re his girlfriend. There’s no pressure with you. This girl’s different.”

The soccer team talked about many things while they cleaned up after practices. One locker room debate after practice early in the year started the team thinking. It was also the start of helping them gel. Jeff was right in the middle of the discussion.

“Why do we need to worry about those kids?” asked Deke Mueller, a starting forward and a senior this year.

“Deke, do you like music?” Jeff asked in return.

“What? I thought we were talking about the geeks?”

“Bear with me. Do you like listening to music? On a turntable? Maybe on a tape player?”

“Yeah...?”

“How about talking to your girlfriend on the phone? Picking her up in your car to go somewhere? Not having to go to bed when the sun sets because you can turn on a light?”

“Yeah...?”

“Who do you think thought up all that stuff? The geeks, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Deke admitted.

“Deke, I’m a geek,” Jeff told him. “I have been for years. In fact, I got straight A’s on my final report card last year.” Deke just blinked at him. “I’m probably near the top of my class right now.”

“But ... but ... you’re a soccer player! A jock!” Deke exclaimed, shocked.

“Yeah, so?” Jeff shrugged. “Why do the two have to be separate? When I leave Thompkins that might be the end of me ever playing sports competitively again. There may be people at this school who will go on to college sports, or maybe even get to the pros, but for the majority of us this will be it. Why shouldn’t we work hard? Learn as much as we can as well as we can so we have more choices later in life? Anyone can be a dick, just look at Bryan Cosgrove. How much will that cost you later in life? How much will it gain for you not to be?” Deke looked thoughtful, as did the others who heard Jeff’s argument, so Jeff kept going.

“You guys know Tom has a little brother, right?” he asked indicating Tom Jarrett. Many of his teammates nodded. “Jack’s probably my best friend, with Kathy Stein a close second. With his medical problems, Jack will never be able to play sports, and Kathy’s chosen not to. Does that matter to me? No. I have the same sense of humor as they do, and we like hanging out together. End of story.”

“You guys backed me up last year when I squared off with Cosgrove on the first day of school, and you’d only known me a week. There are only about three hundred of us in high school here. Why are we splitting ourselves into such small, divisive groups? Talk to these kids. Make them see you’re nothing like they probably thought you were.”

Jeff climbed off the soapbox. He let his teammates roll his words around in their heads while he finished dressing. Tom Jarrett caught up to him as he walked out to the parking lot to catch his ride home.

“Nice sermon, Reverend,” Tom joked as he shoved him gently.

“Why should Jack and Kathy and the others who don’t play sports be treated like that, Tom?” Jeff asked in a not-so-joking manner. “You know I’d be treated like them if I didn’t play a sport.”

“Easy, man,” Tom said in a soothing tone. “You’re preaching to the choir, okay?”

“Sorry, Tom. It pisses me off.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.” Tom almost fell over laughing when Jeff shoved him.

In his office Coach Romanov smiled to himself. He overheard Jeff’s speech.

The sophomore grinned at the three freshmen. It was a cruel smile. With his buddies behind him backing him up, he was sure that the three younger kids would soon piss their pants. He’d just about gotten them to the point where they’d hand over their lunch money when he heard a scuffle behind him. Someone swatted a stinging slap to the back of his head. That person was going to DIE! Spinning around, he nearly shit his pants when he saw who slapped him.

“Hi, Bryan,” Jeff Knox growled through gritted teeth. “Did ya have a nice summer?”

Bryan had stayed in the shadows last year, avoiding Jeff since their first confrontation. He’d taken a chance this year and poked his head up again to see what he could get away with. A glance around showed his buddies being braced by Jeff’s teammates, many teammates.

The other teams at school had heard about Jeff’s little speech. They responded to the unspoken challenge, and the bullying business was suddenly much tougher. Seeing Jeff, Bryan knew he was about to be hammered back down into his hole. He looked at Jeff with a much less arrogant attitude.

“What I told you last year is still in effect,” Jeff whispered to him, so softly that only Bryan could hear. “We haven’t been back in school a month and already you’ve managed to piss me off. Nice work.” Jeff looked over at the three younger students.

“Guys, if this person here – and I use the term ‘person’ loosely – bothers you again, you come find me, any of my teammates, or any of the other jocks here. We’ll handle the problem, okay?”

The three freshmen nodded nervously, not quite believing that an older student would stick up for them. This was not what their dealings with upperclassmen so far had shown them. They saw the student who stuck up for them give the bully a hard look before he waved them down the hall.

“That’s strike two,” Jeff warned Cosgrove after the younger students left. “You don’t want to know what happens when you strike out.”

Jeff worked on his French homework beside Kara before dinner. This year he took both Spanish II and French I on the enthusiastic recommendation of Isabelle Alcala. Kara chose French as her language so they were in the same beginner’s class. She found Jeff’s study methods and his discipline were something to emulate. With the burden of an extra class this year, Jeff needed to study whenever he could. His mother tousled his hair while the siblings worked at the kitchen table.

“Mom, you’re killing my chance with the ladies!” he complained, trying to straighten his hair while Kara laughed at him.

“Who?” she asked. “Your sister? Me? This kitchen isn’t exactly a ‘target-rich environment’ as you kids say.”

“You’re the one that keeps telling me to be ready when opportunity knocks!” he responded. “How can I be ready for my adoring fans, if I look like I just woke up?”

“Relax, Romeo. The bouncer at the door will let us know when they start lining up for you. It’s time to put away le français and set the table.”

Thompkins played a league rival, Petersham Preparatory Academy, in an early October soccer match. Away games were sparsely attended by Thompkins students, and today was no exception. In contrast, PPA’s students made up most of the spectators present. They were a rowdy bunch and making a lot of noise at the moment because their team was just whistled for a foul seconds before halftime. The interference foul happened just outside the penalty area, and the referee awarded Thompkins an indirect free kick. Two players had to touch the ball before a goal would count.

Nick Ansonia waited next to Jeff while the referee paced off the ten-yard zone that PPA had to stay outside of. Nick and Jeff talked over the play one more time. It was a common play that everyone used but it did work sometimes. The referee raised his arm and blew the whistle.

Nick nodded to Jeff and ran towards the ball. When he stepped over it, he bumped it back towards Jeff. The ball made the required one full revolution for the play to be legal. Jeff was already sprinting towards the ball. He blasted a shot towards the goal, a shot that looked to be going wide of the far post. PPA’s goalie saw the ball’s spin, and he broke as hard as he could for the back post where one of his defensemen stood.

Jeff placed his shot well. Sideline spectators watched the shot arc towards the net. PPA’s defenseman leaped for it, hoping to head it away. The goalie dove to intercept the ball, stretching out, trying to bat it away.

Jeff’s target was the net’s top corner on the far side. The spinning ball broke for that corner as it arced through the air. The ball hit the goal post just above the defenseman’s head, beyond the diving goalie’s reach. It caught the inside edge, bouncing it back, inside the goal. The net rippled with the ball’s impact.

Thompkins players cheered and gathered around Jeff to congratulate him on the shot. He’d scored the first goal of the game.

“Great shot, Pelé!” Nick said with an arm around Jeff’s neck.

“Still a lot of soccer to play, wise-guy!” Jeff cautioned.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a sweet shot!”

Jeff rolled his eyes but smiled back at his teammate. “It was, wasn’t it?”

October gave way to November. Soccer gave way to hockey. Jeff paired with a freshman on defense since he was the third-line defenseman from the previous year. That freshman was Chris Micklicz. The two connected as line-mates instantly.

“Oh my word...” muttered John Kessler, the head hockey coach for Thompkins.

He watched his third-line defense pick apart his first-line offense. Chris and Jeff seemed to know where the other would be without a word, with hardly a glance, and they’d never played together before! Coach Kessler watched them control the ice as practice progressed. He watched the emergence of his new first-line defense.

Jeff and Chris walked down the hall of the Jenkins Building together a week later. The school day had ended and they reviewed hockey plays on their way to practice. Jeff had the skills but he’d only been playing for a few years. Chris had better hockey instincts and he pointed out certain things to Jeff as they walked.

“Hey! Chris!” a female voice called.

The pair stopped and turned to see Chris’ sister Pauline walking towards them, smiling. Jeff had been sneaking looks at Pauline since the first day of school but he’d yet to talk to her. He decided to keep his mouth shut unless spoken to so he wouldn’t make a fool of himself.

“Hey, I forgot to tell you this morning, but Dad needs a new copy of your hockey schedule. He can’t find the other one and he wants to be sure he makes the home games.”

“No problem,” Chris answered. “I’ll make sure I ask Coach for one before practice starts.”

Seeing his partner checking Pauline out but trying hard to look like he wasn’t, Chris introduced them to each other.

“Pauline, this is my partner on defense, Jeff Knox. He’s a sophomore. Jeff, this is my big sister, Pauline. She’s a junior here.”

“Hi, Jeff,” Pauline said in a bright voice. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“H-h-h-hi, P-Pauline. I-i-i-it’s nice to m-m-meet you,” he stammered. He sighed, thinking, ‘So much for not making a fool of myself.’

Chris stared at his partner before turning back to Pauline.