Getting Schooled (Getting Some #1)(2)

And then, I walk through the door of The Bagel Shop. This place is never empty—besides the bagels being awesome, it’s where old guys shoot the shit all day and young guys come to hide from their wives.

I grab a bottle of water from the cooler, next to a table filled with locals.

“Daniels!”

“Hey, Coach D!”

“Morning, Coach.”

Not to go all Ron Burgundy on you, but . . . I’m a pretty big deal around here. I think I’ll run for mayor after I retire, erect a statue of myself in front of Town Hall to replace the one of old Mayor Schnozzel. He was an ugly son of a bitch.

Anyway, long story short—I’m a history teacher at the high school, but more importantly—I’m the head coach of the best football team in the state. I know they’re the best because I made them that way. I was the youngest head coach ever hired and I have a better record than anyone who came before me.

Those that can, do; those that can’t, teach . . . those who know how to play football like a fucking god but have a bum knee—coach.

“How’s it going, fellas?”

“You tell us,” Mr. Zinke replies. He owns Zinke Jewelers—which gives him the inside track on almost every relationship in town. Who’s getting engaged, who’s coming up on a big anniversary, who’s in need of an “I screwed up” two-carat apology tennis bracelet. The man’s a vault—what gets sold at Zinke’s stays at Zinke’s. Figuratively. “How’s the team looking this year?”

I swallow a gulp of water from the bottle. “With Lipinski starting quarterback, we’ll take states—no doubt.”

Brandon Lipinski is my masterpiece. I’ve coached him since he was a small pop warner player . . . that’s peewee or youth league football to you non-New Jerseyans out there. And like God made Adam in his own image—I made Lipinski in mine.

“Justin’s been working his butt off all summer,” Phil Perez tells me. “He drills every morning—throws fifty passes every day.”

I keep a mental catalog of upcoming talent. Justin Perez is a seventh-grader with a decent arm and good feet. “Consistency is key,” I reply. “Gotta build that muscle memory.”

Mrs. Perkins calls my name from behind the counter, holding up a brown paper bag. “Your order’s ready, Garrett.”

The Perkins family has owned The Bagel Shop for generations—Mrs. Perkins and her two brothers run the place now. Her oldest daughter, Samantha, was a gorgeous, wet dream of a senior when I was a freshman. She took my buddy Dean to the prom—they got wasted in the limo and missed most of the dance screwing in the bathroom—forever solidifying Dean’s player status.

“Have a good day, guys.” I tap the table and head over to pay my bill.

Mrs. Perkins hands me my sack of carbs and my change. “Is your mom going to Club this afternoon?”

Ah, the Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxiliary Club—where the women plan bake sales, get buzzed on sherbet-topped alcoholic punch, and bitch about their husbands.

“She wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I give her a wink and a smile. “Have a good one, Mrs. P.”

“Bye, Garrett.”



~



With my bagels tucked under my arm, I walk down Fulton Road and cut through Baygrove Park, which takes me to Chestnut, around the bend from my parents’ house. Theirs is the dark-blue colonial with the white shutters . . . and practically neon-green lawn.

Retirement hit my old man hard.

In the winter months, he spends hours in the garage, working on classic car models. But the minute the frost breaks, it’s all about the grass—trimming it, watering it, fertilizing it . . . talking to it.

He’s spent more quality time with this lawn than he ever did with me and my brothers—and there were four of us.

I walk through the front door that’s never been locked and step into chaos—because the gang’s all here.

The Sunday morning talk shows are on TV. Volume level: blaring—because my dad has a hearing aid he doesn’t wear. Jasmine, my mother’s formerly feral, still-evil black cat hisses as I close the door behind me, foiling her perpetual attempts to escape. My dad’s in his recliner, wearing his typical August uniform—plaid boxers, knee-high white socks with sandals, and a T-shirt that says: If lost, return to Irene. My mother’s in front of the stove, with the vent fan clattering above her head, wearing a shirt that says: I’m Irene.

Enough said.

I pass the bagels to my mom with a kiss on her cheek—’cause out of the four of us, I’m her favorite. Sure, she’ll give you the whole “I love my sons equally” spiel if you ask her . . . but we all know the truth.

My youngest nephew, Spencer, my oldest brother Connor’s son, wrinkles his nose at me from the kitchen table. “You smell, Uncle Garrett.”

Puppies learn how to be dogs by roughhousing with bigger dogs. Boys work the same way.

“Yeah—like a winner.” I haul him out of the chair, lift him up, and rub my damp, sweaty head on his face. “Here, get a better smell.”

He squeals, then laughs as he pushes me away.

On either side of Spencer’s chair are his two older brothers—thirteen-year-old Aaron, whose light-brown, John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever-era hair needs a trim, and the middle child, in every sense of the word, Daniel.