317. Winning

There have been times over the years when C.W. would disappear for weeks at a time. I never mentioned it to him since I enjoyed the respite and the peace at home that his departures would bring. Once last fall, though, I had begun to miss the little creep and I decided to ask him about his extended leaves. He had reappeared as a man in his early forties, looking distraught, even a bit put out, if you can imagine.

“What’s up?” I asked as he paced the room, looking around in a nervous fashion.

He looked at the ceiling and back at me. “Is that a real question or slang?”

 “Slang,” I said.

“Oh.” He thought for a moment and said. “I could make a joke about what’s up these days and what’s not.”

“Never mind,” I said. “We can do without your humor, or your joke.”

“I will save it and tell Mrs, Big Dope later,” he said.

I sat erect and pointed my finger. “Don’t you dare,” I said. “She’s going to be upset enough that you’ve come back.”

“She likes me well enough,” he said. “She would be fine if you would just give her what she needs.”

“C.W.,” I said. “Shut up.”

He ignored me and continued absentmindedly, “… a few days off … a vacation … maybe a nice cruise … some flowers.”

I relaxed. “Someday,” I said, “we are going to have a talk about your syntax.”

“My what?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Why don’t you just share with me where you’ve been.”

“Coaching high school football. The Elders got wind of your species’ obsession with it and had me give it a try—coaching it, that is.”

“But you quit. Why?”

“Lost all my star players.”

“That’s awful. How?”

“Sophomores.”

“Your star players were sophomores?”

“No. The star players were all senior boys.”

“Well, then, who were the sophomores?”

“Girls.”

“Girls?” A sliver of understanding began to pierce through the dark clouds of my mind. But then he broke in.”

“Have you ever heard of something called a ‘registered sex offender list,’ with addresses and all, that has to be made public?”

I started in disbelief. “Do you mean …?”

“Some of the most prestigious homes in that city are now on it.”

“How? What happened?”

“Seems there was this club,” he said, “among the sophomore girls.”

“A club?”

“Called the ‘Boffin’ Stud Seducers’ and all the best looking girls in the class belonged to it.”

“You are kidding me.”

“Nope. The ‘Boffin SS’ as they called themselves, required only one thing for permanent membership.”

“Sex?”

“Well of course that, but they also required undeniable proof of the act.”

“Undeniable pr …”

“An arrest record.”

“Oh wow,” I said. “Don’t tell me …”

“Complete with videos. And you know about social media, right?”

“Oh man.” My mind wrestled to digest the implications. “So you don’t coach anymore.”

“To say the least.”

“The least?”

“Take a good look at this shape,” he said. “You won’t be seeing it again.”

“But how were you implicated?”

“Simple,” he said. “Lack of supervision.”

“But how? How can you be responsible for a group of girls that start some terribly immoral and vindictive club?”

“Oh,” he said. “It’s worse than that.”

Silly me ... I always thought this was a gesture
indicating victory on the playing field. C.W. 

“How could it be?”

“Well,” he said. “It seems the senior football stars had a club of their own.”

“Oh … my … god.” I struggled to speak. “And how long had this been going on?”

“Best guess …,” he said. “Fifteen years or so.”

“And nobody did anything?”

“Boys will be boys.”

I sat back and let it all sink in. I couldn’t think of anything to say. All I could come up with was,  “And how was your win-loss record with all this?”

“Oh,” he said,” I would say it was the girls 11 and the boys zero.”

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