An Accidental Family

"Thanks JT, I'll do that," replied Jason with the kind of enthusiasm that foreshadowed many painful afternoons of lifting to come.

From that point on things kind of evolved into a natural rhythm. Jason would come by the shop after school most days and I would set him up to do some lifting. When he wasn't lifting, he also showed a real interest in the shop. He became good friends with George and would patiently help him out with his tasks or throw a football with him on slower days. I would often stay late on days that Jason lifted and he would watch me work when he was done and ask me questions.

With the benefit of hindsight, I marvel at the patience that my father showed in answering my questions around the shop when I was a kid because my lord it can get frustrating having someone constantly asking you what this tool is for or what that button does. Unlike my younger self, however, Jason put up with my grumpiness at his curiosity with good grace (or teenage obliviousness) and he was a quick study. He rarely asked the same question twice and, if he did, he never asked a third time.

Jason had an unusual gift for understanding how things fit together and seemed to be able to picture even the most complicated moving pieces and systems in his head. And surprisingly, once my initial grumpiness passed, I realized I really enjoyed his company around the shop.

Most nights Jen would have dinner ready when Jason got back and some nights, if I was lucky, she would ask me to join them. The meals weren't fancy, but man Jen could cook. As blasphemous as it was to even think it, she was at least as good a cook as my mom who was my gold standard for culinary magic.

Evenings Jason and I would play games on the PS4 at my place or head out to the back parking lot to practice throwing. Other nights the three of us would watch a movie together and those nights were my favorites. Seeing Jen relax with her son while she laughed at a mindless comedy and her worries melted away for a minute always brought a smile to my face.

In case you're wondering, Jen didn't get any less beautiful over those first months. In fact, as I got to know her more, over shared meals and conversations, I learned that she was at least as beautiful inside as she was on the outside. She was kind, thoughtful, hardworking, and stubborn as hell. She was also whip smart and, once you got to know her, really funny although her sense of humour was very dry.

Jen grew up in a suburb of Atlanta and lived a charmed life as a child. In high school, she was the captain of the cheerleading squad and dated the star quarterback. Her parents weren't rich, but they were solidly middle class and she had dreams of going to college and becoming a lawyer.

Things started to fall apart in her senior year. She became pregnant and termination was never an option with her fiercely religious parents. Her then boyfriend, now ex-husband, Bill proposed to her at the end of his final high school game. Their future seemed bright until he blew out the ACL, MCL and PCL in his right knee road racing on his motorbike, losing his football scholarship and gaining an addiction to painkillers in the process. When Jason was born, Jen and Bill were both working close to minimum wage jobs and living in her parents' basement, while Jen studied nights and weekends to become a paralegal.

By the time Jason was five, Jen was the primary earner in the family and Bill had a profound substance abuse issue along with a deep simmering rage that he barely held in check. He spent his money and spare time cheating on Jen while she kept the family together. Her parents' religion didn't believe in divorce, at least not for women, so they preached forgiveness and prayer as the solution to their marital challenges.

By the time that Bill ran away with his stripper, he had run up more than $30,000 in credit card debt, all in Jen's name. Jason needed specialized support at school and Bill would not provide any child support, so Jen did what she does best. She buckled down and did the work and they managed to survive.

She stuck it out for five years, paying the minimum on the credit card debt and getting Jason the support he needed to thrive. When living in the city became too expensive, she moved north to make a new start and ended up across the hall from me. Jen was a fighter, and I was here for it.

With the benefit of hindsight, I was in love with her even back then. But it was clear that she didn't see me in that way, and I could understand why. Despite her hard luck, Jen was a main character, and I knew I was just part of the supporting cast. But man did I enjoy sharing the stage with her, even if only for a little while.

Early Spring, 2014

Spring in Georgia means two things-Cherry Blossoms and 7-on-7 football. For those of you not familiar with the 7-on-7 game, basically its football but you take out the beef and leave in the sizzle. There is no tackling so no need for the big bodies to protect (or pound) the quarterback. Everything is focused on the "skill" positions (ignoring how much skill is needed to play on the offensive or defensive lines, but I digress). The game is fast, and the scoring is quick.

Jason was making great progress in his morning workouts, so I thought it was time for him to start getting some live games under his belt. There was only one problem. By the time kids in Georgia reach high school, most of them have been playing spring ball for a decade and most 7-on-7 teams had their rosters pretty much set with returning players. There are no open tryouts, at least not for teams that are even vaguely competitive. You're either a legacy who grew up playing with the team, a star who moved into the area mid-year or you didn't play.

Jason was neither a legacy nor a star, so his prospects were bleak. After asking around a bit, however, I learned that there were a number of kids in the same boat as Jason who also didn't have a team to play on. So, I did what any sane person would do in this situation ... I said to myself "that's a shame" and walked away.

Or at least that's what I would have done if I was smarter. But I couldn't stand Jason's disappointment at not getting to play after training so hard, so I decided that we would build our own team from scratch. By default, I would coach, and I called up Ted and volun-told him that he would be my assistant. He asked what I thought an old, injured lineman could teach a bunch of kids about offensive football. "About the same as a lazy-ass former wide receiver," was my reply.

And that's how, on the last Saturday of March, we found ourselves on a field behind the elementary school picking a 7-on-7 football team.

We had thirteen teens show up to try out, twelve boys and one girl. The boys ranged from tiny barely pubescent kids in oversized jerseys to a veritable mountain of a boy who was taller than me and must have outweighed me by 100 pounds or more. When I asked the mountain his name, he replied with a grin saying, "Hernando Diego Isandro Gualtiero Jiminez the third".

"And what do your friends call you?" I asked.

"My friend's call me Sneaky."

"And your family?"

"They are the ones who gave me that nickname," he replied. So Sneaky he remained. Many months later we learned that he got his nickname as a little boy from his uncanny ability to find packages of cookies that his grandmother had hidden from him in her kitchen. If there was a high calorie food product anywhere in his vicinity, he was going to find and consume it.

I started by addressing the collected teens and their parents.

"First off, thank you all for coming. There is a spot for everyone on the team if you commit to practicing and training hard. If you aren't interested in listening, learning, and giving your all, then I would invite you to save us all the time and leave now."

Ten of the boys and the one girl (Lisa Smith was her name and she was by far the best player to try out) decided to stick it out and our team was born. After some debate, the kids dubbed our team "the Underdogs." Our team colours were a bright red and black, figuring that most kids in Georgia would have at least one jersey in each colour. When it became apparent that some of the kids on the team were so poor that they didn't have jerseys of any colour, the team picked up an anonymous sponsor to cover the costs of jerseys for everyone (and yes, that anonymous sponsor was my shop, but the kids didn't need to know that). Sneaky drew us a logo and we were in business.

Practices were twice a week with an optional throwing session on Saturdays and games started in two weeks. The team was all over the place in terms of knowledge, skill, and talent. Sneaky could barely run 20 yards without gasping for breath while Lisa could run forever and was lightning fast. She would have been on a top team if she were a boy ... or, sadly, if she was from a better family.

Lisa often arrived at practice on a rickety old one speed with bald tires or, occasionally, was dropped off by what I hoped was an older brother or cousin (but who turned out to be an 'associate' of her uncle) whose car was more rust than metal. Her and her two younger sisters lived with an uncle who had a place on the outskirts of town while their father served out a sentence of thirty to life in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.

Her uncle had a well-earned reputation for hard living and there were rumours that he was involved in drugs and gambling, among other illegal ventures. The kids had nowhere else to live though, so they did the best they could to survive, left almost entirely to their own devices.

Lisa took out her frustrations with her home life on the boys that she played against. She was a beast on the field, with her sandy blonde ponytail swinging just out of reach of the boys that she easily evaded. She took full advantage of the referee's reluctance to call penalties on girls to take liberties that she otherwise would never have been allowed. At least a couple of times per game the boys covering her would magically fall to the ground while she went off for a big play.

She was a great kid and a real pleasure to coach.

Our first game was a bit of a fiasco. In a stroke of bad luck, we were facing the defending champion Bulldogs, a team which featured the starting varsity quarterback and most of the varsity wide receivers from Jason's high school. While our team was still trying to learn how and where to line up, their team was throwing bombs to a trio of six foot plus seniors destined for Division 1 college ball. Three things happened that game, though, that gave me some hope.

First, Jason's ability to read defences and anticipate plays translated from practice to the field better than I could have hoped. He was consistently making throws to spaces where our players could make plays. If more of our players had run the proper routes or caught the ball when it hit their hands, we would have been in business.

Second, Lisa was a football playing machine. At the start of the game, her defenders were playing soft and trying to chat her up. By the end of the game, they were silently sucking wind as she relentlessly punished them. She caught two of our three touchdowns, and it was awesome to watch. As hard as she was on the other team though, she was harder on ours, constantly riding players who messed up plays or took plays off. There was no need for me to fire up the team when Lisa was a living, breathing flamethrower and no one wanted to be the one to let her down.

Third, it turned out that Sneaky had hands of Velcro. He might not look like much athletically, but once he started playing, he turned into a football catching savant. If a football came anywhere near him, he would haul it in—low, high, long, short, it didn't matter. Unfortunately, he was so badly winded by half time that he couldn't do much with the ball once he made a catch, but he still managed to haul in our third touchdown on a bullet from Jason to the left corner of the endzone eliciting an exclamation of "nice!" from the quarterback on the other team, and a fist bump from him as Jason left the field.

We lost by nearly fifty points, but Jason couldn't stop grinning until long after I brought him home from the game.

Jen came to every game and most of our practices. As the days grew longer and warmer, her shorts got shorter and tighter, and she often wore her blonde hair in a ponytail which she threaded through the back of her ball cap. Her ass looked truly glorious in cut off jean shorts and her t-shirts did very little to hide her ample curves. Not that I was complaining, but some days it was hard to stay focused on the game.

A few weeks into our season, Jen's new boyfriend Mike started to join her for some of the games which, I can't lie, kind of sucked. It was one thing to hear that she had gone on a few dates over our Sunday dinners. It was quite another to see a tall good-looking fellow roll up to our games in a late model BMW and put his arm possessively around Jen on the sideline.

Mike was a doctor and was all hair, teeth, and expensive clothes. His watch probably cost more than my truck. But he treated Jen well enough, and she seemed to like him back so I couldn't complain. Sure, I was jealous and a little sad, but I knew she was out of my league from the start, and he could offer her things that I never could.

Mike started taking Jen out for dinner after our games leaving Jason and I to fend for ourselves. Win or lose, after each game we would head down to Shelly's Diner, a local institution that still offered old-style soda straight from the fountain and milkshakes large enough to guarantee you an ice cream headache before you were done. The back wall of the diner was lined with booths featuring bright red and blue vinyl seats and linoleum tabletops.

My dad used to bring me to Shelly's after my games and practices, so it was a pleasure to do the same for Jason. He loved the atmosphere and the old records in the Jukebox in the corner and Shelly, who still worked behind the counter even though she must be over 70, doted on him.

After one game we happened to pass Lisa walking home on our way to the diner. With Jason's blessing, I offered to give her a ride and she ended up joining us at the diner that night and many others before the season was over. I knew that neither Jason nor Lisa had money for the diner, so I made them a deal—any game they made an outstanding play, dinner was on me. Miraculously, they were outstanding every game.

As the Spring progressed, the team started to gel. More and more of the players joined in on the optional weekend practices to the point that we had to move to an actual practice field to accommodate the numbers. Some of the kids started coming by the shop after school to throw the ball and lift weights with Jason as well.

Sneaky came by just about every day and after six weeks had dropped about 20 pounds of fat. He was starting to put on some real muscle as well to go with his natural size. Lisa, who was already the best athlete on the team, spent as much time as Sneaky working out and just generally giving the guys a hard time. Man, I loved the hell out of those kids.

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Jason was focused on more than just football. He was still spending his free time in the shop, helping, and learning from the other mechanics. In the beginning, he was a bit underfoot but, as he learned more, he started making a solid contribution and the guys appreciated his help. He was a particular favorite of George, and Jason always made time to stop and help him with whatever project he was working on. Not many people had the patience to let George move at his own pace, but Jason always took as long as was needed and left George with a smile.

I guess it was inevitable that Jason's curiosity would lead him to the Shelby. After my father passed, I didn't have the heart to do anything with the car and it was still under a tarp in a corner of the yard. One Saturday, I came out to find Jason staring at it with the same analytical expression he got when assessing a football play.

"JT, why do you have a beautiful car sitting under a tarp in your yard?" Being on the spectrum Jason's questions were often blunt and to the point.

"It was my dad's car, Jase," I replied, not really knowing where to begin. "When we got it, it was just a mess of bent steel and shattered fibreglass. He and I spent years working on it together to get it to where it is now. When he died it was almost done but I just didn't have the heart to keep working on it without him."

"So why don't you sell it?" He asked.

"I don't really know. He spent so many years working to bring its beauty back to life, it seemed wrong to let it go before it was done."

Jason looked at me quietly for a minute. "I know what it's like to lose your dad. We're going to finish it together."

To this day I don't know if that last sentence was a question or a statement. Either way I was overcome with emotion, and I answered, "sure buddy, I would really like that."

That's how Jason and I ended up spending Sunday afternoons after church working together on the Shelby and sharing memories of my dad.

End of June, 2014

By the end of the school year things were looking up for Jason. He had made some solid friends from the team who he would hang out with at school and over the summer. He still wasn't one of the "in" crowd but having one or two good friends made all the difference.

He still spent most of his time either gaming or in the shop with me, but increasingly one of his buddies would tag along or join us while we gamed. I didn't mind, his friends from the team felt like family to me and I didn't even mind when Sneaky came over and put a significant dent in my snack supply. I swear that kid could smell potato chips from 50 feet away through two cupboards.

We made progress on the Shelby as well. I had forgotten how close we were to being done with the restoration when my dad passed, and Jason showed a natural gift for the work. I had always been more of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, much to my dad's consternation, so Jason's orderly approach to the work was welcome. Once he understood my dad's plan, he executed it meticulously.

Despite our progress, however, there was one part that we had yet to secure, the unique wood-inlaid steering wheel that they used on some of the original Shelby builds. My dad had been adamant that there was only one steering wheel that would go in his car and that was it. Jason and I spent hours scouring wreckers and part shops for the wheel but without any luck. But we forged ahead with the rest of the rebuild confident that we would eventually find it.

Jason also made slow but steady progress on his game. He learned to use his vision and footwork to maximize the impact of his preternatural throwing ability. That, combined with the dedication and perseverance of his teammates, led to a late season winning streak for the Underdogs and a berth in the league playoffs.

That was the good news. The less-than-ideal news was that our opponents in the first round were the first team that we had played, featuring Jason's high school's star quarterback, who were now undefeated on the season.

On the day of the game, I found myself more nervous than I was ten years earlier during my last high school playoff game. I was under no illusion that we would win, but I really wanted the team to do well, to show what they could do and that they belonged. I spent most of the day ill-tempered and distracted enough that eventually the guys in the shop suggested that I just go home until the game started.

Jason, on the other hand, seemed to have no nerves at all. He spent the entire car ride to the game reciting receiver routes while outlining the next ten steps in restoring the Shelby. His lack of concern began to rub off on me and by the time we arrived at the game I was smiling and laughing like usual.