Second Impact

by David Klass

  Mrs. Jenson took off her reading glasses and smiled at me. I recalled from Carla’s blogs that her mom’s a lawyer. “Hi, Jerry Downing,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. If you stick around, you might even get a hot chocolate chip cookie. Would you like some tea?”

  “No thanks,” I told her. “Please don’t go to any trouble. I’m sorry to come barging in like this.”

  “Barge away,” she told me. “In this family, we don’t stop for yellow lights.” She saw me thinking that over and gave me a little smile. “I’ve read your pieces. They’re as polite as you are. And very well written.”

  “Thank you,” I repeated, hands in pockets, feeling awkward. “I don’t really know much about journalism. I just try to write what’s interesting to me.”

  “It’s strange. Carla never says anything nice about anyone’s writing, especially mine,” her mom told me. “But she’s a big fan of yours. I’m quite jealous.”

  Something on her screen caught her eye. “Excuse me,” she muttered, and began banging the keyboard.

  “So I saw in the paper that you guys are favored against Jamesville by ten,” Mr. Jenson noted.

  “I saw that, too,” I told him. “But I try not to believe those predictions. They’re a great team and they won their league. We have to go out expecting a fight.”

  “Yes, it’s always good to expect a fight,” a voice agreed from the doorway, and then Carla walked into the room in a yellow terrycloth bathrobe. Her hair was in a towel, and as she walked in, she took the towel away and let her wet hair fall down around her shoulders. She looked a little tense for someone who had just stepped out of a hot shower, and her eyes were red. She didn’t even glance at her parents. I wondered what was going on.

  Carla walked closer to me and gave me a tight smile. She smelled of lavender—either perfume or shampoo. Something was definitely on full boil. I could feel the tension in the room. Some battle had just been fought, some game was being played, and I didn’t have a clue.

  Mrs. Jenson watched us through her reading glasses.

  “Dad, Mom, Jerry and I need to have a serious talk, so I’m going to take him up to my room,” Carla said.

  “Why don’t you just talk in the study?” Mrs. Jenson suggested. “I’ll bring in some cookies.”

  “No thanks. I’d rather talk in my room,” Carla said, looking right at her. “Don’t try to create a situation out of one of your parenting books. You don’t need to make all the rules, do you? I mean, my room is still mine, right?”

  “Carla,” her father commanded, “take it down a notch. We have a guest.”

  “I have a guest,” she said. “So let me entertain him in the place I choose. And I don’t think he wants cookies any more than I do.”

  They all looked at me, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “I think you’ll be more comfortable talking in the study,” Mr. Jenson said softly, but in his CEO voice that was meant to be obeyed.

  “No, Carla and Jerry can talk in her room,” her mother relented. “But keep the door open, Carla.”

  “Sure, and I’ll open a window, too,” Carla said.

  She headed out, and I couldn’t think of anything to do except follow her. We started climbing the curved, winding staircase to the second floor. She climbed slowly, limping noticeably. “The study might be easier,” I told her.

  “I got to see your room, you might as well see mine,” she said.

  We reached the second floor, and she pointed down a hallway. “The master bedroom is thataway. I’ll give you the grand tour some other time. The kids’ wing is over here.”

  “Kids?” I asked.

  “That’s my sister’s room,” she said, pointing to a closed door.

  “Since when do you have a sister?”

  “Since I was born,” Carla informed me. “She’s seven years older and lives in San Francisco. Doesn’t come home very often, but they keep the room ready for her.” She limped on down the hallway. “And this is my room. Come on in and leave the door open so my mom won’t think I’m molesting you.”

  I followed Carla into her bedroom. It was large and beautiful, with three windows that faced downhill. Somewhere far down the slope I knew the lights of my family’s small home were shining up at us as my dad read his newspaper and my mom went over her cases. My room in that house hasn’t changed much since I was twelve. It’s still in many ways the room of a boy, with posters of football heroes on the walls and rec league trophies on the shelves.

  Carla’s room, on the other hand, was like the room of a college student. There were no beloved old dolls or stuffed animals perched on her bed, and I didn’t see any soccer trophies either, although I’m sure she’s won her share. Instead, there were tons of books, computer stuff, and an impressive sound system with an electric guitar. I saw a vintage Rolling Stones poster on the wall, but there were also photos I couldn’t identify.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to a black-and-white picture of a tall, serious-looking dark-haired woman in pants and a sweater standing next to an old prop plane. “I’m guessing she doesn’t sing hip-hop.”

  “Martha Gellhorn.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “America’s first and greatest woman war correspondent,” Carla told me. “She was also a terrific travel writer. And she was Ernest Hemingway’s third wife, but I don’t hold that against her.” Carla motioned me toward a swivel chair near the desk and sat down herself on a window seat nearby. There was a charged silence between us. “Go ahead,” she said, “take your swing.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that what you came over here for? Take your best shot,” she said. “Join the club.”

  “Look,” I told her, “I’m not sure what I stumbled into, but I didn’t come over here to take a swing at you, and I’m going to leave in a second. But before I do…”

  Carla shivered and put her arms around herself. It was hard for me to stay angry at her. She looked miserable and vulnerable. But she also looked tough and ready to bite my head off in an argument, and I remembered what had brought me over so late on a cold evening. “I think you should take your blog down right away,” I told her. “For your own good.”

  “I can take care of myself, thanks very much,” she said. “And you already gave me that advice on your blog, so you didn’t need to come over here and repeat yourself.”

  “Well, I’m giving you the advice again in person,” I told her.

  “Face-to-face,” she mocked softly. “Eye to eye.”

  She was repeating my own words, making fun of me. “That’s right,” I told her. “I can tell you’re really angry about something. Well, I’m pissed off, too. You talk about Sophie West and how close friends you are. Danny and I have been like family since third grade. Do you really think I would put him in any danger just to win a football game? Do you think my teammates would go along with that? Do you think Coach Shea would?”

  “I’m sure you’re a loyal friend,” Carla told me. “But there’s a very old and powerful football culture at this school, and in this town, if you hadn’t noticed. It’s roaring along now, at full momentum and—”

  “So the answer is yes,” I cut her off. “Do you know how insulting that is? And unfair? You make a lot of jokes about how I call my uniform my armor and my teammates my army. But what you don’t comprehend, soccer girl—”

  “No need to stoop to sexist slurs,” she cut in.

  “What you don’t get,” I pressed on a little louder, “is just how close the bond is on a football team. We care about each other like … brothers.”

  “You’re not brothers,” Carla pointed out, exasperated. “You’re not in the army together, fighting a war. You just play on a football team together. And that’s an important connection for a bunch of high school boys, but it’s still just football.”

  “But sometimes that’s a lot,” I told her. “And it’s not sexist to say that football is different from all other sports.�
� I was speaking fast, looking into her flashing brown eyes. “From ballbusting two-a-days in the summer mud to blood on the winter snow and guys spitting up teeth and laughing and staying in the game, it’s nuts and it’s a rush and there’s nothing like it. We are an army. We are brothers. We look after each other and care about each other and guard each other’s backs. So stop insulting us—”

  Her voice got louder. “So if I say I’m worried about one of your brothers, one of your warriors, if I say that I’m really afraid that something bad might happen to one of these guys you have this great beautiful bond with, that makes me a villain somehow?”

  “You’re the one who called it your story,” I pointed out. “You said you were willing to do anything to follow your story. Even barge into Danny’s hospital room…”

  “He gave me permission,” she fired back.

  “He didn’t give you permission to post stuff you heard there on the Internet. Even if Danny said you could stay, he was woozy and in no condition to give his permission!”

  “You’re damn right he was woozy,” Carla half yelled at me, standing up from the window seat. “He was woozy because he had been knocked unconscious.”

  “And how do you know that?” I demanded, also standing. “Tell me how you can be so damn positive of that. Is it because Danny couldn’t talk or sit up after he was hit? Well, I couldn’t either for a few seconds, but I never blacked out. Have you ever been hit like that, Carla, by a big lug wearing a helmet? No, you haven’t. I have. It rings your bell for a while but that doesn’t mean—”

  “It doesn’t mean that it necessarily scrambles your brains?” she shouted. “Great! Terrific!” She gulped down a few breaths. “By any chance do the words chronic traumatic encephalopathy mean anything to you?”

  “Carla, is everything okay in there?” her mother’s voice asked from the hallway.

  “Fine, Mom,” she shouted back. “We’re just having a private conversation. Leave us alone.”

  I stood up. “I should go,” I said. And then, “Look, Carla, I may be a jock, but I’m not a fool. Sure, I’ve read about that stuff. But that’s something NFL players who’ve been knocked around by giant linemen for ten or fifteen years have to worry about. Not high school players.”

  “How about multiple concussions?” she asked. “Or the dangers of second impact syndrome?” She stepped closer, getting right in my face. “Since you’ve read up on it, I assume you know that high school players who get concussions are more at risk than college or pro players because their brain tissue is still developing?”

  “Danny didn’t have a concussion,” I told her. “End of story.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” she said. “I mean really ask him. Friend to friend. Brother to brother.”

  “I don’t have to,” I told her. “He already said what happened. He never lies.”

  “Maybe he wants to get back out on that battlefield with his comrades more than anything else in the world,” she said. “If you care about him that much, ask him.”

  “I’m out of here,” I told her. “Take the blog down, Carla. Do it before it takes you down.”

  She looked back at me, and her jaw muscles tightened. “It is down,” she said. “As of half an hour ago. Bamburger called. He talked to my parents. And they made me take it down. Bamburger wants to see me at school tomorrow, to set some ground rules for my blogging.” Her voice quivered. “So they’ve muzzled me. You won.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “Thanks for stopping by,” she said, turning away to look out the window. “I think you should go now.”

  I left her bedroom and found my way out of the kids’ wing and walked down the stairs by myself. Mr. Jenson met me at the landing and apologized that Carla hadn’t shown me out. “We’ve had a rocky night,” he confided.

  “No problem,” I told him. “Sorry I intruded.”

  “Good luck Friday,” he said. “I’ll be there pulling for you. I know you guys are gonna go all the way.”

  I left the McMansion and headed back down the twisting driveway, and soon I was jogging down the hill. I sucked in breaths of cold night air. Now I understood why Carla had been so tense and angry at her parents and furious at me for showing up and piling on. If I had known she had already taken the blog down, I never would have come over.

  From: JerryQB@kendallhs.edu

  To: Cjenson@kendallhs.edu

  Subject: Last thoughts

  * * *

  Carla, I hope this doesn’t end our friendship. I really respect your passion for writing, and I understand how painful it must have been to have somebody force you to take your blog down. You looked so sad and frustrated and quietly furious sitting there in your yellow terrycloth robe with your pretty brown eyes flashing. I wanted to take your arm and tell you that you’re gonna be a great journalist and there will be lots of chances to write about serious issues in the years ahead, and no one will be able to stifle your voice.

  But on some level you probably know that.

  Jerry

  From: Cjenson@kendallhs.edu

  To: JerryQB@kendallhs.edu

  Subject: Muzzled

  * * *

  That last “blog entry” of yours was kind of sweet, though I keep wanting to tell you that when you get to college, you have to take a real writing course, with a tough-minded professor, and shake some of those cliches out of your system. Like, oh my god, the McMansion and the leather furniture and the original art on the walls? I mean, give me a break, kid. It’s a big house for a family of four, I’ll give you that, especially with only three of them living there, and there is indeed a brown leather couch in the living room, though it’s been clawed by several generations of cats, and let’s not get into a conversation about the quality of the paintings. The problem is that you have this need to make everything fit the dichotomies you set up in your head. Sorry, but you do, and you shouldn’t, and you’re potentially a better writer than that.

  But not only did you feel the need to open up at me, and dissect my family, but you did so on a blog for the whole school and the whole world to read. I, on the other hand, am muzzled and can’t blog back. But here’s what I would have said to the school and the whole world:

  So yes, there was Jerry Downing, the poor woodchopper (well, the high school celebrity with the history of bad behavior) in the castle of the Princess Yellow Robe, shuffling hesitantly through the marble corridors and worrying that his muddy workman’s boots would stain the priceless Persian carpets. And as he sat in the princess’s boudoir, hung with precious tapestries, he noticed that the princess had pretty eyes. (Never make eyes flash, Jerry. Promise me you’ll never again make eyes flash.) Well, since this is really just between us, since it’s not going up there for the public to see, I might as well go ahead and admit that there have been a couple of moments when you’ve looked kind of cute to me as well, though I was too furious right through that whole scene up in my room to have any tender thoughts.

  But you know what, Jerry? I don’t think this is going to turn into a romance. I just don’t. Up till when you ganged up on me, I would probably have said that we were going to stay friends for years, go off to college and stay in touch, that I would cheer you on and you would cheer me on. But you know what? Gang up on me or not, I’m never gonna be the girl who dates the quarterback. Not ever. Not in college, and certainly not in high school. Sorry, but being who you are in a town like this opens up certain options and closes off certain others.

  Okay, enough of that. Let’s talk about what really matters here. Let’s talk about freedom of the press. Bamburger called my parents. I was up in my room doing homework, so I didn’t even know they were on the phone, but then came the fateful knock. You know that feeling when your parents appear together at your door, watches synchronized, all differences put aside, ready to steamroller you. I bet you’ve had the experience yourself—that feeling that you’re being ganged up on. Of course, if you were imagining my parents, given the way you think
, you’d probably still be stuck describing them synchronizing their watches; my dad would have a Rolex, and my mom would have something with diamonds. Which would probably flash.

  I don’t know all of what Bamburger said to them, but I do know what he said to me the next day, and you got some of it right. Pompous little speech about how the paper belongs to the school and the blog belongs to the paper. I did point out to him that there have been several state supreme court rulings supporting the idea that short of printing pornography or libel, a school newspaper does have certain First Amendment rights.

  Well, not where Mr. Bamburger comes from. And anyway, he cut pretty directly to the chase. I was sitting in that scientifically lowered chair in his scientifically dreary office. I had dressed up to come to school, after the fight with my parents. I didn’t want to blend in. I was wearing a white silk shirt and a black-and-white-checked bow tie, almost like I was making fun of Mr. Bamburger’s outfit. At least, I hope he thought so, on some level or other. And a gray cashmere pencil skirt I borrowed from my mother’s closet.

  So there I was, sitting in Mr. Bamburger’s office. And the hard thing about this for me to admit is that I was really hating him. I guess I haven’t been in trouble enough. I guess I’m kind of used to being the good girl. I mean, I know there are sometimes fights between people who work on the school paper and faculty over articles and censorship, but to tell the truth, it hasn’t come up in writing about sports. It just hasn’t come up.

  But I was sitting there and I was feeling on the one hand like I was in trouble, like I was being scolded, like it was my parents mad at me only louder, and then at the same time, of course, I was feeling angry, because I didn’t say anything on my blog that wasn’t true, I didn’t cross any of the lines that we all know are out there in high school journalism. I didn’t talk about kids drinking, or kids having sex, I didn’t use any profanity—I just reported a story that started in front of hundreds and hundreds of people, and I followed it and I told the truth. And the whole truth and nothing but the truth.