Work Text:
When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverseAnd the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
~From "Fix You" by Coldplay~
The knock at the door, firm and businesslike, came during a Sunday afternoon in August, right in the middle of a pre-season review of last year's game film. Eric waited for Tami to get it, but then remembered that she and Gracie were swimming down at the pool.
The knock came again, only this time it was "shave and a hair cut". Eric swore under his breath and went to get the door. Whipping it open, he opened his mouth to tell whoever it was that he wasn't buying, had already given at the office, and had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, but found himself unable to say a word.
JD McCoy smiled at him and said, "I want a real coach, Coach."
Eric opened the door wider, stepped back, and found his words, "Come on in."
****
As he studied the boy-man across the table from him -- JD had gained another two inches in height and filled out in the shoulders -- it dawned on Eric that underneath a bit of fidgety excitement, JD seemed more relaxed and happy than Eric remembered seeing him look before. "How are your folks?" he asked after a moment.
JD shrugged. "Well enough, I guess." Then, quickly, "I haven't seen my dad in awhile --" he couldn't entirely suppress the bittersweet expression that crossed his face, "I'm living with my mom now. She's doing okay. Still not talking to Dad, except through a lawyer."
Eric nodded at that.
"So, I looked up where you were coaching, now that you've left Dillon, and asked Mom if we could come here so that you could coach me again."
Eric steepled his fingers and said, "She must have mixed feelings about that." The falling out between Tami and Katie McCoy had been absolute and bitter after the incident with Child Protective Services. It hadn't made things easy for him and JD, either.
"Why do you think I'm here by myself?" JD chortled. "But she agrees that you were my best coach." JD fidgeted with the coaster underneath his glass, before his eyes,surprisingly hard, flicked back up. "You stood up to my dad, and the boosters, and ..." he sucked in a deep breath "and Mom's happy to have the Mississippi, the Appalachians, and a timezone between her and Dad. I think she'd be happier if it was an ocean, though."
Eric laughed at that. "You allowed to eat chips now?"
JD's grin spread from ear to ear. "Yeah. I like Pringles best."
"Don't have Pringles, just some gourmet ones left over from when Julie visited. Grab a seat on the couch and you tell me what you see in last year's film."
****
Dinner that night was Hamburger Helper and green beans. Even if their past history meant that the conversation was a little stilted and awkward at times,Tami was happy to see JD again, happy to see him doing well, and JD scored major points with her by making silly faces at Gracie Belle when she started fussing.
****
JD showed up to his first practice,15 minutes early, on a mountain bike.
Eric mock glowered at him and said, "I'm still going to make you earn your place as my QB 1."
"I know that, Coach."
Eric ushered him into the locker room. "Here, let me introduce you to the rest of the coaches."
"Coach ... just so you know, Mom and I, we're going by her maiden name right now, so --"
"I understand."
JD smiled weakly. "It's Sumpter. I want to be called JD Sumpter."
****
Eric let them go about an hour after dark.
"You know what I just realized, fellas?" He said to the expectant faces looking at him. "That we got a long way to go, gentlemen. A long way to go." Not as long as with the Lions, but with the Pioneers, at least he didn't have to start from scratch. "Y'know what? I'm looking forward to it." With JD on the team, the offense now had potential to equal the strength of the defense.
He drew a deep breath. "Tonight, you go home, you get your studies done, you get your rest, 'cause you're going to be back here at 6am. That means no later than 5:45. Understood?"
"Yessir!" They shouted as one.
"Clear eyes, full hearts --" he started before he remembered he hadn't yet told them that one.
"Can't lose!" JD shouted loud and clear while the rest of the team looked on, puzzled.
Well, we'll deal with that later, Eric thought. "Grab a lap. Have a good night, gentlemen, good work today."
The other coaches wished him a good evening as they walked off the field towards the locker room. They had barely known him before today, but now, a few of them not only had acceptance in their eyes, but something better. Hope. Hope and enthusiasm.
He watched his team start their lap and noticed Tami coming towards him across the field.
It had been a long day, but a good one. It was going to be a good evening. He could see by the light in her eyes that Tami had a good day at work. He couldn't wait to hear about it.
****
"I see you riding that bike of yours hither and yon," Eric said to JD one morning before classes as JD locked the battered mountain bike to the rack with so many others.
JD blushed slightly. "Yeah, the Jeep got taken away my Junior year. Mom says I need to earn a car back, and even then, she's going to make me pay for insurance." He grinned a little crookedly. "I've got a job bussing tables and washing dishes, so, hopefully in a few months I'll have enough saved."
"Got your eye on any kind of car in particular?"
"One that runs," JD said a little grimly.
Right. Eric scratched at his hair under his cap and got down to business. "How are your grades?"
JD froze. "They could be a bit better," he replied after an uncomfortable pause.
Eric pinned him with a glare. "We're not going to have any problems with your eligibility." He wasn't asking JD. He was telling JD.
JD's expression brightened, "Well, I know this isn't Texas --"
"Damn straight this isn't Texas. Board here doesn't look the other way, doesn't let things slide on. Do I make myself clear?"
JD saluted, eyes twinkling. "Crystal, Coach."
****
Eric made JD do five suicides for shining him on about the grades. Except for a possible problem with the second half of his Junior transcript, JD's grades were outstanding so far this quarter: four B plusses and two A minuses.
"I want to be a scholar and an athlete," JD gasped out after he finished the suicides. "I'll get a better scholarship that way!"
Eric grinned at him, but the look in his eyes made it clear that JD better not jerk his chain that way again.
****
Tami smiled his favorite of all her many smiles as he snuggled up to her later that night in bed.
"Everything alright with JD?" she asked.
Eric snorted at her. "'Course everything's alright with him. His grades are up to snuff. He's a captain on the team, and he's actually learned to scramble a little -- a very little. Hell, he had two helpings of everything Sunday night at dinner. You saw that. Boy's fine."
Tami raised a slightly skeptical eyebrow. "I just think he looks a little ... frayed ... around the edges."
"Of course he's a little frayed around the edges. Boy's on track to make the honor roll, a varsity athlete, and he's working a job at a restaurant. 'Course he's frayed." What the hell is Tami getting at? Inspiration hit him. "Matt. Matt was more than a little frayed around the edges, and look how that turned out."
Tami cocked her head in that I-don't-know way of hers. "I'm thinking this is more like Vince Howard frayed at the edges, or Tim Riggins frayed."
Eric snorted. "Tim Riggins. Boy brought a lot of his wear and tear upon himself."
Tami laughed at what were clearly several memories involving Tim Riggins and/or the fallout of his misadventures while "making memories".
A wave of nostaliga crashed over him. "Do you miss it?" he asked.
"On cold winter days, yes, I'll be missing Dillon." Tami said flippantly, then paused and continued in a softer voice, "I'm Texas born and raised -- of course I miss Texas -- miss things about Texas. But I'm glad I'm here. This, the life we have now, the opportunities open to both of us ... that would've never happened in Dillon, probably not the rest of Texas, either." She reached over and stroked the side of his face with her finger. "What about you?"
Eric threw his arm over her and pulled her in closer, kissing her temple. "I miss Texas, too. But you're right. Philadelphia gives both of us opportunities. I'm half looking forward to this watching the leaves turn color thing that everybody's on about."
****
JD got sacked hard during the fourth quarter of their fourth game. Unlike their last two games (where they'd blown their opponents out of the water) the Pioneers were playing their traditional rivals, the Indians, and the two of them had traded scores all night long. At the moment, the Pioneers happened to be up by three points.
"Sorry I let you down, Coach." JD groaned he slung one arm over Eric's shoulder and another over Alex, the trainer's, and they started slowly walking him off the field.
"Don't be silly," Eric replied, picking a bit of sod out of the guard on JD's helmet. We'll send Safi in. He'll kick the field goal."
Before JD arrived, Eric had inhered a team with an undistinguished offense, except for Alonzo Safi, the Kicker, and also the star of the soccer team. Safi would probably get a scholarship based on his soccer skills, but more than one college had expressed interest in having him play for their football teams, too.
Eric got JD settled in the locker room, put his backup QB (who had been riding the bench, complaining of a sore throat) in to take the snap, sent Safi out to kick the field goal, and crossed his fingers that the defense could hold off the Indians for the next 10 minutes. Even if JD came back out and said he felt fine, no way would Eric put him back in the field, not after a hit that left him laid out like that.
****
They lost the game after the Indians pulled off the two point conversion with five seconds left on the clock.
The ride back, though not more than 30 minutes, was one of the most somber Eric ever remembered being on. There was a lot of pride invested in this particular game. A lot of pride.
****
When the bus pulled back into campus and they all trudged out, Alex took him aside and said, low and urgent, "I don't know about JD."
"Is he concussed?"
"Borderline."
Eric mmmed softly under his breath as, out of the corner of his eye, he watched JD talking with a few of the guys on the team and two of the cheerleaders. "Does he need to go to the hospital?" There usually wasn't too much partying going on after a loss, and probably not anything after this particular loss. Didn't mean that people wouldn't gather and lick their wounds, though.
"Maybe."
Eric snapped his attention to Alex. "Don't maybe me. Give it to me straight."
"And I'm giving you a straight up 'maybe'," Alex replied a little mulishly. "I don't want to slap some family that might not have insurance with a medical bill." He huffed out a pent up breath. "I think he'll probably be fine with a good night's rest, but I can tell you straight up, he shouldn't be riding his bike home." His eyes flicked over to JD, who had left the group, and was striding towards the bike rack.
"Did you call his mother?" Eric asked.
Alex rolled his eyes. "JD called her. She can't get off. They're short tonight."
"Remind me never to get into nursing," Eric muttered under his breath. He clapped Alex on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, Alex, I'll see him home. Give me some one on one time with him too."
****
"I'm fine, Coach, really," JD groused as he undid the lock on his bike.
"And I'm telling you -- telling you, not asking you -- that you're going to be putting that bike in the back of my SUV," Eric ground the words out. "It's not up to me what you do after you get home, but I think you should shower and go straight to bed. But I'm sure as hell going to make sure you get home in one piece. You took a hell of a hit out there. Hell of a hit."
"Coach ..." JD drew the word out, pleading.
Eric leaned in and said softly, "You think I give a damn about the house you live in, or the address? Is that what you're worried about? 'Cause I can tell you, son, you'd have to go pretty far down to be living in the worst house I've seen."
"My dad," JD swallowed hard and stared at his toes. "My dad's being a real prick about everything and Mom ... Mom hasn't had a job since I was born, so right now ...."
Eric nodded. "I understand."
****
The house JD was so ashamed of was a little brick bungalow, a starter home built in the 1950s, in a neighborhood that was probably a mixture of retirees and young professionals. The lawn needed mowing, and the trees and bushes looked a little scraggly, completely understandable given the constraints on JD and Katie's time. Eric sighed inwardly and made a mental note to see if JD and his mother needed a few small things done -- like getting the leaves out of the gutters.
The only other notable thing about JD's neighborhood were three houses with foreclosure notices on them. Starter homes for people who'd had the rug yanked out from under them by the downturn in the economy, though Philly had been hit less hard than other places. Hell, their presence probably explained how JD and his mother were able to afford a house in this neighborhood, as opposed to having to live in an apartment.
Eric helped JD get his bike out of the back of the SUV and waited to see that he got inside safely -- Katie had apparently forgotten to leave the porch light on -- before he took off.
****
On Monday Eric came to work to find a memo from the registration office in his email. JD's transcripts had some irregularities, and these needed to be sorted out as soon as possible, or they could impact JD's eligibility and graduation date.
Eligibility. The magic word. He picked up the phone and immediately called Sheila down in the admin office, barely waiting for her to say hello before blurting, "Will he be okay to play in this week's game?" Taylor, the backup QB's sore throat had turned into a raging case of strep over the weekend, and he would not be playing on Friday.
Sheila laughed and said, "Yes, JD can play this Friday. I was talking about his eligibility for next year -- if he's still with us."
"What?"
Sheila took a deep breath and explained that JD's first two years in Dillon were fine as was the first semester of his Junior year, though his grades had taken a huge nosedive, but it was the second semester of last year that caused the problems. "We don't have an official copy of his spring semester of last year -- we don't have anything, really, mostly just his and his mother's word that he was in school and he took certain classes. Apparently they lost the papers in the move. His standing as a senior is probationary. Until we get an official transcript from that school, we can't award the credits earned.
"Because of his age, if the transcript doesn't come through, he won't be able to participate in sports past May, and he won't get a diploma in June. He could earn some of the credits in summer classes, but --"
"What's the problem with the transcript?" Eric cut in. "Does the school want money for it or something?" The whole situation had him completely baffled.
"No. We can't even find the school they say he attended."
"What?!"
"Well -- they're probably remembering the name wrong. JD wasn't there very long, and from what his mother said, it was a very turbulent time, but, the point is --"
"Sheila, I know exactly how important it is for a senior athlete to have all his papers in order. I assure you, I'll get right on it, and that JD will have everything he needs to you as soon as is humanly possible."
Eric started that day's practice by making JD do 10 suicides and letting the rest of seniors know that it would be 25 if he or any other member of the coaching staff got any more surprise calls from the front office about paperwork or eligibility problems for the rest of the season. "Gentlemen," Eric announced, "failure to plan on your part causes emergencies on ours. Emergencies like figuring out who can we use to fill the gap caused by your failure to plan, emergencies like how to shuffle the offense and the defense. It causes emergencies on the part of your teammates, who also have to shuffle and hustle to fill the gap you made by not staying on top of your eligibility. Am I clear?"
"Yessir!" they all shouted.
After they had finished showering off the dust and sweat of practice, Eric called JD to his office. "Tell me I've heard the last of this drama with your records."
JD dragged his hands through his still damp curls, gazed up at the ceiling tiles, and sighed heavily. "Coach, there might be a bit of a problem with this. They say we owe them money. We don't. Mom's trying to get this straightened out, but with her working nights ...."
Eric dropped his voice. "How much?"
JD's face tightened. "Enough. Look," he pleaded, "I'll get this all straightened out, promise. But it might not be until spring. That's ... that's all I can say."
Eric took his cap off and laid it on his desk. "Hell, son, I dunno. It depends, but I can tell you, this -- it will complicate things with colleges."
JD smiled hopefully. "So that's a possibility, then? College and scholarships?"
Eric gave him his best do you even have to ask look and said, "'Course it is, JD. Now, I don't have quite the network I did back in Texas, but I am putting out feelers, and I'm getting some feelers, but I think we need to put a few more Ws behind your name before we get too much further."
JD studied his shoes, battered, but with some wear left in them -- not the kind of shoes he would have had back in Dillon -- and said, "So, about my Junior year. I ... I ... um ..." his face flamed red, and, unable to look up, in a voice thick with shame, he choked out, "I was doing drugs, Coach. Every day. So, my stats ..." he sucked in a deep breath and continued shakily, "It was so bad. I got kicked off the team about half way through the season when they caught me using in the locker room."
Eric came out from behind his desk, laid a hand on JD's shoulder, and spoke quietly, "Son." Beneath his hand he could feel JD shaking with emotion. "Son, look at me." JD looked up, his face instantly tightening, then crumpling, as he strained to hold it all back. Eric kept his voice gentle as he asked, "Are you doing drugs now? Are you in trouble?"
JD's eyes might have been watery, but his voice remained steady as he said, "No sir. I'm clean, Coach. At parties --" he stopped for a moment then soldiered on, "at parties, I don't have anything stronger than Coke -- I mean the soda," he added hastily. "I don't drink -- not even one beer -- not any more."
Eric squeezed his shoulder and smiled at him. "Good. Keep it that way. Now skedaddle on home and I'll see you tomorrow."
****
He told Tami, of course. He told Tami everything. (He'd be an idiot not to.)
She cupped his face in her hands and breathed the words as much as said them. "Jesus, Eric. I mean, his father once mentioned that he was taking the split between them hard, but ... damn."
Damn indeed.
"Well, at least we know who the team's designated driver is." Eric tried for a levity he didn't feel and failed.
Likewise, Tami tried for a smile and missed. "Yeah, at least there is that."
****
JD set a division record for most yards passed in a single game as the Pioneers handily won their next two games.
Penn State and Pittsburg made some boilerplate offers, but seeing as they didn't know about JD's first two years as a Dillon Panther, Eric made a mental note to put together a proper highlight reel for JD. If he finished the season strong, JD was sure to get offers, but if more collages realized that JD Sumpter = JD McCoy, there'd be real competition and better packages for him.
The recruiter from Shippensburg, in town to talk to Reggie, the team's Safety, also expressed an interest in talking with JD. "Nothing formal," he said, voice sounding slightly tinny over the connection, "I just want to meet him, not try to get a signed Letter of Intent --"
"Damn straight, you're not."
The recruiter laughed. "I'm here to lock up Reggie. I just want to talk to JD about what it means to be a Shippensburg Raider."
"Fine," Eric replied, forcing himself to relax when he realized he had a near death grip on the receiver. "But I'm telling you now that JD is serious when he says that he's not going to sign any paperwork before March. He's not a green kid." At least, I hope he's not still that green.
"I just want to talk --"
"Talking's all well and good. Boy's been through a lot, though. A lot. Don't lean on him too hard."
****
"So," JD began, the morning air just cool enough to give his words a hint of frost, "Where is Shippensburg?"
Good question. After morning practice ended, Eric managed to locate a map and they found it, tucked away in the hills to the west.
"What do you think?" JD asked, worrying at a hangnail. The rest of his nails looked as if they'd been trimmed with his teeth, too.
"Don't do that," Eric said, reflexively, reaching out for JD's hand. "Looks unprofessional."
"Oh." JD shifted and quickly sat back on his hands, and the gesture, and the blush staining his cheeks reminded Eric, for all that he'd grown and that his face had lost its boyish softness, JD was only 17 and was being asked to think about things, make plans that would shape the rest of his life. Some of his kids didn't have a whole lot riding on these choices, but others had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Some of these kids had been well prepared to make choices, others ... not so much. Some seemed like they were well prepared and still ended up stumbling straight into a hole.
A soft noise from JD jolted Eric back on track. "I think you're doing a very smart thing to wait until the season's over. A very smart thing."
JD smiled at that.
"Homecoming's the next game. You taking anybody to the dance?"
JD froze. "I don't do so well at dances."
Eric thought about that for a moment. "Don't be shy," he finally prodded. "You got your eye on a girl, go ask her. She'd be an idiot to say no to you."
"Leecia," JD finally whispered.
Eric frowned as he tried to put a face to the name, but Philadelphia wasn't Dillon. "What's stopping you?"
"A couple things, Coach." JD ticked off the points on his fingers. "I don't have a car, and I can't guarantee that I can get one. She just broke up and I don't think -- " he swallowed hard and continued in a thin voice, "I overheard her say that her parents won't let her date anybody who's not Hmong.
"Also, if I work the night of the dance, it's going to be busy that night, and I'll get a good split on the tips and I could use the money."
Eric reached out and ruffled JD's slightly too long hair, the familiarity of the gesture earning him a slightly surprised look. "And I'm telling you, talk to this Leecia of yours. Her parents might warm up to you."
JD gave a tiny smile and said in a slightly dreamy tone of voice, "Her Hmong name is Hli-Xia. She's in my chemistry class -- super smart."
"She your lab partner?"
JD shook his head, curls flying. "Munson's my lab partner. Leecia's two stations over."
Eric's eyes wandered up to the ceiling panels as the memories flooded through him. "When I was, oh, a little older than you are right now, there was this girl that I'd had my eye on for most of a year, only my dad didn't approve of her. Wild. Party girl. Didn't go to our church. Didn't live in the right neighborhood. Would distract me from football.
"Hell, I was already distracted from football just thinking about her, and all the rumors I'd heard about her, and all the guys who were her exes.
"But I'd seen some things that made me think that she might be all that --" Eric leered as he remembered what he'd heard, clearly shocking JD, who couldn't quite believe that Eric was telling him this, "and so much more. And I was curious about that more. Exactly what kind of more? How much more? So I asked her to the Winter Formal, knowing that my folks were going to have kittens."
"And?" JD's eyes glowed with curiosity.
"At first she said no -- thought I was shining her on -- but I convinced her I meant it. I wanted to take her." He paused for dramatic effect. "Best thing I ever did."
"What happened?" JD leaned forward in his eagerness to hear the answer.
"I married her. A couple years later, of course. But here's the thing, son. Even if it hadn't worked out, I would still be glad I did it, because at least I'd know or not if she was the person I thought she might be."
JD shuffled his feet nervously.
"Ask," Eric told him. "Find out."
****
"She's just a friend," JD said to Eric when he came over for Sunday dinner the day after the Saturday Homecoming dance.
But he smiled when he said it.
(And the way he smiled meant more to Eric than the Pioneers' 27-14 win on Friday.)
****
The phone call came in the middle of the night shortly before Thanksgiving.
In a daze, Eric got up, got dressed, got into the frosty cold of the garage, got into his SUV and drove, got to the hospital.
All the while the words rattled around in his head like loose change in the drier:
Bicycle accident.
Can't reach his mother.
You're the only name on his phone's ICE list.
****
He stumbled up to the desk in the ER, stomach churning against old memories. "I'm here to see JD Sumpter. He might be going by JD McCoy. I'm Eric. You called me."
The receptionist picked up the phone, dialed a number and said something Eric couldn't quite catch.
He took a seat. Fuck, he needed a cup of coffee and/or for it to not be 1:34am on Tuesday. Also, Katie Sumpter-McCoy-Whatever needed to get her ass down here. Now.
"Sir?" From the expression on his face, Eric got the impression that the nurse had already spoken to him.
He dragged his hand over his hair and mentally cussed again for forgetting his hat. "Huh?"
The nurse smiled tiredly at him. "Are you Eric Taylor?"
"Yes." Eric stood up.
"Follow me. I'm Mark, by the way."
Eric waited until Mark had buzzed them through the door before he asked, "How is he?"
"He's had quite a spill. Hit and run. We couldn't get his mother, and we didn't know who else to call. He's been asking for you."
Eric nodded grimly and trailed Mark down a corridor and around the bend. Mark paused at a drawn curtain and said, softly, "JD? He's here."
"Coach?" came a quavery voice. Eric could only see a hint of the bed through the crack in the curtain before Mark pulled it further open, allowing Eric to step through.
"I'm here," he said.
Mark stuck his head in the gap. "The attending will be here shortly." He tugged the curtain tightly shut.
Fluorescent lighting never did anybody any favors, but Eric couldn't stop the gasp and the sudden lurch in his stomach as he got his first good look at JD. Stitches at the edge of his scalp, the start of what promised to be a magnificent black eye, a split lip, a scraped and bruised chin, all those colors in a face drawn and waxy looking, and not because of the lights. JD's eyes, huge blue pools of misery and fear, darted from Eric's face down to his arm -- not his throwing arm, thank god -- taped, splinted, and carefully placed on a pillow.
"Coach, I'm sorry," JD managed to choke out before the tears let go and started streaming down his face.
Eric ruthlessly forced down his memories of that night, of seeing Jason for the first time in the hospital, seated himself on the other side of the bed, took JD's good hand in his, careful not to jostle the IV needle, and stroked it gently with his thumb. "Son, it's going to be alright. It's not your fault, JD. It's not your fault -- these things happen. They just do."
JD took a deep breath, looked Eric in the eye, tried to say something, and started to cry in earnest.
"Shhhhh," Eric crooned, looking around for a box of kleenex. Kid was going to have a nose as red as Rudolf's if this kept up. "We'll get your mom here soon as we can --"
"No you won't," JD blurted through the tears.
"'Course we will. Her work will have to --"
"Coach," JD squeaked, "I lied to you."
A different churning started up in Eric's gut. "'Bout what?" He got his hand on the box and held it out to JD.
"About everything," JD said, taking the kleenex and wiping disconsolately at his face. "My mom -- my mom isn't here. I ..." he sucked in a long, shuddering breath, fixed his gaze on the place where the curtains met the ceiling, and said, "I ran away. My parents put me in this christian academy and I was so -- I couldn't take it any more. I ran away." The last words came with a fresh burst of tears.
"Please, Coach," JD continued, begging, "please don't make me go back to them, or back to there. I'll do anything. Anything. Please."
The arrival of Dr. Timothy Bryan saved Eric from having to reply just then.
"We still can't find your mother --" Doc Bryan said to JD after Eric introduced himself.
"That's going to be a problem," Eric said and then explained.
Doc Bryan raked his hand through his neatly clipped red hair and swore under his breath before saying for their ears, "I'm going to have to call Child Protective Services. I don't have a choice."
JD started to protest, but Eric cut him off with a look and a gesture. "I understand," he replied. "Is it okay if I stay with him until they get here?"
Doc Bryan's smile was grim. "It's probably going to be awhile. But it's a good idea if you do. They might want to talk to you."
"How is he?" Eric asked quietly. "I'm his coach, I need to know, so I can make arrangements with the team, with school."
The look in Doc Bryan's flint colored eyes said he knew exactly why Eric had phrased it that way "Well, the arm's broken. No concussion, though. The rest is just bumps and bruises, but he's going to be stiff and sore for the next two weeks.
"As far as we know, he got clipped with the bumper, probably smashed the windshield on his way up and over the rest of the vehicle, and broke his arm when he landed the wrong way on it. He's lucky it wasn't a lot worse."
Turning to JD, Doc Bryan asked, "How are you on pain?"
JD grimaced. "It hurts, but I can manage. I don't want too much of that stuff."
Doc Bryan scribbled something on his chart. "We're going to give you something to take the swelling down, and then something more for pain before it gets so bad you're ready to chew your arm off. See you in a bit."
As soon as he left, JD said quietly, "Coach, you don't have to stay until CPS comes."
"Balderdash." An old fashioned word but a good one for this situation. Eric settled in the chair, and, head in his hands, asked, "JD, what happened?"
"I was riding my bike home from work when -- Crap! My bike's probably totaled!"
"That's the least of your problems at the moment and I'll get you a new one for Christmas. A good one. And, I'll call your work and tell them what happened, come morning." He sat up and caught JD's eye. "Now tell me. What happened? Why'd you run away?"
JD groaned long and low. "I told you that I got caught doing drugs. Well, just as that started becoming something I did every day, my dad started to say things like I was being coddled too much, maybe that was the problem. That I needed to get my act together or he'd find another way to get me back on the straight and narrow.
"So, after I got caught and kicked off the team, my mom --" JD closed his eyes and swallowed hard, deathly pale against the sheets and pillow, "my mom came to me and asked me what was wrong, why was I doing drugs and ...." his voice trailed off and the look in his eyes clouded over.
"I've always been able to tell my mom everything -- almost everything. And sometimes when we talked, she'd get mad at me, and that's when I knew I was really in trouble, and sometimes she just listened, and sometimes she'd take my case and get my dad to see that he was being the stupid one. But she always had my back. Always. I trusted her.
"So I told her how unhappy I was. That I had been unhappy for a long time. That football wasn't fun any more, it was like jail or something. That I hated living with Dad. That I was sorry I made them split up. But --" JD's voice broke, and when it picked up again, it was so soft that Eric strained to hear it above the background noise of the ER. "I liked a guy, Coach. And I didn't -- Are ... are we okay?" The anguish and uncertainty in that question broke Eric's heart.
He reached out and cupped JD's hand in both of his. "You liked a boy," he said carefully. "I can't imagine that's easy to deal with."
Tears gathered again in JD's eyes, but his voice kept steady. "I tried so hard not to, Coach. I tried so hard to pretend I didn't, and that I was happy and like everybody else."
"Let me guess," Eric interjected, working hard to clamp down on the anger building in him. "Your mom didn't take it well, and told your dad, who took it even worse. I'm guessing two of them agreed that you needed to go to a very strict, very fundamentalist school with ... certain ideas."
JD gave a bitter smile. "Got it in one, Coach."
Eric closed his eyes and rested his forehead against their hands and tried to imagine what would happen if Julie or Gracie Belle came to him and Tami and said she found women attractive.
(Eric couldn't look at Tami without thinking that even after 20 something years and two kids, she was still smokin' hot. The concept of ever looking at a man and thinking the same thing just didn't compute, not for him.)
On the one hand, he would feel sad and upset, because being openly bisexual or lesbian would mean that life had gotten a lot more complicated, and unfortunately, a lot harder for Julie or Gracie. And as much as he and Tami wanted to protect them from that, there would be a lot of very hurtful things they couldn't shield them from.
On the other hand, he'd feel proud. Proud that Julie and Gracie were choosing personal integrity over living a lie or living to please someone else, that being honest about themselves meant more than fitting in. What's more, he would be proud that his daughters felt that they could be honest with him and Tami about this, that ultimately, they knew their parents loved them unconditionally.
He just didn't understand how people could look at this -- who you found attractive, what turned you on -- and view it as some sort of moral failing, and not just something hardwired into a person, especially given what science and mental health professionals now said about the matter. It just was, and a person could no more change it than they could change being left handed, or having skin that freckled in the sun.
Eric glanced up at JD and said, "Keep going, son, tell me the rest."
JD did. A private educational institution in Indiana for defiant, troubled, and "morally deviant" teens. JD had been subjected to aversion therapy from a counselor who considered him only "partially warped" because he still "displayed appropriate physical responses" to pornographic images of women. He had endured punishments and penances that went beyond things like scrubbing toilets and loss of privileges and into sleep deprivation in the form of extended prayer vigils or "chastisement" with a paddle (one with holes drilled in it), a hickory switch, and even a leather strap.
Eric excused himself at one point as JD described what had happened to him, and what he'd seen happen to other kids there, to get a cup of coffee. Not only because he desperately needed one, but also because he needed 30 seconds alone to cry.
"So, how did you escape?"
JD almost managed to pull off a smirk. "Well, believe it or not, they managed to get a few things right. Like, they made you exercise every day to help you learn to feel good in your body again, to help you 'be strong and clean, like the Church.' So, I actually stayed in shape while I was there.
"And then, in group, we'd talk about all the things we'd done because of drugs, and mostly it was just stories of how we'd lied and stole money from mom and dad, but a few of us had run away and lived on the streets for awhile, and talked about how that worked, and the kinds of bad people they'd met, where they met them, and the scams they pulled to get what they needed or wanted.
"For awhile, I just sat there kind of shocked when they spoke, because I wasn't the worst person there. I hadn't done the stupidest, or craziest, or most extreme things, and it was good to see that. Everything I'd done, somebody else had also done.
"I always planned to run away, Coach. That, or walk out the door the day I turned 18. Then it dawned on me that either way, I should start paying attention, really paying attention to what my peers said. I talked with a few of them, one on one, outside of group, all casual like. People love to talk about themselves, and they'd tell me details they didn't let out in group.
"I was sober. I swear, it was as easy as memorizing a playbook."
Eric boggled.
In a quieter, more serious tone, JD continued, "The councilors also talked about how God will put good people into your lives, and that once you stop living for the Devil, you will know them and seek them out. Of course, they meant that they were the good people, that they and they alone could guide you back onto the right paths --"
"Sound like a bunch of hypocrites to me, " Eric bit off the words.
JD sighed. "I can't even begin to tell you how much. But I thought about that. I realized I did know somebody who had only looked out for my good, and genuinely cared about other people just because it was the right thing, and had tried to help me be myself and be happy, and it was my parents, especially my dad, who had taken me off the right track." He looked at Eric and his eyes glowed.
"You gotta be shitting me," Eric said before he could stop himself.
"Nope." JD grinned. "I found out about you under the pretext of googling my football past, found out you were here, made plans in my head for a few weeks, and then one night, I swiped a box of benadryl from the nurse, slipped a couple to my roommate, who was desperate for a good night's sleep, bump-keyed the door after second bed-check, and ran like hell.
"When I got here, I boosted and hustled a bit, slept where I could, showered at the Y, got the job bussing tables, bought some more clothes from goodwill, used computers at the library, paid a lady $200 to pretend she was my mom so I could sign up for classes, even had her record a voicemail on a cellphone --"
"But the house," Eric asked, mind reeling as he tried to keep up with everything JD had laid on him in the last hour.
"I'm squatting there. It's a foreclosure I found with the computers at the library. One of the kids in group mentioned doing that to find a place to stay. I picked the lock and took the sign down." JD's smug grin faltered. "Shit! All my stuff's -- Coach, can you --?"
"We'll get your stuff," Eric sighed, rubbing at his increasingly bleary eyes. "I need to call Tami. She'll know what to do."
"Coach, it's like, four in the morning."
"Yeah? She's gonna have my hide for not calling her sooner." Eric reached for his cell. "She'll know what to do," he repeated.
"About what?" JD said glumly.
"She'll know what to do to make sure you're not shipped back to your parents no questions asked and that you come live with us." Eric reached for the curtains.
"Coach?" The word carried a world of meaning.
"Well, of course I'm going to fight for you, JD. What kind of a man would I be if I didn't? Now give me five minutes to make the call."
When he came back 15 minutes later, JD had fallen fast asleep.
Tami had promised to come as fast as she could. She arrived just as the CPS worker did, somehow managing to look disheveled and magnificent all at once, with a sleeping Gracie Belle in the stroller.
Eric knew how to sort out a mess on the field. He knew how to deal with athletic commissions, parents, and recruiters. He stood back in awe as Tami went to work with Wanda, the woman from CPS.
It took 15 minutes. As Tami guided Eric back to his SUV she explained that CPS was taking custody for now, that JD was being held until the orthopedist finished his consult. She had secured permission for them to visit JD in the hospital in case this went on longer than a day, but assured him "This shouldn't take too long. Walt in the U's legal department owes me a favor, and I intend to collect. He'll get us in front of a judge, quickly. I know him."
As Tami headed home with Gracie, Eric stopped by JD's house, found it locked, swore, prayed, and broke out one of the panes of glass in the back door so he could reach in and open it. JD didn't have much to pack, but enough that it took Eric two trips to carry it all to the SUV. He went through the house one last time to make sure he got the essentials, and then propped the foreclosure sign back up before he left.
The rest of the morning passed by in a blur of making phone calls and arrangements. Eric managed to grab a cat-nap with Gracie on the couch before Tami pointed him towards the shower and told him that he needed to put on a shirt with a collar and a coat when he got out. He picked out a tie without being told. Tami's colleague from the university's legal department, Walt, picked them up a few minutes later.
When they got downtown, Eric managed to cobble a few coherent sentences together before apologizing to the Judge for being so tired and strung out.
The Judge smiled kindly and said, "Mr. Taylor, it makes an impression on the Court that you went to the hospital and sat up all night with this boy, and that your lovely and talented wife got up at oh-dark-thirty to go to bat for him.
"Based on consultation with the representative from Child Protective Services," the Judge nodded and smiled at Wanda, "the facts presented, your professional backgrounds in dealing with troubled youths, and your established relationship with this particular young man, I am awarding you temporary custody, pending the outcome of your request for permanent legal guardianship."
"Thank you," Eric said.
He made it to the hall where Wanda waited with a smile and some paperwork for them to sign, before the reality hit him: JD would be coming to live with them with in the next day or so, and Julie and Matt were coming to visit for the holiday.
They had a metric buttload of arrangements to make.
(He was going to have a teenager, a boy, in the house.
All over again.)
He didn't know whether to laugh,or cry, or both. One look at Tami confirmed she felt the same way.
*****
"So ... what does this all mean?" JD asked on Thanksgiving morning as Eric guided him into the room and sat him down on the bed.
"It means that Julie and I are surfing the sofa while we're here," Matt deadpanned as he slung JD's bag down on the the floor.
Eric shot him a "I got your number, buddy" look and said, "It means that Matt's going to be helping me take down these chintz curtains while he's in town, and we'll be replacing them with something more appropriate."
Matt groaned. "Great, I get to go Black Friday shopping while you and JD watch the games."
Eric grinned wickedly.
JD looked back and forth between them. "But ... CPS said that my parents are going to be here on Monday."
"This is your room, JD. This is your home, not a hotel," Eric said quietly.
"You should lie down and grab a nap, " Matt said. "You look look like you got hit by a car or something, and I'll bet that lugging that cast around has got you bushed. I promise I'll wake you up before Coach and I eat all the leftovers."
"We'll even save you a piece of pie," Eric joked. "Do you want pumpkin or pecan?"
JD smiled with the good side of his face and flipped them the bird. "Both."
*****
"My parents are going to try and get me back," JD said in a worried voice as soon he left his first supervised meeting with them on Monday afternoon. The expression on his face made it clear that it had not been a happy reunion.
Over JD's shoulder, Eric could see down the hall both of the McCoys had angry scowls for him. Eric returned the favor. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a dirty look and a rude gesture from Joe McCoy to make him give up, though. In fact, all they did was stiffen his resolve to see this through. "Yeah? Let them." He turned and slung an arm over JD's shoulder. "Tami and I aren't going to give you up. Not unless you want to go home to them."
JD shook his head a vehement no.
"Don't worry, about it, then."
"How? I mean, my dad's rich and --"
Eric turned JD to face him. "Son, let me put this in football terms. We're up by six points, we just got the ball on our 20, and there's two minutes left on the clock. What do we do?"
"That depends," JD said. "How many time outs do we have left?"
Eric thought about that for a moment and said, "Three."
"Well, we grind as much time off the clock as we can in the huddle and in calling the play, which is either run the ball or do a short screen pass and gain as many yards as we can."
"It went really well. First and fifty. Now what?"
"Well, some people would say take a knee three times and punt with about 10 seconds to go. Me? I say we do same thing, three more times. Go for the touchdown on the fourth down if we're close enough, or go for the field goal, depending on how good the kicker is. That way you either clinch the victory or you leave them deep in their territory with only one option and not a whole lot of time to pull it off."
Eric said, "That's exactly what we're going to do, JD. You turn 18 in February. The Holidays are coming up. Lots of days when court's closed. Nothing your parents do can change that.
"We're in control of how fast the ball is moving down the field and we've got a strong offense to their weak defense. We're going to grind down the clock on our way to clinching the win."
JD smiled so hard he split his lip open all over again. "Clear eyes, full hearts --" he began.
"Can't. Lose." Eric finished as he reached out and ruffled JD's curls before snugging him in tight.