by Quan Barry
At midfield, the earth has been replaced, the cop cars gone, Marilyn Bunroe reinterred with honors. When the Danvers High 2019–2020 school year starts back up in a few days, there will be an exclusive printed on the front page of what’s now called The Flying Onion. A few years ago The Flying Onion made national news when the principal banned students from using the word MEEP, à la the Road Runner or Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s assistant, Beaker. Today the school reporter, a rising junior, has already come and gone, snapping a series of photos of Marilyn’s yellow teeth and asking the major players involved in this afternoon’s drama what went down.
“Legend has it one of you guys flashed the whole school at a pep rally,” says Hazel, Cory G.’s oldest. Hazel looks more like Peppermint Patty than like her mother. Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree and then rolls downhill.
“That wasn’t intentional,” explains Julie Minh. “I tripped on the cheerleaders’ stupid hoop.”
“And you weren’t wearing anything under your kilt?” says Hazel. She shakes her head in disbelief. “We heard all you guys walked around all season long flashing your ta-tas every which way.”
“Hazel,” says Cory G., casting an eye at her daughter. Be nice, she seems to be saying, which we get the feeling is something Cory G. says early and often to her oldest.
“Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t,” says Mel Boucher cheerfully. “In ’89, we all had our parts to play.” The scar on her neck where le Splotch used to hold court looks like a pair of lips, the skin tightly puckered as if about to plant a big fat juicy kiss on someone.
Elle Putnam and her twin change course. “Legend also has it you guys blame my mom for losing the championship,” she says. Though their coloring is different from Abby’s, the two sisters look just like their mother, their hair pulled back in the same battle-ready ponytail. We notice her and her sister are drinking Abby Organics as are many of the girls, Abby Organics the official sponsor of the DHS field hockey team.
“Why would you say that?” says AJ Johnson.
“Because someone wrote in her yearbook quote unquote, ‘It’s all your fault,’ ” says August.
“In caps,” adds Elle.
“And in purple ink,” says August.
AJ grimaces. “That wasn’t us,” she says.
“Well, not us,” says Becca Bjelica, gesturing to those of us standing there on the field.
Over in the tennis-court parking lot, two figures are talking to Sue Yoon’s body man Evan. The two pulled into the lot a few minutes ago. First they made a pit stop at Sweet Treats. Now they’re probably trying to wrangle Evan’s cell number, asking him how long he’ll be in town. Ah, those rascals! We wonder how they work it now all these years later, who plays wingman, who’s the pilot. Even from where we’re standing half a football field away we can see that one of them has on a pair of short-shorts, the other with her blond hair separated into two loose ponytails à la 1970s Farrah Fawcett. We are ladies of a certain age closing in on the big five-oh. The fact that she can rock two ponytails gives us all hope.
Then we come back down to earth. Internally, we check ourselves. We make doubly sure our hearts are in the right place. Check. We practice the pre-rehearsed lines we’ve gone over and over a million times in our heads. Check. We have been preparing for this moment ever since we heard the news. Now we’re about to go live. Heather Houston doesn’t break a sweat as she’s in academia and has the most experience interacting with all kinds of people along every conceivable spectrum. Little Smitty, on the other hand, has never left the farm she and her ex but still best friend California Brad run (last year they raised a twelve-hundred-pound pumpkin!) and is terrified she’ll say all the wrong things at the wrong time which will start the subsequent awkwardness flowing like air from an airplane oxygen mask. Rest assured she’s not the only one who’s afraid of opening her mouth and inserting her entire foot.
Up in the parking lot the two finish messing with Evan and are now headed our way. We know each is carrying a cherry Blow Pop in hand, lips and teeth and breath temporarily cherry stained.
“That’s who blamed your mom,” says AJ Johnson.
“What have I done now?” asks Jen Fiorenza, all innocent-like upon arrival. If anyone among us looks like a movie star, it’s her. Jen Fiorenza is one of those women who can rock a bald head, her shaved pate perfectly round like Charlie Brown’s only sexy. It showcases her face in a way the Claw never did. Looking back on things, we never realized how beautiful Jen was, her face weighed down by her lugubrious mane of VO5-fortified hair. In her short-shorts and unicorn off-the-shoulder tee, her Blow Pop fisted like a magic wand, she looks like she should be in a pair of old-school roller skates cruising along the Santa Monica Pier on the other side of the country. It’s no wonder she has more than a million subscribers to her YouTube channel where she posts makeup tutorials and reviews endless beauty products. How she makes money doing so remains a mystery to us. Her website simply describes her as an Influencer.
“Remember how you said it was all my fault we lost?” Abby asks.
“It was all your fault,” says Jen. She bites down hard on her Blow Pop to get at the gum. “Thank god.”
“You didn’t think that back then,” says Abby.
“Back then I had a lot on my plate,” says Jen. Behind her the blond with the pigtails surreptitiously points to where the Claw used to be as if by way of explanation. “If you hadn’t missed that penalty shot, we’d probably all be fucked today.” She blows a pink bubble. “Pardon my French,” she adds.
“Touché,” says the blond stepping out from behind her.
There’s a moment of silence as we drink in the genuineness of this person. In many ways, she calls to mind the teen we all remember—tall and slim, only now there’s a looseness in her limbs. You can feel it in the air. There’s no wall, no defensiveness, no act, no mask. This person standing before us knows who she is and doesn’t need to hide it. And just like that, we’re all over both of our old friends like wet on water.
It’s surprising how easy it is. Hugs all around. This is Cory Young, our former Boy Cory, who used to like kissing hunks like Reed Allerton and sometimes girls like Barbie Darling and now, after transitioning, still does. Cory Y. began taking hormones only a few years ago. She’s divorced and has a grown son and a new career as the head agent at a major real-estate firm. Today is her homecoming as Cory Y. Instantly we can all see she’s never looked happier. This weekend we’ll listen to whatever she wants to tell us. We’ll hear about all the things we did that made her journey harder thirty years ago, the things we said and didn’t say, the ways we were understanding and not in a time before she felt safe enough to speak her truth. Back in 1989, except for certain enclaves in San Fran and New York, there was no language for trans people circulating in the culture, no concept of spectrums. How was a girl supposed to articulate who she was when the very nature of who she was was all but invisible?
Thirty years is a lifetime ago. In some ways, the world has changed and in other ways it hasn’t. Now that gender and sexual orientation are recognized as not being linked, half the girls on the 2019 Danvers High Field Hockey Team identify as pansexual. Cory G.’s daughter Hazel says there are seventeen different types of sexual orientation and that she herself is aromantic. The head football cheerleader, Bella Tillings, is still the girl all the cis-hetero boys want, so as with most things, change is slow. For those of us who are parents, we’re just trying our hardest to do no harm.
August hands her mother a field hockey stick. “I wanna see you whomp these bitches,” she says.
Normally Abby Putnam would ask her daughter where she learned to talk like that, but today she takes the stick and roguishly waves it around like Excalibur.
* * *
—
We play barefoot. No shin guards, no mouth guards. Offense versus defense. Five on six. Only Mel Boucher suits
up proper, borrowing the pads and gear from the bear-like girl who’s been named starting goalie this season.
“Losers streak the wedding,” says Jen Fiorenza.
“You’re on,” says Sue Yoon.
“And I get to post it on my channel,” says Jen.
“I said you’re on,” Sue repeats.
With that, AJ taps the ball to Abby, and the ancient drive revs up inside each of us. Instantly left centerback Little Smitty runs up to challenge her, Little Smitty’s Tasmanian Devil act still going strong three decades later. Abby makes it by Little Smitty and passes the ball to Cory G. who flies down the wing. As the next point in the Rotating Rhombus, Julie Minh comes forward to harass her. And so it goes. Sometimes the defense manages to clear the ball. Sometimes the offense slips through the rhombus and takes a shot on net. Each time they do, Mel Boucher rises to the occasion, this grandmother of two letting nothing slip past her, our beloved goalie who tomorrow will finally marry the love of her life, the onetime mystery man who impregnated her thirty years ago and with whom she’s gone on to have six daughters and one son, several of whom were Northeastern Conference all-stars in their own right.
Though we can’t see her scar under all that padding, we remember that snowy night beside the reservoir when AJ’s mom, Dr. Johnson, told Mrs. Boucher Mel had what looked like a grade 4 teratoma on her neck and that, yes, the thing was grinning at us because, yes, those were probably teeth. One week later surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital removed le Splotch and presumably threw It in the fire as medical waste, our earliest booster completely incinerated. Within the span of seven days no more Claw, no more Splotch, no championship trophy. The 1989 season had truly come to an end.
Oh, but the Friday of our championship game—that one day long as a whole lifetime! Waking up hungover from the Gathering the night before. Remembering our mothers’ scowling faces in the firelight by the reservoir. Each one summoned by a postcard from Falcon Fire reporter Nicky Higgins, her revenge a dish best served typed. Friday afternoon at the pep rally at school, ordinary folks from town pouring in in their best blue and white. Everyone howling, the field house bleachers shaking with the stomping of feet, the gnashing of teeth, the citizenry screaming for the killing of Greenfield. Drain the Waves! How Julie Minh tripped on the papered hoop the cheerleaders were holding aloft and the field house exploded at the sight of her naked tush. Then Jen Fiorenza burst out of our locker room like something out of Mad Max. Her head shaved perfectly smooth, a crystal ball, her face painted Falcon blue, a druid queen. She stood in the glare of the field house lights before school and town and let out a scream scientists say you can still hear the way they can still detect the Big Bang echoing through the universe. When she finally ran out of air, the field house fell silent. If you strained, you could hear the lamentations of the crickets who’d survived the fumigators consoling one another.
Then the fire alarm went off.
We ignored it as per usual. It just seemed like just another part of the show. The student body kept right on screaming only louder, vocal cords on the verge of blood, the boys throwing punches at each other, the girls tearing at their claws. Only Log Winters and the football crew stood against the back wall watching silently. After all, the frenzy wasn’t for them. But the second the thick black smoke became visible pouring out from under the field hockey locker-room door in the northwest corner of the gym, it was every man for himself.
People were thrown to the floor and walked on like flagstones, smaller folks scrambling on top of everyone as if trying to ride a wave to safety. The Danvers Herald didn’t use the word “stampede,” but the Falcon Fire did. “What is happening?” asked a bewildered Principal Jack Yoff, as one of the town selectmen thundered past him while throwing elbows. Thankfully nobody was killed but in the aftermath there was a strangely fragrant pool of blood on the floor by the bubblers. (A subsequent investigation proved it was only the contents of an exploded Hawaiian Punch juice box.) Still, the sticky stain looked dramatic.
It was the third locker fire in a single week. The town firemen were starting to run a pool on the next time they’d be called. This time, Jen Fiorenza’s gym locker was ground zero. She’d set up an altar complete with a burning votive next to a plastic ziplock filled with her hair. Note to self: don’t do that. It was supposed to be the ultimate offering, her Claw once vibrant and undeniably human, her sacrifice just the thing the Ouija board had called for some weeks back out at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead.
We were lucky we’d worn our full uniforms to the rally—shin guards, mouth guards, socks, sticks, three sports bras if necessary. The whole locker room was reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. Everything was gone. Alpha to omega. Dust to dust. We didn’t know what everything meant until Heather Houston started screaming.
“Nooooo!” she cried. It all made Sue Yoon think of Charlton Heston in the beach scene at the end of Planet of the Apes. Heather dropped to her knees in the wet ashes, and began streaking her face with the stuff. It took us a while to understand why she was so upset. The firemen only gave us five minutes to see if we could salvage anything. We didn’t even need five minutes. All that was left was one charred metal ring from the three-ring binder. Our book of shadows had departed for the world of shadows. We tried to discern if we felt any different now that Emilio was toast. Thankfully the fire had liberated Coach Butler from our internal chatter, but we were all still on the line. AJ Johnson checked the piece of sock that somehow was still tied around her arm. It looked (and smelled) the same.
What about you, she thought to Becca Bjelica.
Yeah, I’m good, Becca thought back.
Somehow Emilio lived on in us.
Today there’s a halt in our scrimmage when Julie Minh and Heather Houston “accidentally” wham each other in the shins even though they’re on the same team.
“Jesus,” says Julie Minh. “High stick much?”
“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” retorts Heather. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when these two are kidding, but what do you expect from sisters? Heather and Julie Minh have legally been blood ever since 2004 when same-sex marriage came on the books in Massachusetts and their moms got hitched. For their benefit, we’ve all scrubbed our memories of that night out by the reservoir. The little blue Hyundai rocking in the snow. The windows steamed. Heather rubbing her hand over the glass and peering inside, then turning and vomiting in a pool of slush. Sometimes you can’t know something will work out for the best until thirty years go by. Both Heather and Julie Minh will be the first to admit it wasn’t easy, but it’s what had to happen.
“Let’s take five,” says Abby Putnam. Her sweat makes her skin look dewy. There is no way this woman is forty-seven years old, we all think. It must be witchcraft.
Our game on break, we wander over to the ice chest where an assortment of Abby Organics lie buried in ice. “Is that all you got?” asks Jen Fiorenza. She’s not talking about the drinks as she continues waving her stick around. The blood is in her cheeks. In the August sun, her head shines like Mr. Clean’s. She was always a competitor. In some ways, she single-handedly goaded us on to States. Without her, we might have gone 0-5 at Camp Wildcat, end of story. Influencer is right.
“What do you want?” says AJ Johnson. “Another shot at Worcester?”
Just then we see Evan, Sue’s body man, talking to three women in the parking lot. The women have on sun visors and shorts of a conservative length. There must be a handbook that tells them how to dress. “Coach Peters is back,” says August Putnam. You can hear the anxiety in her voice.
“You guys already vote?” asks Abby. Both her daughters nod. They don’t know the results yet, every minute a small agony.
Coach Peters and her JV and freshmen coaches spend a long time talking with Evan. He’s probably filling them in on all of the afternoon’s misadventures, like the differences between a human baby’s
rib cage and a rabbit’s. The women are also probably trying to prolong their time in the presence of this golden man, their mouths watering. But all good things must come to an end. Eventually the three coaches say their goodbyes and begin to make their way toward us.
“Hey Abby,” says Coach Peters. “You keeping things tight?”
“Trying.” Abby’s the founder and president of the booster club. The two women know each other well.
Meghan Peters nods around at the rest of us. She’s in great shape, her forearms like iron, her skin deeply tanned, like maybe she’s touring on the LPGA. We offer Meghan our hellos, how are yous, and she remembers each of us better than we remember her. Meghan Peters was a freshman the year we went to States. Underclassmen always remember the senior girls they used to secretly idolize. When we were freshmen, we memorized every detail surrounding senior captain Jody Merton, who went on to play at Dartmouth. Meghan’s fellow freshman, Carrie Demopoulos, of the “what’s-sex-like?” fame, is now the JV coach. The freshman coach is a woman we don’t know who graduated from Danvers a decade ago and then got recruited at Providence. From the look of things the 2019 Falcons are in good hands. Together these three could take the team all the way.
We remember how on the last day of Double Sessions Coach Butler used to like to draw out the suspense, her showmanship on display. Meghan Peters is nothing like Coach Butler. “Ladies,” she says. “Circle up.” We make room for the current players to gather. We stand on the outside of their circle. It’s like looking through a time machine at ourselves thirty years ago. While the hair is smaller, the hunger is still outsized. Hunger is what gets anything done. Stay hungry, ladies, we think.
“The votes are counted,” says Meghan. “This year’s captains are August and Elle Putnam. Worcester here we come!” The girls cheer and slap their new captains on the back. We wonder how they tell them apart. Both twins turn crimson, but they let themselves be jostled roughly by their teammates. Abby Putnam looks like maybe she has something in her eye.