All I Need is a Miracle Lesson 3

We broke away to go to each of our classes, with Riley following me to the gym.

“She is good-looking,” Riley said as he looked back to the library doors.

“Yeah, I think she’s cute.”

“She’s a little scary.”

I nodded as we went into the locker room.

I hated PE more than going to the dentist. One was an excoriating and painful experience of drilling and spitting blood. The other was me sitting in a chair with someone telling me to stop drinking Dr. Pepper. In PE, we spent most of the time running and other times playing something that always seemed like a variation of football. Our class was filled with guys who didn’t play sports, either because they failed to qualify for junior varsity, or they had no other classes they could take for the semester. There were about fifty in the class, so the noise in the locker room was always near 199 decibels.

We changed into our gym clothes, consisting of a T-shirt and shorts. On most days the coach would force me to lose my t-shirt and be a “skin”. I would slowly take my shirt off and feel tense and disgusted that I had to put myself on display like that. I didn’t think it was fair, and my mind always thought how I could possibly sue for mental anguish. The girls were always doing something different.
We stood against the bleachers as the coach pointed to the first guy in line, Jimmy, and shouted “skins”. I did a quick count and dreaded the fact that I would be listed as a “skin”. Suddenly, Seth McKinney filled the gap next to me.

Yeah!
And then Mike Weston jumped in next to him.
Crap!

“Skiiiins-a” The coach’s voice said in slow motion as he pointed at me.

Every other member of class, even Riley, whooped and hollered as the skins were forced to shed the security blanket of being able to govern our own bodies. I did as I was required and went onto the gym floor as the coach brought out a plastic tote bin with flags.

“We’re going to play a few quarters of flag football.”

“Swell,” I thought to myself. No one in our class was on the football team but that never stopped a few of them from going into full-tackle mode.

The gym had a hardwood floor so when you were sacked you felt it in three ways: the initial hit, the feeling of being hurled back and the burn you sustained to an arm or the chest upon landing.

And that is exactly what happened on the first play of the game. The teams were unevenly matched, ‘Bambi vs. Godzilla’ style, and the carnage began as soon as the coach blew his whistle. The wannabe varsity shirts slammed into the skins in a mass carnage. Even the guys who were a part of the front line were taken down for no reason whatsoever. I survived the first play, but on the second one the ball was thrown at me, and I took off like my life depended on it, and with five steam rollers in my peripheral vision, it was. I felt someone grab at one of the flags and I turned around and threw the ball in their direction, lest they try to confirm I was “down”.

“Why did you throw the ball to them?” Seth yelled.

“I’m not about to get tackled to the floor,” I replied out of breath.

“Pansy!” Mike, one of the guys who had pummeled by the defense, yelled.

Judging by Mike’s limp, I wanted to think it was the pain talking.

I stepped down to pick up my flag and saw my hair, now more than shoulder length, cascading in front of my eyes.

“I didn’t think of anything,” I whispered as I threw my head back and my hair was short once again.

Riley ran over to me,

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“Your hair growing long for a spirit second?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you wish for long hair?”

“I was only thinking about outrunning those guys before they trampled me.”

Coach blew his whistle, and we readied to defend as—thanks to me—the shirts had the ball.

Coach blew the whistle once more, signaling the pain would continue. Riley stepped up to the front, and I had to wonder if he was out of his mind.

“Hut! Hut! Hike!” The ball was thrown to the quarterback, and Riley plowed his way through the line, knocking over guys who outweighed him by fifty pounds or more. The quarterback had a look like a deer in headlights as Riley ran at him at full throttle. His body blew several feet and then skidded to the floor…and kept on skidding. One could swear there was a smell of burning flesh before he came to a sudden stop.

Coach blew his whistle multiple times and ran over to Riley. “Mr. Peterson!”

“Yeah, coach?”

“Why in the holy hell did you not try out for the team?”

“Never thought I was really good at it, coach.”

“You can learn. Just do that at every game and I’ll be happy!”

“Sure thing, coach,” Riley replied as all the shirts stepped several feet away from him.