Time Control

by Rex Bolt

  Pike decided he didn’t care for Hayes, but he didn’t like looking at his eye, was ballooning up bad, so he told him they should find some ice. There was a hole-in-the-wall donut place still open and they sat down in there while Hayes iced his messed up face.

  The idiot was talking non-stop, telling Pike now about all his supposed other fights and giving blow-by-blow descriptions. Pike ordered a coffee and a apple fritter and tried to block him out. Some old guy at the end of the counter was listening out of politeness, so luckily after a little while Hayes turned his attention to that guy and continued his stories.

  There was a metal bin by the door with mixed up newspaper sections and Pike picked one up to kill time.

  The front page was mostly the presidential election coming up, Trump versus Clinton, and the ramifications for northern Utah and southeastern Idaho, and the local races that were being contested.

  Then inside, on page 2, there was this headline:

  Adrenaline Surge Credited for Pocatello Woman’s Abnormal Feat in Life-and-Death Struggle by Lincoln Paul

  October 19th, 2016 - A Pocatello woman’s burst of strength that resulted in the self-defense death of her boyfriend three weeks ago was likely the result of an acute surge of adrenaline, a physiologist said Tuesday.

  Dr. Hiram Blackenship, a medical sciences professor at ISU, said the human brain and body often react to dire stress in complex ways scientists are only beginning to understand. “Our guess is, that in these situations, instincts tied all the way back to primitive man can indeed surface, yielding a ‘perfect storm’ moment of surprising strength and focus,” he said.

  Dani Andriessen, 26, of 128 South 5th Street killed her boyfriend Marcus Roberts, 28, in self-defense on the afternoon of October 4th in the apartment they shared, after he confronted her with a loaded firearm, police said.

  Speaking on condition of anonymity, a sheriff’s department forensics investigator told the Bannock County News that Roberts’ body appeared to have been launched several feet across the living room and ended up wedged into a wall that had been substantially compromised by the impact.

  Pocatello Police spokesperson Mike Mullins responded only by saying the incident contained the volatile mix of alcohol, a loaded weapon, and a victim fearing for her life.

  Andriessen is a second-year kindergarten teacher at Oak Grove School in Blackfoot. She could not be reached for comment.

  Roberts, a 2012 ISU graduate, was a computer coder for Ark Tech Systems in Chubbuck.

  Pike tried to digest what he’d just read, and he read it again, slower.

  Could it be simply what they were claiming? A one and done deal? Like when you’d hear of a grandma in Kansas who held up the side of a blown-down house so her grandkid would make it out after a hurricane?

  That was probably it. A surge. And like the expert doc said, the brain is complicated, and the body feeds off the brain … Right?

  Pike dragged Hayes out of the donut place, the eye was showing assorted interesting colors now, and they hustled back to the dorm and made it just under the curfew wire, which was midnight, and maybe it was the clean mountain air, but Pike slept the best he had in a while.

  Chapter 28 Maverik Exit

  On Friday there was a team breakfast, but with the recruits herded together in the side section of the cafeteria, and soon enough the players were up and gone, since they had class, though Pike wondered how serious that all was for most of them.

  Jake Olsen told the recruits to bus their trays and sit back down, and then there was more lecturing about football and life. Jake spoke well, he had good enthusiasm, but Pike was bored off his rear end. Hayes was sitting next to him, not saying much at all this morning. The eye didn’t look too good, in fact he looked in pretty bad shape all around, and guys were asking about it. Hayes did the right thing and waved them off and this time kept his mouth shut.

  After that they took them on a campus tour. That part was kind of an eye-opener for Pike. You had all these students, most of them looking pretty content, and every part of your life was right here. You were isolated, but then again you weren’t. If you were very interested in studying something, you could dive in for four years, without having to worry about too much else.

  Pike figured that scenario didn’t apply to him too well though, since he didn’t have anything at the moment he was real interested in studying, and that the commitment of football, with these guys owning you, would probably screw everything else up anyway.

  What he couldn’t shake loose of though, despite these various activities today, was that Dani Andriessen lady.

  They gave them an afternoon break and Pike found a bench in the sun in main quad and looked her up. There was one article from when it happened, and another a few days later when the local DA announced no charges would be filed in the death of this deadbeat.

  There was a tiny item from last year about a rookie teacher award, with a picture of a her being handed a small plaque by an older man in front of a school. Not a bad looking lady, and more than that, she looked pretty happy there, not like someone who not that much later would have to stare down her life in a flash because of some a-hole.

  Something else Pike noticed in that newspaper photo: she was on the small side. Not tiny like a gymnast, but Pike’s guess was plenty of people would call her petite.

  Okay, a massive adrenaline surge, whatever.

  No phone number listed. She was in places like LInkedin but with no contact info … Then Pike thought of something obvious … that school … What was it again, Oak Grove, in Blackfoot?

  There wasn’t a school website but there was a district one. There was a section for parents. In a subheading was: Contact Your Child’s Teacher.

  Hmmm … this would a pretty forward move, wouldn’t it?

  Pike wrestled with it. The poor lady needed some stranger asking her questions like a hole in the head. Especially after she just fought off an idiot and is probably just starting to recover.

  Pike left it alone and went back to the dorm and took a nap. Hayes was in there already, his head under sheets in the lower bunk, still not feeling good at all today. What a surprise.

  That night, Friday, there was a bonfire in an outdoor cement theater by the stadium. It was pretty impressive. You had the band and the cheerleaders, and the whole team got up there in their street clothes with their home jerseys on over their shirts, and the head coach made a speech. The coach kept raising his fist for emphasis, and each time the whole place, overflowing with students inside and outside the theater too, where they were watching on a giant screen, would erupt in a chant.

  Afterward Pike hooked up with a couple of the other recruits (not Hayes this time) and they scoured around Fraternity Row, seeing if there were any parties going on that they could walk into. They got turned away a couple places but they were enjoying themselves, it was becoming a challenge.

  Finally around the corner from the main row there was a house that didn’t look as good, or as popular, and they could hear music thumping away in there, and there were a few guys on the front lawn playing beer pong, though Pike suspected no one was drinking.

  Anyhow, this fraternity gave you the impression it was hurting, like a wannabe party, and one of the recruits talked to the beer pong guys and they said come on in.

  Pike lagged behind for a minute though, and under the street lamp outside this place he emailed Dani Andriessen.

  He had to, he decided. He just did.

  ***

  He tried not to think about it overnight, but when he got up and checked his phone and there was nothing, he was discouraged. Oh well, he gave it a shot.

  But he kept checking messages all morning, and still zip. Then it occurred to him that that was a school staff email he found, and she probably wouldn’t even see it until Monday morning. He thought of a back door way, which was get hold of that newspaper reporter and ask him how to contact the woman … but that was insane, that would never work, a
nd it would only make the reporter suspicious.

  They got them to the stadium early and they let the recruits stay on the field through the warm up and right until the opening kickoff. Then they sat low down in the corner of the endzone. Pike tried to visualize himself out there for real, in uniform, and he wasn’t sure.

  Utah State was taking on Wyoming, who had upped its game the last couple seasons and was tied with Boise State for first in the Mountain West conference. The stadium was packed and the fans were frequently going wild, but Pike got a little bored after the first quarter. He couldn’t care less who won, that was the first thing. Second, every play kind of looked the same, both teams playing fast, no huddles any more, everyone just getting to the line right away but then stalling and lifting their heads back up like a bunch of elephants in the circus, and looking to the sideline where one of the coaches was signalling them what to do.

  With around four minutes left in the first half, Pike’s phone buzzed. It was an area code he didn’t recognize. He answered it but couldn’t hear anything on the other end because the stadium was too damn noisy. He told the person very loudly to please hang on, and he hustled up about twenty rows to where you exited under the stands, where all the food concessions were.

  Even there he still couldn’t hear, so he walked out the main gate, hoping they’d let him back in, and tried it again.

  “Hello?” he said. “Anyone still there?”

  There was a delay and Pike was about to hang up when a voice said, “I’m still here … It wasn’t clear if you were, though.” It was a woman, and there was a playful, singsong tone to her voice.

  Pike wasn’t moving a muscle now. “Are you … Dani, by any chance?” he said.

  “I am indeed,” she said. “What did you need to speak to me about?”

  Pike stumbled around. “Okay, we’ll I’m not a parent, or anything.”

  “Yes, I assumed as much. You sound a bit young.”

  He took deep breath. “What I’m going to do here … I’m going to let it all hang out … and if I’m out of line … or especially if I’m completely off target, which I easily could be … then just hang up on me.”

  “Goodness, gracious,” she said.

  “What? … You know where I’m going with this?”

  “I have no clue. But I’m somewhat intrigued now, I must admit … I don’t believe you sound like a dangerous person, or a disturbed one. Are you?” The tone a little less playful now.

  “No, not all. You have to take my word for it … All right, here’s the thing. I read about what went down … and I’m going to ask you direct … Did something happen where you all of a sudden got strong?”

  Dani was stunned by the question, but was also cautious. This could be a normal question that someone who’d been following the news might actually have.

  “Are you referring to … the incident?” she said.

  “No,” Pike said. “Before that … was it like, you woke up one day, and you noticed this weird, scary strength?”

  There was maybe thirty seconds of silence on the end of the line, and then Dani clicked off.

  Pike rolled it around. Maybe he’d actually hit on something, and it touched a nerve with her. More likely, though, she took it as some cranker looking in a roundabout way for gorey details of her wasting the guy. Pike didn’t doubt she’d dealt with a few of those already.

  Luckily they let him back in the stadium, his recruit ID tag around the neck helping out. It was halftime when he sat back down. The marching bands took turns zigzagging across the field, and then someone galloped around on a horse carrying a big flag, and then they had fans come out and try to kick field goals from various distances. Watching that part was hard to take.

  Midway through the third quarter his phone buzzed again, and he took a look, and it was Audrey and he let it go. Though he had to wonder now if her texting him out here might mean something. Jack Hannamaker supposedly got out of the hospital yesterday, after having his jaw wired and a couple others things done, that Pike didn’t feel particularly guilty about.

  Still, hard to know how strong the bond may be between Audrey and that guy. Pike guessed he’d find out soon enough.

  Utah State hung tough but Wyoming had a few too many weapons, and they busted open a close game in the fourth quarter. Jake Olsen had the recruits wait outside the locker room after the game. It took forever, standing there with the parents and girlfriends of the players, waiting for some sign of life. Finally one by one the players started coming out, no one real upset about the final score, more like they were relieved they got through the game without getting hurt.

  The plan was to get on one of the team busses and they’d go to a restaurant for dinner, a certain steakhouse that was apparently a tradition after every home game, win or lose. It looked like half the players had come out of the locker room, and some were getting on the busses, and some were mingling with their parents or whatever, when Dani called again.

  This time to hear her better he went back into the stadium, since it was empty now except for a couple guys down on the field doing post-game turf maintenance on golf carts.

  There was a dead-seriousness to her voice that wasn’t there before. She said, “I just have one question for you: How would you know, what may or may not have happened to me?”

  Pike could answer this one of a few ways, without committing himself to anything. It felt for a couple seconds like a bunch of opposing forces were clashing in his head. He wasn’t sure what he was about blurt out, but then it came.

  “‘Cause it happened to me.”

  Dani hung up again, but this time Pike was pretty darn sure she was going to call back. He took a seat in the stadium, things started to get dark now and the lights came on so the maintenance workers could see what they were doing.

  It took her twenty minutes. “You say that,” she said, “but what exactly happened to you, if you don’t mind.”

  Pike said, “Okay. I got, like super strong … it happened, I’ll tell you exactly when it happened because it’s not something you forget easy … it was early last month … September 9th … a Friday.”

  She said, “Well did … did you have … was there any warning?”

  “Nope. What it was, I tackled a guy in a football game … I’m in high school, out in California … I pretty much knew right then … Next day, I did some shit that confirmed it without a doubt. I’m sorry about my language.”

  It sounded through the phone like Dani was breathing kind of hard, or maybe crying or getting emotional some other way. It seemed like a good idea to keep talking.

  So he said, “I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since. Barely a minute goes by I’m not wondering about it … I sort of told one person, this older guy I trust who’s trying to help … I try to put on a good face … The thing of it is, I’m scared.”

  “I’m scared too,” Dani said.

  They both let that linger. Pike couldn’t help wondering, what might it be like to meet this person. On the one hand it could be a massive relief, to finally have found someone who gets it. On the other hand, he could obviously be opening a giant can of worms.

  He considered all this, and then asked her, “How far’s Pocatello from Logan, Utah?”

  “Why do you ask?” Dani said. It sounded like she’d gotten hold of herself, that she wasn’t crying or breathing hard anymore.

  “I think I should come up and see you,” he said.

  “I see,” she said. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” She was probably having the same second-thoughts, about the can of worms.

  “Yeah.”

  Dani hung up again. Five minutes later when she called back Pike said, “Jeez. You keep doing that to people in normal life? … Or just me?”

  She laughed slightly, which Pike was glad about. “Just you,” she said. “To answer your question, it’s an hour and a half … If you’re driving. Are you?”

  Pike said he wasn
’t, but he was hunting around on his phone, and it looked like the same shuttle bus from the Salt Lake City airport that brought him to Logan continued on to Pocatello. There was one that left from downtown at 7:12.

  “The other part of it is,” he said, “I’m involved with a group thing here at the college, through the weekend.”

  “That’s fine, naturally,” she said, but he thought he detected disappointment in her voice.

  “Give me a few minutes,” he said.

  He hoofed it back under the stadium and over to the locker room and then outside, where the busses had been waiting. They were gone, and everything was quiet. He knew the name of the steakhouse and could easily take a taxi, or an Uber if they had them out here, and head into the restaurant and get lost in the shuffle and probably not get in any trouble.

  Then again, he tried to think: Was there time to grab his stuff out of the dorm room and make it downtown in time for the 7:12? He decided there was.

  He didn’t call Dani back until he was on the shuttle bus. All that running around, he was sweating like a dog. But that wasn’t important.

  “It’s me,” he said. “You said an hour and a half, but this thing, with stops and the rest of it, they’re telling me 9:18, is when I’ll be arriving at … it looks like Maverik Exit 69 … That ring a bell?”

  “Yes, I know where it is,” Dani said. She didn’t say that she’d meet him there. Pike left it alone. She’d have a couple hours to decide what she wanted to do.

  Meanwhile, he wondered how his recruiting profile would be affected by going AWOL from the thing on the Saturday night. Though It didn’t concern him all that much actually, and he was able to grab a half-hour of sleep once the shuttle bus turned off the curvy road from Logan and got on Interstate 15, which was much straighter and better.