The Changing Room universe, also known as “Changing for Gym”, was created by Xoop and added to by Maggie Finson and Dustin C. I was intrigued by the power of the school, but also the limitations. I wish to stay true to the universe but nudge things a little further; I have referenced characters from the last two in the series, “Slipping In” and “Slipping Out”, and used the traditional opening as Prologue.

Hill Street High School has always worked its wonders on the students–perhaps faculty might be involved as well?

Changing for Gym: Family Affair, by Karin Bishop

Part 1

Prologue

Hill Street High School was built in the early 1990’s in response to the town’s recent growth. Too, the old school was a remnant of the 1920’s, and looked it. The town had eventually given in to the inevitable and voted in a new school.

The new building had everything. As befitted area weather, it was totally enclosed (except for the athletic fields, of course). Yet its public areas never felt claustrophobic, for it relied a great deal on glass. The cafeteria was large and clean, the library well-stocked even with fiction, and the gymnasium included an indoor pool.

Perhaps the most unusual change from old to new concerned the lockers. The architect had visited the old school and had been shocked at the students crowding into too-narrow hallways made even worse by the lockers lining each wall. They were nearly impassible, and the man vowed not to carry that over. Instead he placed larger lockers in the gym’s changing rooms, and the rooms themselves were much expanded. There was a second, smaller changing room for each gender in case of overflow. Each student would use a single locker there, accessible at any time. In return the hallways would be clearer, quieter, with plenty of room on the walls for announcements, art, or displays. The architect felt the extra space needed for the expanded changing rooms was more than justified, and the students more or less agreed.

The architect put his heart and soul into the school, this community building for the good of all. The workers who built it were the same way. After all, they were a local firm; it’d be their kids going there.

All that care, all that attention, can have an effect. At Hill Street High School, it did. The place gained something of a soul of its own. It took care of the students -- the computer lab had almost no technical problems and the cafeteria food was unusually tasty. It took care of the teachers -- school supplies such as pencils and books were never in short supply and everyone’s drink of choice was available in the lounge. And it took care of itself. Litter was infrequent and disappeared quickly. The same could be said of graffiti. Each of the three janitors thought another had taken care of it. Sometimes they were even right. Everything was perfect.

And the school was happy.

But nothing lasts forever. Eventually the growth stopped, then reversed. Families moved away, and the changing rooms were not as full. As chance would have it, far more girls ended up moving away than boys. The secondary girls’ changing room became entirely empty. Other families moved in, but again more boys than girls enrolled. The boys’ secondary changing room approached capacity. And then, one day, passed it.

And the school was not happy.

Part 1

But the school learned how to fix things, how to mold the students and faculty, as well as parents that came onto the school grounds for conferences and events. The school craved order and adjusted the student population; the adjusted families seemed happier and the school gained in confidence. Then the school learned that simple adjustment wasn’t always the answer; the case of two students, Danny Halding and Bree Miller, convinced the school that one person’s happiness couldn’t be at the expense of another’s. The love that grew between those two students filled the hallways with happiness. And the school learned. Sometimes, happiness is more important than order. And, when people are happy, things tend to be put into order without much effort.

The students were happy, the teachers were happy, the parents were happy, and the school was happy.

All was well …until the McMahons arrived.

***

There was no way they were going into there, declared Thomas ‘Tear-em-up’ McMahon. His younger brother Patrick agreed.

“Not gonna put no McMahons in no girly room,” he growled, as much as a fourteen-year-old could.

“Don’t worry, Pat. We’ll talk to this Harris guy, straighten things out,” his big brother chuckled.

‘Big brother’ really only applied to the three years that separated the McMahons. Like their father, they were compact. ‘Rugged’, their father Frank called them, no giant himself. They were sturdy, kept that way by their home diet of large quantities of meat and potatoes, served up by their long-suffering mother Kathleen. The boys were a stocky and pugnacious group–the McMahon Men, as Frank called them–and had been within an inch of being thrown out of their last school for fighting. They’d already been thrown off the football team for roughhousing, although Frank had declared the team and their coach ‘a bunch of pussies’ and said his boys were too good for the lousy team.

Now they were at Hill Street High, the last school in the district that would have them. Frank had called in a few favors to keep the boys from being sent to Valley, a ‘continuation’ school that was the district’s dumping grounds for sociopaths and pregnant teens. There were others there, but since Frank McMahon declared his boys were neither sociopaths–he’d had to ask about the word’s meaning–or pregnant, they would be in a mainstream school. So Hill Street High gained two new students–and an assistant football coach.

***

The school had been enjoying September. The hallways and classrooms buzzed along cheerfully, with everybody feeling a new sense of purpose after the long hot summer. The school even adjusted room temperatures so those that faced the sun were cooler. Students didn’t nod off and performed better. The school had worked to keep the fields from turning brown over the summer, and the football team practiced daily and hard on the lush green turf.

But there were disturbing sounds coming from the halls. The school was used to dealing specifically with one disturbance, one problem, at a time; this came from three–and one was an adult. The school would have to study this carefully.

***

“Mr. McMahon, we–”

“That’s Coach McMahon,” Frank said proudly.

Mr. Harris took a moment to calm himself. “Yes, I understand that Mr. Mulroney on the school board recommended that you join our coaching staff. Traditionally we’ve only called Bill Anderson ‘Coach’, as he is head coach.”

“And a piss-poor job he’s been doing, too, pardon my French,” Frank nodded. “And don’t worry; I’ve already told him this to his face. Three and eight last year? Two and nine the year previous? I’m here to shake things up, get a winning season. And not just because my boys will be playing. Gonna shake things up,” he said again. “And I do go by the name ‘Coach’–the boys learn respect.”

“Yes, well, ‘shaking things up’ …can be counterproductive sometimes,” Mr. Harris said, trying to regain control. “But district regulations must be observed. Any new athletes transferring in must spend a season as junior varsity before being named varsity. And I’m concerned about …is Patrick the younger boy? He shouldn’t even be eligible for the junior varsity team as a freshman.”

“Patrick plays better than the pussies you’ve got on varsity. I’ve never seen such a …” He snorted. “It’s like a bunch of damned hippies out there.”

“Please, Mr. Mc–Coach McMahon,” Mr. Harris tried again. “Don’t use words like ‘pussies’. At least within the hearing of students. It violates district code and could lead to lawsuits.”

“The truth is the truth, and if it leads to lawsuits, it should be considered an honor to defend the truth.”

Mr. Harris disputed the truth of calling the football teams ‘pussies’, but didn’t want to get involved with the coach’s last statement.

Frank took this as agreement–or perhaps surrender. He smiled. “So it’s agreed. Tommy will play varsity, Patrick will play JV. Now, about that joke of a locker room ...”

“Which locker room?” Mr. Harris asked, although he already knew what the complaint would be.

“My boys will not be stuck in some girls’ locker room!” Frank McMahon thundered.

Mr. Harris was about to retort but felt a wave of calm. Suddenly he knew how to proceed. “Coach, how’s your math?”

“My what?” The question had taken Frank by surprise.

“Your math. Can you …here; let me get a piece of paper.” Mr. Harris turned his back on the blustering coach and got a piece and a pencil and wrote down some numbers and turned back. “Our student population is pretty stable. So, allowing for a few students leaving or joining us due to unforeseen circumstances–like your two boys–here is the student breakdown as of last week.”

He pointed out the numbers to the coach.

“Our school was built in earlier times, with a lower population, and we’ve expanded and modernized to the maximum possible within the Fire Marshal’s and other civic codes. Seven-hundred and fifty students. Last week we were at seven-thirty-one; with your two boys we’re at seven-thirty-three so we’re still within acceptable limits.”

“Yeah, so? I don’t care how many students are here, unless they play football. I’m talking about the locker room.”

Mr. Harris held up a hand. “I understand, and that’s what I’m getting to right now. We can accommodate seven-hundred and fifty total but not lockers for all of them. This school was built in a time before the custom of school lockers started. The district added what they could, but there’s just not enough physical space to put more. We looked into having a portable unit added, with nothing but additional lockers, but there were district zoning problems. All lockers have to be within the physical school itself. So we tried having students share lockers, but a number of lawsuits ended that, due to invasion of privacy.”

“The district’s used to those lawsuits; shouldn’t have mattered,” Frank scoffed. “Just uptight hippie parents.”

Mr. Harris ignored that comment and explained, “These went beyond the district, all the way to the state courts.” To placate the man, he said, “I agree that the district should have been able to handle it. But the point is, even siblings can’t share lockers, under the terms of the state court’s decision. So it’s back to one-student/one-locker. And that’s the problem, but one of the architects found a room that could be used for overflow, a sort of combination room. For regular lockers and changing for gym use, I mean. And that’s the room we’re talking about.”

“So? I don’t see the math you were going on about.” He sneered the word.

Mr. Harris felt the calm again and pointed to the numbers he’d written. “Total students, as of this week, seven-hundred-thirty-three. Total lockers available in the main hallways? Seven-hundred-thirty.” He drew a line under it. “What’s left?”

“Three,” Frank said with disgust. “Oh, my boys are two of those? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Exactly what I’m saying,” Mr. Harris said, as he wrote ‘3’ and circled it. “Now, the overflow room accommodates twenty additional lockers. That brings us to our capacity of seven-fifty. Any additional students use that locker room; they’ve been using it for years. There’s only one boy still using it, Danny Halding. Good kid. Senior. Anyway, your boys would be the two others.” He shrugged. “There’s a separate shower and bathroom there, too; all of the students have quite liked the room.”

“But it’s pink and girly!” Frank nearly yelled.

“I agree the tiles are pinkish now, but that’s just from fading over the years. My understanding is that it was built as a unisex room. There have been girls in there as well as boys over the years with no problems.”

“Wait–girls as well as boys? At the same time?”

There was a slight pause and then Mr. Harris chuckled. “Oh! I see what you mean! No, no; they weren’t there at the same time. On the rare occasion where the overflow students were a boy and girl, there was a staggered time arrangement, and very soon another locker opened up in the main hallways. As I said, the students were always reluctant to leave the room; it worked well for them.”

“So you’re saying that my boys may only have to be in the girly room for a short time?”

“May have to; I can’t guarantee that, but you really should stop thinking of it as a ‘girly’ room. It’s just an auxiliary, an overflow. That’s all.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. “Well, as long as there’s no guff from anybody for using that room …” He left it hanging, his threat implied.

“No ‘guff’ at all,” Mr. Harris smiled. “Never had any; can’t imagine any. To the students, it’s just a locker room; that’s all.”

“Well, if there’s no guff and they can move into another locker …”

Mr. Harris held up a finger. “If one becomes available.”

***

The school was both relieved and concerned. Relieved that it was able to calm the principal and nudge him into showing the student numbers and bringing Danny Halding into the discussion. Concerned that this coach-person was so disagreeable.

And disagreeable parents bred disagreeable children, as the waves of unhappiness swirling around the McMahon boys attested to. Already the older one had knocked some books out of the hands of one boy. The school had acted swiftly; the boy angrily bent to pick up his books just as a locker above him would have opened into his face. The boy considered the fallen books to be lucky and happily went on his way, the bully having helped him dodge an accident. The younger boy called a girl a horrible name, but the school had fired off a quick bell-test that had drowned out the boy’s horrid word.

But the McMahons were trouble, and the school disliked trouble intensely.

***

“Stupid-ass locker room,” Tommy grumbled.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, nodding.

Another voice said, “It’s not so bad.”

The McMahons turned to see Danny Halding walk in and head to a locker down the row. He was a senior, tall and good-looking. Probably smart, too. The boys disliked him immediately.

Danny said, “First day I saw the place, I thought ‘what the hell?’ but it’s pretty cool, actually.”

“Yeah?” Tommy challenged. “Tell me what’s so cool about a girls’ locker room?”

Instead of rising to the challenge, Danny laughed. “Dude, I don’t know about you, but I’d think any guy wouldn’t mind checking out a girls’ locker room!” The boys looked confused, and he went on. “But I know what you mean. It’s just old and faded, not pink or anything. And it’s not a girls’ locker room; it’s just a locker room. Right now it’s got three guys in it, so you could call it a boys’ locker room, actually.” He chuckled. “But you don’t have the hassles with your locker like they do in the main hallway. Nobody slams into you or anything.”

“Like to see ‘em try,” Tommy glared.

“Yeah,” Patrick added.

“You guys are brothers, right?” Danny said, still smiling. “I’m Danny. Danny Holding.”

“We’re the McMahons,” Patrick said. “I’m Patrick and he’s Tommy. They call him ‘Tear-em-up’ on the football field.” It was a nickname their father had coined; he hadn’t come up with one for Patrick yet.

“Tear-em-up, huh? Cool! Oh, hey! Your dad’s the new assistant coach, then, right?” Danny nodded. “Sure hope he can help us win more games!”

His enthusiasm was infectious; even Patrick found himself smiling. “Yeah, he will.”

“Got that right,” Tommy added. “So you’re saying we won’t get any crap from anybody for having our lockers in here?”

“Shouldn’t,” Danny shrugged. “I never did. And there were guys here before, and some girls–well, they didn’t get any crap. But I know what you mean. No; nobody ever gave anybody any problems. I think some of ‘em envy it. Especially having a shower to yourself.”

“Should shower with the team,” Tommy declared.

“Yeah, I agree with you there, and maybe you can,” Danny nodded. “But the thing about the showers is that there’s towel-snapping and junk like that, jokes and stuff, and the next thing you know you’re late for class.”

Both McMahon boys were no stranger to that; they could only nod.

Danny said, “I figure, nobody wants to hang in their locker room. Having the place to yourself, it’s in and out, zip-zip, and then I go hang at my girlfriend’s locker.” He chuckled. “She used to be in here, actually. But a girl left–her dad got transferred–and Bree was assigned to her locker.” Now he laughed openly. “It was about the time we started going together; they didn’t want us here all alone!”

The idea of teen sex in the locker room went a long way to defusing the McMahons’ resistance to the room; in fact, the idea that maybe a girl would transfer to Hill Street and join them made it all the better.

***

The school blessed Danny Halding yet again, and sent another cosmic apology for ever trying to adjust him. His girlfriend Bree–who had been Danny’s best friend Brian at their previous school–had been given a locker in the main hallway for precisely the reason Danny gave. Although the school had no power outside its grounds, it took advantage when the Ramirez girl moved away and gave Bree her locker.

Unless the McMahon boys calmed down, the school would have to make some adjustments. It wasn’t as concerned with numerical balance as before, as much as a spiritual balance. It could always adjust the numerical balance, but disharmony bothered the school.

And now it was feeling great disharmony from an unexpected area–the green playing fields.

***

“Ya pansies! You’re lagging!” Coach McMahon roared at the last two boys running the perimeter of the field. “I told you all three laps. I’m telling you two, do another!”

“But …but …” one of the boys gasped, turning to Coach.

The other boy gasped, “Don’t do it, man; don’t say anything!” He continued to run as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast.

The first boy ignored the advice and loudly called, “It’s too hot, Coach!”

“Two more for you!” Coach McMahon roared back.

“But I …I …”

The boy’s eyes rolled in his head and he twisted and staggered two steps and fell, heavily. The other boy turned to see, stopped, and began running to the fallen boy.

“Back to your laps,” Frank snapped. He walked to the boy. “What’s your problem, son?”

The boy didn’t answer. Frank leaned down and nudged the boy. The boy roused slightly, turned his head and vomited.

Frank stood up in disgust. “You’re sick. Should have said something. Messing up my track like that …”

He turned and scanned the field. Leaving the heaving boy, he walked over to where the Head Coach working with the quarterback and punter.

“Hey, Bill,” Frank said. “Got a sick kid.”

“Huh?” Coach Anderson said, turning to look at Frank and then past him. “What happened?”

“He’s sick; flu or something. Puking over there. Couldn’t run worth beans; should’ve said something.”

Concern furrowed Coach Anderson’s face. “Jensen’s a good kid. He knows better than to work out when he’s sick, especially on a hot one like today.”

He got up and to Frank’s disgust, Coach Anderson actually ran to the fallen boy. Frank thought it showed weakness. He walked up as the Head Coach helped the Jensen boy shakily get to his feet. Meanwhile, the rest of the team had finished their laps and collapsed on the grass. Frank spun and began walking towards them, waving his hands.

“What the hell you think you’re doing? Never lay down. Walk it off; walk it off.”

The other boy that had been running with Jensen finished his extra lap and stopped, bending at the waist and putting his hands on his knees, breathing deeply, then straightened and with his hands on his hips, walked in a small circle, catching his breath.

For the first time, the boy seriously thought about quitting football.

***

Absolutely unacceptable, the school thought. To cause such discord, and to make a boy sick was inexcusable. The new coach was a monster, it thought. His boys didn't feel right, either. Perhaps they were a family of monsters. The school had never felt such an assault before; an assault on harmony, on balance, on happiness. It wasn’t certain that it could adjust all three McMahons at once. But it was the father who had the most contact and influence over other students and his own sons; it would have to focus on him and let the boys sit tight for a bit. Usually the school liked gradual moderation, but the coach’s influence had to be nullified quickly.

***

“You know, there’s a difference between motivating and just yelling,” Coach Anderson said, sipping his coffee in the teacher’s lounge.

“Oh, I’m not just yelling; I want the fear in the boys, too,” Frank replied, taking a too-big bite of coffee cake, crumbs falling to his chin.

“No. Fear doesn’t work. There’ve been enough studies and enough teams examined to know that it doesn’t build winning teams.”

“Excuse me for pointing out, Coach,” Frank said with derision, as he spat a few crumbs. “You don’t exactly have a winning record to prove your point.”

The Head Coach felt anger and disgust for this man, but it washed away. He nodded. “Not the last two seasons, no; we were a game or two ahead three years before that and made the playoffs the year before that. It depends on the mix of kids we get, but there’s also been a shift in the district.’

“What, you’re saying the district supports losing seasons?”

“No; I’m saying the district came to the conclusion that the purpose of an athletics department is not to turn out NFL players. It’s to round out a student, keep them fit, and help them move into college. That’s where they turn out NFL players. Every so often a school will have a student that goes all the way.”

“I disagree. Not with the last part; I think the NFL is a great career opportunity and we should do everything we can to prepare our athletes for professional performance levels.”

Coach Anderson disagreed with the idea of the NFL as a ‘great career opportunity’–the statistics were overwhelmingly against a young athlete having a career if he focused entirely on football–but held that for another time. He held a hand up.

“Westmont is the football powerhouse here. Five district championships, two state titles. Shoreline is like us, either a losing season or break-even. So which has the better prospect for a kid that wants in the NFL?”

“Westmont, hands down. I’ve been to a bunch of their games. You’re right, there; they are a powerhouse. Damned good team.”

“Well, they seem so, but here’s the point. With all their trophies, Westmont has not produced a single NFL player. Not in twenty years; not one guy has gone all the way. A lot of scholarships and the guys went on with their lives, but not in football. Shoreline, in the same twenty years? Three made it to the NFL. So the trophies aren’t everything, as far as the NFL goes.”

“Shoreline? Three? I don’t believe it.”

The Head Coach ticked them off on his fingers. “Jake Randall with Miami. Dwayne Butterfield with the Patriots. Darryl Stangelini with the Forty-Niners. All from Shoreline.” He grinned. “You know Mike Blanton, the new QB for the Bears?”

“Sure, outta Stanford.”

“Outta Hill Street High, first!” Coach Anderson grinned, pointing to the tabletop. “My first year here.”

Frank’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “No way.”

“Yep,” Coach Anderson nodded. “A good kid. Little weak in the legs at first. But the point is, the majority of high school football players don’t go to the NFL.”

“My boys will!”

“Maybe Tommy,” Coach Anderson nodded. “Needs work on his game. Patrick …well, he should be in freshman ball.”

“See, that’s where I disagree. They don’t call Tommy ‘Tear-em-up’ for nothing. His defensive skills are solid. And I really don’t agree with you about Patrick. He plays hard and shouldn’t be held back.”

“It’s not being held back. It’s the physical reality. He doesn’t have the size or speed.” He paused. “Or the motivation, so far.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve seen your boys together. Patrick obviously idolizes Tommy. But he mainly follows. I haven’t seen him lead on his own.”

“Thanks for that, Coach,” Frank nodded. “I know now where he has to work. Speed and motivation.”

He thought, and I’ve got the belt at home to motivate him.

***

The school was horrified. It knew two things from experience with adults: It was hard to get into their minds at first, and adjusting family dynamics could only work if it could get both husband and wife on the grounds. For this reason, it was time to work a different angle.

***

“May I have your attention, please?” Mr. Harris called out, and the room noise subsided. He smiled. “I want to thank you all for being here for our first Teacher Night, and what we hope will be the start of a new tradition. I want to thank District Commissioner Wakefield for suggesting it.”

There was polite applause.

Frank looked around the room. “Bunch of stuffed shirts,” he mumbled to his wife.

Kathleen McMahon thought the group looked lovely; certainly they were better dressed than her husband. She’d wanted him to put on a tie but he’d refused, even telling her she was getting ‘too gussied up’ when she’d put on her one church dress. She felt dowdy compared to the other wives, but she was, sadly, used to it.

“Suppose we should mingle?” she suggested to Frank, who half-snorted.

“What would I have to mingle with? Only one I need to talk to–besides Harris–is Anderson.” His eyes studied the Head Coach, in a dark suit, white shirt and red tie. He looked like a damned banker, not a coach. His wife was pretty and probably sold real estate, he chuckled to himself. Talk to Anderson? Not a chance. “And I don’t even need to do that. I talk to him enough on the field.”

“Well, I’d like some more punch,” his wife said. She paused, and when he didn’t volunteer to get it for her, she sighed. “Can I get you anything?”

“Naw; I’m fine,” Frank said, raising his little plastic cup.

As Kathleen headed towards the punchbowl, she couldn’t help but overhear the comments from the teachers and their wives or husbands. Sometimes it was about a car, or something about where they worked, or a new housepainter they recommended, but often it was either about their children or their students. Statistically they were probably equal between boys and girls, but as she moved through the room, most of the comments were about wonderful daughters or girl students. This one was so pretty at her graduation, or that one is such an accomplished violinist. And all along, how thoughtful they were, and how friendly, and how pretty, and how proud the adults were.

Kathleen felt bitter envy wash over her. She had two lumpy, loutish sons and a lumpy, loutish husband. She would have to continue to suffer in silence. Perhaps her boys might surprise her and give her something she could brag about at next year’s Teacher Night …

But it would have been so nice to have at least one daughter …and maybe two would have made all the difference in the world. Maybe made a difference in her husband, too.

***

The school felt the McMahon woman had been nudged in the right direction. It was time to focus on the main source of disharmony. But it couldn’t ignore the boys, either. They were disrupting classes and were feared in the hallways already.

***

“What the hell?” Tommy yelled as he stared at his locker.

“What?” Patrick said, opening his own.

“This. Did you do this?” Tommy said, pointing.

“What?” Patrick said again. “Your books?”

“Naw; this,” Tommy said, gingerly pulling out some white fabric between thumb and forefinger.

Patrick stared at it. It was girl’s underpants. Panties, he corrected himself. With lace and a little bow.

“No, I didn’t have …” Patrick looked at his brother. “I swear to God, Tommy; I had nothing to do with that! I don’t even know your locker combination! You sure you didn’t get lucky or something?”

Tommy frowned and then stared at his brother’s opening locker. Patrick followed his gaze and actually jumped back a step. There, on the pile of clothing, was pair of white lace panties.

Patrick stared. “What the …”

Before he could say the obscenity, Danny came walking in and headed towards his locker.

“Hey, Holding, very funny,” Tommy called out.

“It’s Halding, actually,” Danny said. “And what’s funny?”

“This,” Tommy said, waving the panties.

“These,” Patrick said, nodding towards his locker.

“Oh, the prankster’s back,” Danny nodded. “My first year, there was somebody messed with the lockers for awhile.”

The McMahons moved as one towards Danny. Tommy said menacingly, “Only prankster I see here is you, Holding.”

Danny didn't correct him on the name. “What’re you talking about? I don’t even know your combinations.”

“You been here, what, three, four years? You’d have time to learn them,” Tommy said threateningly.

“Yeah. You could know them already,” Patrick added.

Moving suddenly, Tommy slammed Danny against the lockers with his forearm across Danny’s throat.

“I think you’re the prankster,” he growled. “Gimme back my underpants!”

Danny thought about how ludicrous the statement was but kept calm. “Don’t have ‘em. Tell you what. Let me see if he hit me, too.”

Tommy’s eyes narrowed.

Patrick said, “Who hit you?” He paused. “Oh; the prankster?”

“There is no prankster,” Tommy said, “Only this guy!”

But he backed off and Danny straightened up and spun the combination to his locker, keeping his body blocking the numbers from the boys. He opened the door. Tommy rushed and pulled it open quickly. There, hanging on a hook, were a matching pair of white lace panties.

Danny laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Patrick glared.

“He probably …he probably got a three-pack!”

The McMahons didn’t see any humor, although a vision of a three-pack of brightly colored panties flashed through Patrick’s mind.

Danny shrugged. “I learned the only thing to do is wear the damn things. Or go commando if you want. The guy gets bored after awhile and things are back to normal.”

“You wear ‘em,” Tommy challenged.

“I will,” Danny nodded. “I learned it’s the easiest way. Then, no hassles.” He looked at the guys. “I’ve gotta get changed for gym.” The McMahons didn’t move. Danny shrugged. “You wanna watch?”

The challenge worked; they both retired to their end of the locker room. Danny got into shorts and regulation tee and headed out to the fields.

“We’re gonna be late for class,” Tommy said.

“What about these?” Patrick said with disgust.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going commando,” Tommy said, tossing the new panties in the trash bin.

“Yeah, commando,” Patrick nodded.

***

The school congratulated itself for listening so closely and taking action, adding panties to Danny’s locker in time. The McMahons never figured that if Danny had been the prankster, it would have been an easy set-up to divert suspicion. But Danny was such an obviously nice guy, even the thuggish McMahons knew he wasn’t responsible.

There were two other lessons learned: The boys were now aware of a prankster, and that Patrick would always mirror his big brother. Therefore, all of the attention should be focused on the big brother.

After the father …

***

During the regular Parents’ Night, Kathleen spent some time as the Coach’s Wife and some time alone, as the mother of two students, while Frank stayed in the gym to talk with parents. As the Coach’s Wife, she could feel the dislike her husband had generated in the boys and their parents. Usually it was mothers who were upset, but several fathers also called Frank’s rough coaching methods into question. They had been through high school and college sports themselves and knew that Frank’s methods were extreme.

After a time, Kathleen felt so embarrassed to be on the receiving end of things that she excused herself to speak with the boys’ teachers.

“Yeah, sure, go on,” Frank said with a wave of his hand.

Kathleen’s lips tightened. “Since you’ve taken the coaching position here, you haven’t paid any attention to their schooling, only to the football teams.”

“So? That’s where they have the greatest potential. Who cares if they can conjudate a verb or know what country Sweden‘s in?”

Kathleen had only a high school education; she’d dropped out of college to marry the football hero Frank McMahon. But even she knew the word was ‘conjugate’ and that Sweden was a country. Her lips tightened even more.

She’d left the gym to avoid future embarrassment, but felt embarrassment of a different nature in the classrooms. Her sons were mostly C- and D students, although Patrick had surprised everyone once with at B- in English. When she looked at sample papers in the various classrooms, she knew how vastly superior they were to the work her boys produced. Well, academics weren’t important in the McMahon house, she thought.

Then she corrected herself. Why weren’t they? And wasn’t she part of the McMahon house, too? And weren’t academics important to her? They had been, at one time, but after years of living with Frank …

She sighed and walked on. Depressed about her boys’ school performance, she decided she’d just look at the families. And then she found yet a new form of embarrassment–stemming from how radically different the McMahon household was from the families she saw. Polite, friendly boys proudly showed off their work, receiving hugs from their mothers and handshakes from their fathers. Boys whose eyes radiated intelligence and …and a kind of future. But it was the girls who made her most embarrassed about the McMahon shortcomings. The girls were so sweet, and all seemed very pretty, and so loving with their families, that Kathleen felt pangs of jealousy, envy, and a great sadness that she hadn’t had daughters.

Perhaps that would have been the answer. If Frank had given her daughters, she could have molded the family dynamic more to a loving one, rather than the blustery macho posturing she lived with. All the yelling. All the anger. Anger all the time …

***

The school was astonished at the anger in the gym. Parent Nights were usually placid, happy affairs with a lovely buzz of shared community, and the school and all within concluded the night with a warm sense of contentment. But people were arriving determined to ‘give that coach a piece of my mind’–as the school heard from many thoughts–and as much as the school attempted to dampen the anger, it had no effect; the collective rage was just too strong.

***

Frank McMahon yelled, “Because winning is the only thing that matters!”

“What about teamwork?” one father yelled back.

“What about good sportsmanship?” another yelled.

Frank laughed. “Good sportsmanship? That’s a phrase invented by losers to give them excuses for poor performance. Look, everybody, hold it down!”

He held both hands up to stifle the crowd, who refused to stifle.

One woman called out, “Are you trying to turn my son into someone like yourself?”

“He could do a lot worse!” Frank snapped back.

***

The school was appalled. Never, NEVER had anything like this happened before. Peace and harmony was impossible to achieve; everyone was so fired up that any sense of calm was impossible. The parents’ rage was too great for the school to calm. And nothing the school did seemed to have any effect on the red-faced, yelling coach. So the school had a radical thought: Maybe go the other way …maybe nudge the anger up just a notch, just a bit …so even a dullard like Frank McMahon could finally understand the truth–that it was his coaching methods that were at fault, not the parents’ perceptions. Ramp things up just a tiny bit so it would be obvious to him and he would back off and see the light …

***

“Failure to achieve is not going to be rewarded!” Frank roared. “Now, I know a lot of you come from that whole thing about ‘character building’ and that nonsense where the kid gets a trophy just for showing up, like those hippies that play soccer–”

“Did I hear you right?” one man demanded. “You said ‘hippies that play soccer’? I’ll have you know my son played on a select team that won the state championship–”

“In soccer,” Frank sneered. “Not a real sport. Running up and down with a ball. Kindergarten stuff.”

“Soccer is the most popular sport in the world!” a woman declared, shocked.

Frank snorted. “That’s what they want you to believe! Nobody plays it outside of posh little suburbia, with your pretty SUVs and all that. Not a real sport like football.”

“Soccer’s called ‘football’ everywhere else in the world, you idiot!” one man raged.

“It’s not called it here because football is football!” Frank raged back. “But I’m not here to tell you that football is a sport–hell, we all know that. It’s to say that the days of coddling little girly boys is over! We’re turning out football players, not faggots! And as long as I–”

“Faggots? Did you actually say that?” another man yelled. “You’re a disgrace!”

“I’ll tell you what’s a disgrace!” Frank roared, his face turning purple. “This idea that you can win football games without sweat. Without blood and effort and not being held back by faggot ideas like character building,” he sneered. “Which is just another word for losing!”

“It’s two words, you cretin!” a woman shouted. “And you’re wrong anyway!”

“I’m not wrong! Your whole way of doing things is–is …”

The crowd stared as he froze, mouth open with white flecks of spittle dotting his purple chin, tilted his head at an extreme angle, swayed, and plummeted to the ground, hitting a desk with his head on the way down.

For a moment, nobody moved towards him.

***

The school was as shocked as the crowd of angry parents. There was a suspended moment and the school immediately flooded the room with a soothing feeling, expending every bit of energy it could. Another suspended moment while the school tried to think what to do about the fallen man. It knew that it could affect the physical nature of the people within its grounds, but it seemed beyond its power to save Frank McMahon. For too long, the school had been concerned only with maintaining equilibrium, it berated itself. Just to harmonize between boys and girls, children and teachers and parents. It took a nudge here, a suggestion there …It didn’t know what to do about a stroke victim.

Just as the people were calming, the school calmed, too. It was all how you looked at something, it suddenly reasoned. The school knew from exposure to the tirades of the Coach that his was an iron will driven by ignorance and fear. The school had not been able to break through to Frank McMahon but perhaps the fact that he was unconscious …

Tentative feelers were extended towards the man and the school recoiled at the disaster that had boiled in his brain. The school was aware of its own physicality; it knew about its own furnace and air circulation system, and so on; and it knew when things were wrong, and would adjust accordingly. The feeling from Frank McMahon was very wrong, and therefore the school could tell that Frank’s systems were shutting down.

Frank McMahon would be dead in minutes.

The school ceased the calming influence–the screaming had died down and people were dialing 911–and began a full-scale attempt to save Frank. The school knew that even this horrible man did not deserve to die, and that the negative energy of his death would affect everyone and the school itself.

Thinking of Frank’s body like the school’s own machinery, the school looked to analogues while keeping heart and respiration going. The physical complexity of the human brain was a shock to the school, who worked with thoughts and feelings and emotions but not arteries, veins, and tissue.

Got it! A rupture there, like a break in a steam line that had once threatened the school’s boiler …and the bleeding was stopping. The school reduced circulation to a bare minimum, like dimming lights to conserve energy but not quite turning them off.

In the distance, sirens grew louder.

End of Part 1