Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader (2 page)

Maria expertly spread the mayonnaise onto the bread with a couple of strokes of the knife, laid some deli ham onto it, cut the sandwich in half and slipped it into a baggy. She noticed the coffee pot was about half-full, turned toward the kitchen table and said in her English accent, “Fancy another cup of coffee, Judge?”

Judge Anthony Crowne Sr., as if pondering a mighty legal question, slowly looked up from the sports section of his morning newspaper which was parked between his plate of bacon and eggs and his empty cup. Judge Crowne was a huge football fan and he always said that if he didn’t get a chance to read the sports in the morning, then the whole day was wrecked. He looked at the coffee pot in Maria’s hand, looked into his cup once again and then replied in his best courtroom voice, “One more cup of joe won’t hurt me. Don’t mind if I do, thank you Maria.”

Maria grabbed the coffee pot from the warmer, walked over to the kitchen table, positioned it above the Judge’s cup and began pouring.

CRACK! BOOM!

Maria’s arm automatically jerked at the first sound and she poured the coffee over the Judge’s newspaper while at the second sound she moved the pot over just enough to make the bacon and eggs swim in coffee. As Maria was giving his breakfast and newspaper a bath, the Judge rose from his chair, his mouth forming a gigantic “Oh, No!” as his left arm knocked the coffee pot out of Maria’s hand which spun in mid-air, swirling the black liquid over the clean kitchen floor in a less than artistic arc.

The Judge’s right arm, in trying to steady his balance, plopped onto the kitchen table and clipped his breakfast plate, rocketing it into the air like a gigantic flip of a coin. The bacon, by virtue of its weight, was the first to fly off the plate, with one strip ricocheting off the Judge’s forehead and the other strip cartwheeling over his shoulder and onto the coffee-slicked floor. The eggs, fried sunny-side up, were the next to exit the plate, taking a higher lift-off than the bacon, the eggs followed a trajectory that allowed them to gracefully fall onto the Judge’s head, yolk down.

Following behind the bacon and the eggs, the coffee that Maria poured into the Judge’s plate, performed a tiny ocean-wave like motion and splatted the Judge’s shirt and pants as the breakfast plate spun over and over in the air. The Judge, with yolk rolling down his face, tried to catch the spinning plate, but the plate was too slippery and the Judge succeeded in only knocking it harder into the floor where it shattered into tiny pieces.

Dogs, by their nature, seem to have an extra sense of knowing the exact moment when food touches the floor. In the Crowne household, the standing rule is any food that lands on the floor belongs to Curly mainly because the “three second rule” is about two seconds too slow if Curly is anywhere in the house.

Once, when Tony was training Curly with hand signals, Curly just completed a successful “Sit-Stay” command when Tony tossed a treat toward him for a reward. At the same time, a baby carrot had escaped from Maria’s cutting board where she was preparing salads for dinner, bounced onto the floor and was rolling towards Curly. In his best shortstop imitation, Curly turned and fielded the rolling carrot first, snagged the tumbling treat out of the air and then happily munched on the vegetable/treat combo. Tony was duly impressed.

As soon as the Judge’s first strip of bacon lightly touched upon the ceramic floor, Curly stopped licking Tony’s face, his ears lifted and his head shot up in full dog-like attention and he emitted what can only be described as a human-voiced “Huh!” When the second strip of bacon splatted onto the coffee-drenched floor a second later, Curly had turned the corner into the kitchen and was barreling towards his meaty reward at top speed. Unfortunately, Curly did not anticipate the coffee puddle looming in front of him and he certainly didn’t anticipate the human legs which were poised like bowling pins before him.

Curly’s attempt to apply his brakes was too late and had no effect on his momentum, as he was positioned like the Great Sphinx of Giza and no amount of backpedaling with his front paws would help. He slid head first into Maria’s left leg which lifted her into the air, flailing her arms and legs up and landing on her back with a big “Oomph!” Still sliding on the slick tile, but rebounding off of Maria’s leg and gaining more speed, Curly twirled into the Judge’s back legs knocking him upwards like an over-sized Raggedy Andy. He landed with a deeper and louder “Oomph!” than Maria.

Curly, his fur now wet and sticky from the spilled coffee, spun another half-turn from his encounter with the Judge and slammed into the kitchen cabinets with a thunderous boom. The shock wave from Curly’s body rattled the kitchen counter top and knocked over a canister which made a lazy roll along the counter-edge, spilling its pure white flour all over Curly and making him appear like a half-mad polar bear. Curly, stunned for a second and panting heavily, curiously sniffed the air and found a pleasant aroma emanating from somewhere under him. Chuffing and snorting, he dug out from beneath his chest two strips of bacon and a rubbery mess of fried eggs and downed the feast in two gulps. Satisfied with his meal, he got up, padded over to the humans and licked their faces.

Tony and Anthony Jr., in the midst of getting up from Tony’s broken bed, heard first one thud then a second thud followed by a loud bang. They took one look at each other and raced down the staircase three steps at a time. When they rounded the corner and peered into the kitchen, they saw what appeared to be Maria and the Judge sprawled on the floor, their clothes soaked through with some sort of black juice, the Judge’s face covered with egg yolk and a snow-white Curly delightedly licking first one face then the other.

As Tony looked up at Anthony Jr., Anthony Jr. looked down at Tony and they both took one more quizzical look into the kitchen before turning to each other and uttering in a kind of long, drawn out whisper, “Uh-oh, Mom’s gonna be mad!”

Chapter 3- The Fight

The bell for the end of the last period of school rang promptly at 3:55 pm and Tony was looking forward to going to football practice. He liked football, loved it actually, even though as the back-up quarterback for the Dersee Bobcats, the only time he would get into any games on offense would be for mop-up duty or when the starter would get injured. Tony did start as an outside linebacker and was known for being a sure tackler.

Nick Miller, the starting quarterback, was everything a coach desired in a key player: a great attitude, a strong arm for a ten year old, running the ball he was lightning-quick and could change his direction instantly. Not only that, but as the safety on the defense, he was the team’s leading tackler. Tony had an average arm, was an average runner and was second in total tackles. Where Tony did excel was in his football intelligence.

While his other teammates struggled with Coach Tiny’s expansive and intricate playbook, Tony had it memorized in a few days and was tutoring Nick Miller on the finer points of the trick plays. He even found a few mistakes that Coach Tiny sheepishly had to correct.

Coach Paul “Tiny” Meyer was anything but tiny, he stood 6 feet 6 inches, weighed close to 320 pounds and had gigantic forearms with huge tree-like legs. He had been an all-pro offensive left tackle for six years, but played for an overall miserable team that never came close to making the playoffs. He asked, pleaded, begged and demanded a trade to a contending team, but the team owner always refused his requests and, becoming disenchanted with the business of pro football, he retired at the relatively young age of 28.

Coach Tiny saved and invested his earnings from pro football well, owning several businesses in Dersee such as his downtown restaurant, “Tiny’s” which serves as the popular hangout for most of the people in town, the largest boat marina on Lake Haerr—appropriately named “Meyer’s Marina”— and he just closed a deal to purchase lake-front property in which he planned to build and develop affordable homes for, as he likes to say, “the common folk, you know, like me.”

But, Coach Tiny’s first love was, and is, football. He also knew that when he was 10 years old and in pee wee football, not in high school, not in college, not in the pros, but pee wee football was the absolute best time he ever had playing the game, just playing football for the pure enjoyment of the game itself.

Which is why when he retired from professional football and returned to live in Dersee year round, he was stunned to learn that the Dersee Bobcats team was on the verge of being disbanded because the team could not find a volunteer coach for that season and the pee wee league’s rules stated very clearly, “...each team must have a permanent head coach before the start of league play or said team will not be allowed to compete...” In a storybook fashion, Coach Tiny volunteered minutes before the first game, the Bobcats had a perfect regular season, captured the league championship and Coach Tiny became more of a living legend than he already was in Dersee. Now, years later, he was still the head coach, still winning most of his games and crowing to everyone who would listen that he was the Dersee Bobcats’, “Coach for life, baby, coach for life!”

Heading towards his locker, walking with his head down and shifting his backpack full of books to the opposite shoulder, Tony rounded the corner of the school hallway pondering when it might be safe to go back home and face his mother—

BAM!

At the intersection of the main hallway and the student locker hallway, Tony Crowne’s head met Judd Judson’s iron chest with a direct hit. Judd hadn’t been looking either as he swung around his corner, but Tony was much the worse for it, realizing what the phrase “seeing stars” actually meant. For a split-second, Tony did black out as he windmilled his arms and backpedaled furiously to keep his balance, his backpack flying off and bouncing on the floor behind him. Tony almost kept his balance, but his right foot stepped awkwardly on his backpack which was enough to throw him for another loop, land on his back and do a mini-slide down the hallway.

Judd peered downward, rubbed his chest a few times, scrunched his face, recognized who he ran into and said, “Hey! That kinda hurt! Why don’t you watch where you’re goin’ little feller, I coulda squished you like an ant! Get it? An ant! Haw-har-haw-har!”

As Tony laid on the floor and regained his senses, a crowd began to gather around them, first a couple of boys, then a trio of girls, more boys and more girls sidled up to the scene, until it seemed like the whole school was surrounding Judd and Tony, waiting to see what would happen between the new kid and “Ant.”

Tony shook the cobwebs out of his head in time to hear Judd’s remark about squishin’ him like an ant. Hearing Judd laughing at him also made his blood boil. Tony, without thinking, rolled over, wiped the shank of curly black hair out from his eyes, rose to one knee and catapulted himself in a classic tackling mode toward Judd’s towering figure. Judd, grinning from ear to ear, deftly sidestepped Tony’s attempt to tackle him, with Tony grabbing nothing but air and he went sailing past Judd and into the locker behind him. Tony cushioned himself for the impact with his outstretched arms, but the force of his body hitting the locker knocked him down to one knee.

“Hey, little buddy you better be more careful, you might hurt yourself,” a still smiling Judd said. “Here, lemme help you up,” Judd said as he leaned toward Tony and stuck his meaty hand out to him.

A collection of “O-o-o-h’s!” and “Ah-h-h’s” emanated from the crowd along with a few “Fight!, Fight!” yells after Tony banged into the steel locker door and a big “WHAM!” echoed throughout the hallway. Tony, now more embarrassed than angry, began to use his mind to size up the situation between him and Judd.

As Judd’s right hand floated before his eyes, Tony recalled a wrestling move that his Dad had taught him. He remembered his Dad specifically telling him that no matter what size the person is, if you get them off balance, then half the war is won. Okay Dad, he thought, here goes nothing.

With a feigned look of resignation, Tony looked down at the floor and said, “Aw, okay, I’m finished.” Then he grabbed Judd’s hand to help himself up.

As soon as Tony stood up, he swung his left hand around, latched onto Judd’s wrist and with both hands jerked down as hard as he could. Judd couldn’t help but take a baby step towards Tony and that was all the opening that Tony needed. In a move his Father would be proud of, Tony lunged forward and grabbed Judd’s right leg with both arms, brought Judd’s leg up into his chest, bumped Judd again and stood straight up. Now, Tony was in command. He had his left arm tightly wound around Judd’s left leg with his foot securely stuck in his armpit and had him hopping around on his right leg like he was on a pogo stick.

Judd wasn’t smiling anymore. He was completely surprised and in between his short hops, uttered a quick and high-pitched, “Hey, what’re ya doin’, Ant?” Tony, seeing how successful he had been so far, decided it was time to finish off his Dad’s wrestling move, before Judd could do anything about it.

Tony, tightly pinching Judd’s heel with his elbow so he can’t turn away from him, straightens up as high as he can, swings his right arm down into Judd’s inner thigh and with a slight slapping noise, is able to pull and twist Judd’s knee towards him. Since Judd is so off balance, Tony easily spins Judd’s entire body around and plants him into the hallway floor with a resounding “THWACK!” Judd lands on his hands and one knee, while Tony still has control over him by keeping his left leg up in the air.

Once again, more “O-o-o-h’s” and “A-a-a-h’s” from the crowd rained down upon Tony’s ears, yet this time, he was glad to hear them and raised the corners of his mouth in a slight smile as he looked around at the faces of the boys and girls like the winning gladiator in the Roman coliseum.