The Last Turnover

          After spending my high school gridiron career on the bench watching spoiled rich kids get all the glory I made up my mind to burst across the goal line of life and even the score with those who had blocked me for so long       

           I didn’t realize that running in for that touchdown would run out the clock on my journey.

          My teen years revolved around Bonn, MD High School and playing on its state championship football team.  Almost everyone of my teammates, coaches and even my opponents recognized me, Jim Pierce, as the quarterback power who would bring the Bulldogs the crown that had eluded them year after year.

    Standing in my way, Sam Jones, Jr. got all the credit, thanks to favors purchased through the wealth and influence of his father, Sam Sr., who owned Jililco, the biggest construction firm in town.

     Sam Sr. made sure that our coaches brought his son into every championship game just in time to claim credit for victories that should have belonged to me, while they left me stewing on the bench after leading the team throughout every game.

       Also, Junior, although homely as sin with a stage four case of acne during his entire high school career, also scored major points with stunning blond cheerleader captain Stacy Stonington.

        Although Stacy considered Junior only an also-ran to me in the looks and personality department, she told her girlfriends, “That stud Pierce really could light my fire for good, but I don’t want to wind up locked away in some rundown tract home raising a tribe of kids. I’d rather live in an upscale mansion on the Eastern Shore with a major modeling contract with Vogue. For this I can swallow hard and put up with Junior while I find myself a rich playboy to give me on the side what the rich boy geek cannot.”

      As I mapped out my revenge plan against the pretend quarterback and his Barbie girlfriend during the summers I used my mounting construction talent to work my way into an internship with Jililco, where I would move up to a foreman’s position only two years after graduation.. 

      Of course, Junior and Stacy didn’t have to work during the summer. They took their fancy convertibles on trips to nearby Bethany Beach, Delaware—the local shore town only a half hour’s drive from Bonn.

     The construction company president’s standing as a Harvard alumnus got his son into the top Ivy League business school, and, thanks again to dad, the cheerleader began her career with Vogue after a number of high-profile New York modeling gigs. 

     After all, he wanted his future daughter-in-law to have all the right connections to keep his son and his bride in the top echelon of the social strata.

     While they mapped out their fairytale future, I continued to aim for my touchdown play.

     One summer, about nine years after our 1998 graduation, I used my influence as the top dog in his construction crew to wrangle an invitation to one of the fancy soirees on the Eastern Shore sponsored by Sam Jones, Sr. and his company.

    I lured Stacy away from the party by telling her I wanted to put our high school problems behind us and talk about our upcoming 10th reunion in private at the old athletic complex.

   To add to the festivities I absconded with a bottle of the old man’s finest champagne.

    My plan also included a slight detour and the addition of something a little extra to the pretty girl’s drink, a poison which no one could possibly trace to me.

    It didn’t take her long to fall into her permanent Sleeping Beauty’s rest,

    I then loaded her body into my trunk and drove over to an abandoned auto repair garage on the wrong side of town. My dad had closed the garage when he built a new and expanded facility.    I figured this would serve as a great temporary resting place, so I buried her in the rear of the property.

       My final run for my life’s touchdown loomed ahead. 

       The local authorities searched in vain for the cheerleader in every area of town and the surrounding communities. As I figured, they had no idea about the secret hidden near the old garage.

      I  also got several of my closest friends to help convince them I had not seen Stacy since the night of the big party.

       A few days later, I started up my front end loader to add some finishing touches to the goalline at the recently-completed new Bulldog Athletic Complex.

    Just as I completed the reburial project my backhoe struck a piece of cement.  The ground shook under me and the force threw me from the cab into the path of the loader, running me over and breaking my leg in three places.

    Doctors repaired my leg and it took me several weeks to recover. I never walked correctly again, and, for the next five years suffered unbelievable pain. My broken leg ended my construction career and left me almost crippled for life.

    In an effort to bring me some relief, the medical specialists prescribed toradol shots, often used to treat professional football players injured on the gridiron.

    Toradol has one major side effect, it causes almost complete mental dependence in most of those treated with it.

     Long before a great deal became known about opioids I became one of their victims.

     My need to stop my torture led me to take greater and greater doses of toradol.  One afternoon, this led me to overload one of my shots.  In my drug-induced stupor, I saw myself back on the Bonn Bulldogs football field and leading my high school team to victory.

    I felt my life slipping away as my dream of revenge turned into a nightmare that would run out the time clock on my life.

      I thought for sure I had finally burst across the goalline, but, instead of victory, my grand plan ended in my final defeat.