“Oh, yeah,” I said. “What?”
“A blast from the past, JB. A blast from the past.”
Chapter 2
“You remember a girl in one of your classes, probably your first year, kid named Larretta Warren? Two r’s in Larretta.”
We were sitting in a booth in The Diner, a run-of-the-mill place that had as its main attraction the fact that it was right across the street from the Y. I leaned back and looked over at Augie while I tried to remember Larretta Warren. In another life, I’d spent several years as an English teacher at Franklin High.
“If I had her in class my first year, Aug, we’re talking about maybe sixteen years ago. Her name rings a bell, but . . .”
“She told me you were one of the reasons she didn’t drop out of school her freshman year, something to do with basketball.”
“Oh, wait,” I said. “Now I remember. Larretta Warren. Skinny little kid, but quick. Sure, she was on the girls basketball team. Not a starter, not even that good, if I remember correctly, but she really wanted to play. She went full speed all the time, practices, games, it didn’t matter. She always gave one-hundred percent. By the start of her sophomore season, she had improved to where I was using her as the first girl off the bench in some of our games. But then. . .”
“She got pregnant,” said Augie.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “She got pregnant, dropped off the team, had the baby, transferred to another school, and I never saw her again. How’d you know about the pregnancy?”
“Because she had a boy. Name of Anthony. He’s a 9th grader now, at Franklin. And he’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Your kind, probably. Kid’s gotten himself involved with a gang. Mom’s at her wits’ end about it. She was in my office yesterday afternoon, bringing him back from his most recent suspension.” He paused for a minute. “She wants you to talk to him, JB.”
“Me? Why me? I haven’t laid eyes on his mother for over fifteen years, and I don’t even know the kid. What makes her think I’d have any influence over him?”
The waitress arrived, and we took a break from the conversation while she put my tuna salad on whole wheat toast down, along with an iced tea. Augie had ordered a chef salad, Diet Coke, and a large piece of banana cream pie. I looked at the pie and then at Augie, raising my eyebrows.
“’Case I get hit by a car when we walk out of here. I wouldn’t want my last meal to have been just a salad and a diet drink.”
Nodding, I said, “The logic is impeccable .”
As we began eating, I said, “So. Larretta Warren and Anthony and moi. Fill in some of the blanks, okay? For starters, how bad is Anthony?”
“Compared to most of the people you deal with, he’s a pussycat. Compared to most of the other kids at school, he’s about average, I guess. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve had maybe four or five referrals on him, mostly minor stuff, like disrupting class or using profanity, nothing involving violence. When his mom brought him back yesterday, she and I talked alone for a few minutes. That’s when she told me how she almost left school herself in 9th grade. So I asked her why she hadn’t, and that’s when your name came up. She said you wouldn’t let the girls on the team slack off, how they had to bring in weekly progress reports from all their teachers. If they cut class or misbehaved or fell behind academically, they could practice, but they couldn’t play in any games again until they straightened out the problem.”
Augie paused to eat some of his salad.
“That’s all true,” I said, “but I still don’t see how any of this leads to me talking with Anthony.”
“Larretta said she saw your name in the paper recently.”
“The Simmons case,” I said.
“Uh-huh. She said it reminded her of how you were tough but fair, that you had a way of talking to kids that made them see that you really cared about them. I mentioned that I knew you, and that’s when she asked if I thought you’d be willing to talk to her son.”
“She really think that would do any good?” I asked.
“She’s desperate, JB. She’s afraid she’s losing her kid. I’ve talked to him, a couple of his teachers have talked to him, one of the counselors took a stab, nothing’s worked. If you’re asking me if I expect you to have any influence with this kid, then the answer’s probably not. But his mom seems like a good lady, so I thought maybe you’d give it a shot. Tell you what, c’mon in one day next week, sit down with Anthony for a while, and I’ll spring for a free lunch in the school cafeteria.”
“Only if they’re serving that Hamburger Surprise I used to like so much.”
Augie smiled and said, “I’ll speak to the chef personally.”
We finished eating, then went our separate ways. My townhome in the Shadyside area of Pittsburgh was nearby, close enough that I had walked to the gym, while Augie had about a twenty-five minute drive out to the ’burbs, where he lived with his wife, Pat.
As I walked up the steps to my front door and let myself in, I tried to remember the last time I’d been at Franklin. Had to be at least five years, maybe longer. For a number of reasons, it wasn’t a place I especially enjoyed visiting.
Of course, there was always the Hamburger Surprise.
Chapter 3
The next morning I woke up at six o’clock and lay in bed for a few minutes, thinking some more about my conversation with Augie. I also thought about Todd Geter’s passing reference to me and my teammates as old farts. I knew Todd was kidding, but I also knew that the decade-and-a-half that separated us from Todd
