by Navi' Robins
On the surface it would appear that we had the perfect life; wealth, stability, and family even after the loss of our Dad. But nothing is rarely as it seems and what’s on the surface usually covers something much darker and my family was no different. We had our secrets too. They just hadn’t caught up with us……yet.
CHAPTER THREE
Fall 2009—It was the first week of September and the start of the school year. Usually Sarah and I would go clothes shopping for the new school year, updating our wardrobe so that we kept current with the latest fashions. Hey, our mom was an ex-model and even though she was somewhat of a modest woman she still refused to send us out looking like last year’s leftovers. This year though, I didn’t do as much shopping with the money she gave me.
I was planning a trip to Spain to visit our grandparents during the Thanksgiving holiday season. I wanted a little more spending money so that I could really enjoy myself. My mom protested me going alone. She wanted me to wait till spring break so that Sarah and I could go together. No way! I wanted to go alone. Sarah was high- maintenance and would run our grandparents ragged trying to keep up with her demands. I hadn’t been there in years and even though Grandpa was weird, he was still a lot of fun to be around. Also, Spain was just awesome period! I was really looking forward to that trip.
With this new school year came a particular change I wasn’t looking forward to; Sarah joining me at Deerfield High. My mom initially wanted her to go to a private school in Lake Forest but just like Sarah, she begged and pleaded until my mom gave in. She fed our mom this load of crap about feeling safer going to the same school as people she knew. The real reason she wanted to go to Deerfield started with a T and ended with a Y. Tony, my best friend, on whom Sarah has had an almost “stalktistic” (yes, I know that isn’t a word but as a teenager we always create our own words and here’s my contribution) crush for years. For most, the attention from such an attractive girl would be heaven but Tony wasn’t having it.
As much as she tried, Tony made sure he was extra mean when she made any advances towards him. I knew he found her attractive, I mean she’s my sister and as much as she repulses me I couldn’t deny how beautiful she was. But to Tony our friendship was so important that the thought of ruining it for Sarah made her ugly. I know it’s strange for some to comprehend that kind of friendship nowadays, with people having lower standards and a higher tolerance for depravity….but there you have it.
Another major reason I wasn’t looking forward to Sarah and me going to the same school was Sarah had a bad temper and not an ounce of patience. Combine that with Sarah being so sensitive and anything said that she didn’t like could land her in the principal’s office and the offender in the nurse’s office. To this day I can’t understand how my mom controlled Sarah’s temper the way she did. I knew with all of Sarah’s issues I was going to have my hands full trying to look after her and listen to all the complaints from lovesick boys and jealous girls at the school…..lucky me.
After getting up and preparing for the first day of school, I headed downstairs towards the kitchen to see what Mom had prepared for our “first day of school breakfast.” The first day of school every year was a big deal for Mom because she never had the opportunity to go to school when she was our age. So she would prepare a special breakfast for us. The house was filled with the delicious smells of waffles, eggs, and breakfast sausages. I didn’t wake up hungry but now my mouth was watering. The closer I got to the kitchen the stronger my hunger became and by the time I walked into the kitchen my stomach felt like it was pushing towards my back.
My mom was busy with a skillet of scrambled eggs and didn’t seem to notice I’d just walked into the kitchen; so I quickly tried to reach for a sausage from the plate on the island. Before I could get a good grip on the sausage, my mom quickly spun around from the stove and smacked my hand with her spoon.
“Ouch!”
“Good morning, Aiden!”
“Morning, Mom.”
How is she that fast?
“Wash your dirty hands and have a seat. Where is Sarah?” Mom asked in her heavy Brazilian accent.
The sound of her name and the idea of her going to my school made me slam my hand on the granite countertop. The silverware on the island slightly jumped off the surface sending the sharp sound of metal clashing together straight to my mother’s ears. She quickly turned to face me while giving me a look that spelled warning; “eruption is imminent”. I could imagine her tropical blood boiling as her anger built up at my reaction to her question about her “baby”. Sarah was fifteen for Pete’s sake…but she was still mom’s baby and her fiery stare let me know that it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Her look should’ve given me the hint I needed but I was hard headed and determined to try and insult Sarah.
“Mom, I don’t know I can’t keep up w-”
She quickly gave me another look that clearly said if I didn’t want to play “dodge the cook’s spoon,” I wouldn’t finish that statement. After seeing her look while holding the spoon in a way that appeared she was weighing it to see how far and hard she could throw it, I instantly grew a brain and changed my approach immediately.
“I don’t know Mom. She’s probably still getting ready.”
Smiling with a glow in her eyes she turned back towards the stove, satisfied that she’d gotten her point across. But I knew she wanted much more from me. I knew the talk was coming. I could feel it…
“Aiden?”
“Yes, Mom?”
Here it comes…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it…
“Son, I really need you to keep a close eye on your sister…”
BOOM! The watch-your-sister speech.
“I don’t want her getting into trouble with those fast girls at that school and I definitely don’t want her getting involved with those hormone-driven boys either.”
“Mom, Sarah is a handful and she doesn’t listen to anything I say.”
“That’s because when you talk all I see is your mouth moving and garbage pouring out of it,” Sarah cut in while she pranced into the kitchen. I gritted my teeth while shaking my head as she gleefully sat down on the stool next to me.
“You see what I’m talking about, Mom!?” I protested.
“Aiden, not even Mom knows what you’re talking about and she gave birth to you.”
“Don’t hate on me Sarah because I wasn’t born in a test tube.”
“What?! Mom!”
“Hey, both of you stop it now! Sarah you need to start respecting your brother and paying closer attention to your actions. Aiden can’t clean up your mess at that school.”
“Thanks Mom! That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“I’m still talking Aiden.”
“Sorry Mom.”
“Aiden, you need to start being more involved with your sister. I know you’ve always been a loner but she’s fifteen going on sixteen and she’s going to need you now more than she cares to admit.”
“Mom, I don’t need Aiden babysitting me, it’s embarrassing.”
“Speaking of babysitting, I want you home at the same time during the school week, no exceptions!”
“What?!” we both protested.
“Mom, I want to try out for the girls’ soccer team and practice is always after school.”
“Really? Well, I guess Aiden will be your escort.”
“Mom!”
“Wait, no!”
“No what, Aiden?”
“Why do I have to sit out two or more hours of my life for…”
“Aiden!” My mom gave me that “watch it” look; she always could sense when I was about to say something to make things worse.
“Okay, wait for Sarah.”
“Aiden, you have two options. Wait for her or try out for a team so that both of you are in practice after school together.”
“Oh Mom, come on!”
“What Aiden? You need to try something new. You’re constantly working out, you’re in great shape
, you’re an extremely fast runner, and I think you will do great in sports.”
“Mom, that may be true but the jocks at my school are not the nicest bunch to be around.”
“Most jocks aren’t Aiden, but you need to start learning how to work with others and to thrive in a hostile environment. You never know when you’ll need those skills. So just think about it; otherwise you’ll be watching your pretty little sister kick a ball around for two hours.”
“Oh God no! I’ll look into football then.”
“Great! Sarah?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“I don’t want any games from you, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mom.”
After breakfast I sat there in awe when I finally figured out what just happened. My mom for the longest has been trying to get me into sports at school. I’ve always managed to get out of it…until today. I love sports and I play football at the park all the time, but I just didn’t like being around the buffoons on our school’s sports teams. Some of them were bullies and some of the people they bullied were pretty cool. They tried me once and only once during my first year here with the starting senior quarterback.
I was only fifteen and while in the lunchroom, Adam the starting quarterback and “head bully of the buffoon squad” cut in the line right in front of me. Okay so what, no problem. Then he kept reaching back over my tray. Now he was pushing it. I didn’t like people too close to things I was going to put in my mouth. After about three attempts of him reaching over my food, I could tell he was trying me, so I politely stepped out of line to avoid a confrontation. With my back towards him he pushed me…hard. He was much bigger and stronger than me but I knew even with his size and strength advantage I could seriously hurt him. So I tried to avoid it; but he wasn’t in the lunchroom to eat. His mission was to punk the new freshman; the attractive and quiet boy that all the girls was talking about. He wanted to make a mockery of me and put me in my place among the bullied. I can take a lot of things but physical aggression is a big problem for me. So after the push I quickly turned and demanded he apologize.
I was less than a foot from him, staring directly in his eyes waiting for his response. He smiled and told his crew I had heart and he was going to tear it out of my chest and leave it on the lunchroom floor. I was in my comfort zone being this close to him. Close-quarter combat was always my strong point. He pretended to walk away but suddenly turned intending to push me in my chest and cause me to fall backwards onto the floor. A very old and lame trick—I saw through this from the beginning. I knew he had a reputation to keep up and he wasn’t going to walk away from a “freshie” demanding an apology. Too many people were watching this exchange.
While spinning around and reaching out with all his strength to push me in my chest; I quickly and calmly stepped back to my left and placed my left foot directly in front of his shoes. The force behind his missed push paired with my perfectly placed foot propelled him down and across the lunchroom floor. The lunchroom immediately erupted in roaring laughter as they watched the starting quarterback glide across the lunchroom floor on his stomach.
Cherry red with embarrassment the quarterback decided to have another go at me. It never dawned on this dummy that if I was fast enough to avoid that push I might know some things he didn’t. But I guess he didn’t see it that way. So I calmly stood there waiting for him to dust himself off and try again. As he rushed towards me with violent rage in his eyes, I stood there contemplating how quickly I wanted to end this confrontation. Did I want to show off and completely embarrass this jackass? Did I want to instill fear in his buddies and other bullies to prevent future retaliation? Or did I just want to do all the above by ending this with one shot? I decided on the latter. As he got within range I struck his throat with the outside of my left hand and punched him in his solar plexus with my right fist at the same time. I made sure the blow to his throat was a mere tap, not enough to kill him but enough to constrict his air supply.
The force of the air rushing from his mid-section and his throat closing up from the tap caused him to black out instantly. I quickly stepped to my right and let him crumple to the floor. Complete silence fell over the noisy lunchroom. No one moved as the entire lunchroom took a deep breath watching the toughest student go down in less than a minute at the hands of a freshman. I could feel the fear in the room; it seemed to make time stand still.
After about ten seconds the “crumpled heap of stupid” on the floor came to, coughing and inhaling frantically. His teammates rushed over to help him to his feet while staring at me with disbelief. I calmly stepped towards them and looked them all over with a satisfied stare and said in the most polite tone,
“I’ll be in the principal’s office. I’m sure he’ll want to speak to me now. You should help your friend over there too because he’ll want to speak with him as well. You all have a nice day.”
Mission accomplished. I didn’t have another physical confrontation at Deerfield High again. But that confrontation was never forgotten and now big stupid’s little brother Brian was the new starting quarterback. He’s never said anything to me but he has given me some nasty looks from time to time.
So you can understand my hesitation, but unfortunately football was my only option. Basketball was out of the question. I was only six feet tall back then and the entire basketball squad was giants—the shortest guy was six foot four. I would look like a pigmy next to those guys. Soccer wasn’t an option for me either; I just didn’t care for it at all. So football was my only realistic option to avoid having to watch my sister for two hours doing something I didn’t like. I’ve always been great at the running back position because of my speed, strength, and awareness. Our school’s running back was a scrub, so I knew the coach was looking for a better alternative.
I was just hoping I wouldn’t have the same kind of problems with Brian that I had with his older brother Adam. Actually Brian was a great quarterback, light years better than his big brother and I knew it would be better to befriend him than beat on him. He may leave the team and the team wouldn’t win a single game without him. He was definitely NFL-bound, no question. But I wasn’t ready to deal with him if he wasn’t open to burying the hatchet on his brother’s ass-kicking.
Now there I sat at our kitchen table feeling stupid because I just got played by my mom and she used Sarah to accomplish her goal with Sarah not being aware of it.
Suddenly the doorbell rang and it could only be one person at our door this early, Tony Martinez; my only real friend. He just got back in town a couple of days ago after spending the summer in Israel with his dad. His parents were separated for about three year, but his dad tried his best to still be part of his life. My dad and his dad were both Navy Seals and the best of friends and that’s how Tony and I met. We’ve been friends for as long as we both could walk.
We both started martial arts together but Tony excelled drastically. He was a natural and he picked up on everything to perfection. Because of our friendship our instructor never allowed us to fight against each other in any tournaments. I was grateful for that because Tony would have handed my butt to me easily.
Tony has always been considered attractive and he had a demeanor that just attracted attention from those of the opposite sex. So to say he got a lot of play from the girls was an understatement. The downside to all that sex appeal is that he started experiencing sex early and didn’t have the maturity to handle it. So when his parents separated he just took it to another level. Now his viewpoint towards girls was extremely cold and uncaring. But he never pressured me to go his route even though we were close. He would always tell me that if he could do it all over again he would do it the way I was doing it now.
Despite his shortcomings he was extremely intelligent and never saw anything less than an A in any of his classes. When they tell you never judge a book by its cover, Tony was the definition of that warning. If you didn’t know him like I did, you would expect him to be some athlete who didn’t f
ind academics very important. That would be an inaccurate assumption. He was all about the grades and even though we both played football with some of the neighborhood kids, he didn’t try out for any sports at school. He said he’d rather perfect his pimping than his punting. Tony was a natural comedian and can you blame him? He was an African American teenager with a Hispanic last name so he had to develop a thick skin and he learned quickly how to give better than he got.
I would often ask him why didn’t he stop being such a player and he would answer, “I can’t help myself from helping myself.” Even with all his faults he was a great friend and he never judged me for my shortcomings and I owed it to him to give him that same respect.
“Hey, dude! You’re cutting it close this morning, huh?” I said.
“Aww, man, you know I got to make an entrance.”
“Yeah, whatever, Casanova.”
“You mean blaca-nova.”
We both laughed at his crack on himself. Sarah heard Tony’s voice from her bedroom upstairs and came running down the stairs screaming his name like an ’N Sync fan; eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Boy, move!” She demanded, shoving me out of the way. Before Tony could stop her she jumped in his arms; hugging him tightly.
“Tony I missed you so much. Don’t ever leave me like that again!”
I could see he was getting uncomfortable with her signs of affection, especially with my mom looking on. He tried to break away but Sarah wouldn’t let go. The look on his face while my mom gave him “the look” was priceless. I thought he was going to piss his pants.
“Okay, okay! Man, girl, give me six feet! Whew!”