Fantasy

The good thing about hindsight is how clear it is. The wrong thing is you don’t have to go back doing things differently. Now that I graduated from college, I had time to think about the things of my year and one thing in particular that I could do differently.

I wasn’t your student. When I graduated from high school, I decided not to go to college right away. Instead, I joined the army. My parents were not satisfied with this decision and announced that if I had decided to go to college, I should pay myself. The G.I. bill would take care of it once it came out of the army. But the whole question of money became awkward when a plane crash took my parents away a few months before I was released at the end of my second enrolment.

It should not have happened, normally there was no way that it would happen, but I only have to blame myself and what it could do to my life. It was my 25th birthday and for a reason that this one really hit me. I was fortunately married, my husband was great with me and we both had very good jobs. I guess everything was so good that I didn’t know what it would be like not having the things that got me back as I asked them. For a few weeks after my birthday, I was in a slum and I couldn’t get out of it. Even my husband Wayne noticed that I wasn’t myself and he asked if it was something he did to me. I felt bad for him because he had nothing to do with my feelings. I don’t know if it was hormones or anything, but I wasn’t happy with my life, but I knew everything in my life was as good as possible. Nothing in my life could prepare me for the wild journey I was going to take just because I thought I had problems that were really not there.

It was too obvious.

But I stopped. I haven’t taken a autostop since I was in college. I always thought a pretty girl standing on the side of the road with her thumb in the breeze had to have a 250-pound boyfriend in the bushes, ready to order my car at the knife point.

I see from a distance that you’re cute, your long brown hair whipping on your face in the wind. When I get closer, I can see your faint cuts, cut so short that the cheeks of your ass whip invitably.

Barb told the team that it would be last year. They had been an inspiration, given her confidence in herself. Some of them would continue to play, she hoped, but what she really knew was that they would all do positive things. Some might move and some would find new options to check. “Hey, girls. I went to basketball after the coaches shouted for years to keep my hands off the ball.” They were laughing. Carl was always surprised how she would have told them “bad” when she meant “bad.”

At home, Carl was torn between shock and confusion. Kathy? Sex? There was no claim that Barb had inferred otherwise. Barb would have taken the thoughts that were not sufficiently nailed. She couldn’t have projected teenage fantasies. She talked to Andrea and Kathy wouldn’t lie to her best friend. Barb had spoken with the knowledge that such things happen. Why shoot the messenger?

Fathers can’t think of their child, can they? It’s not natural. Maybe it’s biologically natural, but it’s not supposed to happen. It’s not fair! Everyone knows that. It’s wrong to make love together. Sex is something…

Like Barb’s work, the girls called him “Coach.” Carl was his assistant and the girls called him “Carl.” Barb knew soccer, knew how to make their butt work and love him. Barb could drop a corner at 5 feet from the net. Carl was not particularly athletic, but was happy to trotter, the promoter. “Nice pass, Heather. Look at the offspring, though.”

On the ground, Barb was also “Coach” in Carl. “You bet, Coach,” he would confirm that he drilled his band on the crossovers. “Not until you see the ball in the air!” said with certainty. He hoped the girls knew him himself. Barb, the ponytail pushed his cork back, gave him an inch.