Second Impact

by David Klass

  He didn’t get up, he didn’t say hello. I walked in, sat down. He looked at me for another minute.

  “I got a call this morning, Carla,” he said, finally, pitching his voice a little lower than it usually goes. “I got a call from a certain Dr. Klapper.”

  Actually, I still didn’t get it. Dr. Klapper is a doctor in New York who works with brain injury patients. Back when I was really working on that story, I had set up a visit to his clinic for last Thursday evening, and even though I was told not to write the story, I was still interested in the subject and I thought I would make the trip. Kind of on a whim, I invited Jerry Downing to come with me. We’ve been arguing about this head injury stuff, and I was curious to see what he would make of a traumatic brain injury clinic, and to be honest, I was a little anxious about going there alone. So the two of us went and visited the place for maybe an hour on Thursday. But I didn’t write the story (well, actually, I did write something about the trip—as I’m sure Mr. Bamburger will be delighted to learn—but the only person I showed it to was Jerry).

  “A certain Dr. Klapper,” Mr. Bamburger said again.

  “What was he calling for?” I asked.

  Mr. Bamburger smiled, and it was a pretty awful, angry smile. “He was calling because he saw a TV story on Friday’s game, and he wanted to congratulate me—to tell me that Jerry Downing is a remarkable young man. Just the kind of call I love to get—”

  And then suddenly his voice changed and he was screaming at me, really screaming.

  “I told you to leave that stuff alone! I told you no on the head injury story! No! I gave you another chance. I was going to let you write again this week, but you had to keep it going. You had to disobey me deliberately!”

  I was scared. It was kind of like being slapped. It almost hurt to have him that mad, yelling at me like that. I was scared, and I started talking really fast.

  “I wasn’t going to write the story,” I said. “Really, Mr. Bamburger, it was just that I had the trip set up already and I sort of thought I should go—after my own doctor helped set it up, and Dr. Klapper was expecting me. I didn’t think of it as disobeying you because I knew I wasn’t going to publish anything.” To me, my voice sounded weak and squeaky. I felt a little dizzy. I’m really not used to being in trouble, and here I was, in trouble up to my neck, and I hadn’t even known it.

  “So you thought it was okay to drag the quarterback into Manhattan the night before the semifinal game and have him walking around a hospital?” He was still yelling, maybe not quite as loud, but certainly way angrier than normal speech. “Did you ever see even an inch beyond your own self-serving agenda?”

  I was frantic to make him understand. “It was totally safe, Mr. Bamburger,” I said. “We were back in Kendall before nine, plenty of time to spare…”

  He cut me off. “And I suppose you thought that was the right thing for the quarterback to be doing and looking at and thinking about the night before the biggest game of his career? Just tell me, what kind of a spoiled destructive drama queen are you? It’s okay if the school is crushed and the town is disappointed, just as long as you can satisfy your need to be insubordinate.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be insubordinate,” I said, miserably. I knew I was about to break down. How could I have been so stupid? I was thinking. How could I not have thought of any of this, how could I have gotten myself into more trouble than I have ever been in, and how could I not have seen this coming?

  But Mr. Bamburger wasn’t really listening to me. He stood up behind his desk, and he towered over me. He was shaking his finger.

  “You are off the Kourier,” he said. “You will never publish another word in that paper or on the Web site. That self-indulgent blog of yours is done, and we aren’t going to have any more like it. Over. Ended.”

  I was mad at myself because I could feel that I was on the edge of tears. I think it was partly rage, but it was certainly partly fear and sorrow. I had so many things I wanted to say: “But Jerry is eighteen years old and he can make his own decisions,” “But nothing happened,” “But Jerry threw a beautiful game the next day.” But, but, but, but. I was trying to put the right sentence together, to say something without breaking down, but I had to gulp a mouthful of air instead. The principal stayed on his feet, thundering down at me.

  “You are suspended for one week! And I want you to know that I will personally contact each college on your list and inform them that you have been suspended for bad behavior, insubordination, and attempting to undermine your school!”

  “I wasn’t trying to undermine my school!” I said, and I was shocked to hear that my voice was as loud as his. I wondered whether they could hear us in the outer office. I was thinking (how could I help thinking of this?) about the hours of filling in college applications, working on my essays, assembling clips from the Kourier, about everything that he was trying to take away from me.

  “I love this school,” I said. “I love this school! And I think Jerry Downing is a great quarterback, and I would never do anything that would undermine him, either!”

  Mr. Bamburger smiled another not-kind smile at me. He sat down at his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a manila file folder. I guess it was my file. He opened it, took a fat black pen out of his suit pocket, and made some notes. Then he looked up at me, like he could barely see me. “I don’t like defiance,” he said in a normal voice. “I don’t like students who think they own my school, just because they have big-shot parents who can buy them whatever they want.” He clicked the pen closed and put it back in his pocket, like I was all taken care of. “No further contact with the Kourier. No blog. One-week suspension for disciplinary reasons. Colleges to be informed by me, personally. I believe that takes care of it. You may go to your locker and collect your belongings. I want you off my school grounds in no more than ten minutes. And I want you out of my office right now. I have wasted enough time on this. I have a school to run and a championship to win.” He picked up his phone and said into it, “Send the coach in, please. I want to speak with him here before we go meet with the mayor.”

  He was very deliberately not looking at me; he was trying to show me that I was already erased. He was back to thinking about important things and hanging out with the big guys. I was a bug and I had been squashed.

  I stood up, then bent down to pick up my backpack. The outside pocket was partly unzipped and I could see, gleaming up at me, my tiny digital tape recorder.

  I didn’t stop to think. I turned my back slightly to the principal, slipped the recorder out, and pressed the little key to turn it on. Then I bent over the chair where I had been sitting, and as I slung the backpack over first one shoulder and then the other, I slipped the recorder back between the cushions, burying it as deep as I could. I did it, all alone. Me, myself, and I.

  I’m not sure what I was thinking, exactly, because I was so scared and so angry. The truth is, right then, I hated him, and I knew that he hated me. The truth is, instead of crying, as I had thought I might, I wanted to scream at him and call him names and smash things. If I hadn’t suddenly seen the tape recorder, I don’t know what I would have done, stopped in the doorway, maybe, and made a speech, told him off. It was the way he was showing off his power and his control: I can erase you, I can ruin your life. It made me want to hit back and show him that I was even more trouble than he thought.

  So I left my tape recorder tucked between the cushions of the chair. As I went out of the office, I passed Coach Shea standing right outside the door, bouncing a little on his feet. He looked at me as I went past, lugging my backpack; I must have been the only person he had passed that morning who hadn’t said congratulations, but there was just too much going on in my head and I didn’t think I could talk.

  To make a long story short, I went to my locker, I put even more stuff in my backpack, took what I thought I might need. I was moving fast, even though I felt dazed. Everything around me seemed unreal—that locker with all the books and noteb
ooks of Carla the good student, who does her homework and gets her A’s and fills in her college applications. But no, I wasn’t going to think about that. And I wasn’t going to go find Sophie or stop in at the Kourier office. No time. Instead, within ten minutes, I was back outside the principal’s office, lurking in the hallway.

  And sure enough, the door opened and out came Mr. Bamburger and Coach Shea, walking fast, just as the bell rang and the hall started to fill with students. I turned away and started walking in the other direction, and I’m not sure they noticed me. So I went into the principal’s outer office and told his secretary, in my best scared-little-girl voice, that I thought I had left my phone in Mr. Bamburger’s office when I was talking to him just a few minutes ago. She let me go in and stood in the doorway watching me. (I don’t know whether she knew I was a dangerous criminal or whether that’s just how she treats everyone. As I keep saying, I’m just not used to being in trouble like this.) I went straight to the chair where I had been sitting and reached between the cushions.

  “Here it is!” I said. I pulled out the tape recorder, holding it in my fist so she wouldn’t be able to see exactly what kind of small rectangular electronic device I was clutching.

  And then I went home, me and my backpack full of stuff from my locker, and my tape recorder. And I will admit to you that when I was finally sitting down in my own room, I did cry. I thought about my college applications, and about the championship game that would happen without my being in school for the days beforehand, without the buzzing talk in classes where we were supposed to be doing something else, or the silliness in the hallways, or the craziness at the pep rally.

  And then I thought about the Kendall Kourier, and all the excitement of covering a championship countdown, and the way it would be happening without me. I sat there and I felt sorry for myself, and I cried. I thought about calling my mother at work, or my father, but to tell you the truth, I was scared. I didn’t think I could handle one more person yelling at me right then.

  So I washed my face and I sat down at my desk, and I listened to my tape recorder. So here’s what was happening while I was cleaning out my locker. The little recorder picked up everything. It’s a little muffled because it was recording through the cushions, with the coach sitting on top of them, but it’s pretty clear.

  The principal congratulates the coach, tells him great game, and the coach says thanks. Then the coach asks, “Wasn’t that the kid who covers sports who was just in here?”

  “That’s over,” Mr. Bamburger says. “She’s done. She’s off the paper. She’s a spoiled rich kid who wants all the attention for herself. She makes things up, she twists the truth. She’s done writing for our paper. She thinks she’s better than the other kids, better than the doctors, better than the coach. You know that little princess doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the school or the team or anything but herself!”

  “She’s a pretty good writer, actually,” the coach says. “And she’s got Downing writing, too. Some of it’s kind of interesting. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea, but the guys on the team like reading him, and he’s certainly having a hell of a season.”

  “She’s got Downing doing all kinds of things,” the principal answers. “I really wonder if that guy has any judgment at all! Smashing up that poor girl in his car. How come we have to win with a juvenile delinquent for a quarterback, answer me that?”

  “He’s having a great year,” the coach says. “Honestly, Mark, I think he’s put all that bad stuff behind him. I was worried that it was just weighing on him too heavily, but look at him now!”

  “And he’s going to finish the job, right? You’re feeling okay for Friday?”

  “To tell you the truth, the team we’re playing on Friday is out of nowhere—it’s a school that no one was expecting to see go this far. My guess is, they’re playing on guts and glory right now. On paper, I think we’re better, but when a team makes a run like that, you never know. I’m taking it very seriously, and I’ll make sure my team does, too.”

  “But if Downing plays at the level he did on Friday—”

  “If Downing plays at the level he did on Friday, there’s no team anywhere going to beat us,” the coach says, and you can hear how proud he is.

  “And this week you’re playing Rosewood, right?” Bamburger says.

  “If we need him,” the coach answers. “I’ve talked with his doctor, and he’s fully cleared to play.”

  “We need him,” the principal tells him. “We need everything. He’s Downing’s favorite receiver. We need our stars on the field for this one. I want him in that game.”

  There’s a little pause, and you can hear fuzzy electronic noise on the recorder.

  “Rosewood’s father called me,” Bamburger goes on. “Told me his son is crazy to play this week, that I can’t let him miss the championship game.”

  “I know,” the coach said. “He called me, too. He’s good people.”

  “So that’s decided,” Bamburger says. “It won’t be the first time we’ve pushed the envelope a little. No guts, no glory, right?”

  Coach stays silent. Maybe he nodded, or maybe he didn’t.

  Then Bamburger changes the subject—or maybe not really. “We need to talk about your contract for next year, Tom,” he says. “We have to go meet the mayor right now, but let’s put it on the calendar for next Monday, first thing we deal with once we’re state champions.”

  “Sure,” the coach says. “I’d like that, Mark.”

  “Win the game,” Mr. Bamburger tells him. “You think about winning this game.”

  “You think I’m not thinking about that every minute?”

  “We’re going to win, right, Coach?”

  “We’re going to give it everything we’ve got,” the coach says.

  Well, that’s the story. I’m not even going to comment or analyze or editorialize, because I’m so wrought up and confused right now, and so angry and so scared, that I don’t trust myself. I’ll post a link to the recording right here, so you can listen for yourself and at least you’ll know I’m not making things up. Or twisting the truth.

  And that’s it. They haven’t changed the codes or the passwords, though I’m sure they will now. I’m sorry, Ms. Edison, I know you trusted me. But if I wait and think it over, I’ll chicken out. So here goes. This is Carla’s last blog post, and goodbye, everybody. Go Tigers!

  View 3 reader comments:

  Posted by user ProudTigerMom at 2:27 a.m.

  You should be ashamed of yourself. You say “Go Tigers!” but you post statements that will hurt the school community just when we should be feeling proud. I hope this is indeed your last post. Goodbye and good riddance.

  Posted by user LateNightSteve at 2:45 a.m.

  This is an important story; I’m mirroring the link on my own page at Steve’s Weave, though I hope it will not come to the administration unfairly silencing it here, on this blog. Just in case, though, I’ve copied it to my home servers so that the truth will be heard.

  Posted by user WolverinesSUCK at 3:01 a.m.

  The real scandal is that due to the fluoridation of the water in American cities none of our young people have the necessary skull strength to withstand the impact of sports injuries anymore. Read more about this important issue at my blog, You Cannot Hide Fluoridation is EVERYWHERE and join the movement to return our drinking water to its natural state. This sort of chemical manipulation is exactly what brought down the Roman Empire.

  ERROR 404. Kendallkourier.com/Carlas_blog cannot be found. This domain was permanently removed by user Ms_Edison at 6:00 a.m.

  VENTING

  Posted by user JERRY on December 4 at 2:17 p.m.

  It was a regularly scheduled board meeting, but that was the only regular thing about it. I walked to school with Danny, and other players joined us along the way. Coach had told all the seniors to show up to support the team, even though we weren’t exactly sure what that meant. As we got close, we saw cars zipping into
parking spaces and townspeople hurrying along the sidewalk to get good seats, excitedly exchanging gossip.

  Every year or two in Kendall, a board meeting becomes an event. There was the time a few seniors were busted for dealing drugs at school. There was the cyberbullying mess—I’m sure you all remember that fiasco. And of course there was the board meeting after my car accident when everyone wanted to vent about whether our school had a drunk driving problem.

  This time it was Carla. The blog she had posted with her recording of Principal Bamburger had been taken down by the school authorities within two hours, but by then it had gone viral. It was copied and reposted and even picked up by some local news shows. Let’s just say the coverage about our school and its football team—not to mention the principal—wasn’t too flattering.

  There was a rumor sweeping school that Carla was going to be expelled in the closed-door session after the public board meeting. No one had seen or heard from her all day—even Sophie West couldn’t reach her. I didn’t want to believe the rumor, but what she had done was pretty serious stuff. There was a lot of anger toward her in town for kicking up this stink just before our big game.

  Board meetings are usually held in the high school dining hall, but this one was moved to the gym for the big crowd. I’m not sure exactly what people thought they were going to hear, but there was a buzz in the air. Everyone was excited—about our team, about Carla’s post, and about some of the things that Bamburger had been caught saying on tape. Two local cable news crews were set up outside. They nearly mugged Danny and me for quotes. “Hey, Downing,” a reporter called out, “how does it feel to be called a juvenile delinquent by your own principal?” Danny and I kept our heads down and plowed right on by them, with the other guys running interference.

  We sat at the front of the gym, beneath the giant American flag that hangs from the rafters. We were all in our team shirts, and as the gym filled up, people came over to congratulate us. “Don’t let this distract you,” I heard again and again. “You guys just finish the job.”