Popping Cherry
By Alana Church
The room was quiet, as if all within were waiting for some unspoken signal. Sam Reynolds took a deep breath and signed the papers in front of him. With a nervous glance at his father, who was lurking near his elbow, he dialed the number on the fax machine and placed the papers in the input slot. A series of beeps, a quiet whir, and they slid through the machine and were deposited in the tray below.
He held his breath as the machine dialed the number of the athletic department at Indiana State University. From the ancient device came the high-pitched squeal of a fax tone, abruptly cut off as the receiving machine answered. Several agonizing minutes later, the machine came to life again, producing a single piece of paper. Before anyone else could pick it up, he snatched it out of the tray.
Fax received, he read.
“Congratulations, Sam.” He turned to see Coach Myrick, his beefy face creased in a grin, and shook his offered hand. “Philippi High doesn't produce many college athletes. Maybe you can set a trend.”
“I hope so,” he said.Fat chance, he thought.
“Waste of goddamn time,” his father put in, spitting tobacco juice into a dixie cup in punctuation. “I still don't know why you have to go and live with a bunch of damn yankees up north. That fellow from Southern Miss offered a scholarship, too.”
“Only if some of his other commits bailed on him, Pop,” he said, tired of the familiar argument. “Which they haven't. I can't take the chance of him pulling the ride. Indiana State's offer was firm. And do you really think I'd get time as a walk-on in Hattiesburg? I'd never see the field. At least I'll be playing up there. Hell, I should be grateful. Signing day was three months ago. If Indiana State didn't have three defensive backs go down in spring practice, they would never have even called.”
“The pissant Missouri Valley Conference,” he grunted sourly, but didn't disagree. “Good luck catching a pro scout's eye there.”
“We'll be playing some Big Ten teams in the non-conference, Pop. And the Big Twelve. Maybe even the SEC. Come on, let it rest, would you? We both know I'm never going to make the NFL. I'm not as good as you were.”
It was a blatant effort to change the topic, but Hank Reynolds perked up at the mention of his own football career, a career that grew in magnitude the further away he got from his high school days. “Yeah. Did I ever tell you about the time I had five sacks against Yazoo City?”
Only about a thousand times. Maybe two thousand.
“I remember,” Coach Myrick, who had been a linebacker on the same team, put in with a wry grin. “Wasn't that the time the entire team came down with food poisoning, and the offensive line was so sick they could barely stand up?”
Hank squinted at him suspiciously, then let out a loud laugh. Sam winced as it rang through the tiny room. “Come on, Pop. Let's get on home. Mom looks like she's going to pass out, it's so crowded in here.” He guided his cheerful, well-padded mother out of the office and into the hallway, sighing in relief as they left the office.
One step closer to getting out of this damn town, he thought, as he walked with his mother towards the exit. His sister Wendy trailed behind them silently. The familiar smells of the school, of chalk dust and old books and floor wax, were ignored in his inner jubilation.God, I can't wait.
“You won't forget about us when you're up there, will you, Samuel?”
He looked down at his proud mother, almost regretting his decision to leave home and go to college five hundred miles away. Her beaming smile was belied by a shrewd look in her eyes that she usually tried to disguise.
Instead of saying anything he might regret later, he put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in for a quick hug. “Never. I'll never forget where I came from.”
And I'll never forget how hard I had to work to get away, either.
*****
“By the way,” his father grunted, as they ate their dinner later that evening, “your Uncle Bobby Lee and Aunt Cynthia are coming up from Tupelo the weekend after next. Bobby Lee and I are going to be doing some work on that fucking Dodge. Maybe we can get the damn thing running again, and you won't have to borrow my truck when you need to go somewhere.
“And you can start looking for a job as soon as graduation is over, too,” he said, stabbing a gravy-covered fork at him for emphasis, heedless of the way drops spattered on the table. “I'm not going to have you lazing around the house all summer.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, hiding an internal sigh. “Actually, I already got a job stocking shelves at the Piggly Wiggly in Winona. I told you last week.”
“Huh. Okay. Even more reason for us to
