Broken Field

by Jeff Hull

  They hadn’t, for instance, talked with any of them in the presence of their parents. But Marlo’s job was to legally facilitate what the board wanted to do, or tell them it wasn’t possible. She was an “advisor,” which, in her experience, served the same role as a lighter fluid-soaked piece of newspaper in getting a fire started. It lit the blaze, but was gone in seconds, had no determining outcome on where the fire might spread to, and nobody could tell you anything about it afterward. Marlo was forced to park two blocks away from the Sportsman and walked in a short, shuffling strides through the snow, pelted by wind-driven pellets all the way. A clot of people spilled out of the double-wide-sized prefab municipal building and into the street.

  Most wore feeding caps and Carhartt jackets and didn’t seem as bothered by the snow as she was. The school board’s special meeting, meant to “discuss incidents on school property and personnel issues” according to the 8½ by 11 posters placed, to accommodate state law, in prominent public places, quickly became one of the best attended non-sporting events in Dumont history, a feat made even more remarkable in the face of plunging temperatures and a snowstorm that blanked out the stars and moon.

  Parents arrived from farmsteads thirty miles outside of town, knowing they would have to grapple their way home through temperatures approaching zero and a wind-driven ground blizzard. People made way for Marlo, recognizing her perhaps not as the school board attorney, but as someone from out of town carrying a briefcase. She pushed into the corridor of the municipal building and then into the meeting room, which was stuffed with humanity.

  Every chair was occupied and onlookers ringed the room along the walls. Two pairs of cameramen and glossy TV reporters staked out competing positions and flooded the room with too much light. Marlo recognized a reporter from the Great Falls Tribune. The individual voices she caught were held to a level below that of normal conversation, but the sound of so many created a roaring murmur. Most disconcerting was the overwhelming reek of alcohol spewing into the air.

  “Ms. Stark,” Dave Cates said, rising to lever up a handshake when she reached the table where the five school board members and the superintendent sat. “Or I guess it’ll be Mrs. soon. Mrs. what again?”

  “Hi, Dave,” Marlo said, using the handshake to pull him into a light hug. She had been told, by a senior partner, that her hugs were not exactly the image of professionalism the firm wished to convey, about which she thought: Bonk that. And why did she hate people—men, specifically—knowing that she was engaged, mentioning it out loud, waving it in her face? “It would be Crawford, if I was changing my name. But I’m sticking with Stark.” She made her eyes round and wide open. “Big night.”

  “No hyphen?”

  “Pretentious, don’t you think?” Marlo said. “I’ve made too much money as a Stark to gamble on earning out as a Crawford.”

  “It is a big night,” Dave said.

  “Is this everybody?” she asked.

  “I think we were waiting for you.”

  “I mean, is this everybody in town?”

  Dave laughed and said, “Pretty near.”

  From their first interaction, several years before, she could tell Cates got a kick out of her, and that gave her a certain charge, too. She knew herself, knew she enjoyed her effect on men, wouldn’t deny herself that. Maybe she reminded Dave of his single, college days. He made a big deal of the fact that they both were educated in Missoula—he an undergrad at the university, she at the law school. Dave smiled, tighter this time. Marlo glanced around the room and thought, There is nothing quite so charming as a room full of farmers who imagine they’re fit for public consumption.

  She particularly liked the festive turquoise or white kerchiefs that wrapped so many throats. Hardly anybody in the urban centers wore kerchiefs around their necks anymore, but several men in the audience sported what were obviously clean and special ones, blossoming from their shirtfronts at their Adam’s apples.

  “You know we can’t do this, right?” Marlo said.

  “Can’t do what?” Dave asked.

  “Your sign says the meeting will discuss personnel issues. You can’t discuss personnel issues at a public meeting,” Marlo said. “You can decide them, but you can’t discuss them. Privacy laws.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Cates said. “See, the board wants to clear the air. Act firmly and decisively.”

  “Sticky wicket, Dave,” Marlo said. “This is all well-intentioned bad thinking. We need to know some things before we have a public meeting. When you say the board, who’s the driver?”

  “Brad Martin.”

  “Remind me.”

  “Board chair. Ultra-booster. Boy a senior on the football team. Daughter a sophomore cheerleader and track star. Big in the community. Runs the implement dealership. Ties to everyone. Big supporter of the school and the town.”

  Jesus, Marlo thought. “Well, let’s start thinking.”

  “Be pretty hard to undo this,” Dave said, holding open hands to suggest the entirety of the collection around him. “Can’t tell everyone to go home.”

  “Let’s figure something out,” Marlo said. “First thing, there’s not enough room in here. You can distract the crowd by suggesting a new venue—the high school gym would be my suggestion. While they’re reassembling, maybe we can squeeze in a quick closed-door executive meeting with the board and the coach.”

  “I guess that’s why we pay you the big bucks?”

  “Sure,” Marlo said, thinking, that’s as good a reason as any.

  * * *

  When he saw the volume of traffic in town, Tom had parked his rig at the high school and walked the three blocks down to the town hall meeting room. He didn’t push his way through the crowd, but he knew he’d have to be in the room where everything was happening, and so he excused himself as he struggled through the clogged hallway. Heads turned, people saw who he was.

  “Happy?” one of his player’s parents said as he squirmed past. They were closing ranks.

  He was, he understood, already an outsider. He had not even made the main room when he heard a raised voice, identified it as Brad Martin’s, then registered the groan of disapproval. The mass of backs before him suddenly became bellies and faces and the crowd emptied out of the building. Tom was washed back into the sharp, cold night. His eyes watered, going from the humid press of so many people to the frigid air.

  He heard people telling other people the meeting had been moved to the high school. Up and down the street, pickup engines started, white headlights blinked on, and red brake lights flared as people prepared to drive the three blocks to the school.

  Tom lingered, hoping to catch David Cates, and then, when the surge had ebbed, saw Dave, the five school board members, and an attractive woman in a wool skirt emerging from the town hall. Cates’s eye lit on Tom. “Perfect,” he said. “Here he is. Let’s get this done.”

  Dave grabbed Tom’s shoulder, said, “Come with us,” and pointed him down the street. Two doors down, they all filed into Pep’s bar.

  “Really bad idea,” the tall woman in the city skirt, who Tom noticed had a luxuriant fall of long dark hair heavy enough to lay mostly straight even in the windy night, protested as Dave held the bar door open.

  “You’d rather face the wolf pack?” Dave said.

  “There’s got to be a law against this,” the woman said.

  School lawyer, Tom realized. During the short walk, he had overheard her lean into Dave and whisper, “Is it my imagination, or are most of the board members already glazed?”

  “They may have gathered at the bar before the meeting. Row their ducks. Hardly unusual. They’re adults,” Dave had said back, not bothering to whisper.

  They filed into the bar, several board members going straight for a stool before the attorney stood by a long table and loudly cleared her throat. Except for Hal Hartack, Pep’s was empty—everybody in town willing to brave the weather had gone to the high school gym. As the board members milled about and so
rted out seats, Dave Cates placed a hand on Tom’s back, moving him into a position at the end of the table.

  “Marlo, this is our coach, Tom Warner. Tom, Marlo Stark, the school district’s attorney.”

  Tom nodded, held out his hand, and saw Marlo Stark take him in. Her hand felt cold, but strong in his. He said, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” which seemed to not make her happy.

  “Did you see that news report?” Brad Martin asked Tom.

  “I did,” Tom said.

  “Couldn’t really have been much worse, could it?” Dave said.

  “Short of trotting out some ACLU lawyer, or Jesse Jackson, no,” Brad said. “I see she’s here.”

  “Who?”

  “That same reporter from Havre. I’d like to get her alone in a room for a little while.”

  “Mr. Martin, try really hard not to say that kind of stuff out loud, okay?” Marlo Stark said.

  “You need to understand that this whole thing is ridiculous,” Brad said. “Absolutely everybody involved is overreacting.”

  “Well we need to get to the bottom of it, don’t we?” Dotty Lantner, a farm wife in her mid-fifties with a tight brassy hairdo to match equally tight Wrangler jeans, said.

  Brad scoffed. “Dotty, you know as well as I do that every class did harmless little hazing rituals, and they did way more than what happened on that bus. I saw a lot worse than this when I played.”

  “Well, Brad, that might be kind of sick,” Dotty said. She watched herself torch up an Ultra Slim, inhaled, and then angled her mouth to shoot a plume of smoke over her shoulder.

  “You’re a woman, Dotty, so you can’t understand,” Brad said. “This is a rite of manhood. Been going on for generations. It’s ridiculous to make a federal case out of it now. It’s the same goddamned thing that always happens when you start making everything politically correct.”

  Dotty Lantner sent her eyebrows on a little vault, letting everybody know she didn’t want to be pinned down with political correctness.

  “Here’s the thing: if anything close to a sexual assault happened on that bus,” Marlo said, “we have legal exposure.”

  “I know what happened on the bus,” Brad said, his voice escalating. “My boy was there. Jesus Christ, it wasn’t some kind of sex crime. It was just high school boys goofing off, plain and simple.”

  “That’s what we’re all here to find out, Brad,” Dotty Lantner said. She looked at Marlo. “Right?”

  “Well, people want to know what happened,” one of the men said. His name, Tom knew, was Nathan Merrill, and he had kids coming into the system, including one with potential as an offensive lineman. Merrill farmed and ranched north of town. A huge man who made everything he wore look too small, he always seemed soft-spoken and smart. “You see how many people showed up tonight. They want to know what happened. Isn’t it our duty to find out what happened on our school property?”

  The lawyer responded quickly. “You’re going to have an angry crowd waiting for you at the school. We need to do our business here quickly. Mr. Martin, you need to officially open an executive meeting and then you all need to decide what you’re going to try to decide and from whom you need to hear to make your decisions.”

  Tom watched Brad Martin stare at the lawyer.

  “I’d like to hear from Hal Hartack,” Dotty said, “about drinks.”

  “Okay, let’s try to stick with reality, because that’s what we’re doing tonight,” Marlo said, which seemed to sting Dotty.

  “We’re in a damned bar,” Dotty said.

  Hal Hartack seemed to have heard and wandered out from behind the bar. “Bring anybody anything?”

  Everybody ordered drinks except Marlo, who had water, and Tom, who went for a Diet Coke. Impatiently waiting until everyone had ordered, Marlo said, “You have to decide whether Mr. Warner and Mr. Cates should stay in their current positions.”

  “I’m offering my resignation,” Tom said. He could see Hal Hartack’s head turn as he walked back toward the bar. The table sucked into its own silence. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “You have to decide whether or not to accept Coach Warner’s resignation. I think you also have to decide whether Mr. Cates should stay in his position.”

  Beside Tom, Dave Cates’s cheeks flushed, and he looked at Marlo with astonished eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Dave. If the board finds the coach negligent enough to accept his resignation, legally you’re next in line. They need to decide your disposition, either formally supporting you, suspending you, or letting you go.” To the rest of the group, she said, “What factors are going to help you decide these issues?”

  “We’re not accepting any goddamned resignations,” Brad said.

  “To be perfectly honest, I’d love to shitcan Warner,” Dotty Lantner said, then seemed to remember he was sitting at the table. “Sorry, Tom. I think you’re a nice fellow, but it’s how I feel.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sakes,” Brad said, “she’s pissed off because her nephew never got on the field last season. Be reasonable, Dotty. Why don’t you shitcan your personal agenda and think about what’s best for the team. What’s best for the town.”

  “Maybe some of us don’t feel like letting football players do whatever they want is best for the town,” Dotty said. “Maybe some of us are sick of that attitude, and sick of crap these kids get away with and everybody thinking this Warner walks on water just because they win some games.”

  “They’re going to win the state championship, Dotty,” Brad said. “Do you have any idea what that could mean to a kid? Do you have any idea what that could mean to this town? Of course you don’t. But it’s something to be proud of. Something the whole town can be proud of. Like we were when Hal and the boys won the championship. Do you remember that? It matters to people. It matters to people in this town.”

  Coincidentally, Hal Hartack arrived with the drinks as his glory was being burnished.

  “The ones who are living in the past,” Dotty said.

  “Well, here’s our chance to live—to live large—in the present,” Brad argued.

  “You’re not actually on the team, Brad,” Hal Hartack said, which silenced everyone.

  Until Marlo said, “How are you going to make this decision?”

  The group stayed silent.

  “Something tells me you have some ideas,” Nathan Merrill said.

  Tom could almost hear the unspoken “Thank you” in Marlo’s nod. “Here’s what you have to decide,” Marlo said. “One, did Coach Warner break school district rules on the ride home from the game? Two, was the coach negligent in his supervision of his team? Three, was anybody harmed due to his negligence? Four, could the harm have been avoided had procedures been followed? As to question three, that’s going to be your liability—it’s not something that’s really easy to decide. But the other three questions are pretty cut and dried. Now, what do you need to hear to answer those?”

  “When you say liability … ?” Merrill asked.

  “I can tell you right now that there’s the makings of a civil suit in this incident,” Marlo said, and Tom found himself rapt by how she had taken control of the board, how they all sat around the table like little chicks waiting to be fed, big eyes blinking. Marlo turned to Merrill, which allowed Tom to observe her openly and have his first impression—that she was beautiful even without the intelligence—reinforced. “You want to know liability? When a case like this gets to the courts, juries are totally unpredictable. You could be on the hook for millions. I didn’t have time to review your budget or insurance policies, but I’m guessing you can’t afford that.”

  Brad Martin leaned forward and said, “Are you kidding me?”

  “Mr. Martin, juries don’t always think like you do.”

  Brad fell back forcefully, as if this were preposterous.

  “Coach Warner?” Marlo asked.

  Startled to find himself addressed, even though he knew that’s why he was there, Tom hesitated befor
e saying, “Yes?”

  “Where were you when the alleged incident occurred?” Marlo asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure, because I’m not sure when the incident started,” Tom said. He thought he caught a look from her. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I was sitting up front where I always sit and I guess, sometime during the ride, some boys in the back started taping Wyatt Aarstad’s legs and arms. I don’t know exactly when that happened.

  “And then when we stopped for gas, I got out to stretch my legs and to monitor the convenience store, make sure everybody left the bathrooms and nobody was horsing around in there.”

  “Do you think most of this happened while you were off the bus?”

  Tom sat with his eyes dumped in his lap, communicating to Marlo that he hadn’t thought things through that much and now seemed puzzled by the seeming impossibility of it all. He said, “Some of it had to have. I would have seen some of that stuff.”

  “Didn’t you fall asleep on the bus?”

  “Yeah, but …” Tom stopped. His sigh hissed. “It’s a long day. We met at the school at 5:30 in the morning, drove five hours, played a game, which is exhausting all by itself. Then there’s that long bus ride home. I may drift in and out.”

  “So it could have happened anywhere?

  “I’d think Krock O’ … Jim Krock, the driver, he would have seen a kid hanging from the book rack.”

  “Isn’t it district policy to have another adult on the bus with you?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “And presumably that person would stay on the bus with any students while you stretched your legs, or used the facilities.”

  “Well, just being honest, sometimes we both would get off at gas stops at the same time for a little bit. But yeah, he would have gone back to check on things or I would have. That’s how we usually did it.”